Meet the Press NOW – March 26

Hey Ontario. Come on down to BETMGM Casino and see what our newest exclusive the Price Is Right Fortune Pick has to offer. Don't miss out. Play exciting casino games based on the iconic game show only at BetMGM.

Check out how we've reimagined three of the show's iconic games like Plinko, Cliffhanger and the Big Wheel into fun casino game features. Don't forget to download the BetMGM Casino app for exclusive access and excitement on the prices right Fortune Pick Pull up a seat and experience the prices right Fortune Pick only available at BetMGM Casino. BetMGM and games remind you to play responsibly 19+ to wager Ontario only Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact connects Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge.

BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. If it's Wednesday, top U.S. security officials now admitting sharing sensitive military in a group text that included a journalist was a, quote, mistake as the Atlantic releases transcripts of the chat, which appears to contradict some of the White House's claims about that conversation. Plus, the White House says President Trump will announce new tariffs on the auto industry at any moment now as the country approaches a potentially massive tariff increase next week that could impact trillions of dollars of U.S.

imports. And President Trump signs an executive order aiming to overhaul U.S. election laws, including new rules around proof of citizenship and voting and as some experts warn, millions could be disenfranchised. Welcome to Meet the Press.

Now, I'm Kristen Welker in Washington, where the White House is facing intensifying scrutiny over what it told Congress and the American people as it tries to downplay a national security blunder. Today, the Atlantic released the full transcri of a single group chat among President Trump's top advisors that accidentally included its editor in chief discussing sensitive military strikes in Yemen. The Atlantic says they released the messages after the Trump administration, including the president, said the information was not classified. But the transcript appears to contradict broad claims by the White House that the information in the thread wasn't classified in nature, that it didn't contain war planning, and that they didn't know how the security lapse happened after trying to dodge questions about the incident during a senator yesterday.

Today, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard admitted that mistakes had been made while testifying before Congress. Gabbard was pressed on her Testimony yesterday suggesting that operational issues were not discussed when the transcript shows they in fact were. It was a mistake that a reporter was inadvertently added to a signal chat with high level national security principles having a policy discussion about imminent strikes against the Houthis and the effects of the strike. The conversation was candid and sensitive, but as the President, National Security Advisor stated, no classified information was shared.

There were no sources, methods, locations, or war plans that were shared. You stand by your testimony from yesterday that you do not recall any of the discussions regarding this type of classified information? Yes or no? My response in the Senate yesterday, yes, I stand by that response.

Obviously, the release of the screenshots that came from that chat group today were a refresher on what happened. As I said earlier, I was not involved with that, that portion of the chat, so it did not come to my recollection yesterday. Yesterday, before the text chain was released, both Director Gabbard and Director Ratcliffe dodged questions about whether specific operational details were discussed in the signal group chat. Here's some of that exchange.

Was there any mention of a target in Yemen? I don't remember mention of specific targets. Was there any mention, as 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, the text released by the Atlantic today contradict those statements, although the texts do not contain details about specific targets. You can see Secretary of Defense Hexif telling the group that, quote, in a team update, quote, the weather is favorable. Just confirmed with centcom. We are a go for mission launch and going on to list specific weapon systems being used for that military operation, even calling out details in all caps like, this is when the first bombs will definitely drop.

The administration, meanwhile, continues to try to discredit the Atlantic's reporting, claiming these details are not, quote, war plants, as the Atlantic first characterized them. But the text transcript also undercuts the White House's claims that this information wasn't classified in nature, according to security experts and some Republicans. On Capitol Hill, Congressman Don Bacon telling NBC News, quote, the White House is in denial that this was not classified or sensitive data. They should just own up to it and preserve credibility.

And the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee says he believes the information in the signal chat should have been classified and that there should be a review by the Inspector General. Joining me now is ABC's Kelly O', Donnellson, the White House correspondent. Courtney Cubby, of course, at the Pentagon. Thanks so much for both of you who have been reporting around the clock on this.

Kelly, let me start with you. The Atlantic releasing the full messages from that group chat in an extraordinary disclosure this morning. What are your sources inside the White House saying about this latest twist? Well, there's been a lot of pushback from the White House attacking the reporter and the publication and trying to discredit the work at the same time.

Now that the account of what happened on this chat is there for the public to see. And the Atlantic says they have produced all of the content and have only redacted the name of a CIA officer who works with Director Ratcliffe for that person's privacy under the kind of work they do. The fierceness of the pushback from the administration has focused a lot on how we describe what was in that war plans or attack plans. And some of that may have a very everyman description and a very different one if you're in the Pentagon and you're part of the specific plans.

What many people take away from this is there was a lot of sensitive information that was disclosed using this Signal chat app and a conversation in advance of when the strikes took place. The administration is saying that this was not classified and that nothing improper was done, except they acknowledged that the reporter should not have been admitted to the text conversation. And they say they are looking into that further. So part of what we're seeing here is the White House also trying to redirect attention to their argument that this was a successful mission that accomplished the military objectives and that that should be the focus and not this conversation that they argue did not do any harm to those who were in the theater of warfare and could have been at risk.

So it's been a fight about the wording, it's been a fight about the level of classification, and it's been a fight about how this came to light. Kristen and Kelly, Millie, the National Security Council said it's looking into this. What is the latest on the investigation? Well, we don't have specifics coming out of them yet.

It is worth noting that this is the same entity that was kind of a party to the conversation. Like Waltz is the head of the National Security Council in the sense he's the president's national security advisor. He and others had some of their close aides involved in the conversation as well to be points of contact for the principals here. And so in many cases, it's unusual to have those who are involved do the investigation, although they can certainly review it.

Today, the FBI director would not say publicly if the FBI would be taking a further look, as there are calls for resignations from some Democrats in Congress and some questions from Republicans as well, who largely defended the administration on this, but also expressed some concern about how this happened and not wanting to see it happen yet. Yeah. And Kelly, before I get to court, some Democratic lawmakers are now calling on Secretary Hegseth to resign. Is it your understanding that the president still has confidence in his defense secretary?

That's what the press secretary has said. The president is currently in the Oval Office speaking to reporters on other matters. So we may learn any updates from that. But so far there has been a public support of the secretary.

The president did specifically say Mike Waltz is doing a good job on the Secretary of Defense. We certainly heard affirmations from the press secretary today in the briefing about him doing the job and staying in that position. That is always a tenuous thing when there is a controversy. It may be too soon to determine if there will be anyone who steps aside or is fired or any kind of disciplinary action.

Nothing has been forecast yet from the administration for us to expect that at this time. Yeah, we will monitor what the President says very closely in the Oval Office. Kelly. Donald, thank you so much for that.

Courtney, let me head over to you. There's been a lot of back and forth over whether the information that was contained in that text exchange was in fact classified. The White House says it wasn't. The Defense Department says it was.

The Defense secretary give us the latest on that. What do people need to know about the information that was in the text exchange? Yeah. So look, the Department of Defense and specifically the Secretary of Defense have the authority to classify or declassify information.

But there are very specific policies that are set in place about what information is or is not classified and what level of classification. In the case of the text messages that Secretary Hexis allegedly said, according to the Atlantic article, those are specific details of military operational planning. Now, according to DoD policy, that would fall in the necessary to be classified at at least a secret level. It could go higher depending on if there were specific cyber operations, if they're human intelligence, if they're human high value targets, it could even go to a TS level, to a higher level classification.

But it really depends on the individual situation, no matter what. I have never been aware of a time where there is an impending operation, something that is coming up that is, that has gotten, as secretary said, they have to Go ahead. To move forward. The operation and the information about specific assets being moved and bombs being dropped, that that is declassified.

I'm never aware of that. But as you said, Kristen, administration officials, including Secretary Hegset, have been standing firm in their denial that any classified information was released. Just today, we heard again from Secretary, he says before he took off from Hawaii, here's what I had to say. Nobody's texting war plans.

I noticed this morning, out came something that doesn't look like war plans. And as a matter of fact, they even changed the title to attack plans because they know it's not war plans. There's no units, no locations, no routes, no flight paths, no sources, no methods, no classified information. Top of that.

Everybody see it? Now, team update is to provide updates in real time, General updates in real time. Keep everybody informed. That's what I did.

Yeah, Kristen. I mean, no units involved, but it does include the exact time that manned F18s are taking off clearly from the USS Harry S. Truman, an aircraft carrier that is known to have been taking part in these strikes and has been defending against potential these attacks in recent weeks. So the reality is putting those sailors on that ship and the pilots of those manned aircraft putting specific information about when they would be moving and when they would be dropping bombs, as he said, has the potential to put those men and women's lives at risk.

And I do think, Courtney, it's important that you include that broader context because there's a lot of semantics. I think it gets confusing for folks. But your final point, I think, is a key one for a lot of people who are concerned about this breach. Thank you so much for your fantastic reporting.

It's always important to join me now is Virginia Democratic Senator Mark Warner. He's the vice chair of this Intelligence Committee and questioned John Ratcliffe at Tulsi Gabbard about the signal chat chain yesterday. Thank you so much for joining me, Chairman Warner. Really appreciate it.

Thank you. So I just want to start with where Courtney left off. There's this big debate over whether the information in the text chain was, in fact, classified. I know you've gotten this question before, but for our audience, Senator, now that you have the full text chain, do you believe that the information contained in it can be qualified as classified?

Absolutely. There is no doubt at all. And you know, I would challenge anyone to go to any retired military officer, intelligence officer. And remember, there's two pieces here that were in this one, there was a dispute between the vice president acknowledging he's got a difference with the president.

And you know, talking about policy, I tell you, the Russians or the Chinese would love to get that information. That's what spies do. The second, and I think I heard a little bit of an earlier clip where somebody was trying to say, you know, nothing specific. Baloney.

If you are launching information about when an attack is going to take place, don't insult the intelligence of the American people to somehow say that's okay. I mean, anybody that makes that claim, that was Hanks that said that and I think he should be fired. I'd like him to pick up the phone and call the parents of the sailors on the USS Truman who departed from Norfolk, Virginia, who's over there and their sons and daughters were flying some of those flights. If the hoodies had had this information and could have deployed their defensive capabilities and they have substantial defensive capabilities, lives could have been lost.

And for anyone to insult any of us enough to say, oh, no harm, no failure is, is frankly, I didn't think this administration could shock me, but they're still shocking me. Well, and speaking of some of the responses that you've gotten, you said you actually believe the directors Gavin Ratcliffe lied to your committee yesterday when they said nothing was classified. President Trump, Secretary Hegset, National Security Advisor Waltz are all saying nothing was classified. Would you go so far as to say that they are all lying?

I'm saying there is no question in my mind or anyone who's served on any intelligence committee that this was not classified information. These are the things that we are learned on your first day on the committee. These are the things that I can, let's put it like this. If this had been a traditional military officer or a CIA, CIA case officer, field officer, and they did this, they'd be fired.

No ands, ifs or buts. You could argue we over classified too many things, but these are the rules. And frankly, you're never going to be in a situation where the timing of an attack, if it comes out ahead of time, it just boggles the mind that anybody say, hey, no problem here, no foul here. I mean, this again goes to the arrogance of this crowd.

If they would at least acknowledge this is a total screw up, this is a fiasco and we're going to do better. But I don't know if they'll do better because this is not the first time in the first two weeks of the administration they put 200 CIA names, identities of new officers on an unclassified router. Those people's careers in terms of being able to serve abroad Chances are ruined. This is the same crowd that the Doge guys almost daily put out, either ignorantly or mistakenly, classified information.

Classic point. They put out a map of a bunch of sites that they thought could go for sale. They put out a classified site on that public document. These guys have so little respect for the security and how information needs to be gardened.

At the end of the day, I think that just shows disrespect for the men and women are military and the men, women in our intelligence community. Senator, do you believe that Secretary Hexseth actually committed a crime by sharing the details about the timing? I went to law school but never practiced. Today.

I am not going to opine on legal issues. Do I think Secretary Headstaff should resign? Absolutely. Do I think there has to be accountability here from this administration?

Absolutely. Do I think an administration that has repeated itself time and again, director Gabbard 11 days ago, saying, if there's any leakers, we're going to pursue them to the full extent of the law? Well, does that hold for the leadership, or does that just hold for folks on the front line and folks who are putting their lives in danger? So you think the Secretary Hex should resign?

What about National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, who has said this is on him. He's the one who inadvertently added Jeffrey Goldberg. If there is not a full explanation of how this name is on, and I believe, and I have respect for Mike Waltz, I think he should step down as well. I think we've got to show our troops, we've got to show our folks in the intel community.

We got to show the American people that we're going to keep America safe. But we also have to show our allies that this sloppy, careless treatment of classified information is not going to be tolerated. Because at the end of the day, you know, I believe America First. America first shouldn't be America alone.

And that's where we're going to be if our allies refuse to share intelligence because they think it's going to be treated with this kind of carelessness. I do have to give you the opportunity to respond to White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt. She invokes your name today during the press briefing. I'm going to play a little bit of what she's said.

I'll let you respond. On the other side, Democrat Senator Mark Warner is hysterical over the use of Signal, which is an approved decrypted app in the killing of Houthi terrorists. But Senator Warner himself used Signal to work with a lobbyist for a Russian oligarch. To connect with the.

To connect the disgraced steel dossier author who started the Russia hoax, which Jeffrey Goldberg later reported on. How ironic. What's your reaction to that, Senator? It's a twofold reaction.

I never spoke about any classified information. And more importantly, you know, the fact that they have copies of whatever was said on that single conversation proves my point. This is not a secure means of communication. I'm not surprised.

You know, this is an administration that takes responsibility for nothing, that tries to deflect and blame. You know, that's the price of admission. But I think at the end of the day, I know what our allies are thinking and they are astounded beyond belief that this level of sloppiness. I know what I'm hearing from military families, particularly from folks that are around the Truman.

And I think what I'm hearing, we've got a lot of intelligence community in my state in Virginia. And to say their heads are exploding would be an understatement. I know you're saying you're not a lawyer. Would you go so far, though, as to say that Tulsi, Gabbard or Radcliffe perjured themselves?

It felt to me like Radcliffe was not kind to dodge and weave as much it Gabbard wouldn't even acknowledge she was on the text chain. So it's not tg. She wouldn't say whether this is a. Her phone, was her personal phone or a government phone.

And what we've got to be doing now is collecting all those funds, making sure there's not malware, making sure that this never happens again. I believe so strongly that if someone is not held accountable in this behavior, in light of the exposure of a couple hundred CIA agents early on in administration, who's going to trust us? Who's going to want to go to work, particularly when your identities are keeping secret, are key to your career? If there's no accountability here and this becomes the next version of a, you know, Donald Trump's perfect call with Zelensky 19 years ago.

This is not making America safer. I can promise you that. Senator Warner, fast moving developments this week. Please stay in close touch.

Thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate it. Thank you. And joining me now on set is NBC News chief Washington correspondent, chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell and John Brennan, the former director of the CIA and NBC News senior national security and intelligence analyst.

Thanks to both of you for being here. Andrea, you heard frankly, the outrage from Senator Warner and the real concern about US Service members and the concern that he is hearing from their Families, in talking to your sources, what are you hearing in terms of how the administration is handling this? People are astounded at the way the administration's handling this. If they just said we made a mistake, we screwed up, it would be over fairly quickly.

But it's the kind of dissembling or non answers the idle recalls from Tulsi, Gabber in particular Ratcliffe saying that Signal was on their devices when they inherited them, when they went into the CIA. That is contradicted by other people, that Signal's not on those devices. They put out an alert recently from the Pentagon that Signal is vulnerable to Russian hacking, that Russian hackers are actively trying to get into Signal, even though it is encrypted, end to end, that it's vulnerable. So all of that, and I mean Cabin in particular, I think is very vulnerable.

And in addition to what she was asked about retweeting recently, a Russian propagandist, and she said she did that on her personal phone and that she has First Amendment rights. She's the head of National Intelligence retreating a Russian contributor with Russian propaganda on her personal phone. Talking about your head exploding. Yeah.

And I've been talking to some of the President's allies who say they were concerned by exactly what you're saying and some of the non answers yesterday. Director Brennan, I want to play part of my exchange between my colleague Pierre Alexander and the White House press secretary today, and I'll get your reaction on the other side. You said it's not war plans. Would you characterize these as military plans, military operation plans?

I would characterize this messaging thread as a policy discussion, a sensitive policy discussion shortly amongst high level cabinet officials and senior staff. Director Brennan, the White House says it was a policy discussion, not war plans. What did you see in the text and why is it significant? I saw very specific information about an impending military operation that involved putting ordnance on a target in Yemen.

And this was in advance of the actual operation taking place and having it being done on an unclassified non secure system. Yes, it's encrypted, but it's not secure. And this is not just a theoretical risk that was posed. So, for example, let's say if one of those phones, like Jeffrey Goldberg's phone, had been compromised by the Iranians and they were monitoring his phone in real time and was able to see that his planes were starting to take off and the operation was going to take place, it wouldn't have taken much for the Iranians, who are the benefactors of the Houthis, to give The Houthis a heads up and tell them to batten down the hatches and watch yourself because the Americans are coming.

And so there's a very viable sort of route here that could have happened that would have put not just the mission success at great risk, but also our pilots, because these were the sixteens that were flying. So again, I think this raises so many questions about what other types of discussions have been taking place at the Principals Committee level on signal. What is involving Russia or China or Iran or others. And why was it that Mike Walsh, who is the chair of the Principals Committee, felt that it was okay and appropriate for there to be this type of discussion prior to a military operation taking place?

And you know, in any administration that I serve, this would have certainly been considered classified information and it should not have been put on this type of system. So, Director Brennan, you take me to my next question to you, which is take me inside some of your past experiences. How specifically should such a communication be handled? What's the appropriate way to have this conversation?

Well, the government has these approved systems and during my career I participated in hundreds of political committee meeting, including many when I was traveling overseas. And the US Government has a classified system like the resident jwix. This is a top secret SEI system that allows you to have these conversations with video conferencing and secured phones that you can have from around the globe. And so it exists.

There is a capability to exist and they didn't have to use a signal. And also when I was looking at the conversation in the chats, it seemed almost, it wasn't as though there was anything urgent or needed to be discussed. It was almost a blow by blow, almost a voyeuristic review of what was going on. And did you have to have that conversation among this dozen and a half individuals on the signal chat?

I just didn't see the reason for it. And Andrea, there were emojis, I mean, just sort of extraordinary things, written and posted on the text exchange. You have covered several administrations. Have you ever covered a breach of this nature, understanding that signal was relatively new?

No. And in fact, why wasn't it in the situation? And they have skips in their homes for their own convenience. These are cabinet level people.

They have, as Director Bennett said. Brennan said, excuse me, the ability to be video conferenced anywhere in the world really obviously wouldn't do it, you know, in an unsecure place like in the Kremlin. But most places that they could be, they could go into an embassy and get into a skiff so there are all kinds of ways this could happen. And also the posturing, the anti European expressions by the vice president who gave a really controversial speech against the Europeans when he was in Munich.

And now again and you know, Hegseth chiming in and saying, you know, the Europeans are pathetic and the vice president incorrectly stating the amount of European trade that could be protected by better access or any access to. So it can now the Houthis were deterred. I mean, all of this should have been face to face so that they could have a more intelligent conversation. How do we notify Israel?

What do we do about the Iranian reaction? You know, what's happening with Hezbollah, remnants of Hezbollah in Lebanon right now. Is there any other unintended consequence that we need to worry about in the region? What about the Saudis?

You know, could the Houthis take action against the Saudis? That's the kind of in depth conversation. Director Brennan could correct me here, but that's what you expect from people at this level and do it face to face or in skip in video conferencing through skiffs at home, but not on text, because on text it's a different implication. Conversation is important here.

Where were the Joint Chiefs in all this? It's such an important point. And Director Brennan, I pick up on this point that Andrea is making that typically it would be an in person conversation and you see this extraordinary disagreement playing out on this text chain. I mean, respond to that.

And would you expect anyone to lose their job over this? Well, I think it was any other administration they probably would. But it seems though this administration just continues to deny, deflect and assemble. And when you gather the principles on something like this, if it was in the White House situation or on via confidence security conferencing, you're going to have banter back and forth, you're going to have discussions.

But again, the fact that this now has been released and was on an unsecured system, it just shows that these are the types of conversations. There's partly policy there, but also military operations. You don't want to have this exposed. And it could have really undermined the security of that military operation.

So again, it's puzzling. It seems though they just wanted for the convenience of these individuals. Maybe they were just too lazy to go into a facility or to make sure that they take the appropriate steps and measures. But again, I wonder if this is just the tip of the iceberg that we're seeing and what else might have been happening over the last two months that I'm glad that the inspector general of the Department of Defense now is going to be taking a fresh look at this to see exactly what else might have been exposed because there may be some real need for clean up on aisle nine, 10 and 11 here.

And it's not just the Yemen Houthi situation. All right. Well, we will continue to travel, but thank you both for helping us go more deep into this issue. We really appreciate it.

John Brennan, Andrea Mitchell, Coming up next, we have breaking news as the federal Appeals board has just rejected the Trump administration's latest efforts to invoke wartime authorities under the Alien Enemies Act. The details ahead. Stay with us. Watching the press now.

Hey guys, Willie Geist here reminding you to check out the Sunday Sit down podcast. On this week's episode, I sit down with one of the biggest bands in the world, Mumford and Sons, as we get the boys together to talk about their new number one album, Prize Fighter, and the evolution of that irresistible foot stomping sound. You can get our conversation for free wherever you download your podcasts. Stay informed with the NBC News app.

Breaking news just coming in moments ago. Watch, read and listen throughout your day and now unlock even more with a subscription. It's the best of NBC News with fewer ad instructions, including ad free articles, podcasts and full NBC News shows, plus deeper access and exclusive content. 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. As a day wraps up, get the scoop on what's been happening with here's the Scoop, the new podcast for NBC News with your host, Jazzyu. We'll take a deep dive into the day's top stories with NBC News's trusted journalists.

It's a fresh take, a sharp, thoughtful and informative bringing closer to headlines and conversations that are shaping our world. The front page, the Zeitgeist. Here's the scoop from NBC News. Listen daily on Amazon Music.

Welcome back. We're now following breaking news in the Trump administration's efforts to use the Alien Enemies act to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members. Just moments ago, a federal appeals court rejected a request by the Trump administration to lift a federal judge's order that blocked its use of the AEA to deport alleged gang members to El Salvador. NBC News legal affairs reporter Gary Grumbach joins me now.

So, Gary, break this down for us. What does the appeals court decision mean for the administration's effort to use this to deport alleged gang members? Yes, what this means. That goes Back to Judge James Postberg to carry out the case of whether or not the A gang was appropriately used to support these Venezuelan gang members.

It was a three judge panel we heard earlier this week. Earlier this week they made the arguments. Judge Karen Henderson and Judge Patricia Millet were in the majority. Judge Justin Walker, a Trump appointee, was with the dissenting opinion.

The government had argued that there was a TRO that stopped Trump from authority to address invasion by a hostile group. Hold on one second. Temporary restraining order. Yes.

Temporary restraining order. Yes. I'm sorry, No, I want to make sure I'm keeping up. Absolutely.

Temporary restraining order meaning it's a temporary pause of what the government was doing. What the government was doing was putting out these plain flow Venezuelans to El Salvador. The district court judge said, we're temporarily stopping that from happening. And the appeals court here said, we are going to let the judge temporarily stop that.

And Gary, there was sort of a dramatic moment when the appeals court also seems to admonish the Trump administration for its ongoing clash with the judicial branch. What happened there? Yeah, this was an extension of what we heard during arguments. Judge PATRICK that was very strong on the government for, frankly, not in her view, not doing this the right way.

The government did not ask for a stay or a pause of the district court judge's decision from the district court judge. That's generally what you do in these cases. First, all they asked for was for that judge to vacate his own opinion. He said, no, I'm not going to do that because I believe this opinion has merits that I put forth here.

So she believes it didn't happen. I'll read to you one quote here that she said, quote, the government needs to play by the same rules it preaches and needs to respect court rules. So she is somebody who is very seriously believing, and we've seen this in a number of cases, not just here, related to the Alien Enemies case, Alien Enemies act case. The government does need to follow the rules as it relates to federal Court of Procedure.

Gary Grumbach, thank you for rushing to the camera on the breaking news. We really appreciate it. Great stuff. Thank you.

Well, the voting rights groups are speaking out against one of President Trump's newest executive orders, which calls for sweeping changes to how elections are conducted. The order which Mr. Trump signed yesterday, seeks to require people to prove their citizenship when they register to vote. Critics say the executive order could disenfranchise tens of millions of Americans who don't have the means to prove their citizenship.

There are also questions about whether the president has any constitutional authority over federal elections which are operated on the state level. I'm joined now by Rick Hassan, professor of law and political science at UCLA Law. He's also an NBC News Election law analyst. Thank you so much for joining us.

We really appreciate it. Let's dive right in. As you look at this executive order, how many US Citizens could potentially be disenfranchised by it, based on your estimation? Well, you know, we do know from experience in states that have required documentary proof citizenship, that tens of thousands of people have lost their ability to register to vote.

In Kansas, I think we have similar numbers in Arizona. I think if you look at this across the country, who has a passport, someone who is wealthier, someone who's going to travel, do people have access to the birth certificate, you know, the kinds of documents that you would need, they're not always easy to come by. And the whole point of trying to require this is to prevent a very small amount of fraud. So you're taking the risk of disenfranchising lots and lots of people to stop almost no actual fraudulent voting in our elections.

Well, let me actually read the election clause in the Constitution. Then we'll discuss it on the other side. It says the times, places and manner of polling elections for senators and representatives shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof. But the Congress may at any time by law make or alter such regulations, except as to the places of choosing senators.

So does this order actually stand in violation with that law? Right, so what? The way we run our elections in this country is that we have this highly decentralized system. We mostly let states decide what the rules are, and we give Congress supervisory authority, like when Congress passes something like the National Voter Registration act, which says that there's a federal form that anyone can fill out if they want to register to vote.

Congress also use that same power to establish something called the United States Election Assistance Commission, which does things like giving out money for voting machines upgrades and gives advice for how states should run their elections. The biggest headline here, more than even the stuff about documentary proof of citizenship, is that Trump is trying to take over the EAC and trying to push his will through there, giving the President a role in trying to run elections the president simply doesn't have. The president's absent in the Constitution from any role in running federal elections. What do you see as the most likely legal challenge or challenges to the Executive order?

So the first question is whether or not Trump can require the Election Assistance Commission to do his bidding, like change the federal form that's used for registering to vote. That's a big question generally in terms of whether we can have these independent agencies under the so called unitary executive theory. But also this is a special kind of agency that Congress created after the dispute 2000 election, yet have more than two Democrats or two Republicans on this commission. It's supposed to require bipartisan cooperation.

There's going to be a huge question whether Trump has the power to force the EAC to do it once. And then beyond that, he's trying to stop states from doing things like accepting counting ballots that were cast before election Day in the mail but arrive after Election day. He's directing his DOJ to go after states. He's directed DOGE and DHS to try to subpoena documents from states to figure out their voter registration records.

I think a lot of these things are going to be challenged as exceeding the president's authority as not following federal law. And it likely will be tied up for some time in court. All right. Well, we'll track it very closely.

We're cast. And thank you so much. We really appreciate your insights today. Coming up after the break, defense chief's defiant President Trump digging in and where the latest group chat controversy and the backlash goes from here.

The panel's next. You're watching the Press now get the best of NBC News with a subscription, viewer ads and exclusive content. And now during the Xfinity member celebration, members can get an exclusive 50% off an annual subscription. Head to xfinity.com membership to learn more.

Xfinity Imagine that subscription automatically reus each year at $60.99/ taxes and fees until canceled ends May 20, 2026. Price is subject to change. Visit NBC news.com for full all returns and details. Welcome back.

Let's get right to our panel. Joining now and says Mariana, my congressional reporter for the Washington Post, Anthony Coley, Democratic communications staffer and an NBC News political analyst. And Mark Short, former Trump White House director of legislative affairs and an NBC News contributor. Thanks to all of you for being here.

Mario, I want to start with you. I want to play a little bit of what Mike Walt has been saying to explain how Jeffrey Goldberg, editor of the Atlantic, wound up on this text chat chain and then get your reaction the other side. Take a look. How did a Trump hating editor of Atlantic end up on your signal chat?

You know, Laura, I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but I've all the people out there. Somehow this guy who has lied about the president, who has lied to gold star families lied to their attorneys and gone to Russia hoax, gone to just all kinds of links to lie and smear the president, United States. And he's the one that somehow gets on somebody's contact and then gets stuck in this group. You have somebody's contact that shows their name, and then you have, and then you have somebody else's number, somebody else's number on someone else's contacts.

Of course, I didn't see this loser in the group. It looked like someone else. Now, whether he did it deliberately or it happened in some other technical meaning, something we're trying to figure out, a lot of folks are just saying, just say made a mistake, you added him by mistake, he happened to be in your phone. What is the reaction you're hearing to how, to those types of answers, how the administration is handling the fallout?

Yeah, to your point, just reacting to that. I mean, when you're talking and going in loops, you know, you said just, just keep it short and simple. You know, it's interesting, having covered the House for a very long time, something that people say on the Hill often that makes a difference between the Senate and the House is that House lawmakers are very open and willing to just give reporters their phone number. So this whole like, oh, is it a coincidence?

You just don't know who's in someone's phone book. But, you know, to your point as to how lawmakers are reacting, obviously we've seen, and it's unsurprising, we see Democrats just really hammering all these intelligence officials in these hearings the last 24 hours, both in the House and the Senate. But significant that we've only really heard from Senate Armed Services Chair Roger Wicker in a bipartisan statement with Jack Reed, the Democratic ranking member. They're actually calling for an investigation by the Pentagon inspector general to look into this and actually produce a report for this committee to review.

They're taking this more seriously over on the, on the House side. Like Republicans are just either skirting away from this, not wanting to talk about it privately, say that this is concerning, but for the most part, publicly, they're echoing what the White House is saying, oh, none of this was classified. Oh, this is just a mistake. Oh, I'm sure this will be fine.

And even Speaker Johnson, when asked, well, you know, we're sure that if this happened to the Biden administration, you all would be out there calling for these resignations. He has said publicly, no, I don't think I would do that. I'm pretty sure that that would not be the case. It's fascinating.

I've had a lot of those conversations as well with Republicans saying this is disturbing. Mark, you were in the first Trump administration. I mean, take us inside what you envision the president's response to have been and how he's handling this moment. Well, I think the president doesn't like apologies.

He views that as a sign of weakness, which I think is one of the challenges because I think the best way to make this the way is to admit a mistake. Say you're looking into it, you make sure it doesn't happen again and it'll ask you to turn the page. Having so many different mixed messages going from the Pentagon, from the national security team, from others who are on that chat. I think just continues to keep the story alive.

But I also think that, you know, when all the dust settles on this, the question of was it a war plan or an attack, was it classified or not, I think there's more embedded in that chat in the sense of the vice President, United States basically expressing a disagreement with the president after the president's made a decision and senior staff at BNI also weighing in to express a disagreement and reticence of the plan after the president according to Stevens comments has greenlit decision in the Oval. If you want to agree beforehand, one thing. But once the president's decision to make plans for an attack, the rest of Cabinet's united. If the cabinet is seen that the vice President himself is on group chats questioning the president's decision, that's going to create more, I think problems down the road.

Let's stick on that point because I think it's an important one. I think it's one that hasn't gotten a lot of attention. Anthony, I do want to get your reaction to Democrats response so far, but just stick on this for a moment. The significance of the vice president clearly having a policy disagreement with the President after a decision was made.

We see Stephen Miller added to the text chain after the vice president says he's not so sure about this plan. It's an indication that they want to say this discussion is over. That's exactly right. And if you're one of our European allies, if you're in the UK or any one of those allies abroad in Europe, you have real concern about what you just saw the vice President of the United States weighing on the alternative point here though is what I was glad to see, put the substance aside, is that it was not group think.

And I think anytime you have high level administrations of either party, it is important to see people push Back, I promise you there's plenty of disagreement in the first Trump administration, but it was done before decision was made. A decision was made. You never saw daylight between the Vice president. So he was asked to do something against it.

That's what I was going to point. If you're getting words against the country constitution, that's different. But there was never a policy thing that you saw him basically, if you had a private to the president, never when anyone else is in the room, never. So on the broader question here, you hear a lot of talk about semantics, right?

My thing here, and one thing that people have got to pay attention to, whether it was classified or not, it was inherently classified. Understand the President is playing this game. The three questions to remember here, number one, could the information have been used to prepare against the attack? Could the information have been used to evade attack?

Could the information, if it were in the wrong hands, could it have been used to attack American military personnel? The answer to all those questions, Kristen, is yes. And that's exactly why this information should not have been used in non governmental channels. And Mariana, pick up on this point about.

I mean, as you say, once a decision's been made, you rarely see daylight in the Trump administration. Once he's made a decision. This extraordinary exchange in which you have the Vice President questioning this policy decision and it exposes this potential rift. Now, of course, vice president team has rushed to say there absolutely is no rift.

He fully supports the President's foreign policy. But it seems like there are potential problems down the road for a number of the people on this text chain. Absolutely. And it's pretty astounding because we have seen especially the Vice President in this case, just constantly be on Trump's side, defending Trump, being that bulldog.

We always remember that meeting with the Ukrainian president, Volodymy. Right. So the fact that this is happening behind the scenes, it does raise questions when at other points in time, once a decision has been made. Your point, Mark, is J.D.

vance possibly talking to others in the administration saying, should we doubt the pressure, we consider this. And that. That. That's an interesting dynamic and I'm curious to know how you can outright contradict here.

He says to the President, the President has all the information he needs to make the right decision. He basically says, this is your responsibility, not ours. And he said, give me 30 days to wrap up public opinion against this. Mark, very quickly, do you expect him to lose their jobs over this?

I don't right now. I mean, look, I think the reality is that the President changes positions a lot in his captain. So I can't seem to say it's not going to happen at some point. But I think he wants to show that, hey, we're one team still at this point.

All right, guys, thanks so much. Busy week. Appreciate you being here to break all of that down. Mariana, Anthony and Mark, great conversation.

Still to come, he talks and war strikes Russia and Ukraine trade fire despite bowing seemingly to a limited pause in fighting. I'll talk to a former ambassador to Ukraine about the future of the war. We're watching the press now. Welcome back.

One day after the White House reached separate deals with Ukraine and Russia for both countries to pause their attacks in the Black Sea and on energy targets, both sides are accusing the other of breaking the deal with Russia says it shut down Ukrainian drones over the Black Sea overnight. And Ukraine said Russia attacked one of its port cities with President Zelensky saying a recent drone attack show Moscow is not pursuing, quote, real peace. Further complicated matters. Moscow also says it will only abide by the terms of the deal if sanctions on some exports which were imposed by the US And European Union are lifted.

The EU says it'll only lift sanctions after Russia's unconditional withdrawal from Ukraine. I'm joined now by Ambassador Bill Taylor, who serves as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. He's now a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council.

Ambassador Taylor, thank you so much for being here. As always, appreciate it very much. Let's talk about the status of these talks. Where, where are these talks?

In Saudi Arabia. So they're going slowly because the Russians are slowing things down. And you will remember that President Trump and President Zelensky agreed on a broad ceasefire. And President Trump took it to President Putin who said no.

Who said, no, I'm going to do a small one just on energy. And even that, as you say, is being violated. Well, given that, how then can Ukraine and Russia move forward? And does the United States need to in some way intervene to apply more pressure to Russia?

If they are slow walking this process, I think the United States will have to put some pressure on Russia. The Russians are clearly dragging it out. They want to grind out a little more territory on the military battlefield. And you're right, we can put some pressure on them.

Certainly more weapons for Ukrainians have demonstrated to President Putin that he can't wait us out, that the Ukrainians will continue to get support from us and from the Europeans. Sanctions. The president has talked himself, he's talked about sanctions. His secretary of treasury has talked about more sanctions on Putin to get him to come to the table and negotiate seriously.

That can be done. There's supposed to be a so called coalition of the willing meeting tomorrow focused on protecting Ukraine. This is going to take place in France. What are you anticipating and what are the tangibles that could potentially come out of such a discussion at this point?

So they're looking at a deterrent force, some kind, some way to be sure that if they sign a ceasefire, if the Ukrainians and Russians prodding on the Americans sign a ceasefire, that the Russians won't violate it and come back again, take advantage of the ceasefire and invade again. That deterrent force the Europeans are talking seriously about. It's not entirely clear if it's going to be on the ground or back in, if it's air power, if it's going to be able to actually push the Russians back. But the Europeans for the first time I think are really stepping up seriously to provide this kind of a force.

And do you think that could make a difference in this moment? It can make a difference. What the Ukrainians have said all along is they are willing to make some very hard decisions about things that they've been pushed to do. But, but they want to be sure that they have a security guarantee.

And the Europeans are sound like they're stepping up to provide that and just remind people, give people a sense. We've now watched this war unfold for three years. What is the state of the actual fighting on the ground? So many lives have been lost.

So many lives have been lost. You're right. It's 1,126 days that the Ukrainians have held off the Russians. But you're right to ask about the status.

It turns out that the Ukrainians have held on to what they've got for the last two years. The Russians have been trying for two years to take more than the 18% that they now have of Ukrainian territory. Two years ago they had 18%. It's remarkable.

Yeah. And I guess the question is, without full US Support, which the United States is kind of in limbo, can Ukraine continue to fend off the Russians? They can continue. They've been continuing to do this.

They've got some of their own weapons. I was there last month, I'll be there again next month. And they take me to manufacturing facilities where they make most probably 40% of the weapons they make. And it turns out that the European and we've still got a pipeline of weapons that are coming in.

So yes, the Ukrainians will continue to fight. Ultimately, you know, President Trump has said he wanted to end this war in 24 hours. That was by his inauguration. That was within the first six months.

Do you see a shift the fact that and he has upset some people with this tactic, but he's talking to Russia, he's talking to Ukraine. Could this be a possible pathway toward peace? The good thing is he's put a high priority on ending this war. And it's possible with that kind of pressure, particular Russians, that he could succeed.

All right. Ambassador Bill Taylor, thank you so much. Always great to see you and to get your insights. We really appreciate it.

We'll be back tomorrow with more MEET THE press. Now the news continues with Hallie Jackson right now. Hey, it's Kate Snow, NBC News anchor and host of the Drink. This month, Demi Lovato is my guest.

The global superstar tells me that she is the happiest she's ever been right now. But getting there, it wasn't simple. Demi opens up about starting in Hollywood young and why she now thinks she may have started too soon. She talks about recovery, her new marriage and the deeply personal reason behind her new cookbook.

The Drink is always about the journey to the top. And this was an honest conversation about what that takes. Hope you'll listen and follow the Drink wherever you get your podcast.