Meet the Press NOW – March 6

If it's Thursday, President Trump reverses course on his own trade war, announcing temporary tariff exemptions for many goods coming in from Canada and Mexico, marking another day of confusion on Main Street and volatility on Wall Street. Plus new targets in the effort to slash the size of government, the Trump administration plans to lay off tens of thousands of veterans, affairs employees, as the president is reportedly preparing to gut the Department of Education. And America's allies weigh a potential pullback of intelligence sharing with Washington, and President Trump considers backing away from NATO amid a widening rift with Ukraine and warming relations with Russia. Welcome to me, the press now on Kristin Welker in Washington, where President Trump has just made another abrupt pivot in the United States trade war with America's neighbors to the northern south.

This afternoon, the president announced a one-month pause on the sweeping 25% tariffs for many, but not all imports from Mexico and Canada. The puzzle will apply to all goods that are compliant with the North American trade agreement known as USMCA, and as a reminder of how abruptly things are changing here, these 25% tariffs just went into effect on Tuesday. The president signed an executive order with these temporary exemptions about 90 minutes ago, stressing that it is a short-term deal. And I spoke to the president of Mexico, a wonderful woman today, and we helped them out with the problem that we're having, having to do with the tariffs, short-term tariffs.

And we had a very good conversation. Also, we discussed their drugs, and they've been working much harder lately, do you notice that on people coming in and drugs? And we made tremendous progress on both. President Trump, what's your thought on the line of markets, our sales moves?

Do you feel like the tariffs are now against certain people, some of the changes that have been the carve-out? Well, a lot of them are globalist countries and companies that won't be doing as well, because they were taking back things that have been taken from us many years ago. We've been treated very unfairly as a country. We protect everybody, we do everything for all these countries, and a lot of these are globalist in nature.

This is something that we have to do. There'll always be a little short-term interruption. I don't think it's going to be big. Now, a White House official says about 50% of all imports from Mexico will be temporarily exempt.

So will about 38% of Canadian imports. But President Trump also said in the Oval Office that steel and aluminum tariffs will not be modified. The 20% tariff on Chinese imports, which also went into effect on Tuesday, will remain in place. Now, today, after Mr.

Trump announced that he was giving the big three U.S. automakers a one-month exemption on vehicles coming through our neighbors to the north and south. And on Wall Street, the markets had another down day with markets closing about 400 points down. The next step on this steel and aluminum tariffs are going to begin next week on Canada and Mexico and every other country.

Are those going to be modified as well? No. Those aren't modified. Those are happening next week.

And the big one will be on April 2nd when reciprocal tariffs. So if India or China or any of the countries that really, India is a very high tariff nation, I'd say what's a high tariff nation is, Canada charges us 250% for our milk product and other product and a tremendous tariff on lumber and things as such. And yet we don't need that lumber. We have more lumber than they do.

We don't need Canada's lumber. So what I'm doing is I'll be signing an executive order freeing up our forests so that we're allowed to take down trees and make a lot of money and then re-harvest trees. So we're cutting fire divides. Fire divide is a 50 yards or 70 yards swap where the trees can't, you know, flow enough so trees don't burn forever until you can get them out.

And those trees can be sold to donate a lot of money with it. But we'll be doing that. We don't need trees from Canada. We don't need cars from Canada.

We don't need energy from Canada. We don't need anything from Canada. So we can be self-sustaining, which is in most things. We have more oil and gas than anybody.

Our forests are massive. We're just not allowed to use it because of the environmental lunatics that stopped us. So I'm going to be freeing that up very shortly so we don't have to go to other countries to buy lumber. You know, why should we be buying lumber from other countries, paying tariffs, paying peak prices, extraordinary prices.

And we have lumber. We have the best lumber. NBC News Senior White House correspondent Kelly O'Donnell is with me now, and so is NBC News Business and Data correspondent Brian Chung. Kelly, I have to start with you at the White House.

So what has happened between Tuesday and today that has made President Trump decide to reverse course? Well, it seems to be the weight of personal relationships. The President described President Shane Baum of Mexico in positive terms and she had a conversation with him. Also, the big three automakers had a conversation with him.

So access to the President and ability to make a persuasive case to the President appears to be a tool for those who are trying to get some relief from tariffs. And the President is clearly signaling that he has opened to some of those interim negotiations while at the same time he is outlining plans that the tariffs relating to steel and reciprocal tariffs and a battery of things that he has planned will still go forward. So it does raise a question about the uncertainty factor when the President pronounces that he wants to engage on a tariff regime in one form or another, and then sometimes within days or a week or at some kind of a pressure point that comes to his attention, he is willing to make some concessions. And he does that in a way where we heard him here kind of showing sort of the ability of a President to extend something to either another country or corporations that have been able to make their case to the President.

So that seems to be the only explanation for what has happened here because the President has decades of history in believing in tariffs and time in office where he has engaged in tariffs. But frequently we see him use it, use it as a negotiating tool at times and act them, and then at times pull some parts of the tariff regime back. And that's what we're seeing play out right now. And to your point, Kelly, I mean, there's going to be another deadline in early April.

Could we be right back in the same place? Have that deadline? It certainly seems likely, doesn't it? We just look at the first six weeks of the administration when a deadline is set.

Sometimes it gets revised and it is an opportunity for additional conversations. I and other reporters have asked the President many questions about tariffs. They've been a dominant theme in these initial weeks. And when you would say to him, what can a country do or what can another entity do to prevent tariffs, he says nothing.

They can't do anything. And then there are conversations, whether it is support on issues related to the border, whether it is a mutual beneficial business arrangement, whatever it might be that is persuasive to him at that time, then he is willing to reconsider. So he used the instrument of signing executive orders to again retool the tariffs that he had signed just days ago. The President clearly likes to have these opportunities where he has seen taking these actions and taking questions about it.

And that's part of the very public face of how he engages on tariffs, kind of blowing off the market reaction. At one point, he said, I'm not looking at the markets. Well, that's certainly notable because in his first term, he referenced the markets frequently as a measure of the overall economic picture and one that he felt was very favorable to him. So, the volatility in the markets of late, and you heard him say that those are globalist countries and globalist companies that are at risk of losing something, so therefore they don't like what he's doing.

That was the claim that he made whereas the President is so often relied heavily on the market as an indication of his performance. Kelly, it's a busy day. We've got you covering a lot of different angles. Say, if you don't mind, please stick around.

I'm going to talk to Brian, then I'm going to come back to you on another story. Thank you for that analysis. Brian, let's talk about what is and is not subject to being tariffed at this point. What falls under the USMCA?

Yeah, unfortunately, if you've got today's developments, we're going to provide more clarity on exactly what is and is and tariffed it hasn't. Now, you basically have to go through the USMCA line item by line item and then figure out is it compliant with the USMCA, in which case it would not be subject to that 25% tariff, but it is not, then it still will be subject to that tariff. As you mentioned at the top, about 50% and under 50% of imports coming in from Canada and under 50% of imports coming in from Canada are USMCA compliant, according to the White House. We need to verify those statistics, but nonetheless, that does imply that there are a lot of items that would not be compliant.

I'll give you automobiles as an example, since that was such a hot topic when it came to the discussions and negotiations over these tariffs, the USMCA outlines certain provisions over the percentage of the car that has to have parts coming from North America in order to be compliant with the USMCA. So if you have a car that's mostly built in Romania, it comes to Mexico, it gets like four screws in it, that does not make a USMCA compliant if you try to bring it into the United States. So again, there's some important distinctions there, but just in the last 90 minutes, because this is so fresh, Chris, I've been trying to educate myself on what is an USMCA compliant. And when you think about fruits and vegetables, because people are very concerned about the price of produce, it's my understanding that in some cases seasonal vegetables would not be covered by the USMCA, but that other types of vegetables that are year-round might be, again, you basically have to go item by item, which adds to the confusion to this tariff.

Wow. The confusion seems to be so much a part of this, Brian. I'm going to talk to you about that in a second. But just to follow up, it sounds like you're saying consumers can expect to see some products go up in the coming days.

Is that accurate? Yeah. Well, I mean, if we go by the statistics that we were just showing you that implies that in many cases, there is still a large swath of imports that come from Mexico and Canada that would not be USMCA compliant, which by the way, I would remind everyone that the USMCA is an agreement that was broken by President Trump in the first administration with our neighbors to the North and South. But again, you look at those statistics, 50% of imports in Mexico and now a 62% of imports from Canada would in theory not be subject to those exemptions as I do that quick map there.

Again, what is also important to remember here is that these exemptions are also only in place for about a month. How prolonged this last could be very determinative in terms of how much of that price increase gets passed on to the consumer. But we know that retailers have said if we face these tariffs, we likely will pass that on to consumers. That's what's already the best I said in the hours after the tariffs were implemented on Tuesday.

So price increases could still be coming for some categories. And then to go back to the point that you were making, is the confusion a potential problem in and of itself? We are seeing how Wall Street is reacting again, another down day on Wall Street. The fact that there is uncertainty around this, Brian, could that cause some long-term harm to the economy?

President Trump himself said that we're going to be some minor disturbances. Yeah, you mentioned Wall Street. I mean, down about 1% on the Dow Jones today, but the action that we've seen over the previous weeks leading up to these announcements of these tariffs have erased any gains that we had in the calendar year 2025. At one point during the year, we were something like 5% up on the stock market.

That is essentially gone. We are negative, I believe, compared to where we started 2025. But I think the bigger question is for small businesses and for large businesses as well, by the way, the supply is too, which is uncertainty, uncertainty, uncertainty. If on any given day or any given hour, you don't know if the tariffs are on or off or if they're on certain products and they're not on other products, well then you're very confused about this.

So what will you do? You may be trying to front-run all of these tariffs by stocking more than you need in your warehouse to make sure that you can cover all the materials and sales that you would need to have. Or let's say the next year or even longer than that. Well, that's weighing on these businesses.

And if they have to front a higher cost to do that front-running, that might get passed on the consumer anyway, regardless of whether or not the tariffs happen or they don't. And I think that that uncertainty is the big reason why you have a lot of people telling surveyors, like for example, in a manufacturing survey, that they feel concerned over what the next few months are going to look like, again, regardless of what the tariff status is. This is confusing stuff, Brian Shun. You always help us understand it better.

Thank you so much for being here. Really appreciate it. As I said, we have got a lot of developments today at the White House, including on President Trump's ongoing efforts to slash the federal government and test the limits of executive power. The Wall Street Journal and Washington Post report that Trump administration has now drafted an executive order to effectively eliminate the Department of Education.

The president cannot legally shut our entire department without Congress. It's important to note that. But the draft EO reportedly will direct Secretary Linda McMahon to do all she can to wind it down. President Trump was asked about cutting the Department of Education just moments ago in the Oval Office.

Here's what he said. So I want to bring the schools back to the states and, you know, I've said it a hundred times. We're ranked at the bottom of the list. We're ranked number one for, of course, we're ranked at the bottom of the list in education.

Now more cuts are also in the way that the Department of Veterans Affairs, which is planning to lay off 15% of its workforce, which comes to about 80,000 employees. This comes after NBC News reported the agency is cutting hundreds of contracts and consultation with Elon Musk's doge, which employees say may harm veterans care. In a video posted yesterday, the secretary, Doug Collins, defended the job cuts and claimed they would not come with any reduction in care. Yeah, anyone who loses their job is extraordinarily difficult for me, especially as a VA leader and your secretary to make these types of decisions.

But the federal government does not exist to employ people. It exists to serve people. When we find problems, we will fix them. We will communicate what we are doing to the public.

That's what I'm doing right now. But we'll be making major changes, so get used to it. Meanwhile, President Trump said he met with cabinet members and Elon Musk today. In a social media post, Mr.

Trump said he encouraged the cuts to be with a scalpel rather than a hatchet. Here's what he just said in the Oval Office about that. I want the cabinet members to keep good people. I don't want to see a big cut where a lot of good people will cut.

I want the cabinet members to keep the good people and the people that aren't doing a good job that are unreliable don't show up to work, et cetera. Those people can be cut. I want to bring back Kelly O'Donnell still outside the White House. Kelly, thanks for being on double and triple duty.

Quite frankly today, let's start with the Department of Education, President Trump made a campaign promise. As you know, he was going to shut down the Department of Education. We have these reports that he may be considering now in EO. There's a draft these reports say, what do you know about any potential executive action?

Well, first you and I need an agenda for when we meet like this. There are so many topics. But yes, the President has strong views about education. Of course, most educational funding, more than 90 percent, does come from states and local communities.

One of the original purpose of the Department of Education was to bring together some of the programs that help students that cross different departments. For example, school lunch programs would have originated in the U.S. Department of Agriculture and being able to bring that into the Department of Education was meant to streamline some of those opportunities. They also manage some of the federal student loans and Pell grants and so forth.

So the President believes that it should all go back to states and local, where it is dominantly managed now. Certainly school editorial policies in terms of what is the curriculum and what are the rules of different communities. That's all decided at the local level, not the federal level. And some of what the federal government does do is to try to assess how students are doing broadly across the country.

He does not unilaterally have the power to close a government department that was in fact originated by Jimmy Carter, who used an executive order to bring it about, and then Congress followed through and set up the formation of the Department, the funding and all the structure that keeps it going. So that's a check and balance issue. The President does not have the independent ability to do that, but he is going to squeeze it as much as he can and try to persuade Congress. You might be able to do that in the House, but certainly 60 votes in the Senate would be much tougher sell.

It certainly will be. I know we'll be watching that one closely. And then Kelly, I have to ask you, we know that the President and his Cabinet met with Elon Musk today. Musk was on Capitol Hill yesterday.

I thought the language we just heard from the President was notable, that he seems to be urging precision with these cuts, certainly very different than Elon Musk wielding that chainsaw around. What do we know about what the President is messaging to Elon Musk? The chainsaw and scalpel analogy of how precise should it be. Well, the President says he wants to meet with Cabinet officials who are affected by this.

He seemed to indicate it didn't affect all of them, which is interesting in and of itself. And to meet with Musk and Musk's team to try to come up with ways to keep the best people, as he said, those with expertise and those who are most needed in their roles. But to be able to let go of those, as the President often does, where he criticizes federal workers for not coming to the office for not doing their work and to try to separate that out. So there's still some kind of war against the federal worker in his comments, but he's also trying to say he wants to give the Cabinet secretaries a greater role in doing this, that they should lead the way.

And if they're unable to make sufficient cuts, then doge would take over. So he's sort of establishing maybe a different practice for how this would work. And certainly Congress would need to implement any cuts to the doge would make in terms of spending, because again, that's Congress is late. We always need the agenda, Kelly O'Donnell.

Thank you so much for your great reporting. Great to see you. As always, thank you. Coming up, exclusive NBC News reporting, U.S.

Allies considered scaling back intel sharing with Washington over concerned sensitive information could end up inadvertently revealed to Russia. Plus, disorder in the House, tensions running high on Capitol Hill where lawmakers, including 10 Democrats, who to censure congressional congressmen Al Green, for interrupting the President's address to Congress. Stay with us. You're watching The Press Now.

Welcome back. We're holding an emergency summit today as they scramble to increase their military budgets, and bolster aid to Ukraine amid concerns about waning support from the U.S. President Zelensky received a warm welcome by EU leaders at that summit in stark contrast to the tense meeting in the Oval Office last week, while European leaders Hadoop President Trump warned that the U.S. might not defend NATO countries who do not meet the defense spending threshold.

You're not going to pay. We're not going to defend. I said that seven years ago. And because of that, they paid hundreds of billions of dollars.

I said, if you're not going to pay your bills, we're not going to defend you. Are you going to make that policy, U.S. policy that the U.S. wouldn't defend NATO countries that don't pay?

It's common sense, right? If they don't pay, I'm not going to defend them. No, I'm not going to defend them. I got into a lot of heat when I said that.

He said, oh, he's violating NATO. And, you know, the biggest problem I have with NATO, I really, you know, I mean, I know the guys very well. They're friends of mine. But if the United States was in trouble and we called them, we said, we got a problem, France.

We got a problem. A couple of others I won't mention. Do you think they're going to come and protect us? They're supposed to.

I'm not so sure. So why standing so well? I view NATO as potentially good, but you got to get, you got to get some good thinking in NATO. It's very unfair what's been happening.

Meanwhile, NBC News is exclusively reporting that as the Trump administration appears to turn towards Russia, some U.S. allies are now thinking about scaling back the intelligence they share with the U.S. Joining me now is NBC News International Security correspondent Courtney QB who reported on both of those stories. Courtney, congratulations on two great scoops.

Let's start with NATO and this potential policy shift by the Trump administration. What does it mean for Article 5, which basically says an attack against one is an attack against all? Well, what we were reporting is basically what President Trump just confirmed in the Oval Office. And that is that the Trump administration has been considering sort of calibrating their support for NATO and NATO allies based off of the members who pay the most.

So if you have a member who pays above the threshold, the percent of their GDP on defense that the Trump administration thinks is appropriate, then they would be, they would consider defending them in the case of an Article 5 violation or of course the part of the Washington Treaty that says if one NATO member is attacked, all consider themselves to have been attacked. But it's not just Article 5 that's under consideration here, Kristen. This potential decrease in support to NATO by the United States could also see the Trump administration basically calibrating which exercises, military exercises, they would participate in based off whether the countries are meeting this threshold, this monetary threshold. And it could also make the determine where US military troops will be stationed and where they could be withdrawn from.

So right now NATO says that all members are supposed to pay 2% of their GDP towards defense. The Trump administration has been calling now for several weeks for that to be increased to 5%. Kristen, I have to say the US doesn't pay 5%, we're right around 3.9% as of 2024. Yeah, I think it's so important to point that out that the United States doesn't pay 5%, Courtney, how extraordinary that he, and I think we have to put a fine point on this, confirmed you're reporting from earlier in the day and just notable to hear him talk about that.

You also have exclusive reporting about allies possibly scaling back intelligence sharing with the United States, but what are the biggest concerns that you're hearing on the world stage? Yeah, and Kristen, again, these are some of the historically closest United States allies who have established this group called the Five Eyes. It's five nations that share this very highly classified technical intelligence information with one another at higher levels than they share intelligence with other nations. Now, some of these allies are now concerned that the United States seems to be trying to normalize relations with Russia.

President Trump has spoken pretty openly about that effort. Because of that, they are concerned now about sharing some of that most sensitive information with the United States. And really at the issue here, Kristen, is the foreign assets. They are concerned that some of their foreign assets, individuals, could potentially be compromised.

They're identities. And that is why they are now discussing the possibility of not sharing as openly as they have at the United States in the past. All right, Courtney Kubi, thank you so much, we really appreciate your reporting. We have to say there is an alarm going off here, so we're going to monitor this situation, folks.

I'm retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vinmin, he's the former Director for European Affairs at the National Security Council during President Trump's first term. He's also out with a new book, The Folly of Realism, How the West Deceived Itself About Russia and Betrayed Ukraine. Colonel Vinmin, hopefully you can hear me. Okay, we do have this alarm going off in the background, so apologies for that.

I want to get your reaction to this major shift in policy that the administration is now considering favoring NATO countries that spend a set percentage of their GDP on defense. Yeah, I had a visceral reaction just listening to Trump talk about this. It is dangerous willful ignorance. The fact is that when we were attacked on 9-11, NATO was there, thousands of NATO troops served in combat in support of the defense of the United States.

It's the only time that Article 5 has been invoked in support of the U.S. So to say that the sacrifice of our NATO allies, including hundreds of lives lost over the course of other wars, is just horrible, disgusting, disrespectful to those sacrifices. And it's dangerous, because what does the Russian take away from this? That they can start poking around much more aggressively in the Baltics, that's relating to a hybrid warfare, testing whether the U.S.

is willing to defend the Baltics, these small countries in the far east of Europe. And I think this is going to put our troops in danger. We have rotating troop presence in that part of the world in Poland. He is really endangering our troops and endangering U.S.

national security with this thoughtless and not well considered of second and third order effects of consequences of what he's saying. He doesn't understand them, and he's putting our troops in danger. And of course, adding urgency to all of this is Russia's invasion in Ukraine. Let me ask you about the status of that.

Obviously, Lieutenant Colonel vinmin, we had that explosive meeting in the Oval Office just last week between President Trump and President Zelensky. We don't know if the mineral deal is going to be signed, but very quickly, can you tell me, do you think this can be resolved? I think it can be resolved. I think Trump wants this deal.

The Ukrainians want this deal also. Now that the U.S. is trying to, Trump is trying to expect a bigger cost. I think this is something that's necessary to keep the U.S.

engaged. But the dangers are unfolding as a result of that meeting. I mean, that's kind of rock the world in a lot of ways with regards to adversaries and friends. We are no longer reliable.

The Europeans still think that there might be a chance to bring us back on sides. But they're now consolidating their own activities and making much, much bigger investments, something that we tried to avoid, frankly, under multiple administrations because we'd rather have them put their resources into data. They're going to look at different architectures to defend themselves. And the bottom line is that we continue to deceive ourselves about Russia and that Russia is not interested in negotiating.

And we continue to betray ourselves with regards to Ukraine, like we did for six administrations, but now in the Trump administration with maximum malice and maximum ignorance that's really put in our alliances and ultimately ourselves in danger, which is what Zelensky said that really provoked Trump, that the U.S. will feel this eventually. That's true. Trump doesn't see it.

Zelensky does. He's right there. He's been fighting for three years. So I think the fact is that our allies are going to try to stick with us as long as they can, but they'll go out alone if they need to.

Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vinman, thank you for joining us. Thank you for powering through despite the fire alarm, which has now ended. We've been cleared. So thank you.

Really appreciate your perspective. Thank you. Coming up next, inside the House's budget conundrum, today's chaotic center vote and talks to avoid a government shutdown with the deadline during the funding agreement just eight days away, the panel's next to watching the press now. Welcome back, President Trump is pushing Congress for more money to carry out his campaign promise of mass deportations.

As part of its ongoing immigration crackdown, the Trump administration removed restrictions preventing ICE agents from conducting raids in so-called sensitive locations like schools, churches, and hospitals. NBC News senior Homeland Security correspondent Julia Ainsley spoke with families and local officials who are facing the possibility that immigration arrests could now take place inside the classroom. Gaping holes left in this Denver apartment door after it was broken by ICE agents the morning of a February immigration rate. Behind it was a nine-year-old Nicole.

She said we were getting ready in the room to go to school, and then ICE knocked down the door, and we were really afraid. We started to cry. We said her mother Maria was taken into the hallway by agents in tactical gear. Maria, along with other adults in their apartment complex, replaced in plastic handcuffs and taken away, leaving behind Nicole and her 11th-month-old sister, Heidi.

Did you think that you were going to be deported back to El Salvador? She told us yes, I mean, I was really afraid. My biggest fear was that they would send me to someplace and deport me, and they would leave my babies. After six hours, Maria was released with an ankle monitor so ICE can keep track of her.

She has since had the device removed, but Nicole was given a notice to appear before immigration court. Maria said she fled El Salvador after the death of her husband, and said she could not support her children there. She crossed the border illegally after being previously deported. Maria says Nicole now has nightmares, and most of all, she is scared to go to school, where she said she once heard ICE agents were patrolling nearby.

What do you think about when you're in school? That they can come again to school, and this time they will be able to enter, and they will take us, she said. Four students who attended this Denver Public School were arrested by ICE the same day Maria was taken into custody, according to Principal Nadia Matton-Marle. So as I was coming into work, I get, my phone starts going up, that there is a rate at one of the apartment buildings where our kids live.

And so I learned that our school bus that was supposed to be picking up our kids couldn't actually get close because of all of the commotion there. Since then, she says attendance here has dropped by 10%. ICE never came on school property, and there have been no confirmed cases of ICE arresting students at any school, but students and teachers here say they are still on edge. And here's why.

The Trump administration did away with a long-standing policy that largely kept ICE from making arrests in schools, houses of worship, and hospitals, leaving open the possibility of students being arrested at school. Back in Denver, the district here filed a lawsuit demanding that ICE stay out of schools. The Trump administration has argued in court that Denver public schools have not been harmed. In this very library, the day of the raid, which didn't happen in our schools, it happened nearby.

The emotion, the fear, and the terror and the eyes of our educators was significant, so no one can tell me that we weren't harmed. Tonight, Maria, Nicole, and Hiday are back in the apartment, sleeping behind the door, ICE once lunch broken. Uncertain what the future will hold for them. And in response to our reporting, an ICE spokesperson says that ICE makes determinations to go into a school on a case-by-case basis, but typically they would not make arrests inside a school.

Also, as part of that lawsuit that was started by Denver public schools, there is now a group of 78 schools, all representing schools in big cities across the United States, that say that their schools are all reporting, increase absenteeism, lower parental involvement, and increase anxiety and fear among students, and they attribute that to the beginning of the Trump administration and the recension of the policy that largely kept ICE out of schools. Our thanks to Julia Ainsley for that great reporting, we want to turn out to another story we're following. The House voting to censure Texas Democrat Congressman Al Green today over his disruption of President Trump's address in Congress on Tuesday night, 10 Democrats join the Republicans in approving the censure in a 224 to 198 vote. The censure vote itself was met with some disruption.

Take a look. Well, several Democrats, including a number of Green's fellow congressional black caucus members saying we shall overcome in solidarity with Green during the Christmas House Republicans yelled calls for order and to discuss Representative Green's censure, and so much more we turn to our panel, Lee, and Caldwell, Chief Washington correspondent for PAC, Chuck Rocha, co-host of the Latino Vote Podcast and founder of Nuestro PAC, and Brian Lanza, a Republican strategist and former communications director for the Trump transition team. Thanks to all of you for being here. I really appreciate it, Lee-Ann.

Let's start with you. I know you've had a long week following, of course, the president's speech closely this week as well as Congressman Green's outburst, the censure vote. What do you make of it? And how does it impact Democrats' overall attempts to regain their footing right now?

Well, first, let's talk about Al Green's actions inside the House floor in the Trump speech, and that was pretty indicative of how Democrats are kind of divided on how to deal with Trump and unsure about how to respond or react to him. Al Green obviously has one idea to be disruptive. He is also, of course, the person who introduces impeachment articles against Donald Trump on his first day of his first term and his first day of his second term. But when it comes to the punishment for Al Green, it is just, and also, it's very symbolic in how the House is operating these days.

People are censured all the time, but they almost lose their meaning. So the quorum in the House is completely broken down, the House is very partisan, and people have just kind of lost any sort of reverence for the institution how you're supposed to act, right? It's funny we were saying if this happened, you know, eight, ten years ago, it would have been absolutely stunning having it happen this year, not quite as surprising because all of that context is so important, Lee-Ann. I want to put up with Jared Golden, one of the most frontline Democrats had to say about Congressman Green.

He said, quote, there isn't a one-size-fits-all strategy for Democrats here when it comes to pushing back on Trump. But folks like Golden, do you think that perspective, he's actually, let me continue to read, if anyone is thinking that it was an effective strategy, they're probably in an echo chamber. My take is that the average American thought the optics were pretty fat. Jared Golden represents a district that was one by Donald Trump, it shouldn't be shocking to anybody, and it's the most rural parts of Maine, which could not be more different than the inner city of Houston, where 77-year-old black man who's the former head of the NAACP, who is out green.

To the point, every district is different, but the one thing that's been synonymous across all Democrats, no matter what matter, what matter, what are you going to do, Chuck? You're just going to fight back, you're just going to take this? Pearl, out green, a 77-year-old old man had to get up on the seat with his cane to be like, stop cutting Medicare and Medicaid, more power to him, fight back at every level that we did. So you don't bother, do you want to bother that?

Are we going to sit back and let folks just run all over us? No, fight back. What does Marjorie Taylor Greene do? What Biden was up there?

She was hacking in and hiss and all across the thing. What is your take, Chuck? Ryan, we welcome all of it. I mean, listen, it shows just how unserious the Democrats are.

They have no message to all they can do is just attacking a lot of us because it's nothing to do with the presidency. Attack, you know, you know, Al Green attacks, you know, the president at the stadium. They have no message so the theatrics are the only thing that sings out. I suspect we're going to see more, and I think the dangerous part for the Democratic Party is the best theatrics are coming out of the far left of the Democratic Party, and the far left is inconsistent with mainstream America.

So the more and more they get highlighted, the more and more voters are turned off like who they are and what they represent. And apologies, of course, I know it's Brian, because I just introduced you. We do kind of look alike sometimes, but your opinion is very dissimilar. Let's talk about, let's say on this topic of the Democratic Party, and talk about what Governor Gavin Newsom said on his podcast, he suggested Democrats were in the wrong for allowing transgender athletes to participate in women's sports.

Really drawing a line in the sand. We are far off from 2028, but it's sort of our first indication that he might be eyeing a bigger political future. Yeah, absolutely. He is obviously of the opinion that Democrats went too far in some of their language and some of their positions.

One thing that he also said in that podcast is that he couldn't believe that Kamala Harris when presented with that very impactful ad from the Trump campaign during the campaign, that she never even responded to it. So Democrats not only were out of the mainstream, but also had no response to defend their positions. But this is absolutely Gavin Newsom who is trying to set himself up. He is predicting that that is still going to be kind of in the mainstream moving forward.

And it is an actual debate among Democrats on many of these cultural issues. Most Democrats say they still want to defend and stand up for people who are victims, people to make sure that the people are represented. But how that is done and how far they go and specifics impacting some of these constituencies is still not clear for Democrats. And Chuck, does it make you uncomfortable that there are so many disparate approaches right now to combating Trump?

Do you think there should be one unified message? For example, Senator Slotkin had a very powerful message to counter President Trump the night of the State of the Union. Is that a playbook potentially? Or do you think that all of these different approaches are potentially empowering?

Kristen, I run campaigns for a living. I don't lobby Congress. I'm not some big-time communication expert like my friend, Brian Lanza. One thing that I know is you've got to win elections.

And to win an election, you need to go tell people why they should fire the president, but also listen to me, Democrats, why they need to hire us and what is to Brian's point. Our message, our vision for the country for a long time, we spend too much time talking about the bad things about Donald Trump. And we should continue to use a different appreciation of what that looks like, why given our vision for what the future should be. Yeah, Brian, let's talk about one of the potential lines of attack that we are hearing from Democrats on the issue that the new budget could potentially chip away from Medicaid.

And also on this tariff issue, I mean, you're seeing the activity in the stock market this week. Do you think that's an area of potential vulnerability for the Trump administration? Yeah, listen, I think the administration has to communicate where they stand. Obviously, Congress has a different position than the president they've always had.

President Trump is the only Republican, you know, a modern Republican who says no cuts to Medicare, no cuts to Medicaid, no cuts to Social Security. He has been that president. The party in Congress differs from him, and there's always that friction, but that's fine. I think where the president needs to be careful with the tariff conversation is for us to pay attention to see if it's actually having an impact on investments.

You know, investments are needed for the growth of President Trump once, for this economy to take off and for us to sort of look the other way with respect to tariffs. If we actually start to see a decrease in investments, that's going to be a right for the president. And I'm sure that's going to have all his advisors saying, you know, what are we going to do because their investments play a key part in Trump's economy. And what's the pressure that put on these Congress folks?

There's about 40 of them that are in marginal seats that could lose their in and off your election. That's what your real focus is. That's why the Republicans, as we said, let's not have any town halls. Well, I was just going to say, Leanne, it takes you to the town halls.

I mean, and I know that Republicans are saying some of these folks are paid to be there. We're trying to report that out. But the bottom line is there are people at these town halls who are expressing their complete disapproval. All of this, as they are trying to move this piece of legislation forward on Capitol Hill, what are you hearing about the strategy?

So the problem with town halls, whether they are paid or not, are just enthusiastic Democratic activists, public sentiment is contagious, right? And that's why Republicans are also worried about this, whether they are their specific voters who will ever vote for Republican or not, but that sentiment does go through the ecosphere. But Republicans, as you know, I kind of feel like I'm on a broken record saying this, they are going to be up for reelection in 2026 and Donald Trump is not. And so that is why a lot of them, whether they are public or privately lobbying the administration or talking the administration or not, they are the ones who are facing voters.

All right, Leanne, Chuck, and Brian, thank you so much. Great conversation. We really appreciate it. Please come back soon.

Silicon funding fallout. I'll talk to the leader of a humanitarian group about the real life impact on the ground of the Trump administration's freezing a foreign aid. You're watching the press now, stay with us. Welcome back.

The Trump administration has scored a court victory in its effort to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development. A federal judge declined a request to protect USAID contractors from being fired, calling the effort a contract dispute, not a dispute over constitutional powers. Today's ruling comes a day after the Supreme Court rejected the Trump administration's bid to avoid paying USAID contractors for work already completed.

The court, however, did not require those contractors to be paid immediately. I'm joined now by the president of Save Our Children, Yonti Saripato. Yonti, thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate it.

Thanks for having me. So let's start big picture. Talk to people who are watching this right now, Yonti, about foreign aid. Why are you so concerned about these cuts to USAID?

So big picture. The impact of U.S. spending, U.S. assistance across the world is immense.

So to withdraw that in such a disorderly and hasty fashion is having a devastating impact. We are literally seeing today health clinics being shuttered, education programs ended, children no longer being protected in refugee camps because a lot of aid organizations have decided to leave because they simply cannot run their presence there and their programs without any cash because none of us have been paid since January. To the Trump administration's arguments that they are carrying out these cuts to USAID and other departments and agencies because they're trying to root out waste fraud and abuse, you say what? The 40% of all humanitarian assistance came from the U.S.

government globally, 45% actually if they last year. 40% of health investment across the world is coming from the U.S. government. We're talking about disease training and monitoring, call of our treatment centers, malnutrition treatment for young children.

We're talking about vaccinations, polio vaccinations in many countries where polio is still in them. So, of course, we work in super hard places to work. That's why we are there. We and so many other humanitarian organizations.

So is it always perfect? No. Things do go wrong. And we actually report on those things because there was a lot of compliance, rightly so, attached to those awards from the U.S.

government. So to say that there's been no impact on that, when I look at having a under five mortality over the last 20 years, many, many hundreds of millions of children are now in school enrolled in girls in particular, much more so than 20 years ago, maternal mortality has dropped massively 20 years ago. And I could go on. So the impact of, and not all of that is just aid, a lot of that is also better governance, better national governments, taking responsibility and having good policy that is also coming out of some of these aid interventions.

So there's been a lot of progress, a lot of that progress is now at risk because of this withdrawal aid funding. Can you, bottom line, exist? Can your organization exist without USAID funding? Yes, we can.

Protected children globally, the U.S. government funding represents around 30% of programized countries. Now, of course, in some countries it's higher and other countries it's lower, so we have to adjust our footprint accordingly and we are adjusting our cost base also accordingly. We have terminated roles both in the United States as well as overseas.

We have announced that we will exit certain countries and we will have to, within countries, reduce, again, our cost accordingly and we will do so. Luckily, we also have a very diverse portfolio. We have phenomenal private companies who support us, private individuals, foundations and like the world over, plus many other government partners that are still with us. So, yes, we can exist and we will, we've been around for 105 years and we will continue to make sure that the children grow healthy, safe and educated, but in the immediate term, we are incredibly concerned, particularly about some of our life-saving interventions.

And just finally, you've said, I was actually very fascinated to read this, you've actually witnessed a retreat in spending in organizations like yours, even before this moment. Talk about that and what is your message to people who are watching this right now? We shouldn't retreat in foreign assistance as it's called the world over, this didn't just start with the new administration at all. We saw it in Europe over the past two years where previously very generous owners have also started to reduce.

And clearly, last week, the UK also announced a 40% reduction in its eight budgets to promote its defense spending. Now, that letter reduction will only start to come into play in 2027, so there is more time to adjust and in some cases to actually make sure that we diversify our funding sources. So all I would say is that, I mean, the impact of these investments, because that is what they are. Investments in potential for children in the world over is having an impact and the impact of those dollars for less than 1% of the federal budget for the US and in many countries that's the same, resulting in all these millions of children being healthy and fed is really a no-brainer.

All right. Yanti, thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate it. We're back tomorrow with more Meet the Press Now.

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