Meet the Press NOW — May 1

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A shake up at the White House as President Trump confirms his national security advisor, Michael Waltz, is leaving his post in the wake of a signal check controversy, but says he will stay in the administration. Plus, after months of conflict, the US And Ukraine reach a deal to tighten diplomatic and economic ties, marking a major step for the Trump administration towards peace talks and away from Russia. And a federal judge blocks the Trump administration from deporting migrants without due process, rejecting its argument for invoking wartime powers during peacetime and a potentially major setback for the White House's sweeping immigration crackdown. Hi there.

Welcome to be the Press now on white nobles in Washington. And we begin with the first major shakeup of the second Trump administration. This afternoon, President Trump confirming reports that his national security advisor, Mike Waltz, would be leaving his post, announcing on Truth Social that he will nominate Waltz to be his ambassador to the United nations and that the Secretary of state, Marco Rubio, will add the job of national security advisor to his portfolio in the interim. Michael Waltz was with the president as recently as yesterday during a cabinet meeting in which he effusively praised his boss in front of the cameras.

The shakeup comes as Waltz faced questions from some Trump allies about whether he was ever the right fit for the national top national security post. Waltz, of course, faced withering criticism from national security experts for organizing that ill fated signal chat about US Military strikes in Yemen and for accidentally including a journalist in the unsecured chat. Waltz took responsibility for the incident and in the aftermath of the security lapse. The president suggested that his job was safe.

The public understands that he's a very good man. That man is a very good man right there that you criticize so slowly. He's a very good man and he will continue to do a good job. Waltz is now going to have to answer questions about that incident when he goes through the Senate confirmation process to be UN Ambassador.

The shakeup also comes as right wing allies of the president like Laura Loomer were aggressively lobbying Trump to Oswald's arguing he wasn't mega enough and represented an establishment foreign policy at odds with the president's agenda. Not surprisingly, Democrats today largely welcomed the news that Waltz was leaving his post, but did express concerns about who would take his place, while also saying that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth should be the next to lose his job. Which one? Overdue.

I mean he's a guy who started death. Classified channels available. But I also think Hexf needs to be fired as well. Mr.

Walsh is only the first and maybe not even the worst who should go except her defense body fired today. I'm not surprised that there is turmoil after the signal hate fiasco, but I think there's a lot more. In words of the late and great John McCain, there's more shoes to drop off the centipede. And joining me now, NBC News White House correspondent Yamicha Sindor, Andrea Mitchell, chief Washington correspondent and chief foreign affairs correspondent for NBC News, and NBC News national security reporter Gordon Lubal.

So Yamiche, we'll start with you. Why the shakeup now and what are we hearing from Waltz? Well, this is all, of course, just still developing. What I can tell you is that a number of sources are now telling NBC News that this ousting of Mike Waltz from national security advisor to now being nominated to be the UN Ambassador comes because he was facing a lot of scrutiny, Rudy, because of that signal chat where that energy of the Atlantic was added to that group.

So the president hasn't said definitively that's what's going on. Marcus himself. That's essentially what went into this decision. The other thing to note here is that of course is Marco Rubio is stepping in as interim national security advisor.

Sources circus in law, of course, moderating the pat press that this person is saying now that Margaret Rubio might be in both of these roles indefinitely, which is really, I think something that the official told person is to say that Henry Kissinger might be a sort of precedent for this happening. Marco Rubio is also the acting head of usaid. So he has a lot of roles to fill, but the President is actually feeling good about the fact that he can do all these things. Right.

And then there's the Laura Loomer of all this. You. She, of course, a right wing gadfly, a conspiracy theorist, some would argue a very extreme character on the Internet. And she is the one taking credit for Waltz's oster.

Is there any sense that she actually played a role in all this? I'm not sure if she played a role in whether or not Mike Waltz and his deputy at some point were expecting Deputy Alex Waltz also leaving his post. It's just not clear. We know that she played a role in past firing to the NSA in past.

People losing their jobs are being moved around in the administration, but it's just not clear whether or not Laura Loren actually was the reason why Michael Walt is losing his job. We know the President has been steadfast in saying that he believed that he was confident Mike Waltz, that he didn't want to leave the administration. So now he's moving into the UN Ambassador role. He's nominating him for that role, which is going to be Senate confirmed.

If, of course, he can get this kind of confirmation. But it's just not clear what exact role she may have played in this. Okay, give me a thank you for that. Reporting was turned out to Andrea and Gordon here in studio.

You, of course, were at the State Department briefing today. This news was kind of unfolding. We didn't really know which direction was going in. You were actually asking the spokesperson, Tammy Bruce about all of this while the news broke.

I want to show our viewers exactly how that played out. Would the secretary consider a request from the President to replace Mike Wallace temporarily in another fashion? If that is something that the President thinks would be good for the country, Is that something that the secretary would consider? Obviously, I'm not going to jump ahead of thinking what the Secretary might say or do in any context.

The President has just written on Truth Social that Mike Waltz is going to become the new U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Well, there we go. And in addition to that, he says that in the interim Secretary of State Marco Rubio will serve as National Security Adviser while continuing his strong leadership at the State Department.

Do you know how long he's going to be serving in Bullfront? It is clear that I just heard this from you. I had. I.

This is the magic. Well, I. I have some insights as to the potential of certain things that might happen. Adrian, if anything signifies how chaotic and unpredictable this day was, that Even the spokesperson of the State Department seemed to be caught off guard by all this.

I'm caught off guard perhaps by the timing of the announcement of the decision. And that sort of tells you the whole story. The president posted it on Truth Social. I heard about it.

That's why I asked the question to lead off at the briefing. And the fact is that Marco with you, has been spending a lot of time at the White House. We've been reporting on this and he's been spending time at the White House because he and others realize that it's very difficult to be Secretary of State when all the decisions are being made in the Oval Office. And he has other reasons, swearing ends of a messengers and all.

But that's it's so symptomatic of this presidency that it's Donald Trump who makes all the decisions. There isn't a process necessarily where they have deputies meetings and it moves up the chain of command. And we saw that from the signal meeting, which didn't by the way, include any military. Now, arguably, Pete Hegseth was more at fault for the signal meeting, even though Mike Walsh convened it.

The secret information, the sensitive information was all disclosed by Pete Hegseth. That and on the second signal to family members. So the fact that he is so far surviving is remarkable. I think Laura Loomer may have a lot to do with this because a lot of people experienced in Washington think that Mike Walsh should have retired with the conspiracy or resigned rather, when this conspiracy theorist 911 denier went walked into the Oval Office with a list of his aides and had then fired him a couple weeks ago.

And that was remarkable, undercutting him. So he's been on thin ice and not just because of the single thing. And now he has to go through a confirmation which is not required of the national security advice. And Democrats are eager to ask about that.

But here he was really trying to prove his bonafide because he came in with people saying he's an alpha. He ran against Donald Trump. He was Little Mario 2016 campaign Lil Marco rather in the 2016 campaign. And I think what he has proved by certainly evolving, shall we say, on a number of the issues that he held so dearly as a senator on Ukraine, on foreign aid, on immigration, which he had once co sponsored in a bipartisan way in the Senate, that he has proved himself to be a MAGA loyalist.

And just look at his Cabinet statement yesterday, sitting next to the president, which was really, I mean, I wonder though, having both of these responsibilities, two enormous responsibilities, being in Charge of the National Security Council, also being in charge of Department of State. What's the vibe on. Are people nervous that he's gonna have so much responsibility now? I think some of them may feel more empowered because he's closer to the seat of power and he's been spending so much time at the White House anyway.

But I do think that just in terms of travel and communications and the portfolio, already he was somewhat being overshadowed by Steve Wyckoff, who has the Russia portfolio for meetings with fighting Putin, not by the Secretary of State. The Iran negotiations as well as Gaza. Secretary of State has not spent much time at all on that Middle East. He has spent time in the Gulf, not so much in the Middle east and in the Gulf and Riyadh in connection more with the Russian talks in Ukraine.

So it may be more difficult that it wasn't Henry King, but Henry Kissinger did it uniquely because he did, you know, the overture to China. He did so much. And it was, of course, Vietnam. Yeah, it's important.

Let's take a look at this from your perspective as someone who covers national security. I mean, how is the national security world reacting to all this turmoil right now? First, definitely a surprise. And I talked to some people, including allies today, who were taken aback by it.

And I think we all kind of recognize that there was a surprise there. I think it'd be interesting to see how the president's national security, foreign policy potentially changes. You know, Waltz was kind of seen as maybe not enough, maybe a little bit too much of a war hawk. And yet.

And so we have this fight in the Red Sea against the Houthis. It was Secretary Hexthat that I might point out that last night tweeted a pretty aggressive tweet against Iran, and we're going to come get you that sort of thing. So see if, like, some of that policy maybe begins to shift actually under review. Does it create a new level of focus on Secretary Hexatho and every Democrat I talked to during the Capitol Hill, you said automatically turned the conversation in his direction.

And once Mike Waltz goes through this confirmation process, I have to imagine Hegseth thing is going to come up over and over again. I don't think the Hegseth story is over. I think there's more to come, probably. You know, we obviously saw that reporting suggested the president didn't want to lose a cabinet member in the first 100 days.

So we don't. Walt is not a cabinet member per se, but, like, we're just past that. I think maybe we're getting to the point where he would feel more comfortable removing Hegseth in the coming weeks, not because of signal gay per se, but like for the other reason. Smartly just mentioned his tweet last night, Hegseth about Iran.

I would watch Iran closely in the Houthis because they are not holding the talks that we expected this Saturday for logistical, quote, reasons. They've been postponed. And that was supposed to be the next round, the third round of negotiations. And coming with that very aggressive post from Hegseth, they've got good reason to go for the Houthis.

You know that the president is really concerned about doing something to control the Houthis, punish Iran and stop them from could that extend an actual conflict with Iran? Are we anywhere near that? No, I don't think so. I think that if anything that would come if these negotiations fall apart, then Netanyahu would move in very quickly because he is very much concerned about these negotiations.

Our sense is that Hegstaff's tweet was not necessarily coordinated and the language and the kind of tone and tender of it was maybe a little bit beyond where the administration is right now. We're not getting ready for a big fight over the weekend or some kind of major attack. I don't even know. But I just think there's more to common on the twigstaff.

Okay. There's so much to talk about today. Andrew Gordon, thank you for being here. Appreciate it.

And joining me now is John Bolton, who served as national security adviser during the first Trump administration and UN Ambassador during George W. Bush's presidency. So someone who knows a lot about both of these jobs. He also just wrote a Wall Street Journal op ed that just published Chaos is embedded in Trump's DNA.

Mr. Bolton, tell me first, what surprised you more, that Waltz was departing as national security advisor or that he was being nominated to be the UN Ambassador? Well, I think the latter was more surprising. I think most people in Washington believe that it was only a matter of time before Mike Waltz moved on, probably outside the administration.

I'm surprised that they've nominated him for a job that would require Senate confirmation because you can guarantee that the confirmation hearing will be dominated by the signal chat group issue. It's a great job, I think at the U.N. i think he could do fine. He could do a fine job up there.

I wish him well, but it's not going to be fun going through confirmation. So should we proce as a promotion? Was he fired? Is it something in between, you know, both of these jobs?

Which one is More important? Well, you know, I don't know. It wasn't my career path, but everybody does it a different way. I think in a way it was designed to be a face saving exit for Mike Waltz and unexpected.

Perhaps it was just decided today. We're certainly no rumors of this before, but I do think that the administration was caught unawares. I think that's the only explanation for why Secretary of State Marco Rubio is now also presumably temporarily assuming the job of National Security Advisor. So it does show that this was not the plan, let's put it that way.

And how difficult would that be to have the responsibility of being Secretary of the State and being the National Security Advisor? Well, since the creation of the National Security Council and by statute Congress passed in 1947, it's only happened once. Where Henry Kissinger kept his job as a National Security Advisor, became Secretary of State in the Nixon administration in late, I think late 73, at the heart of the Watergate crisis. And it was a unique time in American history, a real constitutional crisis unfolding at a time of enormous danger and uncertainty in international affairs.

And you had the totally unique personality of Henry Kissinger able to do both jobs through Nixon's resignation in August of 74 and then obviously into the early months of Gerald Ford's presidency when Kissinger gave up the National Security Advisor job to Brent Scowcroft. So that one time before is not a good augury for the Trump administration, let's put it that way. And the system doesn't work when the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense holds the National Security Advisor. John, the whole point of that position is to be the broker among the different cabinets and agencies in the national security community and helping formulate recommendations to the President.

So when one person holds both other departments and agencies are the feel that the scale is not tipped in their direction. Yeah. And you write about chaos being in President Trump's DNA. Is this an example of that chaos?

And do you see any signs of him trying to avoid chaos by nominating Waltz to a different administration post? I think that's part of it. I'm not at all sure. That decision may not have been reached today to try and solve two problems by nominating first Elisa Phonic to the UN job and then pulling her nomination.

I feel very sorry for her that that had to happen. It's sort of rubbing salt and wounds. Then move Mike Waltz over to it. But I think they were trying to solve as many problems as they could.

But the problem, the fundamental problem is still the chaos in the Oval Office, not in the chair of the National Security Advisor. Yeah. So in other words, it doesn't matter who Donald Trump has in these positions if he's still the person calling the shots. Is that what you mean?

Sure. And the President always calls the shots. But I think Mike Waltz's experience should tell anybody in the private sector or any other position outside the federal government, if you've got a secure job, think long and hard about abandoning it to go and serve in the Trump administration. And finally, sir, obviously there's a lot of speculation that perhaps the Signal Chat debacle, that scandal, factored into today's decision.

If that's true, why does Pete Hexeth still have a job? Well, that's a very good question. I don't think it's because the National Security Advisor job is not confirmable in the Defense Department. The Secretary job is because otherwise they wouldn't put Mike Walsh up to go through confirmation to be UN Ambassador.

I can't tell the reason. Some people say it's the result of the intervention of this person, Laura Loomer, which would be very disturbing if it's true. I mean, the head of the MAGA movement, Donald Trump, is listening to this person who knows absolutely nothing about national security, and moving aside a serious person in the form of Mike Waltz and opening a big gap in the decision making mechanism. It's there to serve the President.

That's the purpose of it. And Trump is just making a mess of it again. And then finally with Waltz out of this job, are you concerned that there are far fewer guardrails in this administration? Well, Trump doesn't have guardrails.

That's the point I was trying to make in the Wall Street Journal op ed. Those who have the responsibility to try and make intelligible decisions and then carry them out in a coherent fashion have to continue to try and do their job regardless of the chaos in the White House. Obviously, the President makes the final decision, but America is not well served if the only thing that people do is listen to what Trump says and follow blindly what his instructions are without trying to help. Give him information that might inform his decision, give him options he consider that makes the President in a position where he can do the job better, doesn't constrain him, it enables him, if he allows the process to work.

Okay. Former ambassador John uniquely qualified to talk about the news of the day. We appreciate you being here, sir. Thank you for having us.

And before we go, we have a major programming announcement. My friend, colleague and anchor of this show, Kristen Welker will have an exclusive one on one interview with President Trump marking his first 100 days in office. Watch it this Sunday only on MEET THE Press. Still to come though, today.

Coming up, tightening ties. What's next for US Ukraine relations after reaching a landmark deal to rebuild Kiev and repay aid. Don't go anywhere. You're watching MEET THE PRESS now.

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Events. Visit your Ontario Ford store or Ford ca. Welcome back. After months of tense negotiations and an Oval Office blow up, the US And Ukraine signed a long awaited minerals deal yesterday.

The deal will give us access to some of the war torn country's critical resources as a form of repayment for military aid. Remember, this was the deal that was supposed to be signed back in February, but was derailed by the extremely tense and combative Oval Office meeting between President Trump and President Zelensky. Under the agreement, the US and Ukraine will create an investment that will receive 50% of royalties, license fees and other similar payments from natural resource projects in Ukraine. A senior administration official notes that this agreement goes beyond just rare earth minerals, but also includes oil, gas and natural resources.

Here's more. What Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant said about the agreement. I think that this is win, win for both sides and it's very innovative. As President Trump said in the Oval that day to Zelenskyy, you have no cards.

Well, you know what? The President Trump has now dealt him a royal flush because now we can take these cards and go and show the Russian leadership that there is no daylight between the, between the Ukrainian people, the American people, between our goals. And joining me now is Bill Taylor for US Ambassador to Ukraine and a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council. Ambassador, do you agree with the Secretary here that this is a win win deal for both the US And Ukraine?

And does this help get the US Ukraine relationship back on steadier footing? Right. I think the answer is yes and yes. The Ukrainians seem to be happy with this agreement.

They weren't happy earlier. The first drafts of this agreement were not good from their standpoint. They made some proposals, they made some counter offers which apparently the Americans have agreed to. So, yes, both sides now, I think are benefiting, will benefit from this agreement.

And I also think that this is an indication among several that the U.S. ukrainian relationship is back on track. I mean, the Secretary said you have shown that iconic photo of President Trump and Brzelzinsk in the, in the Vatican last Saturday, over and over. That's another indication that this is working in a direction.

Another one is. Another indication is Senator Graham putting together this bill that will sanction President Putin if he doesn't come to the table, all to say that the U.S. ukrainian relationship is on better track. And I think many people, including this administration, recognize that Putin is the problem.

Yeah. And Secretary Bus has signaled that the minerals deal will give the US Some kind of leverage when it comes to negotiating with Russia. I think you agree with that point. But how would you say Moscow is reacting to the deal?

Moscow must be surprised and a bit discombobulated that the Americans and the Ukrainians are now working together. And the Secretary of the treasury says this is an indication of a long term relationship, a long term relationship, strategic alignment between the United States and Ukraine. And Putin thought he was on track to get that kind of relationship. He's not there.

President Putin is not there. Well, it's interesting because the Trump administration, Secretary Ruby in particular, seems to be threatening over and over again that if Russia, Ukraine can't make some sort of progress, that the US Would walk away from these negotiations. Now that this mineral deal is in place, does that make it a lot harder for the US to just walk away from peace talks? I think it does.

I think it does. And indeed the administration has said we're not talking about, you know, days here, we're talking about several weeks to work on this and this new relationship, the strategic relationship between Ukraine and Russia, between Ukraine and the United States and against Russia is an important new element that will force President Putin to decide to come to the table. That's what has to happen. Ukrainians and the Russians, as you're showing there, Ukrainians and Americans, as you're showing right there, have agreed on a long term, a 30 day ceasefire, airline and sea.

And when President Trump took that to President Putin, he said no. So you've got the Americans and Ukrainians on one side and you got Putin resisting on the other side. But there is one big sticking point, particularly from Ukraine's perspective, and that's the issue of Crimea. The Trump administration seems willing to hand Crimea over to Russia as encouraging Zelensky to agree to that as part of these negotiations.

What are the ramifications if the US Were to recognize that annexation of Crimea? What would the political cost be for Zelensky? Well, first of all, President Trump has made it clear that he is not expecting President Zelensky to recognize Russian claim to Crimea. The American proposal of a couple weeks ago, not officially, but it's been reported by you and others what the elements of this proposal are in that proposal.

Yes, it had the United States recognizing the legal claim of Russia toward Crimea. The Ukrainians will never recognize that. The Europeans will never recognize the Russian claim on Crimea. And since that discussion, since that new proposal a couple weeks ago, there have been input from Ukrainians and from Europeans to the Americans to say reconsider that.

Reconsider that. Because exactly what you say, the implications, the ramifications of blessing, of agreeing to, of acquiescing to a nation, Russia grabbing territory from a neighborhood and having it legally recognized would have ramifications way beyond even Crimea. So this has been reconsidered, I believe, within the administration. Okay.

Ambassador Bill Taylor, thank you so much. Always have such a great perspective on this issue. We appreciate it. Thank you, Ron.

Good beer. Up next, a major legal setback in the White House's sweeping immigration agenda as a Trump appointed judge rules the administration's deportations under the Alien Enemies act are unlawful. Those developments are next. You're watching the press now.

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Welcome back. In the latest legal blow to President Trump's mass deportation agenda, a Texas judge ruled today the administration cannot use the Alien Enemies act to deport Venezuelan migrants without due process. The Trump appointed judge said the use of the wartime authority to remove migrants the administration alleges are members of the Chande Aragua gang was unlawful while rejecting the president's claims that the US Is facing an invasion. Joining me now is NBC News senior Homeland Security correspondent Julia Ainsley.

Julia, how significant is this ruling and what does it mean for the president's deportation plan? It really is significant. I know we've seen a lot of rulings about El Salvador and the plan there and Garcia, but this is the first time a federal judge, and mind you, this is a Trump appointed judge, has ever weighed in on the question of can the president invoke the Alien Enemies act right now during peace time and say that these people, these immigrants, specifically, allegedly these gang members are part of an invasion? And this judges saying they're not.

And so we can expect it to go to the 5th Circuit and probably the Supreme Court, but at least now we've kicked that off. And so for the Trump administration, which by the way, isn't really pointing to any staggering deportation numbers yet, this was really their best tactic for shock and awe so far. And now they've had a pretty crucial wound to that, to that soldier. So now the judges made this ruling, though, can the administration still carry out these deportations as it's been adjudicated in higher courts?

No, in fact, they already were on a hold. So just two weeks ago, if you can remember, there was this group of people that were trying to send out in the middle of the night, just like they would on March 15th. Our crew saw them doing a U turn. At that point.

The Supreme Court weighed in at like 1:30 in the morning, I think it was, and said, for now we're issuing a stay. And it was going to say, you cannot remove anybody who's part of this class. So it was already unholed. That was temporary.

Honestly, the Supreme Court could have ruled any day now to overturn that and so they could lift that stay. But this, based on the merit, still needs to make its way up. And so, yes, at this point, there is a nationwide block on Trump's use of that act. Yeah, but the Supreme Court did rule that the administration could proceed with deportations under the Alien Enemies Act.

But the key here was that they had to be given due process. So how soon could this issue be back in the Supreme Court? So what happened? What happened is after they issued that there was pretty much evidence that they were violating the order that wasn't due process.

So that's why they put out this administrator to say now that this judge in Texas has issued this ruling and it's nationwide, it doesn't justify the people in the Southern District of Texas. It's going to need to come back up the Supreme Court. I think the next step is to see what the circuit does. That's traditionally very conservative court.

And so if they then rule it in the opposite way, if this judge in Texas, then it'll be up to the Supreme Court to see what they do with it. And whether or not we'll really get an answer on it by the end of the year. But for now there's a block. Right.

And essentially the reason they're using the Alien Enemies act is to try and get around the same due process that would normally the way the process would normally work, I guess. Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's not that people can't be deported, but the question is, can you deport them to a country like El Salvador where these prisons without any communication and can you do it without due process? I think the question that we're not getting answered in due course because it's all about these Alien Enemies act is if someone is deported under typical law and the judge said they could today they could go to El Salvador, that seems like that could be another lawsuit, that people who are deported should go back to their countries rather than into this prison.

But right now we're not talking about that. We're just talking about people who have no word to depress us all. And we value an update on the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case, especially because Donald Trump basically said this week in an interview that he could bring him back whenever he wanted. How's that going to impact the case?

Yeah, well, he that he could do that. And of course, we'll hear from the judge and Maryland to see if they're doing enough to facilitate it. Also overnight, DHS leaking, putting out a little bit more information to damage his character, showing a pretty egregious domestic violence report from his wife in 2020. This is coming after we already know she did file a protective order some months after that.

Something she said was just basically a reaction she didn't need. These are some pretty scary details about what happened in this case. But what's at the heart of this? He hasn't had due process.

It hasn't been that a judge was able to look at the evidence. He was never able to defend himself and decide that that's enough to remove his legal status to stay in the United States. Julie Angley, thank you. Thanks.

After the break, it's the Trump economy where the White House's efforts to broker dozens of trade deals stand amid new warnings. The tariffs and economic uncertainty could cause small businesses big time. You're watching me Depression now. Welcome back.

The White House is sticking with its economic agenda despite new warnings that this ongoing trade wars could be devastating for US Companies and consumers. After touring a steel plant in South Carolina this afternoon, Vice President J.D. vance lashed out at critics and defended the president's tariff moves. Take a listen.

I'm sure You've heard some criticism of the president's trade policies for people who ought to know better. Because if you listen to the American media or you listen to a lot of politicians in our own country, they seem desperate to forget the very lessons that made Donald J. TRUMP the 45th and 47th president of the United States of America. This morning, Kevin Hasset, the director of the National Economic Council, told CNBC the White House has 20 hard offers on the table with trading partners.

But this comes as GM warns the tariffs could cause a 4 to 5 billion billion hit to the bottom line. New data shows that US Manufacturing activity shrunk last month. And the US Chamber of Commerce sent this warning to the White House requesting that the administration take immediate actions to save America's small businesses and stave off a recession. As a reminder, a majority of Americans disapprove of the President Trump's handling of inflation and trade.

That according to a recent NBC News Stay Tuned poll. Joining me now to talk more about this is NBC News senior White House correspondent Gabe Gutierrez. He is in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, where the president is set to deliver remarks at the University of Alabama's commencement tonight. So, Gabe, it is full steam ahead from the White House on tariffs.

What are we hearing from them today? Yeah, certainly full steam ahead, Ryan. But as you said, the White House is saying they have 20 hard offers. What's notable, they have no deals struck just yet.

Earlier this week, we heard from Congress secretary who said that there was one deal in principle that was handing approval by that country's parliament, didn't say what country it was. Separately, we've heard from White House of officials that a deal with India may be closed, that other deals with Asian countries may be closed. But we're not quite there yet. What the White House has been today talking about is they're trying to highlight investments in the US Already trying to tamp down their spears of a plummeting economy.

They're also touting that Mercedes Benz has announced a new vehicle will be made here at its plant here in Tuscaloosa. Certainly that's something we expect to hear more about from the president as he comes here to the University of Alabama later today, as you mentioned delivering those commencement address remarks, we saw the New York Post, which is a favorite of this White House, skewer Trump's remarks yesterday saying that Americans are gonna have to buy fewer toys. Skimp on the Barbie is the headline. What's the White House saying?

Well, that is, in true New York Post fashion, a brutal headline right there look again, the White House trying to change the subject here and trying to explain away what the president meant. Stephen Miller, deputy chief of staff, brief reporters earlier today here was he tries to interpret the president's remarks. Listen to the point that I think almost every consumer agrees with what they have a choice between a I'm not current choice between the doll from China that might have say lead paint on it that is not as well constructed as a doll made in America, that has a higher environmental and regulatory standard and that is made to a higher degree of quality. And those two products are both on Amazon.

That yes, you probably be willing to pay more for a better made American product. And so certainly the president yesterday a bit of a mistake on his part by his critics saying that he was referring to your technology essentially that children will be asked to sacrifice this holiday season. Again, the White House not really acknowledging that today trying to change the subject and essentially reiterating that they believe that this short term pain will be worth it for long term gain. Right.

And also the same White House that is having the fact that they're trying to deregulate and get rid of a lot of this oversight for some of these things that Stephen Miller was bragging about. Gabe in Alabama, thank you so much for joining me. We appreciate it. Joining me now on set is Vivi Nyaki.

He's the president of the center for American Progress Action Fund and Sarah Chamberlain, president and CEO of the Republican Main Street Partnership. So Sarah, we're going to talk about the company. We have to start with the news of the day, which is of course Mike Walsh getting moved from NSA to UN Ambassador. The same leak, this controversy that was weeks ago.

Why do you think this is happening now? So first of all, Mike is a good friend of Pokemon Street Partnership. He was a member when he was in Congress. He's a great man.

I think that they were waiting to try to find a soft landing for him. The US UN Ambassador came up, they pushed him over to soft landing. It's a job for him. And what do you think it means though about the trajectory of the administration right now, particularly the national security space?

I think that he's making obviously the president's making some changes there. He continues to make some changes. I don't know how many jobs Secretary Rubio can do. I think this is not his fourth.

But he will figure out who should come and replace Night Watch and the first Trump administration. Remember, every day someone was getting fired via tweet and obviously we haven't seen that level of chaos and Turmoil, but this is reminiscent of that. Could this be the start of a trend? I think it's actually kind of embarrassing to your point.

If they were to, if this is because of signal gate, you had two weeks you could have planned out who was going to be the new national security advisor. Having the secretary or the press secretary of the secretary of state find out from the press that her knew her boss is actually going to play this role. Absolutely. This is our national security.

This is one of the most important roles in the White House, protecting our national security. And they're fumbling this. It is sort of an indication actually that even though operationally things may seem a little bit better, they're obviously not the same kind of chaos. They're more loyalists, they're still deeply incompetent.

And it's like people's lives are at risk. Right. The single gate was not just a Washington controversy. Soldiers lives were put at risk because of that.

So I think it is a real problem for them. All right, let's now turn to the economy. And we were just talking with Gabe about these comments that President Trump said about children being having to deal with less dolls around the Christmas season. Naveen, Donald Trump told us and promised that prices were gonna be lower on day one.

He said nothing about having to deal with less around the holiday season. Is this a gift for Democrats? How did Democrats take advantage of this? Yeah, I mean listen, this is an absolute con.

There's no other way to say it. Donald Trump talked about never once did he say it would be painful. He promised it was gonna be prosperity, this was gonna make America great again. And you know, he's been saying for weeks now there might be some short term pain.

He's shown a lot of callousness. You know, kids, don't you know you'll do this too. Secretary of Commerce saying it's okay, give me a Social Security check. I do think that's really revealing how much he actually doesn't care about the American people in doing this and how, you know, this is, I don't know that there's an example of this in our history of a self inflicted act tanking an economy.

Maybe Liz Truss, surely when she was the premier in Britain, you know, her actions really sent reserve their tanking. But this was all meant all driven by Donald Trump's chaotic policies. And the other people are the ones suffering. Sir, he did promise a lot of this, right?

He said he was gonna institute terrorists. He said he was gonna go after what he thought were unfair trade practices which should have Been a little bit more clear about how it would be difficult early going. He could have been, but he wasn't, and now we're living with that. But I'm not talking in 60 days.

I love to come back here and sit again because I think we're gonna have a lot of the deals done and we're gonna be moving the country forward. And the American people voted for him overwhelmingly. He got the majority of the vote. They knew terrorists were coming.

So we're really not that concerned about it. Main Street, 60 days. We'll have this discussion again. All right, we're gonna read back for that for sure.

But, Sarah, do you want to play for a little bit of what President Trump said last night? He had a phone town hall last night with another network. Listen to how you respond to a question. What's the biggest mistake you think you've made in the first 100 days?

I'll tell you, that's the toughest question I can have because I don't really believe I. Maybe we're in a transition period. We're in a transition period. I think you're going to see tremendous economic victories over the next period of a year.

So I don't know if we've ever seen Donald Trump in minimum. Is that what people want to hear right now is they're dealing with kind of the fallout now from these economic decisions. He never admitted he made him sick the first time he was president. They elected him again.

I think they're kind of used to this, so they don't expect him to admit anything that's not perfect. I think the risk is for the rest of the Republican Party, right. Donald Trump's not going to be on the ballot again. And he's kind of showing this sort of callousness.

It's a real betrayal of the middle class. And I think for him, it's. Who cares? I mean, American people are telling him in poll after poll after poll, they're really unhappy.

You have consumer sentiment, they're really unhappy. But the one thing they really trusted Donald Trump, there's one thing in the first term, his numbers were always really positive. It was on the economy. And he is in the Joe Biden territory here in the 30s and some of these surveys on his approval and he's tone deaf about it, right.

Not to admit any mistakes, to talk about kid kids having to make sacrifice. I think for the rest of the Republican Party, there's a real price to pay to just pretend like, you know, we don't really care about the American people. What's more important is Donald Trump. But what's going for us?

The Democrats are even lower in the popular votes. So, I mean, changing very fast. The generic ballot for our members are not saying that the districts of Democrats are still very unpopular. Okay, we'll start at that point.

The Republicans have a big challenge in front of them over the next few weeks to get this translation package over the finish line. How are they going to get these extension of these big tax cuts, the big cuts that they're looking for, and do it without hurting Medicaid recipients across the country? Can it be done? It is going to be a balancing act, but they're confident they can get it done.

They're hoping to find a lot of waste and fraud in Medicare and Medicaid where they're really going to pull it out from there. We'll see $800 million worth. It's a lot. I mean, I fully met.

It's a lot. But they're hoping to get there. Next week's going to be a key week. But to Sarah's point, will Democrats be able to message on this effectively and get on the same page?

This is a g. If you're the Democrats, Americans have a lot of 4 billion problems. Housing, groceries. Are Republicans doing anything to address?

And he goes, no, they're actually getting a tax cut to the wealthy disproportionately benefits the wealthy. They're talking about lowering the corporate tax rate right now. And they might take all your health care, the basic needs that American people have. I think it's just going to show the cruelty and the chaos of the Republican brand.

And that is probably what the Democrats need to get the game plan on Capitol Hill. Sarah, they want to get this done by July 4th. That's July, around July 1st, which is 60 days ago. We're going to have a review of this.

It'll be at the same time as the reconciliation bill gets done and see where things stand. All right. I appreciate you guys both proving here. Thank you so much.

So much. Still to come, the consequences on Capitol Hill and beyond as the Trump administration polls federal funding for biomedical research. That story is next. You're watching MEET THE PRESS now.

Welcome back. The Trump administration has dedicated much of its first several months to cutting government staff and slashing funding. That includes at the National Institutes of Health, the government's primary agency responsible for public health and biomedical research. NBC's catalog correspondent Julie Circuit spoke to senators from both parties and the mom of a cancer survivor about the impacts the funding cuts could have on Americans I sit before you not only as a mother, but as a witness to what federally supported research can make possible and what it would mean to lose it.

Emily Stanson's five year old daughter, Charlie was only three when she was diagnosed with cancer. There's not an aspect of her life that cancer hasn't touched. As the Trump administration aims to slash research funding at the National Institute of Health, Emily traveled across the country country to call on the Republican controlled Senate to save the program that she says saved her daughter. Without the nih, who would you have turned to?

Nobody. How much did they help you and Charlie? They gave us a future together. The National Institutes of Health supports clinical trials for childhood cancers like Charlie's stage four germ cell cancer.

The trials provided us with the drugs that we needed to save her life. Another trial provided us with an option to preserve her fertility. If she wants to be a mom, she grows up. Charlie loves to dance, sing and spend time with her two siblings.

We thought she was understandably shy. Do you want to say anything? You don't have to. That's good.

But thanks to Senator Patty Murray was occupied with coloring books. The Department of Government Efficiency has already slashed billions in NIH research grants and fired hundreds of scientists. Scientists. We need a surgical approach, not a sledgehammer.

Now the White House is eyeing a 40 cut to the NIH budget in the next fiscal year. According to a leaked draft obtained by NBC News. These actions put our leadership in biomedical innovation at real risk and must be reversed. Senator Susan Collins, the Republican chair of the committee that controls the federal budget, opposes the cuts.

What power do you have as a United States Senator, as a Republican, the party that's in charge to actually do something and push back on something like this, we have a great deal of ability to push back. My approach is to make the case to the administration. I also believe that we need to have public hearings so that the people we represent understand what the consequences. 77% of Americans are opposed to reducing federal funding for medical research, according to a new poll.

Thank you for being here, Charlie, and bringing your mom. And congratulations, Emily. Senator Patty Murray's constituent. Do you think the administration really understands what these cuts are impacting?

I think they sit in an office someplace and have no idea that there's Charlies and Emily's out there that are counting on them. The NIH is the largest funder of biomedical research in the world. If the NIH stopped funding clinical trials like hospitals like Seattle Children's would not be able to exist. And the clinical trials that save kids lives every day wouldn't exist either.

Thankfully, Charlie is now cancer free. But that's not the reality for thousands of American children. I'm hoping to put a base to childhood cancer of real people, their constituents. And we rely on research.

We cannot have them cutting things that are saving kids lives. And Ryan, Emily and thousands of American parents whose children have cancer might find out soon enough whether these cuts the National Institute of Health might become permanent. And that is because we are soon going to see the exact budget proposals for the next fiscal year according to three sources who say those plans can come as soon as tomorrow. Ryan, Joyce, thank you so much for that report.

I'll be back tomorrow with more MEET THE PRESS now, but don't forget as we mentioned, or Chris and Welken will have an exclusive interview with President Trump this Sunday on MEET THE Press. Do not miss it, Chris. In preparing for that interview as we speak, it should make a lot of news. I don't miss it.

On Sunday on Meet THE Press. I will play news tomorrow as well. But the news will continue right here on NBC News. Now my good friend Hallie Jackson is up next.

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