Meet the Press NOW — May 11

If it's Thursday, bracing at the border, pandemic error restrictions are set to expire just hours for now as chaos confusion and tens of thousands of asylum seekers overwhelmed the southern border in a major test of the Biden administration and the entire US government. Plus the local toll on communities at the border and beyond as officials from New York to Chicago, Florida and Texas sound the alarm, struggling to secure enough shelters and support for a record setting surge. And Trump Town Hall Fallout, a Republican Senator, says he won't back Mr. Trump for the presidential nomination after the former president repeats election lives, teases January 6th, pardons and refuses to take sides in Russia's unprovoked war on Ukraine.

Welcome to Meet the Press Now, I'm Kristen Welker. We begin with breaking news along our southern border where in less than eight hours the pandemic Arab border restrictions known as Title 42 will expire, leaving border officials without a key tool they've used nearly three million times since 2020 to turn away migrants. The surge predicted by border patrol agents when Title 42 expires is here. Agents saw a record setting 11,000 border apprehensions Tuesday and another 11,000 yesterday.

One official estimates roughly 65,000 migrants are gathered on the Mexico side of the border ahead of tonight's deadline. Communities in the area say they are already overwhelmed as they grace for an even bigger influx, the Biden administration setting in thousands of military troops to help border patrol agents while ruling out new policies and procedures in an attempt to keep the situation under control. Here's DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas speaking to reporters at the White House this afternoon as he vows that the administration's existing enforcement authorities, what's known as Title 8, will mean tougher consequences for some migrants. The transition to Title 8 processing will be swift and immediate.

We have surged 24,000 border patrol agents and officers, thousands of troops, contractors and over 1,000 asylum officers and judges to save this through. We are clear-eyed about the challenges we are likely to face in the days and weeks ahead and we are ready to meet them. I want to be very clear. Our borders are not open.

People who cross our border unlawfully and without a legal basis to remain will be promptly processed and removed. President Biden, meanwhile, has acknowledged the situation will be, quote, chaotic for some time while renewing calls for a gridlocked Congress to act. Secretary Mayorkas echoing that call today. Congress has been unable to pass immigration reform that everyone agrees and understands is desperately needed.

We are working with an immigration system that was last performed in the 1990s. Migration has changed dramatically since then and we need our laws updated. Now, for their part, House Republicans will be voting on a border security bill in just a few moments, but even if it passes, it will die in the Democratic-controlled Senate. As the White House argues, it will make the problem worse, not better.

The fallout from the crisis at the border is far-reaching. Migrants have been busted, Democratic-sanctuary cities, including Chicago and Philadelphia. This morning, more migrants were dropped in front of the Vice President's residence here in D.C. The state of New York has even declared a state of emergency, as Mayor Eric Adams criticized the Biden administration for not doing enough to secure the border.

Adams is scrambling to find places to house and shelter incoming migrants outside the city, prompting backlash and legal challenges from nearby counties. Joining me now is Julia Ainsley in El Paso, Texas, and Ali Rafa is outside the White House. Julia, I have to start with you there along the border. What are you seeing?

And take us through what's going to happen tonight, the moment when Title 42 lives. Well, it's funny, I'm actually at Gate 42 right now, Kristen, and this is where we've seen some migrants come across. In fact, yesterday, they were bringing them in about groups of 10 or 20, as hundreds were lined up just behind me and Juarez, Mexico to get in. Now, we understand they're making their way down here.

They come from Gate 40 along the wall here, where they're going to be bringing people in, perhaps momentarily. Tonight, that's right. At midnight Eastern time, so that'll be 10 o'clock here, they will lift Title 42, which means that they can no longer send to anyone back without first letting them make a claim for asylum, but they are raising the bar on the asylum eligibility. That means that if you've crossed through a country like Mexico on your way to the border, you could be deemed ineligible if you did not first claim asylum elsewhere.

So that could mean that more people will be sent back, but right now it's not clear exactly how many will or whether or not they'll reach capacity and have to start releasing migrants. As we've reported, there has been the most sent to Border Patrol, instructing them that they can release migrants without court dates, merely telling them to report to ICE, and without any way of actually tracking them that they've done in the past when they put them on, ankle monitors or have them check in on GPS, OK, or apps. That could be gone if they get to the point where they just have too many migrants and they have to start releasing people. So all of that in play now, and especially, all eyes are on cities like El Paso, and they declared a state of emergency because local shelters here are overwhelmed and migrants often end up sleeping on the street, Kristen.

And we know that there has been backlash to all of what you're laying out in those new policies that the Biden administration is aiming to put in place. Let me ask you about what CBP is saying, because as you reported earlier this week, Julia, 11,000 migrants were apprehended on Tuesday, that was a new single day record. Do they feel like they're prepared for this moment? Well, I should say the Wednesday numbers were the exact same, right, around 11,000.

I spoke to DHS officials, some of whom were very candid with me without sharing their names, as you know often happens, and they say, look, we're at the breaking point before we even get to the starting line. But of course, you hear from people like Secretary Mayorkas saying they're prepared, they're going to process people in an orderly fashion. But the more I talk to agents even just being down on the ground here, they're worried about processing times, because even though not many migrants are still subjected to Title 42 now, in fact, just 17% of those 11,000 were sent back in Mexico under Title 42. They are worried that when they bring more people in, it'll just take longer to process them.

They'll get that overcrowding, have to do more releases. It's all just something that could be triggered if they get to certain numbers. So they're preparing right now, Chief of Border Patrol, Raul Ortiz, as he's estimating between 60 and 65,000 migrants are in northern Mexico, waiting to get in on the coming days. And we know that you're going to be there to track it.

Let me turn to you at the White House. Obviously, this dominated the briefing today at the White House. Secretary Mayorkas was there. Does the White House feel as though it is ready for this moment?

And the President raised eyebrows yesterday by signaling that he's open to potentially sending more troops to the border. Yeah, Kristin, this definitely dominated the theme of accurate with dozens of questions being fielded to Secretary Mayorkas. I can tell you, he didn't specifically say whether or not more troops would be sent to the border. Remember yesterday, we heard President Biden react to what we've heard from Texas Governor Greg Abbott suggest that more troops should be sent there, but he did allude to just the simple need for more federal resources to be sent down there.

You heard him in the intro there in that soundbite say at one point quote, he cannot overstate the strain on our personnel. And he essentially said in this briefing that this humanitarian crisis that we're seeing play out along the border is much more than what we can see and feel at the moment, that it's going to extend well beyond tonight and these next few days. He talked about the work that the administration is doing to help this crisis alleviates over the next few weeks because they do expect it to get worse before it gets better. My work is talking about coordination with officials from Mexico, Central South America to create more migrant processing facilities.

He talked about work needed to be done to dispel this continued misinformation by human smugglers to these migrants that the border is open. He talked about ways to possibly improve that CBP one app that many migrants are using to be able to cross into the border. And he also lastly talked about the need for more parole officers and more asylum judges to handle what he said was already a backlog of roughly two million cases. So the White House is well aware that this is going to extend far beyond when this Title 42 lifts at 1159 tonight, Kristen.

And, you know, it's so interesting, Allie, because President Biden obviously campaigned on a promise to enact. He would argue more humane immigration policies than his predecessor, former President Trump. And now here they are with Title 42 about to be enacted. And he's just recently announced what Julia was talking about really making it tougher to see asylum here in the United States.

And some advocacy groups say that he's basically taking a page from his predecessor's playbook. How is the White House swearing that, Allie? Yeah, there's been criticism in some cases from both sides of the aisle to these new restrictions and many advocates also adding to what you said about being more restrictive. They've also said that it's simply unrealistic.

We've heard about these app issues by these migrants from these more countries, Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, who are using this app to apply for asylum before getting to the border. We've heard about issues with that app for months now. That's an issue that's only compounded by the fact that we know that some migrants simply don't have phones to be able to download this app to use it. And my work is responded to that.

Our own Peter Alexander asked that question during the briefing. And he said that simply that there is work needed to be done to improve this. And specifically on what you just mentioned, what Julia was talking about, that small fraction of migrants that would be let go because to prevent overcrowding. He said my work is in this briefing said it would not be for the majority of migrants.

They may be eligible and subject to curfews. And if they don't honor that commitment to ICE, they will be subject to apprehension efforts, Kristen. All right. All right.

Thank you both so much for your reporting of this developing situation at the border. As we mentioned, the impact of the border crisis isn't only being felt in border communities. And the news national correspondent, Gig Gutierrez, is in Rockland County, New York. The Battle of our immigration has spilled over here to Rockland County, New York.

This is Orange Town, New York, some 25 miles north of Manhattan. And last Friday, local officials learned that New York City mayor Eric Adams was planning to bust potentially hundreds of migrants to hotels in this county and another suburban county right by New York City. Local leaders were furious and have since gotten a temporary restraining order to prevent that. And even posted some vehicles from the sheriff's department outside of this hotel to prevent migrants from being busting.

Meanwhile, mayor Eric Adams says that New York City is stretched thin. The reason they have no more resources there to be able to handle this migrant influx and expect up to a thousand migrants a day. This is something that major cities across the country are feeling from Chicago to Philadelphia to even Denver, where many migrants are now sleeping in a parking garage. Others are sleeping in a police station in Chicago.

And this all comes even ahead of the lifting of Title 42 later tonight. But here in Rockland County, New York, local officials say that they plan to keep fighting mayor Eric Adams' plan. No word on whether he might back off on that plan, but it goes to show you the intense nature of this immigration debate as it spills into suburban counties. Back to you.

Yeah, it absolutely does give you tears. Thank you so much for that reporting. Unless the Biden administration looks to Congress for a fix to the immigration system, some lawmakers along the border have urged the extension of the pandemic error policy to give their communities more time to prepare. Joining me now is Texas Democratic Congressman Vicente Gonzalez, whose district encompasses Brownsville along with several other border communities.

Congressman Gonzalez, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having us. So we are just hours away from Title 42 being lifted. Can you give us a sense of what is happening on the ground in your district right now?

Yes. Well, in my area that I represent from Brownsville to McCallen, we have staging centers. We have the border patrol throughout the region. We have state officials also assisting on the border.

We have a staging center in my district in Brownsville, Texas. It's called Camp Monument, which is on a golf course right on the Rio Grande, where migrants are coming and processing right now as we speak every day and are being processed and being moved laterally out of the region and hopefully north into their final destination as fast as possible. The border patrol has done a phenomenal job so far and we're just expecting, we're anticipating a larger amount of crossings every day. Is the situation right now under control?

Do you feel like you're prepared in your community and your district? Well, I was one of the members that was against lifting Title 42, at least for the time being. I thought we could have waited another 60 or 90 days and built more infrastructure along the southern border. We could have built more of these asylum processing centers early on.

It's something that I've been advocating for for the last five or six years of creating safe zones where migrants can come and ask for asylum far away from our southern border. This does two things. It takes the pressure off our southern border and allows border patrol and law enforcement to do their job. And it also removes the cartels out of the equation, cartels who make billions of dollars transporting migrants to our southern border.

I think there is a lot more the Mexican government can do and I think we should be urging them and pressuring them to do their part in stopping some of this migration on their southern border with Guatemala. But just very quickly to my question, do you feel like a situation right now in your district is under control? It sounds like based on what you've described, there's a somewhat orderly process right now. There really is right now.

We're hovering in the Brownsville crossing, for example. We're hovering at about a thousand crossings a day. We can handle that. If it grows to four, five, eight, ten thousand, that is a huge concern that we're extended to then and we don't have the resources.

So I'm concerned if that were to happen, we're cautiously optimistic. We don't know what to expect really at the end of the day. We hope that migrants continue to follow the orderly process, which is not an official process. It's just kind of the way things are flowing along the border.

And I think that's why people are so concerned. Obviously, border communities need more federal resources to deal with this problem. This is not the fault of a municipality. I'm going to follow up with you on your perspective that Title 42 should have remained in place.

The Border Patrol Chief says only about 70%, 17% of the migrants apprehended on Tuesday were actually subject to Title 42 removal. So I guess the question is, is the policy really as impactful as is perceived as you are describing it today? So that's a great analysis, right? It's not as impactful as somebody would expect.

The Border Patrol and CDP are going to pivot from Title 42 to Title 8. So but that's my point, Congressman. Is it time to therefore lift Title 42, given what you just said? Yeah, I mean, we don't know until we actually do it.

But that's why I said I would have given myself a little more time, built a little more infrastructure along the border. But we definitely are going to come to a point where we have no choice but to lift Title 42. Today it's going to be because that's what was determined tonight at midnight. It's lifted.

But what I'm saying is it's not like there's no laws in the books to continue to enforce. We still have Title 8. Border Patrol and CDP will still be enforcing immigration laws on our southern border. And Title 8 includes immediate removal from our country in a process that if you come back twice, you can be prosecuted for it.

So we are going to go back to the traditional laws that we've been enforcing for a long time now on our southern border. But it's not just a clear path that Title 42 has been lifted and you can just come into the country. As you know, the Biden administration has implemented some new provisions to try to brace for this moment, including enacting stiffer asylum laws as well as getting Mexico to help more. But I wonder, given that the president has acknowledged that it's going to be chaotic at the border, at least in the short term, do you think that the administration waited too long to implement the groundwork?

I don't know if they've waited too long, but I'm saying I would have extended Title 42. Built more infrastructure, had more personnel, got Mexico to do more on their southern border, which now apparently they're sending a bunch of their national guard to their southern border. This is something that I've been talking about for six years. It's common sense we need Mexico to act responsibly on their southern border.

There's a lot more they can do, and I hope that they comply with their end of the bargain and they do do it. DHS Secretary Mayorkas is calling for Congress to enact immigration reform, essentially saying there's only so much we can do. As you know, House Republicans are voting on their border bill today. It mainly deals with enforcement, but is there anything in the bill, any area where you think you can find common ground that you would support?

Well, let me tell you, this is a bill that everyone from NGOs to farmers are opposing. That ought to tell you a lot from really progressive groups in our country, which is the most conservative in our country, opposed this immigration bill that they're putting on the floor. I don't know that they have enough Republican votes to pass it. This is a messaging tool being used by Republicans in Congress for their next campaign.

This is not a serious proposal that has any chance of passing on the Senate side. They're not asking us for suggestions or they're not really being negotiable with us on trying to come up with a comprehensive bill that would have bipartisan support. Let me ask you this, President Biden said that he spoke with the Mexican president earlier this week and called him, quote, very cooperative. You've been clear.

You want to see Mexico do more. Can you be specific? What more do you think Mexico needs to do at this critical moment when Title 42 is about to be lifted? Right.

Well, they need to do this now and always. They need to protect and guard their southern border and stop caravans and mass migrants from just crossing and coming to our southern border. They need to stop cartels from charging people for transporting them to our southern border. There's a lot more.

We can open a processing centers in southern Mexico on the border with Guatemala where a silence can claim asylum at that juncture. And if we're going to allow them in, they can fly to their final destination from that point. All right. Congressman Vicente Gonzalez, thank you so much for joining us on a very big day.

We do hope to stay in touch with you about this issue. Appreciate it. Thank you. Coming up, overcrowded and under pressure, border cities in a state of emergency ahead of a potentially massive influx of migrants.

The mayor of El Paso joins me next on how his community is preparing and what resources he still needs. Plus falsehoods a new political blowback. The key moments from former President Trump's town hall as one Senate Republican says he's seen enough and won't be backing Trump for the party's nomination. That's all ahead.

You're watching the press now. Welcome back. We have some breaking news in the New York City subway death of Jordan Neely during an altercation with a former Marine. The medical examiner ruled Neely's death a homicide and the Manhattan D.A.

is looking to charge that Marine Daniel Penny as early as tomorrow. Sources familiar with the matter tell NBC's Jonathan Deans. Penny was seen on video placing Neely in a chokehold. Neely's family along with many political leaders have called for criminal charges.

Penny's attorneys have said the former Marine was protecting himself and others from a man with a history of violence and mental illness. Turning back to the border now ahead of Title 42's expiration tonight. The city of El Paso is preparing for an influx of migrants. The mayor has declared a state of emergency.

The city is also open to vacant middle schools as migrant shelters ahead of tonight's deadline. Joining me now is the mayor of El Paso, Oscar Lisa. Mayor, thank you so much for joining me on what is a really critical day for you there and El Paso. We appreciate it.

Thank you. So how are you preparing for tonight for the lifting of Title 42 and are you prepared? You know, one of the things we've been doing, we declared a state emergency back on May 1st, but we've also been preparing for quite a while to make sure that we have the proper resources. You know, it's the secretary of my work and FEMA has really helped us with the resources we needed, but we all know, we all understand today that the immigration process is broken and it needs to be fixed.

But we've been working on this and we've been working on this for weeks to be prepared. We've opened up the schools. We got the convention center prepared to open and we really we've been working together with our partners, which is tested as border patrol. Every department possible, the city, the county office of emergency management NGO.

So we're really prepared. You know, I can I told people that we couldn't do anything different than right now that we would do it at night tonight. But one of the things that I can tell you we're prepared for today because we're prepared for the unknown, but we're not sure what their specs to come. And as we've been reporting on Tuesday and on Wednesday, we saw record numbers of migrants who were apprehended at the border.

What are you seeing? You were in Juarez yesterday. What kind of numbers are you seeing records there as well? No, I was I was over there two weeks ago and the numbers that we saw two weeks ago were between 15 and 17,000.

You know, they actually have reported really 35,000. And that's why I felt it was important to go over there and kind of talk to the mayor of waters, talk to some of the representatives over there to find out and get a number. So we could be prepared and the numbers about 15 to 17,000 yesterday when we went over there and drove the border and went to all the areas. They tell me the numbers between five, the maximum of 10,000.

So that means that a lot of them have already come across and have gone through hopefully the legal immigration process. I want to ask you big picture about the Biden administration as we've been reporting throughout the hour, the president has acknowledged he thinks it's going to be chaotic. At least for the near term. What do you make of that?

And do you think that the administration is doing enough? Have they done enough to prepare for this moment? Well, that works really well with the Biden administration. And like again, the sector of the workers said, we are prepared.

And, you know, we're preparing for the unknown, like I said a minute ago, but really, we know there's going to be a huge influx. And we're prepared everybody we met this morning with every agency you could think of. And we kind of make sure everybody understood what we're going to do, how we're going to do it. And I did talk to some federal officials and they said that El Paso is probably the city they've seen that really has worked together as a unit because we want to speak with one board to make sure that we held the silent secret but understand that our main responsibility still is the safety of the city of El Paso.

What do you make of the administration's announcement that border patrol officials can release migrants with no scheduled court date, no real way of tracking them? Does that raise concerns for you that it could compound the so-called chaos that President Biden warned of? Well, the process that I see is that they go through the immigration process here in El Paso, we don't administer or do immigration law, but we're here to assist them now. I can tell you that we will help and assist people that have gone through the process and the proper process.

And then after that, it actually set to the federal government. And I really hope that they agree to disagree and come up with some solution because right now there is no endgame as y'all were talking about earlier. There is no endgame and there is no light at the end of the tunnel and we really need to hopefully agree to disagree and come up with legislation that really will help us move forward because our community or any community of the southern border has the ability to sustain this for a long time. Based on what you see here in Washington, do you have any anticipation that there will be a resolution in Congress?

As you know, the Republican-controlled House is voting on a bill today. Basically, it's focused on border enforcement. It's not going to pass in the Senate. The President is already vowed to veto it.

What is your level of expectation that this will happen? Well, my expectation is that something will happen. I know it's been decades and something has happened. In the next two years, Mayor, even though we're heading into an election cycle?

And I agree with you. That creates a huge, huge challenge. That's what I said. Let's agree to disagree and come up with a resolution that's really best for the community, the country, and for the citizens of El Paso and the asylum seekers.

Because at the end of the day, I get that selection process. I understand what's going on, but we're elected to make sure we represent the people of our country. Mayor, before I let you go, this is a crisis that is not going away. I have been to El Paso.

I have seen the strain on your community. Do you have a long-term plan, or are you relying on Congress to fix this? We'll continue. We have one shelter prepared to open.

Other schools have been vacant for a while. We have a second one that's vacant for a while. And then we have a convention center of necessity. But we also have to be able to decompress the system.

And it's important to know when you talk about what's happening. They're not coming to El Paso. They're coming to the United States. And once they get their A number and they become gone through the immigration process, they're free to go.

As you and I would be and travel amongst the United States and go to the destination of their choice. But it's really important as the city of El Paso or any southern border city that we have to decompress the system. We can't have hundreds of thousands of people here without assistance. All right.

Mayor Oscar, Lisa, thank you so much for your time, for your perspective. And good luck over these next several days and weeks with this transition. We really appreciate it. Thank you.

Appreciate you on a wonderful day. You too. Up next, Mayorkas' migration mess will dive deeper into the challenges facing the current Homeland Security Chief with someone who sat in the hot seat himself. Former Homeland Security Secretary Jay Johnson joins me next.

You're watching Need the Press Now. With Title 42 set to expire at midnight, all eyes are on Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas as he tries to navigate a broken immigration system, a broken political situation, and backlash from his own border patrol agents. Today, Secretary Mayorkas again called on Congress to take legislative action to fix the decades-long problem. The Senate Republicans tried to put the onus right back on the Biden administration.

This is a chaotic situation that Americans do not like. Americans like legal immigration. They do not like illegal immigration. And they certainly don't like what's happening right now in our southern border.

Biden has failed our American people, failed utterly, failed, and put us at the mercy of these drug cartels that literally control our, our southern border. Joe Biden has decided he wants an open border where anybody can come across the border and you're just flown anywhere you want in this country. This is despicable he's doing to American citizens. Joining me now is Jay Johnson, former DHS Secretary, under former President Obama and partner at Paul Weiss.

Thank you so much, Secretary Johnson. I appreciate your being here. Hi, Kristen. So let's just start with what you are anticipating over these next several hours.

The President predicted that the situation will be chaotic. What did you make of that assessment? Is that what you're expecting to? I would go with that word.

First, it can't be reassuring to the American public to see the two political branches of our government doing this, one blaming the other. With the numbers that are reportedly piling up on the southern border, yes, it will be chaotic. It will be chaotic for the mayor of El Paso. You just interviewed, it will be chaotic for communities all across the southern border in Arizona, in Texas.

You know, I used to own this problem. My wife volunteers for Catholic Charities in El Paso and McAllen, and she comes back and she tells me these remarkable stories. And ultimately, it's much easier to talk about this now that I'm out of office and I'm here on Meet the Press now. It's a larger problem than it used to be, but there are certain basics to this problem that I think remain true.

One is that the push factors always overwhelm any degree of enforcement or defense we can put up on our southern border. As long as the conditions in Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Cuba, and Haiti remain as bad as they are, family is going to make the basic choice to come to the United States because they know they're better off here, even just for a few years than they are staying at home. And so there has to be a way to address the underlying causes to help eradicate the poverty and violence in these countries and the corruption. We started on that path in the Obama administration in the last year.

The Trump administration suspended that aid. And I know that President Biden believes this to be true. And then here we can talk about enforcement on the southern border. There's a fair amount that can be done that I believe is being done now.

Do you think the administration should have done more on the front end? And how do you assess how Secretary Mayorkas is handling the situation? Is there anything you would have done differently? Well, it's easy for me to sit here and say I could have done something differently, but I'm not in it anymore and I don't live with this problem day-to-day like he does.

I can think of nobody more committed to homeland security, to immigration than how he may work. He's fully committed. He's all in. He's a loyal soldier, to President Biden.

And he's going to work this problem as hard as any human being can work this problem. I do believe that this administration must continue to send an enforcement message, a clear, coherent enforcement message that there is a right way and a wrong way to come here. And if you come here the wrong way, we will send you back. The one thing about illegal immigration is it reacts sharply and quickly to information about perceived changes in our enforcement policy here in the United States.

And so it's important to continue to send the enforcement message. It's also important, Kristen, I believe, to support the Mexicans in their efforts. The border between Mexico and Central America is only 300 miles long, as opposed to 1900 miles long here in this country. And last time I looked, the Mexican government does not have much of a border patrol.

And so encouraging the Mexicans to do more on their southern border, as we did in 2014, 2015, is also very important. And their aspects of our system that operate as magnets. The backlog and asylum applications and the relatively low bar to establish incredible fear to stay in this country. And these are things that both the executive branch and the congressional branch can help fix.

I want to try to sneak in two more questions that we have less than a minute. But first on the messaging, no, it's really critical to hear what you're saying. On the messaging, has the administration been consistent because the President thought into office vowing to be more humane than his predecessor? And some of his critics saw that as an invitation.

And we've seen the language get tougher, but was there a lack of consistency in the messaging from the administration? Well, I believe that now I'm going to emphasize, I'm going to answer it the other way. I believe that now we're seeing a coherent message about enforcement, about alternatives, safe legal paths, regional processing centers. You've got to get people hope.

You've got to get people a lawful, safe alternative to illegal immigration. And the administration, I believe, is definitely sending that message. It's going to take a while to set all that up, however. And final question very quickly, when you were in the Obama administration, you could argue, we saw Congress get closer than they have ever before to actually passing immigration reform.

It didn't happen. What is it going to take, particularly given in this increasingly divided environment? Should there be a small piece of legislation that gets passed, for example, something akin to the gun legislation that we saw? Where it wasn't the big sweeping bill that everyone was hoping for, but they could get a few things done.

That's an excellent political question. In the Obama administration, we believed you had to do it all at once. We came close, as you noted, in 2013, 2014. I still tend to believe that there should be an effort to compromise where everybody gets something in an immigration reform package, because this issue is so difficult politically.

All right. Secretary Johnson, thank you so much. It's always wonderful to have your perspective. We really appreciate it.

Thank you. And before we go to break a new development in the ongoing debt ceiling talks between the White House and leaders on Capitol Hill, the group met on Tuesday. There was a little movement in the talks. And now we've learned that the second plan meeting, which was set for tomorrow, has been postponed.

A White House spokesperson tells my colleague, NBC News is Pierre Alexander, staff will continue to work together, and the principals will meet next week. A source familiar with this adds that the delay is a positive development that staff are continuing to meet, and the time wasn't right to meet again at that moment. So we will continue to track that and bring you any developments we get. Coming up next, new reaction, a new fallout from the former president's town hall performance last night.

We're live in New Hampshire with the latest next. You're watching the press now. Welcome back. Donald Trump, the Republican front runner for the party's 2024 presidential nomination made headlines last night at CNN's town hall, not just with his combative tenure and repeated false claims.

But with where he stands as a presidential candidate, he called January 6, the quote, beautiful day and pledged to pardon many of the rioters. He earns Republicans in Washington to let the U.S. default if Democrats don't agree to big spending cuts as part of the debt ceiling negotiations. He called the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v.

Wade a quote, great victory, and he waffled on what he wants to see the federal government do on the issue. He defended his infamous Access Hollywood comments while also mocking E. Jean Carroll, the plaintiff, who successfully sued him for sexually abusing and defaming her. He also refused to accept the results of the 2020 election over and over again, and he would not commit to accepting the results of the 2024 election.

Additionally, he wouldn't take sides in the war between Ukraine and Russia, refusing to call Putin a war criminal. Here's some of that exchange. Do you want Ukraine to win this war? I don't think in terms of winning and losing.

I think in terms of getting it settled, so we stop killing all these people and breaking them. Can you say if you want Ukraine or Russia to win this war? I want everybody to stop dying. They're dying.

Russians and Ukrainians. I want it to stop time. And I'll have that done. I'll have that done in 24 hours.

I'll have it done. You need the power of the presidency to do it. But you won't say that you want Ukraine to win. You know what I'll say?

I'll say this. I want Europe to put up more money. Well, as you heard there, the audience composed of likely New Hampshire Republican primary voters ate it all up. And so did the Biden campaign.

One Biden visor told my NBC colleague Mike Numbly. The town hall featured, quote, weeks worth of damning content in one hour. And Indiana Republican Senator Todd Young told reporters on the Hill today that following last night's event, he would not support Donald Trump for the Republican nomination. And he sees Paul Hill.

You're just covering Republican primary for us at Manchester, New Hampshire. And of course, he's been tracking all of this. So, Vaughn, give me your big takeaways. And what's the word from inside the Trump campaign today?

How do they feel? Right. Let's see. Let's start with the Trump campaign, if we may.

Here, the multiple advisers that we spoke with were elated in their words by what transpired yesterday. And that's because they felt like Donald Trump was able to go for the time period of 70 minutes and go before millions of Americans. The types of viewers that he has had less direct access to, if you may, over the course of the last 28 months since leaving Washington, D.C. This was his first major appearance on a non-right wing news outlet since October of 2020.

And for those 70 minutes, it was an untethered Donald Trump and one that the American electorate was able to watch in real time. So, you know, Vaughn, I know you've also been talking to Republican voters there in New Hampshire, including some young voters. And I'm curious for what they said to you, what primary voters said to you about how they saw last night. Did he win anyone over who was unaffiliated?

That's what they call undecided voters there in New Hampshire? You know, I was talking to one Republican who was in the room who told me that for all the laughs who did here and there, there were individuals like him that were inside seated there that were uncomfortable by what was taking place. And I was talking to one other gentleman just a bit ago here, and he was telling me that he is still not really out Donald Trump as his primary pick. And would likely vote for him in the November 2024 election, but after last night, he is looking at the likes of Tim Scott.

As he said, there are other Republican alternatives this time around. And so often we heard from Republican voters in 2016 and 2020 was the, well, it's Donald Trump or a Democrat and we don't want to go with the Democrat. Well, this time it's different because there are other Republican alternatives. I think you're moving forward is do events like this lead some of these voters to try to look at different directions.

Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. And of course, the big question, how does it play with primary voters versus general election voters? If he makes it that far behind. Thank you so much for being there and for your great reporting as always.

We really appreciate it. Great to see you. Well, we have much more on Trump's political future 2024 and the state of the Republican party after a quick break. The panel's next.

You're watching the press now. Who do you want to support? I haven't decided yet. We'll be home.

Okay. Where do I begin? Welcome back. Well, that was in the end of Republican Senator Todd Young telling reporters on Capitol Hill today that the former president's performance at last night's town hall was just a bridge too far for him.

Joining me now to discuss this on set is Rhonda Colvin, senior congressional reporter for the Washington Post. Moli, Democratic strategist, executive director of the Georgetown Institute of Politics and Public Service and Sarah Chamberlin, president and CEO of the Republican Main Street Partnership. Thanks to all of you for being here after a bit of a raucous night last night in the political world. Rhonda, let me start with you.

What was your big takeaway from watching last night? Do you think that former president Trump won over any undecided primary voters? Because really that's the goal for him at this point. I think that remains an open question.

I think that town hall was very much for his supporters. You saw a lot of engagement and enthusiasm among the people who were in attendance. So it seems it was for them, those hardcore Trump supporters who will likely vote for him. I know that CNN did say that the audience was made up of people who will be likely primary voters in New Hampshire.

So it was really for his base. You really have to look at who tuned in. Did people in the middle want to watch that? I think that a town hall like that may have been structured for those who remember why they did not vote for him and those who want to vote for him.

Sarah, what did you see last night? I saw the same thing. I actually agree with you. That was for his base to get them fired up, that he's back and he's ready to go.

And I think the middle of the road people, like Todd Young, maybe some of them were a bit disturbed, but he hasn't started to try to get them yet. He's really focusing on his base at this point. And we saw the president come out pretty forcefully and say, this is a reminder that if you want more of this, if not, give it to my campaign. It was basically the tweet from President Biden.

And they are basically spiking the football. Do they have a right to? I mean, does this help in a general election, do you think? Yes, I think it does help in a general election.

I think most Democrats are not naive enough to think that a Donald Trump nomination automatically delivers the White House back to Joe Biden. This is going to be a competitive race. But if you're an undecided primary voter, after watching Donald Trump going back to 2015, that means you need to see something new. And he did not show them anything new last night.

What if you were sort of one of those independent voters or undecided voters who were a little squeamish, but had forgotten the chaos of the Trump years? Boy, did he remind you last night. And that's what the Biden campaign is celebrating. Yeah.

And you know, one of the things that struck me last night, of course, women voters are going to be critical. They always are. And there were a couple of moments that stood out to me where my ears worked up. And I wondered how it would play with suburban women voters.

For example, when we heard the crowd cheering when he went after Eugene Carroll and the moderator, by the way, Caitlyn Collins, who spent the night fact checking him. A senior Trump official told Jonathan Allen, when the left's melting, we know it was a good day. What do you make of that? I actually think last night could be a win for both the Trump campaign and the Biden campaign.

I agree with you. Trump did what he needed to do to get the base fired up, but he turned off a lot of the independence that Biden needs. So we study, we call women, women who study suburban women voters, because that's where most of the Republican state conservative members live. And they're like, oh, you know, do we have another option besides Trump?

And they're hoping that we do. If they don't, they're really torn between a 78, 79-year-old man and an 82-year-old man. So I'm not sure which way they're going to go yet. To be honest, I mean, the Trump throws them a lot of rhetoric, but at the same time, they're really concerned that Israel Biden really meant so they're capable of another four years.

We also have the former president's sound on the issue of abortion. Caitlyn Collins asked him about this. Would he support a federal ban? Let me play part of that.

Would you sign a federal abortion ban into law? What I'll do is negotiate so that people are happy. You would sign a federal abortion ban into law. I said this.

I said this. I want to do what's right. And we're looking. And we want to do what's right for everybody.

What's right. First time, the people that are pro-life have negotiating capability because you didn't have it before. Some of your allies on Capitol Hill say that they want to introduce legislation when it comes to banning abortion. If they send it to your desk, would you sign it?

Some people are at six weeks. Some people are at three weeks. Where's President Trump? President Trump is going to make a determination what he thinks is weak for the country and what's fair for the country.

Rhonda, how does that play with Republican voters? That's a core issue. Very core issue. In fact, it was one of the deciding factors for a lot of voters I spoke to when I was talking to people on the campaign trail during the midterms.

People are still talking about the issue of abortion. You see from that clip that Trump in real time is trying to figure out what to say. Even though some of his statements, we already know what he may say, that's one that you know he's still trying to figure out how it might play. And again, it was for his base, too, bringing up about his role in placing the Supreme Court justices on the bench.

I think most Republicans who are going to be running for president in 24 have to encounter these questions about abortion, but they're still trying to figure out which way they're going to go. Sarah, you and I spent a lot of time talking about the issue of abortion and how Republicans are talking about it. He was trying to walk a line last night, which you could argue politically speaking may actually help him. It may, but I actually don't see him ever getting the opportunity to sign any type of federal law.

I know most of the main street members want this to be a state's issue. I mean, that's what the Supreme Court said, give it back to the states. That's where most of our members are. No, the question that keeps coming up in democratic circles when I talk to sources is, have voters been realigned around this issue?

And his discomfort with answering that question directly was almost a signal, and we know from the reporting, that he's also a little uncomfortable about what it all means politically and what we saw play out in the midterms. Yeah, what we saw play out in the midterms, what we saw play out in Kansas. Right. Wisconsin.

Wisconsin. I think there is a bit of a realignment happening. I'm not sure how quite how seismic it is, but it really kept Democrats in the game last time. One of the things you keep hearing people say they like about Donald Trump is he speaks his mind.

He tells you what he thinks. That's not what we just saw in that clip, and it just goes to show how much it works. I don't know if I agree with you on that, because he used to be pro-choice. So I don't know if he knows what his mind is on this issue.

He's been all over the place on this. Well, and another issue, he wouldn't speak his mind, which is when he was asked if he would call Vladimir Putin a war criminal. This is a moment where if you are a conservative, you know, you want to rally around, or most conservatives rally around a strong national defense and Ukraine in this moment. Could that hurt him, particularly on the debate stage and give it opening to some of his rivals?

That's exactly where my mind went when I heard him say those times about Ukraine and not decrying, you know, Russia's invasion of Ukraine. And I was thinking back to last year when most Republicans and Democrats, it was really the only bipartisanship we saw much less. You're on the hill, it was around Ukraine and supporting them. There were a lot of Republican voters who still care about supporting Ukraine.

I think the comment he made there is something he will have to be explaining, you know, as the primary season goes forward. Sarah, do we finally start to see some of his opponents go after him on that issue? Yes, I believe you do. And I do think even the hard conservative base does support what we're doing in Ukraine.

Yeah, Mo, your take, final word. He just can't quit Vladimir Putin, right? Like he just, he just had this thing about Putin going back to his days as a first time candidate, and he just can't quit him. And it's going to get him, I think it's going to continue to be a problem for him in the primary.

All right. Thank you so much for a great conversation to end the show. Really appreciate it. Great to see all of you, Rhonda, Mo and Sarah.

And thank you for being with us this hour. I'm back tomorrow with More Me The Press Now. NBC News now coverage continues with Aaron Gilchrist in for Hallie Jackson right now. As the day wraps up, get the scoop on what's been happening with Here's The Scoop, a new podcast from NBC News with meter host, Gaz and Vesugia.

We'll take a deep dive into the day's top stories with NBC News's trusted journalist. It's a fresh take that's sharp, thoughtful, and it's informative for you closer to the headlines and conversations that are shaping our world on the front page, The Zeitgeist. Here's The Scoop from NBC News. Listen daily on Spotify.