Meet the Press NOW — May 15

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The president's push to end birthright citizenship while also reshaping the ability of judges to fight unlawful actions by the president. Plus, President Trump says the US And Iran are close to reaching a nuclear deal after a top Iranian official tells NBC News in an exclusive interview that Tehran is willing to make key concessions. And all over the map, high level key talks between Ukraine and Russia stalled in Turkey today as President Trump tells reporters that, quote, nothing will happen until he and Russian President Putin meet face to face. Welcome to Meet the press.

Now I'm Yamiche in Washington, where today the Supreme Court hear arguments in a case that could impact who is considered a citizen in this country and could totally shape how judges respond when the president oversteps or abuses his legal authority. Today, the high court heard arguments challenging President Trump's executive order to end birthright citizenship, a right many legal experts degree is enshrined in the Constitution's 14th Amendment. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, said the order violated at least four Supreme Court precedents. The president is violating and establishing not just one, but by my count, four established Supreme Court precedents.

We have the one ARC case where we said fealty to a foreign sovereign doesn't defeat your entitlement. Your parents fealty to a foreign sovereign doesn't defeat your entitlement to citizenship as a child. We have another case where we said that even if your parents are here illegally, if you're born here, you're a citizen. We have yet another case that says even if your parents came here and were stopped at the border and but you were born in our territory, you're still a citizen.

And we have another case that says even if your parents secured citizenship illegally, you're still a citizen. So as far as I see it, this order violates four Supreme Court pressures. The US Solicitor general argued on behalf of the Trump administration, pushed back. He argued that the common interpretation of the 14th amendment is too broad and should not apply to children of undocumented immigrants.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was appointed to the court by President Trump, expressed skepticism about the logistics of the order. This is a very practical question, how it's going to work what do hospitals do with a newborn? What do states do with a newborn? I don't think they do anything different.

What the executive board says in Section two is that federal officials do not accept documents that have the wrong designation of citizenship from people who are subjected to the executive. How do I know that the states can continue to. The federal officials will have to figure it out. So you can imagine a number of ways that the federal officials could.

Such as? Such as they could require a showing of documentation showing the presence of the country for a temporary visitor, for example, see whether there ought to be one visa, which would exclude kind of the first white citizenship in that kind of for all the newborns. Is that how it's going to work? Again, we don't know because the agencies were never given the opportunity to formulate the guidance.

They would have 30 days. They only have 30 days to do this. You think they can get together in time? That's what the executive order instructs them to do, and hopefully they will do so.

And today's hearing dealt with far more than just President Trump's executive order. It was also about whether federal judges in lower courts have the authority to issue nationwide injunctions to place a pause on actions they deem unconstitutional. Multiple judges have already imposed those kinds of injunctions against the Trump administration holding some of its most sweeping policies, including its executive order on birthright citizenship. That question was front and center in today's arguments, with multiple judges suggesting they had reservations about curtailing the judicial branch's ability to uniformly address urgent legal questions about the executive branch's actions.

The court's liberal justices warned it would open up a Pandora's box that could allow the executive branch to run roughshod over judges and the rule of law. At one point, Justice Amy Coyne Bear, another Trump appointee, challenged the US Solicitor general about this administration's respect for the lower court rulings. You would respect the opinions and the judgments of the Supreme Court, and you're saying you would respect the judgment, but not necessarily the opinion of the lower court of business are practices that respect the opinion as well in the circus as well. But my understanding is that it's not the categorical practice of the way respect for the precedents and the judgments of the Supreme Court has been.

NBC News senior Supreme Court reporter Lauren Torreley joins me now. Also with me is NBC News leg analyst Chuck Rosenberg, a former U.S. attorney and former senior official at the FBI. So, Lawrence, I want to turn to you first.

Did the justice give any indication here that of how they would rule either on birthwise citizenship or nationwide injunctions. Right. So as you discussed, there's lots of complicated intervening kind of factors in this case. And like, so my read of it was that the court is very reluctant to say that states can't sue to block this nationwide because the harms caused by the birthright citizenship order can't be remedied by an injunction, only applies to the state.

And it has to apply nationwide because there's so much people moving in and out of states. And states have to then figure out, like, who's a citizen, who isn't a citizen. You'll put a lot of burden on the states to do that. So that's like, one issue where it seems like, you know, as far as the birthright citizenship order goes, that the court might be reluctant to allow it to go into effect at all.

But on the nationwide injunction issue, they definitely have concerns about these rulings by judges across the country that have blocked not just Trump policies, but Obama policies, Biden policies. And it's possible they could try to say something that will give guidance to lower court judges that will tell them, you know, you need to be more careful before you issue these nationwide injunctions. It's really interesting, Chuck. I also want to just look at the 14th amendment, if we could, for a minute.

It says all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. That seems pretty clear to many experts. But is it clear that President Trump's executive order violates this amendment, or is there some wiggle room here? Well, I think it's reasonably clear.

It has been our common understanding ever since the 14th Amendment was enacted in 1868, and ever since a seminal Supreme Court case in 1898 interpreted that very language. There's really only two categories of people who are excluded as citizens under that subject to the jurisdiction thereof language. First, if Amish, your parents were diplomats, let's say from the UK and were assigned here, and you were born to their union while in this country, you wouldn't be a citizen. That's a commonly understood exception.

The other is incredibly rare when I don't know that it's happened. But if you were the child of parents who were invaders, you know, a hostile army invading the United States, and your parents both served, and you were born in this country under their circumstances. Other than that, Yamiche, the common understanding is that subject to the jurisdiction thereof, as Justice Sotomayor laid out today, includes people who are here as a result of their parents arriving unlawfully. There's another issue here, Lawrence, which is that Justice Clarence Thomas said the U.S.

survived without nationwide injunctions until the 1960s. Explain what he's talking about there. And sort of, is there a big change here? Yeah, I mean, there has been a big change.

I think everyone kind of agrees with that. Justice Brett Kavanaugh discussed it during argument today where he was talking about, you know, Congress doesn't pass as many laws anymore. There's, like, there's deadlock in Washington. We'll know about that.

You know, Congress not passing laws that address kind of issues that come up. So when a new president gets elected, they promise all these things to the voters, and they want to get things done. So now they try to do them through executive action instead of doing it through Congress. And that raises big legal issues about whether the president has the power to do that without legislation.

And so we've seen this happen over the last couple of decades. It kind of became a big thing during the Trump administration, the first Trump administration. It also happened during the Obama administration, even going back to the George W. Bush administration.

And presidents of all parties have complained about this bitterly when they're in office, because they're not so worried about when they're not in office. But the Supreme Court justices have repeatedly kind of questioned whether they should do something about this, and so that's why they decided to hear arguments in this case. And it's so interesting, probably because I was kind of struck by the fact that they spent so much time talking about injunctions in charge for you, I wonder. I'm gonna play a little bit of sound from Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson talking about the Trump administration's view on injustice.

Take lesson. Let me just turn your attention to another thing, because the real concern, I think, is that your argument seems to turn our justice system, in my view, at least, into a catch me if you can kind of regime from the standpoint of the executive, where everybody has to have a lawyer and file a lawsuit in order for the government to stop violating people's rights. Chuck, is that a fair assessment? Yeah, it's an interesting way to put it.

I did listen to that part of the argument today with some interest. Yamiche. So we want similarly situated people to be treated similarly. And if a president, to Lawrence point, a Democrat or Republican, liberal or a conservative, issues an executive order, that's arguably unconstitutional.

We don't want every single person who is affected to have to go litigate that matter individually, 94 different federal districts. So that's what Justice Jackson was getting at. And I think it's a compelling point, but the devil's in the details. Yamiche, how do you craft a rule which permits nationwide injunctions in some cases, but not at all?

And perhaps you do so only when there's a significant constitutional issue at stake. And it seems that the president, again, Democrat or Republican, is wrong on the law. Well, as you talk about that, sort of the details of this and how, I wonder, how much upheaval do you think it would create if the Supreme Court decides actually we're going to change the way that these nationwide injunctions function. Right.

So, again, it depends on how they set down the rule. Is there a narrowing of the ability of a single federal district court judge to issue a nationwide injunction? Is it the case that you can only do it in very limited circumstances? So a significant or severe narrowing?

Again, if you have to have every single person who might be adversely affected, to Justice Jackson's point, go in and litigate the matter individually, then similarly situated people will not be treated similarly. And so the birthright citizenship backdrop to this is quite interesting. Amish. But the issue really on the table before the Supreme Court is both the propriety and the sort of mechanism for nationwide injunctions.

And Lawrence, I wonder we touched on it, this idea of sort of what the Trump administration thinks about lower court rulings. Do you think that that is going to at all impact how the Supreme Court sees this case when they hear what the Trump administration is saying about lower court rulings? Yeah, I mean, there wasn't any direct discussion about that in the case today, but there was some pushback from justices when the solicitor general was kind of making, you know, not giving an inch on any of the arguments, including whether if an appeals court ruled in a certain way, would the Justice Department follow the precedent in that circu. That court has said that she wasn't even willing to accept that premise.

So it may be a sort of underlying issue that's going along. And they've had other cases even since they agreed to hear arguments in this case, they've had other cases coming up to them involving Trump administration orders where they've been accused of violating court orders. So maybe something back to their minds. And is there a possibility of a split decision, something where you see birthright decisions may be ruled against but injunctions changed?

Well, I think there is a possibility that they could say because there's three different cases here and three different nationwide injunctions, and two of them involve states. And so, as I said, earlier, they could say nationwide injunctions are good as far as the states are concerned because of the specific harms that they've had. But they could try to narrow or give some guidance to the local court judges that says call your debts on giving nationwide injunctions to individual plaintiffs, which is the other case. So we could see a little complicated ruling coming out at some time in a few weeks.

Yeah, well, I know you're gonna break it down. So, Chun, I want to ask you, what are you looking for next? Well, one thing, of course, Yamiche, would be how fast this decision comes down. More likely than not June or July, it could be faster, but people's lives are affected by this.

And, you know, in order to plan, we need some transparency and regularity. And having different rules in different parts of the country isn't particularly regular. Yeah, well, definitely a case that we're watching very closely. So thank you, Lawrence and Chuck, for bringing your expertise in reporting.

And now turning to the Middle east, where the President is on his final leg of his first major foreign trip since taking office. Throughout the trip, President Trump has repeatedly warned that Iran can never get a nuclear weapon. That comes after several rounds of talks between the US And Iranian officials and after the President told the press that he wanted a, quote, total dismantlement of Iran's nuclear program. Today, while speaking at a business rounding with Qatar, the President seemed to hint that a deal with Iran was closed, though he didn't provide any details.

It's very simple. It's not like I have to give you 30 pages worth of details. There's only one sentence that can have a nuclear weapon. And I think we're getting close to maybe doing a deal.

The President is now in the uae, where he received a lavish welcome. Like we saw during his previous stops in the region, the pomp continued with an official state dinner and visit at the presidential palace in Abu Dhabi. And joining me now is NBC News senior White House correspondent Garrett Hay cousin Abu Dhabi. And NBC News chief foreign correspondent Richard Engle was in Tehran.

So, Garrett, I know you're having a good time. So good to see you. President Trump appeared optimistic about a potential nuclear deal with Iran. Can you tell us how close this is?

Do we know any more about what this guilty look like? Well, none of it's especially close, but it seemed to be a reaction to Richard's great interview with senior member of the Rajat Iranian regime, advisor to the Supreme Leader, that the President turned around and reposted today, suggesting that Iran would be willing to end its pursuit of nuclear weapons entirely and give up its enrichment of uranium to the stage necessary to turn into weapons in exchange for sanction relief? That appears to mirror what the US most recent offer to Iran has been on that topic. And so the President expressing some optimism, although this does seem to be a case where, as he sort of alluded to in that fight, they may have a big picture agreement, but in terms of how things actually come together and how even these ideas would be enforced and followed through upon, I don't think anywhere near that level of specificity.

And President Trump, we have to remind folks, he withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal that was negotiated by former President Obama. Is there a scenario where we get a deal that's similar to the one that he blew up and we end up right where in 2018? Yeah, I think that's entirely possible. This President is particularly distrustful of any kind of multilateral agreement, particularly any kind of multilateral agreement that was engaged in by one of his Democratic predecessors.

And so even if he's essentially retracing the work of the Obama administration and the US's European partners in striking the original Iran nuclear agreement to come up with something that looks very similar, he will feel more confident in it now. I think also the big difference is his belief that, you know, his maximum pressure strategy during his four years as president really weakened Iran economically to the point where they might be more willing to follow the rules laid out in some kind of agreement here, knowing what the consequences were in his four year term when there was not an agreement in place. And the President is, of course, on his final leg of this Middle east trip. How much do you think the President's view of the region has changed?

And what do you think is different as you're on the ground, according to. Well, look, I was on that original trip eight years ago now, but I can tell you from covering this president for a long time, I do think his view has changed substantially. I think he's come to see a lot of himself in the way that some of these Arab leaders operate, some sort of authoritarian, you know, realpolitik, very proud of their exercise of power, very unencumbered by what the rest of the world thinks about them. I'm willing to use influence very transactionally.

It's the way that the President operated in his private business dealings and much the way he likes to operate in foreign policy. He sees that reflected back here. He likes the kind of welcome that he gets. And I also think you're seeing him create some distance from himself on a number of foreign policy issues from Benjamin Netanyahu and from the Israeli foreign policy system, which I think during his first term he was sort of more inclined to move in lockstep there.

Now he feels a little bit more freedom to follow his own instincts. And they're leaving here, the Gulf region, where he thinks he and the United States can make a lot of money by not being too concerned about what goes on behind closed doors in these countries when the US Isn't around or interested. Yamiche? Yeah.

Well, President Trump following his instincts, that's definitely going to continue to thank you so much, Garrett, for reporting. And Richard, what are you hearing from officials in Iran about a potential nuclear deal around the Trump administration now could be quite close to reaching a deal? I spoke to a top advisor to Iran's supreme leader, one of the most powerful men in this country, and he laid out the conditions under which Iran would accept a deal. He said that Iran would agree to never have a nuclear weapon, that it would get rid of its highly enriched uranium, that it would only enrich uranium to a low level required for civilian uses only, that it would allow international inspectors to oversee all of this and verify that it is complying with this deal in exchange for the immediate lifting of all sanctions.

The interview got a lot of attention. It has been played on state television here in Iran. President Trump posted it on Truth Social and told reporters that Iran has, quote, unquote, sort of agreed to the deal. The final details obviously still need to be worked out.

Negotiations. Negotiations are ongoing. But considering the amount of positive attention this framework discussion is getting, both from President Trump himself and Iran, it seems like the two sides are getting quite close. And thank you so much, Richard Engel, for that report coming up.

I am here. That was Ukrainian President Zelensky's message to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who stayed home as Ukraine and Russia sent delegations to Turkey for peace talks. Plus, Johnson's juggling act of the House speakers rush to wrangle all corners of his conference around a tax deal that's crucial to moving the Trump agenda forward. You're watching with the press now.

Welcome back. After some confusion and uncertainty, Russian and Ukrainian delegations are expected to meet face to face for the first time for cease fire negotiations. Ukraine's President Valencia arrived in Turkey's capital of Ankara earlier today for talks even after the Kremlin confirmed President Putin would not be attending. But Russia's delegation wasn't in Ankara.

It was hundreds of miles away in Istanbul. After meeting with Turkey's president, President Zelensky announced he was sending some of his members, the team, to Istanbul. Zelensky isn't expected to join them, but he still had a very direct message for President Putin when speaking to reporters from ungrateful. The confusion over where the talks would take place and who would be attending comes after weeks of diplomatic maneuvering between the U.S.

russia and Ukraine just to get everyone anywhere near a negotiating table. But today, while speaking for corporate Air Force One, President Trump suggested he didn't expect much progress with these talks, at least not yet. Nothing's gonna happen until Putin and I get together, okay? He wasn't going if I wasn't there.

And I don't believe anything's gonna happen, whether you like it or not, until he and I get together. But we're gonna have to get us off. There's too many people to die. And our NBC News chief international correspondent here, Simmons, joins me now from Istanbul.

So President Trump, her state President Zelensky is in Turkey today, but he called the delegation, Putin said, quote, stand in prompt props, rather. So he's calling them props. Will there be any meetings between these two parties at some point? And what do you just make of this confusion?

It's so baffling to me. Yeah, I mean, it depends on your view. It's either a mess or a very sophisticated diplomatic game of chess. And you're right, it's very difficult actually to know exactly what is going on.

It does. We know that the Russian delegation is here because we saw them today outside the Russian consulate. They came out and gave a very brief statement, basically saying we are here, which is kind of the message that Russia is trying to send. The Ukrainians, I think, are here in Istanbul, too.

President Zelensky is saying that his defence minister would lead the delegation. That's a more important figure than the Russians, who have a former culture minister as their lead for their team. And then we're waiting for the Americans to be here. There is a team here already, but the Secretary of State, Secretary Rubio, isn't expected here until tomorrow morning.

Will there be face to face talks? What exactly is there talk about? All of these things are big questions to me. It really is very difficult, as I say, to know what progress they're going to make here.

Well, as you talk about progress, President Trump said nothing would happen. No progress in these negotiations he believed would be made until him and President Putin got together personally. So where do the negotiations actually go from here? And does President Putin really have any desire to meet with President Trump?

Oh, I think he does. And I think that President Putin? Yeah. I think President Putin wants to meet with President Trump.

I think President Trump wants to meet President Putin. What's happened is that the. The lack of a sustained ceasefire by the Russians has made that meeting politically difficult, perhaps impossible even for someone like President Trump. But what you're seeing there, I think, in those words from the President, is that things are shifting and that he has meant, he has said already that he's prepared for meetings happenings without a ceasefire, which is a change from what the Ukrainians are asking for.

And now I think it's pretty clear that he believes that that is going to need to happen. The problem is you have two very different positions, the Ukrainians and the Russians. And again, the question is, will President Trump, even President Trump be able to surmount those? I mean, that is the key question that we're all asking.

I know you're going to keep on asking that question for us. So thank you so much. Here, let me now bring in Bill Taylor, former US Ambassadors, Ukraine and distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council. So thank you so much for being here.

So it's interesting. President Putin was the one who proposed these talks, and then he decided not to attend. So what is in ending, of course, many possibly trying to take over all the Russia of Ukraine. But I wonder just in terms of the way that he handled this.

So you're right, Yamiche, it was his idea. And his idea was prompted by a meeting of the Brits, French, Germans and Poles last Saturday where they said, Mr. Putin, you better agree to a ceasefire soon or we're going to put sanctions on you. So that prompted Putin then to say, okay, let's have a conversation in Turkey next Thursday.

And they decided not to come. So he's clearly uncertain and uncomfortable with this pressure that he's getting from the Europeans and from the America. The Europeans coordinated with President Trump on that threat to put sanctions on. And what do you make of President Zelensky?

He showed up in Turkey saying, okay, I'm going to come, and if you don't come, I'll send the delegation to the city that you come to. What do you think the Ukrainian view of all this is? Ukrainians are picking the high ground. They said, okay, we'll be there.

President Zelensky said, yatut, I'm here, which is what he said at the beginning of the war. He said, I'm here in Kyiv. They didn't leave. And that was a very important message to the Ukrainian people and to the world.

So Zelensky is there. He says, I'm ready to negotiate. And where is Putin? Putin didn't show up.

And I wonder what you think Putin's no show says to President Trump and whether I might antagonize him, especially as he's continuing to say, I know President Putin, I can work out this deal. We've got to get at a table of the two of us. Exactly. And President Trump and President Zelensky agreed a month and a half ago, nearly two months ago, on a ceasefire, on an air landed sea, 30 day ceasefire.

And President Trump took that to President Putin, who said no. And so I think you're right about the irritation, frustration that the United States started to feel about Putin, President Trump started to feel about Putin. He's holding up the show. He's not moving in the direction that President Trump would like to move.

So do you think that if you do get a President Trump and a President Putin, maybe with Zelensky in another city, waiting for that phone call to come in, do you think that's actually going to get worked out? So I think it's really important that it's three ways. I don't think it's going to work if it's just the President Trump and President Putin, President Zelsky is clearly going to have to be a part of that in order to make what Secretary Rubio calls a just and lasting piece. It's not going to be a just and lasting piece if the Ukrainians are not there.

They have to be at the table. But then, yes, I think it is very possible for the three of them to come up with something. It will take some pressure on Putin, this threat of sanctions, or actual sanctions on Putin, to make him come to a point where he can reverse to a ceasefire and then longer conversations. And I wonder, do you think, as you take all three of them to be on the table, do you think that Ukraine, President Zelensky, that he might welcome President Putin and President Trump, sit down for the first leg of this and then open up to all three.

Like, what do you think that his view of that is? My bet is Ukrainians want to be there at the table from the beginning. And I think that's the only way it's going to be able to be lasting. And the Ukrainian people have to agree to it.

I mean, they are the ones that have been invaded, the Russians invaded them and they need to be at the table and they need to agree to whatever the final solution is. And it's interesting, Secretary Rubio and President Trump have sort of keep hinting at the idea we can walk away. If we don't see that progress here, do you think they would actually walk away? Do you think there's just too much to say?

I think it's too much to stake. I think that's exactly right. And I think you've heard less of this walking away talk in the past couple days. When President Trump says, I'm going to be engaged, I'm going to sit and talk with President Putin.

This is their number one foreign policy priority. I can't see them walking away. And it doesn't sound to me like they're serious. Walking away.

What is walking away? If the US did walk away, what's that look like? It's hard to figure. It's hard to figure putting Ukraine on its own.

No, this is not going to solve the problem. They want to solve the problem, which is right. They want to stop this war. But in order to do that, they have to stay engaged.

So I don't think this walking away is Israel. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for coming and breaking all this down with the two cities and all of this. We appreciate it.

Thank you. And up next, a live report from Capitol Hill, where House Republicans remain at odds over key tax provisions in the GOP's sweeping mega bill. You're watching the press now as the day wraps up. Get this scoop on what's been happening with here's the Scoop, a new podcast for NBC News with your host, Gazzy Mistugian.

We'll take a deep dive into the day's top stories with NBC News's trusted journalists. It's a fresh take that's sharp, thoughtful and it's informative, bringing you closer to headlines and conversations that are shaping our world. Front page the Zeitgeist. Here's the scoop from NBC News.

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More. Welcome back. Turning to Capitol Hill, where President Trump's agenda is in limbo one day before it's set to come up for a key vote in the Rules Committee. After more meetings today, there's still no deal consensus among Republicans on capping the state and local tax deduction, the issue that has several moderate Republicans withholding their support.

The same time, some hardliners are digging in for more spending cuts that kick in and for them to kick in sooner. President Hersh Speaker Johnson said meetings will continue over the weekend to find an agreement and that will take some give and take, take a listen, every provision of Douglas Law. But everyone can be satisfied and we're very, very close to that. If you do more on saw, you have to find more in saving.

So these are the dials of dials I'm talking about. That's what is involved here when you're trying to craft a piece of legislation that is this comprehensive, this complex. It requires law and liberation. Miami TV's colleague Sahil Kapoor is on Capitol Hill with all the latest.

Sahil Amazon running around trying to get an answer. What's the latest on President Trump's agenda on Capitol Hill? Are things getting better or worse for House Republicans? Is Speaker Johnson having for a big headache here or are they really trying to get through with this massive bill?

Well, if you listen to the way Speaker Johnson is talking, you would think things are getting better. The reality of the situation is I'm not convinced that that's the case because simply the policy disputes seem very significant on a whole bunch of issues. You mentioned salt to state, local deduction. That's one of them.

There's also a major debate happening within the Republican conference about Medicaid and the cuts and the various spending restrictions that they're putting on accessing Medicaid benefits. It's also a question of snap, formerly known as food stamps, what they do with that. Take a listen to how Congressman Nicolota, a New York Republican from Long island, talked about where they are now. Still a lot of work to do, not just on salt, on snap, on Medicaid or some of the government benefits issues.

Still got a lot of work to do before I get this plane planned here next week. I'm sure there were probably not closer either. Still a lot of specifics that need to be hashed out. Now it's true the committees have passed their various pieces and sent them to the budget panel which is basically supposed to stake them together and move them to the floor.

But we also know some of those committee products are not ready for prime time, especially the tax legislation which Lalota and several other Republicans are threatening to tank unless they find compromise specifically on the state and local tax deduction. So there's plenty work to do because moving one of the dials on the state and local tax piece is going to affect the entire rest of the package and potentially alienate Republicans on the hand other. And as you talk about all these different factions, we almost see that almost every time there's inter conference fight here with Republicans, moderates are the ones that end up caving and giving in here. So is that we're looking at here ultimately given the fact that we're seeing way things are developing?

Well historically that is how things have traditionally worked in the House when Republicans are in the majority, the hardliners have tended to flex because they've been willing to tank the bills and the moderates and the centrist and vulnerable and swing to start to cave because they're ultimately not willing to go against the party line. In this case I'm not so sure. Yamiche, because the House Green Caucus has softened a lot this year. They've threatened to tank this budget in various iterations of it.

They've threatened to tank the spending bill that Donald Trump was in favor of. But they ultimately came at the end because these members represent dark red districts where the constituent also want them to be cheerleaders for the Trump agenda and not obstacles for it. So I don't exactly know where this is going to land. What I do know is that these so called SALT caucus members are deadly serious.

Their predecessors lost re election in those districts in those areas because they supported that $10,000 imposition, that limit in the 2017 Trump tax law and they are not ready to tolerate this $30,000 cap that house of Public leaders are proposing to them. They got the hardlines who are demanding steep spending cuts of trillions of dollars. Right now the bill adds trillions of dollars in long term national debt. That goes against everything they say they believe in.

So where does this shake out at the end and where does that lead the politically vulnerable numbers who worried about Medicaid, the single biggest thing that they're being targeted by Democrats? A lot of other questions. Yeah. Another question.

Are they going to be able to do it before the Memorial Day recess? We'll See. Thank you so much. I appreciate your reporting.

And after the break, America first and first class conflicts, the fallout of President Trump's first major foreign trip and what it says about the administration's non conditional approach to global relations panels next year. You're watching THE PRESS now. Now. Welcome back.

President Trump's swing to the Middle east has raised a number of questions, including this one. Are we starting to see the contours of the new Trump doctrine forming? The president's foreign policy has so far been a patchwork of brash interventionism and America first isolationism. But there is, there does seem to be a carrying one guiding principle for the president that's repeating his predecessors.

Take a listen to what he had to say on Tuesday inside the radio. No, the gleaming marvels of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi were not created by the so called nation builders, neocons or liberal nonprofits like those who spend trillions and trillions of dollars failing to develop cabal, Baghdad, some of the other cities. In the end, the so called nation builders wrecked far more nations than they built. And the interventionalists were intervening in complex societies that they did not even understand themselves.

And President Trump expanded on his views of the use of America's might this morning while addressing US Troops in Qatar. As president, my priority is to end conflicts, not start them. But I will never hesitate to wield American power if it's necessary to defend the United States of America or our partners. And this is one of our great partners right here.

When we're threatened, America's military will answer our enemies without even thinking about it. And here to dive into President Trump's agenda in the Middle east is Wall Street Journal senior political correspondent Molly Ball, former communications director for Vice President Kamala Harris, Ashley Antian and president of the Heritage Foundation, Kevin Roberts. Thank you all for being here. Molly, I want to start with you.

Is this the most we've seen President Trump really spell out his view of the world, his Trump doctrine? Well, I mean, in a lot of ways, the things he's saying are strikingly conventional. Right? I mean, I remember, I'm enough to remember George W.

Bush saying he was against nation building when he was running for president. Unfortunately, you know, isolationists tend to be moved by reality, as it were. And he ended up getting thrown into a number of conflicts. But, you know, this rhetoric of, you know, we're reluctant to intervene, but when we have to, we will.

This is something you can imagine Barack Obama saying. It's something you can imagine Joe Biden saying. So I think the Question is, what do we learn from his actions? And I think the way you started the show, it has been a sort of confusing hodgepodge.

That's still the case. You know, we have the strange sort of imperialism of wanting to take over countries that he's expressed, you know, bombing the Houthis one day and then stopping. So I don't think we have a coherent picture in the second term, especially of what it is he's willing to do in thinking about that coherent picture that we're all maybe trying to search for at some point. How does what he's saying square with what he said about taking over Gaza and saying that he wants to make it a real estate project essentially, and be owned by the United States?

Well, I think the fact that his first foreign trip is in the gold, as it was in his first term, and the fact that he's so focused on dealmaking over diplomacy, what is not clear to me is whether that is born out of necessity because the diplomacy has been stymy on multiple fronts, or if this is a product of the way he sees the world, because, of course, he is, to his core, a real estate developer speaks from that perspective. And I think it's a little bit of both. And, Kevin, it's interesting that when we think about sort of what President Trump is talking about, he's talking about individual sovereignty, but he's also talking about sort of pulling back altogether. There's a question of whether or not that creates a power vacuum and whether another country like China steps in.

What do you mean, your thoughts? There are three consistent principles here, which Trump and the vice President, Vance. He plays a really important role in this articulation of Trump's foreign policy. The first is the president understands that where there is peace, there is more prosperity for more people.

This is very much on display in the Middle east this week. The second is, and you said it very well, national sovereignty is the key that we can celebrate the diversity, the uniqueness of each country. But as the vice president said in this point three in his wonderful Munich speech, that if you're our ally, you darn well better pull your weight. Don't come to the United States as the French and German governments have done for three years during the Ukraine conflict, and tell us to spend more of our money when you aren't doing it, if in fact our allies do that.

This is going to be a golden era, not, not just for Americans, but also for the world because of the peace and prosperity that Donald Trump will be ushering in. It's Also interesting when he talks about sort of pulling back the nation builders, he's talking sometimes about Republicans, right. People that are in Congress, the Heritage foundation also. I wonder how you square that and whether or not that's where the history of the Republican Party now starts in 2016 and that the old foreign policy ways that others, the establishment Republicans for a long time have had, whether that's all gone away now you're sitting with your friend, the president of the Heritage foundation, who has led the effort in this town for the last three and a half years.

Sometimes they're the objection of the Wall Street Journal against neoconservatism. There is a lot of space between the interventionism of George W. Bush and the so called isolationism, which respectfully is really not an accurate description of Trump. And it is a realism, a restraint that we don't have to be every place, but very importantly and something that we agree on is that when we go into conflict, we have a lethal efficiency that dominates that conflict.

This is a beautif thing that also, it also enjoys bipartisan support. I would just like to point out that I do not speak the Wall Street Journal editorial page. I am a news reporter and they have their opinions, but they're not my opinions. Thank you for that.

It is a very clear distinction to make. Ashley, in 2006, I wonder if you could have thought that Republicans would be talking the way they are now about nation building. Kevin brings up the name President Bush. Could you have seen that this is the Republican Party and their foreign policy would be this?

I mean, you know, I think we're all watching as the Republican Party is being completely co opted by the MAGA movement. I mean, they're a whole subsidiary of the MAGA movement now. I don't think there is a Republican Party anymore. I mean, let me give you a great example.

What was it two years ago, maybe just a few months ago, the Republican Party was completely all up in arms about Hunter Biden potentially influence pet peddling all around the world. And you have a situation which was over, I think it was, it was overshadowed by the talk of this airplane given by Qatar. But what was missing and what has been missing in the narrative is the Trump kids going over, advancing his trip and not just influence telling, saying that he represented the government of the United States trying to strike deals. I mean, it's so blatantly, it's so blatant and you know, so my question right now is where are all those Republicans that were all up in arms about what Hunter Biden's doing.

I mean, now it's a hyperdrive with the Trumps. I mean, they're doing it with no sort of shame, trying to, you know, build wealth. And, you know, the question is, at what expense to the American people? And that, to me, is the narrative that's really gotten lost.

I'm really disappointed in the fact that the Democratic Party's not made bigger hay of this particular issue. Not even Joe Biden supporters. I mean, I think we just got completely distracted by the airplane. You know, I never thought the airplane's gonna be realized.

I mean, I have confidence in DoD security advisors that they were gonna handle whatever security concern it was. But the point was, is we're missing the really bigger picture, the real corruption. It wasn't the plane. It's the fact that the Trump sons are over there making money for the Trump family, which I'm not sure that Trump has even divested from.

I mean, we don't even know the answer to that particular question. We saw this. That was a pattern in the first administration where we had an entire investigation on Amalgamans, and we saw troubles taking money from the Chinese all around the world. I mean, in the Middle east as well, too.

And now we're seeing it now in ways that are just so blatant, and I just don't know why. I want to turn to some of the President Trump's family business feelings. Many of them are overseas. Here is an exchange from my colleague Ryan Nolles, our chief Capitol correspondent, who had with House Speaker Mike Johnson.

Nicholas. And watch this. Whatever President Trump is doing is out in the open, and I'm trying to conceal you. But, Mr.

Speaker, the investment in the meme coin, those folks are not transparent. We do not know who those people are. I don't know. The investment in meme coin, I don't know.

I can just tell you that. I mean, President Trump has said nothing to hide. He's very upfront about it. And there are people who watch all the ethics of that.

But, I mean, I've got a big concern with running House Representatives. Oversight. That's the congressional responsibility. Congress has oversight responsibility.

But I think so far as I know, the ethics are all being followed. What's responsible say it's really the only excuse for not having oversight over these deals by the Trump family is naked politics. There's tremendous transparency, which is a huge contrast between this administration and the last. I just have to say this discourse sounds like the Russia hoax to me.

And the reason that I think the left has to do that is because they have to obscure the fact that they've got no aspirational vision for Americans. They have to obscure the fact that while there are fair questions to ask about anything from the Qataris, those questions will be answered by the Department of Defense. This plan's not been given to the front family. It's been given to the United States government.

But the flash thing is it obscures in its attempt by the left tub obscure a dramatically successful trip was one of those important speeches given in modern history by American president about a reset against globalism which constantly happens at the expense of Americans, Republicans, Democrats of all ethnic backgrounds. That's actually something I would expect the left to celebrate. Molly, what do you make of the debate about having here? You know, I think it is very interesting how Democrats have approached this debate because there is a feeling, and I hear this from a lot of Democrats, that this corruption storyline sort of doesn't resonate that the first impeachment was sort of about that and that they didn't necessarily get any political mileage out of it and that when people hear about corruption, they think of Trump saying drain the swamp, but it isn't necessarily effective on him because he's seen as such an outsider to the establishment.

So I think, you know, among the many recriminations and debates the Democrats are having, one of them is, you know, talking about attempts to impeach Trump. Now other attacks on the president just don't know what works. Yeah. Well, definitely we have a longer conversation, but I appreciate you coming on.

Molly, Ashley, Kevin, thank you so much. And Staley come the director of national intelligence oust two top officials accused them of politicizing intelligence after they oversaw memo that contradicts the Trump administration's claims about a Venezuelan gang member. You're watching THE PRESS now. Welcome back.

The director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard fired two senior intelligence officials this week after they oversaw an intelligence report that contradicts the president's claims about Venezuelan growing trend de agua. Last month, the National Intelligence Council produced a report citing a consensus among all intelligence agencies except the FBI that TDA does not take orders from or operate in close coordination with President Nicolas Maduro's regime. That assessment undermines the Trump administration administration's rationale for invoking the Alien Enemies act to court suspect the gang members without due process. Gabbards deputy chief of staff said the two officials were dismissed because they, quote, politicized intelligence.

And joining me now on set as ME's intelligence report again to lose a Dan, I'll help you Speak better Spanish than me and pronounce things. So get us into this findings of what this report was and why these special required. This is really significant. Right.

Because this intelligence assessment that these officials oversaw contradicted the president's assertions about this gang and that that was his rationale for invoking this Alien enemies Act, the 1790 law that allows basically, you know, the deportation of suspected gang members without due process. So it was embarrassing for the White House. And this memo emerged, it actually was obtained through a Freedom of Information request. So it was a difficult moment for the White House.

And now they've fired these two officials that are linked to this memo, the group and a very senior analyst, very experience. They've worked for many presidents over decades. Now the administration is portraying this as these people were biased in their work and their intelligence work. But it does raise a lot of questions and a lot of concerns about how the president administration are overseeing the intelligence community.

And you got some new reporting also. Yes. So Tulsi Gabbard, the director of National Intelligence who just fired these two officials, seems to be wanting to bolster her role in how in the presentation of intelligence to the President. So the President's Daily brief, that famous brief that the president gets every day, is always done out of the CIA.

The ODNI oversees it, but it's done by this big staff that's CIA. It's a very long process. They stay up late at night doing it. She's saying she wants that physically moved to her offices and that's sort of her way of having tighter control over it.

Now, it's unclear how this is going to work. And this could be signal some friction between the CIA and ODNI as well. So I mean, fundamentally, how much could that change the briefing itself? That is a very good question.

Maybe not at all. Maybe significantly, it does seem to suggest that she would have tighter control over what gets into that brief. And of course, the intelligence brief can really affect a president and a White House's decision making. Yeah.

Well, thank you so much to him with that recent reporting, new reporting. And we'll be back tomorrow with more MEET the Press now. But the news continues right now with Hallie Batson. Hey, it's Kate Snow, NBC News anchor and host of the Drink.

This month. Demi Lovato is my guest. The global superstar tells me that she is the happiest she's ever been right now. But getting there, it wasn't simple.

Demi opens up about starting in Hollywood young and why she now thinks she may have started too soon she talks about recovery, her new marriage, and the deeply personal reason behind her new cookbook. The Drink is always about the journey to the top, and this was an honest conversation about what that takes. Hope you'll listen and follow the Drink wherever you get your podcasts.