Meet the Press NOW — May 16

If it's Friday, President Trump heads home after his first major overseas trip. The major problems facing his agenda as House Republicans on a key committee vote to tank that sweeping bill containing the president's top priorities. Plus, after days of confusion, Ukrainian and Russian officials finally meet face to face for the first time since the war began. As President Trump doubles down on his vow to eventually meet with Russian President Putin.

And shell shock. Former FBI Director James Comey is under federal investigation by the Trump administration after posting a picture of seashells on a beach that the president and his allies say was meant as a threat against the president's life, which Comey denies. Welcome to MEET THE press. Now, I'm Dave Gutierrez in Washington, where president on his way back to the capital after the first major overseas trip of his second administration.

We'll get to some of the big foreign policy developments from his trip and the Ukraine, Russia negotiations in Turkey in just a moment. But first, when the president lands tonight, he will be greeted by the reality that his so called big beautiful bill may be in big trouble. On Capitol Hill, his massive tax and spending agenda failed to advance through the Republican controlled House Budget Committee. This morning on a 1621 vote, a group of Republican hardliners defected voting down the bill for essentially not going far enough on spending cuts.

Congressman Lloyd Smucker changed his vote from yes to no in a procedural move to bring the bill back up for another vote, which we are hearing will be late Sunday night. Here's what we heard from some of the Republican holdouts today. We are writing checks we cannot catch and our children are gonna pay the price. So I may know on this bill, unless serious reforms are made today, tomorrow, Sunday.

We're having conversations as we speak, but something needs to change or you're not gonna get my support. Unfortunately, the current version falls short of these goals and fails to deliver the transformative change that Americans were promised. Substantive improvements are needed. And I look forward to working with this committee and our House Republican Conference to make sure we deliver this business of writing checks and having no income to pay for it.

Smoke and mayors again, I'm through with that. Even if the Budget Committee were to advance the package, it is unlikely it has the votes to get to the chamber. In addition to the hardliners who blocked it in committee, there are also a group of moderate Republicans holding out for changes on how the bill addresses state and local tax deductions. What's striking is the bill failed to advance this morning following a personal plea from President Trump himself.

He urged, quote, republicans must Unite behind the one big beautiful bill. We don't need grandstanders and the Republican Party. Stop talking and get it done. As we've seen before, it may take some hands on action from the president to get his conference in line.

Here's what Majority Leader Steve Scalise said after meeting the Budget Committee holdouts. The president's been following all this very closely and he's coming back from a foreign trip. So you know he's going to be actively engaged as he has the whole way through this process. President Trump wants to get this bill moved through the process as quickly as possible to make sure it gets on his desk in July.

So do we. We would like to have that process move even quicker if it's possible. And we will get to Capitol Hill in just a moment. But first, we are following breaking news out of the Supreme Court, which has just kept in place its order blocking the Trump administration using the Alien Enemies act that deport Venezuelan migrants.

And justice reporter Ryan Reilly is here with me now. Ryan, what are we now? Yeah. So essentially the key, the key part of this ruling is that the 24 hour period that last month some people were given before they were expected to be removed from the country is not enough.

That is not adequate. In fact, they say it surely does not pass muster. They do not specify precisely how long of a warning that these individuals were set to be deported under the Alien Enemies act need to be given before their deportation. They said that the lower court should handle that at a speedy matter.

Rather, the court should take up that issue, look at the merits of the case and decide what is an adequate amount of time. But for now, they've left everything in place in terms of the hold on of the deportation of these individuals as well as people who are in that broader class. So this holds up the Trump administration from continuing these deportations under the Alien Enemies act, which of course has only been invoked typically during wartime in the past, during the War of 1812, during World War I and during World War II. It's very rarely used statute that the Trump administration has then brought up back in the 1700.

Just want to stand about. So this for now, the Supreme Court is saying that that 24 hour period warning that they've been giving people to challenge that is not quite enough there. So this could be perceived as a loss for the Trump administration. Do we know how this broke down along the justices?

You know, there are two dissents here. I don't want to look back at the exact account, but this was definitely, you know, the majority of the court finding that they, that this amount of time was not adequate for the warning. Basically, they need to give people more warning and give them an actual chance to contest their deportation. And that 24 hour period just wasn't enough.

Because, you know, remember, ABC had some reporting that this bus of Microns was actually headed towards the airport at the time of the sort of dramatic standout as the government lawyer was actually in court in D.C. in a different matter. There was a lot of really sort of last minute logistics that were happening as these individuals were on the way to the airport and that bus had ultimately be turned around there. So for now, everything stays in place in terms of as this case works, as the lower court then will decide what is a long enough time for these individuals to begin warning before and process to go through before these deportations.

You know, Ryan, this could be very interesting because the White House up until this point has been very reluctant or the President has not attacked the Supreme Court, you know, verbally. It has some of these lower courts. Suppose it was waiting to make sure that it got rulings that, you know, positive rulings. In the administration's view, how do you think this could play out with the administration and how would they respond?

I'm checking my phone right now to see if there's been any response from the White House so far. Usually they take a little bit to, you know, to talk through this before they put out a response. But what implications does this have for that clash between the executive branch and the judicial branch? Where you see this going from here?

Yeah, I mean, you have. Right, you have. He already has not lashed out as much at the Supreme Court as he has with lower court. You know, judges, of course, have faced some threats who have found, who have been subject to sort of a lot of the President's rhetoric in the past.

And what they, you know, the administration throughout the local district judge. Right. They sort of denigrate their position, say that this is outside of the realm, that this is, you know, dealing with a foreign sovereign. That's sort of rhetoric that we've heard from the administration saying that the courts should stay outside of this.

But now we've gotten this decision from the Supreme Court talking about some actual merits here and saying that this definitely doesn't pass muster. This 24 hour period that's definitely lost for the Trump administration is going to have to be something that they're going to figure out how they're going to address this going forward. And we'll see if that's changing their sort of approach to how they've been doing this and figure out what exactly the lower court rules and really figure out what that timeline has to be if they want to go about these equations. Of course, the broader question of whether they can invoke the alien and these act is still something that is going to be for the court to decide down the line.

You know, so even a Trump appointed judge we had say that that was not warranted. And really quickly, Ryan, before I let you go, just so we're clear with our viewers, what is the next step here when you know, when would this either go back before the Supreme Court before another court? What are we expecting to happen? The next step is before to go to the lower court and the Supreme Court said that should happen on a quick matter before this.

Ultimately the other chat broader challenges on the merits of the alien and poking the alien and exactly will eventually probably pull their way out to the Supreme Court. Ryan Reilly. All right, justice correspondent Ryan, thank you so much. I want to turn now to our NBC News legal fair support.

Gary Gronbach is on the phone. He was just actually in that other court hearing that Ryan mentioned about Kilmore Abrego Garcia. Gary, I want to get your reaction to all this. How significant is this ruling from the Supreme Court?

Hey, look, I think this is going to be incredibly significant ruling. I think what's most significant about this ruling is that they didn't actually decide how much notice is to be given. They were going to leave that to the lower courts to decide what is going to end up happening here. And we've seen courts around the country giving their best as to what the notice should be.

Some have said 30 days, some have said 20 days. As I mentioned in the in the ruling that today is under these circumstances notice, roughly 24 hours before removal, devoid of information about how to exercise due process rights to contest that removal surely does not pass muster. So definitely not 24 hours. But what will be the middle ground here?

Something that I think the lower court, whether it's in this case, in the AARP case, which will be in the migrants and the Northern District of Texas is going to have to decide, or is it going to be some other court that makes that decision? I think that is going to be up for discussion here. As we know, there are now alien immunity cases in more than a dozen different districts around the country from D.C. to the southern District of Texas to the Northern District of Texas to Colorado, red states, blue states, all deciding what is going to end up happening here.

So this is a Very significant ruling, one that does not necessarily impact the case where I currently am standing here at the federal courthouse here in Maryland related to Chilmar or River Garcia. A nationwide impact. As we talked about this week alone, with these nationwide injunctions, these nationwide decisions, this is something that's going to have a nationwide impact. And Gary, you brought that up.

That was actually gonna be my next question. So we're clear with our viewers that the case you're at is different from this. But if you can just walk us through the case you were at today and how it gives us a broader context of how this all fits together. Yeah, there is a lot going on here in the legal system these days.

I'm here to kill our Brigo Geary. This was hearing about the government's putting forward state secret objections to some of the discovery that Judge Paulozen has said was going to be necessary to find out whether or not the government was obeying her order when she said she wanted that government to facilitate bringing Kilmer Garcia back to the United States. This is a long and very drawn out, very innovative hearing. Some discovery issues, whether or not things were top secret, classified what the judge could see, what the public was able to see, and whether or not it could get bottom of whether the court was, the government was actually in contempt of court here.

So this thing is going to play out in the long run as this goes forward here. What we're going to see here is this real connection between the alien in that case nationwide and what's happening here. With some more, Bernard Rck out of El Salvador, Gary Grumble Black for us on breaking news. Thank you so much.

And I want to turn now back to what we mentioned at the top of the show. Another breaking story. Republican Capitol Hill voting down President Trump's mega bill today in the Budget Committee embassy. Sahil Kapoor is on Capitol Hill with the latest on that.

Sahil, take us inside that Budget Committee hearing this morning. What happened and did leadership expect this vote to fail? No, they did not expect that gave it significant setback for Speaker Mike Johnson and for the Trump agenda. Essentially what we saw is Republican leaders try to call bluff on the hardliners and the hardliners cast their votes show that they're not playing around in their demands.

Specifically, five of the Republicans on that committee defected and voted with Democrats as Chip Ralph Norman, Josh McKeen, Andrew Clyde, the fifth one, Lloyd Smucker. His was simply procedural so they can bring the bill up again. So the reality is there are four Republicans who are opposing this bill. Their beat is largely that the package and their view uses a bunch of budget gimmicks and procedural tricks to essentially front load the benefits and the goodies there while backloading the spending cuts and the challenging the painful items.

They insist that those cuts and savings be moved up faster in order to win their vote. Otherwise they call the packet swampy and very typical of what happens in Washington. Nevertheless, the House budget company chairman, Jody Arrington decided to remain optimistic about the future. They said there's some value in putting these numbers on the record so they can, they can have the clarity in terms of what they need to do next.

Pick a listen to some more about Jody Arrington says their hearts are in the right place. Their motives are pure. I share their convictions and I share their desired outcomes of changing some of these policies and making them feel better. This is not the right thing to do it that's what I told them and but they have to make those decisions themselves.

But no regrets. We debate, we call questions because that's what leaders do and I think we make progress today. Notable that soon after that both the Freedom Caucus put out a tweet insisting that no, no, no, no, they're not actually taking down the Trump agenda. They just want a little more time.

They just want you more pieces of it to be negotiated. So they're leery of this idea that they're actually tanking the Donald Trump agenda, which is what gets us on Sunday evening when Jody Arrington and the Budget Committee plans to meet at 10pm Highly unusual, especially for Sunday, to do another part of this. And Sahil, you bring up not wanting to upset President Trump. How would that look like over the next couple days?

It feels like Republicans may be waiting for him to get directly involved like he has before. Is that what you're saying? Yeah. We should expect President Trump to get more involved here.

He's the only one who can get 218 Republicans on the same page for something this challenging. It is his agenda. At the end of the day, it's about many items that he that he campaigned on. And these hardliners, the reason Trump is so essential to this is that these hardliners are holding out right now represent dark red districts where Trump is particularly popular, much more so than congressional Republican leadership.

And a lot of these voters who support Trump want their members of Congress to toe the line on the Trump agenda, not the obstacle. Which is why some members of the Green Congress are ultimately sensitive about this. So if they get some what they want, such as moving work requirements up, I talked Yesterday at the House Majority leadership Police, he said that date is going to move up from 2029. You can say when that's got a balance here.

Giving these hard liners on what they want without alienating the swing district and centrist Republicans who are going to be key to whether they can hold the House majority. They're already feeling the heat on the Medicaid cuts. What they don't want is even more political opinion in the near term. We had some reporting yesterday of a potential between moderates who want an extended salt cap and hardliners.

I want those cuts to come online sooner. What do we know about that? That's right. And you just bring up the other big headache that Peter McDonaldson.

And there's a determined block of about half a dozen Republicans from high tax states, mostly New York, that are threatening to take down this entire bill over the state and local tax deduction specifically, or, you know, assault specifically this $30,000 cap that's in the bill currently, they say that is not nearly good enough for them. So they want that cap expanded. And Speaker Johnson said if that cap is expanded, that's going to cost money, which means they need more savings. Which gets us back to that Medicaid question.

Chip Roy said he wants those Medicaid work requirements to take it back immediately. Right away. It's not here he's gonna get that. But if they can move that data from 2029 up by a few years, they could save a significant amount of money which could be used to fund solve.

So this is the Rubik's Cube that Peter Johnson is playing with. Can you get all done by Sunday? That's his new South. If my cousin's gonna meet that deadline, his own deadline, I'll get this done by morality.

We can get a full blow out of the House. And Sadhgapur, I know you have a busy weekend and we'll be up on Sunday, so thank you so much. Zah Kapoor offers on Capitol Hill. It is not just President Trump's domestic agenda facing hurdles.

There's also increased uncertainty about some of his foreign policy priorities. Looming over the President Tripp were ethical and security concerns about his plans to accept a $400 million luxury jet from Qatar to be used as Air Force One. Icarly, Kristen Welker spoke of former Vice President Mike Pence in an exclusive interview airing this Sunday on Meet the Press. Did she ask him about this issue?

Do you think President Trump should accept a military aircraft from Qatar? Well, I think first we've got to remember who Qatar is, we've got a military base there. I have members of our media family that have deployed to the region. But Qatar has a long history playing both sides.

They support Hamas, they supported Al Qaeda. Qatar has actually financed pro Hamas protests on American campuses across the United States. And so the very idea that we would accept an Air Force One from Qatar I think is inconsistent with our security, with our intelligence needs. And my hope is the president reconsiders it.

I think if Qatar wants to make a gift to the United States, they ought to take the $400 million and plow it into infrastructure on their military base. So you're saying President Trump should turn down this plane? I think he should. I think.

Look, others have observed or there are profound issues. The potential for intelligence gathering, the need to ensure the president of the United States is safe and secure as he travels around the world. And of course, also there are very real constitutional issues. The Constitution prohibits public officials from accepting a present, in the words of the Constitution, a present from a foreign state.

Now, they may have some basis through chain of title, through avoiding that, but it's just a bad idea. And I hope this president will think better of it. Again, you can catch much more from Kristen's interview on the Press this Sunday. President Trump's trip to the Gulf region is also reigniting questions about his shifting views towards the Middle east and in particular, his relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

In the past few days, the Trump administration has negotiated a hostage release deal with Hamas, announced it was lifting sanctions on Syria, and presented Iran with a new nuclear deal. It is unclear if the administration consulted with Israel on any of it. It's also unclear just how close the US And Iran are to agreeing to a nuclear deal. But here's what President Trump told reporters on Air Force One.

They have a proposal. Nor will they know they have to move quickly. Something bad. Something bad's gonna happen.

While flying home, the president also weighed in on the ceasefire talks between Russia and Ukraine, which took place in Turkey today, reiterating that progress cannot be made until he sits down with Vladimir Putin. He and I will meet. I think we'll solve it. Or maybe not, but at least we'll know if we don't solve it.

It'll be very interesting. And Joining now is NBC's senior White House correspondent Kelly O' Donnell in Abu Dhabi, where the President just left. And NBC chief international correspondent Kir Smith is in Istanbul covering the Ukraine cease fire talks. Kelly, I want to start with you.

Let's start with Iran. Yesterday the president said the two sides were close to a nuclear deal. Today he appeared to renew threats against Iran. What do we know about where things stand and did he make any progress on the issue while he met with Gulf leaders?

Well, it's been extraordinary to watch the personal involvement of the president in a number of these issues during his time here in the Middle east and how transactional his conduct often is. And what we've seen here is he's been meeting with leaders from predominantly Sunni nations. Of course, Iran is a Shia nation. And so he's had a lot of voices in his head during these days.

And then he's talking about the very real possibility, as he frames it, of a potential for a nuclear deal. Now, remember, of course, it's his first administration. He withdrew the United States from an existing nuclear deal with Iran, and that's sort of in the past. He's looking for a new transaction, and he's had his emissaries negotiating.

A series of meetings have happened so far. And now he is saying a proposal has been placed in the hands of the Iranian leaders to review which would keep Iran from having a nuclear weapon. Some of the experts have said that they're at a point in their enrichment of uranium program, that they're within striking distance of getting to that next level. So there is a sense of urgency.

And the president, as he often does carrot and stick, has talked about wanting things to be good for the Iranian people, new opportunities, saying he doesn't want enemies permanently. And countries we have once fought wars with were now partnered with. So opening that door. And yet you also noted that he did say there is time pressure on Iran to act because it will either be nice or not nice.

And not nice leaves military action on the table. Appear that President Trump made any progress on ending the Israel Haas war while he was in the region. He did, however, talk about trying to normalize relations between Israel and Syria. So how much did this trip shake up the relationship between the president and Prime Minister Netanyahu?

I think it's something we'll be measuring for some time to come because it is also striking on its face that the president would come to the Middle east and not have a visit in Israel. That alone was a noble shift of convention of what presidents, including President Trump, have done before. And so then you look at the issue of his effort to focus on the Abraham Accords. That was part of the agenda over these days and trying to get Saudi Arabia and Syria to normalize relations with Israel.

But at the same time, we're seeing how the president directly negotiated to get the release of the last American of dual citizenship hostage who'd been held by Hamas. That was done outside of the Netanyahu sort of loop. And clearly, clearly making kind of an entree to Iran with this potential deal is certainly not what a Benjamin Netanyahu wants to see. They have very strong feelings about this.

So I think there could be much more to watch as to how that relationship just recovers from this set of experiences the President's had, which have been business oriented and diplomatic and trying to solidify relationships with Gulf state leaders. But there is a question about at what cost to his relationship with Benjamin Netanyahu. My colleague, Kelly o' Donnell, LA for us in Abu Dhabi, where it is just past midnight. Kelly, thank you so much.

And say follows home, I want to turn now to Kir Simmons. He's over in Istanbul. Kir, was there any meaningful progress today towards a ceasefire that was made during the talks today regarding the Russian Ukraine war? There was, and that's partly because the bar, frankly is set so low that anything that's better than one of the two sides simply stalling out of the talks is progress, I suppose you could say so.

Both sides say that they did talk about the release of a thousand prisoners on each side. That's the most of the war. They say that they talked about the potential for President Putin and President Zelensky to meet, a bilateral meeting between those two. So those are two things it should be said.

Just before the meeting, Ukrainians were saying that President Putin had sent a negotiating delegation with no power to decide anything. That's probably right. In fact, right now they're flying back to Moscow to present the conversation to President Putin, of course, Putin who decides. And I think that goes to the crucial thing today, really, which is this question of whether there's going to be a meeting between President Putin and President Trump.

That is looking very much more likely now that President Trump says that he wants the meeting as soon as it can be set up and the Kremlin responding, saying, don't underestimate how important it will be. Yeah. And on that point here before this meeting, President Trump told reporters that nothing would happen until he met with Putin. So did that undercut the talks today before they were even able to get off the ground?

Yeah, I mean, frankly, it did. You could call it realism, I guess. I think the crucial question, though, now, looking ahead, is what is going to happen in that meeting that we now see is very, very likely to happen and in these talks, despite the progress we've also seen in these weeks just how far apart these two sides are. So to give an example, Ukrainians have been saying, we just talked about ceasefire.

You did a stable ceasefire for Russians. Russians are still refusing that even after evening this meeting and saying we want to talk about what Russia calls root causes, which effectively means what they say is what they've always said and never changed even during three years of war, that they want Ukraine to be mostly neutral, not in NATO. They want more land than they currently hold, all of those things that they see as their security interest. So is President Trump in a face to face meeting with President Putin going to be able to get him to compromise after he's had hundreds of thousands of his people as casualties in a war that he's fought for three years simply by the force of his persuasion?

Or on the other hand, and here will be the worry for Europeans and the Ukrainians, is President Trump in that meeting going to compromise in ways that Ukrainians or the Europeans won't accept because this is a dangerous ground? Could be just like Kelly Donald was talking about in another Middle east issues. Could be that these unusual moves by President Trump have some success. If you do a lot of things, you're going to find success, but there is danger.

Kir Simmons, our chief international correspondent, live for us in Istanbul. Kier, thank you. And coming up, the spotlight is shining brightly on how Democrats are dealing with or dodging questions surrounding former President Biden's doomed bid for reelection. I'll talk to a Democrat who's both a congressman and a Senate candidate about that and much more.

You're watching MEET THE PRESS Now. Stay with us. Welcome back. Democrats with potential ambitions to be their party's future leader have been forced to weigh in on those shocking revelations about its past leader, former President Joe Biden.

Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy Tong, politico. He has no doubt the former president suffered from cognitive decline while still in office and that it would have been helpful if he had not sought reelection. Quote, obviously in retrospect, we should have done something different. The likelihood is the odds were pretty stacked against us no matter what.

But clearly people were looking for change and neither Biden nor Harris were going to be able to offer a real message of change. Murphy's comments come ahead of the release of Original Sin, a book by CNN's Jake Tapper and access to his Alex Thompson that details Biden's ill fated re election campaign along with concerns he was experiencing potential cognitive decline. I'm joined now by Congressman Raja Krishnamurthy, Democrat from Illinois. He's a ranking member on the House Elect Committee on the Strategic competition between the U.S.

and China and a member of the House Intelligence Committee. He's also running for the Illinois Senate seat being vacated by Dick Durbin. Karsman, thank you so much for joining us here in the press. Now I want to foreign policy in just a moment, but first I want to ask you, do you agree with Senator Murphy that President Biden had suffered some cognitive dis decline while stone office?

I think he definitely showed signs of age. In my personal dealings with him, I never saw a loss of acuity or cogency or anything like that. But it's kind of like Donald Trump nodding off at the welcome ceremony in Saudi Arabia or confusing Nikki Haley and Nancy Pelosi. I think at this point we know that it was good for him to step aside for Harris to enter the fray.

But at this point we just need a new generation of thinking and perspectives to kind of guide us on the way forward in the Democratic Party. Congressman, point taken that President Trump has had some moments where he's been rambling or perhaps where he has appeared, not often at some event. But if you read this book, it has a number of disturbing revelations with regards to President Biden, how his staff limited the amount of time that he would be up working. When you hear those revelations, though, it seems to go a little bit further than what you're describing.

Do you agree with that? I haven't seen the book. I haven't kind of delved into the details. All I know is my personal dealings with him.

I'm not saying that I met him every day or anything like that, but in my personal dealings with him, I didn't see the types of allegations that are being made about him. All that being said, I think he made the right decision and stepped aside. And I think that now we know we need to move forward. Do you think though, his late exit from the race cost Democrats White House?

I think that looking back, a robust primary process probably would have helped. But at the same time, I think that Harris made a hell of a run in my opinion. And I think that the issue that kind of bedeviled us ultimately was the economy and we didn't focus enough on the economic plight of Americans and trying to make sure that government wasn't indispensable partner in their pursuit of the American dream. I think that's the central takeaway for me personally and something that I hear repeatedly from my constituents and others.

So on the message of the economy. So what do you think Democrats message should be to voters in 2026 and 2028. I think the message has to be, you know, right now, we're in a time of economic chaos and uncertainty unleashed by Donald Trump, and millions of people feel like the American dream is slipping from them even more than before, if it's not impossible at this point. And so we have to be the ones that stand up to Donald Trump and again, make the American dream attainable.

What do I mean by that? If you're working poor, we want to make sure that that social safety net, I'm a. A couple of housing, food stamps. So this personally, you want to make sure that social safety net is available to help you when you're down as you're kind of climbing the economic ladder.

And then if you're in the middle class, you want to make sure that you can buy a home for the first time. And if you're a senior, we got to make sure Social Security, Medicare are there for you so you can retire with dignity. Those are among the topics that I think that we have to continue to address on the campaign trail before we switch to foreign policy. One more question on this point.

Why should voters trust Democrats considering the revelations about President Biden's mental state? Well, I think they don't like what they're seeing right now, that's for sure. And whether it's people paying a lot more for groceries at the local store or small businesses facing tremendous chaos with regard to these tariffs that they see, they don't like it. We Democrats, on the other hand, we have to make sure that we offer a competing proposition, which is how do we make sure government works better, that it's more effective, it's more efficient, and that it helps you as you pursue your economic potential.

And that has to be, to me, at the heart of our message and our policy making as well. Sounds to me like you and many other Democrats would like to move forward. Switching gears now, President Trump has indicated that the US Is close to reaching a deal with Iran on his nuclear program. What needs to be part of that agreement for you to support it?

Well, I think that what's extremely important is that Iran not only stop the development of a nuclear weapon, but it also stopped with its nefarious activities in the Middle east neighborhood, so to speak, whether it's funding Hamas or Hezbollah or the Houthis or others who are just wreaking chaos in different countries. And also, quite frankly, I'd like to see a ballistic missile program also under ch, because those ballistic missiles are extremely dangerous across the neighborhood and potentially to US Interests as well. So I'd like to see something comprehensive so that we can welcome Iran back into the, into the neighborhood, so to speak. Because there's so many international crises, I want to move to another one.

How do you feel about the growing likelihood that President Trump is going to meet in person with Vladimir Putin? Well, look, I think that it's always important for leaders to meet. My biggest concern is what is he potentially going to give up in terms of making concessions to Vladimir Putin with regard to Ukraine or with regard to other issues in the world? I think that Putin definitely wants to meet with Trump.

I think that he wants to try to get Trump to relent on sanctions as well as other issues and to take his side in the going dispute in Ukraine and the war in Ukraine. And, you know, we have to make sure that we side Ukraine on these issues. Congressman, because you work so closely with China policy, President Trump has implied that he may call Chinese President Xi Jinping. Would you recommend that he make that call?

Sure. I think that again, a leader to leader dialogue is good, but he has to be very clear about what he wants to see Xi Jinping do, which is he needs, Xi Jinping needs to stop with the economic, military and technological aggression that he's practicing against not only us, but our friends, partners and allies. And basically that economic aggression especially is hurting Americans and my constituents. Whether it's dumping of products or whether it's intellectual property theft or cyber hacking on an industrial scale, that all has to stop.

Congressman Christopher Northey of Illinois. Congressman, we thank you so much for your time. Thank you. And up next, the president and members of his administration rage against James Comey and open a federal investigation of the former FBI director's social media post that they say was a call for violence against the president.

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Price is subject to change. Visit today.comxfinity for full upper terms and details. Welcome back. Turning on to a social media post as a former FBI director under federal investigation, James Comey posted this photo on Instagram yesterday of seashells he says he saw on the beach spelling out the number 8647 86.

As anyone who's worked in food service will tell you, informally means get rid of. And of course, Trump returned to the White House as the 47th president. The post, though, has ignited an enormous reaction from Trump allies both inside and outside the administration. DHS Secretary Kirsty Noem posted last night that DHS and Secret Service is investigating this threat and will respond.

Respond appropriately. The president's director of National Intelligence went so far as to say Comey should be put in jail. And here's what President Trump had to say in an interview released this morning. Do you believe Comey should be in jail?

I do. Any other person with a position of influence that he has, people who take very seriously, what a guy of his stature, his experience, and what the propaganda media has built him up to be, I'm very concerned for the president's life. We've already seen assassination attempts. I'm very concerned for his life.

And James Comey, in my view, should be held accountable and put behind bars for this. And that was the wrong side there. That was Paul C. Gabbard.

What we were talking about with President Trump is that he said essentially that Comey knew what he was, what he was doing. Let's not play that now. He knew exactly what that meant. A child knows what that meant.

If you're the FBI director, you don't know what that meant. That meant assassination. And it says it louder. And I don't want to take a position on it because it's going to be up to Pam and all of the great people.

But I will say this, I think it's a terrible thing. And when you add his history to that, if he had a clean history, he doesn't. He's a dirty cop. He's a dirty cop.

And if he had a clean history, I could, I could understand if there was a leniency. But I'm going to let them make that decision. The president's baseless claims about Comey being a, quote, dirty cop is perhaps emblematic of his long standing anger at Comey, who famously opened that FBI investigation into the Trump campaign's contacts with Russia during the 2016 campaign and whom Trump fired, which led to Robert Rollers special counsel investigation. They have a long history.

Comey deleted that social media post, saying in part, I didn't realize some folks associate it with violence. That didn't occur to me when I saw it. But I'm opposed to violence in all circumstances. So I took it down.

Joining me now as a panel here on set with me is Shelby Pallatt, White house correspondent for 704, Simone Sanders Townsend, former senior visor to Vice President Harris and co host of the Weeknight on msnbc, and Danielle Pletka, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and an NBC News contributor. Thank you all so much for joining me. Shelby, I want to start with you. Look, this probably was the best idea by Jim coming to do this.

He says he didn't fully realize what was going on. But is this much to do about nothing? It's an Instagram post. Yeah, I think, you know, they're obviously going to.

It's not surprising that they are. This is the reaction that we're seeing from Republicans. We saw them also go after Chuck Schumer for his comments a few months ago about Supreme Court justices. And so it's not surprising.

But you're right, it is perhaps easier just not to post anything in this day and age than to post something and sort of risk it being taken out of context. You're right. It's not really surprising that Trump is alleged to do this. I mean, Jim Crony is quite the foil for, for them.

But Danny, we just heard a couple months ago from Tulsi Garden, she says he should go to jail. Look at that. Well, come on. We know exactly what to make of that.

Tulsi Garber and Gabriel and I probably that's who Tulsi Gardens is. One of the things that got her to the position she's in. On the other hand, it wasn't an innocent Instagram post. I think we all know that this is, this is the fatal lure of social media, right?

You want to be edgy, you want to be cool, you want to play to the people who think you're the man, which James Comey loves to do. On the other hand, you recognize you did something dumb, right? And there have been two assassination attempts on Donald Trump like him. Hayden there's no one at the table who wants to see that man murdered.

Ken Comey was the former head of the FBI, that is the chief law enforcement officer of the United States, along with the attorney general. It was a dumb thing to do. He should be investigated. He should get slapped on the wrist and then it should be, he doesn't need to be in jail.

I mean, I don't think he should be investigated because, like, it's James Comey, you know what I'm saying? But I do think, well, but this is, they are using this to do something that they long wanted to do, which is go after James Comey. President Trump has a strong ire towards him, and this has given them an opening. And I don't think that the rhetoric is the last we've heard of this.

Right. Do Democrats really need to watch what they say now, or is this just that? James Comey, well, first of all, I think that the government, this current government, would like a chilling effect to go over everyone. And I have continued to say I'm very concerned about anything that are happening by refusal to live in fear.

I think people need to exercise the same amount of caution and judgment that they would in any of, you know, as we say in politics, when I've worked on campaigns, don't write anything down. You want to see on front page New York Times, they don't say don't, don't type it down. That's the rule. So I think people should continue with that rule, but don't allow the government to scare you.

It's not living your game. Continue on the beach. Just don't post any more seashells. Shelby.

I want to put it to a Democratic Party, the conversation I was having earlier with the congressman. Democrats are going to have to answer all these questions. Other revelations in the new book regarding Joe Biden's mental acuity. Here's what Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer said earlier this week.

I've not read the book. I can tell you this, that if, as the book reports, cabinet members didn't have access, that tells you that, you know, as a governor at a state, you know, halfway across the country, who was working her tail off 160 staffs on a bus tour that I had lined through swing states. I didn't, you know, I was busy working. I didn't see the president frequently.

And I can tell you I can't speak to that directly. Do Democrats have a better answer for this, or is it better for them just to want to move forward? No, I think that this answer we're hearing a lot of is sort of Democrats saying, well, I wasn't really that involved. I didn't see that much themselves, a degree of separation from this.

I don't know that it's going to work. I think that they're gonna have to have a better answer. I also think a lot of Democrats have kind of dodged on this issue. We've seen a few come out and sort of openly say, yes, Joe Biden should not run again.

We knew that there were problems, but by and large, there's a lot of people being quiet. And I just don't know that Republicans are going to let them do that. I think they're gonna come up with their answer. What do you think about this?

For a lot of people, though, a lot of voters, they knew that Joe Biden was. And how much would these revelations really move the needle at all with Democrats moving forward? No, look, I mean, again, I'm not a political consultant like you are, and I'm not a Democrat. I think everybody in Washington.

I think everybody in Washington was well aware about the president's content of decline. We all saw it. And, you know, they don't believe your lying eyes is a bad answer. I think that the right.

If it's me, and I'm giving advice to people just for the sake, for the sake of. You asked me, look, what I would say is, you know, I saw him, but I didn't realize how prevalent this was or I didn't realize that this was actually happening all the time. And we should, we should have done better. We should do better.

The second you say that, nobody keeps pressing you. The problem is I was working too hard and I didn't notice. What the heck are you saying? Well, speaking of another governor among some potential Democratic candidates actually have quite a paper trail here.

I want to put up some statements that Governor Josh Shapiro had previously said in May of 2025. He said, I can tell you that I was very frank with the president during his campaign about what I saw were some of the shortcomings. I was very honest with him in a private setting about that then. And that was in May of 2025.

Before that, in August 2024. Asked by POLITICO if he had any concerns that Biden had slipped, Shapiro said, not at all. I have been in contact with the president. So are those two statements consistent, perhaps for Josh Shapiro?

What is the this. Did the book say that Joe Biden has dementia? No, not to my knowledge. Did the book say that a doctor has diagnosed the president with the former president of Parkinson's?

No, I think the book just said Joe, it did, but it also said that his AIDS limited his, you know, how much time he will work during the day and that it brought up, you know, some concerns potentially for national security that he wouldn't have been available at 2am I think, I think it's crazy because now Trump is the president and he left his, his Middle Eastern trip and he's tweeting or posting on his social media site about Taylor Switch. It is laughable, frankly, to me, the idea that this is a concern, it's not concerned for Democratic voters. I can tell you the top talking. I'm talking to my dancing members and Democratic voters for the last couple of days, actually.

I do think, though, if this book tells us anything, it is this was the president of the decline. I really don't believe that as someone who saw the president a week before inauguration, as someone has spoken recently. But was Joe Biden in denial about the political reality of the situation? I think so.

And we have to ask ourselves if that's the case. Why? Well, I have to look at people that were buying the president. What were they telling him?

What weren't they telling him? But if we explore that, I think then some people who have yet to show up and take responsibility, then there are questions for them. It's easier to just say, oh, well, you know, the president was old. Well, I asked you what asked the congressman earlier in the broadcast, what should be the main message for Democrats heading into 2026, 2028?

Is it economy? Is it that Trump's cuts? What would you advise independent candidates? I think it is.

I would advise candidates to particularly contempt from elections about your district. Right. This is not a national election. As though I think some Democrats like to make it.

I think that you need to know the issue of your district. If you talk to voters in various key districts across the country, it is affordability, that is housing, that is the economy. And you tie in the chaos that the president has created with his tariffs to that issue. And not just talk about Donald Trump is going to talk about what you will do if elected.

Simone. Danny Shabby, thank you so much for joining here on panel. We really appreciate it. After the break.

Striving for civil discourse in a politically divisive time. How one high school here in Washington is rising to the challenge. That's Thursday next. You're watching me the Press now.

Welcome back. We talk a lot on the show about the deep political divisions in this country and what feels like an increasing level of vitriol in our political discourse when it comes to just how polarized we are. Recent NBC News polls show that 87% of Democrats have a negative view of the Republican Party and 91% of Republicans have a negative view of the Democrats. But one school right here in Washington, D.C.

is working to teach kids not just about politics, but about how to talk about politics in a respectful and civil way. MSNBC's Ali Vitale has this report. You may think you've heard this conversation before. How would you describe politics right now?

I would say that politics are sort of a mess. Either you're one side like you support one side or you're the enemy. Demolition derby. But the students here at the School for Ethics and Global Leadership are doing it differently.

How would you then describe the political environment here? It is room leaving and it's inspiring. Honestly, being here, like I gotten to hear a lot of different perspectives. We come from a place like in the School of Mutual Vulnerability.

The school, just blocks from the White House in Capitol Hill, brings together high schoolers from all over the country. The facsil are very important and can be very powerful tool to use and directly engages with the most complex issues of the day, from the Israel, Gaza war to abortion rights. I wanted to note how often you referred to each other's points. It's the brainchild of teacher Noah Bob.

The central insight of founding the school is that in a post 911 world, we need American leaders who are ethically strong and internationally aware. Awareness drawn from across the political spectrum with guest speakers like Tucker Carlson, then former President Barack Obama. Spoken here? Yeah.

No, that's part of our model. It's at the core of our model. All ideas shared in good faith are welcome here. It's hard, I think, for people who might watch this piece and say, I yearn for a civil political debate where I can engage with the nuance.

And yet the stakes seem so high and the good faith seems like it's gone because the stakes are high, that we do need to show as much grace as we back in the classroom. A chance to learn firsthand playing the part of lobbyists across from actual lobbyists defending assigned positions. Why are you Children with experts. I don't believe that tax credits are the best use of government federal funding.

I have the research right here and I also have a graph. You can see the nevermind. You may also notice no distractions. It strikes me that here you guys don't have your phones.

So I think, like, not having my phone has kind of led me to have a lot more of a healthy relationship with politics. We stay up till early hours in the morning even. We should be talking about issues that do, like, exist in our society. I can tell you they got their phones in Congress and they certainly have social media, but how could they do a little bit more of what you're doing?

Talk to someone genuinely, like, if you're in Congress, go to another Congress member and talk to them about their opinions come from a place of willingness and openness instead of a place around combativeness. And you saw it there. These kids don't have their cell phones, which means they're not getting their political information off of social media. That means that they're not exposed to the hyperpartisanship or toxicity that often exists online.

And what many of these students told me is that allows them to better engage with the nuance but also not close themselves off to other perspectives because they see their peers open and vulnerable in the same way that they are, meaning they can come to these political conversations with a little bit more of an open mind and maybe confront some of their own biases. Now, that's not replicable everywhere as we were talking there at the end, but they're urging these lawmakers and other people who want to participate in this conversation the way that they are to have a little bit more of an open mind themselves and start from a place of friendship rather than part. Might be nice to try. Gabe, back to you, Hallowed Valley.

Thank you so much. I'm Gabe Gutierrez. And we'll be back Monday with more Meet the PRESS now. And if it's Sunday, let's Meet the Press on your local music station, Kristen.

We'll have interviews with former Vice President Mike Pence, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessen, and Senator Chris Murphy. Don't miss it. The news continues now with Tom Costello in for Hallie Jackson right now. Hey, everyone.

I'm Dylan Dreyer, co host of the third hour of Today and mom to three wild boys. I've learned a lot in my years as a parent, mostly that I don't have it all figured out yet. And I'm not the only one. This is my new podcast, the Parent Chat.

Each week I sit down with someone new for honest conversation and real world advice about parenting. I'm over here just like, winging it. Hey, I'm trying not to screw my own gift, but I want to give you advice on how to screw yourself. Search parent chat on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts.