Meet the Press NOW — May 19

If it's Monday, President Trump says Russia and Ukraine will be in permanent ceasefire negotiations immediately after speaking to both President Putin and President Zelensky by phone following a deadly weekend of massive Russian drone attacks. Plus, former President Biden is diagnosed with an aggressive but potentially manageable form of prostate cancer that has spread to his bones. What we know about the diagnosis and the reaction to the news as Biden and his family consider treatment options. And Wall street and the White House shake off a major downgrading of the US's credit rating as Republican lawmakers and the Trump administration plow forward with a massive spending package.

Hi, and welcome to the press. Now online, Nobles in Washington, where President Trump held two high stakes calls today, speaking with Russian President Putin and Ukrainian President Zelensky as he tries to broker an end to the war in Ukraine. This after vowing on the campaign trail that he would resolve the conflict on his first day in office. 120 days later, signs of real progress in ending the war have been hard to find, with the President telling reporters last week as representatives from Russia and Ukraine met in Turkey, that they shouldn't expect much until he was able to speak with Russian President Putin personally, which he just did.

President Trump said his call with the Russian leader lasted about two hours and that the tone and spirit of the conversation was, quote, excellent. The president announced that Russia and Ukraine would immediately start negotiations toward a ceasefire and more importantly, to an end to the war, though the President did not provide any more details about those talks. Now in the same post, Mr. Trump said he'd also spoken with President Zelensky and several European leaders, informing them about the plan to start a negotiations.

It comes as the administration has cast doubt on Russia's intentions of ever ending the war. Here's Vice President Pence speaking on Air Force Two earlier today. I'm not sure that Vladimir Putin has a strategy himself for how to unwind the war. There's fundamental mistrust between Russia and the West.

It's one of the things the president thinks is, frankly stupid, that we should be able to move beyond the mistakes that have been made in the past. But that takes two to tango. Either the president's willing to do that. If Russia's not willing to do that, then we're officially just going to say, this is not our war, it's Joe Biden's war.

It's Vladimir Putin's war. It's not our war. We're gonna try to end it, but if we can't end it, we're eventually gonna say, you know, What? That was worth a try, but we're not doing anymore.

Those tough words for Russia from Vice President Vance come after the vice president met with President Zelensky in Rome yesterday. These images from the meeting show both men smiling at strikingly different body language compared to that clash in the Oval Office less than three months ago. But even as the Trump administration tries to engage in meaningful CE negotiations, Moscow is not slowing down its attacks on Ukraine. Over the weekend, Russia launched 273 drones, making it the war's single largest drone attack on Ukraine, according to Ukraine's air force.

Joining me now, NBC News White House correspondent's chief international correspondent, Keir Simmons. Also with me as Elise Levitt, Edward R. Murrow, press fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and the host of the Cosmopolitics podcast, Yanish, I'll start with you. Does it appear that we're any closer to a ceasefire in Ukraine after these phone calls today?

Look, it's a good question. President Trump has said that nothing could really go forward unless he spoke directly with President Putin. So it seems to go that means that there's a step in the right direction. But the president is also saying that, look, things are early.

It's not clear whether or not this ceasefire is actually going to be negotiated. He said that both parties, both Ukraine and Russia are not going to be talking to each other. And he also said that the Vatican has offered noted that the Vatican has offered through the new pope, Pope Leo xiv, to be a place to host these negotiations. But it's clear whether or not there's 30 days ceasefire that European leaders that the President Zelensky is pushing for whether who needs it all interested in that.

And it's also really interesting that President Trump has really gotten a little bit more tougher on Russia that to me so that maybe he's trying to push Putin into making a deal here. But it's not clear just how far things are going to go and whether or not these talks are really going to lead to anything just yet. Ryan, and is it do you have any idea just what role the United States will play in these negotiations? The president making it clear in his post that Russia and Ukraine are going to start talking about will there be a role for the United States in this process?

What's an interesting thing that you asked? Because I was rereading his post. It was a long post and part of that post he said that the two are going to be talking and that it was really the conditions for that have to be negotiated between the two parties as it can only be. So he's sitting there saying Russia and Ukraine need to talk, and that really needs to work out for the two of them.

Of course, the United States going to continue to be part of this, but the President is indicating these two countries really to get together and have a conversation. Of course, President Zelensky has said multiple times that when he and President Putin had kind of tried to come up with a deal that President Putin has broken pretty much every single deal. So it's clear that he also wants the United States and NATO to be part of those negotiations. Ryan.

And another kind of interesting wrinkle in the President's post this morning was that he is talking about potential trade deals between the United States and Russia. This comes at the same time that he was also threatening new sanctions against Russia, which would be opposed to each other. How does the administration square these two things when talking about White House officials? They really said this is both a carrot and a stick sort of negotiation.

The president does want it and is continuing to say that he could put sanctions against Russia if he doesn't think that things are moving fast enough when it comes to peace talks and ending the war in Ukraine. But he's also saying over and over again that he wants trade deals with any single country that comes to the United States is a big priority for him. So they're saying, these White House officials are saying that that's surprising, that he's talking about trade talks with Russia. The president overall wants to reset the relationship that the United States has with Russia.

I should also point out that the President said that Ukraine could benefit from a trade deal in rebuilding its country. So you can see there, the President is just really trying to eat out these trade deals as they happen, always thinking about the deal to be had in any situation. Thank you for that. Let's get the view from the other side of the Atlantic here.

What are officials in Moscow saying about the call between President Trump and President Putin? Well, President Putin, Bryan, was the first out to talk to the media, talking to his own media, but knowing, of course, that was Russian state media. It would be shared pretty quickly. He, too, had a very kind of friendly, positive readout of the call.

The Russians say that they call each other by their first names, that President Putin began by congratulating President Trump on the birth of a grandchild. So that's all well and good, but ultimately, while President Putin says that President Trump talked to him about there needed to be a ceasefire, he didn't. Greece was ceasefire, and neither did he agree to meet with President Trump in person. And remember, it's just days ago that President Trump was saying that that was what was needed.

And he again, even in the interview with the Russian state media immediately after the call, repeated that Russia wants to see the root causes of this conflict addressed. And by that, he means that Ukraine should be largely neutral, that Russia should gain more territory than it already holds, a whole number of things that Ukraine is under sign up for. So President Trump is putting a very positive gloss on this. But ultimately, if the idea is that two sides, Russia, Ukraine, are going to get into a room and sort of hammer this out between each other, there is a ocean between them and there's a very different.

See how they're going to come to the agreement. And President Trump is saying that the negotiations are going to start right away, but we don't have any sort of tangible timeline. Nothing's been scheduled. Right?

Yeah, it's a bit odd. Yeah, it's kind of odd. The true negotiations began on Friday because President Zelensky agreed to go to Turkey to meet with President Putin. President Putin had said there should be direct negotiations.

President Putin didn't come and he did send a Senate delegation. Now, they didn't walk out of the room. Hopefully they didn't collapse. They agreed, for example, to exchange a thousand prisoners on each side, which is the most that's ever been exchanged during these three years of war.

So there were positives, but they equally didn't agree to a ceasefire. They didn't come to terms. Again, the issue here really is that the Russians and Ukrainians are in very different places. The war grinds on.

On the Russian side, for example, they still are able to funnel troops, funnel new recruits into their military. And although that may not be the case in years to come, for now it is. And that therefore means President Putin's openly stated this, thinks that he can gain on the battlefield as well as negotiations. I think we may look back on this day, this moment, and say this was the moment that President Trump walked away from all of this, realizing that he couldn't get a ceasefire, the deal that he had hoped to get.

And part of the reason we may draw that conclusion is because while Donald Trump is talking about ceasefire, the reality on the ground is much different. Right. There was a massive aerial bombing Ukraine over the weekend. Things would have to change dramatically on the front lines to get to a place where a ceasefire would be any sort of reality.

Right? Yeah, dramatically. And, you know, I think in many ways it's a good idea to pay attention to what the Russians do as much as what they say, but they say very openly that they do believe. The President Putin said in an interview just in the past days, just before this call, he says very openly that he believes that Russia can achieve its goals militarily as much as it can potentially achieve its goals through talks.

So what effectively he's saying, he has been saying this the entire time, is that he hopes that the talks can achieve Russia what he wants. But if it doesn't, if they don't, then he will. He's perfectly happy, prepared, perhaps not happy to continue the war. And that's the fundamental challenge here.

Again, President Trump said that he could get this solved very, very quickly. At the moment, that is not looking like what is going to happen. Okay, here, Simmons, thank you for that. We appreciate it.

Let's turn it to Elise Lavin. Elise, if it doesn't seem like there's any progress on the ceasefire deal, what was the point of this call today? Well, I mean, it's good that the sides keep talking and they're agreeing at least to that. They want, in theory, to have a solution to the war, to an end to the war.

And I think what you have is President Putin willing to humor President Trump a little bit. He knows that President Trump wants a better relationship. He wants to reset relations with the Russians, and so he's willing to talk to him. But again, as Gears said on his terms, there was no progress today.

They were obviously on opposite side. Have the US and Ukraine and the Europeans wanting this 30 day ceasefire. And President Putin said no. So until he gets what he wants, which is basically Ukraine's unconditional surrender with a lot more territory than he even have now, you know, the talks aren't going anywhere.

So I think what President Putin is trying to do is keep the idea of talks alive and keep humoring the United States, because now, you know, President Trump, Vice President Vance, they're talking about sanctions, they're talking about maybe walking away. Vladimir Putin doesn't want the international community to walk away. He wants to keep them at the table. But really, it's just trying to smoke America.

Yeah. Maybe expand that a little bit because I'm a little perplexed by who's referred to Secretary. Secretary said the same thing as, well, the United States might just, you know, get out of this game and leave it to them to decide how does that work as a leverage point in these talks? Well, the question is, when the US Says it's going to walk away, what does that mean?

Does it mean that it's hands off, you guys, go kill it, keep killing each other, and we're done with it. Or is the US Going to walk away but continue to support Ukraine, to continue to give those aid, that aid, to continue to give them weapons, to work with the Europeans on additional sanctions? That might not be so bad for the Ukrainians, because right now the Russians have the upper hand. If the US Is just going to walk away and leave the Ukrainians to fend for themselves, that's essentially giving a victory to Putin.

So I don't think the Ukrainians certainly don't want the US to walk away. Would Vladimir Putin want the US to walk away and be able to do what he wants? Because, as Gears said, he does think he can have victory on the battlefield. But, you know, look, the sanctions are continuing to hurt Russia.

He would like to have a better relationship with the U.S. i think he's going to keep inching along, making it like he's going to talk. But, you know, unless there's someone that's really going to crack those skulls and get together, I don't see the Ukrainians and the Russians being able to get it together. Those two packs you described of the United States walking away in Putin, Hester has to be aware of what's happening on this side of the Atlantic where he knows that there's not any sort of inertia by congressional Republicans to continue the funding to help support Ukraine.

Right. I mean, is that a bet he might be willing to take for the US to walk away? Well, you know, I think you see President Trump as his unpredictable right. Why were Republicans so reticent?

Because the mad problem was less. Because President Trump was reticent. I think you've heard President Trump over the last, what, six weeks or so, coming to the conclusion that, you know what, I really want to be friends with Vladimir Putin. He's, you know, want to be best friends.

He could be playing me. And so if President Trump is going to, you know, start to lose favor with President Putin, he may want to get tough. And then, you know, the Republicans, as we see he could fall in line. And then you see Republicans wanting to throw money at Ukraine like they used to.

He definitely has the ability to move mountains when he comes. I think he's starting to, you know, realize what's really going on. And look, President Trump again, really, you know, was enamored of this strong man, President Putin, but he doesn't like to look like a Trump and he doesn't like to look like a loser. And so he can get the better of Vladimir Putin.

I think he may try to do it well. See, they'd be remarkable about Facebook at least your expertise. Always appreciate it. Thanks for being here.

We're gonna turn out to the economy. Stocks had a bit of a bumpy day today, but those pretty much where they started as investors seem to shake off the news over the weekend after one of the big three credit rating agencies, Moody's, downgraded the US's credit rating one notch off its triple A rating, setting a rise in debt. The other two major rating agencies, Sanders and Poor's and Fitch already downgraded US credit rating in 2011 and 2023 respectively. Downplayed Blue's decision yesterday on the press.

Who cares? Qatar doesn't, Saudi doesn't, UAE doesn't. They're all pushing money. And Moody's is a lagging indicator.

I think that's what everyone thinks of credit agencies. Larry Summers and I don't agree on everything but he said that when they downgraded the US in 2011. So it's a lagging indicator. NBC News senior for this course fly.

Christine Romans joins me now. So is the treasury secretary right? Moody's downgrade of the US credit rating. Is it that big of a deal?

We shouldn't care. I mean 2011, then 2023 and then now it tells you that the country's fiscal health has been going in the wrong direction for a really long time. So lagging indicator maybe, but it is a warning sign quite frankly that the United States does not have a substantial house in order and hasn't for a really long time and there will be a price to pay for that. Look, this could mean higher borrowing costs down the road.

We saw that 30 year treasury touch 5% that something has happen in a couple years. And look at it this way, Ryan. When you have one of every seven dollars the United States government spends is to pay interest on its debt and that's only getting bigger and bigger. It crowds out of their spending.

It's a dangerous position to be in long term. Right in the middle of an expending bill negotiation, by the way. Yeah, and you mentioned the fact that these other rating agencies have already downgraded the Oscar rating. Why did it take Moody so long?

You know, when you go from aaa to double A1, I mean that's going from an A plus to an A. When you think about it, the US is still the best, best economy in the world, the biggest economy in the world and the most, the most reliable investment. Right. We really, the United States really, really is the most reliable investment.

But Moody's have been the last to kind of come off that perfect score. And, you know, we've had other brinksmanships over the debt ceiling that have caused other agencies to make their downgrades in years past. Moody's finally coming around to it, just looking honestly at the time that the debt deficit problem has been building and finally throwing itself and the other development of the weekend. President Trump urged Walmart to eat some of the tariffs on Chinese imports.

On Saturday, he said Walmart should stop trying to blame tariffs as a reason for raising prices throughout their chain. Between Walmart and China, they should, as is said, eat the tariffs and not charge value customers anything. I mean, there's a lot to unpack here. But the Treasury Secretary as well agreed that they should eat some of these tariffs.

So what do you have to say? I was on the phone with McMillan, the CEO of Walmart, yesterday, and Walmart is in fact going to, as you described it, eat some of the tariffs in a totally different way than of course I would. Donald Trump would have thought, when he was a private businessman, if a president had told him to eat higher and increased cost. But doesn't this also undermine the Trump administration's argument that foreign governments are the ones that pay these tariffs?

Yeah, Brian, I'm old enough to remember when it was a Democratic administration trying to get companies not to pass on higher prices to fight inflation. That was called socialist. And that's how we got a Republican administration that's literally calling up companies and telling them how they want prices to be set. Something that would just never, never correspond with Republican orthodoxy in any other time in recent history.

But you're right. I mean, the company said, Walmart has said, look, 30% tariffs on China, even the 10% tariffs on Central America, for example, they're already passing on higher prices for bananas. The United States doesn't grow bananas. So we've got a tariff on something the US doesn't grow.

And a lot of retailers just don't swear with how that fits into the President's, you know, re home manufacturing. You're not gonna be growing a bunch of bananas. But you're also right that, you know, Walmart is a capitalist company. If it were to eat all of the tariffs, it would shrink its profit margins.

Right. And what happens? And maybe it hires less, maybe it expands less. So no matter what, this is just a system that we have here.

We're going to have a lot more retailers this week, by the way. And I think you're going to hear other retailers say that they have to pass on high prices as well. Okay, Christy Romans, thank you. We appreciate it.

Coming up, former President Biden addresses his diagnosis of an aggressive form of prostate cancer for the first time. We're live in Wilmington, Delaware. The Biden family considers its next steps. Plus, President Trump's massive legislative agenda in Congress takes a big step forward after a group of conservative hardliners withdraw their opposition from a key vote.

But they're not fully on board either. We have the details. You're watching. Be the PRESS now.

Welcome back. Former President Jo Biden and his failure meeting with doctors and weighing treatment options efforts office announced over the weekend that the former president has been diagnosed with an aggressive but manageable form of prostate cancer that spreads his bones. The former president tweeted about the diagnosis this morning. Writing like so many of you, Jill and I have learned that we are strongest in the broken places.

Thank you for lifting us up with love and support. It also comes a day before the public release of a new book detailing Biden failed re election bid and the concerns about his potential cognitive decline while in office. Over the weekend, newly released audio from then special counsel Robert her interview with President Biden appeared to confirm that he had some memory lapses while in office, including struggling to remember the year his son Beau died of cancer. NBC News national correspondent Aaron Aaron Gilkhurst joins me now from Wilmington, Delaware.

So, Aaron, let me know about the timing of this diagnosis and what are the next steps? Well, Ryan, we're really just learning about this over the last week. Ish. We remember early last week we were told by the former president's office that doctors had discovered a nodule on his prostate and that that was something that they would need to be further testing on.

And then fast forward to last night where we got another statement from his office that told us that on Friday, former President Biden and his family had been notified. This diagnosis of prostate cancer, this aggressive form of prostate cancer that his office went on to say was one that is hormone sensitive, meaning there's some expectation that this is a form of prostate cancer that can be treated potentially through a hormone therapy, which sources have told NBC News is something the Biden family is thinking about at this point in time. So that's potentially what could be the next steps for this, for them to make some decisions about treatment and then to undergo that treatment. Of course, we know this is an issue cancer that is familiar for the Biden family, something that the former president himself has had to deal with in terms of some skin lesions that have been removed at least once in the past.

And obviously, you mentioned Beau Biden, the president's elder son, who fought brain cancer and died back in 2015. So this family is one that's had to deal with these sorts of health concerns on more than one occasion. Ryan, now the president himself, the former president himself, is having to deal with this. We note that he developed this cancer moonshot initiative when he was vice president, something that he reinstated during his presidency.

And Ryan, the days after he left the race for reelection, he really turned back to this issue of cancer as one that he said was going to be a major focus of his in the final days of his presidency. And the days after his presidency, he made the announcement. I remember being in New Orleans when he announced that the administration was going to infuse $150 million into the cancer moonshot effort with the goal of cutting cancer in this country in half by 2047. Now, of course, this is something that the former president himself is having to deal with, a very serious Ryan form of cancer.

Okay, Aaron Gochrista on the ground there in Wilmington Forest. Aaron, thank you. Up next, the case for bipartisanship. I'll talk to a Democratic lawmaker on a key committee who says there's still room for Democrats and Republicans to work together on President Trump's sweeping legislative agenda.

You're WATCHING ME the Press now. Welcome back. It looks like President Trump is finally ready to put some muscle behind his embattled agenda in Congress. Sources telling BC News that President Trump is expected to attend the House Republican conference meeting tomorrow morning on Capitol Hill.

This comes after the House Budget Committee advanced a sprawling legislative package late last night. After some internal sniping and drama, the four Republican holdouts from last week who tanked a key vote in committee, switched their vote to present, allowing the bill to advance and setting up a rules committee meeting that's scheduled to start at 1am on Wednesday. It's not clear what, if anything, those hardliners were promised by leadership to change their votes, but one holdout told NBC News that he expects work requirements on Medicaid to kick in sooner. What changes are confirmed that you've secured?

Took the delays out of the work requirements. The Medicaid kicks in early. I think two, two years that they'll have it. Work requirements were a big deal.

We were excited about that. Now, to be clear, that's not actually in the bill right now. This was a handshake agreement that was made to get those hardliners to vote President So there's a lot of work to do. As of right now, the president's mega bill doesn't appear to have the votes to pass the full House.

We're not even talking about the Senate yet. Speaker Johnson is contending with moderate Republicans who are squeamish about how the bill handles Medicaid and the state and local tax deductions. And House Freedom Caucus members, meanwhile, want more spending cuts. Joining me now is Illinois Democrat Congressman Brad Scheider.

He's a member of the Ways and Means Committee. He's also chair of the New Democrat Coalition. So Congressman, let's first start with the big picture. Here you are on Ways and Means.

So you're dealing with the tax portion of this big bill. Do you have any idea what's in the tax and spending package right now or is it still a moving target? Well, I know it's in it now is what came out of Ways and Means Committee last week. And it's legislation that will knock 14 million people off of Medicaid.

It will add $5 trillion toward debt if the cuts are made permanent. And it's doing nothing to give relief to folks in states like Illinois, New York, California who are being taxed, basically double taxed on the cap with the salt deduction. So I know what the problems are raising means. Democrats tried 38 times to offer amendments to try to convince the Republicans to not increase the debt by $5 trillion, to not knock people off of Medicaid, to try to move forward with a bill that has bipartisan, bipartisan support.

There's just no interest to do that. Yeah. And we're probably indicate with the president coming tomorrow morning, Republicans can theoretically pass this whole agenda without a single Democratic vote. And that seems to be the course that the president would like them to take.

But are Democrats like you waiting and hoping that this deal may fall apart? The Republicans won't be able to pass it on their own. And then they come to folks like you to try and work on some sort of bipartisan path forward. Sure.

The hope is that we can find a path that would put working families first, would help families who are trying to pay for their kids education or keep a roof over their family's head, put food on the table, that we're helping those families and giving them the relief that they deserve, rather than giving massive tax breaks to billionaires like Elon Musk and President Trump's total. That's what we're hoping for. What we saw last week in Ways and Means, Energy and Commerce, Agriculture Committee is there's no willingness to even work with Democrats. It's a Republican bill.

And this is the problem Mike Johnson then has because there are at least a dozen Republicans who said we will not support the draconian cuts to Medicaid that are not 14 million people out of health care. And there's people like the Freedom caucus, more than 30 members who are saying we want to accelerate those cuts and take even deeper cuts. So have you had any conversations with some of your Republicans friends on the side saying, I'm here waiting for you if this thing falls apart? I've had conversations on the side.

I've had conversations in public. If Republicans aren't able to pass what they're trying to do, which is putting burden on working families to give the benefits to the billionaires if they want, instead put the focus on moving our country forward, creating a stronger economy, clearing obstacles and opening up paths of opportunity. We're ready and willing to work together. I want to put up with the ranking Democrat in the way.

Richard Wheel told Semaphore about the tax provisions in this bill. He said we could reach a deal with them on probably 98% of all this. We just object to the idea that the rich aren't paying more. Is that true?

Are you agreement in 90 the tax provisions in this package? Absolutely. In fact, it's estimated if you extended the 2017 tax cut for 98% of Americans, it only took at the top rates people making over $500,000 a year that income over 500,000 taxes at the rate we had five, six or I guess eight years ago. Now this was a rate that helped us balance the budget when President Clinton was running things, we could achieve most of what we're trying to accomplish on both sides.

But the Republicans are insisting with the bill that's going to add $5 trillion of debt in the next nine years to play all kinds of gimmicks rather than 10 years. Using nine years as an example. And if you take this out to 30 years, a child born today will incur $45 trillion additional debt because of the actions that Republicans are trying to ramp through in the middle of night. As you mentioned, the hearings will be one in the morning.

Last week the hearings were all through the night. I'm going to turn now asserting President Biden and his prostate cancer diagnosis yesterday. This is what vice president said today. Take a listen.

I will say whether the right time to have this conversation now at some point in the future, we really do need to be honest about whether the former president was capable of doing the job. And why do the American people have a better sense of his health picture? Why didn't the American people have more accurate information about what he was actually dealing with? This is serious stuff.

Do you sir, feel like you had an accurate picture of President Biden's health while he was in office? Look, I was one of the first people after the President's, President Biden's debate performance last June to call for him to pass the torch the next generation. I think it was the right thing to do. Should he done it sooner, we can have that debate.

Maybe outcome of the election last November might have been different. I can't change history. What I can do is look at the future. And if I look at the future, I look what this administration is doing.

Putting small businesses on the brink of bankruptcy with here again on again off again tariff news, putting people, families at risk of losing health care, taking whole communities and putting them with uncertainty of what the future could be. On a day to day basis. We need to look at the future. We can make sure that the Democrats take back the House next November.

My focus is one number, one number only. We need to get at least 218 Democrats elected next a year from November. Yeah, I appreciate that you want to focus on the future but in order to win re election. I'm sorry, to win back the majority in the House, don't Democrats need to reconcile with this question of the lack of trust that may exist with voters now about President Biden's term in office?

So you have to go back and understand exactly what mistakes were made and then be honest with the American people about how you handle that going forward. I think Brian, you're right. We always have to be honest and earn trust. That's an ongoing basis.

I think right now, as you mentioned, I have the privilege of chairing the Democrat coalition. We've grown to 115 members. We were 100 members in the last Congress. We added 15 total new numbers.

But in that 15 there are 30 members who've joined us since the last Congress. We continue to grow and it is growing on a message of serving the people we represent, working and growing our economy from the middle out. Giving people an opportunity not just to make ends meet but to get ahead. Making sure that we're providing healthy and safe communities that people feel safe in their homes, on the way to work, taking their kids to school and that the United States continues to be a leader in the world protecting Americans American interests at home and abroad always.

And that's what we're focused on will continue to grow. We hope to add at least three new seats in the next election. We have to do it by building trust, like convincing people that if they give us a chance to govern, we're gonna govern a way that represents their priorities, their values and their interests. And that will make their future better, make their life better.

And finally, let's talk about your home state of Illinois. You've got a pretty hot Senate race there, I think. One of the only Democrats not running in that Senate race, but one of your colleagues, Lauren Underwood, is reportedly thinking about getting into an already crowded field which has a couple other of your House colleagues. Would you advise her against a wrong you think Democrats need to call last behind someone?

What's your thought about how this. I told Lauren whatever she decides, I will tell her it's the perfect decision for her. She's got to make that decision herself. She's a wonderful colleague.

I like working with her in the House. I will have a privilege to continue to work with her in the House. The folks who are running for Senate, Robin Kelly, Roger, Kristen Murphy and Juliana Stratton, are all wonderful servants to the people of Illinois. And it's been a privilege working with them.

I know that whoever wins this race, the people of Illinois will be well served. Very diplomatic. Sir, I appreciate that you have a very big job ahead of you in terms of your Germanship within Democrats. Everything else that comes from Bradshaw.

Thank you so much for being really appreciate. Thank you. After the break. Lost and found inside the Democratic Party push to find its filling with voters and rebalance messaging while it reckons with its former leaders, past and present and.

Hello, Zach. You're watching the press now. Welcome back. It's no secret that the Democratic Party is in a bit of a rut.

Recently, people had just 35% of Democrats optimistic about the party's future. These are actual Democrats, not the entire country. A new Time magazine cover piece talked to several Democratic lawmakers that agree the party kind of needs a rebrand, but uncovered some disagreement on exactly what that looks like. Some want more pragmatic policies, like Minnesota Congressman Agent Craig said.

I've heard some folks say it's not our policies, we just have to communicate better. It actually is our policies that swing state voters aren't with us on. Meanwhile, Texas Congressman Greg Kasar is pushing for a more progressive form of economic populism. He said the Democratic Party needs to make as our central message that our goal is to break the unholy alliance between corporate greed and corrupt government.

Joining me now on set is Jasmine Wright, reporter at Notice, former New York Democratic Congressman Joe Crowley and Republican strategist Dun High. So, Jasmine, you know, for the last six months, Democrats have been saying they need a brand overhaul, but it doesn't seem as though they're on the same page as to exactly what that overhaul is. And that's why that overhaul is not happening. I mean, the Democratic Party is so big, and they just don't have a unifying voice to tell them which way to go.

And so you have all of these smaller members trying to say, go this way, go this way, but it's not working. And I think you're seeing that reflected not just in polls, but just how people are feeling. I mean, I know we're kind of past those town halls where people were kind of screaming at both the Republicans and the Democrats, but we're see that again when the next recess happens. Because still, the folks who I talk to across the country are not happy with the Democrats, are not feeling that they're pushing back enough on what Trump's been doing is part of that, because they're in the minority that it's hard to find a unified leader to get behind because they really don't have any power.

Yeah, I think it's. Well, I think that of fathers for this fault, to be quite frank. But I think the reality is that they're really just waiting by the end, the Democrats are just waiting to see what their message is to run on for 2026. And maybe that would be the unifier, not just a singular person, but, you know, voters want to join.

When I think about what Democrats are against, that's pretty easy. Going all the way back to 2016 because they're against Trump, it's been a little bit harder to define what they're for. Is that going to be one of the central questions they're going to have to answer in 26 and 28 and beyond? I think it's residual for the last election, actually.

I think that Democrats, we have a tendency to get behind every issue. That's the perception. We're also perceived as standing for nothing. And I don't think it's fair.

I just think that's how that's perceived. I think it's reflective in the poll numbers as well. But I believe in Andy Craig's position on this. I do think we have to, you know, winning middle America is not like winning New York City, Chicago or LA or San Francisco.

It's a complete world. And what I would suggest is this. We don't necessarily need to a person. Although that started take shape now with primary starting for 2028.

And more and more we have to win these individual districts. All politics is local. And so it would be better if we had that person to rally behind. At the same time, we have to win those seats.

And the messaging has to be clear. And I think it should be, you know, affordable housing. It needs to be lower health costs. It has to be about national security.

And you can incorporate into that the border. So I think there are ways we can talk about secure the border, but also have a more generous attitude towards immigration. I want to put up with New York Democratic Congressman Pat Ryan said at the time he's thought to be a rising star in the party. He said if you're talking about conservative or liberal or progressive or moderate, you're missing the whole effing point.

We don't swear on the shirt. It's not progressive or moderate. It's status quo versus change. It's for the people or for the elites.

Is that a strong message? A lot of that is true. And I go back to Jasmine's point. The Democrats are going to figure out what their issue was.

So when I see a Time magazine cover that says Democrats are out to lunch or whatever, I'm reminded of 2009 when the COVID of Time magazine had the Republican elephant logo and it's an endangered species. We didn't have our issue, we didn't have our candidate. It was the Obamacare vote going through the House. Thank you so much.

That gave us something to run on. Right. Not that Democrats can sit back and depend on Trump to make a mistake or whatever, but these things come because there are reactions. And if Democrats can then harness that, not that they're going to win 63 seats.

What happened in 2000 times an anomaly, but this pure angst that they have will go away. Let's talk about the issue of Democratic socialism. That's what I would be clear about. That's why I side with the agency Craig position on this.

I don't think America's rightful socialism orders one the dsa, the Democratic Socialists of America, which some members of our party, our caucus align themselves with. I don't think that's the right message for the general. I don't think you're hearing any of that from the people, except maybe Bernie Sanders, if it's decisive. But they're drawing 30,000 people.

Yeah, I mean, Bernie Sanders is always going to. Bernie Sanders, he's always going to draw a huge carousel. He's always going to Draw a lot of money. Obviously, AOC is moving into that wing.

We'll have to watch her, see how she moves the next few years. But I mean, just honestly, like, who's a Democrat? Donald Trump? We don't know.

They may not be one, but I mean, can they get close? Thinking about right now, nobody in 2014 or 2015 was thinking that Donald Trump was going to take the political world by storm. Is there someone out there that I'm not even thinking about? I think you start with the midterm elections.

If you're a Democrat, your goal should be what Republicans did in 2010 when John Boehner wanted to become Speaker. The Obama legislative agenda was over. If you're Democrats, you want to win the House first and worry about that later, especially if you work in the Capitol and all these other governors are trying to position themselves. You have a job at hand.

That's what the DCCC is trying to do. Absolutely right. Even before we have to win the House back, we're desperate to win the House back. And I don't think we need a national figure.

I think that we can do this with, with issues speaking to that constituency as to where they are at that time. And every state is different, every part of the country is different. We have to meet the people face to face with them on their terms. So we talk a lot about the disagreements with the Democratic Party, but don't run the Republican Party as well.

That Donald Trump in some ways kind of papers over because he's kind of like their, their ideological center. Everything flows there. But when you get outside of Donald Trump, isn't there some pictures there? Whenever you have a president, they paper over the differences in the party because they can invite you to the White House, they can come to the Capitol for a big business Trump is doing tomorrow.

That's a real weapon that he has. The Democrats had when Obama was president to some extent for Biden as well. But yeah, there are rifts and they're going to be. That's what playing out in the Capitol right now.

But ultimately it's gonna be Donald Trump's job to get those members who are difficult right now to get them to. Yes, before we go to the Senate and do this whole process over again because it's gonna be a long headache. We do have to talk about the situation with President Biden and his health, obviously. This new book is coming out, Jasmine, New revelations with the audio from the special counsel investigation.

Now this cancer diagnosis. It seems like Democrats wanna move on from Joe Biden. You heard My interview with Congresswaters, I'm thinking about the future. Can they move on without fully educating everything that went wrong in the lead up to President Biden ganging out of the race?

Well, I think they're certainly gonna try. And they, I mean, constant answer is no, they can't. I think that people, I'm not sure the Democratic Party necessarily needs them to come forward and say, we all made mistakes, although that's probably gonna be easiest. Reporters are gonna continue to ask these questions until Democrats take the Chris Murphy lane and say, the officer or not the officer, yes, he should have ran or yes, you should have done something differently.

But this is going to be continuously asked about over and over and over again because it come back to trust. Right? Because what this has offered Republicans is an opportunity to tell, well, you can't trust Democrats because they weren't giving you the full story when it came to President Biden. First and foremost, our thoughts and prayers.

Obviously, the president and I'm suffering, my family suffering from a diagnosis of our old son, cancer that also metastasized to his skeletal system. And the president like no one else could when he reached out to us, the empathy and sympathy they have for us because his family has suffered multiple times, including himself, from this in the past. But interestingly enough, we know about his prostate cancer because he hadn't transferred, didn't have account saying anything at all if they didn't want to. Right now at this point, I think it hadn't transferred.

Where I do think we broke down down was that when after the president passed his major legislation, the CHIPS act, the IRA and other acts, that he continued to attack to the left and that was an indication again that he wanted to run for reelection. It was trying to win primary and that's when the Muslims follows the party. She just said, I thought it would be infringed and not running again. And that's why I think they missed that.

The Republicans are going to let this go though, are they? No, absolutely not. I go back to midterm elections where Republicans so mishandled the expectations game. Right.

We talked about the big red wave and then the red wave was big enough, we had to talk about the red tsunami. So when we win back the House, the Democrats threw the party. And if at that party that Thursday night after the election, Joe Biden had said, you know, basically, thanks so much, I'm going live to what he promised. Exactly.

We have a very different history. Here we go. Thanks, Jasmine. Joan Dugley, appreciate you all being here.

Silicon New Reporting on how a legal vetted Venezuelan refugee with no criminal record was deporting porn about El Salvador's supermax prison. His mother spoke to NBC News exclusive. That's where he's next. You're watching THE PRESS now.

Welcome back. A win for the Trump administration at the Supreme Court today. The high court is allowing the White House to revoke the temporary legal protections of tens of thousands of Venezuelans that were granted by the Biden administration. The ruling could allow the administration to begin deportations, but the court ruled that some individuals can challenge their removals.

Today's decision comes after the Supreme Court struck a blow to President Trump's immigration policy late last week, ruling that for now, the Trump administration cannot use the Central Alien Enemies act to deport migrants to a notorious Salvadorian mega prison without due process. But that ruling only applies to people who haven't been sent to EL SALVADOR Yet. NBC's David Norega has new reporting showing that some of the people already deported to El Salvador not only came to the US Legally, but through one of the most stringent legal immigration programs available. David spoke exclusively to the mother of one such refugee who hasn't gotten any information about her son in months before they ever set foot in the US While they were living in Ecuador after having fled their native Venezuela, Yusbet Sangino and her sons went through months of extensive vetting, in person interviews and background checks to be resettled as refugees.

So she was shocked when the family arrived at the airport in Houston and immigration agents arrested her 24 year old son, Widman Agalvis. The reason? A tattoo of a rose and a clock, which an agent wrote, are associated with the Venezuelan gang. Thing that I Experts say that Nicaragua does not use tattoos as markers of membership.

And government documents show agilevies had no criminal record or other evidence linking him to the gang. My son is not a gang member or a terrorist. So she hired a lawyer to prove that in immigration court due process. That was cut short when Agilevis, with no court hearing and no warning, was sent here to a notorious supermax prison in El Salvador designed to lock up gang members and terrorists indefinitely.

With no contact with the outside world. He's one of hundreds of men deported to the prison under the Alien Enemies act, which Trump officials justify by calling them a threat to the nation. Our job is send the terrorists out before anyone gives way for murder. But lawyers advocating for the families say most of them aren't gang members at all.

The majority of them have no criminal record and have no indication really that they are part of this trend Aragua, that the government says that they're an integral part of and that they present a danger to the. Through government documents and interviews with lawyers and families, we found that at least three of the deported men, including Iiades, had been carefully vetted to come to the US under the Refugee Resettlement Program, a process for people fleeing war and persecution. In a statement, the Trump administration said was confident in its intelligence and that it would be, quote, insane to hear intelligence reports every time a gang member denies he is one. Lisbeth still has the suitcase her son packed to come to the US for more than two months, she's had no contact with him.

She feels guilty when she eats, she says, because she doesn't know if he's eating. The first and only glimpse of his conditions came last week when former Congressman Matt Gates, for his show on One America News, joined current members of Congress for a tour of the section of the prison housing Venezuela D14. The prisoners yelled liberty and made this hand sign an international symbol meaning sos. Watching the video, Lisbeth says, only made her feel worse.

How does this change your perception of the United States completely? She says she thought the US Was a place where things happened according to the law. And NBC News correspondent David Noriega joins us now. And interesting there, we saw in your piece, David, that we did get a bit of a glimpse into this mega prison through former Congressman Matt Gates's TV show last week.

What's been the reaction to those images showing prison prison prisoners yelling for Libyan and signaling sos yeah, Ryan, so we had seen inside Sick Court before, but never inside the specific wing that houses these deportees from Venezuela. This is very significant. It's hard to overstate how surprising this was both to members of the press like, including myself, who have been asking for months for access to that window of prison with no success, but mainly for the lawyers and the loved ones of the men who have been held there completely incomunicata with zero contact with the outside world for more than two months. The fact that these lawyers and families have been filing in rural legal briefs in the American court system and in the Salvadoran court system asking for these events to have access to council, access to their families, asking for proof of life, information about their conditions with no success, and could only get a very limited, very narrow glimpse at how they're doing through a video that was put together by a former congressman with, you know, a relatively recent TV show to these lawyers and family members just illustrates how unusual and how difficult this situation is, particularly when you consider the issue that's really at the core of this, which is due process, the fact that these men never had a chance to contest the claim that they're gang members.

Ryan. Okay, David Noriega, thank you so much for bringing us that reporting. And we'll be back tomorrow with more MEET THE PRESS now. But the news game news here on NEWS NOW with Kelly Jackson right now, I'm Craig Mel.

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