Meet the Press NOW — May 30

If it's Friday, the president bids farewell to Elon Musk as the two men take questions in the Oval Office, defending Doge's efforts to cut government spending while slamming judges who rule against the administration. Plus, President Trump lashes out at China, accusing Beijing of violating an economic agreement with the US as trade negotiations appear to hidden impasse and the global economy braces for more tariff turmoil ahead. And the Supreme Court hands the Trump administration a major legal win for now, allowing the White House to strip more than half a million migrants of their temporary legal status as President Trump looks to ratchet up mass deportations and arrests. Welcome to the press.

I'm Chris welcome in Washington, where Elon Musk this afternoon received an Oval Office farewell as the world's richest man departs his position as a special government employee after becoming the face of the administration's efforts to cut spending and slash the deficit. Mr. Musk came into the role wheeling a literal chainsaw, vowing to make government more efficient, promising to slash trillions in spending and save the nation from deficit bankruptcy. But he leaves falling well short of his own lofty goals.

And while butting heads with the White House over the president's massive spending bill, which nonpartisan scorekeepers say would add trillions to the deficit at the White House today, President Trump papered over some of those recent disputes, gifting us a symbolic key to the White House, while also signaling he will maintain some kind of advisory role. Today it's about a man named Elon, and he's one of the greatest business leaders and innovators the world has ever produced. He stepped forward to put his very great talents into the service of our nation, and we appreciate it. And I just want to say that Elon is work tirelessly helping lead the most sweeping and consequential government reform program in generations.

Elon's really not leaving. He's going to be back and forth, I think. I have a feeling it's his baby and I think he's going to do a lot of things now. Musk echoed that sentiment, adding that Doge's work will continue even without Musk at the helm.

Doge team doing an incredible job. They're going to continue doing an incredible job and I'll continue to be visiting here and be a friend and advisor to the President and look forward to time. Speaking back from this amazing reply expert, continue to provide advice wherever the president would like, if advice helps. I mean, yeah, I expect to remain a friend and an advisor and certainly if there's something the president wants me to do I'm at present service now.

Musk's tenure was marred by chaos and questions about just how much Doge was actually able to accomplish. Doge's self reported savings, much of which has been disputed or lacks verification, is roughly $175 billion. The actual savings are believed to be far less than that. And Even if that 175 billion dollar number was accurate, it represents less than 3% of annual government spending and far less than DOGE's initial 2 trillion dollar goal.

Meanwhile, many of DOGE's efforts to restructure the government and terminate thousands of government employees remains tied up in the courts. As we noted in recent days, Musk has been critical of the president's mega bill currently making his way through Congress. But in an interview with cbs, Musk says he has a difference of opinion on some things happening inside the Trump administration. It's not like I agree with everything the administration does, so it's like there's I agree with much of what the administration is, but we have differences of opinion.

Joining me now is NBC News senior White House correspondent Garrett Hake, NPR technology correspondent Bobby Allen, and NBC News senior national political reporter Sahil Kapoor. Garrett, let me start with you at the White House. What were your key takeaways from that really remarkable Oval Office appearance with Elon Musk as the president? Yeah, Kristen, look, both of these men have had famous blow ups with other powerful men with whom they have shared power or the spotlight over the years.

And this felt to me like an effort to make sure the end of the Elon Musk era here at the White House doesn't include one of those blow ups. So both sides wanted to go out looking like everything is absolutely fine. They're still a team. They still have shared goals and a shared mission.

And try to make sure this is a smooth transition for the world's most wealthy man and the world's most powerful man to be going their separate ways. You saw the president who I think has kind of realized he could command quite the spotlight with these midday press availabilities that aren't proper press conferences, you know, pushing a number of false claims, including the degree to which Doge cuts have worked, the price of gas which he artificially lowered in this hearing or in this availability. And he's able to do that. A lot of pushback given the structure of these things, which are pool only events, when the White House now controls the composition of the pool.

So you saw pretty tepid pushback on a number of these points, letting Musk and Trump set the narrative as Musk returns to his business empire, at least as his full time gig. Well, and Gary, it's a great point because one of the threads that was looming over this availability was this report from the New York Times saying that Elon Musk was using drugs like ketamine and Ecstasy while on the campaign trail. Embassy does not confirm that reporting. What is the White House saying?

Was Elon Musk pressed about this at all today? Pressed is not the verb I would use, Kristen. There was one kind of tepid effort to ask about this. When Musk heard New York Times, he took a very Trumpian tactic of cutting off the question and focusing on the Times and his complaints about their reporting on issues related to Donald Trump and essentially cycled the question before the word drugs could even be asked.

As to the White House, they've responded to questions about the drug use by the alleged drug use by defending Elon Musk in more general terms, talking about his stellar business career and the sacrifices he made. I think the closest you're going to get to any acknowledgment of this is the way in which both Musk and the president in the Oval Office today talked about how he was the target of slings and arrows and of tough reporting and attacks along the way. But nobody has dealt with the substance of this report yet from either the White House or Musk himself. Interesting.

So, Garrett, what happens next to Doge? You heard Elon Musk there say that his team at Doge will stay in place. You heard President Trump say that Elon Musk may be leaving, but he's not going far. What if all of, what does all of this add up to without Elon Musk physically at the White House?

Yeah, look at Elon Musk and the White House have both learned that cutting this kind of spending that they've talked about is really hard. There's a reason it hasn't been done in generations. And there were loggerheads, you know, between us wanting to make more significant changes at Social Security and the president wanting to keep his hands off to various cabinet agencies, ultimately pushing back against Musk's efforts to get their staff to Congress, not yet fully grappling with, you know, the kinds of reforms and changes that would really necessary change the trajectory of government spending. That'll be the next big fight.

If it's a big fight with a rescissions package, that's essentially a bill to undo previous government approved or congressional approved spending going to the Hill in short order. The budget director was talking about that today, if Congress is really willing to walk back lending that Congress has already approved to be spent, that's the kind of structural change that would ultimately be necessary to make the kind of long term cuts Elon Musk wants. I, as a former congressional reporter, I'm skeptical that they will be able to do that, but that's what this will look like. So the doge, you know, ethos continues, but the low hanging fruit are gone and the difficult structural changes still have to be dealt with if they're going to be all right.

Garrett, thank you so much for your great reporting from the White House. Bobby, let me turn to you. Let's talk about how Elon Musk views his time at the White House. He set out and said he was going to cut a trillion dollars.

Then it became 1 trillion. Now he's saying he found about $100 billion in savings. Does he believe his time at the White House was a success? What Garrett just said, Musk became increasingly disenchanted over just how difficult it is to cut costs within the federal government.

Musk is used to coming into, say, a company like Twitter X. Right. And saying, I'm going to cut 80% of the staff, I'm going to cut contracts, I'm going to end real estate relationships and just do it in one fell swoop. But in the federal government, it's a very different situation.

And he came in to try to launch a war against the bureaucracy. And some might say he was ultimately defeated by the bureaucracy. And you know, really for his companies, it's been really, really tough. I think one of the big surprises for Musk was just how much of a brand liability being and the White House would be, especially for Tesla.

I don't think he fully appreciated just how much of a backlash there would be among owners of Tesla cars, among investors, among other and others in the business community. He feels really ostracized right now. He thinks, you know what, I tried my best in the White House. I really want to come in and fight Waste, Fraud and BrickViews.

And I'm leaving feeling a little disenchanted, a little frustrated. But he knows he has to get back to Tesla. He has to get back to SpaceX, because at the end of the day, those artists will find jobs. Yeah, there'll be a lot of scrutiny about his return to those companies.

There' been also a lot of scrutiny about his relationship with President Trump. How do you assess his relationship as he set to walk out the door? I can't remember the last time I saw A departure like this one where President Trump is praising the work that someone did in the Oval Office. Yeah, it's really kind of a soft exit, isn't it?

So he's no longer going to be at the helm of Doge, but he's still going to be an advisor in some capacity. And I think Elon thinks having an inroad into the White House can really help him from a regulatory perspective. Let's not forget there are dozens of investigations, government investigations, into Elon Musk's business empire. He has billions of dollars in federal government subsidies that are propping up some of his companies like SpaceX.

So having a direct line into President Trump he knows, can help lift the bottom line of his companies at a time when they are feeling besieged, at a time when Tesla reported that its profits in the first quarter of the year are down 71%. So Elon Musk knows having an ally in the White House is only gonna really help his future and the preservation of his business interests. But within the White House, it's become very clear that dealing with Elon is kind of a pain. And I think many there are very relieved to have him out of the White House.

Yeah, part of this story there, his clashes with various cabinet officials. Bobby Allen, thank you so much. We really appreciate your perspective. Let's turn to Sahil Kapoor.

Sahil, thanks so much for being here. Really appreciate it. Well, we know that just this week Elon Musk was quite critical of the so called big beautiful bill. He said it could potentially undermine the work of Doge and that there just aren't enough cuts in it.

How might that impact the debate on Capitol Hill? This big, beautiful bill now moving to the Senate? I don't think it'll have much of an impact, person. I think Republican lawmakers are going to decide what's in or out of that bill on their own basis.

I do think the Doge project has been objectively a failure. But Elon Musk's own standards, he came in with a lot of bravado, branching that ch, talking about how he's cut trillions of dollars from the budget and balance the budget, they're doing the opposite. That $2 trillion that he was talking about cutting the big beautiful bill would increase the deficit on net by more than $2 trillion. So one could argue that the White House was never really serious about this whole, in the beginning, that there was some PR benefit to talking about, you know, the Doge Gold, government efficiency.

Elon Musk ultimately treated this idea of government efficiency as something nobody really thought about until he came along. As opposed to something people have tried to do it repeatedly fail to do because it's extremely difficult. He went after pieces of the budget that are popular to cut, like foreign aid, firing a bunch of civil servants has a lot of support among conservative voters, but those are small slices of the budget. He clearly did not come with a plan to build the coalition needed to make the kind of cuts that you're talking about.

We know what's interesting, Sahil, is that what we're hearing from Elon Musk is not altogether different than what we're hearing from some Republicans in the Senate who oppose this bill right now, Senator Ron Johnson, Senator Rand Paul, who say this too much to the deficit, that they're not going to be able to get behind it. You've been covering Capitol Hill for a long time. Talk a little bit about these dynamics. You know that House Speaker Mike Johnson, who I'll be speaking with exclusively this Sunday on Meet the Press, has said to his colleagues in the Senate, please don't make too many trims because we need to be able to pass it to the House one more time before it gets the president's desk.

Absolutely. So Republican leaders in House and Senate are facing squeeze on two ends. John Thune, the seven majority leader, is dealing with a group of fiscal hawks, including Senator Ron Johnson, including Senator Rand Paul, who want the cuts to be a lot steeper in order to vote for it. Then on the other hand, he's dealing with senators who are already queasy with the level of Medicaid spending cuts and they're already queasy with the clean energy funding cuts in there and are questioning some of the existing cuts.

Again, as Garrett was talking about, it's a lot easier to talk in abstract about spending cuts. It's much harder when you get down to the ground level because frankly, many voters are not well informed about what the government spends money on and the fact that most of government spending is actually either very popular or has a lot of political support. One little known about Elon Musk, he came in talking about how he's going to reduce military spending, that there's a lot of bad and bloat. And depending on which many people argue there is, it turns out this big beautiful bill increases military spending by $150 billion.

That's quite metaphor. Yeah. A lot of Republicans say you have to deal with the bloat there, which is of course one of the most challenging places. Thank you so much.

Appreciate it. Coming up, another day of trade War whiplash as President Trump is China violating the economic agreement with the U.S. we have the very latest developments and the response to Wall Street. Plus, new details on ISIS plan to ramp up migrant arrests as the Supreme Court allows the Trump administration to strip more than half a million migrants of their legal status.

Stay with us. You're watching me depress now. Welcome back. Turning to the latest in President Trump's tariff roller coaster.

In a truth social post this morning, President Trump accused China of violating an agreement they made with the US that post came after Treasury Secretary Scott Bassett said negotiations with China were, quote, a bit stalled. President Trump reiterated his claim in the Oval Office, but did not identify how exactly China broke its word, violated a big part of the agreement we made. You know, if you read that all said I was very nice to that I helped them because they were in trouble with the stoppage of a massive amount of business. But I'm sure they'll speak to President Xi and hopefully we'll work that out.

But yeah, that's it's a violation of the agreement. China, meanwhile, is accusing the US of violating the consensus they reached at those talks in Geneva earlier this month which led both nations to roll back their tariffs. Markets didn't move much today on the president's news, ending the day pretty much where it began. Joining now as NBC News business and data correspondent Ryan Sean Bright.

Thanks so much for being here on this Friday. So what do we know about President Trump's accusations that China violated a deal with the U.S. are there any specifics here? Yeah, well, Kristen, kind of as you just outlined, we don't really have the specifics beyond the president alleging that they violated some part of the agreement, which again refers to the post Geneva meeting between U.S.

trade Representative Jason Greerswald's Treasury Secretary Scott Besson with their counterparts in China. Again, that meeting a few weeks ago that concluded in the reduction of the US tariffs on China from 145% to 30%. I want to point out that that wasn't necessarily an agreement that lowered the temperature to zero because again, 30% was still substantially higher than the tariffs that were in effect prior to the administration coming into office on January 20th. But again, basically the freezing of the remarks on the Oval Office as laws for the truth social prose post that preceded earlier this morning just suggested there was some part of the agreement that was violated.

But again, a bit deep on details in terms of what aspect specifically of that agreement that was violated. We know that the White House did lash out at the International Court of Trade before the pause in its ruling yesterday. What did we hear from the President today, Ryan? Yeah, well the president did a high on that from the Oval Office today again after what was a witsawed 24 hours where yesterday in the morning we had thought that this international trade court had struck down the tariffs.

But then the appeals court said, hey, while we take a look at the merits of this case, we're going to allow the administration to continue to impose these 10% baseline tariffs on essentially every country around the world as well as the so called ventral terrorists on Mexico, Canada and China. Take listen to what the President said with regards to the appeals court, the appeals court, a decision to reinstate those tariffs. I mean I was so honored that we got that ridiculous daylift because that would have taken away presidential power. It would have taken away everything that was granted by the founders.

It would have been a terrible thing and it would have, most importantly would have left us longer. But hopefully now we'll go to court and just win that battle because if we don't have the power to do what they're doing to us, we are going to be a great nation no longer. So you can hear the president clearly thrilled with the prospect. At least these tares can remain in effect.

But yeah, point out the appeals court isn't necessarily reversing the prior court's ruling. They're just saying while they review it and they hear from both the plaintiffs and defendants again, they'll allow the tariffs remain in effects in this fight. Still far more rally sleeping person now we know you'll continue to watch it. Brian Chung, thank you so much.

I really appreciate it. Joining me now is one of the President's top economic advisors, the director of the National Economic Council, Kevin Hassett. Thank you so much for joining me. Really appreciate it.

Thank you. Well, let me ask you about this social media post. The President this morning, Mr. Trump, saying that China violated a deal with the US who that claimed just earlier in the Oval Office.

What is the violation and is the president in fact planning to put tariffs back on as a result? Well, the bottom line is that there's an ongoing negotiation that U.S. representative Jason Greer is in contact, as is the Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessa, with their Chinese counterparts. And I think that there is some frustration with the pace of the sort of China moving forward with the things that they agree to.

And I think that it's appropriate at a time like that to talk about your frustrations because that's how things get communicated and how things change. And so we're very hopeful that, you know, this will be worked out soon. But, yes, I think there's a lot of frustration with the pace of what China's been doing. Director has just to be very clear, given that frustration, could President Trump reimpose tariffs at a higher rate on China?

President Trump and everybody on President Trump's team are hoping that this deal that was negotiated in Geneva, that the things that were put in place are accomplished and accomplished quickly. That's what everybody's focused on right now. Treasury Secretary Scott Bassen said the talks with China are stalled right now. Is that an accurate assessment?

You know, I think that he put a few words around the word stall. The castall would mean that they were stopped. But I think we're absolutely frustrated that they're moving slower than we would like. And I'm sure that's what he was meaning to characterize.

He said they're a bit stalled, a bit stalt. Exactly. It's just moving slower than we would like. Okay, let's talk about the International Court of Trade ruling.

I talked to Stephen Moore yesterday, who you're familiar with, of course, his economic adviser to President Trump during the 2016 campaign. He told me he's not confident the Trump administration would prevail if this goes to the Supreme Court because the Constitution says that tax bills must start in the House. Does he have a point? No, Steve.

Steve's completely wrong on this. And the bottom line is that James McGregor, the US Trade Representative, is the smartest trade lawyer person in America on earth. He knows this stuff cold. We have a million options for how we could do the tariffs that President Trump wants in order to start opening up markets around the world and to get reciprocal trade policy to be enacted.

We have a million options, and we chose this option because it's the one that's the fastest and the most legally sound. As we're very confident that this is the river prevailing court eventually we're very disappointed when, you know, it had a hiccup for a day. I actually was surprised with the reversal happen yesterday. I was surprised that long because it was so obvious that we're on really solid ground legally.

You know, it was interest. Director, you said the White House yesterday you weren't worried about economic uncertainty. I do want to put up what we heard from the Fed at minutes released from their May meeting. I'll read this.

It says participants agreed that uncertainty about the economic outlook had increased further, making it appropriate to take a cautious approach until the net economic effects of the array of changes to government policies become clearer. That's pretty clear there that there is some uncertainty, is it not? Well, obviously, like the bill has to pass in the Senate and then it has to become law. So the big people bill, there's perhaps uncertainty for some about that, but we're highly, highly confident that that's going to happen and it's going to provide a massive boost to the US Economy.

I think that President Trump's trade policy is very, very clear, that we started to have deals that give people an idea of what it's going to look like in the future. And so I think that people know what to expect. And that's why Consumer Senate just jumps by about the most it ever has. Why we got a report today that showed that incomes are so and why the jobs have been so good while inflation's going down.

And so I think that we're highly, highly confident that we've got a plan that's going to create a golden age for the economy. And you're starting to see it in the hard numbers as well. You're touting a lot of different data points in the economy. Is this now the Trump economy?

Director Haset, you know, there's always, there's always a question of so there are policies that are in place that President Biden put in. The question is, why is the economy right now starting to boom? And the reason is that people are confident that President Trump has changed the trajectory and is bringing us to a place where, for example, the first quarter we had 20% equipment but 10% capital spending because everybody's building factories in the U.S. again, all that is happening because of President Trump.

But of course, there are things that are going on the economy that aren't just because of President. Now, what are you saying to people who say you can't have it both ways? Roger has it. What do you mean?

That you can't just pick the pieces of the economy that you like and say that President Trump owns that, but not the pieces that we don't like. Well, the thing is that what you have to do is you have to have a reason for the things that you're analyzing. And so, for example, in the State of Union address of the Joint Session, President Trump said that we're going to pass the beautiful bill and we're going to have expensing and expensing of capital investment, and it's going to be retroactive to the 20th of January. And then all of a sudden we get a 20% boom in capital spending.

And so when you see that there's a reason for it Something that happens and then you see that thing happens as you have x83 that expose realization of the data, then you've got a good story. But if you don't have a good story, then you shouldn't say it. Let me, let me ask you about President Trump's meeting with Fed Chair Jerome Powell at the White House yesterday. I want to put up the Fed's readout.

Chair Powell said that he and his colleagues will set monetary policy as required by law to support maximum employment and stable prices and will make those decisions based solely on careful, objective and non political analysis. You were in the Oval officer. Did President Trump push him to lower interest rates? You know, President Trump and Chairman Powell had a very collegial and friendly discussion and President Trump's views about interest rates are obviously quite visible.

In his previous post of True Social. I'm not going to talk about what we talked about in the Oval, but I agree with Jared Paul's very quickly just on the big beautiful bill. Elon Musk reports his final day at the White House today and the President says he'll still be close. He has expressed real criticism of the big beautiful bill, noting that it will add to the deficits he says can't be big and beautiful at the same time.

And quite frankly, he's echoing what we're hearing from a number of Republican senators on Capitol Hill, from Senator Ron Johnson to Senator Rand Paul. What is your response to your Republican critics and how do you get it over the finish line? Look, we respect the legislative process. The House has a bill.

The Senate is putting forward the bill. There are folks that are disappointed that the House didn't cut enough. There are probably people in the Senate that are trying to cut for and the bottom line is that whatever happens in this bill, that's not the end of reducing government waste, that it's going to continue to happen that right now, Russ vote at the Observation budget is rolling up a bunch of the stuff that Elon has covered, this very, very wasteful spending. We're beginning to send packages out to the House or to Senate for people to rescind it.

And the bottom line is that those restrictions are going to continue to happen for the next four years. And so if you're disappointed in the path of spending in these and bills, then you shouldn't need because there's gonna be so much more that comes in the future as well. Just be very clear though, you acknowledge what the CBO says, what other analysts have said, that this will add trillions of dollars to the deficit No, I don't acknowledge that because the bottom line is that the CBO estimate is conditional on 1.8% economic growth, which is ludicrous. I think we're gonna get at least 3% growth because of all the economic stuff that's in the bill.

But the other thing that the CBO is doing is they're not even running a counterfactual that makes any sense. So if the bill doesn't pass, then there's gonna be the biggest tax hike in history which is gonna cause a deep recession, which itself will decrease the deficit roughly because of all the social welfare payments that we have to make. And I think counterfactual. The bottom line is if you think they're have growth of the ones, then the CBO numbers are something that you should think about.

If people have growth around 3, the bill is not the deficit at all. Why do you think that about growth? That's the way we should think about. Okay, it's worth noting it's not just a cbo, it's a Joint Committee on Taxation.

It's going to be for responsible federal budget. This is what you said about the CBO back in 2017. You said the staff of the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation have a level of technical expertise that is difficult for any institution to match. The depth and breadth of expertise at CBO and JCT the Joint Committee on Taxation are virtually unmatched.

You're now saying that. No, no, I said that they're wrong about the score. But don't forget that this score doesn't include growth effects. And so there are people at the CBO are brilliant about modeling growth effects, but this score does not include growth effects.

So in the end, whether this tax bill is great for the economy and break the budget to depend on the growth effects. And the Joint Tax Committee and the CBO are not including Griffiths of this analysis. So it's not exist at all. Way back when I was graduate school hanging out of the Joint Tax Committee because when my best friend, chief economist there, I know Tom Harfield runs a joint tax creator and Rachel, respect for him.

But this is not about whether they're able to do a static score or confidently. They are. This is a question of what's the actual truth. That the truth is going to depend on what happens to growth.

And I have a view of growth that is based on my experience for 2017 where we told you we get 3% growth of W. Okay. All right. Kevin Hassan, thank you so much for joining us.

Really appreciate it hope you have a great weekend. We have much more news still ahead to stay with us. You're watching the PRESS now. Welcome back.

I want to turn now to a victory for the Trump administration's deportation agenda. The Supreme Court now allow the White House to revoke the temporary legal status given to more than half a million immigrants by the Biden administration. That program was put in place in 2021. It granted protections to migrants from Cuba, hait, Nicaragua, Venezuela on humanitarian grounds, allowing them to live and work in the United States.

Now we should note the Supreme Court's 72 decision is temporary as the case continues to play out in the lower courts. NBC News senior Homeland Security courtesy now. Julia, thank you so much for being here. So tell us what the court said.

What was the reason behind this? There wasn't actually a lot of detail in what the court said. But really what they're doing is they are allowing the government to put on pause a order from a judge in California that said that they could not block that. They cannot.

There's been universal space. There's a point to say that they can't deport people who came into the administration on this program. Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, Venezuela. These are people who apply from their home countries, had US Based sponsors and then came in legally.

Now they're being told not only does their legal status not extend any longer, but basically they could be the first up for deportation. We did reporting on this during the transition. Basically, the Trump administration sees this as an easy way to boost this deportation numbers because they know exactly where these people are. They take all that information up when they can't legally.

So, Julia, just paint a picture for us. I mean, how quickly could these people be deported? Are we talking about days? Are we talking about weeks?

What exactly happens to them? It could happen very quickly. But, you know, if the Trump administration decides to make these people a top priority and the news stories start pouring in about hundreds of thousands or hundreds at least at the beginning of people from these programs being deported, I feel like that won't work with their narrative as well as that they want to go after the worst or the worst because these were people who were vetted before they came here. Now, I will say there was a problem with sponsor fraud.

We reported here that there were a lot of sponsors that were listed that seemed to be the same people. The Social Security numbers were all zeros. There were problems with this program, but this is also the only avenue that people had to come legally into the United States from those countries. And the Biden administration thought it was a success because those nationalities dropped at the southern border trying to cross legally by 98% after they put this in place.

So basically they're taking away the only incentive and now making that a punishment and putting them up first for deportation. So you have new reporting, Julia, against this backdrop about the new deportation numbers. What are they, what do they tell us and what are some of the conversations behind the scenes about what the expectation is moving forward? But we were able to get a snapshot of the April numbers which showed they were up over 17,200.

That's the first month under this administration. They've been higher than when they were during the same time period under Biden in part because many people crossing the border support. But even though they're up, they're not taking a victory lap. In fact, just about a week, week and a half ago, Stephen Miller and Christine, though, put pressure on ice and said they need to increase their arrest to 3,000 a day.

Now, if you can remember the first Sunday, this administration that came out with about 1200 days of quota, they've never met that. And now they're more than doubling it. So they're really moving the bar here. They're feeling the pressure.

And I think that's why we're starting to see some major staff shakeups at Isaac just removed the head of enforcement removal operations. That's the part of ICE that does the, the deportations. So they keep coming up with kind of personnel changes to manage their way out of this. But at the end of the day, if they don't have more plans and they don't have more detention space and they don't have more manpower, how would they ever reach those numbers?

It all comes down to resources. Julian, thank you so much for being here. Really appreciate it. Coming up after the break, bucking the billionaires, how Democrats are trying to hone an anti big money messaging platform.

And all the political fallout after a massive week for Doge in the economy. The Pale Snacks are watching the press now. Welcome back. As Democrats try to rebrand and reinvent their party, several prominent members have coalesced around anti billionaire rhetoric.

Take a look. We should stop acting like these billionaires are friends of the working person. Trump, Musk, Bezos, all of them should be the folks at the Democratic Party standing on the guest. The bill isn't a plan to help working people.

It's a massive handout to billionaires and a gut punch to families trying to make ends meet. I think this is very clearly what this one is about. Our Party is about families over billionaires. And according to the Lydia, Minnesota Anderson Walls is also expected to take aim at billionaires at an event in South Carolina tonight.

Joining me now is notice politics reporter Reese Gorman, former chief spokesperson for Vice President Kamala Harrison, co host of the Weeknight on msnbc, Simon Sanders Townsend and Republican strategist and Push Digital Group Vice President T.W. arihi. Thanks to all of you for being here on this Friday. Let me start with you.

So you hear that rhetoric. It sort of echoes what we've heard from Bernie Sanders and Alexandra Casio Cortez on their campaign across the country. Have the Democrats finally settled on a message particularly they're trying to combat what Trump has called his big beautiful bill. I do, I do think that idea, I mean, this has been very AOC message since they've been in politics, since whenever they got in.

And so now I think really the Democrats did lose a lot working class voters in this last election. Trump kind of swept up. And then Trump also has like had the working class and the billionaires now all on his side. They're really trying to be like, we need working class voters to get back in order to retake the last 28 when the midterms 26.

And so that's kind of the message they're going. I was like, Trump is like, Elon's literally in the White House with them all the time. That's to be a mess of stuff we're going to come across here. Yeah.

And I want to delve into Elon in a second. But Simone, is this the message to win back working class voters? I mean, it really was part of the reason that Democrats lost a big part. I don't know if this is the message to win back working class voters.

I think it is a message for Senator Sanders and Congresswoman Alexandria Casa Cortez because it is authentic to their brand. Literally. Bernie Sanders is the same thing since. And that consistency is what people like.

I think a version of this will work. And again, authenticity, authenticity is what I was looking for. People don't necessarily hate rich people. Everyone wants people.

I like to be billionaire. Okay. The problem that people have and when the piece of the messaging that does resonate is these folks are for them. They're not for you.

This is they're helping themselves. What they're doing is not helping you. And I think a version of that, I think demonizing billionaires, I mean, when you got dancing billionaires, I don't know if it's really gonna catch fire across the board. Tw you know, all of this is sort of in relation to the big beautiful bill.

Democrats don't really have the books to block the big beautiful bill, so they're using their messaging. Do you think this could influence some Republicans to use? I mean obviously the big argument for Republicans and the Republican critics and the Senate is there's not enough cuts in this bill. Sure.

And they're going to go through reconciliation process and make it happen. But I feel like my head is spinning listening to AOC and Bernie talk. They tried that playbook already. Donald Trump is a billionaire.

He ran alongside and campaigned alongside Elon Musk saying we're going to go in together. It wasn't a surprise that Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg tried to point out to him in the last days of the election. It wasn't lost to anybody. And they keep running the same tired message.

When Donald Trump ended his campaign and he said it's there for they them, I'm for you. And that really resonated. It underscored a bigger problem which is the Democrats don't have a message because they're torn between reasonable Democrats in far less progressives. Republicans have seen that years past.

That's what Democrats are now. Until they figure that out, they won't win someone. What about that? And part of what W is arguing is like trying to and needing to find a message when it comes to culture wars, which the Republicans and President Trump really have made sense.

Yeah, but I do think the Democrats do have messages when it comes to the culture war. I think the Democrats have got caught up is when they don't fight back against the messaging. And so the I'm for they them therefore they them I'm for you. That was the ad that went unanswered.

Donald Trump said it all throughout the last election and never did the Harris campaign answer the Democrats across the country try to answer. Instead Democrats were attacked, the ran away and said oh I'm not gonna be girls boys in girls bathroom. It's crazy. Look at John Ewing just won the mayor's race in Omaha, Nebraska, unseated a two term Republican incumbent.

And she tried that playbook and said well look, she wants to focus on the potties, I'm focused on the potholes. And so some of it is kind of like Democrats can't run scared away from the issue. Just be what you're for and be clear about that. But I think part of the issue is folks don't feel comfortable maybe because they only live for I know what I'm for.

I don't know. Well, let's talk about billionaires and stay on that theme. And you both mentioned Elon Musk, really his day at the White House today. President Trump with this extraordinary send off for him recently, the Oval Office.

I'm going to come for the first Trump administration. I can't remember the last time I saw a send off like that. What do you make of this send off And President Trump saying, you know, he's leaving, but not really he's going to stay close. I think it's just a way.

I mean, obviously Elon Musk was trusting his financial donor. You know, he really spent a lot of money and keeping the full office reporting that they've been kind of back and forth and he's angered a lot of cabinets. This is a way kind of sitting him off and being like, okay, he's leaving, let's keep him close because we don't want like a huge blow up, a big TikTok story of how they're falling out. But I do know also the Republicans of the Hill are happy to see him go.

At least a lot of the moderates are because behind closed doors they're like, yes, I mean these cuts are good, but like, how can somebody in a district that Biden won't campaign on these when Elon is the face of them? Because Elon is very unpopular at the moment for sure. I mean, ntw to that point. I mean, Elon Musk came in promising $2 trillion in cuts, that it was 1 trillion.

Now he says he's down 100 billion, but he says, don't worry, my team still here, we're going to find more cuts. Is he perceived as having been successful? What are people saying inside Republican circles? So two fold.

I saw a Babylon B headline that said Elon Musk leaves trying to reform government for an easier job of putting that on Mars. So I think there's that part of the way of looking at it. He had to try to move quick. But I think a lot of people are appreciative of the other things he did to find efficiencies.

He talked today about duplicate duplicative jobs throughout the government, about waste going on and people just not doing proper oversight, treasure payments. So those who are unsexy things are going to be appreciated. Yeah, I mean that word time. I think Simone is the key because there was sort of this rush to get everything done and this acknowledgement.

Yeah, we've made some mistakes. Democrats are really, I think to some extent trying to make Elon Musk Musk or have made Elon Musk a bit of a villain. But do you think now that he's leaving they need to just strategies? Well, I think Elon Musk is finished with what he came to do.

I don't think he's completely gone. And I say that because I was waiting today to hear about how the servers are being uninstalled, how the staff that he, that he handpicked, that worked for him and Doge are now leaving with him and only a few are staying behind. But the service he installed in the White House camps are still there. The back end service that are not connected to the White House apparatus.

Where's the data going? So I think the Democrats would be well to continue to ask about that, but not to make Elon Musk the focus because he's not. Elon Musk is not. He said before like he's not running for president.

And I think too much of Elon Musk has not enough focus on the responsibility of Republicans and the Republican president would be a mistake. At the same time, we saw what happened when Elon Musk, yes, he inserted himself in the presidential, but he inserted himself into the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Ra spent a lot of money there, camped out there and lost big time. And then this sort of received to be a political liability.

I don't love reading too much into races like that. Look, this was a Supreme Court race. Donald Trump's nowhere near the ballot. It's Elon Musk is definitely a controversial figure.

So that added dynamic I don't like reading too much in depth. But what it did show you is what he said the other day or a week ago when he said I'm probably gonna back out of politics. I don't think that's true. I think he's going to stay involved in the issues and racist he cares about just like he did with Crossing come what may.

Interesting. Well, you know, it sort of reminds me a little bit of the Trump Bannon relationship. Bannon did not leave on the best terms. He did not get this Oval Office send off.

But the two of them have remained in close touch and Bannon continues to be a close outside advisor. Do you think that's the type of of role that we will see Elon Musk I think he'll play a bigger role than Ban because obviously Elon I think has a bigger audience and just a bigger kind of messaging platform. He has XCL sexy. And it's not just Trump doesn't just listen to him.

I mean he can kind of rally up the grassroots get the legislator going to get Congress moving. I mean, he tanked the bill in December spending bill. So he has this power that Bannon doesn't necessarily have because he is the richest man, because he has direct line of Trump and because he has just such a big platform where people, he tweets and people listen. And it's going to be a huge problem, even if he's not necessarily in the White House.

In Trump's sphere 24 7, if he doesn't like something, he can let you know, and then people will honestly listen to what he kind of wants. I mean, the speaker of the House responded to him. All right, we'll be watching closely. Great conversation, guys.

Thank you so much. Reese, Simone and TW really appreciate it. Silicon the fallout from the Trump administration's fight against Harvard and its efforts to oust the university's foreign students. You're watching Meet the President now.

Welcome back. The Trump administration is once again escalating its ongoing feud with Harvard. According to a State Department cable seen by ABC News, the administration is instructing all US Missions and consulates to amp up their vetting of social media accounts belonging to visa applicants looking to travel to Harvard. And hours later, President Trump renewed his threat to withhold billions of dollars in federal grants while accusing the Ivy League's university of failing to root out anti Semitism.

Today's move on vetting visa applicants is the latest in a series of moves by the White House against Harvard, including trying to revoke this school's ability to enroll international students. With me now is Cornell Brooks, professor of the practice of public leadership and social justice at the Harvard Kennedy School. He's also the former president and CEO of the NAACP and a civil rights attorney. Thank you so much for joining me.

Really apprec. Thank you, Krista. Good to be with you. Well, it's really wonderful to have you here.

Let's just start by getting a reaction, the State Department ordering that basically it's ramping up vetting of Harvard visa seekers. What is your reaction to this directive? My reaction is the reaction of, I would hope, millions of Americans across the country, which is to say this unconstitutional, unlawful, unprecedented train wreck of actions taken against Harvard are really threatening democracy and universities, colleges across the country. How so?

So having a federal judge essentially hit the pause button on this unconstitutional travel ban to Harvard. Right. The president then decides to have enhanced vetting of people applying for visas to come to Harvard to teach, to work, to study, or to even visit. Right now, I want you to imagine this.

Imagine if the President said chose Ohio State and Michigan, let's say Brandeis and Yeshiva or Catholic University and Notre dame or any HBCUs. What gives a president the right to essentially pick a college and decide that no one can even visit the school, much less work or study there? And he cites anti Semitism, notwithstanding the fact that he hasn't apparently paid, he or his administration has apparently not paid attention to the report that Harvard prepared on this very subject. And the point being here is this is another effort of the president to an effort to weaponize a serious issue issue in order to exert control over universities and muffle speech.

Professor Brooks, let me follow up with you on that. On the allegation that Harvard hasn't done enough to address anti Semitism, what say you? How do you respond to that? Here's what I say.

I am a civil rights lawyer. For 30 years I led the NAACP, oldest rights organization in the country, founded by African Americans and Jewish Americans. I take anti Semitism seriously. So seriously that I would encourage the administration to read the report that Harvard prepared, which offers a grocery list of recommendations.

And I would encourage the administration to look at what Harvard has already done, which is to say, made changes with respect to courses, starting a number of dialogues, a number of programs, engaging staff members, faculty staff and students over many months. The point being here is look at the work that Harvard is doing. How is addressing the problem as opposed to weaponizing a problem? A problem that not only the Harvard has, but a problem that's endemic to American society.

You know, I've been listening to the interviews with some of the students, some of the international students at Harvard this week. Professor, I wonder what they are telling you and what you are hearing, the reaction amongst the student body to this fight that Harvard is having with the federal government. You know, Kristen has to tell you, students have to walk during commencement and graduation yesterday a tightrope of joy and anxiety. And not only the students, but their parents.

So people who have worked years sacrifice much to get to Harvard and all of a sudden there's this cloud of suspicion over them simply because they're international students. And so they're quite anxious, quite afraid. And with this heightened vet, this slow and suspicious scrutiny of visa applicants to even come to harder, this makes a bad situation worse. And so for me, my students, this is a.

It's a tragic moment. It's a very, very tragic moment. Put yourself in their positions and think about how you would feel if you studied hard, studied long, only to have a president violate the Constitution to hurt you and your classmates. All right.

Cornell Brooks, thank you so much for being here for your perspective. We hope to keep in touch with you as we continue to track this. Thank you. Thank you.

I want to take a moment now to congratulate my longtime friend, colleague and mentor, Lester Holt, who after 10 years at the helm of NBC Nightly News, will be signing off from that broadcast for the final time tonight. Lester has seen and covered it all during his tenure at Nightly News, and he has done it with remarkable professionalism and a steadfast commitment to the highest level of journalism. We are also thrilled for Lester in this next chapter as he to focus full time on hosting dateline. Tune in tonight for Luster World's final broadcast of Nightly News, only on NBC.

And if it's Sunday, it's Meet the Press on your local NBC news stations. I'll have exclusive interviews with House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senator Raphael Warnock. The news continues with Tom Costello. Win for Hallie Jackson right now.

I'm Craig. Mel. Cheers. Cheers.

Cheers. I've always been a glass half full kind of guy, and now I'm talking to some people who look at the world that way, too. It's really fascinating. Folks who share their defining moments, their triumphs, challenges, their stories are fun and quite candid.

So I hope you're joining each week. And who knows, you might just come away with your own glass half full. Search Glass Apple with Craig. Help From Today on YouTube, wherever you get your podcast.