Meet the Press NOW — November 14

If it's Thursday, surprise and stunned, lawmakers from all parts of the political spectrum react to the president-elect's most polarizing picks to run key government agencies as Mr. Trump tests the limits of his party's loyalty. Plus, Matt Gaetz resigns from Congress after being picked to run the Justice Department, effectively ending a years-long House ethics investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, which he denies. And I'll talk to House lawmakers from both sides of the aisle about the Trump agenda and the checks on his power now that Republicans have full control of Washington.

Welcome to Meet the Press Now. I'm Kristen Welker in Washington. We are tracking the very latest fallout from president-elect Trump's picks for key roles in his administration. A trio of choices for top national security and Justice Department positions stunning some members of Congress, government officials, and even some Trump allies.

The one drawing the most attention, former Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz, the Trump loyalist and MAGA firebrand who the president-elect tapped for the top job at the Justice Department late yesterday. And in a surprise move, Gaetz today officially informed his colleagues that he is resigning from Congress, effective immediately, to pursue the position of Attorney General. Notably, his resignation also ends what was widely expected to be a damning House Ethics Committee investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, which Punchbowl News reports the committee was set to vote on releasing its findings just this week. Now, this all comes after the Department of Justice concluded a sex trafficking investigation last year tied to Gaetz without bringing charges.

Gaetz has denied any wrongdoing. This afternoon, Senator Kevin Cramer, a staunch Trump supporter, expressing concerns about those allegations and slamming Gaetz. I have concerns that he can't get across the finish line and we're going to spend a lot of political capital. I say we, a lot of people will spend a lot of political capital on something that even if it got done, you'd have to wonder if it was worth it.

Mike, I have concerns about him, about the way he disrupted and really destroyed the House of Representatives for several months. What he did to a really good Speaker in Kevin McCarthy and accomplished nothing except getting rid of him and ruined the reputation of the House of Representatives. Now, sources tell NBC News both Gaetz and Vice President-elect Vance are now working the phones, speaking with Senate Republicans to get a read on his chances of winning confirmation and to talk about the future of the DOJ. Several Republican senators have been quick to defend Gaetz publicly, with some suggesting a rejection of him was a rejection of President-elect Trump.

There has been no one better at channeling the American public's frustration with the weaponization of the Department of Justice than Matt Gaetz. At the end of the day, President Trump was elected by an enormous vote and he deserves a team around him that he wants. It's not us to determine that. We've got 53 votes in the Senate.

We can confirm with 51. I've already seen where a couple of them said, I'm not voting for him. Wait a minute. You are not the United States of America.

You have one vote in the U.S. Senate. You did not get elected president. Vote with President Trump.

This is the last chance we're going to have of saving this country. And if you want to get in the way, fine, but we're going to try to get you out of the Senate, too, if you try to do that. Now, the president-elect selection of Gaetz flooring Justice Department staffers with one official calling it, quote, insane and another reacting to the news, telling NBC, quote, What the expletive is happening? Gaetz has been one of the president-elect's staunchest supporters in Congress and has frequently attacked the agency he's now been picked to run, even going so far as calling for it to be potentially dismantled.

Look, we are on a mission to rescue and save this country. And we ride or die with Donald John Trump to the end. I don't care if it takes every second of our time and every ounce of our energy. We either get this government back on our side or we defund and get rid of, abolish the FBI, CDC, ATF, DOJ, every last one of them if they do not come to heel.

And I don't think it's too much to ask. Now, it's worth noting, and here's the important point, that that kind of rhetoric directly mirrors the promises both the president-elect and his running mate made during their successful campaign. We will clean out all of the corrupt actors in our national security and intelligence apparatus. And there are plenty of them.

The departments and agencies that have been weaponized will be completely overhauled. The most important person in government I think I can thank the president for this cycle is going to be the attorney general, sir, because we really do have to clean house. The broken leadership of the Department of Justice. Joining me now is our NBC News team.

Sahil Kapoor has the very latest from Capitol Hill. Vaughn Hilliard is covering the Trump transition from Mar-a-Lago. And Kendall Laneyan has the very latest from the Justice Department. Sahil, let's start with you.

Let's just remind folks who are watching right now what that ethics committee investigation was all about and how much do we know about where the investigation stands right now? Hey, Kristen. Well, let me start with some news we have just in the last hour or so. Our NBC News Capitol Hill team has confirmed that the House Ethics Committee will meet tomorrow, Friday, behind closed doors, according to three sources with knowledge of this.

And one of the topics on the agenda that they will discuss is regarding the release of the Matt Gaetz report. Now, among the things that they're investigating, allegations of sexual misconduct, illicit drug use, obstruction, improperly accepting gifts. The Ethics Committee has been looking into Gaetz on and off since 2021. And as you can imagine, this is on the minds of senators who will have to decide whether or not to confirm him to one of the most powerful jobs in President-elect Trump's cabinet.

Take a listen to how Republican senators are responding to this. Given his abrupt departure from Congress just prior to that report coming out, considering the job that he is being appointed to, considering that the FBI is going to do a background check anyway, I can't imagine that the committee is not going to want to see it. I am going to demand release of the Ethics Committee report, all of its findings and recommendations. I think there should not be any limitation on the Senate Judiciary Committee's investigation, including whatever the House Ethics Committee has generated.

You want to see it? Absolutely. Now, I spoke to Senator Chuck Grassley a few hours ago, the likely incoming chair of the Judiciary Committee, who dodged questions about whether he personally wants to see that ethics report. He just insisted again and again that there will be a vetting process, there'll be a vetting process, and he'll come to that conclusion, Kristen.

Well, Sahil, let's talk about what does happen next, because we know that Gaetz has just resigned, surprising a lot of people, basically trying to block the report from coming out. You see those public calls for it to be released. We know that things typically leak on Capitol Hill. What is your anticipation of where this all goes from here?

Well, it's not clear, Kristen, that the resignation of Matt Gaetz will necessarily block the release of that report. There's just a brand new letter coming out from Dick Durbin, the current chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who is set to relinquish that role when Republicans take control of the Senate. A letter asking the House Ethics Committee to release that report on Matt Gaetz. So it's plausible that this comes out one way or the other and that Matt Gaetz's resignation does not ultimately preempt it.

And certainly, you know, this could have an impact on how senators ultimately decide to vote on the Gaetz nomination. Many of them are baffled that President-elect Trump even picked someone like Matt Gaetz for this job, not only because of all these allegations and this investigation swirling around Matt Gaetz, but many of them don't really see him as qualified for the job, especially Democrats who are very outspoken about this. But even some Republicans, like Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, said she couldn't believe this was a real nomination and doesn't believe that Matt Gaetz is a serious person. So interesting, Sahil, and I've been talking to my sources inside Trump world who've said that he basically was shown the initial options, wanted someone who was willing to go in and tear up DOJ.

He thinks that that's exactly what Matt Gaetz embodies. Vaughn, with that, let me head over to you. I know you've been talking to your sources as well. There's been a lot of shock over this choice.

Let me play a little bit of that sound and then get your reaction on the other side. I don't think it's a serious nomination for the attorney general. We need to have a serious attorney general. And I'm looking forward to the opportunity to consider somebody that is serious.

This one, this one was not on my bingo card. I was a little surprised. This one, I think he's got a lot of work to get, we've got 53 members, not a Democrat that's going to vote for him, but presumably the folks that are put in board and get that out. I'm sure we'll wait for a popcorn eating confirmation.

You know, Vaughn, it's interesting, everyone, those folks that they were caught off guard. I mean, again, we showed at the top of the program just how closely what Matt Gaetz has been saying actually mirrors what we've heard from President-elect Trump and vice president-elect Vance. Right. He represents exactly what Donald Trump campaigned over the last three years, effectively on doing into the Department of Justice.

And yesterday when we saw Matt Gaetz traveling in the But there undoubtedly will likely be some heated reaction to this pick, given his history of vaccine skepticism. Absolutely. I remember back in 2016, number one, Kristen, during his transition, the first go-around, it turned a lot of heads when he was at Trump Tower living at the time, and he was going through his transition process. And Robert F.

Kennedy Jr., it was announced that he was coming to Trump Tower to meet with Donald Trump. And it turned a lot of heads because somebody who is openly skeptical of vaccines and making assertions that they were connected to things like autism was a surprising figure to wind up in Donald Trump's presence. But fast forward eight years, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s popularity nationally and recognition only increased, not only among the vaccine skeptic community, but also folks that are very skeptical about ingredients and sugars that are in food and drink products of the United States.

And he was running for president as independent before ultimately backing out of the race himself and endorsing Donald Trump. And I actually talked to Kennedy just last week here in Palm Beach, and he had suggested to me that he was actually more open to a role as like a health White House health czar, which would not require Senate confirmation. And so I think that is the surprising part of this, was that he was never openly vying necessarily for the HHS secretary position, especially knowing that it requires Senate confirmation. But he insisted to me, I asked him, for example, about his vaccine skepticism or anti-vax positions and whether, as HHS secretary or within the White House in some capacity, he would seek to block the FDA, block authorization of such vaccines or remove vaccines from the market.

The reason I asked that was because during the COVID pandemic, he was publicly anti the FDA's emergency authorization of COVID vaccines. When I asked him last week, he insisted to me that he would not seek to remove any vaccines from the market and instead would try to ensure that American public had all the information about the vaccines that they were going to be taking. But of course, that was the foremost concern and Donald Trump, even before election day, had said that he would allow RFK to do whatever he wants on health care policy. And now with the selection of him and if he is confirmed by the Senate, he would be giving him the power to oversee health care policy and 13 health agencies, including the CDC and FDA.

Your interview with him was really important and timely. And obviously your exchange with him on vaccines, incredibly critical, will continue to be in focus, I would imagine, particularly as we get closer to his confirmation hearings. Thank you so much for that fantastic information and great job with that interview that you conducted just a short time ago. Joining me now with more is NBC News senior reporter Brandi Zadrosny.

Brandi, thank you for being here. You've interviewed RFK as well. What is your take on this announcement? Again, not a huge surprise.

President-elect Trump had signaled he was leaning potentially in this direction. But what do you make of it? It is a huge surprise, actually, for me at least. As Vonda was just saying, we've been here before where Trump was sort of entertaining some of Robert F.

Kennedy Jr.'s wildest conspiracy theories for a moment. But then Better Angels, adults in the room, someone came around and said, please don't do this. This will dismantle public health. This will endanger children.

Please don't listen to this man. And he didn't. He said, never mind, we're not going to be working together. You're not going to be the vaccines are.

Thank you very much. And Kennedy went back to his nonprofit, his anti-vaccine nonprofit. During COVID, Kennedy spread some of the most egregious and dangerous lies about the vaccines, about Anthony Fauci, about COVID itself and unproven ways to heal yourself from it. It's it's it's it's wild.

This is a wild, wild choice. You know, the Department of Health and Human Services usually is run by someone with a background in public health because you have to oversee 13 agencies, the FDA, the CDC, the NIH. And, you know, I did talk to Kennedy as well. And Kennedy has this really great way because, again, he's a lawyer, not a public health official.

He is not a doctor. He is in no way an expert on public health or medicine in any fashion. He is a lawyer. And so he changes his answer quite a bit sometimes.

But overall, you can look at this man, you can look at his nonprofit, you can look at what he's written and said on hundreds and hundreds of podcasts. He is anti vaccine. And when I interviewed him last summer, you know, we went on this hike and I said, what if we had another pandemic? You know, and he said that he wouldn't prioritize vaccines.

It would not be a priority for him. So that's a pretty big problem. Vaccines have saved millions of lives. And so without those, you know, when we don't have those, when we have fear and misinformation spread about vaccines, what happens is you have injury and sickness and death.

And it's we've seen it time and time again. We saw it when conservatives conservatives rejected the vaccine because of these lies. Many of them died. We saw it in Samoa where 80 something children were killed when a measles outbreak.

Nobody wanted to get the measles vaccines because of fear, partly because of information, misinformation spread by Mr. Kennedy and his group. 80 something children died. I'm getting to my phone is texting off the hook with public health people and doctors who are terrified that this could happen.

It's just fascinating and really important insight. We really appreciate your joining us and rushing to a camera with this breaking news. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Coming up, President Trump's White House lawyer from his first term joins me to talk about the future of the Department of Justice. His former boss's pick for attorney general and more. Stay with us. You're watching Meet the Press now.

If you get Matt Gaetz as the attorney general, I'd like to see what lawyers are prepared to work for him. And I'd like to see what their reaction is when he starts ordering prosecutions, as Trump wanted John Kerry prosecuted in his first term for violation of the Logan Act. How much of that are we going to see? Is Matt Gaetz going to prosecute Liz Cheney and Mark Milley?

Are there attorneys in the department who, on the basis of no evidence, whatever, they've committed any criminal conduct? Are they really going to convene a grand jury? This is the kind of crisis that you're going to see. That was former U.N.

Ambassador John Bolton, who served as national security advisor during the first Trump administration in our interview yesterday, right here on Meet the Press now, reacting to the pick of Matt Gaetz to be the next attorney general. I'm joined now by someone else who knows Mr. Trump pretty well, Ty Cobb, who served as White House attorney during the first Trump administration. Ty, great to see you.

Thanks for being here. Great to be with you, my favorite. Great to be with you. You just heard what Ambassador Bolton had to say.

Do you think his warning seems realistic? Oh, it could be. On the other hand, I don't think Gaetz gets confirmed. I don't think Gaetz likely makes it even to a hearing before he's withdrawn.

But we have all that to see as it unfolds. I do think you cannot understate, I'm sorry, you can't overstate the seriousness of this nomination. It shows such contempt for the American people and such contempt for the Justice Department. Matt Gaetz is not qualified by character, ethics, experience, training or skill to run the Justice Department.

I don't think there's anybody in America who's confused about that, except maybe Lindsey Graham. And I think it's very unfortunate that we have to deal with this. Maybe he was thrown out there to make some of these other nominations, like RFK to be the head of HHS. I guess Jeffrey Dahmer was unavailable.

But this is just silly season. And it's going to be a very tough slog. You know, there's a statue on the front of the National Archives with an inscription that says eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. I think that's never been truer in our time.

And I think it's all hands on deck right now. Well, you know, I want to talk to you about RFK. I'll ask you a question about that. Sticking on Gaetz for a moment, though, let's talk about the potential implications.

Senator Richard Blumenthal, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is calling on the Justice Department to provide the findings of its investigation into Matt Gaetz. Let me play a little bit of that for you, Ty. I'll get your reaction on the other side. The Department of Justice has to come clean with the American people with its investigative findings and the reasons why it decided against prosecution in connection with those sex trafficking and other serious federal violations directly relevant to his appointment to a federal law enforcement post.

So the House ethics committee and the Department of Justice have to provide relevant information. Ty, do you agree with Senator Blumenthal that the Justice Department should provide that information, should make it available to the public, particularly ahead of any confirmation hearing, if it gets to that? So much of it their lawfully prohibited for providing. Much of it is protected by Grand Jury secrecy federal rule on 60.

But there's a process through which you can file an application on court action to seek release under 60. This this would seem to qualify for a release where the public interest is extremely high and the case has already been declined. And historically, there are precedents under these circumstances where that that information is released. I do think those I think that a substantial portion of what happened there will be will be made available.

I do think likewise that it's going to be very hard for the The safety and health of 350 million Americans are at issue. Ty Cobb, thank you so much and for your nice sentiments about Ken Delaney. Really appreciate it. Thanks, Kristen.

Thank you. Always great to see you. Coming up next, I'll talk to a Republican member of Congress who just won reelection in a blue state about the breaking news of RFK Jr. being tapped as HHS secretary and the future of his party and the country with Trump back in the White House.

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Welcome back. Yesterday, it was MAGA firebrand Matt Gaetz's stunning nomination to run the Justice Department. And today, as we broke the news just moments ago, President-elect Trump says he is nominating noted vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

to run the Department of Health and Human Services. This comes even after Trump transition co-chair Howard Lutnick recently said in an interview that RFK Jr. would not be the HHS secretary. For reactions, joining me now is New York Republican Congressman Mike Lawler.

Congressman, thank you so much. Really appreciate it. Let's start right there with the breaking news. President-elect Trump picking RFK to be in charge of HHS.

What do you make of this pick? And do you think he'll get confirmed? Well, obviously, we had an election in which many of these issues were litigated and discussed. And the American people overwhelmingly voted to elect Donald Trump.

And so he's going through the process of nominating folks to serve in his cabinet. He has every right to nominate who he sees fit to serve in his administration. But that's also why we have a Senate confirmation process. And so RFK Jr.

and Matt Gaetz will have to go before the United States Senate and address issues of concern that have been raised with their respective nominations and answer questions. And obviously, someone like RFK Jr., who is from my district, lived in Westchester County for many years, I've had strong disagreement with, including his efforts to shut down Indian Point in my district. But that's why we have a process. And he will obviously be asked many questions, including about his position on vaccinations.

Absolutely. Congressman, let me ask you now about Matt Gaetz, before you just raised him as well. I want to play you a little something that you said about him last year during his effort to oust Kevin McCarthy as Speaker. Take a look.

Matt has been a singular destructive force within the conference. And the American people should understand that what he is doing is not conservative. It is not conservative Republicanism. He is a charlatan.

And I stand by that. Congressman, do you still stand by it? Is he a charlatan? And should he be the next head of the Department of Justice?

I stand by everything I've said. Certainly my views on Matt Gaetz are very clear. It doesn't take more than a Google search to find it. But at the end of the day, President Trump has the right to nominate who he sees fit.

And there will be a confirmation process. And I think Matt Gaetz certainly has a lot of questions to answer. Obviously, you know, the investigations, both at the Department of Justice and by the House Ethics Committee, are relevant to this confirmation. And I'm sure the Senate, you know, will do everything they can to get the information relevant to ask the appropriate questions.

And I think he owes the American people answers during that confirmation process. And just to be very clear, do you think that the Ethics Committee should make their report available to the Senate and quite frankly, public? Look, I think the Ethics Committee and the Department of Justice should follow the law and the procedures that they have always followed. But I do think that information is relevant.

And I do think the Senate should receive the information as part of their confirmation process. I think everybody is always entitled to due process of law. Part of what I do agree with President Trump on is that the Department of Justice has been weaponized and lawfare has been used. And ultimately, these issues were litigated before the American people.

And they spoke loud and clearly. And we do need reforms at the Department of Justice. We need to make sure that the person leading that department is of the highest ethical standard. And I think the confirmation process will ensure that, in fact, whoever does get confirmed is of the highest ethical standard.

And of course, DOJ officials would reject the notion that they are engaging in lawfare and would argue that, you know, the president indicted, the president's son has been convicted. So both parties have been the focus of justice. Yeah, but Kristen, I think the American people sent a very clear message that they think the people should determine the outcome of our elections, not the Department of Justice, not the courts and certainly not rogue prosecutors in New York like Alvin Bragg. We need a criminal justice system that upholds the law.

And obviously that is the focus of the new administration. Let me ask you about, because obviously you have President-elect Trump on the campaign trail saying that he wants to root out the deep state in the Justice Department, what he calls the deep state. You have Matt Gaetz saying very similar things. Do you anticipate if he were to be confirmed that he would overhaul the Department of Justice in terms of the staffers and the officials who work there?

Look, I think ultimately what we saw in both the first Trump administration, where you had officials, you know, saying that, in fact, Russia colluded with the Trump campaign when that turned out not to be true. And in fact, obviously, where you had multiple indictments against a former president, the first time in American history, you see these investigations now winding down with the court proceedings. Obviously, the American people heard all of this and they voted. And I think what is clear is that we need to have a justice system that is focused on upholding the law that certainly does not act without fear or favor towards anyone.

And ultimately, what I want to see is a Justice Department that does the job of the American people and stops engaging in politics, but more so focuses on the very real challenges facing the American people. You look at the FBI. You know, I'm from New York. I was in my fifth day of freshman year of high school on September 11th.

In the aftermath of September 11th, the FBI's primary focus and mission was on counterterrorism. And obviously, in recent years, we've seen the FBI be very focused on politics and government. And I think we have to get back to a place where we are focused on upholding the law and enforcing it. I want to see and ensure that, of course, there is a leader within the Department of Justice to do that.

And that's why we have a Senate confirmation process. It's important to note that those indictments were brought by grand juries that you referenced. Let me turn to the fact that, of course, you serve on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. You're a supporter of Ukraine aid.

President-elect Trump's pick for director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, has not been. And she, of course, has also been accused of spreading Russian propaganda. Do you think she should be confirmed to the Senate? And are you concerned about what that might mean for continuing aid to Ukraine?

Again, this is why we have a process. And all of these issues will be addressed through that Senate confirmation process. I think the president has made stellar picks with Congresswoman Elise Stefanik to serve as U.N. ambassador with Senator Marco Rubio as secretary of state, with Congressman Mike Waltz as a national security advisor.

I think they are creating a very strong national security team. I've been very clear. Russia, China and Iran have engaged in an unholy alliance that seeks to undermine and destabilize the U.S., Europe, Israel and the free world. They are not our friends.

They are not our allies. Obviously, we all want to see the conflicts come to a close. The disastrous foreign policy of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris has resulted in one conflict after the next. We need to get back on a path where the United States, as leader of the free world, can help bring about peace and prosperity.

Obviously, Ukraine is critical and I want to make sure that Ukraine's sovereignty is protected. But this conflict cannot continue in perpetuity. And I think everybody understands that. And we're out of time.

But just yes or no. Do you want candidates and those who are causing alarms on both sides of the political spectrum, not just about their qualifications, but about their experience and even their allegiance to the country. I mean, it's quite scary in some respects. But, you know, I left the Obama White House in 2016.

Speaker Pelosi called me back and said, now is the time. Everything is on the line. And what I did was, almost immediately, we started to pull together opposition, research, messaging. We increased our communications apparatus.

I mean, we sort of, you know, amped up our operations. So all eyes are not just on Thune in terms of whether or not he's going to push some of these guys forward. I think Gates will probably be a sacrificial lamb, you know, and they were trying to make, you know, other candidates more palatable by putting him out. But also, eyes are going to be on Jeffries.

What is Jeffries going to do? Does he, you know, build up his operation to not just run? We were investigating Donald Trump even when we were in the minority. You've got a lot of rights and opportunity when you're in the minority.

But the key is you've got to have people within those agencies that are willing to be whistleblowers. So if Donald Trump's objective, which I believe is the case, is to go in and gut out these agencies, it's going to be a tough time for Mr. Jeffries. What do you make of what we can anticipate from Minority Leader Jeffries?

Well, I think he's going to be one of the most visible players in the opposition. It's going to be very interesting how they pick and choose their fights. Democrats are already having a lot of debates over whether they focus too much on Trump himself or too much on, you know, him going after institutional norms versus more bread and butter issues like the economy. I imagine you will see some of those same debates playing out already in terms of how they set the tenor for the opposition to him in terms of do they focus too much on investigations or do they try to pivot towards other issues?

But he'll obviously have a huge role to play in addressing that. Ashley, go back on that point, because as Democrats try to put the pieces together of what exactly went wrong and how to rectify it for the midterms, for example, how much of that is under discussion? How much do Democrats focus on Trump versus this is our vision. I mean, I think that's a that's a question.

You know, I asserted that the vice president should spend less time focusing on Donald Trump, you know, and I think she tried that the last week, but it was probably a little too late. But here's the thing, the best thing that the Democrats have going for them in the House is that they're actually in the minority. Because when you're in the minority, it sort of unifies the party. We're not arguing about policy differences, right, that are distracting us.

But now they're going to be unified. They're going to be able to focus on building from the ground up again. They've got some foundational things that I think they've got to focus on. And Brendan, just looking forward, I mean, you have a president-elect Trump who is preparing to reenter the White House.

He's got Republicans have control of the Senate, the House, the Supreme Court, ideologically conservative leaning. What do you think the implications of that are for a second Trump term? All of those things are helpful. I think it's also him coming in and not being a lean on other people quite so much.

In 2017, when he came in, I was in the Speaker's office. He deferred a lot to Paul Ryan. Mitch McConnell said, I don't know exactly what I'm doing. I need your help.

There's none of that going on. Obviously, he thinks he knows better than most people. And he's not looking around trying to get anybody's approval, as we're seeing with these these nominations. He's saying, I'm going to do what I want and I'm going to I'm going to probably force the issue and dare people to get in my way.

I think we're going to see that over and over and over again. Every time he does something conventional and we think, oh, maybe he sort of figured it out. The next thing he does is something completely unconventional. I think we should expect that over and over again.

He's going to test Washington, try to break it to his will. And it will ultimately be up to the civil servants in the government and members of both parties, whether or not they are going to put up any kind of guardrails. But he's going to have a, you know, a sort of friendly time with Republicans. I mean, there's very few Republicans now that would sort of buck buck the authority of the president.

This day is incredible. Yeah. And even in 2017, there were members who stood up to him quite a bit when we tried to do a health care package. A lot of those.

So I don't think that's going to happen. They are still going to run in problems doing basic things. They're going to run into problems funding the government. They're going to run into problems increasing the debt limit.

The key is going to have a big say in a lot of those things. So there's going to be a lot of friction, even though they will be more unified than ever before. They're not so unified that they can't screw it up still. All right.

Well, we'll leave it on that note. Fascinating conversation, guys. Thank you very much. Really appreciate it.

Venge, Ashley and Brendan. Great stuff coming up next. Democrats grapple with being shut out of power in Washington as Donald Trump makes major gains with core Democratic constituencies, including Hispanics. Democratic Congresswoman Nanette Barragan, the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, joins us next.

Stay with us. You're watching Meet the Press. Welcome back. As President-elect Trump continues to build out his new administration, Democrats are grappling with the reality that they will be in the minority in both chambers of Congress.

Yesterday, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries issued a statement acknowledging that Democrats will not control the House in the next Congress, saying they fell just a few seats short. Jeffries went on to vow that House Democrats will continue to seek bipartisan common ground wherever possible, while also pushing back against what he calls far-right extremism. Joining me now is Democratic Congresswoman from California and chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Nanette Barragan. Thank you so much for joining me, Congresswoman.

Really appreciate it. I want to start by playing you something that Congressman Aguilar said yesterday and get your reaction on the other side. I've said at this podium a number of times that the Latino community is not a monolith. You cannot speak to South Texans the way you speak to South Floridians or Southern Californians.

And how people process information, Mexican-Americans, like my family, or Cuban-Americans, is very different. Congressman, what do you make of what Congressman Aguilar said? Do you feel as though Democrats treated Latino voters as a monolith? Well, he's exactly right.

We're not a monolith. And we tell people that day in and day out. It depends on who you're talking to. It depends on what part of the country you're in when it comes to messaging.

What we know is we heard a lot from people who say that they felt the economy wasn't working for them. They felt that the housing was still too high and that we need to invest more in affordable housing. So we've heard this. And I think that one of the things we need to do is we definitely need to go out into communities, make sure that we are listening and we're engaging.

And we're going to do that year-round, not just in election season. And House Democrats are going to continue to fight for the American people. And I think under the incoming administration, that fight is going to be more visible. And it's going to be a greater challenge.

We've been through this before, and I think it's going to be even worse under the second term for the former president. And, Congresswoman, are you surprised that Democrats hadn't figured that out by this cycle? I mean, there had been so much focus on making sure that Democrats were driving out not just Latino voters, but other voters of color and people all across the political spectrum. What do you think was the big misstep here?

Well, I think you saw the erosion across the board. It wasn't just Latinos. So I don't have to fingerpoint and point any blame. And we did hear during polling cycles from people that they were saying that the prices were too high, that the economy wasn't working for everybody.

It was only working for, you know, it wasn't working for working-class folks. So we did hear that. I think the issue is we did show up all the time. We engaged.

The people cannot feel like they're being ignored. And we've heard that from some people. And so I'm going to make sure that we are not only going on the road, but we're engaging as much as possible all the time, not just in election season, but also working with House Democrats on how we can get wins for the American people. I think that will be a bit of a challenge under this incoming administration with Donald Trump, who's with the billionaires and the millionaires.

So we also have to make sure we hold them accountable when they're not doing things for working people. And, of course, we also know the mass deportations and that conversation is happening right now. And we like to think, given every report we've seen, that deportations are only going to lead to inflation and higher cost. It's going to lead to enrollment hit to the economy.

So it's going to be our job to point that out. It's going to be our job to fight back as much as we can. That's the key. Well, Congresswoman, you take me right to my next question,