Meet the Press NOW — November 19

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President elect Donald Trump is moving full steam ahead with Maguire Brandon Fierce loyalist Matt Gates as his pick for attorney general, even as new details emerge about Gates alleged sexual encounters with underage girls and alleged use of illicit drugs. According to a transition official, President elect Trump heavily working the phones with senators on Capitol Hill, urging them to confirm Gates. Among those senators getting a phone call, Kevin Kramer of North Dakota, who told Axios, quote, trump believes Matt Gaetz is the one person who will have the fearlessness and ferociousness really to do what needs doing at the Department of Justice. Sources tell NBC News that Vice President elect Senator J.D.

vance will be on Capitol Hill tomorrow pressing senators on Mr. Trump's cabinet picks. Meanwhile on Capitol Hill, there is an intensifying debate among Senate Republicans over whether House Ethics Committee report tied to Gates alleged sexual misconduct and drug use should be released. Do you want to see this House, this House report, this ethics report?

I think it would be helpful. Everybody's talking about it. If the parent thing was just about done. I think it would be helpful whether we get the ethics report or not.

The facts are going to come out one way or the other. And I would think it would be in everybody's best interest, including the president's, not to be surprised by some information that might come out during the confirmation hearing in the background checks tomorrow. The House Ethics Committee is set to me to discuss a report detailing this investigation. House Speaker Johnson has said he does not think the report should be released.

This all comes as Joe Leopard, the attorney for a witness in the House ethics investigation, says his client told House investigators Gates paid her and another woman multiple times for sex and drugs. Leopard says his client testified that she saw the then congressman having sex with a minor at a house party in 2017, but that she believed Gates did not know the girl was underage. She was walking outside to the pool and she observed to a right her friend who was 17 at the time of having sex with Representative Gates. They were leading up to what she described to as a game table of some type.

Did you client believe that Gates at the time knew that her friend was underage? Yes, the house was curious about that. The House asked my client what she knew about representative's knowledge of the minor that he had sex with. And she testified that her belief was that Representative Gates had no knowledge that she was under 18, that she was 17 years old at the time he was having sex with her.

She also testified that when Representative Gates found out that she was underage that they stopped their sexual relationship and did not resume until after she turned 18. Gates denies all the allegations that NBC has confirmed. An unidentified hacker gained access to a file containing sworn testimony of two women involved in the investigation into Gates. According to a source familiar in an email obtained by NBC News, the file includes testing from a woman who alleged she had sex with Gates when she was 17 years old.

NBC is unaware of the hacker publicizing those materials. And join me now for more on the Trump transition as NBC News is here. Hey, we all run around the Capitol and Ryan Nobles has the latest on Capitol Hill reaction on Matt Gates. So, Gary, and they're back to running the halls of Congress.

How should we view. The president elect insisted that Matt Gates needs to be his attorney general. And why does he really want that Gates to be his age? He so much?

Well, I think he's gonna push hard until. Unless he views the fact that he's pushing up against a wall. And that's certainly not the case right now. Republican senators at least willing to listen to his entreaties.

I don't think we should be surprised by the Matt Gates selection. This is everything Donald Trump said he would do over and over again on the campaign trail, that he wanted to go after an agency which he views as corrupt and politicized. And having lost touch with its role, Gates is kind of the avatar of the most aggressive MAGA stance towards the Department of Justice. And so I think Trump is basically taking a big cut here, a big swing, and trying to do everything he wants to do at DOJ with a firebrand at the helm.

I don't see him backing off anytime soon unless the kind of information ecosystem around Gates changes in a substantial way. And there's no sign of that just yet. And I wonder, as you think about this push for Gates, is there really a sense maybe in the transition team that they can get Gates through, they can get that most controversial, hardest nominee through, that they can basically get anyone through? Yeah, I think that's probably right.

I mean, obviously all of these nominees, one city con nominees will be dealt with individually and they have to go through different committees that could have kind of different dynamics overall. But the same general rule is going to apply here. The signal one of these nominees, you either need four no votes on the floor, which I think is exceptionally difficult, or a behind the scenes wave that would indicate massive opposition leading up to a floor vote. I think, you know, if they get dates across, it would certainly prove that anything is possible.

But the thing I'm watching out for is whether the opposition to him sort of solidifies and builds in a meaningful way. We never even get it to the floor. And I think that would show the Senate pushing back against Trump in a meaningful way. Again, we see no sign of them doing as I stand here right now in mid November.

Yeah. And we're looking at live pictures right now. President elect Donald Trump's getting next to Elon Musk. They're in Texas ahead of the SpaceX launch that's scheduled for later in, later in the next hour.

So that's him meeting with people who are going to be super influential and it seems the second Trump administration so interesting to see them there gathered. And can I just flag, standing over Elon Musk's shoulder there is Kevin Kramer, the senator from North Dakota who's a few days ago was expressing skepticism about Matt Gates for Attorney General. He did it in interviews with me, with other reporters here on the Hill. It was reported overnight confirmed by nc he was on the phone with Donald Trump yesterday about this Trump calling him to talk about Gates.

Now the two are appearing side by side. I think it's fair to assume this is part of that kind of personal lobbying effort for Donald Trump continuing out in South Texas. And additionally we're seeing the sort of wide review of the D.C. senator Ted Cruz there too.

I wonder yesterday in an interview with Fox News, Trump said he was not for retribution, but does it feel like maybe he can outsource that to make some of the people who be standing around me being here in Texas and he's waiting for this SpaceX Lodge. I wonder if this is sort of like, I'm not gonna do this, people standing around me, they're gonna get a retribution from me. I think that's certainly possible. Although, you know, to hear Donald Trump tell it, his view of the Justice Department, there's no separation between the White House and the DOJ like we've gotten used to in the post Nixon, post Watergate era.

I have a hard time imagining that if Trump does decide to go kind of aggressively after his perceived enemies, that he would bother to try to kind of hide his fingerprints from that effort. That's just not typically been the way he operates. Yeah. And again, I look at these pictures with a 45, 47 hat on.

We just learned moments ago that Dr. Oz is President elect's pick for the head of Medicare and Medicaid. And today Trump tap transition co chair Howard Letnick for Commerce Secretary. What does that mean, you think, for Trump's search for treasury secretary, which was another role that Letnick was looking for or was looking to be looked at and considered for?

Yeah, it's clearly stalled to some degree. And I had a source a week ago Friday who was telling me they thought they were very close to making a decision for that pick. And now more than a week has passed without either a pick or an announcement of any kind on Treasury. We saw Elon Musk pitching Howard Lightning for that job I think as recently as yesterday or certainly over the weekend.

And so some of this has moved pretty quickly. But I mean, Trump is going to centralize a lot of the economic decision making in the White House. He has very particular views about things like tariffs. And so, you know, who he picks for these economic jobs will be responsible for the cleanup or for the salesmanship on the Hill or two foreign leaders.

But I think at the end of the day, when it comes to tariffs, which are again, Trump's favorite economic tool, he'll be the person driving the bus on all of those things, no matter who he picks to be the Commerce Secretary or ultimately the Treasury Secretary now. Well, some great reporting as always. Thank you so much, Garrett Hake. And as you continue to see these live pictures of President Elect Donald Trump there in Texas waiting for the SpaceX Lodge, I want to come to you, Ryan.

As you mentioned, NBC News has confirmed the testimony from a woman involved in an investigation into Matt Gates and those allegations has been hacked that that there might be materials from that investigation that have got their hands on. So what do we know about that? Well, that this is information that tracks very closely to the information that we have heard that was released in many of the reporting around the accusations against Matt Gates. And of course, what the attorney for some of these witnesses has come forward and said that they testified to the House e commit and to the Department of Justice.

There could be more detail within these transcribed inter the transcripts of these interviews that would be of use particularly to the members of the Senate that have made the opportunity to vote on Mackie's Confirmation. The question is, will they come to the light of day? And will senators feel comfortable using material that could have been hacked? I think what senators would prefer to have is that information transferred from the House to the Senate so that they can make a formal part of their investigation.

But what we can tell you is that senators are very interested in learning everything they possibly can about every investigation into Matt Gates before they make a final decision as whether or not they're gonna vote yes or no on his confirmation as Attorney General. Well, as you just said, they want this information. How crucial do you think this information is going to be when it comes to specifically Republican senators? Considering whether or not they confirm Matt Gates there, I almost feel as though most of these senators have probably made up their minds one way or another how they're gonna vote.

But you would have to use or view the information from the ethics report as a reason for them to say no, that it is even more alarming and more shocking than the information that already exists so that they could go to Donald Trump, who's pressing on them very directly, saying, you gotta vote for my guy and say, I can't vote for your guy when this is out there. And so I think that's part of the reason why you see an effort to prevent this information from coming to the light of day. And I think it's also part of the reason that there's such a vigorous back and forth between the House and Senate about bringing this information out. You know, the folks associated with Gatesgate himself would say that this is information that the Department of Justice to sat the points in time and they chose not to prosecute him as a result of it.

They didn't necessarily clear him. Doesn't necessarily mean the information is true or false, but what it means is that they look at it and decide it wasn't a prosecutable offense. Now, that's much different than the standard that you might hold for someone who wants to be the Attorney General. But that's part of the deliberations here, back and forth between Senators and the House Ethics Committee.

Well, definitely all eyes agree on Capper. Plus, this continues to be an issue for problems. Thank you so much, Ryan. We're also following Trump related developments out of Manhattan, where the judge presiding over Donald Trump's hush money case could decide at any moment now how to proceed with sentencing.

It comes as prosecutors now say that sentencing in that case can be postponed. In a filing today, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and his team urged the judge not to dismiss the case as Mr. Trump's lawyers have requested but acknowledge the difficulties of sentencing a sitting president or of course in Trump's case, President elect. That filing says, quote, the people deeply respect the office of the President, are mindful of the demands and obligations of the presidency and acknowledge that defendants inauguration will raise unprecedented legal questions.

We also deeply respect the fundamental role of the jury in our constitutional system. I'm joined now by Jeremy Saland, a criminal defense attorney and former assistant district attorney in Manhattan. So thank you so much for joining. So District Attorney Alvin Bragg has now raised the prospect of a four year freeze on the case and Trump sentencing.

Are you surprised at the decision? I think that four year freeze would be an injustice and you allow your jury to make its determination to put that before jury of Trump's peers and you need to have a conclusion. And justice would be just a decision to go forward too, I believe. But taking this proverbial can down the road for four years, that doesn't do right by anybody.

So strong feelings there. I wonder if you think about this, I wonder how likely it is that the judge will hold off sentencing. I know you said it's not a good idea, but if Trump also is not sentenced to eating, his conviction will stand when it comes to maybe four years from now when it's taken back up. Well, to clarify, I'm not saying holding up the sentence isn't a bad idea.

There's option to stay, which is as Red says, anonymous missile options here. There's a stay. Let the appeal process go through its course. Let Trump file whatever he's going to file and continue to do so.

Let's not conflate nonsense with staying and holding off and see how the place goes out in appeals process. But ultimately this is not going to result in a sentence of incarceration. It's not going to resolve an or anything along those lines. I think ultimately the American people need to and that's a hard thing to judge for judges to make a decision about because it's such a unique case.

Yeah. Thank you for bringing that clarification there because I know people sit at home might not see that difference. And I want to ask you, a spokesperson for Trump celebrated the delayed sentencing and called it a quote, total and definitive victory for President Trump and the American people. Do you agree with that?

I wholly disagree with that. One of the arguments that Donald Trump made is that you cannot stand to because I have his absolute immunity as president. But keep in mind this started prior to his presidency and so his election. But also that there's an argument that will impact his ability to transition from Biden to Trump, which is quite a rich argument when you look at what occurred on January 6, whether you believe get a hand on it or not.

But if Jackson will look at the evidence that there is some relation to Trump involved in her engagement, whether that's criminal or not, Jack Smith may never know. But it's a rich argument to me. This case has to come to conclusion. That would be injustice and that's a wrong statement by trust me.

Additionally, they say the case has to come to a conclusion based on DA Bragg's recommendation. Does it sound like he or whoever the Manhattan DA is at the time will seek a sentencing once President Elect Trump is no longer in office? Yeah, I think that would be disappointing to put mildly. Way to resolve this.

And I used that term before kicking that can down the road many times. It's not the answer to this. It leaves so much left unknown. And yet you have a conviction and ultimately whatever.

Just you can't wait for four years. Too much time. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, thank you so much for your expertise and for breaking this all down, Jeremy. My pleasure. And coming up, a live report from Capitol Hill where Republican Congresswoman Nancy Mace is pushing an anti trans bathroom bill that she says is directly targeted at an incoming Democratic House member. Plus damage assessment.

I'll talk to Mississippi's only House Democrat as his party charts path forward after a bruising election cycle. Congressman Betty Thompson joins me next. You're watching me the Press Hour. Drive off in a new Hyundai Launcher today with $0 down during the Hyundai Advantage sales event.

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Welcome back. As Democrats chart their path forward in the wake of their losses this election cycle, they face mounting questions about what their message should be, especially after their warnings about Donald Trump being a threat to democracy failed to resonate with enough voters. Joining me now is Congressman Betty Thompson, Democrat from Mississippi who served as chair of the House January 6th Select Committee. So thank you so much, Congressman, for being here.

So I want to get started on, of course, the Democratic soul searching that's going on now. What do you think Democrats need to do and need to say to win in 2026, 2028 and beyond. And should the party be focused on winning black Americans who voted for Donald Trump in 2024? Well, I think the first thing we have to do is take an autopsy of what we did during this election, what we didn't do well, and how we can fix it.

So part of it is to look at the demographics and statistics of the election, make sure that the numbers are accurate. As you know, we still have a few races that are still out, but for all intents and purposes, as you know, Republicans won in, Democrats lost. So what we have to do is see what our messaging was correct. We have to look at the polling.

We have to then say to the voters who used to vote Democratic, who are either not voting now voting Republican, we need to find out why, and then we need to fix it. I think we can no longer, as Democrats, assume that there's a body of voters that are naturally Democratic. I think this election shows us that the voters are there looking for a message. And if it's the right message, they'll support you.

If it's not the right message, they'll either stay at home or they'll vote for the opposition. So we still have some soul searching to do as Democrats. Yeah, and some of that soul searching, talk about this is the Democrats are saying that there need to be more of a focus on working class. So some go worry the Democrats trying to appeal to the working class, maybe overlooking the fact that many black people who voted overwhelmingly for President Harris are also in the middle class.

In the working class and often, sometimes making less money than middle class white voters. So I wanted to ask you, how do you think the Democratic Party appeals to a more diverse electorate without alienating the base of the party? Well, you know, I think working class applies to whoever the universe happens to be, whether it's black, brown, male, female. We're looking for people who want to work, have a job, they're able to take care of their family, provide health care, and at the end of that job is something called a pension.

And as you know, labor unions moved a lot of people into the middle class. And so therefore, a lot of those individuals identify with the Democratic Party. I think what we have to do now is to see why we missed the mark in this election. And from my vantage point, I think that over reliance on consultants and pollsters who really, in my opinion, don't have the pulse of the people at hand.

And so that over reliance caused us to miss our mark. Those of us who work every day in our districts in Many instances, we don't need a poll to tell us what the message happens to be. But likewise, when the opposition is trying to define who you are, we have to have a response to what they're saying. I think what occurred in this election, to the credit of the Republicans, is they talked about transgender rights, a lot of other things, and the posters are saying nobody's paying any attention to that.

They don't believe it. That's not the case. And so again, rather than follow up Politics 101, which is to say if your opponent accuses you of something that's not true, you have to respond. Yeah, I want to ask you if I could about Alyssa Slaughan and what she said.

She won her Senate race in a state where Kamala Harris lost. And she said, personally, I think that identity politics needs to go the way of the dodo. Democrats should not use language from the faculty lounge, but from the assembly line. It's sort of what you're saying.

They need to have the polls. But I wonder what you make of this, given the fact that Vice President Harris didn't talk about a lot about her identity and Trump won, a lot of people would say by appealing to people's sense of identity in the future of this country. Well, I think, you know, America is a rainbow. We have people from all walks of life living here, and there's no reason to run from it.

I think as an American, we should be proud of who we are as an American and encourage other people to feel likewise. But I think when we somehow get enamored by the professional campaign class, they somehow hijack many elections to your own detriment. Sometimes you have to follow, as they say in the south, you're good. Yeah.

If your gut tells you that there's a message out here that people are waiting to hear, then that's the message you should care. Can I also ask you about transgender rights? Because you brought that up. You talked about it as an issue that came up in this election.

You now have Nancy Mason, Congresswoman, introducing a resolution that would ban the first transgender member of Congress from using the women's restroom at the Capitol. How do you think Democrats defend a member of their own caucus as a history making member, while also not appearing to lean too far into the issues that may have alienated some voters in this election? Yeah, I think clearly what Nancy Mason is doing is just trying to play the moment. I don't think there's any issue with that.

It's not an issue. And I think Democrats have to address it. They're just seizing that moment that our member is an elected member of Congress and we go forward. Nancy Mace, as you know, does not have the knowledge base of, in this institution that she really knows exactly what's going on in so many respects.

And I think by filing a bill like this, we all Americans, and we have to address it in that respect. Yeah. And you were, of course, I want to ask you about January 6th, because you were the chairman of the House Select Committee investigating the Capitol attack and your prime time hearing. They were seeing my money as an investigative success, but some are now saying they were a political failure.

Given that, of course, President Elect Trump is now heading back to the White House. So I wonder, what do you make of sort of voters now backing Donald Trump after January 6th and all the work that you put in? Well, as you know, we put two years of work into that committee. We told the stories as our investigation put forward.

But from our vantage point, there's nothing we presented in our hearings that we can't prove. It was clear that President Trump invited the people to the Capitol, to Washington. He encouraged him to go to the Capitol and stop the peaceful transfer of power, and they did. But what if 100 Senate voters reelected him?

Well, it means that obviously Donald Trump got his message over to those same people who came on January 6, that they need to come back in record numbers. And he designed a platform and a program that addressed it. And I think the Democrats on that instant missed the mark again, just like in promoting issues in the campaign that wasn't bread and butter issues for constituents. And so I'm convinced that that over reliance on professional consultants caused a significant drop off in the Democratic message.

In many instances, the message just didn't hit the mark. Those individuals who somehow are couched in pristine areas are not all the time the person who can carry and give the right message. So for me and a lot of other people, again, this is a time for Democrats to say, look, we can't run a cookie cutter commercials and expect people to feel who we are. As Democrats, we have to give our life experiences in our message so that people see Democrats as the people who really care.

We can let someone take a health care message away from Democrats by saying they're trying to stop you from doing this. Yeah, the party is definitely doing that. So thank you so much, Congressman, for joining us. Thank you so much for having me.

And as the Congressman and I just discussed, Republican Congressman Nancy Mace has ignited a fierce debate on Capitol Hill after introducing a resolution that would ban transgender women from using female bathrooms at the U.S. capitol. It comes just weeks before Congresswoman elect Sarah McBride is set to become the first openly transgender member of Congress. Last night, Mace misgendered McBride when she baselessly accused her of being, quote, a biological man trying to force himself into women's spaces.

And today may settle down this effort in response to Congresswoman Bride coming to Congress. Yes and absolutely and then some. I'm not going to stand for a man. You know, someone with a penis is in a woman's locker room.

That's not okay. Yesterday, in response, Congresswoman elect McBride wrote on X, quote, everyday Americans go to work with people who have life journeys different than their own and engage with them respectfully. I hope members of Congress can muster that same kindness. This all comes after Republicans leaned heavily into culture war issues on the 2024 campaign show and after the Trump campaign ran ad saying, quote, kamala is for they them.

President Trump is for you. Joining me now is Sahil Kapoor on Capitol Hill. Thanks so much for being here, Sahil. So representative Sarah McBride, the first openly transgender person elected Congress, is calling this a distraction.

What's been the reaction there on Capitol Hill today by this move by Congressman Nancy McK? Hey, Yamiche. Well, the Republicans like us is pretty well captured by Speaker Mike Johnson, who was asked earlier this morning by reporter point blank, is representative a man or a woman? He said he kind of brushed off the question, said everyone should be treated with dignity and respect.

And then he felt he needed to come back later and clarify what he meant by that. Let's play with Mike Johnson said before and after. I'm not going to get into this. We welcome all new members who are duly elected representatives of the people.

I believe it's a, it's a command. We treat all persons with dignity and respect. We will. I'm not going to engage in silly debates about this for anybody who doesn't know my well established record on this issue.

Let me be unequivocally clear. A man is a man and a woman is a woman and a man cannot become a woman. Now, Nancy Mason, her part is defending her resolution. She's calling transgender women, quote, men pretending to be women.

She's getting some backup here from one time foe, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who called representative like McBride mentally ill, said women should be able to defend themselves from what she called biological men invading our spaces. These are all direct quotes here for Marjorie Taylor Greene. Democrats also reacted. The House Democrat, top House Democratic King Jeffries, all this simply bullying from Republicans and number two House Democrat Catherine Clark said they're creating issues that are not important.

Senate majority leader call this mean and cruel on the part of Republicans. They don't the Republicans at least appear to be sure. Any of that. Yeah, a lot going on there, Sahil.

And I also want to ask you, during that 2024 campaign, we saw Republicans lean in on the cultural issues, including on the topic specifically when it comes to transgender rights, should we expect, we think to see more of these kind of cultural issues come up in legislation in the next Congress? Yes, I think we should expect that. Republicans just captured the traffic that had the presidency House in the Senate, they feel very emboldened by this. They ran a lot of anti transgender ads and messaging in the 2024 election.

Clearly, they ended up winning after doing that. And they feel that the country is in this anti transgender moment which they can use to their political advantage. So whether it's executive orders, including some that President Biden signed protecting transgender Americans from discrimination, Trump can easily undo those. Could Republicans try to insert some provisions in new legislation as well that cut against transgender rights?

It's harder to do in government funding because they would need Democratic support. I think that could be one of the fights we see between the two parties in terms of how far down cross are willing to let this go. But the bottom line is, yes, it's an issue that Republicans feel very comfortable with right now and intend to advance pretty aggressively. Congressman May said she expects Mike Johnson to put this up in the rules resolution, her bill regarding bathrooms and that if he doesn't, she'll work amend that resolution.

If that doesn't work, then she's going to push for a privileged vote on the fourth House for her resolution. Again, they're very important right now. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, great reporting. And up next, Trump transition officials turn up the heat on Capitol Hill as Republican lawmakers face one of their first major loyalty tests to President Donald Trump elect. We're digging into deeper into the latest cabinet fallout. The panel next.

You're WATCHING ME the press now. Welcome back. As we mentioned, tomorrow the vice president elect will be on Capitol Hill to lobby his current Senate colleagues for the president elects polarizing fix to lead the departments of Defense and Justice. There will be a particular focus on former Congressman Matt Gates.

Traditional officials are calling it, quote, a full throttled effort on what they see as their toughest confirmation. Joining me now is the panel. Jeff Mason is White House correspondence for Reuters. Shanti Golar is president of Emerge and Daniel Plutka is senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and NBC News contributor.

So thank you all for being here. Jeff, I want to start with you. We know now President elect Donald Trump has been working the phone. Senator Kramer confirmed NBC News he received a phone call from Trump urging him to support Matt Gates.

What do you make of the fact that Donald Trump in this moment is using this fresh political capital that he has to lean so heavily on his senators? Well, glad he said political, because that's what it is. And the question is, will he use it up? How much of it is he willing to put on the line for a controversial couple picks?

Clearly there is some objection within the Republican caucus and he wouldn't have to be lobbying, he wouldn't have to be sending his vice presidential nominee or his former running mate back to the Senate to lobby for him if there wasn't a lot of concern already amongst the Republican lawmakers about whether or not they want to confirm him. Do you think this is about Matt Gates in particular, Trump wanting him, or do you think it's a sitting bar, like if I can get Matt Gates through, they'll even ask me about the other nominees to get them through? Yeah, I think it's a little bit of both. I mean, I think some of the other nominees are certainly more traditional.

He knows he's not gonna have in trouble. He's not gonna have trouble getting the Senate to endorse a secretary of state, Marco Rubio, one of their own. But I think he is also trying to say, hey, I won this election, I've got this mandate, I won the popular vote, give me whatever I want. And he's going to test that.

And they may not give it to him or they may. And either way that's going to be telling to the rest of us. Well, Vice President Like J.D. vance, Daniel is going to be up there trying to really glad hand push his colleagues.

How much of a difference do you think that's going to make? I'm not persuaded that's going to make that much of a difference. You know, senators know other senators really well and I don't think that that has ever been a terribly effective way of doing business. I hope what happens is that JD Vance hears from them because they are going to need to protect their prerogatives, the constitutional prerogatives of advice and consent.

That matters a lot and not just for Donald Trump. It matters for whoever is the next president. That's number one. Number two, I really, if I were a member of Congress, I would have been in the Senate for 10 years.

This is something we did every day. If I were a member of Congress, I would say to J.D. vance, please tell Donald Trump you want to be a disruptor. We get that you really want to upend the Department of Justice because you feel like it's been used to prosecute, you know, political.

Political enemies of the White House. That's fine. Why are you choosing to do it with this man? Why are you choosing to have a fight over the person and not over the disruption you want?

I hope he hears that. That's what he needs to hear. Yeah. As you think about how much pressure he's leaning on people when it comes to Tulsi Gabbard is gonna get that same sort of push from Donald Trump.

I don't know. You know, look, I mean, Donald Trump doesn't call and confide in me, but he's gonna have a couple of. He's gonna have a couple of controversial ones. It's not just.

It's not just Matt Gates. It's also Tulsi Gabbard. And although she was a member of the House, nonetheless, there's gonna be some trouble with her because of her views on Russia, her views on Syria, her views on Iran, her views on a lot of things in the role, but also rfk. You know, fun times ahead of us.

Yeah, fun times is one way to put it. Ajanti. There's also the fact that Democratic Senator Blumenthal is saying that he would be against having subpoenas for the witnesses in the Matt Gates investigation. What do you make of that?

Democrats be trying to certainly just do what they can to get this process over with her? Or do you think they should be looking more into this in that way? I think we should be looking more into this. Because if he's innocent, if nothing happened, why isn't he speaking more about it, saying, I haven't done anything wrong?

Why aren't other people speaking about it more loudly saying, he hasn't done anything wrong? Why wouldn't you want to clear your name, especially if you are up for this really important position? I don't think this is something that we should let go. The Attorney General is very high profile.

They run one of the biggest apartments. We need to make sure that there is trust and faith in that person. So I really appreciate the fact that we do have those senators who are saying that we do need to look deeper into this. And it is going to be upon all of the senators to make sure that they're doing job during the confirmations hearings, not only for the former congressman, but for all of these people who he has put forward, there are some serious questions that need to be asked.

And if you think about that, Danny Trump has said and has called on the Senate to allow resus appointments to Speaker Johnson once left the door open saying he's supporting possibly having resist appointments, but today said he just wants to see the Senate do his job. So they listen to this. I think it's an important principle for us to maintain that an incoming president gets to select their own team. I think.

I think that's important. The principle, the advising consent responsibility is given to the Senate in the Constitution. They can take that seriously and they will. They'll probably vet nominees and that process will play out.

But look, I'll just say this about a number of nominees that have been appointed. I think President Trump is looking for persons who will shake up the status quo, and we are mandated in this election cycle to do this. So what do you think of the fact that senators might say, you know what if this Trump one, we're not gonna have to go through our duties and confirm people. Do you think that'll happen?

I don't, actually. I mean, I think there will be members who try and curry favor with him and suggest that. But senators, no matter what their party, have always been very protective of their constitutional prerogatives. It's a major part, not just of our checks and balances.

It's not just part of what our founding fathers thought about when they assigned senators six years to outlive every presidential term without fear or favor. It's also a big part of their leverage against the executive branch. And by the way, one day there will be a Democratic president again and a Democratic Senate, and we don't want to see them doing that either. Yeah, Jeff, I want to turn to this other issue that we've been covering on the show, which is Congresswoman Nancy Nates and his anti transgender bill.

I wonder what you make of it, especially when it comes to what Speaker Johnson's gonna do about this bill. Couple things. One, she's building on the messaging that was used throughout the campaign very effectively by the Republican Party for to gin up that base support against what they have portrayed as a broad Democratic agenda for transgender rights for one person. And, you know, we were sitting in the green room before and one of us said, I won't name all this.

It probably matter. It's as if there aren't any other important issues going on like the wars and all those issues. And I think, you know, that could backfire on Nancy Mace. And yet it helped him a lot in this 2024 election.

I mean, there's a question of sort of what is there to politically gain here, especially when I'm thinking not only, of course, of Republicans have control of Washington right now, but also I'm thinking about that transgender person out there in America who saying, why do we need vilify for this party that already has. So there are two sides to this story, and I don't think anybody should be vilified for the choices that they make. But I think Nancy Mace has rights to. She's a sexual assault victim.

She says she has PTSD from that and that she does not want to be in a restroom with somebody who she thinks she sees as a man. Now, you know, again, this is something that the Congress is going to have to decide for themselves. This is going to be a majority vote, and there will be a vote on it because that's the rules package. So, you know, we'll see what happens.

Insofar as this has been an issue, that's absolutely right. It was a huge issue in the election because people don't like to be told what to think, and people don't like to be told what to do. People don't like to be told who their girls go into a locker room with. Ashanti, I want to give you the last word here.

So it is really exciting to see this because Congresswoman Mesa has said that she has friends and family, members of the LGBTQ community, and that they should have their rights and equality. So to see this now, it is really upsetting, but kind of not surprising given the fact that they did have the ad. But we also know that there are 73 million people that did vote for Vice President Harris. They want them in Congress to do the work of Congress.

This issue isn't going to increase wages. It isn't going to put food on the table. It's going to stop price gouging. We need them there to focus on what the American people need.

Yeah. Well, we can talk a lot more about this. Thank you so much, Jeffanti, to Danny. And after the break, President Putin signed a decree making it easier for him to use Russia's arsenal of nuclear weapons, what it means for the US Its allies, and the war in Ukraine.

That's next. You're watching the press now. Welcome back. Today marks 1,000 days since Russia launched its full scale invasion into Ukraine.

In an address to Ukraine's parliament, President Volodymyr Zelensky said the war has reached a critical moment as he urged citizens to remain resilient. This comes as Ukraine is already taking advantage of President Biden's recent change of policy by firing a US Applied long range missile inside Russia for the very first time. According to two US Officials, Russia's Ministry of Defense said Ukraine lost six of those long range missiles and claimed Russia shot down five of them. In another potential escalation today in Moscow, in a long anticipated move, Russian President Putin issued a nuclear new nuclear doctrine lowering the threshold for using nuclear weapons.

Join me now is NBC News chief international correspondent Kirsten. Thanks for being here. President Putin has formally lowered the threshold here. So what should we make of this new nuclear doctrine out of Moscow?

Well, it's clearly a threat. What it says, and this is the piece says many things. But the piece of it that really has got people's attention is where it's says where previously it said that Russia could use nuclear weapons if it faces an existential threat. Now it says it can use nuclear weapons.

As you mentioned, it has a non nuclear state allied with a nuclear state. Clearly the message is directed at Ukraine and the U.S. that being said, as you know, Yamiche, Russia and President Putin has made nuclear threats since the beginning of the war in Ukraine. And actually back in October 2022, Western leaders really feared that Russia would use a tactical nuclear weapon.

We know that from accounts from those leaders who were involved at the time more recently. So the question is, is this rhetoric, as the prime minister of Britain is saying tonight, or is there something more to it? Intelligent agency with seas, we'll be looking closely. And then there's attackers as you mentioned, those being fired for the first time after clearly President Biden's administration of least Ukraine from the restrictions on using those long range weapons as you mentioned, five of them according to the Russians have been intercepted, one hit, a weapons depot, according to the Russians.

Well, I mean that suggests that Russia may be feeling as if it can withstand these attacks from these more sophisticated weapons. The whole thing is about setting up both sides trying to set themselves up for the arrival of President Elect Trump. He of course has said that he wants to do a deal, that he will demand a deal. And quite often before there is a ceasefire, there is an escalation in fighting.

Historically is often the case as militaries try to gain advantage. So that may be what we're seeing now. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for breaking it all down, Kiersten.

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