Hi there. Welcome to the press. Now I'm Ryan Nobles in Washington where we are following breaking news this afternoon. Afternoon, special counsel Jack Smith filing motions to end both of his criminal cases against President elect Donald Trump, moving to dismiss his case tied to Mr.
Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election and abandon his appeal of a lower court ruling that dismissed the other criminal case tied to Mr. Trump's handling of classified documents. It is filing to dismiss the election interference case. Specifically, the special counsel writes, quote, the government's position on the merits of the defendant's prosecution has not changed, but the circumstances have.
Smith goes on to say that his office must abide by long standing Justice Department policy that prohibits federal prosecutions of sitting presidents. He adds that prohibition is categorical and does not turn on the gravity of the crime's char charge, the strength of the government's proof or the merits of the prosecution, which the government stands fully behind. Mr. Trump used today's developments to bash the cases against them, calling them, quote, empty and lawless.
This concept of the special counsel had already signaled plans to resign in the wake of Donald Trump's election victory and wind down the cases against the president elect. It also comes as Mr. Trump's pick for attorney general, Pam Bondi, has signaled a potential prosecution into Smith and his team when Trump takes office. NBC News reported over the weekend that the AG Peck Bondi vowed to prosecute the, quote, bad prosecutors who indicted Mr.
Trump. With me now, NBC News justice and intelligence correspondent Ken delegian and former U.S. attorney Barbara McQuaid, who's now NBC News legal analyst. So, Ken, today's news from the special counsel, not unexpected, but to be clear, this is still very historic.
Here's one more. It's momentous. It's going to cause a lot of thinking about what just happened over the last few years. So Jack Smith had to do this.
He's an employee of the judge department. And as soon as Donald Trump was elected president, Jack Smith went to the Office of Legal Counsel and said, hey, does our policy of not indicting and prosecuting a city president apply in this instance before he even takes office? And they came back and they said, yes, we think it does. And so he had no choice but to dismiss these charges against Donald Trump.
He's saying the following, though. He stands behind the prosecution. They're dismissed with prejudice, which doesn't mean all that much because the likelihood of these charges being refiled seems quite limited. And there's a five year statute of limitations for many of these charges.
But still, it's a big day. It's gonna raise a lot of questions about, for example, why wasn't why this procurement happened earlier? What would history have been different had that happened? It doesn't mean, though, the special counselor ends today.
Right. He can still issue a final report. He can still kind of put all of his evidence together. A neat package for us to read.
Right. He's required by regulation to issue a final report to the Attorney General, who is likely to make that public. But in this case, we are led to believe there's not gonna be all that much in a report that we haven't already seen in public record. There's been so much evidence put out in both of these cases, and there time for, like, an intelligence agency review of additional things he might want to put out there.
So, realistically, we may not learn that much new from report. We'll probably be some strong language about why the prosecutor brought these cases. So, Bart, let's turn to you now. Obviously, the special counsel did not concede that Donald Trump was not guilty, with a great pain to make that point, just that the cases against him could not proceed.
Were you surprised at the language that he used in these filings? No, I'm not surprised that he chose to dismiss the case, because what I think he wanted to do was to end the case on his own terms. If he files today, he can dismiss it without prejudice. That means the case can be brought again.
His other option really was to let it play out and have Donald Trump's next Attorney general or the acting attorney general, on January 21st dismissed the case and no doubt would have done so with prejudice, meaning it could not be brought again. There could even have been filings in the public docket saying things like, it was brought for malicious reasons, it was a case of prosecutorial misconduct. They would have that opening to do that. And so I think in this way, they can control the narrative.
They can say they stand behind the case on the merits, and if there is an appetite for it, there probably will not be. But there is a possibility of refiling these charges in 2029. Of course, they have to win the argument that during the four years that Donald Trump was president, the statute of limitations was told. But I think that would be consistent with this idea that a Sen.
President cannot defend himself from criminal charges. And Barbara makes a point that this final report probably won't tell us a lot of new information, given that so much of it has been out there in the public sphere. But this is his last chance to lay out the case against Trump and also his first chance to defend himself if Trump's Department of Justice does come after him. What kind of language do you think he'll use in that report?
Yeah, I would expect to see a report. You never know what you might see. You don't know what you don't know. So it is possible that we'll see additional facts that have not previously been revealed.
But I think we will see a description of why this case was important, why it mattered to the national security of the United States. And I don't think they care much about defending themselves. I don't think there's any evidence that they've engaged in any sort of misconduct. But to explain for history why this case was filed and why it remains important.
And for the classified documents case, there were co defendants. Are they off the hook now, too, or is that case move forward for now, they are not, because remember, that case has been dismissed by the judge, but that dismissal is on appeal because it was on the legal issue of whether the DOJ complied with the law and how it appointed special counsel. So the DOJ is continuing to litigate that appeal and is continuing to prosecute the case against those co defendants. Whether that's only to keep the thing in the appeals process or not remains to be seen, or whether they do continue the prosecution.
And Barbara, what is your take on how the courts will handle this appeal? Is this something, is this something opportunity if the special counsel still win that deal at this point? I think so. And remember, the appeal in the documents case is really about the constitutionality of the special counsel appointment.
I think most people agree that that is a constitutional appointment. And so we could get a rule at least from the 11th Circuit on that issue before perhaps we see the new Justice Department pull the plug on the case. And that would be important to at least get rid of this district court decision that is now pending. That is kind of the final take in this case that the special counsel regulations were unconstitutional.
So to get that overturned, I think could be important. I also think it's important to keep that case going. My guess is that the Justice Department will dismiss the case with regard to the other two defendants. But the idea that this too is dismissed without prejudice as to Donald Trump means that it is theoretically still alive.
My guess is Donald Trump may try to pardon himself from both of these cases, but let's make him do that, I suppose, is some of the thinking of the Justice Department. And then perhaps it can be challenged down the road. In Barbara takes 10 that the special Counsel doesn't have anything to worry about from a legal perspective. But that's not perhaps going to stop the incoming Justice Department at least making something out of this.
Right. We have a reporting over the weekend about some of the language that Pam Bondi, the potential incoming Attorney general, said about this. I mean, how could this play itself out? It really does seem likely that we'll see a special counsel appointed to investigate the investigators here, just the way there was one in the first Trump administration, John Durham.
He spent years poking around dark corners and came up with very few cases. But look, the Republicans have been making this charge for months and years that the DOJ has been weaponized, that this case was political. If you make that charge, you should come up with evidence. And I've been covering these investigations for two years.
I've not seen any credible evidence that political appointees interfered or that Jack Smith or his team did anything inappropriate. And so I don't think they have any legal expos? But every memo they wrote, every text message they send will be open to the next administration and any special counselor, prosecutor. And let's talk about the gravity of that.
Right? Maybe they won't be convicted of any crime, but they're going to be forced to get lawyers. Or some of this laundry could be aired publicly. I mean, this could be very inconvenient for members of this team.
Inconvenient and painful and financially costly. And for the career prosecutors who want to go back to their old jobs and Justice Department, they're in limbo right now. The idea that they'll be able to work as normal in the Trump Justice Department, I think, is very much up in the air. And Donald Trump impeached by the House, later indicted for trying to overthrow the results of the 2020 election.
Police officers, even one of Trump's own supporters, died as a result of that effort. Hundreds of Trump supporters are now in prison as a result of it as well. Not. Donald Trump's about to take office again, having won the 2024 election.
He won the popular vote as well. I mean, is there concern at the Justice Department right now about how about what this president elect could be capable of after winning this election, given everything that we saw play out over the last four years? Well, first of all, there's great sadness that the lesson of Watergate, which is that no one is above the law and that when presidents commit crimes, they're held accountable, that that seems to have gone out the window at least for half the American public. But, yes, the DOJ is absolutely very concerned about all these promises to prosecute the prosecutors and go after the alleged weaponization for all the reason we just discussed whether they prosecute anybody.
They can make people's lives miserable and they're concerned about, you know, people getting fired and losing their jobs and being asked to take action that they don't believe is ethical. Your take on that as well, what would be the long term impact of how this all played out? Well, you know, to fire somebody who's a career prosecutor is not so easily done. You can't just say I don't like you and you're gone.
There are civil service protections for that. So I don't think it's quite as easy perhaps as some politicians think it is to clean house at the Department of Justice. But I do worry about the chilling effect this could have on recruiting of new people who might want to serve as prosecutors in the Justice Department or others who might be inclined to leave. You know, good people who've been there for their entire careers.
It's important to have institutional knowledge and experience in addition to talent in prosecuting cases. And I worry that people who are good people may see the grass appears when you're outside of government for the next four years. Okay, Ken and Barbara, thank you both. Appreciate it.
Let's turn out of the Trump transition, which is now shifted from speculation to confirmation, with the president elect completing his picks for his Cabinet, assembling a team of ideological rivals and loyalists, naming a hedge fund executive, a protege of a Democratic megadonorge Soros, to lead the Treasury Department. His pick to run the Labor Department is a centrist to back legislation making it easier for unions to organize. And he picked a former liberal Democrat who supports abortion rights to lead his Department of Health and Human Services. These are people that he's handpicked to implement what he described as a conservative agenda.
He's also attached ardent loyalists who are vowed to carry out his agenda, including a budget director who served in the first Trump administration and co authored the ultra conservative think tank blueprint called Project 2025. Join Me Now's Garrett Hake. He's been covering the Trump transition for NBC News. Also with me, NBC News senior business correspondent Christine Romans.
So, Garrett, let's start with you. I mean, this kind of does seem to be a bit all over the place ideologically. What do we make of it? Well, I'll get part of the point.
And this is the way that Don Trizard has always operated, whether it was in politics or as a private citizen. He likes to have competing factions around him, different teams, different ideas. He likes to let them fight it out, basically, and then make the decisions himself. Sometimes he thinks that creates better results.
From the outside, he can also appear to create, which is what we saw many times during his first administrations. But you also see different factions within the Republican Party being served by different elements of these picks. There are much more traditional hawks. There are people who prove themselves that they can Trump to you during the first administration.
And there's so many people who are kind of newer to the Trump coalition. I'm thinking people like Tulsi Gabbard or RFK Jr. Who were Democrats four years ago and now finding themselves part of the MAGA crew. We'll see who ultimately gets across the finish line and how well these groups work together.
But it's not unusual to have a team of rivals in the Cabinet, and certainly not unusual for Trump to surround himself with people who disagree with one another as long as they ultimately back him. That's what he looks at. We think back to eight years ago, when he even was surprised himself that he won the presidency and kind of called together a Cabinet without much experience there. He's now had basically four years to think about this Cabinet.
Right. Is that one of the big differences between what we saw now and in 2017? I suppose. I don't think we're seeing a much different process now post election, as we would have seen otherwise.
But, I mean, I don't think he was sitting around in 21, in 22, saying, who I want in my administration. If I come back, he's also going to be something of a superstitious person and so didn't want to measure the drapes before he was back in the White House. But I do think he understands that personnel was a problem in his first administration. Maybe not the way you and I would think of it, but for example, someone like Jeff Sessions, he saw as an issue, someone who wasn't sufficiently loyal in that AG job.
I think you can see the through line from that pick to Matt Gaetz's selection pretty clearly. It's certainly probably to a lesser degree with Han Bonnie, but the same theme applies here. So he's looking at different categories of people when he's making his picks now. But that's a different Trump than in 2016, 2017, certainly.
And speaking of, Matt Gates is not, of course, up for the Attorney General. John, the Morrison prepared. Yes, he wasn't gonna get the votes. So that now raises questions about the other controversial picks.
Right. Is the Tradition team worried that there's another one of these picks that perhaps could be the same fake that Gates has. I think understand the math pretty clearly here and the unlikelihood that they will get much Democratic support for any of these picks. I think there's some who probably will or jab as Daria, for example, for labor secretary, pick up some Democratic votes.
Marco Rubio could pick up two dozen Democratic votes. Roll it now. But if you're looking at somebody like Pete, he said, for example, when you recover late last week, I get somebody who they see is going to be problematic. Tulsi Gabbard.
I think they perhaps overly optimistic will get Democratic votes. Having been a former Democratic, I think it's a misread by the Trump team. So do you think there's a couple other fixes who could have challenges? But I think it's important to understand that if they're gonna lose Republicans, it's more likely to lose on personal characteristics, by which I mean the allegations against Pete Hegset with Cheese and I are probably more important to him not getting confirmed than would be anything he said about the Defense Department senators that are very skeptical about breaking from Trump on policy issues, having just spent the last several weeks crowing about his mandate and theirs.
Yeah, let's talk about Russell Vaughn, who is probably not a household name, body structure to the imagination, but he's the pick for 1B director that has a very powerful position within the White House. And he is of course one of the architects of Project 2025, which Trump claimed to do nothing about. What should we know about OMB than people realize, not just the organization that determines whether we in Washington area get Snowdez, which is a little bit of what they do, but they're kind of a lubricant for how all the other executive agencies work. And so Russell fought as head of omb, but have a little bit of say and a little bit of control in how every other executive department implements their workflow, how their workforce operates.
I think the area in which it could be most influential and as most ties to Project 2025 is this effort that Trump has sort of flirted with, talked about some of his orbit have discussed trying to reclassify some federal workers. Much of the discussion you're just having about these federal prosecutors trying to make more people who work with the federal government currently as civil servants turn them into political appointees, which have an effect of making them easier to fire and more Trump to make it easier to hire their replacements. So you can see a shift in the government apparatus to being more kind of pro Trump broadly rather than the career civil service structure that we have in place now. Vought could be a key player in that but won't be able to do that a lot.
Yeah. And of course if they were to do that, there's a case they don't even fill some of those jobs if they're looking to save money. Gary, thank you so much for that. Let's now talk about treasury and that's what we're bringing in.
Christine Romans, tell us about this pick for Treasury, Scott Bessant. What do you know about it? This is the name we heard early on in the process. And there was a real as you know about a back and forth one of my sources close to the transition called a bouncing ball among names.
And then back to Scott Bessant. He is a hedge fund manager. He has made billions of dollars for investors. He is someone who has made some pretty key calls macro called macro strategy calls over the years where he sees the whole global picture and puts money, you know, bets for or against a direction in the global economy.
And he has done very, very well doing that here. So he's someone that is not seen as a flamethrower. He's seen someone who is a grown up and he's not somebody who's breaking conventional rules like some of these other picks are. He is Christine, and which would probably be very much of a surprise to people who pay attention to this, a protagonist of George Soros of all people who is somewhat a bogeyman for Republicans.
Is there any surprise that Trump would Treasury secretary with such close ties. That's one of their biggest foes. Yeah. Let's remember George Soros is like Republican kryptonite, conservative kryptonite.
And here's somebody who worked alongside him. In fact, when George Soros was making his huge bets on against the British pound and he was making investments around in Japan, it was guessed who was doing the research and the advising and was right there next to him. He's worked for other very, very well known and powerful investors as well. But that is a funny kind of wrinkle in the resume considering Donald Trump and his war on woke and war on what he thinks is a George Soros fueled left.
Not that this is the only fact that we should concern ourselves with but it is important the markets seem happy with this potential pick. Why record high for the Dowagen here today. Look, he is someone who Wall street at least now is hoping will go quickly with tax cuts and slowly and more measured with tariffs. And why is that important because the tariffs could be very, very disruptive to Wall Street.
And that's going to have to be something that is really an international art of the deal. And they're hoping that Scott Besson is the guy with his background that'll be able to talk to Daljump behind the scenes and be a little bit of a shock absorber if necessary on the terror strategy. At the same time, he has said that he wants to go get these tax cuts made permanent. He'd like to have more tax cuts.
No taxes on Social Security, on overtime, on tip wages. All of that begs the question if he also is sort of has fiscal discipline, then how are you going to pay for that, Ryan? So that's what the net Wall street happy today but they're going to be the paid for is it'll be the next step of this, of this process. Do they view him someone as a check on the Trump agenda or at least able to focus Trump a little bit more to meet their concerns?
It's unclear. They're putting him more in a moderate bucket, a non flamethrower bucket which is something that they're you know they're pleased with. I mean he is not And Howard Lindenko is now in the Commerce Department by the way. There are those who are already starting to game out well Commerce is sort of the tip of the spear for terrorist strategy and the strateg comes from the White House and Treasury.
Could there be potential conflict down the road with Scott Besson and Howard Ling? I think those are parlor games that I'm not ready to play yet. I just want to live in today. And for today on markets are saying quick on tax cuts, slower on tariffs a steady as she goes.
Amas actually said he business as usual. He shouldn't be picked as our treasury secretary. Wall street says business as usual will thes at 91% over the past five years. So they'll take business as usual.
They can. All right. Chrissy Roman, thank you so much for swinging that trust. We appreciate it.
Coming up, the NBC News exclusive reporting on how millions of families living in the US could be impacted and potentially separated under Trump's mass deportation plan. Plus, new polling on what the public thinks of the Trump transition was less than two months ago until the inauguration. That's ahead in Washington press now. As Donald Trump prepares to take office, millions of migrant families are preparing for him to follow through on one of his key campaign promises, mass deportations.
NBC News has exclusive reporting that those deportations could separate 4 million mixed status families living in the U.S. according to an estimate from a pro immigration advocacy group yesterday, Tom Holman, who was attacked by Trump to be his borders are double down into previous comments that these mixed families could be deported together. We'll give you a shot at claim, a sign if that's what you want to claim. But at the end of that, you get order moved, you're going home.
And if you choose while you're here to give a birth to the only way to a US Child, well, guess what, when you get removed, you leave a job here or you can take them with you. Julia Ainsley joins me now to talk more about this. That was pretty clear. I mean, it seems to be a signal to these families that have to be very scared about how this is going to work.
How are they preparing for these potential deportations? Yeah, you know, it's interesting. We said, oh, you have the choice. You can leave them here, take him with you.
But for a lot of these, what can happen is a child could come from school to an empty house. That's exactly what the families we've been speaking to across the country are preparing for. So it's everything from getting a packet of papers ready with adult contact information, you know, at the next of kin that the child can go stay with their paperwork to show that they're legally allowed to be here. If a parent does, in fact, decide that they want their children to come join them where they've been deported, they have to set up other arrangements because ISIS is going to take a US Citizen child into their custody and put them on the same flight.
So at least temporarily, they could be looking at family separations. This is something Homan seems to really not have any concerns about. Yeah, I mean, it's one thing to talk about this theoretically, but it's another thing to actually implement it. Have they even begun those conversations about how you implement policy like this?
Yeah. What I'm told now is they're speaking to the private prison industry. Those are the people who would largely be building up the capacity for ICE to detain the migrants they arrest in the interior of the country before they're deported. They're looking at possibilities they want to look at.
Okay, if we want to deport this many, how much is that going to cost? What can we get from Congress? They're laying all of that out right now. They have a number of logistical hurdles to get through.
One, of course, the congressional funding. They've got to figure out how to deport migrants back to countries that simply won't take back their nationals Like Venezuela, Cuba, China. What are they going to do about that? And are they going to get Mexico's cooperation to take people who aren't from Mexico to be pushed back across their border?
Also, planes, are they going to be able to find enough planes to be able to carry out what they've promised is the biggest mass deportation force in US History? But if you've noticed, Right. I haven't put an exact number, an exact bull on probably. So we can't turn around and say this was a failure.
I mean, I have to imagine this would be unbelievably expensive. I mean, is the price tag, is it even possible to theorize how big the price tag we're talking about? You know, it's been estimated by ALCI groups to be about $88 billion. I mean, we're talking Covid Relief Fund numbers.
But the question is, you know, is that the same number that I would arrive at? Are there ways that they could lower the cost or maybe even ways it would have to be even costlier to try to deport that number of people? When Kristen Walker spoke to Trump shortly after the election, he said there is no ice. I mean, he thinks this is invaluable.
You know, we also know the Trump administration wants to increase spending for defense. Can they really get away with increasing this amount as well? And then still arguing that they're worried about the deficit, it's hard to see how they could be able to balance more tax cuts. I mean, how quick of a timeline we're talking about.
You're going to be inaugurated and these deportations start. Is it within six months? I think the orders will start immediately. I, from what I understand, the executive orders should basically rescindle the Biden administration policies that have allowed people to come in legally.
Some of those people could be facing deportation. They'll work with ICE immediately to go after people who might have criminal records and final orders of deportation. Trump has said he would enact the military to try to help in this effort. Exactly what he means.
Whether that's National Guard or active duty troops remains to be seen. If it's active duty troops, he could be looking at lawsuits. But in other words, they wanted to get splash in the first 100 days. Ryan and I understand they want to do something that has a shock and awe appeal to show that they've really done something here.
But of course, the logistics matter, we talked about the wall for a long time and didn't really make a lot of progress in the first few years. Okay. Julie Ansley. It'll be interesting to see this.
Thank you. Still had the future of the labor movement under a Trump presidency and how union leaders are reacting to his surprise pick for labor secretary. You're watching Week the Press now. Welcome back.
As President Elect Trump assembles his cabinet with a flurry of pics over the weekend, according to a CBS YouGov poll, almost 6 in 10Americans approve of his handling of the transition. But a significant portion of Americans also say they haven't really heard enough about some of his top picks. Joining me now is the panel, Reese Gorman, politics reporter, and Dennis Ashley Etienne, former communications advisor to Vice President Harris, and Stephen Hayes, the editor and CEO of the Dispatch and NBC News contributor. So, Reese, it doesn't seem like Trump's gonna have a bit of a honeymoon period now, despite some of these controversial picks.
How long do things gonna last? I think that it'll probably last until around the confirmation hearings. These are people that we know on D.C. we see them all the time.
We talk them on the Hill. But the American people, unless they're their senators or they know them or follow on politics, they probably don't know much about them until the combination hearing come down. And that's when we really start seeing stuff about the past come up, stuff about their policy positions and beliefs. And that's when Americans, I think people really start to kind of get to know who these candidates are because other Americans, they're as tuned in as we are to everything going on.
But we haven't really seen Trump himself come out and defend some of these guys, aside from social media posts here and there, hasn't done a lot of their views. We make up that strategy. I mean, it's smart, right? I think this would be one of the reasons that people approve of his transition.
If he comes out, he starts picking fights or making aggressive arguments on behalf of these choices, it could bring them down. It could have the adverse effect that he would intend. But I think Reece is right. I mean, part of this is people don't know who these people are.
They're not paying very careful attention. We'll learn more and the public will learn more in the coming weeks. Do you think the fact that Trump's distanced himself is that part of the reason that he's not getting the blame for, for instance, the Matt Gaetz confirmation flaming out? Yeah.
You know, we didn't see him take a very public stance in defending Matt Gates. I think President Trump knew and understood early, in part through conversations that he was having with Republican senators, that that was a long shot. That that was not probably a hill that he wanted to die on. So he didn't.
Yeah. So actually Democrats like yourself were telling voters all throughout the campaign that Project 2025 was gonna be the blueprint for the Trump administration. Now, President Elect said, you're crazy. I didn't know what Project 2025 is.
Now we see that he's going to point. Russell Vaught, who's the co Author of Project 2025 at OMB, do you believe still that perhaps this is what we should expect, that Project 2025 will be a plan that the President tries to implement his new administration? I mean, absolutely. I mean, I think this is just another proof point in how Donald Trump operates.
He continues to lie to the American people and deceive and mislead them. And he's got an entire party apparatus that's behind that's lies. So do I think that he's going to execute and implement Project 25? Absolutely.
I would even go so far to say that he's probably gonna go further than what we know about in Project 2025. But that is, I think, where we are as a nation. You've got a president and now a party that's gonna, you know, again, continue to mislead the public in ways that are, that are, that are dangerous. I mean, the reason why the President lied about it during campaign is because he knew it was incredibly controversial, but it was unpopular on both sides of the aisle.
That's why he lied about it and said, I have no parts of it all. But day one, he starts to nominate someone who's at omb, who's going to be in a key position to implement all of those policies. And we should be very terrified by the prospects of that. I mean, the idea is to roll back all the progress he made on everything from, from social justice to climate, you know, to roll back us to a place, as Kamala Harris said, where there's sort of white Christian rule.
And that's a scary proposition for the majority of Americans and it should be. Is it practical for them to Start IMP Project 2025 right away? Stephen, look, this is nothing new. The Heritage foundation, which was behind some of this, has produced a mandate for leadership since the 1970s.
And this is basically a blueprint for government. I think what's different, I agree with Ashley. It was never plausible that the Trump, the Trump world had nothing to do with this. Of course they did.
They did all the time. The denials weren't believable during the campaign. I wouldn't be surprised if they implement certain parts of Project 2025, in particular the personnel, I mean, they did extensive vetting with loyalty tests to Donald Trump as part of the buildup of Project 2025. I think we're likely to see the middle and lower levels of government, the presidential appointees that vetting put to use.
Yeah, to his point, I think y', all, y' all reported late last week. Myself has confirmed that that kind of job bank that Project 25 put together is being used by the Trump transition team to bring in kind of lower level people. So this is something that they're using. 2.0 would have been really hard, all these different jobs without somebody doing work prior they started transitioning so late.
So they're always going to need something like the Project.05 job, at the very least to staff up all these thousands of positions. To your point, though, actually, it was pretty unpopular, both Republicans and Democrats. Could this hurt one of these Cabinet picks that needs confirmation for Republican senators if they're tied to Project 2025? I mean, here's the thing.
I mean, what baffles me is that the American people are supportive of a weekend television host of Cues of Rave, of running the Department of Defense, a Putin sympathizer being in charge of our national security and our national secrets, a wrestling entrepreneur being in charge of Department of Education. I mean, that's the part that baffles me. But it's like, you know, welcome to Donald Trump's America. You know, this is the most powerful, most wealthy nation in the world.
And to have people who are not qualified run, the biggest people parts of our government, I mean, DOD has got a trillion dollar budget, 2 million soldiers that they're in charge of. And to have someone run that, that agency that has no experience, is a scary feat. And so, so that's what really baffles me is either we're not getting the message, the party's not getting the message, the media is not covering this properly. But the American people need to wake up to this.
This is a scary matter. Donald Trump won the election. He won the election largely based on promising a lot to do a lot of these things, a lot of lies here, as we talked about. But if you're a Democrat now in the Senate and you're part of this confirmation process, even though the Republicans will have enough votes in most cases, how hard do you fight back against these nominees?
Or do you say Donald Trump won the election? Good luck. The serious things in that CBS poll, that 44 of Democrats are saying that they don't want to wage an opposition to Donald White. There is a fatigue in the Democratic Party now that is scary for somebody like Schumer and Jeffrey.
Susan took up the spear. I went back to the House, White White House after 16, after Trump wanted to run a post communication operation. And that is uni. I ran 23 investigations into the Trump administration, got rid of six cabinet secretaries under scandal, misusing taxpayer dollars to conflicts of interest.
This stuff really matters. You've got to have a strong opposition that can really lay the foundation to win the midterm and win back the White House. That's the part that I think concerns me most. And should for Democrats play something that Senator Hagerty said over the weekend and you guys can respond to it.
I don't think the American public cares who does the background checks. What the American public cares about is to see the mandate that they voted and delivered upon. So, Stephen, this isn't responsible to the idea that the Trump transition may just forego FBI background checks. Do you agree with the senator that the American public doesn't care about that?
I don't. I think the American public want to see these candidates, these nominees thoroughly vetted. And it should be said more important than what I think some of his fellow senators are saying the opposite, saying they would like to see either FBI back checks or sort of vetting done by the committees. One of the reasons I think you have some Republicans saying now, hey, we'd like to see this background vetting is because they're worried about things that will come up in the vetting.
For instance, Tulsi Gabbard, there have been questions raised about some progressions in the past about her foreign travel, the kinds of questions that we see that come up in background vetting for low level intelligence agency positions. So they want her to go through that same process and maybe want to go through that same process because they think it will air some of the potential problems. I mean, at least the job of the Senate's advising consent, it's not necessarily just rubber stamp everything, but it's the help of the president. Right.
To the extent Republicans understand that. I think a lot of them do. I do think there are a handful that kind of were elected with just because of Donald Trump. They rose coattails.
They did this. They do think they are rubberstamp. They think you have a handful of those. But as we know, senators love their independence.
They don't like being told what to do really never works. And so I do think a lot of them, even some of the more Trumpy ones are like, I mean we solve my case and I report myself that people are telling Trump that these they do not think that the case was good. They think that he does the votes that's on the revenue even though against this confirmation. So senators love their independence.
They love they told to do so. I do feel like a lot of them, even if they fully agree with Trump do understand that advising consent and it is their role and that their role is also an independent role. Like I said, somebody covers that place every single day. And I've seen Senate Republicans cave for Donald Trump over the past four years.
I was surprised at how quickly the case confirmation crumbled. There's a lot, yeah, there's a lot more confirmation just because in the past what they say behind closed doors versus what they do publicly are two different things. The fact that they were able to end that confirmation without a public vote I think speaks volumes and potentially could be a forecast of what's to come. But maybe not.
We'll see. Reese, Ashley, Steven, thank you all for being here. We appreciate it. Turning out of one of Washington's oldest Thanksgiving traditions, the turkey pardon.
Today President Biden welcomed two lucky feathered friends, Peach and Blossom to the White House for the ceremony. As expected, the president kept things light hearted. Some of the 2500 people here today looking for a pardon. What you say, Peach?
Peach is making a last minute plea here. Raise. Yeah, I hear you. Peach wants to speak a little bit now.
Both birds weighed in about £40. That sounds delicious. And they journey to the nation's capital all the way from Minnesota to be formally spared from being gobbled up. This Thanksgiving today ceremony was also President Biden's last before he leaves office and becomes someone of a free bird himself.
Here's a piece of his closing message. Let me close on more serious note. This event marks the official start of the holiday season here in Washington. It's also my last time to speak here as your president during the season and give thanks and graduates.
So let me say to you, it's been the honor of my life. I'm forever grateful. And we have much more news to stuff into the show straight ahead. Sorry, you're watching Beat the Press now.
Welcome back. As we mentioned, President elect Trump has picked Congressman Laurie Chavez Riemer to serve as labor secretary. Chavez Rimmer, a first term congresswoman, just lost her Oregon sea. She's somewhat of an unusual pet with pro union credentials at odds with others in her party.
But those credentials could help her with confirmation as the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations can be seen to express an openness to Chavez Riemer in the wake of Trump's announcement. Joining me now for more on the pick and what the future of labor may look like the second Trump administration as a president for the alliance of American Manufacturing. Scott Paul, thanks for being here. Appreciate it, Brian.
Thanks so much. Let's talk about this pick. She just lost, lost a swing state or a swing pitcher in Oregon. She's supported a lot of pro union legislation which is not typical for a Republican.
She has an enforcement of a handful of unions. Are you surprised by this choice? I don't know if I'm surprised because you never know what to predict with as we've learned from some of Trump's picks. But I do think I will say it's a pleasant revelation because she has prolonged her credentials.
I've heard her in committee work speak positively about the agenda that's important to working families. And so this is one of those picks that's more likely to be uniting a live way than divided. There's plenty of picks that will be very divisive. I'm not sure that this is one we obviously the president make an effort to try and reach out to working class people in particular.
He's had a lot of success with union workers in particular. What's the top thing you'd like to see from a trouble Labor Department? Yeah. Well, I think there's a couple things.
First of all, working families have to be at the center of this and you'll have a push and pull in this administration. You see a lot of folks who have big business credentials who have anti union credentials coming in. At the same time you see, you know, this secretary designate, the ringer has pro labor credentials as well. And who's going to win those battles?
You know, is it going to be the Heritage Foundation Project 2025 or is it going to be some of the rhetoric that you saw on the campaign trail? So those are the battles that are being fought, I think in the halls of Congress. But I think what we're looking for as well is that you don't want to see rollbacks, you don't want to see progress that has been made. Roll back and you can see some important progress that was made over the last four years.
An industrial policy put in place, some policies to level the playing field in collective bargaining. You saw some building up of additional pressure the administration. So that's what I'm hoping. I hope you see this through line and you don't see the Wall street or the Project 2025 kind of win the day.
I know you're also paying very close attention to the president elect's tariff plans and the potential back that is, you said you're in favor of a strategic application of tariffs. He called for blanket tariff of 10% on all imports made as high 60% on Chinese imports. Does that fit your definition of strategic tariff or what do you mean by that? It's a great question.
And so. And they are two entirely different things. You're absolutely right about that. Here's why I hope plays out.
I hope that there is the threat of tariffs on the table of 10 or 20% across the board to bring trading partners to the table to have serious conversations about the imbalances we have. And President Trump is absolutely right about that. There are massive trade imbalances. We have a trillion dollar trade deficit in goods.
So it's huge. And it's with some countries that are strategic, in other cases this with the European Union or Mexico. And so achieving some balance I think could benefit working families. It's all in details, though.
Do you proceed from tariffs to negotiation? Are you targeting strategic goods? Are you going to tax things that we simply don't produce here, like a lot of food stuffs, for example? And so the devils are getting the details, of course, but using it as leverage, the strategic application of tariffs, I think that's a policy that needs to be continued.
And interestingly, Ryan, I think this is one thing where a lot of people probably expected Joe Biden at the beginning of his term to get rid of all the tariffs. Right. Because it was. That didn't happen.
In fact, he escalated a number of those tariffs on China. And so let's see how this plays out. I want to work with them to make this plan workable for American manufacturing and for workers. But it does sound like a blanket tariffs, not what you're calling for, right?
Because it seems like you deal differently with the European Union than you might with Mexico, than you might with China. But you say put on the table and then see who comes to have a conversation about how they could potentially be open. Well, if they're not going to have a conversation, then then yeah, you put the tariffs in place. But let's look at how it worked out in the first Trump term.
He talked about the tariffs on China. He talked about the tariffs on steel and aluminum. And yes, there were tariffs put into place, but there were also mechanisms to kind of make sure that it wasn't disruptive to our economy. And it turned out not to be disruptive to our economy and in fact, very stabilizing for a lot of these industries.
So if there is that level of sophistication and care, I do think it can work. But we're not going to have a 20% blanket tariff on every good coming in. I cannot imagine that's the way it is. Right.
That some economists have that it would be stabilizing. In fact, it could lead to inflation beyond what we've even seen. How concerned are you about the impact that tariffs could have on the basic price of goods that everyone buys every day? Yeah, well, I think here's the thing.
We're starting from a position of strength. There is a President Trump's going to be inheriting a very strong economy with relatively low inflation, relatively low unemployment. And so we are well positioned here. But our trade position is out of whack.
It really is. And so that's something that needs to be addressed. And I'm glad that he's indicated that he's serious about that. I think that this can be crafted in a way that is not going to escalate inflation, but it has to be done with care.
All right, Scott Paul, thank you for being here. We appreciate it. Power politics in the future Cryptocurrency after Trump campaign as a pro Crypto Candidate don't go anywhere. You're watching the press now.
Welcome back. Cryptocurrency is on the rise in the wake of President Elect Trump's victory with bitcoin, the world's biggest cryptocurrency rising more than 40% since election election day, the industry optimistic about pro crypto regulatory pledges from President Electron. And joining me now is Kevin Roos, technology columnist for the New York Times. So, Kevin, first off, just talk to us about how big a win this election was for the cryptocurrency industry.
I mean, what significant changes does the industry think that it might get from a President Trump that it wasn't getting from a President Biden? Yeah, the crypto industry is celebrating their popping champagne. They have gotten everything they could have hoped for up and down the ballot in federal races, in congressional races, in the presidential election. The crypto industry got what it wanted this election cycle.
And some of those wins include removing or unseating members of Congress that were deemed hostile to crypto interests, such as Senator Sherry Brown from Ohio, who was a big ally of the SEC Chair Edsler, who was seen as the primary villain within the crypto Biden administration. Federal regulators have been very tough on crypto. They have been suing and warning Crypto companies for running unlicensed securities exchanges. There's just a lot of enforcement happening on crypto companies that they wish weren't happening.
And so they poured millions of dollars into funding opponents to their perceived enemies. And in many of those cases, they won. And this could mean the potential for a bit of an unleashing in the crypto markets. I mean, what's the potential implication for the economy at large?
How much does crypto overlap with the current financial system? And could we see it more intertwined now? Yeah, so right now the crypto economy has been sort of purposefully sandboxed away from the regular economy. That was one of the things that the, under the Biden administration, federal financial regulators were not interested in having the crypto economy and the quote, unquote real economy be that interlinked and intertwined because of the potential for contag risk.
But under the Trump administration, I think what we'll see is these things starting to come together. There have been a lot of big institutions, banks, hedge funds, etc. That have been reluctant to really invest heavily into crypto because of all the regulatory uncertainty surrounding it. And so I think in a more crypto friendly administration, that money will come pouring in and you may start to see millions of Americans investing in things like Bitcoin through their retirement accounts.
I have to imagine that there's a lot of people skeptical Bitcoin, but then they just see it going through the roof and have to start questioning whether or not maybe they should get involved in this game. Is the risk associated with the crypto as a currency itself or is it the structures around it? Because at the same time we see bitcoin going through the roof, we see all the controversy with freedom, how that market completely fell apart. Explain to me how those two things work.
Yeah, so the risk of investing in any speculative financial instruments such as cryptocurrency is there. And you people in the industry say you should not invest money. You can't afford to lose on these. At the same time, the prices, as you noted, have been going up.
Bitcoin is at or near an all time high. It has been since the election. And that's because a lot of people see this as potentially a good investment or at least a good short term bet that the prices will keep going up because of all these, the changes in the administration. But I think it's also just we need to see more evidence that this technology, this cryptocurrency technology is actually useful for people, for more than just speculating.
I think that's the part that a lot of investors who are more skeptical of these assets have been waiting to see. Obviously, we don't, many of us don't spend cryptocurrency on everyday items. There are good reasons for that. But I think that that's one thing that people hope will come out of this administration in the crypto industry and more mainstream adoption of this technology.
Let me expand on that. What would it take for us to go into a store and use our bitcoin to purchase something? How close are we to something like that happening? I think we're fairly far from that, in part because one of the things that's preventing that is just the sort of fluctuation in asset prices.
You wouldn't want to buy a new bicycle for $100 worth of Bitcoin when that same bitcoin could be worth $200 tomorrow. It wouldn't be a good financial strategy. So I think for a lot of people, the volatility is what prevents it from being useful as a truly everyday instrument. You touched on this a little bit, but expand on it a bit more.
Just how powerful is the crypto lobby? Obviously, they invested heavily in this last election cycle. They were very successful. Do you expect their influence to grow in this next Congress?
Yes, absolutely. There's now a bona fide crypto lobby. They have their own super PACs and dark money groups. They have a lot of influence in Washington, D.C.
just recently, AOC Alder Faze Cortez was on social media saying this is happening. The amount of money pouring into Washington from the crypto lobby is truly unprecedented. And so we are starting to see not just sort of elections being influenced by crypto money, but also the more sort of subtle, nuanced places where the regulations are actually being written. People like Howard Lutnick, who just named picked by Trump as his incoming commerce Secretary, has deep ties in the crypto industry as well.
So it's not just the official crypto lobby, but many of the players who will wield influence in a second Trump administration will have ties, either explicit or implicit, to the crypto industry. Okay, a lot to talk about there. Kevin Rose, thank you so much for your time. Thank you.
And I'll be back tomorrow with more Meet the Press now. But NBC News coverage continues with Hallie Jackson right now. Stand up. Hey, it's Kate Snow, NBC News anchor and host of the Drink.
This month. Demi Lovato is my guest. The global superstar tells me that she is the happiest she's ever been right now. But getting there it wasn't simple.
Demi opens up about starting in Hollywood young and why she now thinks she may have started too soon. She talks about recovery, her new marriage, and the deeply personal reason behind her new cookbook. The Drink is always about the journey to the top, and this was an honest conversation about what that takes. Hope you listen and follow the Drink wherever you get your podcast.