Meet the Press NOW — November 26

Hi there and welcome to Meet the Press. Now I'm Ryan Nobles in Washington. And we begin today with breaking news as Israel and Hezbollah have agreed to a permanent ceasefire deal to end the months long hostilities and cross border bombardments. Moments ago, President Biden spoke at the White House Rose Garden immediately after the Israeli cabinet voted to approve the deal.

In his remarks, the president applauding the diplomatic breakthrough between Israel and Hezbollah. This is designed to be a permanent cessation of hostilities. What is left of Hezbollah, another terrorist organization, will not be allowed, well, I emphasize, will not be allowed to threaten security of Israel again. At the same time, this deal supports Lebanon's sovereignty.

And so it heralds a new start for Lebanon, a country that I've seen most of over the years. A country with rich history and culture. If fully implemented, this deal could put Lebanon on a path toward a future that's worthy of a significant past. Now over the next 60 days, Israel is expected to begin withdrawing from Lebanon and Hezbollah is expected to retreat north of the Latani river in Lebanon.

The same zone would then be created between the two sides. Before the Israeli cabinet met, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu addressed his nation speaking in Hebrew and laying out the details of the deal. The duration of the Cesar depends on what happens in Lebanon. We have an understanding with the United States.

We are maintaining our full liberty to take military operations if Hezbollah tries to attack us, if it arms itself, if it rebuilds infrastructure next to borders, we will. Now this comes past ceasefire talks between Israel and Hezbollah stalled out without any agreement. But a senior US Official familiar with the negotiations tells NBC News that the breakthrough this time came when Hezbollah dropped its demands that a ceasefire in Gaza come first. Joining me now is Haligrani in Jerusalem and Giguudieris is the White House.

So Halal, let's start with you. What's the reaction in Israel been to this deal? Is there a sense of relief about the end of hostilities on their northern border? Well, there has to be some sense of relief, although it doesn't seem, according to early reports, as though the residents of northern Israel are going to rush back to their homes.

There is some opposition inside of Israel as well from more hardline politicians in this country who say that they believe that Hezbollah should have been completely decimated before Israel would agree to any ceasefire. So the is mixed in Lebanon. We are hearing from people there who have really suffered through weeks of intense bombings in very densely populated residential areas who there are relieved that at least for the next few months they expect that there will be some Calm. But the implementation of this deal will be difficult.

It does require the Israeli military to withdraw, Hezbollah to withdraw as well, north of the Latanya river, which is about 30, 40 miles from the border and this very weak Lebanese military to patrol that area that will now be emptied of the parties to this, to this cross border war that has been raging now for months. And Israel importantly, backed by the President by the way, because we heard from him as well, has said that it reserves the right to strike anytime it feels that Hezbollah is violating the terms of now. That would mean that, you know, this is quite a fragile truce if indeed Israel reserves that right without any mediation or consultation. So it's just going to be a question of really observing this ceasefire, whether it's implemented and how much.

On both sides there's a real desire to end hostilities. Israeli media reporting that the ceasefire will begin officially tomorrow local time at 10am which is 3am Eastern time in the U.S. ryan, that's significant news. Let's go.

Now we heard from the President. How's the White House feeling about this deal, especially getting across the finish line in the final weeks of his administration. Hey there Ryan. Well, this is being seen as a much needed foreign policy victory for the Biden administration.

Of course it has plenty of conflict in that part of the world. The conflict between Israel and he also between Israel and Iran, of course Israel and Hamas. They say nothing of the war in Ukraine, between Ukraine and Russia. So this is being seen as a much needed win for President Biden.

There have been around the clock negotiations over the last several days and you heard mention when Israeli media media is reporting that the ceasefire will begin. President Biden just said in his remarks that would begin at 4am local time. So I want to clarify that. But I thought it was notable Ryan, in his remarks he not only called it a new start for Lebanon, but he ended his remarks by saying that Hamas now has a choice to make and the focus now shifts.

There certainly there might be some who are upset that they haven't the hostage, for example, who may be upset that there hasn't been much movement in the hostage deal in Gaza. President Biden using this opportunity to kind of put some pressure on Hamas now that the ceasefire has been agreed to by Hezbollah. The president heading to Nantucket in just a short time to spend the Thanksgiving holiday, but certainly wanting to weigh in on the ceasefire just, just after the cabinet in Israel voted to approve it. And Ali heard gave say that the White House is hoping that this opens the door to a similar ceasefire with Hamas and the situation in Gaza, what are the conditions like on the ground in Gaza?

I know it's bleak. Is there hope that there could be some relief coming soon in that part of the region as well? I think there really isn't, isn't hope when it comes to the people of Gaza, because what they're seeing now is that the more than third of the Gaza Strip has been almost completely obliterated. There have been mass forced evacuations from that part of the strip south.

And then the safe zones where people have gathered for more than a year now are pretty frequently bombed as well. There's really no safe place for them to go. And the Prime Minister, Netanyahu, when his address to his own people did reiterate the fact and said very clearly that for him the war will not be over. Hamas is completely defeated in Gaza.

And doing that would require years of fighting, insurgent warfare in a tiny besieged enclave. And so therefore, the people of Gaza do not have much hope today that what happened in Lebanon, that the ceasefire there could in any way lead to a cessation of hostilities for them in Gaza. When the president sort of listed that list of achievements and hopes they had for the region, normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia, a cease fire in Gaza, really the weakening to the point of it not being a fighting force of Hezbollah, all of that in less than two months, is a very ambitious list of targets for the Middle east that I think few people here believe would be achievable in that amount of time. Okay, Holly, Ronnie, Gabe Guerrero, thank you so much for being on top of this breaking news.

We're now going to go domestic now and talk about the fallout for President elect Trump's amped up threats of a trade war with the country's three biggest trading partners. Last night, Mr. Trump posting on his social media platform, quote, I will sign all necessary documents to charge Mexico and Canada a 25% tariff on all products coming in the United States. The tariff will remain in effect until such a time as drugs, in particular fentanyl and all illegal aliens stop this invasion of our country.

Now, on top of that, Mr. Trump, also targeting China, says he'd slap an additional 10% tariff on imports unless it cracks down on fentanyl trafficking. Those three countries are the United States top three trading partners, accounting for about 40% of all U.S. imports and exports and trillions of dollars in economic activity.

Now, it remains unclear if the president elected follow through on these threats or he's just using them as a negotiating employer. Both. We do know that Mr. Trump has long viewed tariffs as a cudgel against his allies and adversaries alike.

On the trail, he vowed sweeping tariffs to address economic issues and border issues, even as economists warn they could backfire by raising costs on consumers and hurt the economy. If they don't stop this onslaught of criminals and drugs coming into our country, I'm going to immediately impose a 25% tariff on everything they send in to the United States of America. The most beautiful word in the dictionary to me is tariff. We're going to tariff the hell out of countries that have been taking advantage of us and stealing our jobs.

If these companies don't make their products here, then they will pay a very stiff tariff when they send their products into the United States. We're going to use tariffs to take advantage of our great strength and to frankly hurt countries that are hurting us. Tellingly, Wall street has so far shrugged off the president's threats. Markets were a little changed today by this news.

Meanwhile, reaction from China, though, was a warning. The spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington radio no one will win a trade war or a tariff war. Mexico's president taking a similarly aggressive tone in a letter to Mr. Trump warning of potential retaliatory tariffs.

Canadian officials stressing the close relationship between the two countries. As Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told Canadian Broadcasting that He spoke with Mr. Trump last night. I have a good call with Donald Trump last night again.

We obviously talked about laying out the facts, talking about how the intense and effective connections between the two countries flow back and forth. We talked about some of the challenges that we can work on together. It was a good call. This is something that we can do, laying out the facts, moving forward in constructive ways.

This is a relationship that we know takes a certain amount of working on. That's what we'll do. Joining me on set now is NBC Gary Hagen and moment. I'll be joined by Anna Swanson, who covers trade and international economics for the New York Times.

So, Gary, you covered the Trump campaign very extensively. I'm sure you heard him make this promise worth threat, depending on how you view it as it relates to tariffs. It's been a talking point for him, but now he's claiming he's going to do this basically on day one. Should we take him seriously or is this a negotiating point?

It can be both, Ryan. I mean, look, this is something Donald Trump talks about ad nauseam almost every day on the campaign trail, the idea of imposing tariffs against one nation or another, friend or foe alike. Remember, Donald Trump has believed since the 1980s, that the United States is being taken advantage of by our allies, more so than worries about our economic rivals. That's one thing people should understand about the way that Donald Trump views the world.

Also, I've said this many times, but, you know, if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. In terms of the things he can do unilaterally from the White House as president on the sort of combination of domestic policy, the way that this affects prices, but also as a foreign policy, diplomatic lever, terrorists are kind of it. Right. He can do that on his own.

And so putting the threat in place now presents the possibility that anyone, or perhaps all three of these countries could take actions before he even takes office that would let him declare some victories on day one. I think it also paves the way you mentioned the Wall street kind of lack of reaction here, kind of test how this wall be perceived in case he decides he wants to come in and declare an economic emergency, which we have to do, and then start laying out some of these tariffs going forward. But it also kind of presumes, right, that the leaders of these countries have some sort of magic button they can push and just end the drug trade from pouring into the United States. It's not that simple.

Isn't it? I mean, they can't just fix this problem overnight. No. In fact, the Department of Justice studies on this that the majority of the fentanyl has been tracked across the southern border for Mexico has been tracked by US Citizens, for example.

This isn't something that's being brought in by migrants. It's not something that's been brought in by Chinese nationals. That's a fiction or misrepresentation of the nature of the problem. Now, they argue that China probably has more they can do unilaterally as an authoritarian government if they want to be seen as addressing these issues on Trump's behalf.

But I think the immigration elements of this, I mean, if there's anything that Mexico can do in advance of Trump taking office that would slow down the number of border crossings, he will take credit for it on day one, I can promise you that. And we've already seen the number border crossings go down, and I entail in the Biden administration here, if any furtherance of that trend will be something that Trump tries to take credit for. So I think these threats are real and should be taken seriously. But I also think they are designed to let him look like he's running things by the time he walks into the Oval Office on day one.

It also doesn't deal with the issue that the market exists here. Right. There's a need, there's a demand for it in the United States. Part of why people are willing to take big risks to get it here.

Right? Yeah, 100%. I mean, as the Chinese statement says, and it's correct. Maybe the Mexican government, the issue of fentanyl drug use is a demand problem.

It comes with a supply problem. I mean, this is a problem for the US As a society to deal with it. Nothing that Mexico or China does is going to solve for us. Right, right.

And we've talked about this before, but let's expand on it a little bit. He loves to negotiate. Right. This is all about the art of the deals.

He used this as a negotiating tactic in the past. He talked about back at that rally in New York about making terror threats to get border concessions from Mexico. But has that really worked? I mean, remember in the last campaign in 2016, he said that he was going to build a wall in Mexico, was gonna pay for it.

Last I checked, they didn't invest in dying in the border. You know, what's the track record here when it comes to this? Well, look, it's mixed. I mean, he has been able to get other concessions from Mexico.

I mean, the remaining Mexico policy was something that was negotiated with the Mexican government in part with some of these economic threats. In my Mexic, Mexico did step up some of its own use of its National Guard and its military to break up caravans and get more engaged on immigration issues on their end. But there's a. It's like you're hurting cats here a little bit, because when we pressure Mexico in this direction, sometimes we get less help in other areas.

I mean, and it's also a new administration in Mexico, by the way, a new president there who Trump has no personal relationship whatsoever. So that's the other part of this, too is Justin Trudeau knows a little bit about how to manage Donald Trump present. She knows a little bit about how to manage Donald Trump. There's also a little bit of give and take here with the new administration in Mexico as they're going to size each other up ahead of the possible renegotiation of USMCA formally after the Trump trade deal, which would come up again in 2026.

Anyway, it's worth keeping in mind that and data, something that this might be, you know, setting up, setting the table for a certain extent. Okay, thanks. Here. Let's bring any in the conversation now and talk about just basically how tariffs work.

Trump has said that foreign companies will bear the brunt of tariffs. But what's the reality check? I mean, won't some of these cost inevitably fall on consumers? Yeah, that's right.

So tariffs are actually imposed on whoever brings the product across the border. You know, that could be an American company, a foreign company. The importer pays that charge when they bring the product across the border. But the more interesting question is, who ultimately pays the cost?

So companies can choose to pass those costs on to American consumers. If they raise their prices, they can also just choose to eat that cost and maybe have lower profit margins. Or they could try to negotiate with their suppliers overseas in China and say, you know, I'm gonna pay us for this product. There have been economic studies done, and they've showed that in the case of Trump's China tariffs, a lot of those costs were passed on to American consumers.

And so that's what most economists expect to happen with this next round of tariffs as well. People, that amount of tariffs was relatively strategic. He's Talking about blanket 25% tariff across the board. I mean, would that pain be felt evenly across all industries, or are there different types of goods that would be more sensitive to a blanket tariff like that?

Yeah, there are certainly different types of goods that would be more sensitive. So with tariffs in his first term, initially, the Trump administration tried to be more targeted to hit, you know, kind of strategic goods. But as time went on, they started to hit more and more things. And you're right, if we're talking about a blanket tariff, you know, we would be talking about everyday items that consumers use, as well as inputs for American factories.

And so, you know, particularly when it comes to inputs on tariffs on Canada and Mexico, there are a lot of industries that depend on supply chains that going back, back and forth across those borders, particularly industries like automakers or farmers, food packagers, you know, they're sending things back and forth across borders on their trip to through factories and to consumers. So a 25% tariff on those prices really would be painful for those businesses and could upset their supply chains. Yesterday, I spoke with the president of the alliance for American Manufacturing, and he told me that he thought tariffs have a place in trade policy. Even pointed to the fact that President Biden didn't even get rid of all of the Trump tariffs for the first term.

Does he have a point? Is there a way that tariffs can be used in a way that would help the American economy? Yeah, I think there's been a shift in thinking about tariffs, you know, particularly over the past decade. And it has a lot to do with the competition that the United States has seen from China and the sense that there's just no other way to keep out products that China might be unfairly subsidizing and that if we let those products in, US Factories can't really compete.

So there's definitely been more of an embrace of tariffs. As you said, President Biden maintained some of those and increased other tariffs on certain sort of strategic products like chips and electric vehicles. But there's a huge difference in degree between what the Biden administration did and what the Trump administration is proposing, which is tariffs on everything that we import. So the scale of it is really vastly different.

Yeah, we'll have to see if he falls through on that thread or maybe promise, depending on how you view it. Adam Swanson, we so much appreciate your teaching on the topic. Thank you for being here. Thank you.

Coming up, a former top trade official from Trump's first administration reacts to the president elect's sweeping threat of a trade war and potential political and economic fallout. Don't go away. You're watching the president. Welcome back.

As we mentioned, the threat of new tariffs was a staple of president elect Trump's 2024 campaign. And now a lot of folks here in U.S. canada, Mexico, and China are bracing for the possibility that Mr. Trump makes good on those threats.

Joining me now for more is Everett Eisenstadt. He was the deputy director of the National Economic Council during Trump's first term. He was also a deputy assistant to President Trump for International Economic Affairs. Thank you so much for being here.

I can't think of a better person to have this conversation with. I mean, let's talk about this plan across the board. Tariffs, 25%. Is that an effective trade policy, or does it make more sense to be strategic with how you implement tariffs like this?

Well, you know, tariffs can be a tool. They can be a tool with a lot of different rationales behind them. So I think when you look at whether they should be used holistically or strategically, it's really what is your intent? What is they are trying to achieve?

I think in this instance, first we need to recognize that he's not an office ship. This is based upon a post that he put out in social media. So he can't take effect until, you know, he's been actually in office. In many ways, he's kind of signaling where he's going and providing opportunity for both government and business to say, oh, this is serious, this is really coming.

We need to think about how to effectively manage it. So you think then that this is a negotiating tactic? This is a, you know, he's set the bar for how far he's willing to go, but there may be some room to talk. I don't think we're set the bar on how far he's willing to go.

I think it's more testing the waters on how markets and governments and companies will react. I mean, this was a very specific fact driven threat. It was based upon particular countries and particular things that were happening within those countries. That's different than across the board, 10 to 20% tariff that can, we don't know how that would be implemented or whether it will be implemented.

And we still have, you know, time to evaluate that. And it was to be seen. Yeah, I mean, you worked in the Trump administration before. Obviously he made good on terror threats in the last administration.

So do you think he appreciates the implications of an across the board blanket tariff and what that could mean for the economy? I think he appreciates the power of tariffs and it's something that it's new and even. I think what we're facing now is quite different than what we had in the first administration. In the first administration, there was a continued debate about, you know, how to use tariffs and in what way.

And there were certain statutes that were used for certain purposes. A lot of those policies were actually carried on by President Biden still, in fact, today. So the fact is bipartisan support for that. The fact the economy, you know, rebounded and continues to do very well, I think demonstrates that you can use tariffs effectively to achieve outcomes.

Well, the limits of that we don't know because it's been quite some time since we've had that degree of tariff imposition across the board at a little more. Yeah. So let's expand that out and talk about the potential implications because Mexico's president already signaling that she would implement retaliatory tariffs. Obviously China has said that they are not willing, do not want to get into a trade war.

Is there the possibility that this could trigger something along those lines where both sides are implementing heavy tariffs and that has a real impact on the global economy? It certainly could. I mean, the impact on the global economy. The global economy is obviously very complex.

There's a lot of factors that go into it. There's energy prices, conflicts, taxation policies, regulatory policies. But tariffs definitely have an impact on the cost of goods and more than that, have an impact on where goods flow and how they flow and so on supply chains. One of the situations we have now is a lot of Companies have built supply chains on this just in time construct that really came out Post World War II.

We're in a different era now. Economic security, national security is really at the forefront. And that's something that started in the Trump administration, continued through the Biden administration, is actually probably going to accelerate under the next Trump administration. So it's really about supply chains.

And yes, they can contribute to growth, but they're only one factor, growth. They're not determining factors, just one element that needs to be mixed in with many other different. And I wonder how the impact of this looming threat of tariffs, how long that can be effective. At some point you have to actually implement it or can it continue to be negotiated tactic when you have to actually make good on the threat?

Well, let's be clear, he actually did make good on any of his campaign promises. And I think one of the distinctions, at least for my time with the administration when I was serving as one of his negotiations at International 4, is that he really means what he says. He's pretty literal. If he says this is what I want or this is what I'm going to do, the prospects of that happening are fairly high.

So he campaigned on Paris. He was very transparent about it, in fact, maybe overly transparent. He was elected with a broad mandate, won the swing states, won the popular vote. And so there seems to be a political mandate to at least test these policies and see if they can help resolve some of the long standing trade in equities that do exist in today's globe.

And I think we shouldn't lose factor, we should not lose sight of that fact. There are imbalances in trade. They need to be addressed. And I don't think that the existing institutions have done a good enough job of meeting that need.

So that leads to a unilateral approach. And can it help contribute to an ultimate solution? I think it can. My last question I want to get in is this could blow up the usmca, which is something that President Trump negotiated it.

Has it set the stage where new negotiation has its impact? I think it's a great question, but even backing up further than that, both Vice President Harris and President Trump had already indicated during the campaign that the USMCA was going to be renegotiated more than likely than not. So I think it is probably going to go in for renegotiation. I think it's a really important agreement.

Our economies are closely intertwined, but there's been a number of disputes, bilateral disputes that remain unresolved. There's a number of issues that need to be re examined to see how well they're working. It was actually pretty clever when investor Reitheiser negotiated this agreement to put in a provision that was unprecedented at the time to have a review clause and say, okay, how is this agreement working? And if it's not working in the way we intended it to do, we need to make adjustments.

So it's on the table and it's going to be something that's going to be a big topic of conversation. All right, great. Well, you're insight terrific. We appreciate you being here.

Thank you. And after the break, trouble, battles and more. My panel of experts joins me straight ahead. You're watching MEET THE PRESS now.

Welcome back. After some delay, the Trump transition team says that it has officially moved on to its next phase. Confirming, confirming minutes ago that it assigned a memorandum of understanding with the Biden White House that will allow the president elect's categorics to continue their preparations and to better coordinate with the current White House. It comes as Mr.

Trump's borders are visiting Eagle past Texas, along alongside Texas Governor Greg Abbott. Tom Holman echoed Mr. Trump's promise to carry out mass deportations and had a harsh warning to anyone who attempts to challenge those efforts. We're nation laws and I'm sending messages for people said they're going to get in our way.

They're going to establish operation. I've said 100 times last week, don't cross that line. This is a felony to annoyingly harbor conceal. Don't test us for more now joined by Shelby Talca, a reporter for Semaphore Cornell Belcher, Democratic strategist and pollster and NBC News political analyst Brennan Buck, former prosecutor for John Boehner and Paul Ryan and now an NBC News political analyst as well.

So, Shelby, Tom Holman, in an interview there last night, he took us up further than he did in that clip, saying that he's going to put Denver's mayor in jail if he tried to stop mass deportation. Is this just tough talk or do you actually think this is what we should come to expect with this new Trump administration? I think it's a little bit of both. I think he's definitely issuing a threat in an attempt to get people on board.

But I also think that Donald Trump throughout the campaign made it extremely clear that he wants to focus on immigration and that this is a key topic for him. It's part of the reason why he got elected. And this is him carrying out that plan. He's surrounding himself not just with Tom, but With Stephen Miller and other allies who are completely on board with what he has said for the past two years, which includes mass deportations, I'm thinking the optics of seeing the mayor of a prominent city in handcuffs.

Brennan, maybe that seems alarming to me, but is that something the Trump administration would like to send a message with? I think we should acknowledge it's not the what. It's how they do this that's going to ultimately decide the politics of this. That talking about there with sort of militant approach I think may be something that potentially backfire.

And look, people want to take immigration seriously in this country. And I think the president won, largely making that his primary issue. But if you go overboard and you present this in a really militant way and you scare too many Americans, frankly, I think that can reverberate it in a way that like Donald Trump, the guard rules of Donald Trump, by the public opinion, he wants to be really popular. He wants to have a successful administration.

But he starts doing this and all of a sudden it looks very different than the idea that people had in mind that he's just going to be an enforcer. It starts scaring the crap out of people. I think things go very differently. So how Democrats are on this.

Well, governing is hard, right? It's one thing to campaign, and there's nothing the government might be, whether people on the left or right. Experts say what he's trying to do is very, very difficult and something that government doesn't do well in this country. We've not had a history of our government rounding up millions of people and putting them some sort of boot camp and then trying to remove them out of the country.

It's something that we've never seen historically. Left or right. Right. I'm not being partisan.

Something we've never seen as time. So I think the politics of this is a really slippery, problematic slope. What the Democrats should do. Look, he won.

He's got a govern. Right? And they gotta be the opposition party right now. And I think, I think they stepping back and letting him govern and him trying to figure out how he rounds up millions of people and the opposite of that, I think Democrats should step back and let him do it.

So is there a middle ground there if you're a Democratic mayor? And it's one thing not to get in the way of ICE or some sort of enforcement of this law, but they had to fight for the values and take it up to as far as they possibly can. Look, none of us want to see mayors or local officials thrown in jail. And the federal government coming down on local.

Look, conservatives was the opposite of that. Right. We're not supposed to have the federal government coming down hard on local officials and throwing local officials in jail. Again, I think that's a very bad optic for a president who wants to be popular.

Okay, let's talk about this other issue, Shelby. And that's this idea of a 25% blanket tax on the biggest trade partners the US does business with. Could there be long term damage to the relationship that we have with Canada and Mexico if it's actually implemented? I think absolutely.

I mean, you saw during the first administration there were problems whenever Donald Trump tried to implement tariffs. But again, this is something that Donald Trump talked about on the campaign trail. It should not come as a surprise. I know Garrett said earlier, I completely agree with him when he talks about this is both something that Donald Trump is willing to implement, but it's also a threat.

He's trying to start this process early in an effort to get these countries on board with his agenda so that when he comes into office he can have a few wins. Cornell hasn't he found an ability though, to even if this doesn't work out, not take the blame. Right. He promised that he was gonna build a wall on the word.

That never happened. His voters didn't penalize him for this. Even if there are like huge price increases as a result of this tariffs, we have Democrats messages to make sure that they know he's responsible for that. Look, he's inheriting a pretty darned a good economy.

And by the way, in polling they are raising the Republicans. You're free. They're all of a sudden now. So he's inhering a pretty good economy right now, I think.

But you know, if, look, if things turn south, if prices rise again, he's gonna pay the same high price for the optics of rising prices, regardless of the underlying things that Biden pays. Well, Brandon, Yeah, look, hopefully he recognizes the lesson of this election. While the economy is obviously doing better, he is now getting president again largely because of inflation. If he doesn't appreciate that what he's doing is potentially inflationary, I don't know.

This is only the problem with Donald Trump. He probably doesn't have very strong views. He tends to actually think that tariffs are paid by foreign countries. And he doesn't seem to acknowledge the reality that are paid by consumers and people here.

If he doesn't get that and he goes forward with this and we have the inflationary spike again, obviously the legacy that he'll have will be much different story. And again he wants the economy, he wants to have good economy. The economy is probably the thing he cares about the most. We'll learn really quickly what this is going to do.

If he does go this head first into tariffs from the end really quickly if inflation spikes, we're looking at another chained election come midterms. Right. And Wall Street's not freaking out. This is a show because that gives us an indication of whether or not actually he's going to go through with it.

Well, I think it's really interesting how long it's taken Donald Trump to put together the economic side of cabinet. And part of the reason for that was because you take treasury for example. Donald Trump was looking for sort of a unicorn, somebody who's gonna be on board or at least willing to hear his tariffs plan out, but also somebody who's in calm the markets. He seems to have found that.

And I think it's interesting because you compare that to somebody like Matt Gaetz who was obviously his original attorney general pick, that is somebody who nobody really liked as that pick, but people on Wall street like Scott Bessant as his treasury pick. And so I do think he's taking into account how, how people are going to publicly react when he's talking about some of these positions. Alright, I've got about a minute and a half. I want to take a sharp left turn.

Cornell prepared to leave office. What's going to happen with Vice President Kamala Harris? What's her next act? Does she have another act?

Well, look, I think and people are back and forth on the VP Harris and look, she's got to make her own decision. But I know part of the story is that she's gonna run for president again. Governor of California. Governor of California.

Look, she is young, she's interjecting, she has a solid standing and with the base of the party. The good news is I think if she decided to run for president, she'd be the early front runner in the primary. Bad news is a trouble track record for early front runners in a Democratic primary. But we'll see.

I don't think she's going away. Donald Trump setting a precedent here where usually a loser of presidential election just goes away. And he didn't do that. Does that create an opening for Congressman?

You want to have a great term in the Senate. There's a potential for her second fight. I don't think that she proves herself to be a terrific candidate. I think there's still going to be lingering doubts among Democrats and non Democrats.

I imagine there'll be lingering doubts whether she's the right person to go back next time. But that's a million years we couldn't talk about. Yet there we are. They don't know us being here.

Great. Thanks. Appreciate being here. Up next, what's next for the president elect and the limits of his power now that his federal criminal cases have been dismissed?

We'll speak with a top House Democrat who helped lead the first Trump impeachment trial. You're watching the president. Welcome back. The judge overseeing President Elect Trump's election interference trial has granted the special counsel's motion to dismiss the case, but we likely haven't heard the last from Jack Smith.

Despite the case's formal end in federal court, Justice Department protocol requires the special counsel to file a report to the attorney general explaining his charging decisions before he steps down. It will also be Smith's first chance to refute baseless allegations that he went after Trump for political reasons or was interfered with by Biden appointees. Joining me now is New York Democratic Congressman Daniel Goldman. He's, of course, a former assistant US Attorney, was a lead counsel for the first impeachment inquiry.

It's Donald Trump. Congressman, thank you for being here. You called the end of Jack Smith's probate to Donald Trump a quote, sad day for the rule of law. Does this mean that you think Trump will never face repercussions for his conduct run in the 2020 election?

Yeah, I think that's, that's very likely. We'll see what happens in the Fulton county case. But given what happened in the New York City case, I don't expect Donald Trump will be inside a courtroom for the next four years. And there were many of us who advertised that that was his main purpose for running for president, was a get out of jail free card.

And by winning the election, that has proven to be true. And it is just another example of how Donald Trump is above the law, the most recent before this being the Supreme Court's opinion giving him a significant immunity for anything that could be conceived as an official act. And when you say that he's above the law here, is that you kind of conceding that point, throwing your hands up in the air, or is there anything else that can be done to try and hold him accountable for what happened? Well, look, we're getting a report from Jack Smith.

It is going, we're going to get two probably they will outline in exhaustive detail, I expect, all of the evidence that those two investigations uncovered and lay out in a Lot of detail. In an ordinary course, a House of Representatives will likely read that report and would say, wow, this is a pretty gross violation of law. This person should not be president, and there would be an impeachment investigation and he would ultimately potentially be removed, at which case you could reinitiate these criminal cases. We all know that's not going to happen.

And so with the Republicans in control of the House and the Senate and now Donald Trump as president, Democrats are don't have the power to initiate an impeachment investigation, or really any investigation right now into Donald Trump after he takes the presidency over again. And that is something that all Americans are going to have to grapple with because that is the result of the election. There's going to be election in two years, though. The midterm elections could change the balance of power, particularly in the House of Representatives.

Would you support the idea of an impeachment probe if Democrats took back control of the House, or do you think that this ship has sailed? Look, that's far off. We'll have to see. I'm not going to weigh in on whether that would be appropriate right now.

I led the first impeachment investigation, and I will say that I think impeachment has exhausted its utility as a check and balance or a measure of accountability on a president. Given the hyperpolarization and partisanship where too many elected officials put their party over their country, it is almost impossible to imagine getting to 67 votes to convict a president in the Senate under the current circumstances. And so I don't think anyone should be thinking that impeachment is a panacea in two years. That's the way that Donald Trump is going to face accountability.

Donald Trump will first face accountability in the midterm elections in two years, and we'll see whether he comes through on his promises to make life better for the middle class and more affordable. Yeah. So to that point, do you sense a degree of fatigue among your fellow Democrats that they've been fighting this battle against Donald Trump for more than eight years? They now are looking at these another four years, years of battling Donald Trump.

How do you break that sense of that fatigue exists? Look, I think that's a real risk, to be quite frank with you. But what we have learned about Donald Trump is that you can't go chasing every crazy thing he does. And so, you know, as I talk to my colleagues and I talk to advocacy groups, there's a much more sort of strategic, determined resolve to identify the areas where he truly is overreaching or potentially running amok for under a Constitution.

And so I think what you will see is a more measured but strong and unified response when Donald Trump does something truly egregious. Chasing impeachment investigations, you know, in the minority, for example, is a waste of energy because it's just not going to happen. So we're going to really try to focus on areas where we can a difference. And as you pointed out, Ryan, in two years, there's another election, and it's a very slim Republican majority in the House.

All of every single member of Congress, including the moderate Republicans, are up for reelection, and they are going to have to think about their reelection every single time they vote. So I don't expect the House to be a blank check for Donald Trump. So let's talk about what the next two years look like for you in the minority, particularly for House Democrats. Republicans, as you well know, struggled mightily to pass basic bills to keep the government from shutting down, raising the debt ceiling.

Almost all of them, in fact, maybe all of them pass only because of Democratic support. It was a much different situation then. Joe Biden was the president. Democrats control the Senate now.

You've got Donald Trump in the White House. You've got the Senate in control of Republicans. Do you think Democrats are gonna bail out Speaker Johnson if his hard right flank pushes back against plans to do these basic things? I think that really depends on whether there's bipartisan cooperation.

I do not think that Democrats will bail out Republicans in the House in order to pass legislation if there is no negotiation, if there's nothing, frankly, in it for us. The Republicans have total control of all three bodies, and they are the ones who are responsible for governing now. They are the ones who are responsible for upholding our Constitution. They take an oath of the Constitution, just like I do.

And so if Donald Trump is going to run roughshod over the Constitution or Donald Trump is going to run roughshod over immigrants in our country or the lower and middle classes, which he did in his first term. That is going to be on the shoulders of Republicans in both the House and the Senate. And we're eager to work with them where they are willing, but we have no control. They have to initiate that bipartisan cooperation.

We will be eager to engage in it where we can, but we will also be steadfast in upholding the Constitution and pushing back on potential efforts to undermine our democracy. All right, Congressman Dalman, I hope Raiders watching, because that backdrop with the aquarium, the Emmy, the whole night, that's just 10 out of 10 for my book. Terrific. This is an honor of NBC.

I got the Emmy way back in 2000 with NBC. Well thank you so much Congress. We appreciate you being here. Still the code more on a major breakthrough in the Middle east as Israel Hezbollah arranged a permanent ceasefire deal.

A veteran diplomat and negotiation joins me next. Do I read the press now? Welcome back. As we mentioned at the top of the program, President Biden this afternoon announced that Israel and Hezbollah have agreed to a permanent ceasefire marking what could be a significant de escalation in the Middle East.

For more on this I'm joined now by Aaron David Miller, former senior advisor on Arab Israeli negotiations. He's now senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Aaron, a great person to have not to talk about this. Give me first your reaction to this deal and the fact that Israel and Lebanon were able to reach a permanent ceasefire.

First of all, thanks for having me. Look, I think negotiations what really in the end determines whether they succeed or fail. This urgency and I think it could be argued that in this case Israel wanted to steal in his Balinese needed it and that's why it's happening now. Couldn't have happened four months ago and couldn't have happened six months ago.

It certainly couldn't have happened within weeks of his ball's attack on Israel on October 8th. So it's urgency for Hezbollah has taken a beating. Command and control, financial deposits, hard currency destroyed, weapons depots destroyed. Hezbollah needs time to rearm to re up and the Iranians I think support that for the Israelis.

You know Israel has a small standing army, it's reservists to do most of the fighting and they're deploying, they're exhausted after a year. So that's a primary reason I think the IDF Israeli Defense Forces wanted this agreement. They've accomplished most of their military objectives. So now you have.

The question is I wouldn't vouch to say now whether or not this is going to endure. I think it'll take weeks of testing to determine whether or not the mechanism of the US assessment set up will actually work. Whether is vol respected, whether the Israelis will remain within the parameters set by the letter of assurances that they receive from the US. So 30 days from now I think we'll have much better indications as to whether or not the parties disagreement have lived up to their expectations.

But remember this is Middle east and betting against Arab Israeli peace. Never lose one. Yeah. Do you think you can take anything away from the 2006 deal between the two sides?

Does that inform us at all how this ceasefire will be implemented, enforced, or is it a dramatically different situation? No, it's working within the context, primarily because the Lebanese needed a UN Security Council resolution. But the main difference is the enforcer mechanism in 1701 culture is both Israeli and Hezbollah to withdraw. Hezbollah withdraw north of Lutani.

Hezbollah didn't do that. In fact, they turned southern Lebanon into an armed camp with tunnels, weapons depots, military formations. And I think the difference is, and the real test of this agreement is whether or not the enforcement mechanism backed up by Israeli military power and US Diplomatic persuasion can essentially change the terms and keep the south fundamentally free of his fighters. It is the south that the Israelis are most concerned with because it's the border communities that will live in fear and insecurity of a cross border incursion along the lines of 10/7 Hamas into those Gaza border animal communities.

So I'm thinking this may actually work. But again, I've been around the block on these issues many times and I wouldn't take anything for granted right now. So I wonder if you think that this deal would have been possible if Nasrallah was still alive. How much did the deaths of the senior Hezbollah leaders force that militant group to get to the table and talk?

It's a really good question. And I think, I think the fact that Hezbollah's command and control was disrupted, that most of the senior commanders that were responsible for creating, forming, making the organizations lethal as it became, will kill or injure, literally taken offline. And I think, remember, Hezbollah has a key patron, that patron. Iran is also very vulnerable as a consequence of what the Israelis did in October 6th.

So I think the moon, the stars and the sun kind of aligned in a way that they usually don't when it comes to Arab Israeli peacemakers speaking. But yes, I think not just the assassination is Bella, but his deputy, as well as any other senior commanders on the Shore Council, which is key deliverative decision making body. I think that was a key factor, yes. Okay, well, 60 days to implement this issue.

We should check back in 30 days. Of course, we're also going to have an administration shift here in the United States. So a lot can happen between now and then. Miller, your expertise on this is always very much appreciated.

So appreciate it. Thank you for being here. Thanks for having me. All right.

And I'll be back tomorrow with more Meet the Press now. But the news continues in the next three seconds with Hallie Jackson right now. 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 so 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'll listen and follow the Drink wherever you get your podcast.