Meet the Press NOW — September 8

If it's Monday, the Epstein saga ramps up. Democrats on the House Oversight Committee have just released a note that President Trump allegedly wrote to Jeffrey Epstein for a birthday book, which includes a crude hand-drawn outline of a naked woman that President Trump previously denied writing. Plus, President Trump downplays comments accusing him of trying to go to war with Chicago, with backlash from local officials. And as ICE prepares to ramp up immigration enforcement in the city, with more Democratic-led cities also being put on notice, and a potential new shutdown fight looms over Congress, and Democrats face a dilemma.

Support Republican funding efforts and keep the federal government open, or unite to shut it down in opposition of President Trump's sweeping agenda. Welcome to Meet the Press Now. I'm Yamiche Alcindor in Washington, and we've got a packed show starting with breaking news. The House Oversight Committee says it has received a new batch of files tied to the case of deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, this time from Epstein's estate, including a so-called birthday book that contains a message allegedly from Donald Trump to Jeffrey Epstein.

This is the photo of that birthday message released by House Oversight Committee Democrats. The letter features a seemingly imagined conversation between Trump and Epstein inside the drawing of a naked woman. The letter concludes, happy birthday and may every day be a wonderful secret. The President's Deputy Chief of Staff just posted on social media saying that's not President Trump's signature.

When the Wall Street Journal first reported the existence of the letter earlier this year, the White House called the story, quote, fake news, and the President publicly pushed back. Take a look. I don't even know what they're talking about. Now, somebody could have written a letter and used my name, but that's happened a lot.

I don't do drawings. I'm not a drawing person. I don't do drawings. Sometimes people say, would you draw a building and I'll draw four lines and a little roof, you know, for charity.

But I'm not a drawing person. I don't do drawings of women, that I can tell you. They say there's a drawing of a woman, and I don't do drawings of women. President Trump also filed a $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the newspaper and Rupert Murdoch, accusing the journal of knowingly publishing false information to smear him.

This latest development renews scrutiny of the relationship between President Trump and Epstein, despite the administration's best efforts to quash the issue and its claim that it's all a hoax. Joining me now is NBC News Capitol Hill correspondent Melvin Nona, NBC News senior White House correspondent Gabe Gutierrez, and NBC News national law enforcement and intelligence correspondent Tom Winter. So Mel, the action's right there where you are, so I'm going to start with you. What more can you tell us about the documents that the Oversight Committee received?

Yeah, so the House Oversight Committee actually received a pretty wide range of documents. They had issued a subpoena to the Epstein estate, gave them a deadline of today to comply, and they confirmed that they have started handing over documents in what is being called a first round. The spokesman for the committee said that they have received, in addition to the birthday book, just a number of other documents. That includes Epstein's last will and testament before he committed suicide in jail, the non-prosecution agreement from 2007 involving Epstein.

They also said various entries from his address book, his contact book, and also some information about his known bank accounts. Now, what's not included in this batch is any client list. That is something that an attorney for the estate said they're not aware that any such list exists. That's something also Ghislaine Maxwell denied ever existing.

But the committee is going to make these documents publicly available once they start going through all of them. Of course, as you mentioned, Democrats went ahead and posted at least one of the entries from the birthday book that Trump allegedly sent to Epstein. But these documents are also expected to be redacted when they are posted, mostly to protect victims' identifiable information. Now, staffers for both sides of the committee, Democrats and Republicans, are expected to travel to New York later this week, where they'll be able to review the documents in their original form, unredacted, so we could potentially see even more information come out throughout the week.

But certainly a big development for the committee, because they've been really stonewalled up until this point in their request for more information about the Epstein case. Yeah, quite the image and interesting, Mel, that you're saying more information could even come out. So, Gabe, have we gotten any more reaction to the White House, given the release of now this birthday message? Yeah, well, Yamiche, so far, all we've gotten is that post on social media from Taylor Budowich, the White House Deputy Chief of Staff, who is basically making the argument that this is not the president's signature and that this is, in his words, defamation.

Now, this is something that the White House has repeatedly argued, that, of course, this ongoing lawsuit that you mentioned within the Wall Street Journal's parent company, but it does not appear at this point that the White House will be backing down. Now, I asked whether President Trump had been made aware of this release by the House Oversight Committee, and so far, from what we understand, White House officials have not spoken to him, but we're awaiting any response directly from the president. Yeah, definitely waiting to see what the president says. And, Gabe, the president has also tried really hard to turn the page on this, even called his supporters weaklings for asking for more information about Epstein.

But now there's this drip, drip, drip of new revelations every single day, almost, when it comes to the relationship between President Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. I wonder, are there concerns that you're picking up at the White House about this drip, drip, drip and whether more information could come out? Well, Yamiche, as my colleague knows as well as anyone, whenever you talk to White House officials, they do seem frustrated whenever you ask about Jeffrey Epstein. They frankly seem annoyed that this is still in the headlines and have tried to move on several times.

I mean, even right now, earlier today and over the last several days, the president and top White House officials have been talking about the crime crackdown, not just here in D.C., but the potential crackdown elsewhere in the country. And also today, wanting to talk about the immigration related crackdown in Chicago. But this is a story that has dogged now the White House for at least several weeks, if not months, and they certainly seem eager to move on from this. But the sense I'm getting in speaking with White House officials over the last hour or so, they remain defiant.

Yeah, they're definitely remaining defiant. But Tom, this case of Jeffrey Epstein has really been there and has been percolating for more than a decade. Talk to us about how we got here and also what more we might learn from these documents now that the House Oversight Committee has them. Well, these are documents that presumably would have been in the possession of Jeffrey Epstein.

And perhaps were not documents that had been previously seized by law enforcement, may not have been something that law enforcement had pursuant to a search warrant. On the other hand, they could be things that could be part of the FBI case file. It may not be the type of information that would normally be released to Congress through FOIA or subpoena. So, yes, it is possible that we could actually start to see some documents and information that would be, quote, new to us and that our eyeballs have not been on them, whether or not they are particularly, you know, provide some sort of revelation or some sort of a deeper understanding of who Jeffrey Epstein was, how he accumulated his wealth and some more of kind of the secrets of the world that he lived in, just based on what we've heard from the victims.

That's not initially clear. The problem that they have with respect to with these documents were in the case file is that they really try to wall that off and fence that off. So this is the type of thing that we've been looking for because, again, it could potentially be helpful. It'll at least be new.

Yeah, and Tom, while we have you, you, of course, had this exclusive story over the weekend about the Justice Department's handling related to some other Epstein information. What kind of spotlight now does this new document, this birthday message put on the Justice Department and how it's been handling the Epstein case overall? Yeah, you're referring to a letter that we sent to the court asking for the unredaction of the unsealing of two names that were filed that received payments of one hundred thousand dollars, one two hundred fifty thousand dollars after that Miami Herald reporting came out back in twenty eighteen. And so the government has said that those names should be held in secret, that they should remain sealed.

How when if NBC News responds, that's something we'll leave for the docket. As far as broadening this out, you should looking at it long term. You know, the Justice Department here has done a thorough investigation, period. We've talked to a number of people that have been involved in the investigation.

We've seen the efforts in court. We've seen the types of things that have come out as a result of their investigation. So it remains still to this day one of the one of the biggest surprises. I don't know how we're even here.

The initial Trump administration prosecuted Jeffrey Epstein. They filed the charges against Ghislaine Maxwell. And for some reason it came up in the second Trump term. And that's the reason why we're looking at some of the images that we've been looking at here today.

But the Trump administration's initial initial work on Jeffrey Epstein really kind of has not been criticized because nobody has said that there was any sort of an issue with the work that was done. It was thoroughly investigated and they said that there's nobody else to look into. From the White House, especially when it comes to today's decision with the Supreme Court, because, of course, it lifted this sort of limits on robbing immigration patrols. Some people were saying that this is essentially racial profiling, but the Supreme Court essentially siding with the Trump administration.

Right. And we have seen, Yamiche, here this Trump administration trying to push the bounds of what type of enforcement they are able to execute in these major cities. In Los Angeles, it was really largely not just a test case, but a legal one in which now here, ultimately, after six months of litigation, this decision came down to the Supreme Court. And in the 6-3 decision with the conservatives in the majority, Justice Kavanaugh writing for those six justices that effectively that they are able to use as factors for reasonable suspicion the idea that race can very well be used or the location of where they allege undocumented individuals to frequently look for jobs, for example, a Home Depot parking lot.

And in the aftermath of the Supreme Court here emergency decision, the Department of Homeland Security and the social media post saying that they will flood the zone in Los Angeles, effectively acknowledging that they have been given the thumbs up to move forward with not only their immigration enforcement, but measures that a great many others, particularly in the Democratic Party, argue amounts to racial discrimination in the efforts to target and identify Latinos who they suspect of being in this country undocumented. Yeah, and it's certainly a case that we're going to keep watching as the Supreme Court made this ruling, but the actual cases that continue to go through the courts. But I also want to ask you about President Trump and his decision on where to send federal forces next. Is there any update on where he might actually be sending troops?

And are we even certain that this is definitely going to happen this week, even though, of course, Tom Homan, his border czar said it was going to be Chicago in a few days? Now it's not really clear. Right. And I think that that's where your question to the president yesterday was prudent because the president, you know, on one hand, some suggest uses hyperbole in his explanations or his forecasting of his own actions.

In this case this weekend in a meme, he suggested that the city of Chicago would soon learn what the Department of War is. But then in response to your questioning and Tom Homan as well, suggesting that, well, it's going to be taking on the cartels and taking on crime in these cities. But already here just this afternoon, the Department of Homeland Security announcing what they're calling Operation Patriot 2.0 in the city of Boston. This comes days after the Department of Justice filed the lawsuit against the city of Boston for what they say was interference with federal law enforcement.

Federal immigration law enforcement by being a so-called sanctuary city. The president has suggested New Orleans, excuse me, potentially Portland could also be the targets for this administration when it comes to immigration and crime as well. Yeah, well, definitely something that we're going to watch where the president decides to send troops next. Thank you so much, Vaughn Hilliard at the White House.

And Chuck, I want to come to you. What's been the reaction of President Trump's latest threats on the ground there in Chicago? Well, you've seen very strong reaction, Yamiche, not just, by the way, to the threats, but also some of the action that folks are starting to see here on the ground. There's, of course, that announcement from DHS announcing this Operation Midway Blitz.

But they also in the past hour or so sent out pictures of some of the individuals who they arrested over the course of the weekend. This being ICE saying that they were arresting undocumented immigrants who had criminal records on social media. ICE posting out a picture of one of their new vehicles in this. And you see the Chicago skyline in the backdrop.

All of this is being met with real opposition on the ground. We saw it this weekend where thousands went downtown to protest. We saw it today with multiple different demonstrations. I was at one that was put together by some religious leaders across the city pushing back on this intense or the increase in immigration enforcement.

I want you to listen to what one organizer told me. What's your message to the president? We're not going anywhere. Really that we together in Chicago, we need federal resources.

That's my message. Send federal resources, not federal troops. We need the resources that were cut for community violence intervention. We need the resources that are being cut across SNAP benefits, across Medicaid, all of these things.

You mentioned that is the consistent message that you hear. And it's a response to the justification that you're hearing from the president pointing to some of the violence that you see in Chicago saying that more federal resources are needed. We had the governor just in the past couple of minutes here release a new statement to that announcement from DHS saying once again, this isn't about fighting crime. That requires support and coordination.

His office saying that he has not heard from President Trump from anyone in the administration directly, Yamiche. Well, Chuck, it's definitely going to be something that we're going to be watching, especially as you said, the Illinois governor is very critical of the president. So thanks so much, Chuck, for that information. So, Steve, it's one of those days where we have to talk to you.

Let's start with the president's overall approval numbers in this poll. Do most Americans approve of the job he's doing? Yeah, well, you showed some of those issues a minute ago, and what that adds up to is a 43 percent approval rating in our new poll. This is a decision desk poll.

Again, this is all adults here. This is voters, potential voters. So we're kind of casting a wide net, but a 43 percent approval rating for Trump. That is pretty much at the level it's been now for a few months for much of the second term for Donald Trump.

And even it's sort of been similar to the level we saw back during his first term. And one of the key ingredients to this, you mentioned, too, the economy. That's the issue voters cite more than any other as the most important issue to them right now. And when you ask folks how Trump is doing specifically on inflation and the cost of living, again, we've seen this for a few months now.

He's under 40 percent. He's at 39 percent. Some of his worst marks from voters coming on the economy and on inflation. And that is a departure from his first term, when his best marks tended to come on those subjects.

You talked about people, of course, thinking about inflation and the cost of living. What other important issues are Americans thinking about as most important for them? And how do they think the president's doing? He gets his best marks on border security and immigration, where he exceeds his approval rating there.

But we also asked this time about deportation. So not just border security and immigration, but we asked about deportations as well. His numbers fell a little bit, but he's 47 percent approval on border and immigration. He's 43 percent approval when you ask about deportations.

I want to ask you about something that the president talks about in some ways he's appealing directly. I think a lot of people thought to young men. So this poll shows that there's a wide gender gap, apparently, among Gen Z Americans. How wide is that gap and what's fueling it?

Well, it's a major divide that has to do with politics, but I think takes in a lot more. That's the surprising finding in this poll for us. Let me take you through a Gen Z. We're talking about adults under 30 years old, sort of the new rising generation here.

And take a look here just when it comes to attitudes towards Donald Trump. Again, we told you with all voters nationally, all Americans nationally, I should say, he's at 43 percent job approval with men under 30, 47 percent. So a little bit better. But with women under 30, look at this way, way under his national level, just 26 percent approval for Trump right there.

So that's one of the things we find. Not only is there a huge difference in Gen Z between men and women when it comes to their attitudes towards Trump and politics, this group right here, Gen Z women is the most anti-Trump group you're going to find any generation, any generation, gender combination, most anti-Trump, most politically progressive. And these big differences between men and women, we saw them. Look again, this is the rising generation, the emerging generation.

We thought we'd get a portrait. We asked about some basic questions about what they think about life, about the future, about priorities. And take a look at the difference we found here when you do gender and politics again. This is just Gen Z here.

Look at this. We gave them a whole bunch of choices here about what do you think defines success in life to you? That's the basic question. Gen Z men, men under 30 who voted for Donald Trump, their number one answer was having children.

That makes, in their view, more than anything else for a successful life. Gen Z women, women under 30 who voted for Harris, that same option, having children, dead last. Look at that. First in one group, last in the other.

Being married right at the bottom there, too, for Gen Z women who voted for Harris. Being married near the top for men. And how about this for a difference, too? Having emotional stability, one of the most important factors in a successful life, cited by Gen Z women who voted for Harris, dead last when you're talking about Gen Z men who voted for Trump.

These are basic core priorities, sort of concepts about what makes life a successful one. And it couldn't be more at odds in some of these cases between these two groups. I think that was the most surprising finding in this poll. Wow, Steve, that Given this polling and the way people are viewing the Democratic party?

Well, yeah, we need to improve our image, but at the same time, it's important to know somebody is driving Donald Trump's numbers down and him trying to redistrict in Missouri. If you look at the polling that we've just done, there's nobody supporting it. Nobody, not Republicans, not Democrats, not independents. And so he's continuing to do these unpopular things.

And we're the ones putting in a position that he's doing. So I think we're still fighting him on every turn. Yeah. I want to now, of course, turn you to another fight, which is redistricting.

We see Republicans, specifically in your state, are forging ahead with an effort to redraw the map. Your seat in particular might be drawn away. You said that you're still going to run for reelection regardless of what happens with the map. But I wonder to you, why is it important to continue to run for reelection if in fact Republicans try to essentially draw you away from your constituents?

Well, I think they're trying to move my voters away because they don't like the way they voted. And so their position is we'll put our voters in there because we don't like the ones he has. And and they're doing it in the mid decade for no reason other than pure politics. There's nothing that would justify doing this.

The census has not been taken. We have no idea whether 800,000 people will be in each of the districts in Missouri. We don't know nothing. So we're going to end up having a lawsuit filed as quickly as we can.

And what I hope they also understand, with fire, California, New York, Michigan, Maryland and other states are going to be ready to do the same thing if they go to continue down this road. Well, I want to ask you about that. Are Democrats ever seen to redraw the map and attack on democracy? As you said that Republicans attacks have been an attack on democracy.

Well, no, let's keep in mind that we are responding to the movement to demolish democracy. But is it a race to the bottom? Well, if you end up fighting fire with fire, ultimately you'll only have ashes. However, you know, I'm hoping we don't get to that far, that that place.

And eventually we're going to meet, I hope, new leaders who are not trying to destroy the democracy and this nation. Yeah, well, I'm hoping, of course, that it doesn't just all turn to ash. So thank you so much, Congressman Emanuel Clever of Missouri. Thank you.

And we'll be back with much more news ahead on Meet the Press Now. Welcome back. We've got a lot of news to get to with the panel. So let's dive right in.

Joining me is National Review reporter Audrey Fahlberg, Democratic strategist and host of The Rocha Revolution, Chuck Rocha, and NBC News political analyst and former Florida Congressman Carlos Cabrera. Thank you all for being here. So, Audrey, we're going to start with the news that was breaking at the top of this. The White House alleged that this letter to Jeffrey Epstein that the president allegedly wrote and draw that it didn't even exist.

They even, of course, sued The Wall Street Journal. Now they're saying that it's not his signature. Can they really keep denying this? And I wonder when you think about their end strategy, what does that even look like?

The White House is so frustrated with this story because it tries they might. They can't get rid of it. The problem with this particular story that we're seeing today is that they deny that the letter even existed. Now it's appearing in part because the House Oversight Committee, which is controlled by Republicans, asked the FTC state to cooperate and they turned over these documents.

Right. Now they're saying that the signature is not Donald Trump's. But moving forward, the issue with this is Trump administration officials continue to tell me over and over again, Democrats weren't concerned with the Epstein files when Democrats had power. They weren't constantly pressing that those justice departments under Obama and Biden for those documents.

Of course, the issue is that the Trump administration figures kind of played into this by saying that, you know, the client list is on Pam Bondi's desk. I think the challenge now is they're just going to have to continue to just say they won't move centrist voters. But right now it looks like it's a story that's not going to go away. It's definitely not going away, especially even prominent Trump supporters are continuing to talk about this.

So, Carlos, we also had a House speaker, Mike Johnson, clarifying at one point, saying that his remarks that President Trump was a FBI informant against Jeffrey Epstein, that that wasn't exactly what it was. Are we going to just continue to see Republicans tie themselves in knots as this story just drags on for them? Well, that's why this point about them putting everything out there, letting it filter through the system, it might be painful. I mean, who knows everything that's in there?

Right. But the longer they try to suppress this, the worse it's going to get and the more the pressure is going to build. And I could see a scenario where this is an issue that gets used against Republicans who are running for reelection. Right.

If this gets bad enough, more of these victims are coming out and they're telling their stories. I think more and more Americans are going to start tuning into this and it's only going to get worse. That's why I think from day one, they should have put Pam Bondi out there under oath, answer all the questions, let this filter through the system. Otherwise, it's going to go on and on.

Yeah. And Chuck, last week, we saw this sort of heartbreaking scene of the victims of Jeffrey Epstein and Maxwell talking about their experiences, pushing for more transparency. We've seen a lot of lawmakers now come out and support them. But I wonder, as the number of lawmakers go up, is there a risk here that it's going to become a sort of political football and people are going to see this as politics?

Well, I think that we're heading into a midterm election. You've covered a lot of them. We've talked about it before. A midterm election is about motivation because it's not the regular electorate like you have in a presidential.

So the way that this hurts in the midterms is Republicans and Democrats, for that matter, are looking for things to motivate folks who normally don't vote because the most active people are the only ones who vote. That's why this is the Republicans dog catching the car because they fed their base this story. And now the story don't really pan out. And so when they're looking to motivate their base, their base right now is dejected because they're seeing this and like, not my guy, not my party.

And I think that's the problem. Is there a risk here for Democrats you think of today? The House Oversight Committee Democrats put out this this drawing, this crude handwritten drawing that allegedly the president put together. But they had a siren on it and emoji.

It seemed a little bit sort of edgy. Leave it to the Democrats to always be able to take it from the Democrats a little bit too far as the political consultant here. Just use the thing and talk about it. Discredit him and then move on to a policy issue that you want to link to it.

The more Democrats try to own this issue, the better for Trump. What Democrats should be out there saying is we want all the facts to be published. We want the American people to know the truth and then they can reach their own conclusion. A Democrat and a Republican agreeing on our set.

I'll take it. Audrey, switching topics here. There is now this G20 summit that apparently is heading to my home state of Florida. But it's going to be at Doral, which is, of course, a country club and a golf club that the president's family business owns.

He backed off of similar plans back when it was in first in office, his first administration to hold another sort of meeting of leaders there. This time around, he's he's kind of leaning into this. I wonder what you make of this and whether or not he's going to get any pushback. I don't think we'll get too much pushback for this, but to me, it's not particularly surprising.

I mean, in the past decade since Trump has controlled the Republican Party, it seems like every single messaging retreat they've had has been in Florida. I mean, I feel like I've covered probably five or six of these. So I, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if this does end up panning out. Yeah.

And Chuck, President Trump, as I said, tried to host the G7 at the Doral Club. He backed away from it saying there was too much heat from Democrats. But there are also Republicans who back then were saying that that was wrong. Now it sounds like they're now already switching their messaging here.

But do Democrats need to pick this up or is this just something that when you think of all the other things that are going on, maybe they just need to choose their battles. Democrats. This is a political consultant and a strategist. You use this to link pieces together.

Donald Trump got elected because people truly feel that the system is rigged against them. He tapped into that insecurity, that frustration that regular folks have. But what Democrats could do now saying now he's re-rigging the system for himself and he is not only doing that, but he's benefiting from it. They could link this to the cryptocurrency that he has and other things he has to show a whole cabal of corruption.

I think it's a distraction. I mean, we've kind of figured out that Trump is pretty immune to these conflict of interest challenges and criticisms. And I'll admit I'm biased. I'm in Miami and I'm happy that the G20 is one of Miami.

So that's just wonderful news for our town. Miami and Doral, but I'll let you have it. Well, it's all the same. It's the Magic smoke mirrors that people say are dangerous and could endanger people's lives.

I'm wondering what you make of the president, who is really sending mixed messaging. He obviously was part of developing the COVID-19 pandemic vaccine, but he was also now sharing all this disinformation, essentially. You know, one of the things I think that is so critical to understand is that this is not just about a political statement or an ideology. This is about people's lives.

And that's what we've spent our whole lives and our work doing, is saving people's lives. And so I think that this is a challenge that we have to get to the public, is what is fact and what is not. And we need that right now. We need that as we have demonstrated in our book, Long-term, for the next pandemic, which we're very well prepared for.

And so we are at a point right now asking ourselves, will science win the day or will that magic win the day? And as you ask that question, I think about the fact that I wrote a story maybe 15 years ago about the anti-vaccine movement. Back then, it was fringed. It was thought of as a thing that would never really become mainstream.

But now we have top public health officials who are telling people that they shouldn't trust vaccines and taking away that access. Do we get to this moment where you have top officials spreading disinformation if there wasn't this sort of politicization of COVID-19 vaccines? Sure. Ever since the beginning of time, we've had those who have claimed to be experts who have espoused views that just do not meet the science of the day.

And so we're going to continue to have that. I think what's different now is they have megaphones that are very large in terms of the media or their positions. And the people that really suffer the general public who are wondering, what is this all about? And all I can do is tell them right now, they want to trust the science.

The science is what got us here in terms of the health we have today. And if we follow what is coming out of HHS right now, people are going to needlessly die straight forward center. Who should people trust then in this moment? If you're somebody watching saying, I don't know who to trust.

You know, I think, for example, the medical societies are American Academy of Pediatrics is all about taking care of kids. You know, the Infectious Disease Society of America is all about taking care of adults and real suppressed patients. You know, the Society for OBGYN are all about pregnant women. They are the trusted organizations today that you can use.

And you said that we're ill prepared for the next pandemic. What are the implications of that? Well, it could be a situation where, again, not trying to scare anybody out of their wits, rather into their wits. It could be much, much worse than COVID was.

We have viruses that could clearly kill seven to 10 times more people than COVID did. And what we never did is went back after 9-11 and looked at that as something we're going to move on from. We studied that very carefully to understand what we could learn from the 9-11 situation. Now we need to do the same thing with COVID.

We really need to understand what we should have learned, could have learned, didn't learn. And that's what our book is really about. As you make that point, I want to play for you some sound of Secretary Kennedy slamming the U.S. response to COVID-19.

Take a listen. This is out and nonsensical policies destroy small businesses, violated civil liberties, closed our schools, caused generational damage in doing so, masked infants with no science, and heightened economic inequality. We were lied to about everything. We were lied to about natural immunity.

We were lied to about, you know, we were told again and again the vaccines would prevent transmission. They prevent infection. It wasn't true. You've acknowledged that there were some missteps in the response to COVID-19.

Does that amount to the kind of lying that the Health Secretary is talking about? No, his comments are untrue and dangerous. And that's what we have to understand. There are things we can and should learn from what happened with COVID.

His are not the things that we need to learn. And I worry desperately that this will only further delay us from doing the things that we can and should do to be ready for the next pandemic. And frankly be ready for tomorrow's measles outbreak that's going to occur somewhere in this country. Now we have some states like my home state of Florida that's now moving to ban vaccine mandates.

And then you have some blue states that are essentially creating vaccine groups to share information. Is this fracturing dangerous when you think about how disease works? Oh, it's absolutely dangerous. And you know, we again, thinking about these vaccines, for example, were primarily for our kids.

We're using our kids as poker chips on the public health table. That is wrong. That is just wrong. And so I think these states like Florida, the Surgeon General of Florida has no justification for what he said recently in his overall comments.

Dr. Osterholm, thank you so much for bringing us all your knowledge and for really being a voice in this moment. You're reminded that your book is The Big One. We're back tomorrow with more Meet the Press and I've had There's More NBC News Now.

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