Meet the Press NOW — Nov. 14

Welcome to Meet the Press Now. I'm Garrett Haake in Washington, where the White House finds itself on defense, facing new frustrations from President Trump's base and from voters writ large over issues tied to the economy, affordability and accountability, starting with new scrutiny over the president's ties to Jeffrey Epstein, after a batch of newly released emails revealed that the late convicted sex offender viewed himself as the ultimate Trump insider.

The president today lashing out on social media at members of his own party for focusing on Epstein ahead of a vote next week in the House to try to force the Justice Department to release all of the Epstein ahead of a vote next week in the House to try to force the Justice Department to release all of the Epstein case files. The president also now calling on his attorney general and the FBI to investigate Epstein's ties to prominent Democrats, donors, and financial institutions. Attorney General Pam Bondi announcing a short time later that she's appointing U.S. Attorney

Jay Clayton from the Southern District of New York to lead that investigation. Mr. Trump is set to leave this evening for Mar-a-Lago after notably not taking questions from reporters since the Epstein saga once again flared up this week. The president also now on the defensive as some in his MAGA base bristle over his handling of other issues, including the economy, after he spoke about the need for more skilled foreign workers to come to the U.S. under what's called the H-1B visa program.

And does that mean the H-1B visa thing will not be a big priority for your administration? Because if you want to raise wages for American workers,

you can't flood the country with tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of foreign workers.

I agree, but you also do have to bring in talent. We have plenty of talented people here. We don't have talented people here. You don't have certain talents and people have to learn. You can't take people off an unemployment line and say, I'm going to put you into a

factory and we're going to make missiles.

And now, perhaps an acknowledgement from the White House of affordability issues and that the president's tariffs are raising prices on consumers, the administration says it will be lowering tariffs on some key imports, including on coffee and bananas. This week, President Trump has at times dismissed voters' economic anxieties and blamed Democrats for perceptions that high prices are high. Last night in a Fox interview, Vice President Vance placed the blame

on the Biden administration.

And I know that there are a lot of people out there, Sean, who are saying things are expensive. And we have to remember they're expensive because we inherited this terrible inflation crisis from the Biden administration, but you've already seen signs

that things are getting better. The price of eggs has gone way down. The price of eggs has gone way down. The price of energy has gone way down. The price of gasoline has gone way down. And as we know, when the price of energy goes down, that starts to filter out into the entire economy, but that also takes a little bit of time.

I'm joined now by my White House colleague, Monica Alba, as well as NBC News business and data correspondent, Brian Chung. So Mon, I'll start with you. Does the White House feel this new pressure to appease the MAGA base on any of these issues?

I'm not sure that they feel it, Garrett, a little bit more than they did in the summer when this all came to the forefront again. And they really conceded that they knew this was coming from inside their own base. And that was because the president, the vice president, and other really senior members of this administration were the ones who initially during the campaign, as you know, said they would be willing to support this effort.

So they know that there's going to be a piece of their supporters that simply will not be satisfied until they see a lot more information on this. And they do know that and that is why they have tried to argue that there are more details that are going to be coming out and that the Republicans for their part after Democrats released some emails did their own kind of document dump and so they're trying to argue that there has been a push for transparency. They're trying to argue that

it was the president who ordered more grand jury testimony to be unsealed that ultimately then couldn't be because of what courts decided to rule in the end. But you know very well that when it comes to the MAGA base, there are different factions of it. But I think the most telling thing here is that the president for his own part, who is always very willing to engage on a lot of the back and forth and the questions here

simply isn't doing that right now. And it does seem to be because maybe the answer is still a little bit unclear, or they're not really sure, or they know that the more that he talks about it now, the more questions continue to be raised about these alleged potential ties and about what the president may have known or didn't know back then about Jeffrey Epstein in these key crucial years of the early 2000s when it seems they did have a relationship and

then a falling out of course. I mean they certainly did. Monica obviously this is the Epstein story is the landmine of the week but from a longer-term perspective is the White House more worried about Epstein or these economic issues as

they're thinking about the midterms and the rest of the president's term? I think

there are far more conversations about the economic issues because they touch so much more of the administration and they really touch almost every single initiative, everything they're trying to do from a strategic point. And about a week ago, a senior White House official told me that they felt like they were making strides on the issue overall, but they were maybe having a challenge with the communications aspect of it, of trying to signal to the American people that they

felt they were working on these issues of affordability and cost of living, but maybe they weren't doing the best job of letting them know about it. So I know that the White House is going to try to focus on that a little bit. But I think when it comes overall to the comparison with Epstein and with these renewed questions, that's something that they are always going to have to continue to answer for, and it seems like that will just continue. When it comes to the economy, though, they're certainly not worried about certain optics

of decisions they're making, like the information we learned today, which is the president is going to be heading to the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, in January, so a couple of months from now, to meet with some of the biggest business and political leaders of the elite world to have those kinds of discussions, which is certainly a bit of a contrast to these other economic issues that are a little bit more kitchen table that the White House says the

president will now start to talk about a little bit more.

Garrett. Adds more contrast to his domestic and his foreign travel schedule. Monica Alba, we'll leave it there for right now. Brian, I want to bring you in. Your business and data. So let's start with data.

Can you give me a reality check on prices?

Are they coming down in the manner which the administration describes?

Yeah, well, we do get data on this, and it tells us that prices are going up in this country. If you take a look at where prices are for everything, this is everything in the basket from energy to food to your car. Well, prices are up 3% compared to this time last year, but here are the grocery prices that people will be indexing on a regular basis. This is why these types of things matter so much

to Americans is because they do notice price changes because they're going to the store on a regular basis to buy these things. And you can see the change since a year ago. Almost all those categories, with the exception of chicken breast, has really gone up, in some cases, to the magnitude of almost a full dollar just since the beginning of this year. That is something that the administration appears to be acknowledging, because they're talking about the affordability issue with things like groceries, as we've seen reported

that the president could be looking at specific carve-outs from the terrorists for things like tomatoes, beef, as well as coffee, which have seen quite large

price increases just since the start of this administration, Garrett.

What do you make of the murkiness around the fact that we've lost out on some of the economic reports we usually get because of the shutdown, and the shutdown had its own economic impact on so many factors of the economy, This sort of like missing month of information.

How does that inform where we are right now?

Yeah, well, we actually missed two jobs reports at this point, which means that we don't have any sort of clarity into where the unemployment rate is, where hiring is or is not happening, especially as there are these concerns about the impact of artificial intelligence. We're essentially flying blind as far as government data, on what to do on that front, which really provides complications for the Federal Reserve, which is trying to steer interest rates in this economy to make sure we don't go into a downturn. But how do you do that when we're not getting the gold standard on data?

Now, we did just get information from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which is kind of getting back to work, as all the supposed to get the first week of October. We're not going to get that until next Thursday. That is a six-week delay. That meant six weeks by which policymakers were not able to see what was happening in this economy as they're trying to make sure that we don't go into some sort of malaise

here.

Yeah, and still no Senate confirmed ahead of the BLS. On the tariff rollback of this, I'm fascinated by the politics here, the White House rolling back tariffs on some goods, mostly stuff we don't buy, make or grow here. Does the confusion caused by the fluctuation here undermine the tariffs' effectiveness or the White House's public arguments on them? Yeah, well, I think that if you talk to any small business or large business, for that matter, that's been trying to navigate the world since January 20th. Well, they will all tell you we have had no idea what's been going on here. I remember talking to a toy maker that was saying, look, in the interim, because I don't know what the tariff rates are going to be next hour,

let alone what they are tomorrow. I'm just going to take a pause on my orders for right now and see what happens. So I think one big issue as we get to the holidays is supply going to be the case that because of the uncertainty around tariffs, a lot of these retailers, a lot of these toy makers simply didn't have the orders put in place to make sure the stores are stocked for the holidays. That is an open question. I'm not trying to sandbag people's expectations or excitement for the holidays, but I think maybe going out and buying early wouldn't be the worst idea.

Although, of course, do not hoard.

Don't do that. All I'm saying is there's a problem with the toy supply chain. They're going to hear from my three-year-old at the White House and they're not going to

be happy.

Brian Chung. Just remember, Gar, people don't need 30 dolls anymore, right?

They only need a few.

Yeah, a layman disagrees. Brian Chung, thank you very much for that. I'm joined now by my panel here, NBC News senior congressional reporter Scott Wong, Terran Rosenkranz, who's also the founder and CEO of New Blue Interactive, and Rob Blewy, president and executive editor of The Daily Signal. So Scott, we're 10 months in now. You see this with Republican lawmakers on the Hill.

What's your sense of the—is the honeymoon phase over for the Trump administration now?

Well, they've been back home for 43 days, as you know, and they've been hearing from constituents, constituents who are concerned about many issues. But two of those are, number one, what we're just discussing, the high prices that we're seeing in America. Every time—Brian alluded to it—every time they go to the grocery store, it's a reality

check. And they're realizing that inflation, grocery prices, other things are not coming down. Number two, the Epstein files. They are hearing from their constituents. And we're going to talk a little bit more about that vote coming up in the House, but this is a concern, and especially for Republicans, they're hearing from their constituents who

are part of that MAGA base that they want transparency. They want to see all of these files come out.

Rob, President Trump seems to be learning a lesson that President Biden learned, which is this inflation stuff is, like, a lot harder to deal with than it looks like. President Trump's brand is so much like, I'm the guy who's going to get it done. How much does this issue pose a unique problem for him, and how much does it start to make him as another oxygenarian, you know, term-limited president, start to look like a lame duck?

Well, Garrett, as you know, President Trump has had the economic advantage on this particular issue. Right. It's the number one issue that voters consistently say that they care about. And they look at their personal finances, and recently, polling from Scott Rasmussen has showed that they are increasingly growing concerned that their personal finances are getting worse.

So I think that that's why you're seeing President Trump announce that he's going on a nationwide tour, why you see the vice president being dispatched talking about affordability. I think what you need, Scott, though, is you need the Republicans in the House and the Senate out there in their districts talking about to voters what they did with the one big beautiful bill. They have not sold this effectively.

They need to talk about the provisions. Remember, the reason that they passed that bill so early this year was so they wouldn't repeat the mistakes of Trump's first term, when they had to wait so long to get it done. And we reported at the time that the president was going to go out and tour the country and start selling that bill immediately after it passed, and that never happened. And so the fact that he's now talking about going out a little bit more makes a difference. Taryn, how did Democrats capture this feeling and credibly run on solutions for it in the

midterms? I mean, voters still remember, to Rob's point, that the president, until recently, had the advantage on this issue.

They didn't trust Democrats on it in 2024.

How did Democrats earn that trust back for 2026? I think the behavior of this initial Congress with the government shutdown, the doge, sort of all this chaos when people were already feeling unstable in their finances has not helped this image for the Republicans and for the Republican Party. And so I think Democrats just need to keep talking about what they're doing to fight for it. So they did do a relatively good job of trying to explain that the reason the government shutdown was about was about health care premiums and making it more affordable for people.

And I think you're going to continue to hear more about what proposals and plans we would do to make this happen and how the Congress keeps pushing those bills and processes and legislations forward to do that.

How do you, as a Democrat, or how should congressional Democrats balance what they've been doing on affordability with the talk about Jeffrey Epstein? And I want you to answer this without using the phrase, walk and chew gum, right?

How do you handle both simultaneously?

That was going to be my answer. And can you link them effectively?

I don't know. I mean, yes and no. I do think that you're going to have to do both, no matter what. And that's the truth, because you do need to balance the fact that, like, what issues are really, you know, affecting every American? Like, what's impacting their day-to-day is what we want to be talking about and what we want to be focused on.

But at the same time, the protection of children and the protection of victims and having that is something that also—that safety is almost as paramount sometimes as affordability. So I think talking about both is the only way to do that, and I think they can effectively do both. Linking them, I think, can just be this idea of when we threw the great Gatsby party during the shutdown, right? The way to link it is this idea that they're not caring about what's happening to you.

They're having these sort of let-them-eat-cake Marie Antoinette attitude while the rest of us are suffering. And so that kind of imagery is what I think can be helpful. Well, I mean, Ro Khanna, for example, has been talking about the Epstein class, something

that I'm now obsessed with, and this idea that there's a sort of billionaire class that gets better, while everything else for you gets worse. I mean, are you seeing momentum building on the Hill, Scott, for that kind of language,

that kind of sort of populist pushback here to capture the full zeitgeist of this moment? I hadn't noticed until you pointed it out, but the link, of course, between Epstein and economic affordability is the fact—I mean, look who Jeffrey Epstein was. He was a financial advisor to billionaires, right? And so that is the connection. The Gatsby imagery, of course, the tearing down the East Wing to build a gold ballroom. I mean, you know, Democrats are going to have a field day in 2026 in terms of the imagery.

Meanwhile, what are the images from the shutdown? You know, workers waiting in food lines trying to feed their children. Long lines at the airport. That speaks to the sort of idea of chaos. And so, I think that there is a tie-in between all of these different things. Yes, I'm seeing, I'm hearing that there could be a large number of Republicans that

will vote for this discharge petition to force the DOJ to release the Epstein files. That's significant, because the larger that number is—we know it's going to pass—the larger that number is, it's going to put increased pressure on the U.S. Senate to actually do something.

ROB BOOKER, The Washington Post. I mean, I'm fascinated by this, because I sort of reset to—my baseline is like people are going to care more about the stuff that actually impacts them. But then I have conversations with my friends who are like political normies who are obsessed with the Epstein story, and it cuts across traditional political lines. How dangerous is that issue for the White House? What would you say they should do to diffuse it in such a way that they can focus on the

stuff that they can then actually control that affects people's lives?

Sure. I think short-term, it's going to have more attention than anything maybe somebody's going to cast a vote on in the midterm elections. And so, probably getting through this vote and getting some kind of clarity from what the Senate is actually going to do, I don't think the Senate is ultimately going to do it. I can't see 60 votes for this. I think Republicans will stand united on that.

What Republicans need to do is they need to pivot back and talk about some of the issues and point the blame at Democrats. Remember, it was Joe Biden who gave us record high inflation. It was Barack Obama who gave us the Affordable Care Act, which is anything but affordable. And so, if they can pivot in that direction, I think that's a winning play for them.

I want to ask you both this same question here, because I'm interested in that, too. For how long is it credible, or is it not, for someone like J.D. Vance in particular to say this is a Biden problem on inflation? I mean, we're 10 months into the president's term. They've bragged about it being the Trump economy when it's good. But can you square that circle? And if so, for how much longer?

It's a talking point that I think works right now. It's not going to last into perpetuity. So what they do need to do is they need to point out where they are having an impact. And I think the one issue where Trump. There's a lot of development. And let's face it, that's the future of this country, really hinges on our energy policy.

There's a split on that. Gas prices are down, but home energy prices are up. And the president promised he'd cut them in half in 18 months. I'm keeping track, because I owns this economy when it's bad, like he wants the credit for it when it's good?

Right. I think they're going to have to keep holding him accountable. It seems like the entire time since he has taken office, it is the Democrats' job to hold him accountable, because he likes to say things that may be untrue and just keep going with them. And I think we need to keep pointing out the facts. We need to keep—it's hard not to have numbers. But we do need to keep pointing out the facts.

But people realize—I mean, they're impatient, right? Like, COVID was hard, and it affected our economy, and we didn't have the patience for Biden for that. So, if he thinks that without even sort of that hanging over his head, that he's going to be able to spend more than 10 months kind of futzing around and not making things better for people, I just don't see how it works for him. So we're going to keep talking about that. We're going to keep trying to do what we got to do to help people.

And I think that's going to resonate, because people are not patient, and they don't want to keep seeing this.

Yes. A colleague of ours, a great reporter here at NBC News, has a phrase that he may have thank you. Leave it there. Terrence Rob Scott to get some rest you've been working like crazy. Some odd days, thank you all for coming in and coming up with health care insurance premiums set the spike for millions of Americans debate over health care policy heats up in both parties on Capitol

Hill plus escalating conflict us launches its 20th strike on an alleged drug trafficking boat as the military mobilizes in the Caribbean and Venezuela prepares for potential U.S. launches its 20th strike on an alleged drug trafficking boat as the military mobilizes in the Caribbean and Venezuela prepares for a potential U.S. attack. You're watching me the press now. Welcome back. The government shutdown is over, but the fight about what to do about the expiring health care subsidies is far from over.

Remember, part of the Senate deal to end the shutdown included a mid-December vote on the Obamacare tax credits. But it remains to be seen exactly what the Senate will even be voting on, and there's absolutely no expectation the House will take any action on health care. Meanwhile, in the House, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is trying to force a vote on the three-year extension of those subsidies, a proposal which Republican Congressman Don

Bacon said on this show is, quote, dead on arrival. For their part, Republicans have spent years talking about repealing and replacing Obamacare, but they've yet to come up with their own plan. And the clock is ticking, with open enrollment already underway and premiums set to double on average, according to analysts. Joining me now is NBC News Capitol Hill correspondent Mel Zinona, who's been working around the

clock on this and other issues. Mel, the government is open, but is there any urgency now to address this health care issue that this fight was all about? Is there any desire to negotiate after this shutdown?

So I will say there is a sense of urgency, and that's for two reasons. Number one, those Obamacare tax credits are expiring at the end of this year, which means if those lapse, millions of Americans are gonna see their premiums skyrocket, including in many red states.

And number two, another thing you mentioned, Democrats are gonna get a floor vote in the Senate in December on an ACA bill of their choosing. And so Republicans really have a choice here. They can vote with Democrats to extend those subsidies which risks angering President Donald Trump or they can vote against the bill. But that risks angering voters ahead of the next midterm elections. And so what we're seeing is that Republicans are now scrambling to try to come up with some alternative so that they don't have to support those Obamacare subsidies

because in reality most Republicans do not want to see an extension of those tax credits, even with reform, something that is being talked about amongst Republicans and some Democrats. But this is a really tricky issue, and they're essentially starting from scratch. And so the clock is ticking.

And I think the likelihood that they're able to come up with and pass a plan before the end of this year

is just really unlikely. The idea that they're starting from scratch as though any of this is a surprise is striking to me. President Trump's got an idea. He keeps talking about giving money directly to Americans to pay for healthcare. Is there any kind of policy scaffolding around that? Is that getting any traction

among Republicans on Capitol Hill?

It actually is getting some traction. We've seen both members of the House and Senate start to craft versions of that, FSAs, HSAs, the idea being that instead of funneling money towards those subsidies for insurers, instead funnel that money towards a health savings account, essentially putting money in people's pockets

so that they can choose their own health insurance plans. Sounds simple, right? But we actually talked to some health experts who said under that scenario, there is a risk that the entire ACA marketplace collapses. And then you put people with pre-existing conditions at risk. Of course, that was one of the chief provisions of the Obamacare Act.

And when Republicans tried to repeal it, they got so much backlash because of that very popular provision. And so, yes, there are some ideas floating around, but just how viable those solutions are, that remains to be seen.

Well, you talk about the attempted repeal and the minute or so we have left. How much does the bad taste in Republicans' mouth from the 2017 effort still kind of loom over this

whole conversation?

I think it looms large. I was talking to Jeff Van Drew. He's a Republican from New Jersey. He said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. And he's worried that's going to be the case with this new effort to try to find a fix for Obamacare. Even Speaker Mike Johnson says he has PTSD from the last time they tried to do this.

I will say though that, and Garrett, you would know this, it seems like President Trump is more interested in finding some sort of solution. He's quipped about calling it Trumpcare. But as you know, that is so much easier said than done, as Trump and Republicans saw in

2017.

Yeah, healthcare is really hard. Also, wasn't Jeff Andrews still a Democrat in 2017? We'll have to come back to that.

He was, and he was part of that 2018 wave that benefited from the backlash to the efforts

to repeal and replace Obamacare. See, there's a through line all through it. Mel Zinona on the Hill for us. Thank you for that reporting. Joining me now is former Health and Human Services Secretary during the Obama administration, Kathleen Sebelius. Madam Secretary, thank you for joining us.

Glad to be here.

The Senate gave themselves a December deadline to try to address healthcare costs, but open enrollment obviously is already underway now.

Is it already too late to address this issue for people next year?

Well, it's very tricky. People are going to have to at least shop online now. I think they may hold off to the last minute to sign up in hopes that something might happen and that their prices could come down. It's tough for companies to reprice plans, but they had to imagine that the subsidies wouldn't be extended, so that's how the plans are priced.

Ideally, they have in their back pocket a second price that could go down if Congress does indeed act, as people are desperate for them to do.

Or could these companies simply keep the prices high and, you know, hold on to the difference

there?

They could, but it would mean that they have far fewer customers. I mean, this is not in the company's interest. This isn't money that goes to the company. It goes to individuals who are buying their own coverage for themselves and their families who don't have affordable coverage in their workplace. So, fewer people would choose to be covered next year. The company doesn't keep any of the money. They are pricing this based on a smaller, sicker market. And if that turns out not to be the case, the

prices could change. Something like 92 percent of enrollees in the ACA marketplace receive these enhanced premium subsidies. Is that a sign that this system doesn't actually work the way it's intended, if that many people need that much extra help, essentially?

Actually, every single health plan in the United States is subsidized by the federal government, some more than others. And the Affordable Care Act plans are the least subsidized at this point. Medicaid is almost fully subsidized. Medicare is heavily subsidized. Every employer plan, everybody who works for a major company or a smaller company that

gets employment through their business has a subsidy. They don't see it. The employers write it off tax-free. They get a benefit from that. They get a big pool. So this is not unusual.

These are folks who are buying insurance out of their own pocket for themselves and their families. And the fact that they need some additional help is totally in sync with every single

other plan in the entire marketplace.

Madam Secretary, I feel like if we were talking about any other industry in the country and you said basically every player in the marketplace, every competitor, if you will, had some kind of government subsidy, you would say that is a broken market. That is a system that is not working. Why is this system and the challenges here so hard to fix?

Why is that the best way to deliver health care to people?

Well, health care, first of all, is expensive and it's getting more expensive. We have incredible scientific breakthroughs with blockbuster drugs on cancer, on obesity. We have older population, baby boomers like me, who are using more of the health system. So health care is getting more expensive. But the fact that this is a sort of shared partnership with employers and individuals and the government playing a role, again, is not unusual.

In many countries, Garrett, the government pays for 100 percent of someone's health care. That's a typical system. We have more of a private pay combined with government. So I would not indicate that it's a broken system. It is a system that has a public-private partnership.

Well, and until a few days ago, you really could have said there are only two frameworks for this. There was the system that we have now, and there was a single-payer government system. The president has recently offered what I guess you could consider a third framework, where he talks about the idea of giving people money directly. He's not really clear whether that's to buy insurance or to buy health care directly from their doctor.

What do you make of that proposal, such as it is, and whether it's sort of a serious—I guess whether it represents a serious alternative

way of thinking about healthcare delivery in this country.

Well, it may not come as a shock to you, but I am appalled to have a president of the United States who has been running for this office since 2015. Ten years later, he still has no healthcare plan. He still has no health care plan. He still has no framework for health care. I tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act over and over again, now is trying to take big chunks out of it. I think the notion that you give people some money and have them shop

on their own, he clearly does not understand the insurance market. The insurance market is based on having a pool of people, some of whom are sicker than others, some of whom, you know, use healthcare more. People would be fine if they're 19 years old and healthy and have no drugs that they take. If you're older or sicker or recovering from cancer, that system of giving you some money

and having you shop on your own, you would be priced out or locked out overnight. Well, I don't think that's going to get a bunch of people rushing out to sign up for

that particular plan. Former Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, thank you for your time.

Thanks for having me.

And up next, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announces Operation Southern Spear. We'll take you inside the Pentagon's mission against so-called narco-terrorists, and we'll get the response from the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee. Stay with us on Meet the Press Now. Welcome back.

Tensions between the US and Venezuela continue to escalate, with the Pentagon confirming another US strike targeting an alleged drug boat, a cartel boat in the Caribbean. Officials say four people were killed in the latest strike and there were no survivors. That brings the total number of US strikes on suspected drug cartel vessels to 20, with a reported 79 deaths. We should note that the Trump administration has provided scant evidence that these people

killed were in fact smuggling narcotics into the U.S. Yesterday Defense Secretary Hegseth also announcing a new mission dubbed Operation Southern Spear with a mission to quote, remove narco-terrorists from our hemisphere. Joining me now is NBC News Senior National Security Correspondent Courtney Kuby. And let's start there. How new is this new operation compared to what was already going on? And what's different about these strikes?

So they've named it. They've named basically what they're already doing, right? The big question is, does this naming of this mission or this operation mean it's also going to expand? So we've seen these 20 strikes. We've seen these 79 people, at least, who the Trump administration says they have killed in these boat strikes. But the question is, now, with this huge amount of firepower that the U.S. has in the region—the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group arrived in the region this week. There's about 15,000 men and women afloat and on a shore, fighter jets, ships, nuclear-powered

submarine. I mean, they have everything there that they need if they want to expand it. The question is, has President Trump made that decision?

But also, expand how? What do you possibly need those resources for in this mission as it exists?

So, that's—what is the mission? That's the other thing. So, we know that this mission, according to the scant amount of information that we got in the social media posting from Secretary Hagseth is about protecting the Western Hemisphere, it's about stopping narco-trafficking, it's about stopping drugs from coming into the United States. But the reality is, these boat strikes are just a pinprick in actually stopping the flow

of drugs, and that would be cocaine coming into the United States. It's not even touching fentanyl, which is really the big problem of what's coming in the U.S. That's coming across the land border. So, if the U.S. were to expand this out, is it really about drugs or is this about regime changes? Is this about getting Maduro to step down? What the U.S. has in the area right now, they're not really set up for a massive ground invasion,

but they're definitely set up with what they have for limited strikes if they wanted to go after cartels inside Venezuela if that decision were made.

I'm reflecting back on the conversation we were having at the beginning of this broadcast about the president's mandate such as it exists and the idea of toppling the Maduro regime was not something that he ran on explicitly. There's also a lot of international pressure that seems to be growing around these strikes. You had the UN commissioner for human rights saying these are basically extrajudicial killings. The UK has stopped sharing intelligence with us about the Caribbean. Do you think any of those external factors will have any impact on what the U.S. decides

to do here in the Caribbean or how we do it?

It doesn't appear so far that that's going to have any real impact. The reality is, I don't think that Americans know how much intelligence sharing actually goes on in that area. It's not just the Brits, it's the Canadians, it's others, because—and the reality is, that's because a lot of the drugs that are going through the Caribbean Sea are heading to Europe. So it's in European allies' best interest for them to share information so they can

help stop those drugs.

Even these little drug boats that we've been talking about?

Absolutely. The ones that we're seeing mostly, for the most part, that are getting blown up, they're not making their way all across the Atlantic. They kind of have these hop points, and they make their way to Spain, to Portugal and other places like that. So it's in their interest to share this information. The question is, will these partners just completely shut everything down? Because there's real legal concern about these strikes, whether they're legal.

Absolutely, yes. We'll talk about that more with our next guest. Courtney Kuebny, thank you for your reporting. Joining me now is Democratic Congressman Adam Smith of Washington. He's the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee. Congressman, thank you for being here. As we mentioned at the top, Secretary Hegseth has announced this new Operation Southern Spear.

Have you been briefed on this yet? And what's your understanding of what this mission is compared to anything else the DOD

was already doing in that region? Yeah, it's really not clear. It sounds like what Secretary Hagseth announced is what's been going on for a couple of months now and what was first planned, I guess, or launched back in July. So it's very unclear whether or not what he's saying is anything new. He certainly does lay out all of the assets that we have moved to the region, but he didn't

clearly explain how that mission differs from what they've been doing since, I guess, mid-September now in terms of the boat strikes. So we need greater clarity from DOD on what is this mission. And crucially, something we haven't yet at any part of it is, what is it trying to accomplish exactly?

Well, and I think the other question is, are these strikes even legal? The Pentagon says it's carried out 20 strikes so far. They've killed 79 people. Do you believe what the Pentagon has been doing so far is legal?

I have not seen evidence that says that it is. Based on what I've seen, I still think these strikes are illegal. And it's creating major problems for the US. I mean, we've seen the story that the United Kingdom has stopped sharing intel with us on drug traffickers in Latin America because they have concluded that it is illegal. It is unprecedented that one of our Five Eyes partners would bail out on us like that. So the legality of these strikes is in serious question.

But again, beyond the legality, I know we want to try to reduce the drug trade in the United States of America. How blowing up some boats in the Caribbean with cocaine on them, it's not been clear to us how long is this going to take? Is it really going to be effective? So you've got both the problem that it seems to be illegal and the other problem that it doesn't necessarily seem to be effective at accomplishing what it claims to want to accomplish.

So far, Congressman, I've heard a not sure and a no evidence, which makes me wonder about the idea that, you know, we reported a month ago that the Pentagon is instructing personnel they have to get approval before they can communicate with lawmakers like you.

Do you feel like you're getting the most up-to-date intelligence? Can you do your job overseeing the Department of Defense with the information you're getting? No, they are not providing us sufficient information. To begin with, they didn't provide us any information for about a month and a half. And then two weeks ago now, I think we had a brief from Secretary Rubio, Secretary Hagseth, and the top lawyer at the Justice Department on this, that attempted to lay out that explanation, at least the

legal justification for it. I don't buy it. I don't agree with the legal analysis that they used, but crucially, they also did not provide us the intel. You know, either on the DOD side, we have jurisdiction, obviously, over the Defense Intelligence Agency and some of that, but on the intel side side, we have jurisdiction obviously over the Defense Intelligence Agency

and some of that, but on the Intel side, the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in the House and the Senate, they have not been given the details on what is the intelligence that led you to believe that these boats were part of this larger operation. So there's been no brief for the Intel committees. And that's really the crucial information. They sort of gave us their conclusions. Here's who we believe these people are and what they're

doing. They didn't show their work, if you will. What's the connection? And this is different. I mean, back, you know, and we're still doing this, but in the global war on terror, when we were targeting people in Iraq and Afghanistan and Somalia, I routinely got very detailed briefs on who these organizations are, who the key players were, and why the Department of Defense felt that these were key players to target. That level of intel has still not been made available to the relevant committees in Congress,

or frankly, the argument hasn't been made publicly either. Are you hearing concern from your Republican colleagues about this? I mean, on the accountability side, I know how difficult it is for you as a Democrat to do much of anything to hold the administration accountable in the House minority. What sense are you getting from Republicans about any desire for more accountability or even just more information here?

More information, absolutely. And I've seen the bipartisan concern. We did have a classified brief about three weeks ago now on the Armed Services Committee where they brought in the operators. They didn't sort of give us the legal justification or the intel, but they sort of walked us through, here's what we're doing and how we're doing it.

There were a lot of Republicans on that committee who were upset about the lack of transparency. Senator Cotton was very aggressive in his questioning of a witness, I think this week, on that same issue. So to the extent that Republicans in Congress are aware of the fact that Congress should exist, and given that Mike Johnson just dissolved us for like eight weeks and didn't do anything, I'm happy there's at least a couple of Republicans who don't want to turn everything over to

a totalitarian executive branch, but they're not doing anything substantively about it. They're not demanding these witnesses come in, calling hearings, subpoenaing them. There's things the majority can do if they feel like they're being stonewalled. So I have heard some rhetoric. I've heard some complaints from Republicans being completely sidelined on this, but following it up with forcing mechanisms to get the executive branch to change, that hasn't happened yet.

Yeah, this feels like kind of a preserve all your documents moment for Democrats, because there's not much else you can do unless you take back control in the midterms. Based on what we do know publicly, I mean, the Pentagon has confirmed they sent all these assets to the region, including the USS Gerald Ford, the carrier group there. There are reports that senior military officials have presented President Trump with options for operations inside Venezuela, meaning strikes on land.

I mean, based on what you do know, are there any kind of operations of that sort inside

Venezuela that you would support?

Yeah, that's a big, big concern. First of all, one thing Democrats can do and what I've done and others, we can speak out publicly and aggressively about it. Try to get more people in the public to put pressure on Republicans and on the administration. So there are things we can do. Yeah, you raised the big question here. So right now we are targeting boats with drugs on them in international waters. We have not hit the sovereign territory of another nation.

So the two big escalations in this that could happen are, number one, you start hitting the sovereign territory, because the drug dealers will undoubtedly adjust. If they know these routes are now being targeted, the demand is still present in the U.S. They're going to find other ways. So does that take you to doing land strikes? And then second, does this bleed over into a regime change operation in Venezuela?

The president has said publicly on a couple of occasions that both of those things are absolutely on the table and being considered. The administration, for the most part, Secretary Rubio certainly during our briefing, denied that there's any plans to do that. But certainly, from what the president has said, there is cause for concern that they might do, you know, rather dramatic mission creep here.

That's interesting about Secretary Rubio, given his past history being very aggressive on Venezuela. Congressman, I've got less than a minute left. I want to ask you, the Trump administration's rebrand of the Department of Defense, we've been calling it DOD in this interview, the Department of War, officials tell NBC News it could cost as much as $2 billion, with a B, to complete that name change, and require congressional action.

Have you heard from Chairman Rogers if that's something he wants to take up?

Do you think that will happen? They have not pressed that issue. I think, well, first of all, the law says it's the secretary of defense. And you're talking about illegal action in Venezuela. The entire Department of Defense under Secretary Hagseth has acted like the law doesn't apply to them, which of course is what the Trump administration is doing. He's asking the Justice Department to specifically target Democrats.

I mean, the entire Trump administration is purely partisan and not paying attention to the law. They're running around calling him the secretary of war and the department of war. The law is clear. It is the secretary of defense. That law has not been changed.

And so, it is a violation of the law to do that. And certainly, it's incredibly expensive, and all for the most petty of reasons. So yeah, there is concern about it. We got a lot of issues. I haven't seen the Republicans in the House or the Senate raising this concern, but I will certainly bring it up.

All right, Congressman, we got to leave it there.

Congressman Adam Smith, thank you for your time. Thank you.

Appreciate the chance.

And still to come, protesters clash with law enforcement officers outside a federal immigration facility leading to dozens of arrests and multiple injuries. We're on the ground in Illinois. Keep it here on Meet the Press Now. Welcome back. A tense situation unfolded outside an ICE detention facility just outside of Chicago

earlier today. Video from the scene shows federal agents and Illinois State Police in scuffles with protesters outside the facility in Broadview, Illinois. The Broadview mayor says four officers were injured and 21 people were arrested, according to law enforcement officials. Follows weeks of clashes between federal agents and demonstrators in the Chicago area, involving protesting the Trump administration's crackdown on immigration. Joining me now from Broadview, Illinois, is NBC News correspondent Shaq Brewster.

So, Shaq, what do we know about these clashes and what caused them to escalate today?

Yeah, this is part of a regular demonstration that you have in front of this ice processing facility, a weekly demonstration that's led by religious leaders who are calling for ICE and immigration officials to release those who have been detained as part of this immigration crackdown. And they're calling for spiritual counsel and spiritual services to be provided for those who are being detained here.

And essentially, the scene behind me, the street is closed to the public. It's not a designated protest area. And we saw people go into the street, and that's what led to those arrests and those clashes. But Garrett, I think if you step back

a little bit, this just speaks to the frustration that you have in the Chicago area around this Operation Midway Blitz. It was at this actual facility. Just yesterday we saw a judge.

We saw several attorneys come through and inspect this facility that the judge said was cruel in an order that he made for the federal government, telling them to clean up the facility to improve the conditions here. So you continue to have a situation where you have these clashes as the Trump administration increases their immigration crackdown, and you have community members, members of the clergy, protesters come back and say they don't like what's happening

and they come up and protest to demonstrate their opposition to it, Garrett.

A lot of action on the streets, but also a lot of action in courtrooms. We saw a federal judge this week ordering the release of hundreds of individuals who were detained as part of this operation.

What more do we know about that and their status? Yeah, we're talking about potentially more than 600 people and without getting too much into the weeds. Essentially there's an ongoing court agreement that dates back to 2022, and essentially the plaintiffs are

saying that they were arrested without a warrant in violation of that agreement. The judge signaling that about 600 people qualify for release. They're currently being detained by federal authorities and they shouldn't be because they don't have a significant court ruling. The judge signaling that about 600 people qualify for release.

They're currently being detained by federal authorities and they shouldn't be because they don't have a significant criminal record. The judge saying that this is not something that's going to happen imminently. There's still a process. Names have to be collected and he says he's not going to release anyone who poses a danger to the public.

But you're talking about a significant chunk of those who have been arrested potentially,

eventually being released

All right, Jack Brewster. Thank you for that reporting and

We're following the front lines and the fallout straight ahead on meet the press now You're listening to air raid sirens blaring in Kiev as Russia launched a massive air attack overnight on the city. The footage shows explosions lighting up the night sky. Ukraine's military says its air defense hased most of 400-plus attack drones and 18 missiles fired by Russia. In Kiev, where the attacks were centered, authorities say critical infrastructure and apartment buildings were hit, killing eight people, including one child.

Rescue operations are ongoing, and people may still be trapped under the rubble, according to Kiev's military administration. Just yesterday, the Ukrainian ambassador told Kristen Welker on this program that the pace of Russian attacks is increasing.

We also see that Russia is enormously scaling up its military budget and scaling up its attacks to the energy and civilian infrastructure of Ukraine.

So these are almost nightly attacks with hundreds of drones.

And joining me now is NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent Andrea Mitchell. Andrea, you're just back from a G7 meeting in Canada, where obviously there's a major topic of conversation. What is the view among our allies about the path forward in this war?

Well, interestingly, Canada is the leader of the so-called coalition of the willing, the allies who have come in to fill the vacuum, frankly, of what the administration, the Trump administration, is not doing on weapons. Donald Trump prefers to give money to the NATO allies and have them provide the weapons. And that is, you know, of course, slowing the pipeline. And they are lacking in weapons. They need more air defenses. They need more

offensive weapons. But this attack clearly indicated that Russia is increasing the intensity of its attacks. Still, the Allies, I talked to the European Union leader, who said very decisively that Russia's economy is really cratering under all of this, that a huge proportion of their GDP is going to the military. They are, of course, getting backstopped from China. You know you were in the summit there.

And China is not backing off.

This is an interesting part of this to me, because it's so opaque. I mean, the president talks about this all the time, too, the idea that Russia's economy is taking this huge hit. It's a very difficult thing for us to verify. That's the consensus view among the allies, as well?

Absolutely. And it is better—it's better analyzed now than it was during the Cold War, when we almost had no visibility, and it was one of the top targets of the CIA to try to figure out what is happening. And it turned out that our buildup under Ronald Reagan and, you know, so-called Star Wars scared the Russians into overbuilding and, you know, really finally

making a deal. So now the question is, will their economy take enough hits so that Russia comes to the table? Well, the Europeans seem confident that this is going to happen. I'm not so sure that in my own analysis and certainly in the American analysis that that will happen, but I've got to tell you that Marco Rubio at the end of

that conference took a really hard line on Vladimir Putin. He said there is no sign that Vladimir Putin wants peace, that in his last conversation with his counterpart Sergey Lavrov, which was a month ago, that they agreed there will not be another meeting with the leaders at any time unless there are real outcomes. So, this Budapest thing was just a head faint.

So, we don't have a lot of time left. The Alaska summit, the big push that happened afterwards, is there an acknowledgment now that that was a mistake or not fully capitalized on, perhaps?

That it was not planned properly and that, in fact, it was a mistake. They are not acknowledging that publicly. Privately, people involved will say it was a mistake. They went in with the false hope that Putin was ready to deal, and he wasn't. They were misled. It wasn't properly prepared.

It was overhyped. And it was, you know, basically a failure, diplomatically.

And so the war grinds on.

And Andrea, we're glad we have you covering it.

Well, and the problem is the casualties mount.

Absolutely. Every day. Andrea, thank you very much. And we'll be right back on Monday with more Meet the Press Now. And if it's Sunday, it's Meet the Press on your local NBC News station. Kristen will have exclusive interviews with Senator Tim Kaine, Congressman Ro Khanna, and Senator John Barrasso. Don't miss it. There's more NBC News Now ahead. We thank you for watching and remember, stay updated on breaking news and top stories on

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