to keep going with this? as long as it takes. i mean, you could be sitting here an old lady. and years and years from now, nothing will have happened. we made a promise. we made a promise to our mom. it is with such purpose and such passion and such love that i do this. it is an honor of my mother. and i don't care if it's labeled obsession or crazy. i'm doing this because i love her. and she deserves it. that's all for this edition of "dateline." i'm andrea canning. thank you for watching. ♪♪ ♪♪ this sunday, russian reset. president trump refuses to blame russia for the war in ukraine,

seemingly replacing moscow's views as he negotiates a deal to end the war. >> you've been there for three years. you should have ended it three years, you should have never started and and made a deal while republicans put the blame on putin. >> this man is a cancer and the greatest threat to democracy in my life time. >> how is president trump changing america's relationship to allies and adversaries. plus deep cuts. >> i wanted to find somebody smarter than him. i searched all over. i just couldn't do it. with thousands of federal workers fired and billions of funding frozen, how far is president trump willing to go in allowing elon musk to reshape the government? >> this is the chain saw for bureaucracy. >> and pentagon purge. president trump fires the country's top uniformed officer. what will it mean for the military? my guess this morning democratic senator cory booker of new jersey and republican senator

markwayne mullin of oklahoma. police steve kornacki breaks down mr. trump's first month in office. joining me for insight and analysis are nbc news capitol hill correspondent melanie zanona. jonathan martin of politico. former homeland security secretary jeh johnson and lahnee chen, a felly at ow at the hoov institution. welcome to sunday. it's "meet the press." >> from nbc news in washington, the longest running show in television history, this is "meet the press" with kristen welker. >> good sunday morning. as the president marks his first month in office there is growing fallout over the mass firings in the federal government. on friday president trump removing a number of military trumps including cq brown, the joint chiefs of staff and asking them to summarize the work for the past week.

elon musk said failure to respond will be taken as a resignation. it comes as his operatives are working inside 18 departments and agencies. musk punctuating the moment by brandishing a chain saw at a conservative conference in washington. >> this is the chain saw for bureaucracy! we've escorted the radical last bureaucrats out of the building and locked the doors behind them. we've gotten rid of thousands. >> back in the district, republican lawmakers have been forced to defend the cuts to voters at townhalls from georgia to oregon,wisconsin and beyond. >> i understand try to do more with less. that's reasonable is taking this chain saw approach which they obviously admit when they fire these people and then decide oh, we fired the wrong people and we have to bring them back in. why is this thing jammed down the pipe so rough and sloppily. >> even fox news host jesse

waters urging the president to re-think the firings after learning a friend, a veteran would be cut at the pentagon. >> we could be less callous with the way we call doging people. i want that to sink in. >> president trump also up ending decades of u.s. foreign policy towards russia suggesting ukraine is to blame for being invaded by russia three years ago. >> today i heard, oh, we weren't invited. you've been there for three years. you should have ended in three years. you should have never started it. you could have made a deal. >> russian troops currently occupy 20% of ukraine's territory in the east and south. president trump also falsely calling ukrainian president zelenskyy a dictator. >> a dictator without elections. zelenskyy better move fast or he's not going to have a country left. >> you called president

zelenskyy of ukraine a dictator. do you think president putin of russia is also a dictator? >> i think president putin and president zelenskyy are going to have to get together because you know what? we want to stop killing millions of people. >> "the new york post" unleashing on mr. trump showing russian president putin on its cover with the headline, this is a dictator. we are now getting our first snapshot of how americans are reacting to president trump's first months in office. i am joined now by nbc's steve kornacki. steve, break down these numbers for us. >> you aren't kidding, just in the last couple of days, five new polls out measuring that reaction from the public, you see it in the headline, his approval rating in four of these five polls is under 50% in four of these five polls is disapproval number is higher than his approval number.

just about by any historical standard this is a low political position for a president to be in a month into his presidency, though it is worth noting that the one exception to that would be trump himself in his first term. this, in a way, nothing new for trump. when you're looking at here the average of our nbc poll, the first trump presidency, 2017 to 2021. you averaged all those together trump in his first term was under water approval rating, 44-53. the absolute best mark still, never got that approval number over the disapproval number. you see as low as it got and averaged everything that's out there together and you can see how where his current standings stack up kind of in that same range. maybe another way of looking at this, another way this was asked, quinnipiac asked folks out there, a lot going on, are you surprised by all of it? a quarter said trump is exceeding his expectations and a quarter said he is failing to meet those expectations and for

all of the swirl of activity here, this is pretty much what they expected. let's look at some specific issues here, some actions, proposals from trump here and again from all of these different polls and what's the most unpopular and what's setting off alarm bells here. you can see the call to end birthright citizenship, only 39% support there, firing federal workers and this when asked about firings of hundreds of thousands, this is the least popular thing. pardoning january 6th and violent offenders, 60% opposed. on the flip side he's done things that are popular. expanding oil and gas production. the executive order recognizing two sexes and also when you look at immigration, there are all sorts of different ways to ask about it, but the cbs poll asked the general trump administration program to deport immigrants who are here illegally. you see broad support there when it's asked at the broad level

like that. look at the personalities now, the public faces of this administration, not just the president, the vice president and of course, you were just talking about elon musk. what you're measuring here is basic popularity, do you have a favorable, unfavorable view of these people? the trump number looks just like his approval number does and vance is evenly split with musk and it's 50% unfavorable and when you ask folks just about the job that musk has taken inside the government here trying to find -- trying to make cuts here, again, you can see 49% disapproval and only a third approving. we see a lot of similarities to trump's first term in the polls. here's the difference, remember, trump's political strength in his first term was the economy. again, averaging all our polls from the first trump presidency together, nearly 50% across those four years were saying they approved of how trump handled the economy. we know how politically potent that issue is, he campaigned on it last year, but attitudes

towards the economy have not so far, and this is early. obviously in his presidency, but we know the potency of the economy politically and these numbers right here may loom right now kristen as the biggest single immediate challenge for donald trump and the republican party. >> just a fascinating look at what americans think right now as we prepare to enter the second month of the trump administration. steve kornacki, thanks so much. >> thank you, kristen. joining me now is republican senator markwayne mullin of oklahoma. senator mullin, welcome back to "meet the press." >> thanks for having me on, kristen. >> thank you so much for being here. let's start with the effort to end the war in ukraine. that war now about to stretch into its fourth year. incredibly hard to believe. senator mullin, do you acknowledge that vladimir putin is responsible for starting the war in ukraine?

>> you know, i think what president trump was meaning is we gave zelenskyy multiple warnings that there needed to be negotiations before the war even started and president trump is absolutely correct. if he was in office this war would never, ever have taken place. what president trump is trying to do is end the killing. it's been happening for three years and president trump is the president that can end the war there. fact and simple. >> i guess, but i didn't hear an answer to the question of did vladimir putin start the war. you yourself said when russia invaded ukraine three years ago, quote, i strongly condemn the unjustified and unprovoked attack on ukraine. just to be clear, senator, do you still believe this was an unjustifieded unjustified and unprovoked attack by russia? >> you know what? we believe this war should never taken place and what we're

trying to do here is put president trump in a good position to negotiate the end of the war. it's the same way that reagan worked with gorbachev by trying to enter the cold war. trump is a president that's going to build and end the killings and should have never taken place if he would have been in office instead of joe biden, and the reason why is president trump leads peace through strength. what biden led through is appeasement and that doesn't work on the world stage, and i do believe 100% that we don't want to attack back the president or this administration to a corn er saying things that might damage a negotiation for this war. >> there's no way to go back in history to know what may or may not have happened under a different president. >> i don't know if you can say that. if you look at the history of this, just look at the history. >> yeah.

>> crimea was invaded underneath obama. he did not invade any of ukraine when trump was in office. he invaded ukraine when biden went into office. so there is a history to say there was a pretty good, 99.9% chance it wouldn't have happened if trump would have been in office or if biden would have used the same peace through strength foreign policy that trump had. >> senator, i think the question is can president trump be critical and tough on putin right now? let me play you what some of your senate republicans had to say this week. take a listen. >> putin is a war criminal and should be in jail for the rest of his life, if not executed. >> he's a gangster with a black heart. i don't -- he makes -- he makes jeffrey dahmer look like mother teresa. >> this man is a cancer and the greatest threat to democracy in my lifetime. >> senator, is it important for

the president of the united states who speaks for all of the country to be honest and critical of vladimir putin? >> i think the president has been very critical of putin, and i'm not sitting here defending putin. putin is not a good guy. at the same time, that's up to the russian people and that's not up to us to make the decision. what president trump is trying to do is end the war. he's trying to end the war from a place of strength. you don't end a war from a place of weakness which is why biden could never end the war. trump will end the war, and he said he would do it. he's kept his promises and will continue to deliver on his promises. >> let me zoom out and ask you big picture. do you think the united states should stay in nato, senator? >> you know, if it's in our interest, i absolutely do, but right now nato has not always been playing in our best interest and when it's not in america's best interest anymore

we should relook at things. the definition of insanity is doing the same thing expecting different results and we see nato and the u.n. weaponizing against the united states and we're the biggest funder of it, if it's not in taxpayers' best interests and not in foreign policy best interests, we should look at a different approach. >> the united states has historically determined that it is in the best security interest. >> historically. >> president zelenskyy believes russian troops are amassing in belarus and could be potentially eyeing the possibility of going into other nato nations. can you were yoo een members and nato count on the united states and president trump to help defend them if they are attacked by russia, senator? >> well, i don't -- first of all, i don't believe for a second rushalsia will advance ar

in any country and it would be extremely dangerous. president trump does not deliver out of of words. they went ahead and helped assad and they delivered chemical weapons on their own people. what did president trump do? within 30 minutes they kicked russia out of airspace and destroyed the airfield they were operating underneath. russia and putin fears president trump. >> senator, let me ask you about the breaking news late friday night when president trump fired joint chief of staff cq brown which president trump himself picked to lead the air force. i want to play you some of what democratic congressman james clyburn had to say in reaction. take a look. >> is that why you think the president let him go because he's black? >> that's what i think. when they said dei, we know what it means. somebody said earlier today they

are substituting these acronyms for the "n" word. so why would you apply the term woke to general brown? >> senator mullin, what is your reaction to congressman clyburn? do you think that cq brown was fired because he's black? >> unfortunately, congressman clyburn constantly pulls the race card out. this has nothing to do with this. we're a civilian force and the president gets to pick his closest advisers. he's said very positive things about general brown even when he was dismissing him, but the president has a right to pick people around him that he trusts, and at some point he chose to any a different direction. this had zero, absolutely zero to do with race. keep in mind, the reason why he was promoted the first time was because president trump did that in his last administration. so it's dangerous every time the

left wants to pull out the race card. it's dangerous, reckless and ridiculous. >> all right. let's turn now to these steep government cuts that we're seeing. they're starting to be felt across the country. here are recent headlines in your home state of oklahoma. quote, federal layoffs felt across indigenous communities in oklahoma. oklahoma university president said the national institutes of health funding cut would severely impact university research. thousands of oklahoma veterans and caregivers struggle amid cuts to va. this comes as there have been town halls all across the country in oklahoma protesting these cuts. what is your message to the people of oklahoma who say they are being hurt by these cuts by president trump and elon musk? >> well, let's go back and talk about the protests. the chair of the dnc, kim martin openly admitted on msnbc just yesterday that they were manufacturing these protests. they were bussing in armies to manufacture these protests.

>> but what about the headlines in your state. hold on, senator -- >> i'll get to that. let's -- i will get to that. let's talk about the nih. the funding has been abused all across universities. we have ivy league from harvard to to yale that's using 68, 69% of nih funding for monies other than research meaning overhead. you had the university of oklahoma, that 55% of the dollars that are going in for research are being used for overhead funding and those dollars should be around 15% to 25% tops to be used for overhead instead of nih actual research and development. there has to be a reset. it has been abused and what the president is saying is that that number could be anywhere from 15% to 25%, but it should be a max. if you start looking at donors that donate to the university they should be putting 15% to 25% tops. so if you want to start talking

about actual cuts, what oklahomans want is that we get rid of the waste and fraud inside the federal government and that's exactly what the president's done. they've already identified billions, billions of dollars of waste and fraud for the taxpayers. >> but senator, first of all, they haven't provided proof of fraud. talk to the people in oklahoma who have lost their jobs, who say they are hurting. they don't know how they're going to pay their mortgage. they don't know how they're going to make ends meet. talk to those people. what's your message to them? they say enough of these cuts? >> well, i would tell you that the majority of the american people want to make sure that their taxes are being used correctly. i don't want anybody to lose their job. that's the last thing we want, but at the same time, any time you're trying to secure this country which a national security risk we have right now is our national debt. we have to make changes and we have to make it quickly. unfortunately, when we have

bureaucrats and politicians that have wastefully spent the american taxpayer dollars and we don't have to look beyond usaid, cuts had to take place and every business owner understands this. every business owner understands you have to get your house in order before you can advance. that's exactly what doge is doing. think about this, every successful business owner out there has hired consultants have taken an unbiassed look and made changes and sometimes when you are so close to it, you can't see what the real changes need to take place. elon musk is the united states consultant right now. he is literally the best entrepreneur we've had in our lifetime and he's doing it for free and he's taken an unbiassed look saying these programs make no sense. let's save the taxpayer dollars and get our house in order. very quickly, before i let you go. the national debt is $36 trillion. doge is only dealing with the federal workers which is only 8%

of federal spending. a small fraction of the federal budget. so how do doge's layoffs actually deal with the debt problem? >> take care of your pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves. every business owner knows that. within only four short weeks i have identified over $55 billion of waste and fraud. we are only four weeks into a four-year administration. that is taking care of the pennies and going to take care of the dollars. we will get our house back in order. >> senator, very quickly because i am almost out of time. president trump joked about running for a third term. would you support changing the constitution to allow donald trump to seek a third term in office? >> first of all, he joked and so i think we need to take that as a joke and not being literal. >> some of his allies say they are deadly serious, senator. would you support that? >> i'm not changing the

constitution, first of all unless -- unless the american people chose to do that. i will say, just as you said in the beginning, it was a joke and people need to take it as a joke. the president is a very interesting guy that can find extreme humor when you sit down and visit with him. at the same time he can be deadly serious, and that's why i call him my friend. senator mullin, thank you so much for joining us. i hope you can come back soon. thank you. >> when we come back, democratic senator cory booker of new jersey joins me next. how do you choose the right firm for you and your family? our goal is to get you as much as you deserve. $30 billion was set. >> aside for. >> mesothelioma victims. >> like you. >> if you've been diagnosed. with mesothelioma, we'll come to you within 24 hours so our team can get to work right away. call

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friday plans. to get. >> this deal. >> it's friday plans pills.com. >> welcome back. and joining me welcome back. joining me now is democratic senator cory booker of new jersey. senator booker, welcome back to "meet the press." >> it's good to be here. good to be here in person. >> it is good to have you here in person. thank you so much. let's start out big picture, we are one month into president trump's second term. his approval rating stands at

45, 46% more popular now than he was at this point in his first term and as you well know, he was in striking distance in your blue state of new jersey about six points away from winning the state. do you believe you have a responsibility to the your constituents to try to find a way to work with president trump. >> first of all, new jersey is our main priority and doing anything they can, and what donald trump is doing right now is hurting our state. he's increased taxes on basically all of my state and what you should be reminded of is he didn't win the majority of the popular vote. he won the popular vote, but didn't get over 50%. historically, he's the least popular president of my life time except for in his first term. he had a very narrow mandate which was to lower prices which was to help people with the economy and what we're seeing is inflation is up, the price of eggs is up and new jerseyians

are still hurting. >> will you work with him to lower prices? is that an area where you can find common ground? >> this is what a strong president does. they get elected without a mandate and say i want to work with democrats, what reagan did, what clinton did, and i want to accomplish big things and he didn't do it the strong president way. he started issuing these executive orders. none of them had to do with lowering prices. all of them had to do with petty personal stuff, attacks on people that attacked him from pardoning the 9/11 -- excuse me, from pardoning the january 6th people who viciously beat police officers all of the way to renaming the gulf of mexico. this is not what people wanted him to do and ultimately he's going to be paying for it and that's why his approval rating is going down right now. >> let me ask you about the firing of the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, cq brown. you heard me play that sound from congressman clyburn.

he said point-blank he believes he was fired because of the color of his skin. senator mullin pushed back against that the characterization forcefully. how do you see the firing of cq brown? >> the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff is someone who should give advice and independent of politics. that's why their terms are set, but just like the fbi director which again was a republican supportive person, general brown was supported overwhelmingly by democrats and republicans, donald trump is throwing that out the window and sending a message to the military. it's not about your expertise or years of service, it's about your personal, political loyalty to me and that is a dangerous message to send to our military at a time when we really need independent credible advice for the president because we live in a difficult, complex world. >> i do want to talk about the

economy, as you're saying one of the critical issues. the country is facing a $36 trillion debt as i was just discussing. the debt went up about $7 trillion under president trump during his first term. more than $4 trillion under president biden. should democrats, senator, have done more to address the debt when they were in power, when you had a chance to do that? >> i'm glad you said that. it's not just that it went up 7 trillion in my life time. he increased national debt while bill clinton and barack obama closed the deficit and president trump created the -- and he is a spender and gives tax cuts to the wealthiest. if you look at his biggest economic piece of legislation that he passed it created a massive deficit in order to give tax cuts to the wealthiest of the wealthiest of america and corporations that are doing well and don't need that kind of tax cut. now, i think the stunning thing

for americans is he's going after critical jobs from the faa to our nuclear regulators. he's going after critical jobs to save pennies in order to give himself more room to give big tax cuts to the wealthiest americans and the wealthiest corporations. >> let me move on now because i want to talk about the rhetoric in talking about president trump's aggressive use of power. some of your colleagues are saying that america is in a, quote, constitutional crisis. i want to play you that sound. >> this is a constitutional crisis. it's the most serious assault in the constitution in the history of this country. >> i think this is the most serious crisis the country has faced certainly since watergate. we are basically on the cusp of a constitutional crisis. >> senator, as you know, democrats just lost an election largely with the closing argument accusing trump of being a threat to democracy. is that the most effective

messaging right now? >> think most effective messaging is talking about the crisis that's happening to americans. >> they shouldn't be talking about the constitution. >> i'm talking they should be talking about americans. i had one of the biggest hospital leaders in my state and talking about the cancer research now in crisis, literally ruining years of research and having to take cancer treatments away from people, cutting-edge, breakthrough treatments. you have crisis when you have planes falling from the sky and you're cutting faa folks. it is a crisis when nuclear regulators are being cut. i have farmers cutting me up, who are putting tens of thousands of dollars and the understanding that they'll get resources from the if federal government and starting to lose their farm. elon musk was a billionaire that never has think about where his next meal is coming from and his

medical treatment and how that will be paid for and they're feeling pain that is unimagine because they put their trust in, and all of this talk about usaid, i have visited people on the front lines stopping infectious diseases from coming here. to have scientists in dangerous areas like kampala suddenly not get access to their cell phone, their emails and be cut off by a president and elon musk who are in a ham handed, incompetent way cutting funding that makes no sense and ultimately won't make a difference in our deficit because the president wants to rack it up to give tax cuts to the wealthiest and create bigger deficits in the country. >> let me ask you about this broader divide in the democratic party. some saying let's sit back a little bit. you have other democrats taking a more aggressive approach and we saw this in a statement by hakeem jeffreys in illinois and governor j.b. pritzker. take a look.

>> they control the house, the senate and the presidency. it's their government. what leverage do we have? my oath is to the constitution of our state and of our country. we don't have kings in america, and i don't intend to bend the knee on one. >> who has the right message, senator? >> i sit with 46 other senate democrats and they are united in this fight working with state attorneys general, working with governors and working with the greater american population to stop donald trump from violating the constitution being violating separation of powers, violating civil service laws and many other things they're doing. the reason we're winning case after case in front of republican judges is because donald trump is illegal and it has to be stopped and i am proud it see a movement growing to stop donald trump from doing

destructive things hurting americans. >> some of your democrats support shutting down the government to protest his policies. >> they control the house, the senate and the white house. they are showing they want to shut down the government. they're trying to shut down the department of education and usaid. they have the power and they won the election. they have to keep the government going. >> you won't keep it open? >> when government shuts down people get hurt. i have to protect and defend americans. they're reckless, really, truly incompetent way they're functioning government right now is hurting so many people. i will do everything i can to stop them. >> senator cory booker, thank you so much. >> thank you. >> so great to have you here. when we come back, president trump is praising elon musk and pushing him to be more aggressive

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>> welcome back. >> the welcome back. the panel is here. jonathan martin, politics bureau chief and senior political columnist at politico. nbc news capitol hill correspondent melanie zanona. former secretary of homeland security, jeh johnson and lahnee chen a fellow at the hoover institution at stanford university. thank you all of you for being here. jonathan, we are one month in to the trump presidency, we have the pushback seeing at these town halls across the country. what do you make of this first month? >> if the president had taken his mandate as cracking down on the border and trying to reduce the cost of goods, i think he'd be in a lot better shape right now, but like a lot of presidents who misread the results of the polls and their election, he's overreaching and doing so in ways that are invariably going to promptly lash back. the american people love the

idea of the federal government and it's a very different story. when you start talking about actual people and their lives are at stake you've seen the clips at these town halls. people don't like it. they like the idea of it and not the application of it, and that's the old axiom in american politics and that will put it on thin ice. >> welcome to nbc. welcome to the panel. we are thrilled to have you. he is not waiting for congress to give him the green light. he is slashing and burning these agencies with elon musk. there's been a little bit of speaking out on capitol hill, but very little real pushback. what are you hearing from your sources? >> yes, you're right. republicans are certainly in the backseat here. they're letting donald trump and elon musk call the shots, but i will say that behind the scenes we have started to see some cracks grow. i've been hearing from multiple republicans including and really safe, conservative seats telling

me privately behind the seats they're very uncomfortable with the scope and speed of some of these cut says as they have hit home and impacted some of their own con stch wents and it stitu usaid and they are frustrated that they have not received any guidance and communication from the white house and their own leadership about how they should be messaging this and they're the ones who are being confronted by angry constituents in these town halls and they don't know what to say. they want to still be supportive of the doge mission and this is creating real headaches for republicans. >> that's a very difficult place to be, jeh johnson, let me turn to you on this because we've seen some stumbling blocks with the administration, firing a whole bunch of people and then saying oh, wait. we have to rehire some of the people that we fired. you've received some calls about the overnight firings this weekend. we should remind people you were not only in the department of

homeland security, you were in the general counsel for the department of defense. what are you hearing? >> first of all, the chain saw imagery is apt. the chainsaw is indiscriminate and if you were serious about going about reducing the size of government, you do so in a methodical way. you work with omb, you develop who is essential, who is not which takes time. you work with congress. you don't try to do it all in a month. so that's number one. in terms of what's happening at the pentagon right now, the people i speak to in the community are very, very upset because they believe that this is chilling, being able to speak truth to power and general brown, 3,000 hours' flight time in a fighter jet and 130 hours combat mission, the cno, admiral

franchetti was general of the 6th fleet and she commanded two aircraft carrier groups and on paper those two individuals who the president fired are far more qualified to be chairman of the joint chiefs than the one he wants to fire and put in this role. this is sending a message to the entire community. shut up, fall in line. don't speak truth to power, just wait out the time until you retire or you could be fired with three hours' notice to get out of your government house. >> just stunning to hear that and lahnee, this comes against the backdrop as lahnee was talking about with these townhauls and town halls and what do you make of this moment? >> we have to question who thee people are in these town halls and these are activists when never liked donald trump and never in avor of donald trump. let's see how this all plays

out. every president wants to expand the scope of the executive action. george w. bush after 9/11 tried to expand the surveillance state. barack obama tried to use executive action to legalize a number of undocumented immigrants. every president wants to push the boundaries. >> yeah. >> when it comes to reducing the scope and size of government, what we've tried is an incremental approach that hasn't worked. so this president's saying, let's go further. let's cut deeper and it is going to result in people saying is this the right thing to do, but fundamentally, what president's trying to do is to move the needle in a non-incremental way and that is going to result in people asking questions. that's where we're at, but in my view, the response we're seeing from the american people, it's got to play out over some period of time. >> a particularly sympathetic group for most americans. >> right, the challenge is they're not, theoretically, in d.c. when they're in tell us a oklahoma city or norman or markwayne mullin it's a very different story. the most interesting thing i thought he said was i don't want to see folks losing their jobs.

that's precisely what's going to happen if they have the chain-style cuts and people don't like it when it starts hitting them when they have skin in the game, which is why it's been so hard over the years, lahnee to make any real change in the government because people do not want to see profound change when it affects them. >> at airports, for example. >> the impact of cutting. you know what it's like to run it. >> yeah. how did that go? >> it wasn't just president obama. it was me, too. [ laughter ] no, you know, trey of ohio makes the point, hey, this is congress' job and yet it doesn't seem like anyone in congress is standing up to say we're the ones who should have oversight because tech nically, we decide what gets cut. >> i've spoken to those who said they're okay with elon musk and donald trump usurping some of their own power and their own purpose. i do think this is going to come to head in the weeks and months

ahead particularly if they're debating government funding. this is going to be a huge question because democrats want a commitment that if they're going to agree to fund the government that trump and elon musk will just ignore it and republicans have refused to give them a commitment. >> and republicans can't criticize trump and elon will start catching that fire from them. >> we will watch it closely, guys. stand by. we do have a lot more to discuss. we do want to note that gretchen whitmer had appeared on the broadcast. her staff called on friday to cancel her appearance citing changes to her schedule. we do hope to have her back soon. president trump is targeting initiatives in the federal initiatives in the federal gove (psst psst) ahhhh... with flonase, allergies don't have to be scary spraying flonase daily gives you long-lasting, non-drowsy relief. (psst psst) flonase. all good.

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secretary johnson, let's start with you. part of what i was discussing with senator booker which is this idea that some democrats are really leaning into the idea that they are arguing this a constitutional crisis already. what do you mike of that? senator booker didn't necessarily lean into that. he said let's talk about issues like the economy. what's your take? >> the reality is that voters, most voters care about the price of eggs, the price of gas, wait times at airports, tsa. the -- i worry that the phrase constitutional crisis is becoming an overused phrase, crying wolf too often. i believe that when it comes to the matter of the constitution, that is something that rises above politics. when we -- when a president says i am not going to abide by a court order. that is a true constitutional crisis because then the system of checks and balances

collapses. i know many republicans, i know many heritage foundation republicans who would agree that that is a constitutional crisis. that transcends politics, so we need to keep talking about it in those terms in my view. >> lahnee, what are you hearing when you talk to people? what has the reaction been inside republican circles to this type of talk and as president trump is facing a number of legal challenges across the country? >> i agree completely. the notion that we have a constitutional crisis belied by the fact that you have the courts that are still doing the work that they do. you have congress and ultimately the voters are going to cast judgment in the mid-term elections in less than two years. so what i'm hearing from republicans is let's hope democrats continue to use this argument as opposed to the one that you and senator booker have been using around the economy. that ultimately is going to be the more effective argument. republicans are, like, great. continue that because that's the shortest way you ensure to lose

the mid-term election in 2026. >> before the commercial you showed the picture, kristen of the senator standing in front of the fbi with the kash patel logo. that is cutting no lie ice, it isn't as important. what's materiel to their lives and the cost of goods at the grocery store and they're losing the because of the indiscriminate cuts. that's what matters and that's where democrats have got to go. they cannot get suckered into talking about norms for the umpteenth time. >> they are under so much pressure from their base right now. >> sure. >> to go against donald trump. >> in some way. >> in some way, right? maybe it's not calling it a constitutional crisis, but there are other pressure points and who is the base is the other thing? >> secretary johnson, president trump seems to enjoy stirring the pot. he posted this week, he who saves this country does not

violate any law. clearly trying to debate that argument. >> it's just wrong. that's wrong. if a court of law tells you, you have violated the law and you've violated the constitution, the other political branches of government have to abide by that. otherwise the system collapses. >> there was a really striking moment this week with president trump. he was having lunch with the governors who were here for the governors association meeting and this was with maine governor janet mills related to state leaders on compliance to executive orders. take a look. >> is maine here, the governor of maine? >> i'm here. >> are you not going to comply with that? >> i'm complying with state and federal laws. >> we are the federal law. you better do it. you better do it. so you better comply because otherwise you're not getting any

federal funding. >> see you in court. >> good, i'll see you in court. that should be a real easy one, and enjoy your life after, governor, because i don't think you'll be in elected politics. >> what an unbelievable moment, jay martin. >> yeah. >> the other governor sitting there with eyes wide open and it kind of encapsulates the debate within the democratic party that i was discussing with senator booker. do you take the gloves off? do you try to work with trump? do you sit back? what do you make of that moment? >> the fact that the governors are there in the first place tell us the governors recognize they have to work with him to some degree. here here's the challenge. you have a dispute in public and he threatens your whole state and lobs a political threat and therein lies the challenge. your state needs federal dollars, but if you don't work with him he'll threat tone cut

you off. >> there's the question that they haven't figured out how to navigate this yet. there might be different camps and it would have been interesting to have heard governor witmer come on to justify the way in which they haven't been dealing with the president, for example, but the democrats can't figure out the right way forward, and as a result right now, you have all sorts of different approaches and i don't think governor mills' approach is the one democrats want to take in the long run. clearly in my mind, we had an election and they lost on that. >> full employment for lawyers. >> what really matters. >> the legal profession will be very busy. ultimately, if you're an elected governor you have to do and say what is in the best interest of your own state. >> yeah. >> and some governors will choose one path and others will choose a more confrontational path. >> we have 30 seconds left, what are you hearing from democrats about this debate? >> they haven't figured it out yet. >> this is the debate that is

going on right now. i think the leadership is much more cautious than what we saw from the governor, for example, but this is something that is going to play out in the weeks and months ahead. >> all right, guys. great conversation. thank you so much for being here. that is all for today. thank you so much for watching. we'll be back next week because if it's sunday, it's "meet the ♪ ♪ ♪ >> i don't need. >> to get into the characterization of we know who. invaded who. we understand the stakes of this game. the america, more than any other country in the world,