What are you hearing? Yeah, my colleagues had this great story out on

the Washington Sun.

I encourage everyone to go read it.

But basically, we've been talking a lot about what has the Republican Party done to court black voters.

But in this case in Texas, where you have 2.7 million black voters who are eligible to vote in that state, the question is, is what is Talrico, the Democrat, doing? And I think a lot of advisors in that state, according to my colleagues, are concerned that they're not doing, that he is not doing that much.

And they point to Jasmine Crockett, somebody who obviously failed in her race against Tallarico, but who had credibility in the black community as just one way in which the campaign has not really bridged that animosity and brought her back to really engage that group.

In this story, they talk to strategists who note that the campaign, excuse me, that Tallarico hasn't been to Harris County, which is the most populous county for black voters.

What are you hearing about it?

Maybe you could've expected it, the, the kind of, uh, rallying together of the rest of the White House pool.

Yeah, I'll approach it from two ways.

Listen, I, I, I think in terms of what brought this on, I have heard, you know, ad nauseam from folks around Trump, inside the White House, um, how he truly believes that the reason why people are so negative about the Iran war, why people are so negative about his administration is because of the press coverage.

It's because he's not feeling like he's getting his, the due that he deserves, that they're not covering, and by they I mean, you know, us as a press contingent, are not covering the stories that show him in a, in a positive light, and are actively, willfully, and maliciously twisting the things that come out of, uh, the administration.

And that has just been a through line for the last year and a half.

And I think something that has really accelerated that, if you could even say it could be accelerated more than unha- how ha- unhappy he was, uh, was all the talk about munitions, was the talk about the fact that the US was lacking specific munitions that would be necessary, specifically, like, things like interceptors to protect itself, not just against Iran, but in other theaters across, uh, the globe.

And those stories really, really, really upset him, and you could tell that not just, you know, from the conversations I'm having, but you can tell that from his True social.

Yeah.

How will the site cover politics differently than other news outlets?

Look, Rev, I think that there is so much good happening in journalism.

But the fact is, is that Americans say over and over again that they just don't feel that journalism today really reflects their lives and they have sort of a negative view of journalism.

And we really hope to turn that around.

And so I think when we talk about politics, We're looking at not just the story of the day, but we're also trying to look under the hood at the unique angles that some of these institutions around D.C. just don't have the time or the people to cover.

We have a deep set of sources amongst our reporters and on policy areas like the federal government, like energy, like all the sectors that we know people think about every day, even if they're not folks.

thinking that I'm thinking about the energy department.

What will you be watching in the coming week? We know the president is heading to North Carolina on Wednesday.

One, does anybody in the White House know what this is and is there paper that's backing this up and are they gonna go for this? And two, anybody asking the question if this proposal is legal well

people in the white house have been defending it since the first announcement i know caroline levitt the former press secretary she actually previewed it in an interview she did before so there was some pre-planning on this my colleagues at the washington sun did an article saying that key republicans who would likely have to be a part of approving this money in congress didn't really know about this promise of a dividend, saying that the pre-work with at least the congressional side members wasn't actually done.

So I think that's a big question.

Obviously, I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know the legality of it.

But we have seen that there have been promises that have been made that really have been unkept when it comes to dividends.

I know on C-SPAN, when I talk to folks, people call in and ask questions.

What's the status? Where's my money? Where's my check? And people who I talked to in the arena after that first night in Dallas also said brought up the $5,000 dividend, that that would really help them in their bottom line.

expending those resources in other places? Shouldn't Texas be locked down, ruby red,

Who did the Democrats want to run against here? Well, Arizona

has proven that they don't like putting folks who deny the election into higher office.

It's just something that time and time again we've been asked this question specifically about this state because we have seen folks like Carrie Lake and others who have taken the mantle, taken up President Trump's to get that approval, his positions on these things.

And time and time again, Arizonans have rejected him.

Now, Katie Hobbs has a kind of mixed track record.

She is viewed by a lot of Democrats as probably the most vulnerable Democratic governor going into the midterm elections.

But just in the last few days, we know that they move that race from a toss up to now lean Democratic.

Did he move the needle on that? Yeah, I think one of the things that have been most interesting

Is the U.S. really going to give over hundreds of billions of dollars to the Iranians? That said, is the White House just going to declare victory and hope that the details work out fine later?

I think you're seeing them start that process now, William.

You've seen J.D. Vance, the vice president, who is leading these negotiations.

You've already seen him on CBS, ABC, CNN.

Maybe by the end of the week, we'll see him on PBS.

Going out and setting the narrative of what the deal is before the text actually comes out, because you're right, we haven't seen the text.

We haven't seen what this memorandum of understanding is that even gets you to the next phase of technical talks that U.S. officials say will last for 60 days, where they nail out all of those really hard details.

How do you see that playing out?

Is the U.S. really going to give over hundreds of billions of dollars to the Iranians? That said, is the White House just going to declare victory and hope that the details work out fine later?

I think you're seeing them start that process now, William.

You've seen J.D. Vance, the vice president, who is leading these negotiations.

You've already seen him on CBS, ABC, CNN.

Maybe by the end of the week, we'll see him on PBS.

Going out and setting the narrative of what the deal is before the text actually comes out, because you're right, we haven't seen the text.

We haven't seen what this memorandum of understanding is that even gets you to the next phase of technical talks that U.S. officials say will last for 60 days, where they nail out all of those really hard details.

How do you see that playing out?

And on top of that, you have the 6th Congressional District in California, which Gavin Newsom gerrymandered to be blue now with a Democrat not even making the runoff? Is there a discussion of that or just a disdain for the voters who would vote for Spencer Pratt?

Well, I think that there has been concern for months about the Democratic race when it comes to governor, especially because we know that there was a moment in time where there were five Democrats that were basically splitting the vote five different ways, getting about 10%.

And there was real concern from the top brass at the Democratic Party that they couldn't make the runoff in the governorship.

Obviously, that has changed.

And just to be very honest here, we don't know the vote count.

Tonight, it's expected that LA, Sacramento, and some other larger hubs are going to update their vote totals.

We won't know vote totals from some of the smaller states, so we're kind of pontificating here before we have the actual result.

Are there more like him? Is the party making any effort to try and recruit those candidates?

What's your latest reporting on

this? Yeah, backing away for how long, I think, is kind of the question that not just we at NewsHour are asking, but folks on the Hill are starting to ask.

We know, according to my colleagues at Notice, that the president met with Speaker Mike Johnson today at the White House, and an issue like this was raised, obviously, you know, I think for a long time, Republicans, particularly John Thune, has been saying that they don't have the votes for this.

Mike Johnson expressed that this was in trouble and kind of tried to convince Trump, according to a source told Notice, to back away from it.

And that factored into this decision, which led to that tweet by the Justice Department.

We'll see how long that lasts.

But, you know, this is something that the president wanted.

Are we at a point now where you can't really separate a national celebration from partisan politics in this Trump era?

Yeah.

Um, and so this is an important one for him.

Obviously, he's a devout Catholic.

But two weeks ago, I asked the president face-to-face, um, whether he believes that a comment that Pope Leo made, uh, was about him, and he kind of took the backseat and said that what, again, Pope Leo thinks that Iran should have a nuclear weapon, and I don't.

And I heard from a lot of Catholics around the administration after that who basically said to me, "Pope Leo," the Chicago Pope, might I add-

Um, but what do you think of this timing [laughs] with this person?

I mean, I think the constituent said it all when it comes to the timing, and these are the questions that the FBI and the larger Trump administration are going to have to answer, um, be- and show what they found via this raid, and try to make the case that it wasn't political as we've seen Todd Blanche, not specifically on this issue, but the attor- acting attorney general kind of going around and saying that he's not prosecuting folks who believe, who Trump believes and others in the administration believe should be prosecuted on political means.

Whereas Swalwell is facing actual sexual assault allegations.

Exactly.

Um, but fundamentally, Democrats for the last six months have been so focused on this idea of accountability, uh, stemming in part from their pushing of the Epstein files, for more to be released, for more to be redacted, really putting the onus on DOJ.

And so it would've seemed, uh, pretty hypocritical for Democrats not to call for the ouster and the resigning of Eric Swalwell, who again, was under threat of a expulsion.

That is what led to him finally leaving Congress.

Um, so it would seem hypocritical for them not to do so.

Um, and then you have now this balance, this, uh, in the House where you have one Democrat-

Mm-hmm.

Is the US already operating in bad faith on the world stage here, do you think?

I mean, that's what the Iranians are claiming.

I mean, one of the things that they've kind of repeated over, uh, state media over the last 24 hours is that there are a lot of reasons why the Iranians don't trust the US and negotiators, not just because the last two times that they entered into negotiations, the US then began bombing them immediately after.

I think that they have reason to be cautious, and they- that's what they continue saying.

But Lebanon is gonna be an issue.

Um, it's unclear to me whether the Iranians...

You know, they have to save face and show that they will support Hezbollah because they have this whole regional force, and if they're not gonna support them, then why would others in other parts of the Middle East support Iran, of course.

What is he supposed to do really to succeed where, in Trump's and the audience of one, as Christie said, eyes, y- she failed?

But the fact she did it, I think, is the most remarkable thing about the story.

I think that there's so many just, like, incredibly interesting vignettes into the relationships among the people that President Trump are talking to day in and day out, um, and if you are reading the digital version of the story, they're kind of placed all over in little corners and stuff and so you're really having to, like, look for it and read all of the text, just the way it's visually presented is so much part of the story.

I think my biggest takeaways is, and the conversations that I've been having since then are, of course, folks, not just on the left but of course on the right, uh, who like Susie, who feel that Susie has done a good job of- of keeping all of the cylinders rolling at the same time and on the same track questioning why she did it, what the motivation was.

Uh, but fundamentally I think that she speaks to so much about the way that she operates as a Trump s- chief of staff and how that is so different from his previous chiefs of staffs in the first year.

When I've talked to people in the past, they say, "The only way that Susie is gonna leave the White House is if she decides to leave the White House." And I think that you're seeing that play out in real time.

I mean, in this piece she talked about how she has been overruled on various things, and she seemed very comfortable with it, saying basically that's the way it goes.

She's made it clear that she's not, uh, looking to control Trump or to push Trump away from, um, his kind of worst instincts.

Guess, guess we're not number one threat."

although gentle plea from me to all messaging please stop saying hostage like what are we doing post october 7th stop um jasmine wright i want to go to you for a second because russell vote is like yes excited this is my time Is this an extension of the Doge project, meaning a window of opportunity to hack away at what he calls the bureaucracy?

It's definitely a window of opportunity.

I don't know if it's an extension of the Doge project because it's not being run by Elon Musk.

It's being run by Russ Vogt, who, unlike Musk and other folks at Doge, has studied these type of issues, what you can do in a shutdown, whether or not you can do briefs.

for years and years and years, not just the last four years when Donald Trump was not in office, but for years before then.

This has kind of been his thing.

And so I think that, yes, you are seeing this White House feel like they have an opportunity.

Yeah,

HOW ARE THEY TALKING ABOUT IT?

I mean, I think that they're actually really proud of how it all went down yesterday.

That was a history-making moment.

President Trump alluded to it multiple times.

It was kind of put together in 48 hours.

Initially, it was just supposed to be President Zelensky coming down, and they all came down as a group, both, I think, in a way to protect Zelensky, but also amplify both his concerns and the concerns of the larger European continent, of course, because they have a lot of stake in it, not just because they don't want a war raging so close to them, but because their own economies and their own political discourse is kind of waning on their interest in continuing to fund this war for Ukraine.

So I think you're right.

So there are reasons that are valid for him.

economy, we should say specifically like that ability to command attention and earned media that Trump pretty much blew everyone out of the water when he came out of the scene and doing that.

Exactly.

And I don't think it's just black people that have moved further away from respectability politics.

I think it's actually all people in involved in this political moment, in part because that language that they use just two years ago, doesn't work anymore.

I don't even know if Tim Walz calling Republicans weird would work in this moment right now because it is not fiery enough.

I think that the vice president, you know, she has consistently been careful.

She has consistently wanted to use language that at times feels crowdsourced, maybe because it is, but because it offends the least, but says the most for her.

can

What does the Trump administration need to show, so to speak? And I know, Jasmine, you follow the White House a lot about how aggressive they've been in this.

Yeah, I mean, they've been incredibly aggressive.

I've talked to sources who've been, you know, at times surprised at how hard they're going against this early assessment, which they call low confidence in their own messaging.

I think, frankly, the White House wants President Trump to get the credit for the strike fundamentally.

And anything that contradicts that or goes against that, they are going to push very difficultly on.

They believe that this is one of the four most important decisions that the president has made.

They believe this is a legacy defining decision and then ceasefire that he then negotiated with between Israel and Iran through intermediaries.

Can you talk about the timing going into this week?

Can you talk about what the thinking is with this, where they just kind of say whelp in the face of this public reaction that says, hey, it's common sense that you should be able to fix what was considered a mistake.

Sure.

I mean, I think that we have to look at all of this as the White House's ultimate goal is preserving presidential power and being able to expand that.

And so I think what's really clear from that hearing yesterday is that the White House and the judge have two different versions of what it means to facilitate the return.

The White House is really taking a hands-off approach, basically saying, well, if he shows up at a port of entry, of course we will let him back in and then restart the deportation proceedings because they believe that he is not going to remain in Maryland no matter whether or not he makes it home.

But I think the fact is, is that it's really going to come to a battle of wills and the The question is gonna be, who is going to win? Is it going to be the White House or is it going to be the judge? And is the judge eventually going to lead to putting some of these officials in contempt because they aren't going to provide the answers, I would assume, that the judge wants.

I mean, they haven't been

point, it's also an issue, immigration policy, where they still poll well.

Sure,

and I think that some of their base, certainly, like Dave Portnoy, a barstools guy, was saying, okay, somebody needs to cop to this.

But other parts of their base are saying, this is nothing, and we need to ignore it.

which is basically the messaging coming from the White House.

I think also you have the principal, Donald Trump, basically acting like he doesn't care, that he doesn't find this interesting at all.

Now, of course...

Is that a sign of how much he likes these people, right? Like, they are the loyalists.

And stay there for a moment, because then that, you get chatter like, should AOC run for Schumer's seat, right, Jasmine? Like, it becomes a game of speculation.