EXCLUSIVE: Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) on North Korea: “This may be the first test of this presidency”
EXCLUSIVE: Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) says Trump “needs a much stronger State Department”
EXCLUSIVE: DHS Sec. John Kelly calls on Congress to fix U.S. immigration laws: “I would hope that the Congress fixes a lot of these problems”
PLUS: Kelly on drug trafficking into the U.S.: “Marijuana is not a factor in the drug war”
APRIL 16, 2017 — In an exclusive live interview this morning, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd that “China is the key” to working with us on North Korea: “They can stop this if they want to because of their control over the North Korean economy … Whether they’re currency manipulators or not, we should expect them to act to prevent what could be a cataclysmic event.”
“This may be the first test of this presidency,” the senator added. Watch the full exclusive interview with the Arizona senator.
“As Senator McCain indicated, China is key to that strategy,” echoed Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. President Trump is “getting good military advice from General Mattis and General McMaster, but he needs a much stronger State Department.” Watch the full exclusive interview with the Rhode Island senator.
Also joining the broadcast exclusively was Gen. John Kelly (Ret.), U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, who told Todd that, in response to a threat from North Korea, “We would raise various threat levels in the event that something happened, and we felt as though that there was a possible threat. You always want to come down on the side of caution.”
Kelly offered an example of someone who wasn’t deported in previous administrations that is being deported now: “Someone, as an example, with multiple DUIs. Even a single DUI, depending on other aspects, would get you into the system.” He also called on Congress to fix the country’s immigration laws: “We have to straighten this out, and I place that squarely on the United States Congress.” Watch the full exclusive interview with Kelly, his first Sunday show interview.
And on this Easter Sunday, Pastor JoAnn Hummel of Bent Tree Bible Fellowship, Bishop T.D. Jakes of The Potter’s House of Dallas and Rabbi David Saperstein of the Union for Reform Judaism joined Todd to discuss the role of religion in a time of heightened political rhetoric.
This morning’s roundtable was comprised of The New York Times Magazine’s Mark Leibovich, Demos’ Heather McGhee, NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell and former Sen. John E. Sununu (R-N.H.) of The Boston Globe. Their conversations included addressing the president’s tweet this morning on his tax returns.
Read the full transcript of this morning’s “Meet the Press.”
For more from moderator Chuck Todd throughout the week, watch MSNBC’s “MTP Daily” weekdays at 5 p.m., and subscribe to the “1947: The Meet the Press Podcast” for on-demand interviews.
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