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- [00:01]
A
This week on Meet the Press. As the nation looks to 2026, how will concerns over the economy, health care and immigration shape the midterms? Kristen Welker sits down with Senators Raphael Warnock and Rand Paul. Plus, Steve Kornacki breaks down a new poll this week on MEET THE press. Listen to the full episode now. Wherever you get your podcasts.
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Hey, guys, I'm Hoda Kotb. Look, I know how busy life can get and sometimes we all just need a moment to pause and connect. Well, that's what my podcast Making Space all about. Real conversations with people who've learned how to live with purpose and heart. Think authors, thought leaders, actors, performers. And every time I walk away with something that changes how I see the world. And I think you will, too. Join me for Making Space every week wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Here's a scoop from NBC News. I'm Yasmin Dasugin. Today on the show, our exclusive reporting on the families filing a new lawsuit against Meta over teen safety on social media. Plus, Pope Leo has picked a new bishop to oversee New York's archdiocese. What the choice says about the new leader of the Catholic Church and why your slice of brie may be the next best thing for your brain health. But first, President Trump delivered a rare but rapid fire primetime speech from the White House Wednesday night. As he marks nearly a full year back in office. The president ran through what he views as the administration's greatest hits, from immigration to the cost of living. And although his own approval ratings have been falling, he spent much of the speech blaming the Biden administration. I want to bring in NBC News senior White House correspondent Garrett Hake, who's at the White House for us. Hi, Garrett.
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A
Hey.
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B
Oftentimes after the president's speeches like this one, there is a lot of fact checking that's going on with reporters and that's exactly what we have been doing at NBC News. The president talked about immigration, the price of turkeys eggs to the amount of foreign investment that he is in fact brought in. What is the right side of some of what we heard from the president and how he kind of inflated, I would say some of those numbers or deflated maybe even, well, look, here's my.
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A
Rosetta Stone for fact checking Trump last night. At one point, he was talking about cutting prescription drug prices and he claimed that they'd been cut by 4, 5, 600%. Huge number, right? Also mathematically impossible. You cannot cut a price by more than 100%. A 100% price reduction is zero.
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B
Yeah.
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A
To me, that's like the perfect, perfect example of the way that the President talks about these things. He takes an idea that may start being true that they have done this aggressive action to lower the price of prescription drugs and ramps it up to 11 beyond even any credible claim. The other, you know, examples like that include things like talking about, you know, their successes at the border, which are real. They have done a lot to stop undocumented immigration at the border. They've ended these catch and release programs. He says they Biden administration had 25 million people come across the border. No, his own customs and border patrol say it's more like 10 million. And he says the number now is zero. I don't think anybody thinks it's credibly possible that there have been zero people, zero, who've come across the border in the last couple of months. It might be negligible, it might be in the tens. But this is the way that the President likes. He does. He takes the hyperbole to the maximum extent. And we saw him do that across several different issues and issue sets last night.
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B
What new proposals did we hear from the President? Because the impression was, okay, we're looking at what just happened over the last year, but then also what is ahead as we're going into an ever important election year with the midterms coming in November.
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A
Yeah, look, I mean, the only new policy or proposal that we heard was this idea of a warrior dividend, basically a bonus check for service members that as we've reported it out today, is really just moving money that was already appropriated for housing allowance, basically to help members of the military pay for housing now turning it into kind of a direct check benefit. That was it for, for new stuff. There was not a lot of new policy or kind of, here's what else you can expect from us going forward.
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B
In speaking of the economy, which was a big part of this 18 minute speech, we got some new CPI numbers this morning that was. That's those inflation numbers. Right. In which inflation is now tracking at 2.7% below that 3% marker, which is really good news. There is, though a. But in all of that, we don't have October data when it comes to tracking that number. How is the White House talking about this inflation number?
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A
Well, the White House loves this number. I mean, their social media accounts, they're having, you know, surrogates, staff members, you name it out, bragging about the idea that, see, look, what we are doing is working. We're bringing these costs down. And you're right there are some areas where costs are definitely down, including in some of these grocery price areas. The President talked about gas prices last night. That's another one where they've had some success. But you're also exactly right, right. That we're not looking at the full picture. That missing month here means we can't really see the real trend lines here. And that the people who crunch these numbers had to make assumptions about what had happened during the missing month. So they just sort of made educated guesses for what they thought the inflation rate might be for things like housing and rent, for example, in October and built their models on that. I mean, that's really what this is. It's modeling. Right. All that being said, the data is good in the sense that it shows the numbers going in the right direction. But I would want to see the next set of data that's gonna come out next month to see how their models hold up when you start plugging more real numbers back into them, if that makes sense.
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B
I wanna talk about also what we did not hear from the President. We didn't hear any mention of potential military conflict in Venezuela, which we have been talking about a lot, especially with repeated strikes both in the Caribbean and the Pacific. He also signed this massive defense package. What is the latest reporting we have on this?
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A
Well, the defense package I would almost set aside because it's the kind of thing that gets done every year by Congress. In fact, it's one of the last few bipartisan bills that passes every year for as long as I've been covering Washington. And it sets defense policy, but also kind of sharpens the debate around some of these defense issues, as I think it's done in the case of Venezuela. I was shocked that the President didn't talk more about Venezuela last night, both because that was the impression I had been given by White House officials that that was going to be a bigger part of the speech. But as we've talked about, it's been such a big part of the day to day here at the White House and a focus of the President's time and attention. The boat strikes, the seizure of this oil tanker a week ago now, the threat of a blockade against Venezuela's entire oil industry. I mean, it really is the foreign policy focus for the White House right now. And the fact that all of it was reduced to one sentence about stopping drugs coming in by sea and not even a mention of the word Venezuela tells me, I think, two things, that this is not a speech in which the White House wanted to spend a lot of effort trying to sell that policy to the country. And also this narrow focus on domestic politics, which they think they have to hammer right now, you know, probably still because of the results of last month's elections, where they know they are essentially losing the public argument on the cost of living and economic issues that was priority one, two, and three last night.
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B
Speaking of losing the public argument, at the end of the speech, it seems like he turned to the press pool and he told them his chief of staff, Susie Wiles, who has been in the news lately as well, because that Van Nepher article told him he had to give the address. And then I believe he took a sip of his Coke, which I just kind of love the imagery of that.
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Entire nursing a late night Diet Coke.
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B
A Diet Coke.
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Who among us doesn't want a fridge cigarette when we're working on a major work project like that?
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B
Oh, my God, that is an incredible way to talk about a diet fridge cigarette. I think what's interesting about that, especially kind of the admitting that Susie Wallace told him he had to make this address, was it's coming on the heels, as I mentioned, of this Vanity Fair article that was called a hit piece by the White House. The President's also gotten a lot of criticism for his true social post about the death of Director Rob Reiner and his wife Michelle. So is this in part an effort to kind of take back the power? Right, Take back the story before the holiday season when they've gotten a lot of bad press over last 10 days or so?
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A
Well, there's a lot to unpack there. I mean, look, this speech was scheduled before the White House knew anything about the Vanity Fair story coming out. So it's not as if one led directly to another.
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B
Right.
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But the President and the White House more broadly are certainly glad to be talking about the President again and not the staff. This Vanity Fair series of interviews that Susie Wiles did was an enormous unforced error by one of the most careful political operatives I've ever covered in my career, if not the single most careful. The staff never want to be the story at the White House. Susie Wiles never wants to be the story ever. And for a day and a half, that was the biggest talker in Washington. Now, at least we're back talking about things that the President has said and is doing, which is a more comfortable ground for the White House. Wiles, by the way, I think her job is probably safe. And in fact, the fact that he was willing to say in front of the press last night what he did say that Wiles basically told him to do this, I think is another sign that that relationship's still intact.
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B
With what about the Rob Reiner post? I mean, even Republicans came out and said, this is not something the president should have put out there. And I think it's important to note Rob Reiner has been a fervent Democratic donor. He had anti Trump fundraisers and the president posting what he did in a time in which that family is suffering, a whole community of people are suffering, children are suffering. After Rob Reiner and his wife were brutally murdered.
- [09:54]
A
Yeah, I mean, a couple things on this. Look, I'm somebody who believes it's more important to care about what the president does than what he says a lot of the time. And that the truth social account can be a distraction sometimes, but sometimes it's also like a very clear window into the way that he actually thinks about things. You can tell when he's sort of posting his own unfiltered thoughts. And I think that's exactly what the Rob Reiner post was. It was his unfiltered thinking, uninterrupted by staff or by anyone with the better judgment to say, this is neither the time nor the place to do this mistake President. And I was struck by the fact that it had kind of this enormous breakthrough among people even in my own life who don't care about politics, but who saw that post and were aghast about it. He also got significant criticism from Republicans about it, including some elected Republicans, which is also unusual and goes to a theory that I read in, I think, a Peggy Noonan piece in the Wall Street Journal, which is interesting, this idea that we're starting to see a little bit of a jailbreak away from the president, that people in the Republican Party are feeling more and more comfortable criticizing, calling him out when they don't agree, which is not something you saw a lot of in the first term, but it's something that's more likely to happen when he's a lame duck.
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Garrett Hake, thank you.
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You bet.
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So shortly after our conversation with Garrett, White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt announced that the Kennedy Center Board of Trustees voted unanimously to rename the John F. Kennedy Memorial center for the Performing Arts to the Trump Kennedy Center. Earlier this year, President Trump removed the center's leadership and filled board seats with some of his allies and supporters. NBC News has previously reported that renaming the Kennedy center would violate the law. All right, we are going to take a very short break, and when we're back, we have got exclusive reporting on a new lawsuit against Meta over teens social media safety. Stay with us. Who's ready for some football?
- [11:48]
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All season, the Today show takes you inside the game.
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We are going to get this party started.
- [11:53]
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Join us every week as we go behind the scenes with your favorite NFL team for the biggest stories on and off the field. Big game tonight, plus game day recipes that dial up your tailgate.
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Football food soup to nuts.
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From stadium lights to game day bites, the Today show is your home for all things football every morning on NBC. Hey, guys, Willie Geist here reminding you to check out the Sunday Sit down podcast. On this week's episode, I get together with Josh Brolin to talk about his role in the latest Knives out movie and a career that has taken him from the Goonies to the Avengers. You can get our conversation for free wherever you download your podcasts.
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A lot of short daily news podcasts focus on just one story. But right now you probably need more. On up first from NPR, we bring you three of the world's top headlines every day in under 15 minutes because no one story can capture all that's happening in this big crazy world of ours on any given morning. Listen now to the up first podcast from npr. And we are back with here's the scoop from NBC News. So social media companies have faced increased scrutiny for their impact on minors lately. Australia even went so far as to ban social media for younger teens. We're reporting exclusively that the families of two teenage boys who died by suicide filed a lawsuit this week against Meta, claiming the company ignored the danger of quote unquote sextortion schemes against teenagers on Instagram. Before we get into the story, I want to note this conversation could include descriptions of self harm. All right, I want to bring in David Ingram, NBC News tech reporter who's been covering the story for us. Hi, David.
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Hello. Thank you for having me.
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B
Great to have you. We have two families thousands of miles apart, one in Pennsylvania, one in Scotland, joining together for this lawsuit against Meta. Tell me about what's going on here. What happened with these families?
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C
So each of these families suffered a terrible tragedy where a teen boy died by suicide both within the past two years and under very similar circumstances. And this is a tragedy that's becoming much more common across the country and around the world, known as sextortion, where teen boys in particular are targeted by scammers online. According to the FBI, these are people who are in Africa and Asia and they target teen boys pretending to be potential love interests. So using fake photos of teen girls flirting, gaining trust, trying to get the teen boys to send intimate images, nude photos or videos. And then, then the scam begins where the scammers start asking for money, start asking for more photos. And these teen boys often are, they panic, they freeze. In some cases, you know, they go to their parents or they go to another trusted adult. But in these instances, these two boys saw no other option other than suicide.
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B
These boys, one was 13 years old, the other was 16 years of age. Do we know how long these schemes were going on? How long these boys were engaging in conversations with these scammers?
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C
Well, one of them, the 16 year old, had been on Instagram for about six years. He had joined when he was 10, according to his family, which is much younger than the terms of service allow on Instagram. So he was familiar with the app and had been on it for quite some time. And the family believes that that the scam happened very quickly, that he was watching TV with his family one night, he went up to his bedroom and sometime overnight received a message and killed himself before the morning. In the other instance, the 13 year old Levi Meczewski from Pennsylvania, he was on Instagram less than 48 hours before he was targeted for one of these scams and died by suicide. His mother told me that she allowed him to join on a Sunday night, the day before he was due to start eighth grade. He did start eighth grade on that Monday and that by Tuesday afternoon he had been scammed and he died.
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It's so incredibly heavy to hear these stories, David. And you mention the safety measures, the age restrictions, for instance, that have been put in place by Instagram. In addition to these age restrictions, there's also privacy settings that are in place. And these families, though, are arguing now that they are not enough. And the lawyers of these families are saying there's a new trove of internal documents that are helping prove their case. What are they talking about?
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C
So we've been able to learn more about what the debate has been like inside Meta, going back to 2019, potentially earlier. So this is. These sextortion schemes are a known phenomenon and the lawyers are able to note to learn more about this because they've gotten documents, internal corporate documents from Meta, from Instagram's parent company, from other lawsuits that have been going on against Meta. So they've analyzed what was proposed, when, who was in favor, who was against, and there was disagreement within the company. They took some steps in 2021 to try to make Instagram safer for teens, but those are very limited. Those steps applied only to teens aged 13 through 15, and they were only for new accounts. So if there was a 13 year old on Instagram in 2021, they didn't see any change. It was only last year, 2024, that Instagram said that they were going to make all teen accounts private by default. Which means several things. It would mean restrictions on who they could message. It would also mean that people could not automatically see lists of who teens were following and who was following them. And that was one of the main features that these plaintiff's lawyers say contributed to Instagram being a vector for these kinds of scams. So these scammers could see for a 13 year old boy, they could see who the teen was following and who was following them, which gave them, the scammers, a list of family members, friends.
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B
Wow.
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That they could then turn to the teen and say, here's who we're going to send your nude photos and video to if you don't send us money. So Instagram now says that they are a much safer place. But the lawsuit says that it's too little, too late for these teens who died. And I do expect that probably Meta will pursue probably other lines of defense when they're countering this lawsuit. In a statement after the lawsuit was filed, Meta did not directly address the claims in the lawsuit, but did say that they're working with law enforcement on these sextortion cases and they're trying to make Instagram much safer, which we have.
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Heard from them many times before.
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Yeah, let's just say right out, we have just seen a shocking number of cases recently of parents coming forward and saying that apps of various kinds, whether it's Instagram, whether it's AI chatbots, are contributing to the deaths or exploitation of teenagers. And these moms and dads are becoming really a major force in politics right now. They're testifying before Congress, they're helping lawmakers write proposed new laws and they're asking, they're going to court to ask for judges to do something. And the mom I spoke with, Tricia Maczewski, she made clear that she was very angry.
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What I thought was that their app was safe for children because that's what it says in the App Store. So, yeah, I trusted them. I trusted that if it was in the hands of a child, that it had the child's safety in mind. Man, have I learned a lot in the last 15 months.
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That was, I think, her primary emotion. And she's looking to channel that anger into a way that is productive, in a way that honors her son. So I think we're gonna hear a lot more from these moms and dads because there is a lot of anger not just at Instagram, but directed toward the entire tech industry over what they have or have not done to protect teens online.
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B
David Ingram, thank you. And by the way, if you or someone you know is in Crisis, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or chat live at 988lifeline.org you can also visit speakingofsuicide.com resources for additional support. Thanks, David.
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C
You're welcome.
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B
All right, let's get to some headlines. A Pentecostal preacher with the Assemblies of God has been arrested on first degree rape and lewd acts charges after a 40 year fight for justice by his alleged victims. 68 year old Joe Campbell ministered thousands of children across four states for 50 years. He was arrested by U.S. marshals at his children's camp in Missouri and was then taken to Oklahoma, where he faces life in prison if convicted. The charges follow an NBC News investigation to the Assemblies of God, which exposed a pattern of child sex abuse allegations against Campbell and repeated failures by pastors, police and prosecutors to intervene. Campbell could not be reached for comment and it's unclear if he has an attorney. In a statement, the Assemblies of God said they are grateful for those who have shared their stories and continue to pray that justice will be served. The U.S. government has admitted fault in January's D.C. plane crash that killed 67 people when an American Eagle flight collided with an Army Blackhawk near Reagan Washington National Airport. The court filing blamed Black Hawk pilots for not maintaining vigilance and an air traffic controller for ignoring FAA separation procedures. It also tried pinning blame on the airline pilots whose families insist they followed every protocol. Victims families are calling it a wholly avoidable tragedy in one of the country's busiest air corridors with a of near misses. The Trump administration is moving to effectively cut off transgender health care for minors nationwide. Under a new push from the Department of Health and Human Services, hospitals that receive federal funding would be barred from providing puberty blockers, hormone treatments or gender affirming surgeries to anyone under the age of 18. The administration is also pressuring breast binder manufacturers that target minors with FDA warning letters and rewriting federal definitions so gender dysphoria not resulting from physical impairment would no longer qualify as a disability under federal law. On Wednesday, the House passed a bill that would make it a felony for doctors to provide gender affirming care to minors, punishable with up to 10 years in prison. It is not expected to pass in the Senate. Pope Leo has tapped fellow Chicagoan Bishop Ronald Hicks to lead New York's archdiocese, replacing retiring Cardinal Dolan. 58 year old Hicks grew up blocks from the Pope and shares his missionary background in Latin America. He's taken over one of the biggest archdiocese in the country as it navigates Trump era immigration fights and implements a $300 million abuse settlement fund. Hicks has already backed Bishop's statements condemning immigration raids, signaling he's cut from the same cloth as America's first Pope. Is that cheese? Have you eaten cheese? How much cheese have you eaten today?
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How much cheese is too much cheese? Any amount of cheese.
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That age old question was posed by Charlie Kelly and it's always sunny in Philadelphia. Well, it turns out you can eat all the cheese if you aren't lactose intolerant. A study published in the journal neurology tracking nearly 28,000 people in Sweden over 25 years found that eating 50 grams or more of high fat cheese daily cut the risk of dementia by 13% and vascular dementia by 29%. Interestingly, low fat cheese, milk butter did absolutely nothing for their brains. So take this as your permission slip to graze on those charcuterie boards, because I know I will. And that's gonna do it for us at here's the scoop from NBC News. I'm Yasmin Vesugin. We'll be back tomorrow with whatever the day may bring. And if you like what you heard, subscribe. Wherever you get your podcasts. We will see you tomorrow. Cheese and.
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A
Where was she? The disappearance of Carrie Farmer was quite unlike any other because Carrie hadn't exactly vanished, but retreated beyond the shadows to release rage in torrents of text messages.
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And it just went on and on and on.
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Beyond diabolical, beyond the macabre to murder a story straight out of left field. You're on edge as to what's going to happen next. Next. I'm Keith Morrison and this is Something About Carrie, an all new podcast from Dateline. Listen to all episodes now.
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Wherever you get your podcasts.