WASHINGTON (AP) — Cheers broke out early Wednesday as Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee signed off on the GOP tax breaks bill after a grueling round-the-clock session that pushed President Donald Trump’s package past overwhelming Democratic opposition.

But there’s still more work to do.

WATCH: What’s in the first draft of the GOP’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ cutting taxes and spending

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., also worked past midnight trying to resolve issues with Trump’s plan. Opposition is mounting from various corners of the GOP majority as he tries to muscle the party’s signature package to passage without any votes from Democrats.

On the one hand, the conservative leader of the Freedom Caucus derides the new Medicaid work requirements as a “joke” that do not go far enough at cost-cutting. Meanwhile, a handful of GOP lawmakers from New York and other high-tax states are refusing to support the measure unless changes are made to give deeper state and local tax deductions, called SALT, for their constituents back home.

“To say we have a gulf is an understatement,” said Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, a leader of the conservative wing.

“To say we have a gulf is an understatement,” said Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas.

Roy said there is “a significant number of us who could not bless this product” in its current form.

Nevertheless, momentum is building toward an end-of-the-week inflection point to stitch together the sprawling package Friday at the Budget Committee. That means combining hundreds of pages of bill text covering $5 trillion in tax breaks and at least $1.5 trillion in spending reductions on Medicaid, food stamps and green energy programs to deliver Trump’s second-term legislative priority.

WATCH: GOP Rep. Malliotakis on breaking with her party and taking a stand against Medicaid cuts

Democrats decry the package as a give-away to the wealthy at the expense of safety net programs that millions of Americans rely on. But Johnson insists the Republican majority is on track to pass the package by Memorial Day, May 26, sending it to the Senate where Republicans are crafting their own version. With his slim majority, he can only afford a few defections from his ranks.

“We’re still on target,” Johnson said at the Capitol. “The American people are counting on us.”

Democrats also stayed up all night forcing marathon public hearings. One at the House Energy and Commerce Committee was still going more than 26 hours later before finishing Wednesday afternoon.

Later Wednesday evening, the House Agriculture Committee handling the food aid cuts wrapped up its work too, but only after the Republican chairman abruptly shut down debate on dozens of remaining amendments from Democrats.

All told, Democrats proposed hundreds of amendments trying to change the package, with dozens of votes that largely failed.

READ MORE: House Republicans have unveiled proposed Medicaid cuts. Democrats say millions will lose coverage

“It is a cruel, mean, rotten bill,” said Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., as the Agriculture panel debated changes to the Supplemental Nutrition and Assistance Program, known as SNAP.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said at least 7.6 million fewer people would have health insurance with reductions to Medicaid, and likely more with additional changes to the Affordable Care Act.

The CBO also gave lawmakers a preliminary analysis showing that 3 million fewer people each month would participate in the SNAP food program under the changes proposed.

More than 70 million Americans rely on Medicaid for health care, and about 40 million use SNAP.

The Republicans are targeting Medicaid and SNAP for a combined $1 trillion in cuts as a way to offset the costs of the tax package, but also to achieve GOP goals of reining in the social safety net programs.

Most of the cost-savings would come from imposing stiffer work requirements for those receiving the health care and food assistance, meaning fewer people would qualify for the aid. The legislation would raise from 54 to 64 the age of able-bodied adults without dependents who would have to work to qualify for SNAP. It also would also require some parents to work to qualify for the benefits once their children are older than 7, instead of 18. Under current law, those recipients must work or participate in a work program for 80 hours a month.

The chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Rep. Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., insists the changes would “strengthen and sustain” Medicaid for the future, and are the kind of “common sense” policies Trump promised voters.

But Democrats told repeated stories of their constituents struggling to access health care. Rep. Jimmy Gomez, D-Calif., revealed his own diagnosis with Type 2 diabetes at the House Ways and Means Committee hearing and the sticker shock of health costs.

One of the most difficult issues for Johnson has been the more localized debate over state and local taxes as he works to come up with a compromise for New York, California and New Jersey lawmakers. They have rejected an offer to triple the deduction cap, now at $10,000, to $30,000 for married couples.

The speaker met with lawmakers Tuesday and talks continued into Wednesday.

Rep. Nick LaLota, R-N.Y., said it was cordial, but there was no deal. “More sizzle than steak in that meeting,” he said late Tuesday.

“The reality is you need 218 votes to pass a bill and the way this bill is currently constructed, it will not have that because it does not adequately the issue of SALT,” said Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y.

The lawmakers believe they have leverage in the talks because without a deal, the $10,000 limit established under the 2017 tax bill expires at the end of the year and reverts to no cap at all.

But as Johnson and the lawmakers edge closer to a SALT deal, the conservatives are balking that their priorities must also be met.

Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Mo., said he’s a no for now, but would be working to improve the bill so that he could support it.

The conservatives argue that the tax breaks without deeper spending cuts will pile onto the deficit, and they worry that the Medicaid reductions do not go far enough in rolling back federal funds to expand the Affordable Care Act. They also want the work requirements, which don’t take effect until Jan. 1, 2029, after Trump has left office, to start sooner.

“Basically Republicans are enforcing Obamacare, which is a surreal situation to me,” Burlison said.

Republicans are racing to extend Trump’s tax breaks, which are set to expire later this year, while adding the new ones he campaigned on in 2024, including no taxes on tips, Social Security benefits and others.

A new analysis from the Joint Committee on Taxation shows that most tax filers would see a lower tax rates under the proposal, except those at the lowest rates, who earn less than $15,000 a year. Their average tax rate would go up.

Associated Press writers Matt Brown, Mary Clare Jalonick and Leah Askarinam contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans have unveiled the cost-saving centerpiece of President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” at least $880 billion in cuts largely to Medicaid to help cover the cost of $4.5 trillion in tax breaks.

Tallying hundreds of pages, the legislation revealed late Sunday is touching off the biggest political fight over health care since Republicans tried but failed to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, during Trump’s first term in 2017.

WATCH: Rep. Chip Roy says GOP leaders need to ‘show us the math’ in tax cut, Medicaid talks

While Republicans insist they are simply rooting out “waste, fraud and abuse” to generate savings with new work and eligibility requirements, Democrats warn that millions of Americans will lose coverage. A preliminary estimate from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the proposals would reduce the number of people with health care by 8.6 million over the decade.

“Savings like these allow us to use this bill to renew the Trump tax cuts and keep Republicans’ promise to hardworking middle-class families,” said Rep. Brett Guthrie of Kentucky, the GOP chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, which handles health care spending.

But Democrats said the cuts are “shameful” and essentially amount to another attempt to repeal Obamacare.

“In no uncertain terms, millions of Americans will lose their health care coverage,” said Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey, the top Democrat on the panel. He said “hospitals will close, seniors will not be able to access the care they need, and premiums will rise for millions of people if this bill passes.”

As Republicans race toward House Speaker Mike Johnson’s Memorial Day deadline to pass Trump’s big bill of tax breaks and spending cuts, they are preparing to flood the zone with round-the-clock public hearings this week on various sections before they are stitched together in what will become a massive package.

The politics ahead are uncertain. More than a dozen House Republicans have told Johnson and GOP leaders they will not support cuts to the health care safety net programs that residents back home depend on. Trump himself has shied away from a repeat of his first term, vowing there will be no cuts to Medicaid.

All told, 11 committees in the House have been compiling their sections of the package as Republicans seek at least $1.5 trillion in savings to help cover the cost of preserving the 2017 tax breaks, which were approved during Trump’s first term and are expiring at the end of the year.

But the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee has been among the most watched. The committee was instructed to come up with $880 billion in savings and reached that goal, primarily with the health care cuts, but also by rolling back Biden-era green energy programs. The preliminary CBO analysis said the committee’s proposals would reduce the deficit by $912 billion over the decade — with at least $715 billion coming from the health provisions.

Central to the savings are changes to Medicaid, which provides almost free health care to more than 70 million Americans, and the Affordable Care Act, which has expanded in the 15 years since it was first approved to cover millions more.

To be eligible for Medicaid, there would be new “community engagement requirements” of at least 80 hours per month of work, education or service for able-bodied adults without dependents. People would also have to verify their eligibility to be in the program twice a year, rather than just once.

This is likely to lead to more churn in the program and present hurdles for people to stay covered, especially if they have to drive far to a local benefits office to verify their income in person. But Republicans say it’ll ensure that the program is administered to those who qualify for it.

Many states have expanded their Medicaid rosters thanks to federal incentives, but the legislation would cut a 5 percent boost that was put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic. Federal funding to the states for immigrants who have not shown proof of citizenship would be prohibited.

There would be a freeze on the so-called provider tax that some states use to help pay for large portions of their Medicaid programs. The extra tax often leads to higher payments from the federal government, which critics say is a loophole that creates abuse in the system.

The energy portions of the legislation run far fewer pages, but include rollbacks of climate-change strategies President Joe Biden signed into law in the Inflation Reduction Act.

It proposes rescinding funds for a range of energy loans and investment programs while providing expedited permitting for natural gas development and oil pipelines.

Associated Press writer Amanda Seitz contributed to this report.

House Republicans released a highly anticipated plan late Sunday to slash roughly $900 billion in spending over the next decade, including by imposing work requirements on Medicaid, to help pay for President Trump’s “big, beautiful” agenda bill.

The proposal from the Energy and Commerce Committee also calls for eliminating climate change initiatives in former President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, rolling back other so-called “green energy” projects and clawing back unspent funds on loans and grants.

The Energy and Commerce panel had been assigned to come up with more than half of the $1.5 trillion in total cuts House Republicans are eyeing for Trump’s marquee legislation.

5 Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Brett Guthrie rolled out the spending cut plan Sunday evening. House Committee on Energy and Commerce

The committee’s main job was figuring out what to do about Medicaid, which had a roughly $618 billion federal budget in fiscal year 2024 and provides insurance to more than 70 million low-income Americans.

Medicaid is a distinct program from Medicare, which provides health insurance to Americans 65 and older. The GOP plan also makes some reforms to Medicare, but no significant cuts.

The Republican proposal calls for entitlement reform by:

Medicaid proposal

A mandated 80-hour-per-month work requirement on able-bodied adults ages 19 – 64 enrolled in the program. Volunteer work and school would count toward the requirement.

States that enrolled in the Affordable Care Act expansion of Medicaid will see federal reimbursement rates drop from 90 to 80% if illegal immigrants are part of the program.

Medicaid beneficiaries with incomes over the federal poverty line ($15,650) have to pay up to $35 per medical service.

Requires eligibility checks on expanded Medicaid enrollees every six months. The Biden administration did them annually.

State Medicaid programs can’t reimburse healthcare providers, such as hospitals, more than Medicare does.

States are banned from adding or increasing provider taxes to help finance their portion of Medicaid costs.

Ban on Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) funding for gender affirming care.

Restrictions on large abortion providers from getting Medicaid funding.

Bars “middlemen” pharmacy benefit managers from charging higher prices to Medicaid than they actually pay for drugs.

5 House Speaker Mike Johnson is working with the various factions of the GOP to get the marquee bill through Congress. Getty Images

These measures could lead to 8.6 million Americans losing health insurance and $715 billion worth of cuts over a 10-year period, according to an initial Congressional Budget Office estimate requested by Democrats.

“Undoubtedly, Democrats will use this as an opportunity to engage in fear-mongering and misrepresent our bill as an attack on Medicaid,” Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed published Sunday about the plan.

“In reality, it preserves and strengthens Medicaid for children, mothers, people with disabilities and the elderly—for whom the program was designed,” he added. “Washington can’t afford to undermine the program further by subsidizing capable adults who choose not to work.”

Other spending cuts and reforms in the plan

In addition to dramatically overhauling Medicaid to reduce costs, the plan also calls for wide-ranging reforms to Medicare and energy policy.

Authorizes the federal government to auction wireless spectrum to rake in an estimated $88 billion in revenue.

Gives Medicare physicians an inflationary pay increase.

Requires more transparency for pharmacy benefit managers (“middlemen” price negotiators) in Medicare Part D, the component of Medicare that helps retirees pay for prescription drugs.

Diminishes Medicare’s ability to negotiate drug prices directly under the Inflation Reduction Act.

Delays the Biden administration’s nursing home staffing standard until 2035. That rule requires nurses to spend 3.48 hours tending to each resident per day.

Ends the Biden-era electric vehicle mandate for two-thirds of new car sales to be EVS by 2032, which Guthrie believes can save as much as $105 billion.

Set up a fast-track system for permitting natural gas if applicants pay either 1% of a project’s costs or $10 million, whichever amount is fewer.

5 Moderate Republicans are not happy with some of the cuts being proposed. AP

‘Morally wrong and politically suicidal’

GOP plans to reform Medicaid have proven be controversial, with moderate Republicans opposing significant reductions and Democrats have accused the GOP of gutting federal health care funding for the poor.

On the Senate side, Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said the House proposal could be a dealbreaker, calling it “morally wrong and politically suicidal.”

“A noisy contingent of corporatist Republicans — call it the party’s Wall Street wing — is urging Congress to ignore all that and get back to the old-time religion: corporate giveaways, preferences for capital and deep cuts to social insurance,” Hawley wrote in a scathing New York Times op-ed published Monday.

5 Sen. Josh Hawley indicated there will be a fight in the Senate if House Republicans slash Medicaid. Getty Images

“This wing of the party wants Republicans to build our big, beautiful bill around slashing health insurance for the working poor. But that argument is both morally wrong and politically suicidal.”

At the same time, fiscal hawks have warned that a failure to adequately reduce spending will be a dealbreaker for them. Many see the House goal of $1.5 trillion in cuts as the floor, not the ceiling.

“Medicaid was never meant to be this expansive,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) wrote in an op-ed published Saturday. “We have a duty to safeguard taxpayers and ensure that Medicaid does not bankrupt us. Cut the waste. Cut the fraud. Cut the abuse.”

House and Senate Republicans have never reached an agreement on the total amount to cut, so the two sides passed a budget resolution last month that gave dueling instructions to both chambers.

That blueprint called for the House to find at least $1.5 trillion in cuts and the Senate to find $4 billion, with the understanding that both chambers will reach consensus while drafting the final bill — though the House is widely seen as taking the lead on spending reductions.

How much will the plan save?

The CBO estimated that the House package will reduce the deficit by up to $880 billion between 2025 and 2034. Privately, Guthrie has suggested it will save over $900 billion during that timeframe.

The House-approved blueprint for the “big, beautiful” bill had instructed the Energy and Commerce Committee to find $880 billion in savings, the Education and Workforce Committee to find $330 billion, the Agriculture Committee $230 billion and the Financial Services Committee $100 billion — all over a decade, for a total of $1.54 trillion in savings.

The final package would come with a $6.9 trillion price tag over a 10-year period, according to an analysis from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

Republicans are striving to extend Trump’s 2017 tax cuts and eliminate taxes on tips, Social Security and overtime pay while boosting spending on border security, energy exploration and national defense.

5 President Trump signed an executive order on drug pricing that he hopes will help reduce spending. REUTERS

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) was initially hoping to get the measure to Trump’s desk by Memorial Day, but others have suggested the Fourth of July as a more realistic goal.

Besides differences on Medicaid and spending cuts, Republicans are also divided over how to reform the state and local tax deduction (SALT), as well as whether or not to jack up taxes on wealthy Americans.

Republicans on the Energy and Commerce Committee will mark up their portion of the bill on Tuesday.

President Donald Trump’s wide-ranging interview with NBC News’ “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker tackled virtually every major policy issue the White House has touched in the more than three months since he took office again.

The pair discussed a broad variety of economic issues, including inflation, Trump’s tariffs and cryptocurrency — as well as the question of whether Trump was profiting off the presidency. They also delved into immigration issues during the hour-plus conversation, looking at border crossings, deportations and questions about due process, as well as budget issues, including how much money Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency has saved and whether Medicaid will see cuts.

The sit-down comes just after Trump marked his first 100 days in office, with the president discussing what he sees as his accomplishments during that time as well as what he expects from the next 100 days and beyond. But Trump at times bent the facts on various issues, either making outright false or misleading claims or, at other times, mischaracterizing data or other information.

Here are some of the more notable instances arranged by topic.

Economic and trade issues

Inflation and other costs

Trump said, “I was able to get down the costs. But even that, it takes awhile to get them down. But we got them down good.”

Later in the interview he said, “oil is down, gasoline is down, groceries are down, eggs.” And at another point, Trump said that “even mortgage rates are going down.”

This is partly true.

It is true that consumer price growth — a key inflation measure — has cooled during the first few months of Trump’s term, continuing a steady decline that traces back to the Biden administration. But some of the individual items that Trump referenced have not.

The latest figures, for March, showed that the consumer price index slowed to an annual rate of 2.4%, less than expected and below the 2.8% that came in the month before, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In addition, a 12-month measure of price growth that excludes volatile food and energy prices climbed 2.8%, the smallest annual increase for that so-called core reading since March 2021, according to BLS data. Inflation rose just 0.1% between February and March — below the 0.2% monthly reading seen in February.

However, economists have expressed broad concerns that Trump’s tariff agenda could bring renewed price increases or inflation. Several major companies, including Stanley Black & Decker and Procter & Gamble, have said they are either likely to raise prices or have already started to raise prices.

Meanwhile, government and economic data also shows that the price of crude oil has declined consistently in the months since Trump took office — in part on concerns about slowing economic growth. However, on average across the nation, the prices of gasoline have not consistently gone down since Trump took office, according to economic and government data.

Trump added specific details to his claims on lower gasoline prices, saying, “Did you see gasoline is now below, in many cases, in many states, below $2 a gallon? $1.98, $1.99, $1.97?”

Wholesale gasoline did hit $1.98 in the past week, but that’s not the number that reflects what U.S. consumers are paying at the pump. AAA’s fuel prices data on Friday showed that no state had an average gasoline price below $2.66 a gallon, which was the average price listed in Mississippi. The organization’s national gasoline price average as of Friday was $3.18 a gallon.

Prices of groceries also have not declined. And the retail price of eggs also remains stubbornly high, according to the most recent government data, but it has come down off the peak in many places. It is also true that the wholesale price of eggs has declined, though that has not yet affected the retail prices that consumers pay at the grocery store.

Mortgage rates have fluctuated over the last year, but only by small margins, and have also remained elevated compared to their historic lows during the Covid-19 pandemic. The average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage was 6.76% for the week ending May 1 — roughly the same level it was during November and December, slightly lower than January and slightly higher than March, according to Freddie Mac.

Auto tariffs

At another point, Trump said, “What about the car business? They’re going to make a fortune because of the tariffs.”

This is too early to know.

Even after Trump carved out a break for U.S. automakers on some of his most sweeping tariffs, many car companies continue to say they’re likely to take a massive financial hit because of the policy. General Motors CEO Mary Barra, for example, said in a letter to investors on Thursday that Trump’s tariffs could subtract as much as $5 billion from the company’s profits this year.

Other major U.S. car manufacturers have praised Trump for revising his tariffs on automakers in recent days, even as their financial outlook remains cloudy. Auto industry analysts have told NBC News that car prices could increase this summer as tariffs begin to take effect.

Questions about profiting from the presidency and cryptocurrency

In the interview, Trump denied that he was profiting from the presidency.

Welker asked him specifically about his cryptocurrency token, called $TRUMP. In a two-day span last month, Trump and his allies made nearly $900,000 in trading fees from that token, according to blockchain data company Chainalysis.

The spike followed an announcement on the coin’s official website that the top 220 holders of the token were promised dinner with the president.

Welker, referring to that situation, asked Trump to respond to the notion that he is “profiting from the presidency.”

Trump replied, “I’m not profiting from anything.”

Welker pressed Trump again, asking him, “So you’re not profiting off of the cryptocurrency at all?”

“I haven’t even looked,” Trump replied, adding that “if I own stock in something, and I do a good job, and the stock market goes up, I guess I’m profiting.”

The $TRUMP coin jumped more than 50% on the dinner news. About 80% of the $TRUMP token supply is controlled by the Trump Organization and affiliates, according to the project’s website.

Campaign finance and government accountability experts told NBC News last week that the coin and dinner scenario marked an ethics breach — though it was unlikely there was anything illegal about it. But some Republican lawmakers who are Trump allies have expressed concern, while prominent critics, including Democratic Sens. Adam Schiff of California and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, have urged the U.S. Office of Government Ethics to investigate.

Trump and members of his family have faced repeated accusations dating back to Trump’s first term that they profited from his presidency. Republicans have typically defended them as unremarkable continuations of Trump’s long business career.

Investments in the U.S.

At another point, Trump said that “in just a short period of time — a matter of a couple of months — we have the largest number ever in history invested in the United States and committed.”

“We have between, guaranteed, spoken for and people that are going to make a decision and announce it pretty soon, close to $9 trillion.”

It’s not entirely clear where the $9 trillion figure comes from, although the White House announced on April 29 that it had secured more than $5 trillion in new investments in the U.S. so far in Trump’s second term.

Those include the announcement of a $500 billion investment in U.S. manufacturing by Apple, which Trump referred to in his interview, as well as $500 billion investment plans announced by NVIDIA and by a coalition of companies including SoftBank and Oracle.

These investments, however, effectively amount to promises, and some announcements have included previously disclosed plans. And they can change with economic conditions and other economic factors.

Trade deficit

Trump claimed that the trade deficit under Biden meant that “we lost 5 to 6 billion dollars a day.”

This is a mischaracterization of the data: The annual trade deficit for the U.S. in 2024 was about $918 billion, according to government figures. Sliced up in an average daily rate, that would be about $2.5 billion a day — less than Trump’s claims.

More importantly, however, trade experts take issue with Trump’s characterization of a trade deficit as “losing” money. A trade deficit refers to when a country is buying more goods and services from another nation than it is selling back to that nation. While it is integrally related to manufacturing, it has nothing to do with the concept of a nation making or losing money, and economic experts have explained that a trade deficit doesn’t necessarily mean the U.S. is losing money.

Immigration, border, crime, deportations

Migrants and crime

On multiple occasions Trump referred to violent criminals who were in the country illegally — explaining that he was elected to kick them out of the country.

“One of the primary reasons I was elected was to get people out of our country that were allowed. We have prisoners. We have murderers. We have terrorists in our country. We have people from mental institutions that are seriously insane. They all came in through Biden’s open border policy. And I was elected to get them out and to seal the border,” he said, adding: “These are really some really bad, criminal people, and they’re here illegally.”

He added later that there were “11,888 murderers” in the U.S. illegally and that “many people have been killed, maimed, badly hurt by illegal immigrants that came over.”

Instances of crimes committed by people who entered the country illegally have garnered significant attention in recent years, in part from Trump. One of the few pieces of legislation he has signed this year was the Laken Riley Act, named after a nursing student who was killed by a Venezuelan citizen who entered the U.S. illegally. The act requires U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain undocumented immigrants who have been arrested, charged with or convicted of certain criminal offenses. However, there is no evidence of a broad, migrant-driven crime wave in the U.S.

Violent crime has declined, according to the latest available data. Violent crime was down about 3% from 2022 to 2023, and property crime took a similar drop of 2.4%, the FBI reported in September. The most serious crimes, murder and non-negligent manslaughter, dropped an estimated 11.6% — marking the largest single-year decline in two decades. Several years of national data show that crime has consistently been falling in cities and towns across the U.S.

There is little hard data about levels of crime committed by migrants once they’re inside the U.S. But criminologists have consistently found that immigrants commit crimes at a lower rate than native-born Americans.

As far as the 11,888 figure, Trump appears to be describing the existing data inaccurately. According to ICE data provided to Congress in September, more than 13,000 noncitizens who were convicted of homicide here or abroad were living outside of ICE detention centers. However, it’s not truthful to cast all of their entries into the U.S. as recent or due to Biden policies.

It’s not clear when many of these migrants crossed into the U.S. But they would have entered the country over the last four decades, or even earlier, according to the Department of Homeland Security. The number includes noncitizens incarcerated in state and federal prisons, but it’s not clear how many are.

Due process

Trump blamed “activist judges” for ruling that “you don’t have the right to take out murderers and — and people that you don’t even want to talk about.”

“These are really some really bad, criminal people. And they’re here illegally. So, you know they talk about — your next question will be due process. But they talk about due process, but do you get due process when you’re here illegally?” Trump continued.

During another point in the interview, Welker asked Trump specifically about Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was deported to a prison in El Salvador in March. A federal judge, an appeals court and the Supreme Court have all ordered the administration to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return. Lawyers for the Justice Department have acknowledged in court filings that the deportation was a mistake because an immigration judge had ruled that while Abrego Garcia could be deported, he could not be sent back to his native El Salvador. But administration officials have also said that because Abrego Garcia is in custody in El Salvador, the United States does not have the legal authority to bring him back.

“This is the point, sir, about due process,” Welker said. “The Constitution says every person, citizens and noncitizens, deserve due process. Why not push to have him come back, present all of that evidence in court, let a judge decide,” Welker asked.

Trump replied, “I’ll leave that to the lawyers, and I’ll leave that to the attorney general of the United States.”

This topic requires a lot of context.

But ultimately, legal scholars — as well as Trump’s secretary of state, Marco Rubio — widely agree that the Fifth Amendment’s “due process” clause applies to all people in the U.S.

In its efforts to deport some immigrants it claims are in the country illegally, the Trump administration has made novel legal arguments or cited laws that have not previously been used for peacetime immigration enforcement to try to implement immediate deportations without hearings. In several recent orders, however, the Supreme Court has ruled that these immigrants are entitled to what can be interpreted as due process rights.

For example, the Trump administration has pressed the courts to allow the immediate deportations of immigrants it accuses of being members of the Tren de Aragua gang under the Alien Enemies Act, without giving them a chance to plead their case before a judge.

In that case, the Supreme Court asked the administration to pause the deportations of some of those Venezuelan men after attorneys for the men asked for them not to be deported “before the American judicial system can afford them due process.” The Supreme Court also ruled earlier in April to allow the Trump administration to move forward with some deportations under the AEA as long as detainees “receive notice after the date of this order that they are subject to removal under the Act.”

There have been other examples, however, of the Trump administration moving forward on deportations and visa revocations without due process. For example, the administration has revoked more than 300 student visas. In some of those cases, students have been apprehended and held in detention centers with little warning and few details about why they were being held.

Rubio has defended the administration’s deportation efforts, but told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” last week, “Yes, of course,” after he was asked whether citizens and noncitizens in the U.S. are entitled to due process.

In Welker’s interview with Trump, she pointed out Rubio’s comments, saying that “your secretary of state says everyone who’s here, citizens and noncitizens, deserve due process.”

“Do you agree?” she asked.

Trump replied, “I don’t know. I’m not — I’m not a lawyer.”

Referring to the Fifth Amendment, he added, “it seems — it might say that, but if you’re talking about that, then we’d have to have a million or 2 million or 3 million trials. We have thousands of people that are, some murderers and some drug dealers and some of the worst people on Earth.”

“And I was elected to get them the hell out of here, and the courts are holding me from doing it,” Trump said.

The border

Trump also said, “We have the best border in the history of our country.”

“It’s really secure,” Trump added at another point.

“Isn’t it a beautiful thing when you say, ‘It’s the most secure it’s ever been in the history of our country,’” Trump said.

Using the metric of border crossings and the available data, this statement is true.

The number of border crossers has plummeted, according to ICE data NBC News obtained in March. Encounters along the border were the lowest they have been since tracking began 25 years ago, that data showed.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection said last month that March marked the “lowest southwest border crossings in history.”

In the interview, Welker acknowledged that “border crossings are at their lowest level ever recorded.”

Other data also showed that ICE agents deported fewer immigrants in February than they did under the Biden administration during the same month a year ago.

DOGE and government spending

DOGE

Trump said his Department of Government Efficiency, the division led by tech billionaire Elon Musk that was tasked with cutting federal spending and staffing, “found $160 billion worth of fraud, waste and abuse.”

That number is all but impossible to fact-check, largely because DOGE’s own, evolving accounting of its work has been laden with errors and misleading claims, NBC News previously reported. Musk has acknowledged that his team has made mistakes and will make more, but he said they will strive to correct them.

The group’s purported savings figure also doesn’t take into account the expenses related to its work.

In addition, multiple news outlets, including The New York Times and CBS News, have cited an analysis from the the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service stating that “firings, re-hirings, lost productivity and paid leave of thousands of workers” brought on by DOGE’s actions will actually cost at least $135 billion in the current fiscal year — which would approximately offset the alleged savings in that period, pushing any potential benefit down the road. A White House spokesperson responded to the analysis by telling The New York Times, “It’s important to realize that doing nothing has a cost.”

Medicaid

Separately, in a conversation about Trump’s sweeping tax bill that Republicans are currently drafting, he said he would veto it if it had cuts to Medicaid.

“What happens if it comes to your desk, has the tax cuts, but also cuts to Medicaid? Would you veto that?” Welker asked.

Trump initially said, “Well, we’re not doing that,” before adding, “I would if they were cutting it, but they’re not cutting it.”

“We’re not cutting Medicaid, we’re not cutting Medicare, and we’re not cutting Social Security,” Trump added.

It’s too early to know exactly where this will go, as the specifics of Republicans’ big tax and spending bill have not yet been released.

Republicans, however, have clashed over whether and how to cut Medicaid — and the program appears to be the one major slice of the U.S. budget that GOP lawmakers have put on the table for cuts. Some House Republicans, for example, are suggesting slashing federal funding for Medicaid and advocating for states to jump in to cover more of it. That policy is known as reducing the Federal Medical Assistance Percentage, or FMAP.

Politics and the 2020 election

2020 election

Referring to the 2020 race that he lost to Joe Biden, Trump said that “the election was rigged — the facts are in and it’s still being litigated.”

This is false.

Trump lost the 2020 election, and allegations made by him and many of his political allies claiming widespread voter fraud during that race have been repeatedly debunked, disproven and rejected, including in courts across the U.S.

Welker pointed that out in the interview, noting to Trump, “You did take your case to court more than 60 times and didn’t win those cases.”

Teamsters endorsement

Trump also said the Teamsters union endorsed his 2024 presidential bid, which isn’t true.

“The Teamsters did,” he said, during a discussion about other union heads who didn’t endorse him, as well as supportive comments about his tariffs from the head of the United Auto Workers (who also did not endorse Trump).

The Teamsters declined to endorse a candidate for president in 2024 — though that itself broke precedent.

It was the first time in decades that the union, which at 1.3 million members is one of the largest in the world, hasn’t backed a candidate in the presidential election. The Teamsters, which represents truck drivers, freight workers and others, had for decades endorsed Democratic presidential candidates, including Hillary Clinton in 2016, Joe Biden in 2020, Barack Obama in both of his presidential runs, John Kerry in 2004 and Al Gore in 2000. The union released data indicating support for Trump among its membership when it announced it would not be endorsing in the 2024 race.

Teamsters President Sean O’Brien also spoke last year at the Republican convention, where he challenged the GOP on union support.