If it's Wednesday, new details emerged surrounding President Trump's 11th hour decision to issue sweeping

pardons for all January 6 defendants, including violent offenders on day one, as the president and his

allies in Congress defend the controversial move. Plus, the White House says they're set to deploy about

1,500 more active-duty troops to the southern border,

as the Trump administration beefs up border enforcement and threatens to prosecute legal officials who get in their way.

And the debate over disaster relief is heating up on Capitol Hill as Republican leaders push for conditioning federal aid to California

in the middle of an historic wildfire emergency and massive recovery operation.

Welcome to Meet the Press Now. I'm Garrett Hake in Washington, where President Trump is full steam ahead with his sweeping second-term agenda as he defends pardoning violent January 6th rioters,

deploys troops to the southern border, and takes new steps to reshape the federal workforce in his image.

It comes as we're learning new details about the president's last-minute decision to pardon virtually every person charged in connection with the January 6th attack on the Capitol, a decision that

was made just days before the inauguration, according to two officials who worked on Trump's

transition, surprising even some of his own aides.

The move came after Trump himself publicly indicated he wasn't going to pardon violent rioters,

telling me the press last month that he would issue pardons on a case-by-case basis.

The White House yesterday, my colleague Peter Alexander, pressed the president on his decision.

You would agree that it's never acceptable to assault a police officer, right?

So then if I can, among those you pardon, DJ Rodriguez, he drove a stun gun into the neck of a D.C. police officer who was abducted by the mob that day.

He later confessed on video to the FBI and pleaded guilty for his crimes.

Why does he deserve a pardon?

Well, I don't know. Was it a pardon? Because we're looking at commutes and we're looking at

pardons. Okay, well, we'll take a look at everything. These people have already served a long

period of time, and I made a decision to give a pardon. Joe Biden gave a pardon yesterday to a lot

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