Welcome to Meet the Press Now. I'm Garrett Hake in Washington, where the White House finds itself on defense, facing new frustrations from President Trump's base and from voters writ large over issues tied to the economy,

affordability, and accountability, starting with new scrutiny over the president's ties to Jeffrey

Epstein after a batch of newly released emails revealed that the late convicted sex offender

viewed himself as the ultimate Trump insider. The president today lashing out on social media at members of his own

party for focusing on Epstein ahead of a vote next week in the House to try to force the

Justice Department to release all of the Epstein case files. The president also now calling on

his attorney general and the FBI to investigate Epstein's ties to prominent Democrats,

donors, and financial institutions.

Attorney General Pam Bondi announcing a short time later that she's appointing U.S. Attorney

Jay Clayton from the Southern District of New York to lead that investigation.

Mr. Trump is set to leave this evening for Mar-a-Lago after notably not taking questions from

reporters since the

Epstein saga once again flared up this week. The president also now on the defensive as some

in his MAGA base bristle over his handling of other issues, including the economy, after he spoke

about the need for more skilled foreign workers to come to the U.S. under what's called the H-1B visa program. And does that mean the H-1B visa thing will not be a big priority for your administration? Because if you want to raise wages for American workers, you can't flood the country with tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of foreign workers. But you also do have to bring in talent. Well, we have plenty of talented people here. No, you don't. No, bring in talent. We have plenty of talented people here.

No, you don't. No, you don't.

We don't have talented people here.

No, you don't have certain talents and people have to learn.

You can't take people off an unemployment, like an unemployment line and say, I'm going to put you into a factory who are going to make missiles.

And now, and perhaps an acknowledgement from the White House of affordability issues and that

the president's tariffs are raising prices on consumers, the administration says it will be

lowering tariffs on some key imports, including on coffee and bananas.

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