Welcome to meet the press now.

We've been listening to President Trump, FBI director Cash Patel and Attorney

General Pam Bondi, speak about their mission to crack down on violent crime in the opening

months of the administration.

We will be keeping a very close eye on this event and will, of course, bring you back to it if the president takes questions from reporters. It comes as the Justice Department continues

to crack down on President Trump's political opponents, indicting New York Attorney General

Letitia James last week on a bank fraud charge.

Just weeks after indicting former FBI director James Comey for allegedly lying to Congress during testimony five years ago.

The White House, meanwhile, facing a legal setback today after federal judge temporarily blocked its effort to lay off thousands of federal employees during the ongoing government shutdown.

The judge accusing the Trump administration of taking advantage of the shutdown to make the cuts,

which she called illegal. And with that, starting us off, NBC News White House correspondent.

Monica Alba joins me now with NBC News Justice reporter Ryan Riley.

Monica, let me start with you at the White House. Your key

takeaways from this event so far that we're monitoring closely to see if he does, in fact,

take questions. Well, look, Kristen, I think this has been a priority for the President and for

the Department of Justice all summer long. And this is a White House that is trying to

tout what they see as the results of some

of these operations that they have had in various cities, of course, in Washington, D.C.

It's a little bit different in terms of how the president was able to take over the police

force here for 30 days. But there are still National Guard troops that are deployed in Washington

and elsewhere, as we are seeing, of course, these increasing clashes between some of those

troops, some federal law enforcement trying to help with immigration enforcement, and all of it

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