Welcome to Meet the Press now.

I'm Kristen Welker in Washington on day 31 of the government shutdown.

We just got a pair of rulings from two separate federal judges on the fate of a crucial food assistance program that is set

to lapse from more than 40 million Americans tomorrow. We will have the very latest on those

rulings about that food program called SNAP and the reaction from the White House in just a

moment. But we do want to begin with another major story. The FBI saying they have, quote,

thwarted a potential

terrorist attack in Michigan with agents making five arrests in Dearborn and Inkster.

Senior law enforcement officials say the alleged planned attack had connections to ISIS extremism

and that it had a potential connection to Halloween with the suspects allegedly referring to, quote, Pumpkin Day.

It remains unclear what the attack was planned to happen today or whether specific targets had

been identified. The investigation is still ongoing, but officials say there is no ongoing

threat to residents in the area. FBI director Cash Patel was the first to report the arrest, sharing the

news of the alleged plot on social media early this morning. Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer

thanked the FBI for its, quote, swift action in making the arrests in social media posts,

but did not give further details on the matter. The FBI has yet to give a briefing.

Joining me now to discuss all of this is NBCD's national law enforcement correspondent, Tom

Winter. So Tom, bring us up to speed here. What's the very latest that your sources are telling

you about this alleged terror plot? So, Kristen, it's very much an active investigation.

I think one of the things that's potentially interesting and also potentially concerning about this plot is that this is more in line with the type of activity we saw approximately a decade ago in the 2014-2015 time period where you had a group of individuals kind of working together, thinking of a couple of cases out of Boston in the New York area,

particularly. We had a couple of people working together, communicating together, talking about

doing something. So there's still that kind of a hearing the message of ISIS, hearing the

...