Welcome to Meet the Press Now.

I'm Peter Alexander here in Washington, where we are following two major stories as we speak with President Trump and the Defense Secretary, Pete Higgs,

addressing a massive gathering of top military

generals and admirals today, focusing on lethality as the president speaks about using the military

to fight what he calls an enemy from within, waging a war from within, and fighting an invasion

from within. We're going to have a lot more on that in just a moment, but we do want to

begin with that breaking news and the clock is ticking as Congress is barreling toward a government

shutdown at midnight with party leaders trading blame and insults as agencies right now prepare

their contingency plans and the potential for mass layoffs. Today, President Trump said

his administration could take

irreversible actions during a shutdown. So the last person that wants to shut down is us now. With that

being said, we can do things during the shutdown that are irreversible, that are bad for them and

irreversible by them, like cutting vast numbers of people out,

cutting things that they like, cutting programs that they like. So they're taking a risk by having

a shutdown. It comes as leaders in both parties have largely retreated to their corners,

less than eight hours until the funding deadline after yesterday's last ditch meeting

with President Trump failed to deliver any breakthroughs.

Democratic Party leaders, Senator Chuck Schumer, Representative Hakeem Jeffries,

making it clear they have no plans to budge from their refusal to support a short-term funding bill

unless it addresses health care subsidies.

Trump admitted himself that he is using Americans as political pawns.

Democrats do not want to shut down. We stand ready to work with Republicans to find a bipartisan

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