AMNA NAWAZ: President Trump has given multiple lengthy interviews in recent days, and they have sparked as many questions as they have answers.

Our Politics Monday team is here to separate the substance from the noise.

That's Amy Walter of The Cook Political Report With Amy Walter and Tamara Keith of NPR.

Great to see you both.

TAMARA KEITH, National Public Radio: Good to be here.

AMY WALTER, The Cook Political Report: Hello.

AMNA NAWAZ: So we have been talking about, I know you have been following, there's a common thread in the president's recent interviews, just the number of times he references his lawyers, right, Tam, when he's asked about people who were deported or rescinding federal payments or whether he's going to run for a third term.

He says, I'm listening to my lawyers.

How much of this presidency relies on the interpretation of the lawyers around this president?

TAMARA KEITH: Yes, President Trump has long talked about his lawyers when he was out of office, when he's in office.

He's all about a stable of lawyers.

The interesting thing about him is that he considers the lawyers of the Justice Department also to be his lawyers, which is not actually the role of the Justice Department in a traditional administration.

He both wants arm's length and doesn't want arm's length depending on what he wants at any given moment.

But you have to remember that members of his administration, people who are around him now, they're not necessarily lawyers, but they spent the entire four years out of office thinking about new and different ways to push the boundaries of executive power, to use the laws that exist in novel ways to get what they wanted that they weren't able to do in the first administration.

And President Trump is someone who likes to be powerful and wants to try these things.

It is clear that his administration is trying many things that other presidents simply haven't tried, including former President Trump.

AMNA NAWAZ: Amy, when you look at this issue of due process, upholding the Constitution, are these the kinds of things that resonate with the electorate?

AMY WALTER: I think with certain parts of the electorate, yes.

But for those who are not paying as much attention to politics, what they're paying attention to is the impact of politics on their day-to-day lives.

These seem still very much like the kind of thing that would be on an exam in school much more than its impact on the lives that they're living.

On issues like the economy, on tariffs, they are very much keyed in on that.

On these issues, especially among people who, as I said, they're not necessarily seeking out news, those issues tend to be less resonant.

AMNA NAWAZ: And I know the economy, of course, was the number one issue for voters when they voted for President Trump.

He was asked about the economy and really who owns this moment in time for the American economy in that NBC interview.

Here's what the president had to say.

KRISTEN WELKER, Moderator, "Meet the Press": When does it become the Trump economy?

DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: It partially is right now, and I really mean this.

I think the good parts of the Trump economy and the bad parts of the Biden economy.

AMNA NAWAZ: Amy, over 100 days in, do the American people see it as a Biden economy or a Trump economy?

AMY WALTER: Well, in the polling done for NPR and PBS by Marist, no, they do see that this is really Trump's economy.

When asked the question about who do you think is responsible, 60 percent said Trump and only 39 percent basically said that this is still the hangover from Biden's economy.

So it is pretty clear at this point that, when voters are looking at the direction of the economy, why things are the way they are, they do put a lot of the responsibility on Donald Trump.

What's fascinating to me, especially in that whole interview, was the amount of time that the president spent on defense, basically trying to convince not just his interviewer, Kristen Welker from NBC, but the entire audience, that the things that they say they don't like, because we see in poll after poll, people say, we don't like tariffs, we don't think tariffs are good.

We think tariffs are a tax.

What he spent most of the time doing in that interview was convince -- trying to convince them that they are wrong and he is right.

What they are seeing or feeling or anxious about is not where things are.

And that, I think, is going to be the biggest challenge going forward because, Amna, as you very well know, the impact of tariffs has yet to really hit.

AMNA NAWAZ: Right.

AMY WALTER: Because these shipments that are not coming from China are going to start to hit us... AMNA NAWAZ: Yes, there is a lag.

AMY WALTER: ... May and June.

The lag, yes.

AMNA NAWAZ: Well, Tam, as you know, from the messaging perspective of this White House, the president is trying to convince people he's on top of the economy.

At the same time, he posted that gas is down to $1.98 a gallon, which it is not.

We checked.

And my colleague Kyle Midura found it's $3.12 a gallon.

That's the average price nationwide.

The lowest we could find anywhere was $2.19 at a station in Mississippi.

What does this tell you about the president?

Is he getting bad information or does he not know?

TAMARA KEITH: He could be talking about wholesale prices.

But let's just be clear.

When it comes to numbers in President Trump, he is often untethered from reality.

I will just give another example, egg prices.

And we should say, gas prices are coming down, just not as much as he says.

Same with eggs.

Egg prices, wholesale egg prices are down.

He says they're down 87 percent.

Last week, his own White House put out a memo and said it was around 50 percent, his own White House.

So President Trump and numbers are often a very loose relationship.

AMNA NAWAZ: As you guys know, we try to focus the conversation around the biggest headlines every week, but there's a lot of things we hear from the White House, Tam, that we just can't give more attention to because of the pure volume.

A couple of examples just from yesterday, the president last night posted on TRUTH Social, "Rebuild and open Alcatraz,' referring to the prison island that's been shuttered for over 60 years.

Also yesterday, he announced there's going to be 100 percent tariff on movies made outside of the United States, describing it as a national security threat.

How do you look at these messages?

Should we take them seriously or are they a distraction?

TAMARA KEITH: Well, "The Rock" was a really good movie about Alcatraz.

TAMARA KEITH: But other than that, President Trump has an incredible ability to generate attention.

And he markets himself.

He markets his ideas.

He gets people talking about him.

Whether these things become a reality or not, he has gotten a whole lot of airtime out of it.

And that's airtime not spent talking about concerns about tariffs or the price of dolls, which he says, well, maybe kids will just have to have fewer dolls.

AMY WALTER: Yes, and this is what I think we talked a lot about after 2024.

Democrats are still struggling with this idea that he can get in front of audiences that they can't.

And part of that is, when he talks about things like Alcatraz or the other issues, Greenland, et cetera, he is starting conversations in spaces that are not traditional media spaces, whether it's podcasts or YouTube channels.

And that keeps him in front of audiences that aren't necessarily keyed in on other issues and aren't watching the news as closely as some.

TAMARA KEITH: And these don't require a nuanced conversation.

It's just sort of -- it's ephemera and it can generate attention to the president.

AMNA NAWAZ: And we worked in a movie reference to "The Rock" as well.

AMNA NAWAZ: So, Tamara Keith, Amy Walter, always great to see you both.

Thank you.

TAMARA KEITH: You're welcome.

AMY WALTER: You're welcome.