AMNA NAWAZ: Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle search for answers on how the military carried out strikes on alleged Venezuelan drug boats, and a special election in Tennessee could serve as a bellwether for the midterms.

To discuss that and more, we turn now to our Politics Monday duo.

That is 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.

AMNA NAWAZ: As we reported earlier, we know President Trump meeting with his national security team to talk about the pressure campaign on Venezuela.

And you both saw today, as Nick reported earlier, both Democratic and Republican lawmakers expressing concerns about that now confirmed second strike on a drug boat even as there were survivors in the water.

Tam, you heard the White House say earlier that the commander who ordered that strike was well within his authority.

Is that explanation enough to quiet the concerns of lawmakers?

TAMARA KEITH: I don't think it is, in part because we're also getting other further explanations now coming from defense officials who are speaking off the record on background.

There's just a lot of movement here, a lot going on, and there are a lot of questions.

There's also a political challenge for the White House, because other than saying these are drug terror -- narco-terrorists, the White House hasn't really built a strong public case for this.

Typically, if the United States is getting involved in a military operation, the level of troop buildup and other members of the military that are now in that region, that level of buildup, you would expect a concerted public campaign to build support.

And that really hasn't happened.

The support isn't clearly there.

And you also have cracks in the MAGA coalition, because you had people like Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, most notably, saying, hey, you said no foreign wars, you said no regime change.

What exactly are you doing?

AMNA NAWAZ: Amy, we're seeing those cracks in the party.

Is that crack filtering down to the base as well?

AMY WALTER, The Cook Political Report: Well, what's interesting, speaking to this point about not making the public case, there was a CBS poll out, I think it was last week, and 76 percent of Americans said, we don't really know what the Trump administration is doing here.

They'd like to have more information.

Now, overall, if you ask people do you think it's a good idea to call these terrorists, these people who are in these boats or delivering drugs, terrorists and then we, the United States military, can target those boats, a majority of people agree with that, so the actual -- that actual piece.

But what they don't have, what the public doesn't feel is that they have adequate information about what the administration is actually trying to do writ large and why they're doing it.

As for the cracks, I mean, I just think the fact that you have Democrats and Republicans in the Senate and in the House saying we need to investigate this is a sign of more pushback from a Congress that has really allowed the president to move forward on a whole lot of things that normally have congressional oversight.

So it's really the first chance that we're getting to see a bipartisan push against some of the president's actions.

AMNA NAWAZ: We will see how far that push does move ahead.

But I do want to ask you about the other news about the acting U.S.

attorney in New Jersey.

That's Alina Habba, who's President Trump's former attorney.

After months of back-and-forth over the validity of her appointment, a federal appeals court today upheld the lower court ruling disqualifying her from that role.

All that comes in the context of this, a Politico report that says President Trump set a record in his first year for the most nominees withdrawn from the Senate, largely due to vetting issues and pushback from lawmakers.

Tam, he's withdrawn 57 nominations.

That's nearly double what Joe Biden did in his first year and more than double his rate in his first term.

What do you take away from all this?

TAMARA KEITH: Yes.

And the remarkable thing is that, as Amy says, this is a Congress that hasn't, at least right publicly... pushed back very much on this president.

One thing that stands out to me about the president withdrawing nominations, yes, some of that is coming from congressional pushback, but some of it is also, you had for instance, the NASA administrator, the nominee for NASA administrator, Trump -- he was about to get Senate approval.

Trump withdrew that nomination because he was mad at Elon Musk and somebody said, oh, this guy made donations to Democrats and said -- Trump said, well, he's not loyal enough.

Then, months later, he renominates him.

So there's been just a ton of churn in that area, but you haven't seen the sort of Cabinet-level turnover or staff turnover that you saw in the first Trump term, in part because the president has surrounded himself with loyalists.

AMY WALTER: Right.

And those loyalists, we thought we might have seen more pushback from Congress on some of those picks that were controversial.

We didn't see that on the Cabinet level.

On the judicial level, we have seen some of it.

Now, some of it is really partisan, but it's notable there was a Bloomberg law analysis that found of all the U.S.

attorneys that the president has appointed, the ones that have the most, as they describe it, unorthodox backgrounds, so people who we could say may be not qualified as much for a job like this are almost exclusively in places that are blue areas or Democratic-leaning areas.

And so what we saw in New Jersey was a perfect example of this.

These are also places where the president has maybe some specific people in mind that he wanted to see prosecuted.

Obviously, we saw that with Jim Comey in Virginia, who was another U.S.

attorney who there are questions about whether she is able to legally keep her job, and this case in New Jersey, similarly about - - well, actually, New York with Letitia James.

AMNA NAWAZ: Right.

AMY WALTER: Yes.

Yes.

AMNA NAWAZ: Let's look ahead to tomorrow now.

I do want to get both of your takes on this, because voters in one Tennessee congressional district are going to head to the polls to vote for a new member of the House.

Amy, I want to start with you on this, because this is a district President Trump won very strongly just last year.

AMY WALTER: Yes.

AMNA NAWAZ: But a recent Emerson poll shows the Republican candidate in the race ahead by just two points.

AMY WALTER: Right.

AMNA NAWAZ: What's going on in this race?

Why is it so close?

AMY WALTER: This shouldn't be close at all.

You're exactly right.

And, to me, it's just the continuation of a trend we have seen throughout most of this year, which is, these districts that Trump won overwhelmingly in the previous election now are coming in a little bit less overwhelming for the Republican candidate.

It tells us that the president's overall approval rating, while it's a big problem for Republicans in districts that he won by a small margin, it's also becoming a problem in districts that he won by larger margins.

And I expect -- and The Cook Political Report still rates this as a seat that Republicans should hold on to.

But the fact that Republicans are having to spend money here or having to put effort into this should be a warning sign for any Republican even in a district that Trump carried by a pretty healthy margin in the last election.

It's also notable that the ads that are running in this congressional district run by Republicans -- again, this is district Trump won.

They should be saying things like, hey, don't you want this candidate to come and put Donald Trump's agenda through?

Don't you love Donald Trump?

They don't really mention Donald Trump.

TAMARA KEITH: That's what the primary was about, but not the general election.

AMY WALTER: Yes, not the general election.

AMNA NAWAZ: Well, Tam, pick up on that, though.

Speaking of Republican efforts, Speaker Mike Johnson was there today.

We have seen Kamala Harris there in recent weeks as well.

President Trump posted online about this race, telling people don't take this race for granted.

He's remotely taking part in a tele-rally.

What does all of this tell you about how Republicans are looking at the race?

TAMARA KEITH: Yes, don't take this race for granted is President Trump's message because he has determined, as he said after the elections in Virginia and New Jersey, if I'm not on the ballot, Republicans just don't show up.

So this is him sort of projecting, hey, might keep a little arm's distance, little distance there.

The remarkable thing is, in his first term, he was doing political travel immediately after Election Day all through that first year.

He was campaigning in special elections.

He was on the road.

He has not been doing domestic political travel.

He just hasn't.

He hasn't been out there selling his agenda and he hasn't really used his political capital for candidates in these special elections and other elections.

And you saw that with Virginia and New Jersey.

He didn't travel there.

It's not even that far to go to Virginia.

And he isn't traveling for this race either.

AMNA NAWAZ: Amy, fair to say this is a bellwether for the midterms?

AMY WALTER: I think it's a bellwether in the sense that, if Republicans are having to fight to defend seats like this, that sets up for a very, very difficult midterm election.

AMNA NAWAZ: And we shall see.

Amy Walter, Tamara Keith, great to see you both.

Thank you.

AMY WALTER: You're welcome.

TAMARA KEITH: You're welcome.