GEOFF BENNETT: The first few months of President Trump's second term, including some selections for key jobs in his administration, have sparked new questions about his complicated history with elevating extremist views.

Our White House correspondent, Laura Barron-Lopez, takes a closer look.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: President Trump has a long history of amplifying messages and figures embraced by white supremacists and other domestic extremists, from spreading birther conspiracy theories about former President Obama's citizenship, to lying about the outcome of the 2020 election, to pardoning the rioters who violently stormed the Capitol in 2021.

Now, in his second term, he's doubled down, staffing key positions with people who have spread racist conspiracies and defended January 6 insurrectionists who assaulted police.

Joining me now to discuss is Jacob Ware.

He's a research fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations studying domestic terrorism and counterterrorism.

Jacob, thank you so much for being here.

JACOB WARE, Council on Foreign Relations: Thank you.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Let's start with how the president's second term compares to his first term, specifically when it comes to who he is elevating in his administration and the ideological views that they promote and they're known for.

How would you compare the two terms?

JACOB WARE: Well, I think we had an expression during the first term.

We said there were adults in the room, serious, long-term professionals in national security and other fields who staffed the administration and who kept the trains on the tracks.

This time, there are far fewer of those individuals.

And I think that's encapsulated actually in the January 6 legacy, where this time President Trump basically has surrounded himself with people who either believe or are willing to lie to him in saying that the January 6 election riot was legitimate, was legal, and that the election was stolen.

So, immediately, you have people who cannot look at a truth and see it for what it is, that he lost that election.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: President Trump has come under criticism for appointing several people who have shared extremist views.

Those include Ed Martin, the president's pardon attorney, who previously defended January 6 rioters and praised a Nazi sympathizer, Paul Ingrassia, a former podcast host with a history of racist comments who also said that January 6 should be a national holiday.

He's going to now lead the Office of Special Counsel.

What message does it send that the administration is further embracing people who have ties to or who have spread extremist views?

JACOB WARE: I think the message is that loyalty trumps expertise.

Loyalty trumps serious policy.

It trumps national security.

It's more important for somebody to be loyal to Trump, loyal to the MAGA doctrine than to be a serious professional who's going to implement and make hard choices in our national security space.

Of course, one of the individuals you mentioned, according to your reporting, Laura, Paul Ingrassia, has said that descendants of slaves should be paying slave owners reparations.

I mean, that is an overtly racist statement, and this is somebody who's leading the Office of Special Counsel.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: The president has also embraced figures and symbols that perpetuate antisemitism in some cases, including he posted a meme on social media recently that features Pepe the Frog, a symbol of white supremacist movements.

And the president previously dined with white supremacist Nick Fuentes.

And his Bedminster club hosted Timothy Hale-Cusanelli, who prosecutors called a Nazi sympathizer and who has a history of antisemitic rants.

The president says that his attacks on universities, that his restrictions that he's placing on universities like Harvard are in the name of combating antisemitism.

But does this track record show the opposite?

JACOB WARE: Well, actually, Laura, this is something that does go back to the first administration, the place where we saw this rapprochement between Trump and the violent far right.

The first time we saw that was at Charlottesville, where a white supremacist attack happened on behalf of an overtly neo-Nazi cause with people who were there as overt neo-Nazis.

And he, of course, said there were very fine people on both sides.

Years later, he told the Proud Boys during a presidential debate to stand back and stand by.

So President Trump has repeatedly, during his time in office, appealed to not just people who have what you might call far right ideology or views, but even people who are willing to act out in violence on behalf of those views.

What is less clear to me is whether President Trump shares these memes, these ideas deliberately, whether it's a dog whistle, whether it's unknown.

But either way, it's clearly a message being sent to the far right, whether overt or covert, that they have a defender in the White House.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Trump's pardon attorney, Ed Martin, is now weighing whether or not to pardon Stewart Rhodes, who is the founder of the far right militia group Oath Keepers.

Rhodes was convicted of seditious conspiracy after the January 6 attack at the Capitol.

And Martin has also recently suggested that he's looking to pardon the men convicted of plotting to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer.

ED MARTIN, U.S.

Pardon Attorney: On the pardon front, we can't leave these guys behind.

In my opinion, these are victims just like January 6.

And so we are processing that.

And I have complete confidence that we're going to get a hard look at it and the president will want to know the facts about it, want to see the relationship.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: You talked about signals being sent from this White House.

What signal does it send?

JACOB WARE: Well, the weaponization of the pardon power, the abuse of the pardon power, I think is one of the great concerns of this administration so far, because, again, it's not just symbolizing that these ideologies are welcome.

The January 6 defendants and the Gretchen Whitmer plot defendants, they were not prosecuted for their ideologies.

They were prosecuted for violent plots that were either planned or carried out.

So, again, the message is not necessarily that your ideologies, your hatred of the Democratic Party or of government is legitimized.

It's that violence on behalf of those ideologies is legal.

The historical record, I fear, is not going to say that January 6 was a terrorist attack or an insurgency, an insurrection, a coup d'etat, whatever word we would want to use against the American government.

It will recognize that attack as, that incident as a patriotic protest on behalf of a stolen election.

And that is the legacy.

We are watching January 6, we're watching the 2020 election be rewritten in real time.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Jacob Ware, thank you for your time.

JACOB WARE: Thank you.