4/15/25: Trump Floats US Citizens To El Salvador, Trump Approval Craters, China Cuts Off Boeing

Summary

Detailed Summary of "Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar" Episode Released on April 15, 2025

Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar delves into critical geopolitical and domestic issues impacting the United States. In this episode titled "Trump Floats US Citizens To El Salvador, Trump Approval Craters, China Cuts Off Boeing," hosts Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti explore the alarming developments surrounding former President Donald Trump's controversial deportation policies, his declining approval ratings, and China's retaliatory measures against Boeing. The discussion is punctuated with insightful analysis, expert opinions, and significant revelations that shed light on the current political climate.

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1. Trump's Proposal to Deport U.S. Citizens to El Salvador

The episode opens with a deep dive into a shocking revelation where former President Donald Trump was overheard proposing the deportation of U.S. citizens to El Salvador's notorious prison facilities. This proposition raises significant concerns about due process and human rights.

• Saagar Enjeti highlights, "[09:12] 'Criminals next. I said homegrown are next. The homegrounds built. You got to build about five more places. Yeah, that's big all right. It's not big enough. Come on.'" This quote underscores Trump's aggressive stance on immigration and internal security.

• The hosts discuss the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a U.S. citizen mistakenly deported to El Salvador, referencing the Supreme Court's directive for his release. They emphasize the administration's blatant disregard for legal protocols. Krystal Ball remarks, "[15:34] 'This is a fuck up of massive, life-altering proportions. We have no idea at this point what the condition of this man is.'"

• The conversation extends to the broader implications of such policies, with Saagar asserting, "[17:16] 'This is one where you must stand up against what the current government is doing specifically because it does apply to United States citizens.'"

• They also critique the alignment between Trump and El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, noting the authoritarian undertones and potential for escalating human rights abuses.

2. Trump’s Declining Approval Ratings

Transitioning to domestic politics, the hosts analyze the plummeting approval ratings of Donald Trump, drawing parallels to Joe Biden’s declining approval post-Afghanistan withdrawal.

• Harry Antony, referenced in the discussion, presents alarming polling data: "[45:26] 'I would argue this is the worst set of polling data that Donald Trump has had in his entire second term as president.'"

• Craig Melvin points out the shift in public perception, stating, "[46:59] 'The clear majority of Americans think that the economy is getting worse. Donald Trump wants to say, don’t blame me if you’re upset with the state of the economy, blame the other guy. I don’t think Americans are buying what he’s selling at this particular point.'"

• The hosts highlight the erosion of Trump's traditional support bases, especially among younger demographics. Saagar Enjeti notes, "[56:36] 'It's over... Gen Xers are kind of hanging in there, but among 18 to 29-year-olds, his approval rating has plummeted.'"

• They discuss the impact of Trump's economic policies, particularly tariffs, on his approval ratings, emphasizing that policies perceived to favor the wealthy and large corporations are alienating the general populace.

3. China’s Retaliatory Measures Against Boeing

The episode shifts focus to international trade tensions, specifically China's decision to halt shipments of Boeing products as a countermeasure to U.S. tariffs.

• Craig Melvin outlines the strategic move by China: "[61:50] 'They have halted all shipments of Boeing products... This is a line against the United States. This is part of why I’m so upset about the implementation of all of these tariffs.'"

• The hosts discuss the detrimental effects on the U.S. aerospace industry, emphasizing the loss of market share to competitors like Airbus and the accelerated growth of China's own aerospace capabilities.

• Saagar Enjeti elaborates on the broader implications: "[64:12] 'China gets kind of kills two birds with one stone here because not only do they hobble our critical industry, but they also bolster the Europeans.'"

• The conversation touches on the lack of strategic planning from the U.S. government to support Boeing and other affected industries, highlighting the long-term consequences of the tariff wars.

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Conclusion

Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti conclude the episode by underscoring the urgency of addressing these multifaceted challenges. They call for accountability and strategic policy reforms to rectify the current trajectory of U.S. domestic and international affairs. The hosts stress the importance of informed public discourse and the need for media outlets to hold powerful entities accountable to safeguard democratic principles and national interests.

Notable Quotes:

• Saagar Enjeti [09:12]: "Criminals next. I said homegrown are next. The homegrounds built. You got to build about five more places. Yeah, that's big all right. It's not big enough. Come on."

• Krystal Ball [15:34]: "This is a fuck up of massive, life-altering proportions. We have no idea at this point what the condition of this man is."

• Saagar Enjeti [17:16]: "This is one where you must stand up against what the current government is doing specifically because it does apply to United States citizens."

• Harry Antony [45:26]: "I would argue this is the worst set of polling data that Donald Trump has had in his entire second term as president."

• Saagar Enjeti [56:36]: "It's over... Gen Xers are kind of hanging in there, but among 18 to 29-year-olds, his approval rating has plummeted."

• Craig Melvin [61:50]: "They have halted all shipments of Boeing products... This is a line against the United States. This is part of why I’m so upset about the implementation of all of these tariffs."

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This episode of Breaking Points provides a comprehensive analysis of some of the most pressing issues facing the United States today, offering listeners a critical perspective on the interplay between domestic policies, international relations, and public opinion.

Transcript

[Savannah Guthrie]

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[Craig Melvin]

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[Paige DeSorbo]

Watch the Today show weekdays at 7am on NBC. Every day, our world gets a little more connected, but a little further apart. But then there are moments that remind us to be more human.

[Savannah Guthrie]

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[Caller]

Hey, was just in an accident.

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Don't worry, we'll get you taken care of.

[Paige DeSorbo]

At Ameca, we understand that looking out for each other isn't new or groundbreaking. It's human. Ameca. Empathy is our best policy.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Hey, it's me, Paige desorbo, and I'm so excited to share my new shoe collection at dsw filled with my favorite styles and trends for spring. Because if you know me, you know I'm kind of obsessed with shoes. And by kind of obsessed, I mean head over heels. You're going to love these shoes. So snag super cute styles like cute flats, fun heels and cool sneakers from the Paige DeSorvo Collection right now at your DSW store or dsw.com hey guys.

[Craig Melvin]

Sagar and Crystal here.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election and we are so excited about what that means for the future of the show.

[Craig Melvin]

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[Sagar Enjeti]

So if that is something that's important to you, Please go to BreakingPoints.com, become a member today and you'll get access to to our full shows unedited ad free and all put together for you every morning in your inbox.

[Craig Melvin]

We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see [e-mail] Good morning, everybody. Happy Tuesday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. Extra amazing because Crystal's back. It's good to see you. Thanks, Jill.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Thank you. It's nice to be back here in the chair. We have a lot of stuff in the show, but actually before we even get to the show bar and all the stuff that's going on there, we have some pretty significant show announcements about things that we are up to. So first of all, you guys know we've been doing this like ad hoc Friday. We've been calling it a mini show with whoever can show up. We were able to get all four of us together last Friday, which was super cool Saga was able to join. It's been me and Ryan, me and Ryan and Emily, whoever can sort of Join. So we have decided, thanks to you guys support out there making this happen, that we are going to officially make a Friday show a thing.

[Craig Melvin]

That's right.

[Sagar Enjeti]

So going forward, expanding out to the full five weekdays for Breaking Points, fun counterpoints, and we're also going to do an extra bonus second half that is going to be gated and exclusive for premium subscribers. Big deal for us in our expansion here. And I guess it's kind of the opposite of a recession in January.

[Craig Melvin]

That's right.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Taking a bit of a risk at this point.

[Craig Melvin]

As much as we have said about being conservative, we just see the appetite and we know how much it means to our premium subscribers and to all of our audience to officially be five days a week. If you guys can help us out, breakingpoints.com, we are genuinely taking a financial risk in this. Obviously making Ryan and Emily a bigger part of the entire, not even bigger part of the show. They are, you know, all four of us together are now really coming together as a team, as an avengers to make sure that there's five days a week of coverage. You guys saw the Bro show yesterday, the Mix and the Match, and all of that is enabled because of you to be able to provide that. We are gonna be going live on a lot more occasions. And so we do have the AMA live there in our show bar. That is something that we do after today's show that we will wrap. I will have, by the way, a surprise announcement, just a personal announcement that will drop exclus exclusively in our AMA and for our premium subscribers early. But more importantly, this is just about being able to find five days a week more opportunities for lives. We're building more opportunities to get the Breaking Points community actually engaged, utilizing our platform. You know, be able to deliver the show in any possible way that we can. And so broadly, this is just about taking a risk at this time when we know that it is financial precarity for all of you and also frankly for us. But we do still feel that it's really, really important to try and to take this right now. And so that's just something. If you could help us out. BreakingPoints.com as I mentioned. But just finally, and this is very important because as I just acknowledged that there's a lot of uncertainty right now for our free audience, for the people who watch the show free or who listen right now on Spotify, you are just as valuable to us. The way that you can help us, if you cannot afford it, is to like the show, to subscribe, hit the subscribe button on YouTube, subscribe or follow on Spotify and or Apple. And more importantly, if you're a podcast listener, take an episode that you really like and share it with a friend and or family. That is the single best and most important way as a free person that you could be able to help us out as a show. It's word of mouth, not $1 of advertising has ever been spent on this show, which is remarkable, honestly. And you look back at our future coming up on four years here to be able to grow to almost 1.4 million subscribers. It's incredible to see the hundreds of thousands of downloads and things that we see on the podcast platform. It is because of all the people who do also engage for a free basis. If that's all you can do for us, it's totally fine. Please just make sure that you can help us out by sharing the show.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yep. So thank you guys so much for your support. Onward and upward. Excited about what is to come for the year for breaking points. And let me tell you, I really enjoy that Friday show.

[Craig Melvin]

Yeah, it's fun.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I like the Friday show.

[Craig Melvin]

I like it too.

[Sagar Enjeti]

It's fun. It would be. With the pace of news, the Monday show would be just unmanageable.

[Craig Melvin]

Yeah. It would be late and it would be edited. And I mean, originally, by the time.

[Sagar Enjeti]

You get to Monday, all the stuff that happened on Friday is like old news. Cause 35 other major things have happened.

[Craig Melvin]

So it is inconceivable. I mean, when we launched, just penciling budget and all of that, we were looking at three days and we were like, oh, maybe we can make this work. And so to be in a position where we have not just us, it's not even just about the four people you guys see in front of the camera. There's a whole team of people in the room back over there making sure this stuff gets cranked out, it's edited. We have entire novel processes that we've actually developed. I've spoken with many creators and they are blown away by our timeline and the team that we have assembled that is able to export a show, deliver it across multiple different platforms, do all of these things. I mean, they're working on a weekly editing basis. Our guys can turn it around in sometimes 22 minutes. Very often they're editing things on the fly. It's incredible. And again, it's literally all because of the people who sign up. So thank you. It really is a thank you to enable us to be able to.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, when the show goes down late, it's not their fault. It's our fault.

[Craig Melvin]

No, it is right. And much is usually the problem, I promise you. Yeah. For the thousands of dollars we have spent on equipment and all these other things, state of the art stuff that is running back there and anything late is because of us and it is absolutely not because of them all.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Let me run quickly through the show bar here. We had Bukele at the White House yesterday. Trump announcing that he wants to send US citizens now to Bukele's torture dungeon. So we'll talk about that. Trump approval rating is down. We've got the latest numbers. He has announced he may be backing off some of the auto tariffs. At the same time we're getting new retaliation from China. They've halted all Boeing orders. Dave Smith is going to join us. Don't know if you guys checked out any of his debate with Douglas Murray on Joe Rogan's podcast. Going to get his reaction to that and some other things as well, especially some of the crackdown on any dissent vis a vis Israel. I am taking a look at Trump's tariff war as class war. Sagar, what should I say about your monologue?

[Craig Melvin]

I'll just say it's a surprise. It's a surprise for everybody who's there. Just book recommendations. I'm joking, I'm joking. There's something there that I'll you can find out if you become a premium subscriber.

[Sagar Enjeti]

You will find out eventually whether you're a premium subscriber or not. But premium subscribers in that AMA Live will give you the sneak peek. Okay, let's go ahead and get to the Oval Office. Yesterday President of El Salvador Nayiba Kelly was in town. Obviously this was, was very significant for a number of reasons. This administration has sent somewhere around at this point about 250 migrants into that prison. We now know that approximately 90% of them, in spite of being told that they were gang members in the worst of the worst, 90% have no criminal record. We have learned some of the details of those individuals. And one of those individuals in particular, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the administration admitted that they sent him there in air. The Supreme Court then came in and said you gotta try to get this guy back. You have to facilitate his release. They are just completely stonewalling. They're pretending like the Supreme Court actually sided with them and said they don't have to do anything. So a lot of questions about what the response from Bukele would be, how Trump would interact with him, etc. But before any of that occurred. The two of them, Trump and Bukele were actually caught on a hot mic with Trump and you have to listen carefully, but Trump telling Bukele that next he wants to send to his prisons the quote unquote homegrowns and that Bukele may need to build five more of those facilities to house the US Citizens that Trump now wants to send to that notorious seekot facility. Let's take a listen to how that went down.

[Caller]

Criminals next. I said homegrowns are next. The home grounds built. You got to build about five more places. Yeah, that's big all right. It's not big enough. Come on.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And it wasn't only in this hot mic moment. Apparently the El Salvador press was there, but the whole pool wasn't. I don't know where that stream came from, but they were streaming that live and obviously we all.

[Craig Melvin]

It was the El Salvadorian government. It wasn't even the El Salvadorian media. Now why exactly El Salvadorian government is allowed to live stream straight from the Oval Office, that's beyond me. That's probably the tertiary amount of concerns as well as Mr. Bukelis outfit that was happening. You're absolutely right. There were a number of comments made there by President Trump in the Oval Office. Very defiant on the Abrego Garcia case as well as proposing on multiple occasions sending U.S. citizens to this prison. Let's take a listen.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Mr. President, you said that if the Supreme Court said someone needed to be returned that you would abide by that. You said that on Air Force One just a few days ago and they said that it must be facilitated.

[Caller]

Why don't you just say, isn't it wonderful that we're keeping criminals out of our country? Why can't you just say that? Why do you go over and over and that's why nobody watches you anymore. You know you have no credibility. Please go ahead.

[Craig Melvin]

I promise you if he was your neighbor, you would move right away.

[Sagar Enjeti]

So you don't plan, but the Supreme.

[Caller]

Court's asking to be in the Supreme Court. Steve, was it nine to nothing?

[Craig Melvin]

Yes, it was a nine zero in our favor, in our favor against the district court ruling saying that no district court has the power to compel the foreign policy function of the United States. As Pam said, the ruling solely stated that if this individual at El Salvador's sole discretion was sent back to our country that we could deport him a second time. How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States?

[Caller]

I don't have the power to return.

[Craig Melvin]

Him to the United States. But you could release him inside El Salvador. Yeah, but I'm not releasing. I mean, we're not very fond of releasing terrorists into our country. We just turned the murder capital of the world into to the safest country of the western hemisphere. And you want us to go back into the releasing criminals so we can go back to being the murder capital of the world. That's not going to happen.

[Caller]

Well, they'd love to have a criminal.

[Craig Melvin]

You know, I mean, there's a fascination.

[Caller]

They would love it. Yeah, they're great facilities, very strong facilities and they don't play games. I'd like to go a step further. I mean, I say I said it to Pam. I don't know what the laws are. We always have to obey the laws.

[Craig Melvin]

But.

[Caller]

But we also have homegrown criminals that push people into subways. I'd like to include them in the group of people to get them out of the country.

[Craig Melvin]

So you can see they're not only doubling down, but the most significant comment made from Bukele was saying, quote, I don't. What did he say? I don't have the power to bring back Abrego Garcia. What does that mean? It is obviously preposterous. Bukele is getting paid $6 million from the United States government. Furthermore, he has literal unilateral authority over who goes in and out of sicot. So he actually could release him if he could. And this is one where the government and Stephen Miller is saying there, oh, it was 9 0. I mean, he is correct in that it's 9 0. By saying it is 9 0. In not ordering it in the same way. The district judge said, you have to go get him back. But it was very clear about the facilitation of return. And what was it turned it over to the district court where there continues to be adjudication over specifically the lengths and the process through which the United States must return our Brego Garcia. It is clear cut. It is beyond obvious the state admitted in its court filing Abrego Garcia should not have been sent to El Salvador. Period. End of story. We can talk all day long about the hold on the deportation order, et cetera, but it is clear as day he had a hold for deportation. He was sent there by their own admission. It was a quote, unquote mistake. Stephen Miller has now claimed that it was a mistake to admit that it was a mistake. And that is not true. That fired solicitor general who said that in a court filing. Apparently I was actually reading from a legal expert that he has a decent Enough case for defamation, actually against the government because they're claiming that he basically lied in a court filing.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Jonathan Turley, who is a Republican, Trump sympathetic, Fox News kind of a guy who was like, he's got a case for defamation. Yeah. The dude that they fired because he admitted in court that this was a mistake, which also wasn't just admitted in court. It also, as Sager said, was part of this court filing. He's been there for 15 years. He served in the same or similar role under the first Trump administration. You know, he has been a reliable advocate for whatever the government's position has been. So, yeah, Stephen Miller called him a saboteur.

[Craig Melvin]

That's right. And a Democrat. And a Democrat.

[Sagar Enjeti]

As if he was in there intentionally trying to blow up this case. I just want to read for everybody, because what Stephen Miller is portraying here and what Republicans are trying to portray the Supreme Court decision as is just, just total and complete garbage. Let me read to you the specific language of this order that came down from the Supreme Court. They say the rest of the district court's order remains in effect, but requires clarification. That's what they're holding their whole thing on is this line that it requires clarification. The order properly requires the government to facilitate Abreu Garcia's release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador. The intended scope of the term effectuate in the district's court order is, however, unclear and may exceed the district court's authority. The district court should clarify its directive with due regard for the deference owed to the executive branch in the conduct of foreign affairs. So they didn't even say don't effectuate or that was wrong. They're saying we want some clarification from the district court here. But they said incredibly clearly that they need the government needs to facilitate the release. And they also tell the government that it needs to be prepared to share what it can concerning the steps it has taken and the prospect of further steps. The government has completely stonewalled here. They're lying about what the order actually said. And just think about it like taking the legalese out of it. From a human perspective, if you fuck up, you try to fix it.

[Craig Melvin]

That's right.

[Sagar Enjeti]

This is a fuck up of massive, life altering proportions. We have no idea at this point what the condition of this man is. He's been sent into this prison known for human rights abuses, for withholding food. We know that an extraordinary Number of detainees there have actually died while they're in custody. This is a horrible place to be that he has been wrongly sent to. And not just him, by the way. Of the 230 original immigrants who were sent there, as I mentioned, 90% no criminal record, five had felony arrest records. Five. And we were told these were the worst of the worst. So on top of all of that, what we've been warning about is, hey, if you can throw these people into this dungeon for life with no due process, this isn't just about what they can do to immigrants. This is about what they can do to anyone. This is about all of our rights, what could have kept them since their position is, once they're in El Salvador, it's over, it's gone. We can't do anything. And Bukele's position is I can't do anything either. What is to keep them from sending anyone that they want. And as long as they get the plane in the air before the court can come in and say, you can't do that, then they can do whatever they want to people. And so when you have Trump here, not only on the hot mic, and he had previously said, hey, maybe I'll send American citizens there on the hot mic, telling Bukele, next up is the homegrowns, you need to build more facilities. And then confirmed in the questioning. And he said, he made this comment that I wanted to get your reaction to. In particular, Sager. He said specifically in response to a reporter asking if he would deport U.S. citizens, quote. What, you think they're a special category of person?

[Craig Melvin]

Yes. Right, Yeah. I mean, your thoughts? What thoughts? I mean, it's just outrageous. And I think what people need to understand is that the step by step that the government has taken is one that has revealed itself over the last several months. I keep resuscitating an old Vietnam term credibility gap. And the credibility is like you said, they said that it was the worst of the worst. Now, we know categorically now that that is just simply not true, considering the overall criminal record. They also said that they were using a tattoo or whatever to identify, which actually sounds, you know, it rings true to a lot of people. That's very often that gangs use tattoos to do affiliation. Go look at any prison system in the United States. It's one of the number one ways that you do gang classification. Right. But again, now we have continued to see there's huge holes in the story and there's been number of these. The gay barber, for example, being one of Them where it is just, like, blatantly obvious that at the very least, like, what they're saying is completely untrue, if not outright false, then you take it a step further for deportation. Initially, it was about illegal aliens present in the United States or people who had applied for asylum. So, okay, this is one where you can't necessarily. Or it would still, in my opinion, still a jump from there to people who are here legally and or who are here, U.S. citizens. But the jump now, and I have spoken with multiple legal experts, is that this one in particular is the one that most definitively applies to United States citizens. Because the custody at question is specifically about this. Else that the government position is taking is that once they are in El Salvador in custody, there is nothing that you can do for them that actually does not have any legal limitation. Alien Enemies act, believe it or not, actually does. Whenever it comes to a US Citizen, there are multiple other. You know, even seen, for example, many of these Palestinian activist students who are getting or trying to get deported, they're still going through a due process, like, you know, deportation order. Alien Enemies act was definitely over here. But the specific question here at hand legally is one that has no limiting principle whatsoever. And actually, I would point to Ed Whalen. This is very important for people to see. A3. Please, let me just. Ed. And I need to contextualize Ed. Ed is one of the most conservative lawyers and legal minds here in Washing. Ed is a guy who went to bat harder than anyone I know for Brett Kavanaugh. That's what I'm trying to contextualize who this person is.

[Sagar Enjeti]

He's like Antonin Scalia fan. That's like his ideological ground.

[Craig Melvin]

Unless you're in the MOLD in the D.C. world, you don't quite understand how important it is for Ed to speak out on something like this. So, okay, with all that on the table, quote, outrageous misrepresentation of the Supreme Court ruling, the unanimous court rule that a District Court order properly requires the government to facilitate Abrego Garcia's release from custody in El Salvador, and to that his case is handled, and it would have been, had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador. Yes. The court also stated that the intended scope of the term effectuate in the District Court's order is, however, unclear and may exceed the District Court authority. And it told the District Court to clarify its directive with due regard for the deference owed to Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs. But due regard does not mean the District Court couldn't give any teeth to effectuate, in any event, the district court dropped effectuate from its revised order. So this is all irrelevant. The duty to facilitate continues. And that's what the government is saying, is that their only duty to facilitate. Facilitate is that if Bukele were to release Abrego Garcia from the. What was it? From prison, that they would fly him back to the United States, proceed with a deportation through a due process proceeding, and then he would be sent back to El Salvador. But at the very least, like, that is still one which fits within the bounds of the law. And that is not what we see right now from the Trump administration. And they have stretched it 10 times farther than any before. And in fact, it does appear that they're trying to pick fights with the courts over their immigration nationality authority specifically. But in this particular case, as I want to come back to, the truth is, is that everything they have said on this process, and you know, look, this requires mea culpa from people like me. I never in my wildest dreams imagined that you would just simply snatch people up who had nothing to do. I mean, for example, we have 8 to 10 million gang members or, sorry, 8 to 10 million illegal immigrants. Is it really implausible there are 200 gang members present in the United States? I honestly don't think so. I'm relatively familiar with gang proceedings and others in the criminal justice system, dear Gang enhancements and others at state by state level. This is something that cops do every day. Would it really have entered that wildest dream to think that you would take somebody and look at their administrative paperwork and then mistakenly deport that individual and then claim, without really, really without even walking back any claims around this, to say that this is somebody to be deported to El Salvador. It's also similarly very different than to go through a deportation proceeding for being sent back to El Salvador than it is to facilitate the actual entry into this prison as a behest of the United States government? That direction also matters. So if Abrego Garcia went through the normal deportation process and was sent to El Salvador and they decided to put him in prison. Prison, okay, that's a different thing. It fundamentally is, because that's not something that was facilitated, paid for, and done at the behest of the United States government in this particular case, that is absolutely not what has happened. And I think it is very clear that the government is trying to stretch it now to this point. And at this, it is a gen breaking point. Name of the show. This is one where you must stand up against what the current government is doing specifically because it does apply to United States citizens. There is not a single limiting principle that can be held here. And it's not about Alien Enemies act, it's not even really about illegal versus Legal. There is nothing under the current logic that would stop them from doing this to any United States citizen who would mistakenly be deported. And if we are then to assume and to now look at the obvious credibility gap within the White House at their shoddy procedures at not even shoddy, I mean just outright fake basically at this point the MS.13 East coast gang leader and thing that we saw, no reasonable individual in my opinion could have confidence in the current department Homeland Security to be able to fundamentally distinguish and make sure that there is enough of a process that is being put in place there to ensure that no United States citizen would ever be mistakenly deported under this current regime. Especially in the way that it has all been implemented at this time. So we can look step by step at all the processes easily in hindsight and say this was not true, this was not true, this was not true. This is being handled differently. This is now here. And the limiting principle which is often thing you should look like especially with legal and others, as I said, I've spoken with many, many legal minds and the only thing stopping them is their own behest of not being able to do something. And that's just simply not good enough in my opinion. I mean what they're really asking for is trust. And I just don't think that any reasonable person who is now looking at this can have any trust whatsoever in the procedure that they put place or any of the statements that they have forward on Ms. 13 trende agua. Especially with the arrest of that so called east coast gang leader and then many of arrests that have been made now so far. So anyway, that's my long winded way of just saying I think this is incredibly dangerous. And I do think that I've seen fire and numerous other organizations stand up. I've seen Ed Whalen and others as well. And so that's also I think that allows for calibration and I understand a lot of MAGA is in a place where they don't want to take, you know, they find it annoying that they call him a Maryland. It's like okay fine, we can talk later about the illegal and illegal status because it's actually not about that right now. No, and that's the kind of the point I wanna get across. This is not about illegal immigration. This specific case is not about illegal immigration. Period. It really is about courts and it is also about principles which would of course apply to anybody. And under that current regime, then no, without any limiting power on the government, that there is nothing stopping from a US Citizen. It's clear now that Donald Trump, if he says it, you know, we have to take him seriously at this point as well. It is now clear also that many of the guardrails, which frankly I thought would be there, I've obviously fallen apart, or not even falling apart. It's just that there are willing participants and they view everything as some sort of like left, right media game. Almost like you and I debating here on this show. And it's like with the tariffs, it's like with signal Gate, it's like with all of these other things, it's like, no, this is about real people's lives. Like you people are in the government. This is not a CNN panel where we're trying to joust here. No, of course about who's right and who's wrong.

[Savannah Guthrie]

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[Sagar Enjeti]

These people, they want them to stay in this torture dungeon for life. People who did nothing wrong. Nothing. I mean, many of these individuals, the ones that the media has been able to track down, they went through the process like they showed. They got their appointment. They're going through the asylum process now. We can have a lot of conversations about that asylum process. They did nothing wrong. They were following the process as it was said, 90%, no criminal record, sentenced to a life of torture and misery. And the administration knows that. They know that. They're not fools. They know what they've done. It's evil. I mean, there's just no other word to sending people who are innocent, who have committed no crime, done nothing wrong to rot in a prison cell known for torture and human rights abuse for life. That's what we're talking about here. And you mentioned a breaking point yesterday. I had the same reaction of obviously, I was concerned about this administration coming in. I've been deeply concerned about the actions that have been taken when this initially occurred. I was really deeply concerned about where not only that action, but where would ultimately lead. But now you have them in open defiance of the Supreme Court, just lying about what the Supreme Court even says said you have them committing to keep someone they admitted they messed up by sending down to this prison. They are dead set on keeping that man in that prison for his entire life, however long that lasts. And now on camera multiple times, Trump is out there. Next up is American citizens. That is a dramatic escalation of authoritarianism. And I'm glad to see you, you know, yourself. I'm glad to see others. I'm glad to see Ed Whalen. But I have to say, not one Republican politician, not one.

[Craig Melvin]

Well, they, yeah, they can't.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Not a Rand Paul, not a Thomas Massey. Yes, they can.

[Craig Melvin]

Well, yes, they can.

[Sagar Enjeti]

But we've seen, I mean, on certain issues, they have broken with this president occasionally. And to just completely like these are people who hold themselves, oh, here's the Constitution and who've held themselves down as these constitutional conspiracy conservatives. You. The president of the United States plans to completely deny due process to U.S. citizens and throw them in a foreign prison. And not one person wants to speak out about that. That, to me, is astonishing. And let me go ahead and put up on the Screen. Let's go to these last pieces. This most recent case that we're learning about because the more we're learning about these individuals, the more you can see they just anyone they could grab, grab who is Venezuelan, they grabbed, put up. I believe it's a six guys, this 19 year old migrant from Venezuela who had come with his dad. This is a photo of him with his father. Put the next piece up on the screen. This was by this news outlet, it's called Documented. So they were living in New York. This is the kind of quintessential story. They got their, they came across the border, they got put on a bus to the infamous Roosevelt Hotel in New York. They're working at actually unpacking TEMU packages by the airport.

[Craig Melvin]

There's a lot going on.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And so his son is coming back to the apartment after running some errands and just steps from runs home. ICE agents stop him. They grab him and two other boys right at the entrance of our building. This is his father. One said, one of the ICE agents said, no, he's not the one. Like they were looking for someone else. But the other said, take him. And anyway, this one, no criminal record, did not even have a tattoo. Not that that's any sort of justification, but they knew this isn't the right guy and they snatched him up anyways. And now his father's beside himself and he is in this prison potentially for life or until another administration decides they're gonna do something. And the game that Trump and Bukele are playing here, Trump is saying, oh, I couldn't possibly, but I don't have the power over what's going on in El Salvador. And Bukele's saying, oh, I don't have the power to get him out of prison. Like both of you do. You both do. You don't think that Trump has power. It's El Salvador. Bukele has decided to like completely align himself with Trump. Yesterday he tweeted down after he left, my God, I miss you already. He called him Mr. T, President T or something like that. We are paying them, we have a contract, $6 million contract with them to keep these people in this prison. If Trump said yesterday to Bukele, hey, we need, we might messed up, we need to get that guy back. It would be done, it would be over. But Kelly is running El Salvador under state of exception. He can do whatever he wants.

[Craig Melvin]

Yeah, it's true. He's literally martial law.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And by the way, there were some of the people that we had tried to deport to this prison. Several women that were included that they were like, no, we're not taking women that they sent back. So they clearly have the power to send some people back.

[Craig Melvin]

They also apparently rejected people who were also from other Central American countries to.

[Sagar Enjeti]

That because they were worried about the.

[Craig Melvin]

Intra Central American politics.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, so you're more worried about that than the United States of America. I mean it's just they. And to your point about the guardrails, you know, the Supreme Court did mess up here. Because you have to know at this point, I think John Roberts trying to play this game and be too cute of. Let me give them a little bit, Let me give him some wins. Let me give them something that they get. No, if you don't tell them no, you cannot do. You must get him back. If you give them even the little tiniest bit of anything, they will do exactly what they did here. Lie about what you said, refuse to do anything whatsoever. And this has now been kicked back to the district court. They're supposed to be providing updates every day. They've just basically refused to do that certainly in the way that the court has ordered them to do. And they are certainly inching up to that district court judge holding them in contest attempt. I fully expect that to go back to the Supreme Court. So there are still things working their way through the judicial process. But at this point you have to say that they are openly defying certainly the spirit of the court order. They have laid down a marker that if they can get the plane in the air, then they can do nothing. Then as long as they are quick enough, then they can deny people's rights. They can act completely extra constitutionally, do whatever they want. And even when they get caught and admit a complete screw up, they still don't care. They think that these people should be there for life. It is absolutely outrageous.

[Craig Melvin]

That's why I think that the way that it was set out is very important to see and see exactly like you said, like at the current thing, there is no simple limiting principle on the government's action. And that is genuinely extraordinary. Like we can have conceptual debates about planes and judges and being able to turn things around about gang members. Listen, I'll happily debate anybody all day long as to whether any of these people even should have been in the United States or were abused using the process. But it's one of those where that is actually not what is on the table right now. Right. Like if we. Let's think about this just conceptually. If the government had arrested Abrego Garcia and gone through the standard deportation process, of which there was a very good chance that he's getting deported, period. He's gone this 19 year old, and then no one would even know his name. And then the El Salvadorians, if they wanna throw him in prison, that's their business. This 19, by their own admission, this guy came here because he didn't have enough money in Venezuela. He's not even pretending that he was fleeing gang violence or whatever. Same thing. You don't even have a claim of asylum. You're going home under a standard deportation process. Crystal. I'll go to bat on that any day of the week. That's not the same thing as saying temporary deportation order or temporary deportation hold, then coming around and being like, we're gonna send him there and then actually we're not gonna get him back because there's nothing we can do about it. And this is what I want the MAGA folks to really understand because they are conflating the two. They're saying, oh, I break over and I'm like, listen, I'm with you. All right? You know, why is a guy who's been here illegally since 2011 doesn't claim asylum till 2019? Should he really be in the United States? No. Obviously, for me, I think a lot of people agree with that sentiment. They voted for that. Now this, this is not even within the realm when you're asking about MAGA and all those other folks, they are so triggered. And listen, I emotionally, I understand whenever people, you know, I see the media, Maryland Father, and talking about all this, I get it. I totally understand because you're basically conveying citizenship effectively on somebody who is not a citizen. You know, even in a lot of these other cases, they're gonna look exactly like what I just did and be like, oh, my God, you know, they're claiming this guy is like Mother Teresa or whatever, and it's like, okay, well, he didn't even follow basic precepts of law. It's not about that right now, because we can't. And in fact, if the government had simply followed the basic laid out process and had gone through an ICE hold and a deportation order, of which they are well within their ability, as they continue to do right now, they could say nothing about nobody except the ACLU and some open borders lawyers would be talking about this. You would be on the most winning ground. I'm talking politically now. However, by doing this, you are actually poisoning the well, just like they did with tariffs. For any sort of faith and credibility, even from many people who support your supposed policy to be able to believe a word that you say. And that is where I find myself looking at this, is that there was. And this. You know, we talked about this with Glenn in particular. He's like, look, nothing stops you from doing the deportation to your own home country. Literally nothing. So do that. You know, again with the barber guy, like, really, like, you know, we're really gonna take this asylum claim seriously. Like, I'm sorry, I don't. And, you know, fine, we can argue again again about that all day long. Fine, send him back to Venezuela. But sending somebody to a prison, or even in this particular case, admitting that you shouldn't have done so and under no pretense of a process, and then also no pretense of even pretending to bring somebody back, it's simply not the same debate. And by putting yourself on this debate, in my opinion, I'm curious what you think. I actually do think this is a big demarcation point for the guy government, where a lot of people, yes, MAGA politicians, and all of them may not be talking. There are a lot of normal conservative MAGA folks and others who agree with deportation who are like, yeah, I'm out on this one. And I think that they have done that with the tariffs, they've done that with the credibility, a lot of that with doge. We'll talk about DOGE soon, won't we, about some of their redefinitions. At a certain point, you gotta get the hood pulled over from your eyes. You can support a lot of these things in principle. And you can also criticize, I think, a lot of way that. Not even about practicality, but seeing genuinely on the facts of the matter, they're not the same thing as to what the government is trying to argue. Because every time Stephen Miller opens his mouth, he's talking how I am about, oh, somebody who came here illegally. It's like, no, that's not what we're talking about here, though. You could have easily deported him. Again, nobody would have said anything except for the ACLU and a bunch of other Catholic Charities organizations, and nobody really cares what they had to say. But that's not what we're talking about here. You made this into a national case for basically no reason. Well, actually, no, I think we do know the reason, because they want the.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Maximum ability, and this is what they want.

[Craig Melvin]

Last thing, I'm sorry, droning on, but the point about mass deportation is it's actually not happening. It's just the truth is, is that the numbers are not that high. And it is obvious that the government is either too incompetent or unable to actually even do what they said they were going to to do, which is start with criminals and, or whatever. And they're diverting immense amount of resources at the exact same time to these Palestinian. You know, you look at these videos of Ozturk, you know, there's like five people there. What are we doing? What are we doing, you know, to dedicate all of these resources to this, you know, police state on behalf of a foreign government. And then same in the sheer ineptitude and either ineptitude or callousness, I don't know which is. It is for things like this where oh, just grab him anyway, there's no rhyme, there's no reason. And yeah, they have lost all credibility in the eyes I think of any reasonable person who could look at this now at this point. And they are going to validate the immigrant activists more than anybody else on the planet. And so four or five years from now, if you lose the White House and they mass legalize everybody body, that's on you at this point. I really believe that.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Well, because they, I mean you're right that they validated like the worst, the worst fears. I mean, no, literally beyond honestly. And you guys know like you could accuse me of Trump derangement syndrome, but I was very concerned about this administration. This is far beyond, far beyond what I could have even come up with. And last thing I'll say is just to tie in the piece that you were talking about of the crackdown on these student protesters and activists and some people who aren't even activists. All of this is, you know, they're workshopping it with immigrants. It will not stay with immigrants. We already obviously already see him out there. So the homegrowns are next. Okay? And you cannot, you should not expect them to get. First of all, no American citizen should just be shipped, even if you are a criminal, should be shipped to this foreign dungeon, in my opinion. But if you, even if you're okay with that, that why should you believe this administration when they say we're send the worst of the worst and they're sending some 19 year old kid who's done nothing wrong. They're sending the gay makeup artist who's done nothing wrong. They're sending 90% of the people they send. No criminal record. 90%. Only five had felony convictions. Okay, so what they're testing with the immigrants first is intended for the whole population. And yes, we already have indications of that with Israel as well. We already have proof of that with US Citizens who they pressured universities to kick out of school. They are investigating these pro Palestine protests as terrorism. What's starting in the immigrant community because that's like the lowest hanging fruit and they can argue we were elected to do this, blah, blah, blah. The plan is to spread that to everyone. So that's why everyone should be concerned about what is going on here. Even if you don't care about these particular individuals, you don't care about this particular cause. First of all, I would say you should. But even if you don't, this does not stay with these individuals. There is nothing that means that keeps this infringement on rights among a certain select group of people within the country. So that's why it's important.

[Craig Melvin]

As I said, that is not hyperbole. That is quite literally true in the case of the Abrego Gurksy. And that's part of why it's so deeply concerning.

[Savannah Guthrie]

Every morning brings a fresh new energy.

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This is today.

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And no matter what the day holds, we come to the Today show for all of it.

[Craig Melvin]

When things are tough, we talk about it. When there's something to figure out, we dig into it. And when there's joy, we celebrate it.

[Savannah Guthrie]

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[Sagar Enjeti]

Okay, I'll give you that. Yeah.

[Craig Melvin]

It was 10 days, nine days into the first Trump administration. We had the ceasefire in Gaza. Right. So we could peace post. We had Elon Musk was around. There were the executive orders, there was the general vibe, like, okay. And then by around mid Feb, that's when I think things really started to shift. Let's go ahead and then talk about Trump's approval rating. So Trump, as we talked about often in the early days, the first month or so, he was doing pretty well, the highest ever for him. He was standing strong on the economy, seemed to be doing incredibly well on immigration. Things have now taken a pretty significant turn for him. And in the same trend line that we saw for Joe Biden after the withdrawal from Afghanistan, except this one is just a mere 80 some days, days into his first term. Let's take a listen to Harry Antony breaks a lot of it down.

[Harry Antony]

I would argue this is the worst set of polling data that Donald Trump has had in his entire second term as president, in part because The CBS News YouGov poll that came out yesterday has been one of his best. Let's first take a look at how folks are feeling about the state of the economy. Think that the economy is getting worse.

[Sagar Enjeti]

What?

[Harry Antony]

You don't have to be a mathematical genius to see the trend line on your screen. And it is getting worse. More folks are feeling the economy is going southward. Back in November, it was just 42% of Americans who said the economy is getting worse. You jump forward to February, 49%. You jump forward to March, 51%. Now look at this number, 53%. The clear majority of Americans think that the economy is getting worse. Donald Trump wants to say, don't blame me if you're upset with the state of the economy, blame the other guy. I don't think Americans are buying what he's selling at this particular point, at least anymore. More responsible for the economic state. They asked about inflation back in March. Look at this. 38% said Joe Biden. 34% said Donald Trump. But look at where we are this month. When they asked about the general state of the economy. Look at how much higher the Trump number is.54%. The Joe Biden percentage drops through the floor at 21%. So this idea that Donald Trump will try to sell to the American public is trying to sell the American public is that it's the other guy. It's not me, it's that other guy, that old guy, Joe Biden. No longer is this being the American public is no longer buying this set of arguments like they were back in March.

[Craig Melvin]

So you could see that the turn from blaming Biden, not exactly positive news there for Donald Trump. The more ownership that he has over the economy, the more negative that it will be, especially as we see the conflagration of tariffs, of consumer sentiment and price increases begin to cascade if they do stick to the current policy. Don't forget that. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. We saw a similar decline in the overall tracking index of the approval rating. So what Nate Silver flags here is that the precipitous decline that we saw right now, a Trump approval is currently at minus five. But that's quote, only if we used polls since Liberation Day, he would be at minus 8.5 instead. That is a pretty significant hit over the span of barely more than a week. He was at minus 2.5 on April 4th 1st, just before Liberation Day. I would also note in particular that the focus right now, if you're just thinking about the people who are all paying attention, right to people who are generally looking at the news, et cetera, immigration, despite the entire segment we just did, was still very strong ground, I think, for Donald Trump. But go ahead and put before up on the screen, this is very important that tariffs have actually moved ahead of immigration as a top concern for American voters. From the latest poll from Echelon Insights, the very concern number at some 70% there and actually even more concern in the very concern for tariffs over immigration with immigration actually falling below a 50th percentile with the majority of the population really focusing in on tariffs, it's just weak ground for Donald Trump because he doesn't even have the conceptual fallback that he originally would have had rhetorically on the issue. Now it's just all about the process, the whipsaw, the seesaw, the chaos that people can tune into every day. And that is a very similar feeling, I think, to the Biden administration, where they felt as if at the end of the day for inflation, there was no steady hand on the wheel, there was no plan. That's really when Biden sank, right? It was 2022 in my opinion. And we could see that's when the runaway inflation and all that started to happen. And all of this is just terrible. Data for Donald Trump and for his White House. Because they wanna try and save face, they wanna try and actually do something after they basically nuked this entire, you know, the entire like, economic outlook of the country. But they don't know where to fall. They just don't know what they're doing right now.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, well, and Trump loves the tariffs because he, I mean, he shouldn't be able to do them unilaterally, but he just is.

[Craig Melvin]

Yeah.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Cause he can't. And so it does give him the power of a monarch. I mean, there is a reason why tariffs were supposed to be the purview of Congress, so that you wouldn't have the dynamic of this like CEO king dictator figure going and doling out, oh, you get an exemption, you get an exemption, like, and all these companies and all these countries coming to call. This man has development properties all around the world. You don't think that these countries are gonna be coming to him, greasing the skids, giving him tax, incent, whatever it is gonna help his business, making sure that Tesla is on solid ground, whatever it is that Trump wants. And so he love. But tariffs have actually always been one of the shakier parts of his plan, of the things that he ran on. It was always during his campaign when we were looking at the numbers, it was always sort of like 50, 50 people were not in love with the idea of tariffs. And it makes sense because at this point you had inflation as the number one economic concern. And people felt like tariffs are probably going to make things even more expensive. And they're right about that. In some of that CBS News you got polling, they, they ask people, who do you think is going to benefit from Trump's trade and tariff policies? Number one answer, 74% the wealthy. Number two answer, 71%, large corporations. The next one down, 50%. So big drop is US auto industry, which we'll talk more about in the next block. And then it's all the way down. The lowest ones are working class, middle class and small businesses. So people don't feel like this is a plan that is going to help them, even though it is, is being sold in that way. And at a time when inflation continues to be a massive concern for Americans and for American consumers, obviously they're going to be deeply concerned about what is going on here. And in some ways even like, obviously he's pulled back some, although I think, I honestly think it's been a little bit oversold how much he's pulled back. And my whole monologue is about tariffs. And I dig into a small business owner who imports her product from China. She actually wanted to import it from the United States or wanted to produce it in the United States. It just was literally impossible, possible. And the 145% China tariffs, they will destroy her business. Like there is no way, no way that she can survive. And she is one of many. But even if Trump rolls back on even more of the tariffs and makes all these deals and declares victory, art of the deal, whatever, I do think in a lot of ways the damage has already been done. And I do think it is somewhat analogous to even though I still support Biden having gotten out of Afghanistan, there's just no denying that there was a massive hit to his approval rating. He never recovered from. And I do think it's analogous. Like the honeymoon is over for Trump. The vibe shift has vibe shifted again. And the economic damage that is being done right now in this moment with this level of uncertainty and people feeling like, businesses feeling like, I can't do, I just gotta like hold onto cash and freeze them, place and hope I can survive this totally unnecessary tumult that is not going to be undone no matter what Trump announces today, tomorrow, the next day, et cetera.

[Craig Melvin]

What serious person CEO, even if the administration came out tomorrow and was like, this is our plan for the next four years, what serious person would actually invest based upon that confidence? I said that. Yes. I don't know if you caught this. I was like, I would short the stock of anybody.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, you were like, I would.

[Craig Melvin]

As a shareholder, I would vote to fire that CEO. I'd be like, no, we're not doing this. You clearly have no judgment, dude. You need to hoard the cash and do nothing. Absolutely nothing. Don't take too big of a risk. And that's because there's no confidence. And what drives me nuts about this too is that it's clear that people are not even still paying attention to the tax legislation, which still has to come out later on this year. And there is no really positive sign for Donald Trump in the next, I would say nine months. We have the tariffs that is going to dominate the news. Elon and all that. Doge is basically, I mean, it's still around, but it's not really like the number one concern. So you've got this immigration stuff, a front page story on literally every across paper in every country. Probably the number one thing that most people hear about if they are politically engaged. Tariffs is going to be number one and, or number two, that they're generally engaging with, well, what else is on the horizon? The only next major thing that we can predict on the horizon is the tax legislation. We know from baseline the tax legislation's gonna be crazy unpopular. There's not even an argument about it. It's just period. And most Republicans will admit that with a straight face, there's really nothing you can do. And also, Trump said, I wanna cut a trillion dollars. So it's kind of like with Biden, where we can look ahead to whatever is going to come next. We know no major piece of legislation going to pass the Senate or the House of Representatives before this tax bill. We know that it has to happen in the next several months. So the next flagship piece of legislation after this whole economy and tariff situation is going to be a major tax cut for corporations and a trillion dollar, according to them. It's not my words. They said, I want to cut $1 trillion and I want to increase Pentagon budget by $150 billion, which just so happens to be the exact amount of money that Elon now claims that Doge has saved. So what are we doing here? What's the net out effect of this? You would be forgiven to be pretty pessimistic about that whole situation, wouldn't you?

[Sagar Enjeti]

And Elon's lying about those savings, too.

[Craig Melvin]

It's already been even about 150 at face value, completely. But I'm saying from an approval rating standpoint, the tcja, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Jobs act, was the lowest single day of Donald Trump's presidency in the first term. The lowest day again. Everybody always forgets that people do pay attention sometimes. I think that will happen again this time around and it will be a Biden like compounding effect of either bailing out the rich, feeling chaotic, not really having a steady hand at the wheel. So you can see on approval grounds on the economy and more, the more you lose that. I mean, you and I have said this. Nobody knows what will happen in the midterm, okay. And of course, nobody knows what will happen in global affairs. Trump could literally, I don't know, there could be a crazy peace deal in Ukraine, there could be a new cease fire in Gaza. There's so many different things that could affect it. But in terms of what we can predict, that's what we see on the horizon as something that is very obvious for his approval rating. That is not going to go over well.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah. And the last thing I want to Note here, put B3 up on the screen. Trump's approval rating with young people. People were very excited about Trump Performing better among young people. People. It's one poll, small sample that. Who knows? Okay. But look at the way among 18 to 29 year olds, his approval rating has fallen off a fricking cliff around the time he got elected. You can see him in solidly positive territory. There's been a decline among other age groups. Except those 45 to 64 year olds. Gen Xers, man, they're kind of those Gen Xers. They're kind of hanging in there, aren't they? But among 18 to 29 year olds, it has plummeted. Now at its lowest levels. Looks like minus 30, some. Oh, minus 29 here among 18 to 29 year olds. So all of these hopeful takes about how the young people are gonna be. They're gonna shifting.

[Craig Melvin]

Right.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And they're super conservative and they love Donald Trump. That all seems to be evaporating very quickly in real time.

[Craig Melvin]

Yeah, I mean, like I said, you never know. These polls and all that ahead to the election. But I do think instead of looking at the poll, let me think about the fundamentals. What are young folks tuned into? What was the whole vibe shift about on TikTok and others? It was about irreverence, specifically for young men. It was more of a cultural attitude. Right now is not a cultural moment. Right now is one of the rare times in American history where it's actually a policy moment. It's about tariffs, it's about immigration. Those are real things. And it's not really a. About pronouns and bios or any of that other stuff right now. I think Richard Hanania said he's like, it feels indecent to be talking about wokeness right now. And I was like, you know, that's actually very true. That is an absolutely correct observation.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Well, think about. Sorry, go ahead.

[Craig Melvin]

No, no, that's fine. I was gonna say it's not. They're not in power anymore. They're gone. We have a different.

[Sagar Enjeti]

It's over.

[Craig Melvin]

Yeah, yeah. Also, whoever runs for president next, I have relative confidence they're not gonna be having their pronouns in bio. Right. So we won. All right. Congratulations. Yeah, I don't think trans athletes are gonna end up in the D1 at this point anymore. They probably have learned their lesson. If they haven't, then they're idiots. But that's their, you know, whatever. My point is, just like those fights are over, so in a certain sense, that culture has been won. Now we're talking about money, future, immigration, like actual stuff. And on that. First of all, TikTok and all of that is not Very well equipped, in my opinion, to handle a lot of those issues. And so. So even TikTok is elevating some of the most anti terror voices, which is very bad for Trump, ironically, cuz he's trying to save it. But the vibe right now is not one where Republicans are best poised to win. Because outside of genuine like MAGA sycophants, can you find a serious person who is defending the tariffs? No, the closest we got was Oren. And Oren's like, Orin's like. Yeah, exactly.

[Sagar Enjeti]

He just, he doesn't want to, you know, completely throw terrorists under the bus.

[Craig Melvin]

Right.

[Sagar Enjeti]

But it's very clear this is not the way Oren Cass would have done.

[Craig Melvin]

No. Yeah, exactly. So you have no serious. When you have nothing like that, somebody can really articulate your case all that well. And then this whole trans and you know, pronoun stuff is just so like, it almost feels like a bygone era. You're fighting on very different ground.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, well, and if you think about, I mean, millennials are the most left, left wing generation, like maybe in history. And you think about what were their formative experiences? It was the Iraq War and it was the Great Recession. You know, it was people coming out of college to an economic catastrophe. And the way that set, that set the entire generation back significantly in terms of being able to achieve the milestones that their parents had been able to achieve, you know, family and being able to get married and being able to buy a house, those sorts of things were all pushed into the future because of the economic calamity that met millennials when they were just coming into the workforce and graduating from college, et cetera. And so if you have a similar dynamic with Gen Z, I don't think they're going to be in love with the party that is in power. While all of that is happening, every.

[Savannah Guthrie]

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[Paige DeSorbo]

This is today with.

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And no matter what, what the day holds, we come to the Today show for all of it.

[Craig Melvin]

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Because today is where it's all happening. We get the best start to every morning because we start it together.

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Watch the Today show with Savannah Guthrie and Craig Melvin, weekdays at 7am on NBC @ Ameca Insurance. We know it's more than just a house. It's your home. The place that's filled with memories. The early days of figuring it out to the later years of still figuring it out. For the place you've put down roots. Trust Amica Home Insurance Ameca Empathy is our best policy.

[Sagar Enjeti]

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[Craig Melvin]

As significant about this well, advanced aerospace, manufacturing and air that was of the gold standards where the United States still had somewhat of a leg up. The Chinese over the last decade have pumped billions and billions of dollars into being able to develop their own competitor to Airbus and to Boeing. They don't want their airline or aerospace industry to be reliant on US Supply chains and on design specifically. So the reduction in Boeing is two things. First of all, as of 2025, quote, China accounts for 20 to 25% of Boeing's global aircraft deliveries. So the flagship United States aerospace company just took a 25% haircut on its overall delivery of corporate jets. So that's number one. Number two is that the Airbus stock is soaring right now, which further means that Airbus, the major European competitor and frankly, much better safety record. Can we all admit that in the last decade or so is one that is going to be the major beneficiary? Meanwhile, the Chinese are also going to be pumping significant even more amounts of the technology development into their industry at home. So this is a line against the United States. This is part of why I'm so upset about the, quote, implementation of all of these tariffs in an ideal tariff regime. We want Boeing to thrive. Boeing should be the flagship of America's industry in the way that it was in the 1940s and all the way through the 1970s before deregulation and combination and stock buybacks and all of that other. It was a gold standard. It was like something that everyone could aspire to from a jobs perspective and produce. And this is the best thing, the most important and the best products. Already we've moved away from that. But despite legacy, of course, they're still able to develop and to pump out quite a few to be cut off in the interim. There is no plan by the government today to save Boeing. And look, I get it, people have animus towards Boeing. We've talked about the whistleblowers, et cetera. We can still reform. It's still very important. We need an aerospace company. Can we all admit that we need to fly people? You know, we can't be reliant on the Europeans and on the Brazilians to be shipping US jets that are flying us all over our country. Not possible in terms of any sort of defense industrial base. So this is the exact scenario where Boeing flagship American advanced manufacturing, the exact type of industry, is taking a haircut as a result of the tariff with no plan to actually help Boeing do anything in the future. And it's also, that's the problem that we have.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And China gets kind of kills two birds with one stone here because not only do they hobble across critical industry for us, but they also bolster the Europeans.

[Craig Melvin]

Exactly. That's what I'm saying.

[Sagar Enjeti]

At a time when, you know, again, if you were going to do this intelligently and you were going to try to go directly at China, you would want to have the world on your side. You would, rather than being out there insulting people and throwing tariffs all around at everybody across the board, et cetera. And so this is an opportunity also for China to give the Europeans something that is beneficial for them as well. At the same time, the tariff roller coaster is far from over. President now in addition to the exemptions of various high tech things that benefit like Apple and Nvidia, now he's also considering some possible exemptions with regard to the auto tariffs. Let's go ahead and listen to that.

[Sean Fain]

So President Trump says that carmakers might need a little bit more time. When he was asked about any potential exemptions coming in the future, he added that he's looking at something to help the car companies where they're switching parts that were made in Canada and Mexico to the U.S. of course, a big push of President Trump's terrorist plan is to reshore production. But that's been particularly difficult for carmakers where, particularly when we're looking at the USMCA compliant goods, North America trade between Canada and Mexico, considering that car parts pass between the border so many times. So one, we have the current Canada and Mexico tariffs that are in place, but also those auto specific sector tariffs that went into place last month under section 232, where we saw a 25% auto tariff across the board. So it does appear that President Trump is opening up a little leeway here potentially for negotiations to get underway. We know that the big three automakers in particular have been lobbying this White House for months. You'll recall during President Trump's State of the Union address in February, he had said that they were in his office and they called him. That's when he announced that another initial reprieve, but then ended up putting those tariffs on.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And so again, this shows you the way this works. The big three automakers, they're able to get them on the phone, they're able to say, hey, this is going to be a fricking disaster for us because these parts cross the border multiple times. The cost of a vehicle is going to skyrocket like tens of thousands of dollars if these actually go into place. And so he hears them out and is potentially walking back temporarily. Some of the. Oh, but they're not exemption soccer tax worry. Some of the auto tariffs.

[Craig Melvin]

Yeah, this is again, you know what's happening. The tariffs are on. They're off. They're 20%, they're 25%. Now they're exempted. Maybe they're not exempted. There's the USMCA, there's fentanyl. Nobody has any idea. And what most people are doing, and I'm telling you, this is obvious, they're just stopping all shipping, anything coming to America, they're like, hold it over there and we'll figure it out. Go ahead and put C3, please, up on the screen so you guys can see this. This is the week over week drop in ocean bookings. 50% overall. U.S. imports down 64% overall. U.S. exports down 30%. U.S. imports from China down 64%. U.S. exports to China down 36%. That's just in a week. Okay. It could fall to 100 inventory. Does anybody remember this little term called just in time delivery that we all learned about during COVID Did anything change? Does anyone wanna tell me, did anything change in the last five years? No, it didn't. It actually got worse. And so what does that mean? It means that we don't have, like, we don't have stockpiles. We talked yesterday a lot about rare earth minerals. Still a very important conversation. What did we learn from the rare earth mineral discussion? Is that American companies, basically, because they run on a cash and a stock basis, refuse to stock up. We don't have a supply chain. We have no refining ability. We have no ability basically to make up for this in the overnight way that China has cut us off from it. It will obviously have cascading effects throughout our supply chain. A lot of this stuff matters, especially for cars, for batteries. It's a full court press. The Chinese, again, I have to respect them and their competence. They know exactly where to hit us hard. The number one industry we care the most about is aerospace. Advanced manufacturing. That's like gold standard for the defense industrial base. So what do you do? Screw you. Boeing before that. Semiconductors. Make sure you cut off all the minerals that you need. Hope the South Koreans and the Japanese can bail us out. From who? People I've spoken to. They have stockpiles of their own, but they don't necessarily want to sell it to us. Now what do you do? Semiconductors and then cars. That was the final one for magnets and other things that are necessary. That is a direct attack, by the way, at Tesla stock, because they need those to be able to build all of the cars that they do here in America. All three of the things are targeting the growth industries, the manufacturing industries, and the exact type of things that we can point to and say, this is how tariffs could be working and could be saving. And that's what they're attacking. And we have no policy right now to actually help any of it on the back end.

[Sagar Enjeti]

That's exactly right. So, interestingly, Sean Faint, who's the head of the United Auto Workers, he has been defending the tariffs. He'll say, I'm not. Just with regard. I think he tries to make it like, just with regards to the auto industry. He recently went on msnbc, it was one of these panel shows where you've got like Alicia Menendez, Simone Sanders and Michael Steele, I think, and they're all trying to spar with him over his position with regard to these tariffs. Let's go ahead and take a listen, guys. This is C2 to a little bit of how that went down.

[I]

You know, let's talk about the realities of what you know, and this is saying, you know, I've been reading a lot of this lately, going back in 1992. I voted for Ross Perot. You know why I voted for Ross Perot? For one reason, because he was the only candidate that talked about how devastating NAFTA would be be to American jobs and to our manufacturing base. And he talked about that giant sucking sound you know, I've read this book here in the last week. You know, save your, save your job, save our country, why NAFTA must be stopped now. You know what's interesting? Since then, Ross Perot has become a prophet. Since NAFTA was inception in 1993, we've lost 90,000 manufacturing facilities in this country. Millions of jobs. And these weren't, you know, low engineers jobs. These were jobs that paid decent wages, had good benefits, retirement security.

[Craig Melvin]

I agree with you.

[I]

They built communities.

[Craig Melvin]

But here's my thing. Thefter was 30 years ago. The situation that we are dealing with right now, and I agree with you, I'm on the side of the folks that said this. Did the American workers wrong. Absolutely. But right now we are dealing with a situation where it's not, these are blankets tariffs. We are dealing with a situation where manufacturing is not going to come back in two weeks. So what. How? I'm just, I am really struggling to figure to understand how UAW has aligned itself with Trump on this.

[I]

Well, so first off, NAFTA is still causing us to lose jobs in this country. Our broken trade system is still causing us to lose jobs in this country. And no one from either party has been willing to even address the issue for 30 plus years. That's the first thing. And we support tariffs as a tool, a tool in the toolbox, not the end all, be all. We got to fix the broken trade system. But tariffs are a motivator to make these companies do the right thing. When we're talking auto, I can't speak for, you know, penguins and all this other crazy stuff going on, but I'll speak to what I know. And you know, when we talk about parts, there's an exclusion for parts sector. Right now. There's a, the reason there's an exclusion is because we've been talking with the administration about how to make these tariffs work and they've been working with us on that.

[Sagar Enjeti]

It's frustrating to me watching this exchange. I would love if Sean Fain would come on the show. I'd love to have a conversation with him. I'm sympathetic. There's nothing that he says there that is incorrect about NAFTA and about its impact, specifically on the auto industry, about the fact that these terrible trade deals continue to harm American workers. All of that is completely accurate. The question is then what are you going to do about it? And if you're just doing this chaotic tariffs are on, they're off, they're across the board. They're not across the board. 145% for China, yes auto, no auto, etc. It's only going to make the situation for American workers worse across the board. And the auto industry is one where, if Trump was just targeting like, okay, we're going to restore the auto industry. Here's how we're going to do it. And it was intelligent and coupled with industrial policy as we have talked many, I would support it. I support, I supported Trump's tariffs in the first term, I supported Biden's tariffs in his term. I would support something like that. That is not what we're talking about. So I don't think you can afford in this time to ignore the rest of what is going on with these tariffs, because they are going to hurt. They are going to be a regressive tax on working class people. They're going to hurt workers much more than they help workers. And the other thing is, if you listen to Trump talk, talk, and I get into some of this day in my monologue, he doesn't want to restore the 1950s height of post war manufacturing. At that time, you had about 50% unionization in terms of factory workers. So you had a lot of labor power. You had an expanding social safety net. You had a post war global economy where the US Was kind of the only game in town because so many other countries had been completely devastated. But that's not what he's looking to restore. And you can tell that by the fact that he's a union buster and by that Doge is gutting the government so that it can't regulate big business. He wants to go back, and he talks about this to the Gilded Age. He wants to go back to the time before there were labor regulations, before there were child labor regulations, when it was before the Progressive Era, when you really have a large union movement and labor power and before there was an income tax. That's what he wants to go back to. And these sort of like sweatshop jobs, because there's nothing inherent about factory jobs that makes them good jobs. It was the particular moment in time and also the fact that we had this very large union movement. You have to have all of those pieces if you're actually going to restore something good for American workers. Trump has no interest in any of that. He wants to go in the complete opposite direction. So while, listen, I get where Shawn Fain's coming from. Like, I've seen him be very critical of Trump in other areas. I understand his mindset. But this, this from Trump is going to completely go in the opposite direction of what you would want from American workers. And we already know, cuz we've seen Stellantis already do layoffs as a consequence of these tariffs.

[Craig Melvin]

Yeah. The difficulty for him is he has to support tariffs conceptually. And look, I get it, like you said, in the position that he's in on msnbc, people who are totally against tariffs. And he's like, no, that's not what I'm saying. What I'm calling for is X, Y and Z tariff combined with this policy. The difficulty that you run into is that with the chaos of the Trump administration now at this point, you never know whether a tariff is on or not. You literally. And the funny thing is even the automakers don't know. They have to call their lawyers and be like, what's the guidance from the White House today? And then the next day Trump comes out and likes. Actually there's no exceptions. And you're like, oh, okay. I mean, how can you do business or employ people?

[Sagar Enjeti]

How is the domestic auto market gonna be if we're in a recession?

[Craig Melvin]

Right, Exactly.

[Sagar Enjeti]

How's that gonna be for workers and layoffs and, and what level of investment in the U.S. do you think that you typically get during a recession? Which is what he is actively courting and what we may already be tipping into based on some of the estimates.

[Craig Melvin]

Yeah, I mean, 09 killed GM and still they destroyed them. It really never came back.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, that's right.

[Craig Melvin]

Ford, you gotta hand it to them, they were able to climb out and they never took any government money. I remember reading a really good book about how they were able to handle it. But they're the exception and they're not the rule. The US auto industry really never recovered from that. And then there was that whole cash for clunkers thing. They had destroyed the used car market. It was a disaster. Yeah, it was all bad.

[Sagar Enjeti]

The bailout was very unpopular at the time. But then it ended up being like. Was one of those things that the Obama administration kind of took a risk on because when it was being, when it was being proposed, it was actually really profoundly unpopular. But they did it anyway to save those jobs and ended up being obviously the right call.

[Craig Melvin]

Yeah, I don't know. I still think there should have been a. I don't just. If you look at the net effect, GM and Stellantis, like Ford has been actual decent success. GM and Stellantis, yes, they paid the money back and all of that, but like in terms of saving the jobs and the industrial base and all, that didn't really happen. I mean, they did close a lot of plants. They closed them in the interim. But you know, in a five year overall period, a lot of those jobs did get eventually outsourced. A lot of them went to Mexico and or to China. Globalizing just ate away at it. And the worst part is they don't create good products. Their products are bad. Even today you can see with respect to all these other car manufacturers around the world, they laugh at them.

[Sagar Enjeti]

It's not been such a calamity for Michigan.

[Craig Melvin]

I'm not disagreeing. I think it was right to save the job. But there should have been a much more concerted effort to make sure that they're globally competitive and just didn't happen. And now we are where we are today, some 15 years later where you have BYD Xiaomi and all these other people GM Instant. They can't make an electric car that's decent to save their life. They make it for like $90,000. It's a piece of shit. You know, nobody was going to buy it. And so yeah, we're in a tough spot here in our car industry. It's not good.

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