← Deadline: White House
Deadline: White House
"All the marble and gold in the world"
00:41:46
Nicolle Wallace on every day American's growing anger at Donald Trump's failure to tackle their top issue - the rising cost of living.
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Accelerate your AI transformation@rubrik.com that's R U B-R-I-K.com hi there everybody. It's 4 o' clock in New York. All the marble and all the gold in the world cannot plaster over the fact that the American people by and large are furious at Donald Trump over his failure to tackle their number one issue, the rising cost of everything. Watch what happens when reality comes to bite Donald Trump in the you know what during an interview on Fox News of all places.
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D
Watch.
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E
I know you've been all over the affordable affordability issue today and for the last several months, eggs, gas, dinner costs for Thanksgiving, Way down. But other things, as you noted, have gone up. Beef, coffee, auto repairs. Is this a voter perception issue of the economy?
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B
Or is there more that needs to.
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E
Be done by Republicans on Capitol Hill.
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B
Or or done in terms of policy.
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E
More than anything else? It's a con job by the Democrats.
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B
Laura Ingram's a lot of things, but even Laura Ingraham knew the answer to the question she asked, and Trump could shush her all he wants. He did. But rising prices isn't a con job cooked up by Democrats, and Laura Ingraham knows that. The price of beef is up 14.2%. The price of coffee is up 15.3%. CNN reports this quote Prices increased from January to September in five of the six overarching groups of grocery prices tracked by the federal government's Consumer Price Index. Donald Trump has never, ever, ever had a grasp of any of the facts, but particularly those around the cost of things for normal people or even the realities of the way normal Americans live. Here's what happened when Laura Ingraham brought up some of the pushback to an idea floated by Donald Trump recently. It's the idea of a FE50 year fixed mortgage.
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E
A significant MAGA backlash, calling it a giveaway to the banks and.
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B
Simply prolonging the time it would take.
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E
For Americans to own a home outright.
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A
Is that really a good idea?
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C
It's not even a big deal.
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B
I mean, you know, you go from 40 to 50 years and what you pay. Tell me you've never applied for a mortgage without telling me you've never applied for a mortgage. His inability to even get the 30 year fix thing of the answer right, you go from 40 to 50 is a real slip of the mask. And it reflects this yawning gap, now that everybody knows about, even his base, between Donald Trump and every other living American. And it's becoming more and more of a liability by the day. On the same day that food assistance was set to expire for more than 40 million Americans, Donald Trump posted these pictures basically of his like DIY Reno. Look what I did. I renovated the bathroom and the Lincoln bedroom. It's now covered in statuary marble instead of its historic design. Hours after that, he held an actual Great Gatsby themed party. This is not some smear that the Democrats put on his party. It was actually called a little party Never killed Nobody and had a Great Gatsby theme. That happened as 1.4 million federal workers went without a paycheck. And while that was happening, Donald Trump continued bulldozing and trying to build his giant gilded ballroom constructed on top of the now demolished East Wing, a priceless part of America's collective history. That wreckage is to say nothing of the actual gilding of the Oval Office and other rooms at the White House with gold. At a time when 77% of all Americans, regardless of who they voted for, say they're stressed out about their finances and their economic insecurity, Donald Trump and his crew of uber wealthy cabinet officials and billionaire tech bros keep telling us and showing us that they couldn't give a rats behind that. The American people are screaming at the top of their lungs about their economic anxiety. They make clear over and over and over again that they don't care. This is a president who posts images of himself wearing a gold crown. He's done it multiple times. These are not things made up by his political detractors. These are images he concocts or grabs onto and then posts himself. He likes them and wants us to see him in a crown surrounded by gold, renovating bathrooms in the White House after he demolishes the East Wing to build a massive ballroom for himself and says out loud, this is Our, quote, top priority. And as Treasury Secretary. Wow, this is what a $600 million treasury secretary gets you politically.
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C
So do you believe the idea that voters are saying affordability is a problem for me is a con job?
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A
I believe even this morning you had two people come on and say, well, I look at the price of the pump and I know costs are, well, gasoline's down. So that is a con job. And I think that's what's frustrating. So you don't believe that all the people who went to vote last Tuesday.
- [06:17]
C
On the issue of affordability.
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B
My rent's too high, I can't afford.
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C
To buy a house, Groceries are too expensive.
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A
You think they're just misperceiving what's happening in their lives? I think that they, that we inherited an affordability crisis.
- [06:35]
B
Does anyone think Scott Besant has ever pumped gas? A wildly out of touch Donald Trump and Cabinet trying and failing to gaslight the American people on the cost of living when it comes to his failure after 10 months in addressing the rising cost of living is where we start today. New York Times political reporter Nick Corsani is back. Also joining us, MSNBC political analyst, host of the Bulwark podcast, Tim Miller's back. And president of Media matters Angelo Caracon is back as well. Tim Miller, I'm going to start with you. I worked for the Bush family. One of the most iconic sort of images or instances of a president who sort of lost touch of the price of things and the modern way that people lived was George H.W. bush with a grocery scanner for my time in politics. And now as the person who does all the grocery shopping in my house, I always know how much a gallon of milk is of, you know, eggs, bread. Most politicians have people around them that make sure they know how much a gallon of milk, a dozen eggs, a loaf of bread, you know, meat, steak, those things cost. Clearly, Donald Trump doesn't know how much any of those things cost. I'm sure he's never been inside a grocery store unless he wanted to knock it down and stick something tacky there. But no one around him has told him that these things matter to literally everybody else in the country. We what do you make of what we're seeing of his inner circle first?
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A
Yeah, I think they're in a bad place. It's a wonderful intro. I just have two minor nits that.
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B
I need to please edit away before.
- [08:13]
A
I answer your question. Is that okay? I'm Pretty sure George H.W. bush got a raw deal on the grocery scanner thing. It's Been a while since I watched that, but I'm gonna Google it. Number two, the Great Gatsby party. There were two parties. Do you notice after the Great Gatsby party they did a truffle and opera party.
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B
Oh, there was an after party.
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A
I think it was the next day or later the next week or something. I looked at the menu for the truffle and opera party. They had a truffle daff on wall on the menu. I don't know what that is. Maybe some of the viewers who are fancier than me do, but I. So it's just many, they're doing many, many fancy parties down there while this is happening. And you know, look who he's hanging out with down there is well represented by Scott Bessant in that video. You know, getting back to your question about the. His inner circle, right? And his inner circle right now is extremely rich people who at least in some of the cases with Howard Lutnick and Steve Wyckoff and others have family members who are in on the Trump family grift. So you have extremely rich people that are in on the grift and the corruption as part of the inner circle. And then you have like wild eyed ideologues like Stephen Miller and that's it, that's who's there. Like that's who he's got around him now. And so I don't think it's that surprising that this stuff isn't breaking through to him. I mean obviously, you know, he has always been out of touch. But there was something to be said for kind of the rally stuff that he was doing in a while. Like he had this kind of call and response, like ongoing focus group with people that sort of helped drive his little lizard instinct towards what the types of people that showed up to those rallies at least cared about. He's not getting any of that feedback down. I mean he's at Mar a Lago with cougars on the pool deck and he's got billionaires in his cabinet. That's who he's talking to. And it's not surprising that he does that interview with Laura Ingraham and he doesn't just do the say the obvious that politicians say in this moment, which is we're trying to deal with this. Obviously we understand people are suffering. We have a bunch of plan. Here's our plan A, B and C. They don't have any plans. It's not just that they're out of touch. They're out of touch with people's affordability issues and they don't have any proposals to deal with it. They're not even trying to deal with it. I think that is the main political issue that he faces over the next year.
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B
So you edited me. I'm just gonna underline something you just said. What was it? Cougars on the pool deck and billionaires in the cabinet. I feel like that's like an album title or a Netflix series or a book title or something. I want to see more of show me the Lie. I love it. Let me ask you, Angela, you introduced this theory, this concept I've been obsessed with since you said it, this idea of narrative dominance. And the only thing that was gonna knock him off of that was always going to be a more compelling or more with more magnetic pull. Right. Than that than the dominant narrative or a politician. It seems that the latter hasn't really emerged, but the first may have. How do you see this moment?
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E
Yeah, I mean, I think he certainly lost narrative dominance and there are a lot of reasons for that, but a couple metrics. So one, we shouldn't discount the fact that this moment is happening after months of the Epstein stuff. And why that matters is that was really for the first time his own supporters, the people that had been percolating and simmering and pickled in the narrative that he had been telling, started to think for a second, well, wait a minute, maybe this guy's not going to be straight with us all the time. And even if they didn't flip on him, it at least created some space where they'd be willing to entertain the possibility that maybe their eyes and their experiences weren't lying to them and were more honest than what Trump was telling them was the case. So then you sort of fast forward to where we are now. And you know, one of the metrics for the other metric is the vibes. And the vibes in the right wing media are not good right now. They're just not. There isn't a cohesive, coherent story. You see all these random sort of like grab bags and buffets of nonsensical ideas and proposals or reasons why things feel the way they do. Even Steve Bannon, who tends to have the most cogent, coherent argument for Trumpism and what's happening. He's saying Trump has been nothing but focus on affordability. He's the guy who's focused on it all the time, gives no examples of that except to say the most important thing he can do right now is deport more people in high skilled jobs to help give some people in their late 20s and 30s with college debt, jobs here. I mean that's the best that they've come up with. And now this 50 year mortgage thing. So the vibes there aren't great. And then you sort of then look at what's projecting on the future and you have a guy that's pointing out even when Laura Ingraham is throwing him a bone. You know, all the gold that's on his wall, all the parties that Tim was referring to before. And that's the other piece of this narrative. One of the stories that Trump has always told these people is that just because I'm a billionaire that has my plane and my name on buildings, I'm just like you. I'm like you. I'm more like you than anybody else. I just have a lot of money. I'm the American dream embodiment. And what that means implied in that is that I understand you. And what he's demonstrating right now is that he doesn't understand them and he's disconnected. And that gap is only going to grow wider over time, especially when you don't have rest of the right wing media reinforcing a coherent story.
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B
Yeah, I mean, Nick, what he shared with them was a skepticism of the establishment. What he succeeded in 1.0 was a real political feat in that he became the establishment. But maybe a combination of sort of looking befuddled and being under investigation, he was able to position himself as outside the inside. He has now gone in and actually gilded the Oval Office. He did an inauguration where he looked out at the country surrounded not just by the government establishment, but the economic establishment. Like the most powerful economic figures in the world all stood children. Like he owns every establishment that every person who lives paycheck to paycheck hates. You know, all these billionaires, all these lavish weddings, all this sort of, I mean you run out of adjectives because they've taken them all. The gilding, the crown, the Gatsby. These are the things that people want a politician not just to make better, because that's a slow process, but to see and hear. And here's President Obama asking the oldest question in American politics ahead of Tuesday's wipeout for Republicans.
- [14:48]
D
They haven't put forward serious proposals to lower housing costs or make groceries more affordable. They haven't improved our schools or made healthcare more accessible or shortened your commute or prepared young people for a future where AI might take their jobs. All the nonsense that we see on the news every day, the over the top rhetoric, the fabricated conspiracies, the weird videos of A US President with a crown on his head flying a fighter jet and dumping poop on American citizens.
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B
Go boo. No, no, no, no. That.
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D
Wait, wait, that's not even worth booing about. Because all of that is a distraction. All of it is designed to distract you from the fact that your situation, your life, has not gotten better.
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B
The end of the day, if no one's life gets better, all those things just might matter a whole lot.
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C
And, you know, the president was speaking in New Jersey right before the election. And I think the New Jersey election, the dynamics of that election, and get at why this is so politically problematic for Trump. Mikey Sherrill, or Governor elect Mikey Sheryl now ran a campaign that was focused pretty extensively on Trump. She talked a lot about the issue. I heard the most from on voters, which was about their energy prices. You know, bills in New Jersey are even outpacing the rest of the country. So everyone there wants to hear, how are you lowering it? And she said, I'm going to freeze it. So that was an action. Right? But everything else was about Trump. So when voters went to the polls to turn in their ballot on affordability, the issue that was dominating the race, they blamed Trump. Cheryl won by 13 points. She made Trump the center of the campaign, and then she won by 13 points in a state that Trump only lost in 24, by 6 points. Now, every single county in New Jersey drifted away from Trump, some by 20 points, some by just a few to Cheryl. But it was overall like a repudiation of how Trump has been handling the most critical issue in this election, which was affordability. And voters were loud and clear. They didn't hear enough. Jack Cittarelli, you know, her opponent, he would talk about affordability, but he also didn't criticize the president, ever. He tried to walk a very fine line of kind of embracing MAGA politics without saying the president's name. But with him saying things about affordability and with Mikey really making it about the president, you see just how clear voters are being blaming President Trump and Republicans more so than Democrats. The Democrat governor for the past two terms, Phil Murphy, you know, voters in New Jersey said exactly how they're feeling. And I think that's why a lot of Republicans are very, very nervous about this issue heading forward.
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B
Let me put those poll numbers up. NBC News poll has Trump, has the Trump administration lived up to your expectations on the questions of inflation, the cost of living? 66% of Americans say he's fallen short, lived up to 30%. That's lower than his approval rating. Which is about 35, 34, 35, 36%. And on the question of inflation, specifically in the Washington Post, do you blame Trump for inflation? 60% blame him a great deal or a good amount? Only 40%. Not much or not at all. So regardless of what Scott Bessant says, Tim Miller, this is their economy.
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A
It is. And you know, we've talked about this a couple of times. I think it's just more stark now than it's even been in a while just how much it's his fault that it's his economy. And obviously whoever is the president was going to own the economy at some level. But you could imagine an alternate Trump universe where he just, even rhetorically he really focuses on working class stuff, working class affect. And we all rolled our eyes out. If you go back to the campaign and he's in the McDonald's thing and he's a big boy in the truck, he'd do that if he just did that kind of stuff where he is talking about the supposed forgotten man that he was supposed to care about and he didn't do the tariffs that are unconstitutional and are actually hurting people. And he listened to Steve Bannon and did a tax hike, you know, even a small one on the wealthiest as part of the bbb. You can imagine a totally different political situation for this. Like he's done this all to himself. Like he has stopped caring about regular folks concerns. He cares instead about his gilded White House and bombing boats in Venezuela and the trophies that he's getting in Korea and all that stuff. And the one bill that they put through was a bill that cut taxes for the rich. And the one outside of the immigration. The one other political priority he's had that has dealt with economic issues has been tariffs, which just raises costs on everybody. This is just a mess of his own making. And frankly I just think it gets worse as you go into next year because he's already done the things that he said he was going to do to allegedly help the economy and it's all backfiring.
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B
Yeah, I mean, and it'. Swince. You lose the narrative dominance, you lose thei mean there's still plenty of disinformation out there and spinning and his reaction to Laura Ingraham shows that they won't stop trying. But the idea that you can, I mean they've operationalized mass deportations, which has a depressive impact on the economy. They've operationalized the redistribution of wealth. They are about to make health care prices go through the roof. I mean these things are to your point, Tim, the worst impacts haven't hit the most people yet. With that as a tease, we're going to sneak in a break. On the other side, we'll show you fresh outrage at Republican town halls over Donald Trump's economy. Also ahead for us, new problems for Republicans over the Trump led plan to carve out more congressional seats ahead of the midterms to insulate himself from the political fallout of his economic failures. The remapping efforts for being met today with resistance from Republicans, some even inside the White House and now judges. Plus how Democrats can emerge from the shutdown to keep their focus on the next big election. And later in the broadcast, Trump now no longer quietly opening up a permission structure for criminality in this country. We'll look at his abuse of his pardon power and much more. And deadline White House continues after a quick break. Don't go anywhere.
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There's always pendulum swings. Now the Republicans now the only one who seems to get it. As crazy as he might be is Steve Bannon, who goes, no, no, no, we're, we're in deep trouble. Bannon is talking about that and he's telling the people on his side of the aisle they're in real trouble because the pendulum is now swinging back to economic concerns.
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A
Publican party's talking about knowing no, no, nobody cares about.
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E
And they're having. It's infighting, it's squabbling, it's all this stuff. And the Democrats are ascendant because, by the way, why not? No one's life is better since Trump.
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A
Took office, by the way.
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E
So at the end of the day, it's like, why not have an economic focus?
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B
Angelo, Tim Miller flagged that sound for us. That is a. If I describe him inaccurately, any one of the three of you can jump on this, but he's sort of a MAGA adjacent influential podcaster with a big following and carving out some independence for himself around the lack of focus on the thing that people care about, which is the economy. And explaining pretty accurately this, this pendulum swing. Now, I think he exaggerates either Bannon's influence or Bannon's focus on the economy. That's Bannon's history. That is not. That is not Bannon's path in Trump 2.0. And Angela, I wonder if you have any theories on why not. Is that what a pardon gets you? You don't criticize the boss? I don't know.
- [24:26]
E
Yeah, I mean, he wants to be careful, right? I mean, he doesn't want to lose whatever little bit of influence that he has. He probably spent most of his capital but getting Scott Bessant in place and, you know, he sort of understands his lane here, which is, you know, he doesn't have as much influence or power as he did the first time around. But what he does have is storytelling ability. And he hopes that he can carve out a persuasive enough narrative that it then pickle sort of picks up through the rest of the rugby media and reverberates. And Tim pointing out the fact that he had echoed Bannon in the past as a reflection of the role that Bannon had played, sort of as it was a way to sort of influence the Trump administration by, you know, sending shockwaves through the rest of the right wing media and in particular these MAGA adjacent people. And as you note with Tim, with Tim Dillon, who's an example of a lot of other of these MAGA adjacent figures, is that they're themselves kind of like, what am I doing here? You know, it's off. I don't want to necessarily jump to the Democrats, but like this guy is way not doing anything that I wanted. You know, he's all in with the tech people. He's not doing anything about the economy. It seems like he's making things worse now. He's disconnected. People like him are not going to carry water for Trump. Right. Like Rush Limbaugh was always going to be Rush Limbaugh. Fox News is always going to be Fox News. Right? It cannot, they can't change. But these MAGA adjacent figures, they're like weather veins. They go where the wind blows. They're not going to, they're not going to tank themselves for the political fortunes, especially of a lame duck. So that's not to be overly optimistic about it, but this is where it all sort of ties together. You know, right now, the rest, the right wing media, which is deeply important for politics, we shouldn't discount that. And Trump, really, it's a chorus without a conductor. And when Trump is functioning as a conductor, he can get everything in line and help sell a story. But when he's off doing all these random things, having these parties, reinforcing how disconnected he is, he's not serving that critical role either, which diminishes his political influence. I don't think it's an accident that you're starting to see a little bit more friction. Let's not forget the Senate also said to him, and I don't want to herald him for this, but it's a reality. And that he said, and the filibuster. And they said no six months ago, would they have said no? I don't know. And I think that's part of the example. You're seeing a little bit more friction here too. It's because he's not serving that conductor role and that is so deeply tied to his political power.
- [26:35]
B
Can I just ask you something about that, though? I mean, we focus probably to our. I focus to my detriment probably on the political intersection in this space and their content. But the ones with the biggest audiences, to your point, I mean, a lot of them go to listen to like the pyramid conspiracy theory. I mean, I got like hours of that tuning in, doing my own research on this. And I mean, how much is Trump just looking feeble? He's got bruises all over his hand. He falls asleep in a fat shop meeting. He's gilding the Oval Office. He flies around in like an actual bubble. His friend is like this weird eccentric billionaire. I mean, that describes all of his friends, plural I mean, how much of it is like, there's nothing cool. I mean, maybe they like the mug shot, maybe they liked that he was against the Democrats and it was sort of the nemesis of my nemesis became cool. But there's nothing cool going on and there's nothing that intersects with culture the way maybe these guys thought he was going to as president.
- [27:37]
E
I think you nailed it. A few months ago, he was an apex in the sense that he would show up at these UFC rallies. He was a reflection of what you'd want to be. He was aspirational in a lot of ways. He embodied, you know, sort of the hero of these conspiratorial narratives. And he sort of projected all this power, whereas now he's kind of becoming a joke. And one example of that, I don't think it's an accident that just recently Dana White, who runs the ufc, is on some podcast saying, you know, I'm not as right wing as people think I am. And, you know, he's not ripping on Trump, obviously, but what is he doing? He's creating an air gap. He would not have created an air gap a few months ago when Trump is, you know, showing up to ruckus applause at his events. It's because Trump is no longer a reflection of the brand that he has been selling that so many of these figures have bought into. And that's really the power of Q and A, these conspiracies. Right. As Trump sort of plops in as the hero. But now with all the Epstein stuff, as you noted, with, with, with all these tech people, it sort of seems like he's in on it or something's off. So not like they're going to turn on him, but they'll turn away from him.
- [28:35]
B
Yeah, I mean, Tim, some of the, I mean, Shane Gillis, you know, was one of the first folks to, to, to jump on the Epstein critiques. He had a joke at the ESPYs months ago. Now, I had an Epstein joke in here, but somebody deleted it. I mean, the air bubbles have been in there, I think. I don't know if they're hedges or strategy. I don't understand the space enough. But the absolute face plan on the economy, I mean, these are their listeners. And to do sort of a cover up for Trump on the failures on the economy really cross pressures them with their own audiences. It does.
- [29:09]
A
And there's another element to it, which is what you'd mentioned in the last segment and when talking to Nick about just this element of how Trump somehow managed to maintain a anti establishment cred in the first term while being president. And so in some ways, well, a lot of us were rightfully upset and mad about these huge figures of tech and finance folding to Trump after the inauguration. In some ways it kind of set the seeds for this problem for him because he became the establishment very quickly. You cannot be the anti establishment when you're partying around with Mark Zuckerberg and all the richest people in the world. And I think that if you're a comedian, and that's what Tim Dillon is, and he's political, but he's a comedian. If you're in that space, it's hard to be a comedian and be for the man. It's especially hard to be a comedian and be for the man when the man is screwing up and when the man is putting policies in place that are hurting the listeners. Right. In order to be, you got to speak to some level of truth. Right. And that's what humor is. Right. It's either an exaggerated or some kind of observation about something that is fundamentally true about human nature. And so I think that that's like another thing that has happened here is where Trump has really turned himself into not only kind of, as you mentioned, like a pathetic figure just in his physical presence and the things that he cares about, he caring about these trophies and the bruises, but also an establish establishment figure. And you can't be cool and countercultural if you also are in league with Palantir while they're spying on Americans.
- [30:45]
B
It doesn't work like that, including your listeners. I mean, the brand is so clunky for what some of them, I think thought they were signing up for. Angela, thank you so much for starting us off on all this today. Tim and Nick, stick around ahead for us. Add another state to the win column. Democrats have received another surprising victory in their drive to tamp down the Trump backed push to gerrymander congressional maps. We'll look at where those efforts stand right now.
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Head over to get started.TikTok.com TikTok ads Donald Trump's redistricting obsession, his aim to further tilt the electoral map in his favor ahead of the midterms, has an exactly gone according to his plan, with devastating losses last week in California, where California voters approved a direct response to Texas with a new congressional map of their own, and in Virginia, where Democrats are threatening to do the very same thing. But as NBC News reports today, quote, two Republicans close to the White House say there are growing concerns in the party that the juice may not have been worth the squeeze and could, in a nightmare scenario, result in a net gain for Democrats, end quote. Wow. And last night, more pushback and rejection to what Republicans are doing this time in Utah, where a judge there tossed out a map drawn by Republicans trying to protect their delegation in that state, Judge Diana Gibson calling their efforts, quote, an extreme partisan outlier that, quote, does not comply with Utah law. Instead, she approved a map that's now likely to give Democrats one of the state's four seats. Joining me at the table, Democratic strategist and professor at Columbia University, MSNBC political analyst Basil Smikles here. Nick and Tim are still with me. I mean, Nick, I want to start with you. This was always the possible silver lining was that if you, I mean, I don't want to borrow their analogy, but it's a pretty good one. If you squeeze too hard, you actually make it more difficult for The Republicans that you think you're. You're putting in safer seats to win all those seats. Will you just explain that? How spreading it around actually jeopardizes all the seats in a big wave election?
- [34:31]
C
Sure. This is a phrase that is a funny name. It's known as a dummy mander instead of a gerrymander, because, yeah, that is, you know, dumb in that you lose your seats. Now, Republicans have been pretty clear that in almost every map they've drawn, so Texas, North Carolina, Ohio, kind of, and Missouri, all of their districts have been Trump +10. So that in 2024, Trump would have carried those congressional districts by 10, which theoretically would sound safe. But in a wave election, that could easily erode and we could see those suddenly become competitive, which could cost Republicans a lot of money. Even if they don't lose a seat, they now have a competitive seat that they weren't planning on. So they're out resources. The other thing that's really important to remember is in 2024, Trump outperformed with a lot of demographics that didn't usually vote Republican, especially Latino voters. So in Texas, per se, there's, you know, certain districts that are relying on those Latino voters to stay Republican, to even be considered safe. So there's so many different ways that in a wave election or coming immediately off a presidential election, assumptions could be made about voters that just don't hold. And anytime you're trying to make more safe seats for one party out of a state, you're diluting in one place or the other. So what could happen, although it's certainly not guaranteed to happen, is that in some of these states, like Texas, like Ohio, you know, Utah, they didn't draw it, but it could happen there, too, where seats that were hopefully going to go Republican now could even go Democrat or at least end up costing them millions of dollars.
- [36:07]
B
What the Republicans, I don't know if they understand this or not, but you can be wearing a MAGA hat and voting for a Democrat, right? You can be MAGA and say, whoa, this is MAGA full strength. I want MAGA in the White House, but I want to check on him because my health care premium went up. My relative or kid who relied on Medicaid got kicked off Medicaid. Every single thing at the grocery store costs more money. So does everything at Walmart. So does everything at Home Depot. I mean, the mistake in this seems to be that it's not that people swing to the Democratic Party, it's that they express their discontent, as they did last Tuesday, by Punishing Republicans.
- [36:48]
D
Right. And you know, Tim made a point in the earlier segment when he was referring to the comedian and sort of Trump being part of the movement that's perhaps now become the establishment. And it made me think about something that George Carlin always said, is that comedians should always punch up, not down. And what I think is happening, particularly among some independents and maybe some MAGA voters, and I think this is a credit to Democrats, is that they have been pushing and hitting home the message that Donald Trump is consistently punching down. And when you sort of add what some of us call venue shopping, which is not just the voting mobilization, but also finding courts and finding pathways to block what's being done that, that the Democrats have this ability to operate on sort of multiple, in multiple venues at multiple levels to try to, you know, create that check that you're talking about. And it seems that, you know, the calculation from the Trump administration was, man, we're going to lose this midterm election. We got to go out there and do as much as we can as quickly as we can. And voters are saying it's too much for us. It's too much. You slow this thing down. You know, all I see is you hosting Gatsby parties at Mar a Lago. How is this actually helping me? And there is real concern about the swinging of that pendulum. Does if, because I've heard a lot of this. Well, if the Democrats get too much, are they going to come punish us at the end of the day?
- [38:19]
B
Yeah. Nick, thank you so much for joining us on all this. Tim and Baz will stick around a little bit longer after the break for us. Now that the government is set to reopen, we'll ask, ask how Democrats keep up the momentum they gained last Tuesday night. That's next. When the history of this political moment is written, it will include many, many chapters on our slide toward autocracy. But it will also include the fierce debate over the wisdom or short sightedness of the Democrats in the Senate. Eight of them voting with Republicans who have proven their bad faith over and over and over again at every single turn to end the longest government shutdown in American history. Legislation is poised to pass that will effectively end the shutdown after eight Senate Democrats voted with all Senate Republicans to end what was essentially a hostage taking of the American people's lives and daily finances by the Trump administration. But because this shutdown is likely almost over, we hope nearly 42 million Americans who rely on food assistance through SNAP will be able to have a little bit of peace of mind. When it comes to feeding their families in the weeks ahead of Thanksgiving. We hope federal workers will get paid now and haven't had to take on any additional debt or loans or even look for a second job. Your next flight might even arrive on time or at least won't be canceled ahead of the busy travel holiday season. But on the other side, many Democrats are enraged. They argue that the American people rightly blame Donald Trump and congressional Republicans for the shutdown. And and the American people understand that Democrats are in there fighting for health care costs, a fight that they will now likely lose because those eight caved at the shutdown. We're back with Basil and Tim. What do you think, man, I have.
- [40:07]
D
So many thoughts because I do think that Democrats very well framed the debate. They said that Republicans were taking away your health care or making it more expensive. And I do think that that has settled in. But I'm also reminded that today is Veterans Day. And on my way over here on the I heard a few veterans talking to each other, and a black veteran said to his friend how much he was struggling because of the shutdown. So you have to acknowledge that there was some real pain out there that people were feeling, and they'll be glad that this is over. But I think a lot of the anger is focused, generally speaking, on two things. One, that these eight Democrats made this announcement without Chuck Schumer. So it looked like they broke away from him without him being able to pull them together in a way that maybe Hakeem Jeffries would pull the House together and create that kind of consensus. So maybe more of them should have come out. Maybe Chuck should have come out with them. I don't know. But that's what I think so many people point to, is making them believe that he's not in control and doesn't have power. The other point that I was in listening to their press conference Sunday night, they went through great pains to explain their decision. And I learned very early if you're explaining, you're losing. And because it's not that, it's not, the decision clearly was not that simple and it clearly was not easy. And you know, for me, when I think about why it is that they made that decision, they're not, you know, up for reelection or anything like that, you know, But I just sit back and say to myself, well, you've got to now explain this to the American people and to that Democratic voter that sees you with a moderate and doesn't see you fighting. And that that quick piece right there is what's really important for so many that came off of last Tuesday saying that we've got this and that's gonna be, that's really the major party challenge right now.
- [42:04]
B
Tim.
- [42:06]
A
Yeah, look, I understand why people are upset, but my view on this shutdown overall is that over 40 days, the Democrats are in a lot better place now than they were 40 days ago politically. And it's because they picked a clear strategy for once. They talked about an issue that people care about, excuse me, health care costs, which are going to rise. And I think that if you, I understand people are upset because if you went into that fight thinking, okay, at the end of this, the Democrats are going to get a scalp, they're going to win, right? And the Republicans are going to fold. I just think that was the wrong expectation to have for this fight. I just, I never believed that the Republicans were going to, to fold. The Republican House of Representatives has no interest in extending Obamacare subsidies and is never going to. And over the course of the 40 days, the Democrats gained a single vote, Marjorie Taylor Greene, who came over to their side. And so to me, this is the longest shutdown in history. It's longer than any shutdown that the Tea Party Republicans ever did. So I don't want to hear from people that it's like the Democrats don't know how to fight like Republicans anymore. They're folding and Republicans fight harder. This was a harder, longer fight than anything even the most extreme and radical Republicans have done in the past. And what they got out of it was the Republicans in a worse political position, voters understanding where Democrats are now on health care and the fact that Democrats wanted to make healthcare cheaper and the Republicans don't care about that. And I think the Republicans right now are in as bad of a political position as they've been in in a long time, probably since 2018. And I think that's a modest win for the Democrats. I know that's not cold comfort for people whose health care prices or whose health care insurance costs are going up, but that's not the fault of these eight people. Their insurance costs are going up because Donald Trump won the election and the Republicans won both houses of Congress. And the only way to fix that is to vote them out next time.
- [44:03]
B
And my only thought on this is just, and I know people hate advice from ex Republicans, but skip the circular firing squad and go on to fight. Just go back to fighting. Like, that's how, that's how you swept the elections Tuesday night. That's how you, as you said, Tim, pulled off a shutdown longer than even the most extreme Republicans in modern political history. You know, get back in the trenches and fight. Basil, thank you for being here. Tim Miller, thank you for being here. After the break. For us, new speculation that the US Plans to dramatically escalate its attacks on Venezuela. We'll bring you that reporting next.
- [44:37]
D
Next.
- [44:41]
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It is a major escalation of the country's military posture. The Pentagon's largest aircraft carrier has now arrived in the Latin American region today. According to the U.S. navy, the USS Gerald Ford, carrying more than 4,000 sailors and dozens of tactical aircraft, is joining a massive naval buildup in the region. Moving the carrier has added to speculation that the Trump administration will further escalate its ostensible anti drug campaign against Venezuela. On the decision to move the carrier, a defense expert told the Washington Post this, quote, the only reason to move it there is to use it against Venezuela. Its arrival in the region means, quote, the shot clock has started because this is not an asset they can just keep there indefinitely. They have to use it or move it. And moving it would mean they are standing down from a potential attack on Venezuela. Stay on top of that story after the break. Donald Trump's widening use of his near absolute pardon power. The next hour of deadline. White House starts after a quick break.
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