← Deadline: White House
Deadline: White House
“Do not drop those bombs”
01:25:10
Nicolle Wallace discusses brand new reporting on the U.S. strikes on Iran’s nuclear facility as President Donald Trump lashes out at both Iran and Israel, his attacks on Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, the latest example of the administration’s cruel immigration policy going viral, a whistleblower’s claim about a top DOJ official, and more. Joined by: Rep. Jason Crow, Courtney Kube, Michael Crowley, Ned Price, Justin Wolfers, Charlie Sykes, Alejandro Barranco, Jacob Soboroff, Ian Bassin, and Mike Schmidt.
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- [00:00]
Nicole Wallace
Deadline White House is brought to you by Progressive, where drivers who save by switching save nearly $750 on average. Plus auto customers qualify for an average of 7 discounts. Quote now@progressive.com to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates national average 12 month savings of $744 by new customers surveyed who save with Progressive between June 2022 and May 2023. Potential savings will vary. Discounts not available in all states and situations.
- [00:34]
John Heilemann
Hi there everyone. It's four o' clock in the East. At this very moment as we come on the air, the Trump administration and California Governor Gavin Newsom are having it out in court. California's attorneys are asking a three judge panel to restore control of the 4,000 National Guard troops that the Trump administration sent to California to quell immigration protests in Los Angeles, back under the command and control of Governor Gavin Newsom. That panel paused a ruling last week from a district court judge who called Donald Trump's National Guard takeover unconstitutional and illegal. Ahead of today's hearing, Governor Newsom issued a dire warning on the stakes of all of this. In an op ed he penned for none other than Fox News, he writes this quote, authoritarian regimes begin by targeting the most vulnerable, but they do not stop there. Trump and his loyalists thrive on division because it allows them to consolidate power and exert even greater control. If some of us can be snatched off the streets without a warrant, based only on suspicion or skin color, then none of us are safe. This is about far more than la. It's about more than California. This is about all of us. It's about you. When Donald Trump asserted blanket authority to commandeer the National Guard, he made that order apply to every state in this nation. California may be the first, but it won't be the last. Other states are next. Democracy is next. That idea that Trump's autocratic tactics do not start and end in California was an idea and a message that was echoed today on the Senate floor by California Senator Alex Padilla. He emotionally recounted how he was handcuffed and removed from a press conference being held last week by DHS Secretary Kristi Noem. Watch. You've seen the video. I was pushed and pulled, struggled to maintain my balance.
- [02:40]
Nicole Wallace
I was forced to the ground.
- [02:45]
John Heilemann
First on my knees and then flat my chest. And as I was handcuffed and marched down a hallway, repeatedly asking, why am I being detained? Not once did they tell me why. I pray you never have a moment like this.
- [03:17]
Nicole Wallace
If what you saw happen.
- [03:20]
John Heilemann
Can happen. When the cameras are on, imagine not only what can happen, but what is happening in so many places where there are no cameras. What's happening is not just a threat to California. It's a threat to everyone in every state. Just as Senator Padilla was sharing that firsthand account in such emotional and stark terms on the floor of the Senate and asking the question, if it could happen with the cameras on, if it could happen to me, to whom else is it happening? We got our answer in another dramatic confrontation between Trump's immigration officials and a Democratic official opposing Trump's policies as it played out. It played out when ICE agents arrested New York City mayoral candidate and the city's current comptroller, Brad Lander, inside of an immigration court. The Department of Homeland Security confirmed Lander's arrest in a tweet in which they accuse him of assaulting law enforcement and impeding a federal officer. Here is the video of what happened. I will let go when you show me the judicial warrant. Where is it?
- [05:02]
Jacob Soboroff
You don't have the authority to arrest U.S. citizens, sir. You don't have the authority to arrest U.S. citizens.
- [05:10]
John Heilemann
I will let go when I see a warrant. You don't have the authority to arrest US citizens. Scenes you don't see in America every day. Scenes you don't see in any healthy democracy. So we start today because there's another one today with some of our favorite reporters and friends. NBC News correspondent Jacob Sobroff is back with us. Also joining us, political strategist, publisher of the Bulwark, host of the focus group podcast, Sarah Longwell's back, and Puck News chief political columnist, MSNBC national affairs analyst John Halman's here. Jacob Soboroff, let me do this. I know you're in California. I know you're covering today's hearing. But let me ask you to jump on this New York story and another example of a very physical handling of a Democratic elected official. Is there ICE guidance that says stop at nothing to apprehend anyone, including Democratic elected officials?
- [06:12]
Sarah Longwell
Obviously, what Tom Holman said to me, Nicole, was that anybody in his opinion who steps between enforcement operations and ICE carrying out the largest mass deportation effort in American history, which is a huge departure from precedent under Democratic and Republican administrations, is at risk. And that departure includes showing up in court where immigrants who are coming to this country and have ongoing court cases are going to do the right thing. They're showing up in court to say, I'm here for my check in. I'm here to have my case adjudicated. I want to stay in the United States for Whatever that reason might be, it might be violence, it might be persecution, it might be food insecurity, it might be fleeing a danger for their family. And the idea that in court right now, where this situation played out in New York City, ICE agents are showing up in the hallways targeting immigrants, trying to go through the process as they should, is the departure here. And Tom Holman has brought his philosophy. If you stand in the way of our unprecedented immigration enforcement operation, which is now targeting, quote, unquote, collateral arrests, people, by the way, who may not have criminal convictions or are the worst of the worst or dangerous, you're going to get arrested. And that's what we saw play out in New York today.
- [07:31]
John Heilemann
What's interesting, Jacob, and you had the first interview with Senator Padilla, is that while the American people rejected what they saw, it was not popular. They've doubled down. They ICE or Trump or whomever is calling the shots. Like the optics of manhandling a Democratic elected official at Kristi Noem's press conference, there have been some reporting that perhaps that wasn't necessarily something everybody was comfortable with, but clearly they were.
- [08:02]
Sarah Longwell
Remember what she said at the press conference, which I think gets lost in the. In the takedown of Senator Padilla, who himself is the son of Mexican immigrants, by the way. Everybody should remember and is a historic elected official here in the city of Los Angeles and in the state of California as the first Latino senator, first Latino president of the city council here in Los Angeles. Kristi Noem said she was coming to LA to liberate the city from the storm socialists. It wasn't to crack down on the most violent criminal offenders who entered the country without authorization. It was, quote, unquote, a liberation of Los Angeles. I've been on the streets of Los Angeles virtually every day since these enforcement operations started last Friday. The city of Los Angeles is a peaceful city. In fact, while listening to this court case today and listening to the Trump administration describe the scene outside the courthouse. Wanna make sure I get this right. To protect the federal building as a thousand, sustained, ongoing mob violence, Thousand protestors were engaged in sustained, ongoing mob violence, were trying to breach the building. We have the video. I was standing there for hours. I was on the air with you. We were talking to Ross, the Marine Corps veteran who was there to peacefully protest the current Marine Corps having to stand outside the building. There was no violence of the sort. So this sort of underlying pretext to engaging in these operations, I can tell you, from my perspective as a journalist, I can tell you based on what I'M hearing inside that courtroom today what, what the federal government is telling the court about what happened outside that courthouse on Saturday as justification for taking over Gavin Newsom's National Guard is just not true. And I'm telling you that because I saw it with my own eyes.
- [09:37]
John Heilemann
Yeah, it's amazing when you see the anatomy of the lies as they're crafted. I mean, we had the benefit of watching Kristi Noem's press conference where she tells her first lie at 3:00pm Eastern about Senator Padilla not identifying himself when the tape had emerged 30 minutes earlier with him identifying himself. Explain this hearing, this, this isso. Donald Trump loses in court. The judge is Judge Breyer. He rules against Donald Trump and in favor of the state of California. What is today's hearing, how is it going and what happens next?
- [10:10]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah, that's exactly right. So the case, the governor's office and the attorney general of California, Rob Bonta, first took this case to the Northern District of California, to Judge Breyer, who seemed to indicate he was going to, you know, side on the side of the government, the government's argument. And Gavin Newsom previewed this when he and I talked live on Sunday night, two Sundays ago on msnbc, sort of at the height of the ICE operations getting underway. He said that the federal government had usurped his authority. He said specifically, they never coordinated with the governor of the state, which under statute, the state is arguing, even if the president of the United States wanted to engage in this unprecedented takeover, usurpation of the authority of the governor, taking 4,000 National Guard troops and putting them under federal authority, the federalization of the National Guard, which, by the way, is taking away National Guard troops, three quarters of the rattlesnake teams that are mitigating potential fire danger at the height of wildfire season in California, and taking counter narcotic officers, National Guard troops that were part of task force at the border, going after drug cartels off of their duty to bring them to the streets of California. Governor Newsom's argument is that is against, even though there's Title 10 of the US Code and that's what they're exercising here, it requires you to coordinate with the governor's office. And you did nothing, nothing of the sort. And so that's the crux of the argument here, which is there is no authority for the president to do this. He didn't do it in the right way, even if he wanted to try to attempt to do this in the right way. And so now it's time for you to return jurisdiction over those National Guard troops to me, Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, so I can put them actually to good use for my state. And it's me who knows what our state needs. Our local elected officials know what our state needs. And the mayor of Los Angeles doesn't want those troops there better than you, Mr. President.
- [11:55]
John Heilemann
Sarah, I keep thinking that Trump has this issue where he has some political, a lot of political support, and he's squandering it in a place where he has none. 81% of the American people want to see Donald Trump follow all court orders. The court, in the case of people wrongfully deported to El Salvador, told him to facilitate his return, not to bring him back and charge him with crimes that were unknown before he was ever deported. I mean, the idea that he is taking an issue on which he has some, not some, a lot of public support and perverting it to such an extreme feels politically insane and morally reprehensible.
- [12:40]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah, well, I think part of it is that Trump has a fetish, I think, for losing in court. That's just something that he seems to get a charge out of because it's a lot of what he does. But, but actually, in all seriousness, I think, you know, he is currently very much underwater on his economic policies. The tariffs have been deeply unpopular. His economic policies have long been the thing that he could really rely on, and that's been tipping over of late. People are frustrated about inflation. They're still frustrated about costs. And then on foreign policy, you know, he's in a situation right now where his coalition is splitting over, you know, his engagement with Iran and Israel. People are very frustrated with him. And so Trump has always done this. When the going gets bad for tough for Trump, Trump gets tough on immigration. Like, that's just his move before an election. It's the caravans are coming. So this is what he does. And he thinks, thinks there's. There's a way, whether it's him or Stephen Miller or just the posture of what they do, it is go as hard as you can on immigration and even better, pick a fight with California, because we feel like that's popular with our base and at least we can hold on to them while we're struggling in these other areas. And so I think that's the mentality. But I just want to say one thing. On these ICE raids, which is, I'm watching that video. What is going on with these masks? The fact that the people who are pursuing this legislator are wearing masks. You can't see Their faces. I mean, you know, the violence itself with, with Senator Padilla, with this elected official is, is, is insane enough on its face. But I have seen too many of these videos now, including where they're, you know, yanking students off the streets, where people are in masks and not showing their faces. That is really something we cannot be doing in this country. People need to be clearly identified. And I don't understand with conservatives. And now I'm going to switch to it back to the California thing. We like federalism, we like limited government, we like cops to identify themselves. Like, all of this stuff is completely flies in the face of everything we ever learned about what it meant to be a conservative back when that word had any kind of meaning. And so I keep seeing these images and I keep being shocked that there's not more pushback on these idea that people aren't properly showing who they are as they're trying to arrest people.
- [15:06]
John Heilemann
Yeah, I mean, John Hyman on that point, Trump has turned Gavin Newsom into the moderating voice in this issue. He's going on Fox News and saying, hey, I'm not saying we don't need to crack down on crimes that are committed in protests. In fact, the LA law enforcement has aggressively policed all of the demonstrations. But he's drawing the line at something that he's not just saying is anti Democratic, but he's showing. I mean, where do you see this today?
- [15:39]
Nicole Wallace
Well, I see it, I think probably much the same way you do, Nicole, in the sense that if you look at this in the micro and you think about the politics of it, I think everything Sarah said makes sense. It's been Trump's established pattern. And I think everything you're saying makes sense in the if you think that Donald Trump is trying here to accomplish something in the short term and on the micro level politically, which is to say, you know, he's popular on immigration, why would he squander it by doing things that are unpopular? Today in the polling, I think the question is, what's Trump's medium term and longer term agenda here? And I think in his medium term and longer term agenda, at a minimum, are to start to acclimate or acclimatize. I'm not sure what the right word is. One of those two to kind of acclimate Americans to what is still, for a lot of people of every persuasion ideologically and in terms of their partisan loyalties, an uncomfortable sight, which is troops on the streets of American cities. That's a sight that makes a lot of people squeamish for any reason whatsoever. There are still enough people around who remember enough of those images from the 1960s and the early 1970s, who can remember Kent State, can remember what happens when the National Guard has been mobilized to try to quell protests in the past, can remember some of those traumatizing events. And even those who haven't have not seen that very often in America. Right. And I think what Trump is trying to do here is to make this just a start in the best political environment he could for himself, which is L A. L A New York are the places where much of the country we've discussed this last week looks askance at those places. I say that as a Angelino and a current New Yorker, but people look askance at those places. They're the bluest places in the country. And Trump is kind of testing the water, doing a dry run, gauging public blowback, but also starting to get people used to the idea, try to establish some kind of a legal foothold and get people used to the idea that seeing American troops dispatched to cities around the country is in some way normal. And that's what this whole rollout of this week has been. Hey, L A has gone great for us. They say you're going to see this in a bunch of other mostly blue big cities all over the country. I think that's the longer term game here. Not worrying about his approval rating on immigration today, but trying to lay this predicate down for what he wants to do with the military in cities around the country in other circumstances.
- [18:15]
John Heilemann
Well, you also have to put into the mix the fact that the move of putting troops on the streets of L A precedes millions of Americans taking to the streets at record setting protests in the country. So he may be trying to get people used to it. He's also awoken his own resistance and opposition, which we know has historically bothered him a great deal. Jacob, do this for me. I know you're monitoring this hearing. Real quick, before we let you go, has anything happened? And two, promise us if and when it does, that she'll come back on the air and fill us in.
- [18:48]
Sarah Longwell
Well, the court just continues. It's been amazing to listen to this. The court continues to push back. And the argument that John was just making it seems to be the sort of underpinnings of the conversation happening right now by the attorney for California who's arguing against the Trump administration, that this is a petri dish, this is a test case. And Gavin Newsom's been pretty consistent in what he's saying about this, the federalization of the National Guard in California. It's not just limited to California. He can do this under this authority in other states if he wants and when he wants. And so this is just the beginning. And so that's a conversation that I'm interested to go back and listen to as I hop off the air here because it's continued, continuing to unfold. And it's not just a case about Los Angeles, but it's really a case about what's going to happen across the United States in the days and weeks and months to come.
- [19:33]
John Heilemann
And potentially years. So, Jacob, listen to that. Wave your arms and come right back if anything develops. And thank you for starting us off, Sarah and John, stick around with me when we all come back. U.S. democratic Senator Tina Smith is confronting and calling out the cruelty, and I'll add, stupidity of her Republican colleague, Senator Mike Lee for the lies and disinformation he spread in the traumatized immediate aftermath of a deadly politically motivated assassination in Minnesota. We'll show you what she had to say and ultimately what Mike Lee has decided to do in response. Plus, the world is watching the Trump White House today, as Sarah suggested, Donald Trump's suggesting and then threatening that the US could enter into a war against Iran. We'll try to sort out what it all means coming up. And later in the broadcast, Donald Trump's handling of the US Economy sinking quickly in the minds of all Americans, including millions of people who voted for him. Well, look at all the damage he could possibly do to the global economy with his trade war. Not even making it to the top of that list. All those stories and more when Deadlift White House continues after a quick break. Don't go anywhere. Today.
- [20:49]
Nicole Wallace
MSNBC Films presents season two of the hit series from NBC News Studios. Leguizamo Does America, hosted by John Leguizamo.
- [20:58]
John Heilemann
We're going to connect with some Latinos, eat some food and do a little dancing.
- [21:02]
Nicole Wallace
Join him for six new episodes as he explores the Latino experience in six more iconic American cities.
- [21:08]
E. Jean Carroll
I'm here to meet with some exceptional Latin people leading the way.
- [21:11]
John Heilemann
So come on, let's go.
- [21:12]
Nicole Wallace
Leguizamo Does America Season 2 premieres Sunday, July 6th at 9pm Eastern on MSNBC. Stay up to date on the biggest issues of the day with the MSNBC Daily Newsletter. Each morning you'll get analysis by experts you trust, video highlights from your favorite shows.
- [21:29]
John Heilemann
I do think it's worth being very clear eyed, very realistic about what's going.
- [21:33]
Nicole Wallace
On here, previews of our podcasts and documentaries, plus written perspectives from the news newsmakers themselves, all sent directly to your inbox each morning. Get the best of MSNBC all in one place. Sign up for MSNBC Daily at msnbc.com subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts for early access. Add free listening and bonus content to all of MSNBC's original podcasts, including the chart topping series the Best People with Nicole Wallace, why Is this Happening? Main justice and more. Plus new episodes of all your favorite MSNBC shows ad free and ad free listening to all of Rachel Maddows original series, Ultra Bagman and Deja News. Subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts.
- [22:21]
John Heilemann
A confrontation in the hallways of Capitol Hill on Monday is speaking volumes today about the toxic stew that permeates there. It's a mix of violent rhetoric and distrust and misinformation and right wing information bubbles that is eating away at the foundations of the U.S. capitol and our democracy. It hints at one way to fight back against it as well though. Take a look at this photo. This is Minnesota Senator Tina Smith. She's speaking to Republican Mike Lee now. This photo was taken after Mike Lee posted about the gunman who murdered one Minnesota lawmaker and her husband and wounded another and his spouse. One of those posts says this quote, this is what happens when Marxists don't get their way. End quote. There's no evidence to suggest that the suspect was a Marxist or had any affinity for or part of the political left. According to the Associated Press, he was deeply opposed to abortion rights and had attended Trump rallies and was registered as a Republican prior to moving to Minnesota. Notebooks found in his car had a list of more than 45 officials, including several Democratic members of Congress. Those are the facts not disputed by anyone. Contrast those facts with Mike Lee's disinformation and lies posts he made literally the day after the murders. Senator Lee described them as nothing. Senator Smith, I'm sorry, described them as nothing short of cruelty. Here's what she said about her conversation with Mike Lee. I wanted him to know about the consequence of his words and I went to him and I said, you know, your message on social media showed the image of the man who killed my friend potentially minutes before that happened. And your message was, this is what happens. You need to take responsibility and accountability for what you are saying and doing out there in the social media world. And I wanted him to hear that from me directly and not to like for me to tweet out at him. I think that that is important that he understands again the consequence of what the impact that his words have on people who are going through so much pain and trauma.
- [24:38]
Tina Smith
What did he have to say when.
- [24:39]
Ben Rhodes
When you confronted him with that?
- [24:42]
John Heilemann
Well, I mean, honestly, I don't think this is a person who's used to being confronted. I don't think he's somebody who's used to being challenged. And I think he didn't quite know what to do. I, you know, approached him, like, from a position of respect and wanting to, wanting him to understand what I thought, and he didn't have that much to say. What he needs to do is he needs to apologize. I really think that he should take that, that post down. This afternoon, Mike Lee did just that. All three tweets related to the shooting were taken down. We're back with Sarah Longwell and John Heilman. Sarah, it's such a, such a gutting example, but such an important story that when you pierce someone's disinformation sphere, even if they're a United States senator and you stand in front of them as a human being, you can introduce shame into that petri dish.
- [25:43]
Ben Rhodes
Not just introduce shame, but induce perhaps the better angels of one's nature to prevail, which I think happened by him deleting these posts. And look, Mike Lee is such an interesting specimen in that you can sort of track. Mike Lee was a never Trumper to start. I mean, he actually stood on the floor of the convention in 2016, trying, screaming and yelling, trying to oppose Donald Trump's nomination. Today, he is somebody who is terminally online. There's a great piece in the Bulwark right now by our Joe Perticone, our Capitol Hill reporter, who just tracks how much time Mike Lee spends just tweeting nonsense into the world. And that is not who Mike Lee used to be. And so sort of the 10 years of Donald Trump, you can track the degradation of the Republican Party, the degradation of people's behavior on social media, basically, through the degradation of Mike Lee. And I think that if there's going to be any salvation for any of us, it's going to be rediscovering the decency and the humanity that, that Senator Peters brought to him by saying, this is shameful behavior. Like, you know better. I'm your colleague. Like, don't, don't do this. Don't be like this. And it, that ability to remind somebody of the essential humanity of, of what was happening there and pulling him out of what is a disease that a lot of people are afflicted by now, of just Sitting on Twitter and posting garbage and nonsense and, and getting the adrenaline rush from the, the likes, which it seems like he does. You know, his, his sort of drinking, liberal tears thing. She reminded him that there were human beings who had been murdered, that they were friends of hers, that she was his colleague, and that he had a responsibility as a human being and as a United States senator not to behave like this. And the fact that she heard him is a. Is a rare because usually, as we saw with Joni Ernst, the move now is to double down right, to never admit wrong, to never say that the thing you're doing is, is inhumane. When she said, yeah, look, people die. That's what happens if you cut Medicaid, you know, and then instead of apologizing for being glib about people's lives, she went to a. A graveyard and took a selfie of herself making jokes about it. That has been standard operating procedure from Republicans. And so for somebody as far gone as Mike Lee has appeared to be over the last few years, to see him take it out now, it'd be better if he apologized, like it'd be better if he did more, but at least taking them down, that's a start. And I'm glad he did.
- [28:19]
John Heilemann
It just strikes me that the bar is so freaking low. We're now talking about a Republican senator who lost his mind. I think Tim Alberta two years ago, three years ago, profiled the journey that Sarah's talking about, John, sort of his descent into MAGA madness. And it's totally tangled up with the mythology of the manosphere. But Joe Rogan's been micro breaking up with Trumpism in little tiny ways every week for about the last six weeks. I mean, it's not masculine to make fun of someone who's been assassinated. It's not even a sentence anyone should have to utter. It's batshit crazy. What is wrong with him?
- [29:02]
Nicole Wallace
Well, you asked me for to get my PhD in psychology or psychotherapy here, Nicole, and I don't have time between now and when I need to answer that question on this show in live, live tv.
- [29:13]
John Heilemann
But you've done two hours. You kind of do.
- [29:16]
Nicole Wallace
I do remember that Tim Alberta piece and how good it was. Was. And it was always a curious thing because Sarah just mentioned the relevant thing. Mike Lee was a very conservative guy who was seen as rational, insane, and not an extremist, but kind of hailing from that kind of Utah tradition that Mitt Romney embodied where he was, not just because he was never Trump, but he was considered a thoughtful and Lawyerly conservative, a kind of constitutional conservative, someone who again, you could disagree with him, but who did not have this kind of feral, aggressive, kind of China breaking, trolling kind of streak. And now he's a guy who on X is not known as at Senator Mike Lee or Senator Mike Lee of Utah. He's based Mike Lee, which is shorthand, I guess, in the social media speak for, and right wing social media speak for someone who has, who's kind of been red pilled, who's gone to the, to the, into the depths of the MAGA sphere. Based Mike Lee is someone who has, whose primary identification now on social media relates not to being a United States Senator, but to being a creature of the right on social media. And I think that that is, you know, one of the, one of the, not the central, the central affliction of the Trump era has been the destruction of conservatism as a meaningful thing, the destruction of the Republican Party and the rebuilding of it in the Trumpist populist nationalist image, but the way in which right wing social media has become. Elon Musk talked about the woke mind virus. This is the anti woke mind virus. And the anti woke mind virus is the thing that now animates someone like Mike Lee who cares more, more about scoring points in that cesspool than he does about legislating or about constitutional principles or about doing any of the things that he cared most about a decade ago when he was United States Senator. And how that transformation happened, I don't know. But he is not alone. That is a signature sickness of the right in the MAGA era that scoring points on social media, no matter how mean you are, no matter how inhumane you are, no matter how cruel you are, no how matter that that matters more than any kind of substantive accomplishment in the world that we, some of us still call reality. And that is a giant problem. And if this thing brings it back to reality a little bit, God bless, God bless him and God bless her for trying to break the spell.
- [31:53]
John Heilemann
Yeah, it's so interesting. I thought he was hacked. I didn't know what based Mike Lee even meant. Thank you for that education. I need you both to stick around. I want to read from a beautiful letter that Senator Smith's chief of staff wrote. I have to sneak in a break first. We'll be right back. We're back with Sarah and John. I want to read this letter because the tragedy of Mike Lee's response is that the celebration of the victims has been muddied with his outrageous conduct. But this is an excerpt from a letter sent to Mike Lee from Senator Smith's chief of staff. Quote, I knew Melissa Hortman. Many people in this office did. She was a longtime friend of Senator Smith's. We had seen her hours before she was murdered. So you'll forgive my candor as I speak through enormous grief. It is important for your office to know how much additional pain you caused on an unspeakably horrific weekend. I'm not sure what compelled you or your boss to say any of those things, which, in addition to being unconscionable, also may very well be untrue. But that's not the point. Why would you use the awesome power of a U.S. senate office to compound people's grief? Is this how your team measures success, using the office of US Senator to post not just one, but a series of jokes about an assassination? Is that a successful day of work on Team Lee? The did you come into the office Monday and feel proud of the work you did over the weekend? I pray to God that none of you ever go through anything like this. I pray that Senator Lee and your office begin to see the people you work with in this building as colleagues and human beings. And I pray that if, God forbid, you ever find yourself having to deal with anything similar, you find yourselves on the receiving end of the kind of grace and compassion that Senator Mike Lee could not muster from Deputy Chief of Staff to Senator Tina Smith. Ed Shelby, Sir, I read it in full because I think there's something broken even in how we talk about this. When Paul Pelosi was beaten with a hammer by someone who adhered to conspiracy theorists, Trump and his acolytes circulated conspiracy theories and jokes about that, doing the same thing that Senator Smith's chief of staff describes. Compounding to the grief, there is now almost a girding for either the lack of acceptance of the reality of the political violence or a celebration of the violence itself. And I wonder if that has started to show up, if that's something voters recoil at or if that is to just been normalized.
- [34:40]
Ben Rhodes
It's a little bit of both. I mean, there is for sure a section of voters that finds, you know, they. They find the violence abhorrent. I mean, I know that I've. I've heard from voters, people have heard about, you know, these killings. Obviously, when something like this happens, people, everybody sort of says, you know, I don't condone violence. And I think that there's a section of people for whom that's very true. I think there's another Section, though. And these tend to be the people who are terminally online, like, like Mike Lee is or sort of deep in the MAGA verse in the right wing infotainment media ecosystem where the ethos of drinking liberal tears, which is a, is a sort of popular. I mean, I think the Daily Wire, Ben Shapiro, you know, sells mugs that say, you know, liberal tears on them. And that it's, it's, it's shifted from a kind of joke to an actual kind of cruelty where people, there's a subset of MAGA and they really are Trump. I mean, Trump does this himself where the menace and the violence and the anything as long as it's done to a liberal serves as a joke, even when it's horrible, violent, reprehensible behavior. And Trump really has normalized that and turned it into a, a space where the idea is like, well, the left can't take a joke, right? And they've taken this thing that was always like a little temperamentally kind of true about sort of the left where there was like this, this idea of like other. They can be kind of scoldy about language or this, that. And it's turned it in now to no, we will push you. We will, we will throw your senators to the floor. We will tweet horrible jokes about people who've been murdered. We will make Halloween costumes out of your senator's family who was attacked tragically and suffered enormous damage just because we don't like you. And this is what I liked about what Senator Peters did, is she reminded them that they are colleagues and not enemies. Because the reason that, that violence is allowed to persist, the reason that psychologically people start to, to, to say it's okay, is because Trump has so dehumanized. And the right, the whole right wing media ecosystem, they've so dehumanized Democrats just like they're doing to immigrants. They don't talk about these, these folks like they're right. This idea. And that's what Tina Peters do. She's reminding him somebody real died. This was a real person to me that you're making fun of. And that is what has been lost in a section of. And we know what happens when you dehumanize people, when you take away their humanity. You can do anything to them. And that's the scariest part of what's happening right now.
- [37:34]
John Heilemann
Yeah, I mean, Hellman, it's such a, it's a longer conversation for the three of us. But what Senator Smith's office has done was to rehumanize the victim of an assassination because she lost her life. She's no longer here. But it feels like that is half of it. The other half of it is. I mean, the other side of liberal tears is MAGA flop sweat. I mean, there has to be, you know, a twist of just what a. Only a loser does. What Mike Lee did. It's lame.
- [38:03]
Nicole Wallace
Well, look, I obviously agree. It's. It's. Yes, it's lame. It's. It's lame and pathetic. And of course, it's the case that Mike Lee, for all of his. All of his abject sort of subjugation to the MAGA cause that he once fought against, again calling back to that 2016 period when he was never Trump, when he was speaking at the convention against us, Donald Trump, all of his. The ways in which he's capitulated, he's never still been fully accepted. He's not a MAGA superstar. You know, it's not that Mike Lee has suddenly become one of maga's favorites.
- [38:42]
John Heilemann
He's.
- [38:43]
Nicole Wallace
He worked his. He wormed his way in and became an acceptable person in the way that, like a Mitt Romney never did. Acceptable to the maga. Right. But he never became a superstar of the maga. Right. No one's looking at as Mike Lee as Donald Trump's successor in 2028. And so it's particularly pathetic in that context. And I do think super important. What you were saying, what Sarah was saying is that the other thing that makes this kind of behavior possible is not just what Donald Trump has done, which he has not, which is MAGA has done, but specifically what social media does, where all of it becomes depersonalized and dehumanized and punching through that and rehumanizing the words that get used in that medium and making Mike Lee face the fact that he was talking about human beings and hurting actual human beings by saying the things he was saying, not just kind of taking shots at some anonymous account or some liberal they don't like or some. Whatever it is on X that is the key to the whole thing, in some ways, is getting people not necessarily to quit social media, but to realize that, you know, bots aside, there are actual humans on the other side of those accounts. And they're not just. It's not just a game.
- [39:58]
John Heilemann
I'm gonna make both of you MAGA flop sweat mugs so we can. I don't know. It's kind of gross, but I don't.
- [40:06]
Nicole Wallace
Want to drink MAGA flop sweat, Nicole. I do not. I do not. That is not What I want, okay, just, I don't want the mug, I don't want the sweat. I don't want any of it.
- [40:14]
John Heilemann
You could put, you can put pencils in it. You can keep it around if you know maga.
- [40:20]
Nicole Wallace
Flop sweat for me.
- [40:21]
John Heilemann
Sarah Longwell and John Heilman. No flops that here. Don't have me. You have to come back so we can talk about the bear. I can't wait for season four.
- [40:28]
Jacob Soboroff
Yes.
- [40:28]
Nicole Wallace
Let's do it.
- [40:30]
John Heilemann
Thank you, guys. When we come back, Donald Trump ratcheting up the insane rhetoric today saying the US Is considering a possible strike on Iran. We'll sift through the latest on the president, President's musings on social media about the war in the Middle East. That's next. Donald Trump, who's home early, he says from the G7 so that he can focus on the growing conflict in the Middle east, took to social media a lot of times this afternoon, writing at one point, quote, we now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran. Not clear who the we is. In another he writes, quote, we know exactly where the so called supreme leader, referring to Iran's leader Ayatollah Khomeini is hiding. Quote, he is an easy target but is safe there. We are not going to take him out. Kill, exclamation point, at least not for now, end quote. Vinnie wrote this in all caps, quote, unconditional surrender, exclamation point. In the last hour, Donald Trump had a meeting with his national security team inside the Situation Room with multiple current and former administration officials telling NBC News that he is considering a range of options, including a possible US Strike on Iran. Let's bring in former deputy national security adviser to President Obama, MSNBC contributor Ben Rhodes. Ben, if you were trying to explain our country to an allies leader, what would you say our position is right now?
- [42:05]
E. Jean Carroll
I don't think anybody has any idea. And there's like layers this, Nicole. So to just go through them quickly. First of all, while it might not have surprised people, it is really strange that he left the G7. Normally there's an international crisis and you have to make a major decision about whether to go to war or whether to pursue diplomacy. You would want to consult with your closest allies about that. And I think it says a lot about how Donald Trump acts in the world that he actually leaves our allies in order to go home and make that decision. That's the first thing. The second thing is nobody knows what we're doing. He says, you know, quote, we have control over the Skies. Are we in the skies or is this just Israeli jets? Did we participate in taking out Iranian air defenses in some way that he didn't tell us? We just don't know. I think the other thing I'd just say, Nicole, is in general here. He's, he's truthing about this like it's a video game and not a war in which people are being killed, in which they're huge questions. Right? I mean, we don't know. If the US did take a strike on Iran, what is the objective of that strike? Is it to just destroy one facility? Is it part of a kind of regime change effort in Iran? Because we've seen Israel taking strikes against, like, the, you know, TV station in Iran that don't seem to have anything to do with the nuclear program. What's the legal basis for him to be doing this? There's literally been no communication to the American people about this whatsoever, other than these kind of cryptic, juvenile truths about issues as serious as war and peace. And again, that may play well with people who have truth social accounts, but the rest of the world is looking at this and is probably a mixture of scared and, and, you know, revolted by it, frankly.
- [43:51]
John Heilemann
I've just taken a break. But, I mean, it's also cleaved apart his own movement. They're attacking one another on social media and elsewhere. I want to ask you about that on the other side of a short break. Please stay with us.
- [44:04]
Nicole Wallace
MSNBC's Jen Psaki, host of the Briefing.
- [44:08]
John Heilemann
We've never experienced a moment like this in our country, and it leaves us all with a trip. Are we gonna speak out or are we gonna be pressured into silence? I've worked for presidents. I've faced the tough questions from the press and even threats from the Kremlin. And if there's one thing I've learned, it's that you can't cower to bullies. You don't need to be hopeless. We have our voices, and I will continue using mine.
- [44:28]
Nicole Wallace
The Briefing with Jen Psaki, Tuesday through Friday at 9:00pm Eastern on MSNBC.
- [44:37]
John Heilemann
We're back with Ben Rhodes. Ben, I don't spend a lot of time peering into the recesses of the MAGA media bubble. The vitriol for one another is spilling out so colossally that even I can see where they are breaking out and breaking up, it seems, along pretty severe disagreements and harsh rhetoric. Just talk about the divide within Trump's own MAGA movement.
- [45:03]
E. Jean Carroll
Yeah, like, there's a very strong divide between the kind of America first types Right. I mean, Tucker Carlson would be prime example of people that do not want the United States to be involved in any overseas conflicts, want the United States to be isolationists and kind of just stay out of things like this. And then there's, you know, some very hawkish people, particularly on issues related to Israel and Israel's security, who very much want the United States to get involved in this. And that's always been a split in the Trump Magaverse. And the reality is that, you know, Trump is kind of ran as an anti war candidate each time, but he always tries to kind of have it both ways. He tries to tell the American people he's different, he's not going to get us in these wars. But he also likes to kind of issue threats. He liked to brag last time about dropping big bombs and he kind of holds it together. I think today the most interesting thing, Nicole, for those of us, you know, your viewers hopefully didn't have to follow this like you and I did. You know, J.D. vance, who generally is associated with the kind of America first types, had this kind of long multi paragraph statement he put out on social media basically saying like give, you know, just trust Donald Trump, whatever he does is the right answer. But the reality is there are real fractures in his coalition about what to do in a situation like this and they, they're just trying to paper over it by saying, you know, trust the leader. But as with other parts of the MAGA coalition, this is a meaningful policy difference. Whatever he does is going to really anger one half of his base.
- [46:31]
John Heilemann
Yeah. And as you said, the stakes couldn't be any higher for folks in the, the region and folks here. Ben Rose, thank you very much for being part of our coverage today. Up next, the one thing that Trump could really do to damage the global economy. We'll bring you that story and much more after a very short break. I think we have different concepts. I have a tariff concept, Mark has.
- [46:58]
Matt Dowd
A different concept which is something that's some people like.
- [47:02]
John Heilemann
But we're going to see if we can get to the bottom of it today. I'm a, I'm a tariff person. I've always been a tariff simple, it's.
- [47:09]
Matt Dowd
Easy, it's precise and it just goes very quickly. And I think Mark has a more.
- [47:18]
John Heilemann
Complex idea but also very good.
- [47:20]
Matt Dowd
So we're going to look at both.
- [47:21]
John Heilemann
And we're going to see what, we're going to come out with something.
- [47:24]
Ben Rhodes
Mr. President.
- [47:26]
John Heilemann
Hi again everyone. It's now 5 o' clock in the east at a time when the American people are so fed up they are taking to the streets in historic numbers to voice their dissatisfaction with the Trump administration. When people are frightened over the intensifying conflict in the Middle east and Donald Trump's frankly incoherent position on any of that remains lingering over everything, we're still seeing one issue concern consistently drive Donald Trump's unpopularity more than just about anything else and that is his handling of the economy. According to NBC's latest poll over the weekend, 60% of all Americans disapprove of Donald Trump's handling of trade and tariffs. We're seeing that disapproval because the only certain thing that has come out of Trump's so called tariff concept is complete uncertainty and chaos. Yesterday Donald Trump did finally sign one agreement is with the uk. It formalized some tariffs, an agreement which he immediately dropped and the UK Prime Minister had to quickly pick up. But besides that, the deadline of Trump's tariff pause inches ever closer and closer and he is far short of the promised 90 deals in 90 days. Today we learned retail sales fell in May, meaning that consumers are buying fewer goods. Trump's own party is fighting over a spending bill that would give tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans while making drastic cuts to Medicaid. Gene Sperling, who was director of the National Economic Council under Presidents Clinton and Obama, is sounding the alarm today saying that Donald Trump's long lasting damage to this economy is through his disregard for economic norms and the rule of law. From Sperling's new op ed quote. One reason the US has long been a magnet for long term investment is the knowledge that though policies can change over time, our fidelity to blind justice, institutional integrity and the rule of law does not. No more consider what a multinational CEO contemplating new production in the US must consider. Will they be subject to lawless executive orders that cancel federal contracts based on political resentment? Will defying the whims of administration policy trigger the kind of relentless government attack now facing Harvard? Will refusing to let the White House dictate pricing and production choices lead to the President threatening a company's specific tariff rate? As we are now seeing with Apple, if American exceptionalism meant one thing, it was not having to ask these questions. Those questions are where we start the hour with some Mark Favorite experts and friends. The author of that op ed, the former director of the National Economic Council for Presidents Obama and Clinton, Gene Sperling is here with us. Also joining us, the executive editor and New York bureau chief for the Economist Charlotte Howard's here and MSNBC senior political analyst Matt Dowd is back. Gene, take me through your piece and tell me what the response has.
- [50:31]
Matt Dowd
Well, I think that the response that I have gotten has been very strong, and people saying that this does reflect the deep harm that is taking place that goes beyond a particular tariff number, a particular threat, even beyond a particular CBO estimate of rising deficits or Medicaid cuts. Our country, you know, ordinary people have benefited from this American exceptionalism, which just really comes down to a belief in the integrity of our country, starting from Alexander Hamilton deciding that our full faith and credit would be ironclad. But it's, it's built up something greater. And that's led to things like the dollar being our reserve currency, our bonds being the, what's called the, you know, the safe haven in every storm. But particularly relevant to what President Trump talks about. It's also why people feel confident to make their future here. Imagine you're one of these foreign headquarter countries and you're trying to decide where do you build that plant or factory that's going to maybe be there for 50, 15, 20, 25 years. You don't know who's going to be president. You don't know all the policies. What do you know about the United States? It's ironclad belief in the rule of law, that you'll get fair tax treatment, that the government will not overreach, that you won't have an administration that tries to dictate policies to you, that you don't have to worry that if you send your best people, they might be denied going back and forth because of immigration concerns. All of those assurances are gone now. And Donald Trump can do all the kind of announcements about announcing factory investment that people are going to make anyways or vague announcements. But the reality is, for CEOs all over this country and the world, when they are thinking about where they want to make their future, the United States advantage on its fidelity to the rule of law and economic norms is gone. And that is going to make us poor. That's going to mean less investment, less innovation, less jobs. It's not just investors that's going to hurt ordinary working families.
- [53:08]
John Heilemann
Let me just play the devil's advocate for a second, Gene. I mean, Trump ran on retribution. Trump ran on dismantling the Department of Justice and putting his own people in charge of it. He was a little more oblique about his plans for the FBI. Why do you think that business leaders were largely either in denial about what an autocratic swerve would mean for the global economy. Economy or completely, I don't know, absent from the political square.
- [53:45]
Matt Dowd
This really was often the number one thing that we tried to communicate with. It's something with business leaders. It's something tension all the former CEO of American Express and Bob Rubin tried to say, which is you've got to look beyond whether you're worried about that regulation or this particular tax measure. And for whatever reason, Nicole, people just were like, nah, for some reason they thought it was not going to be that bad. Even though it was clear that you were not going to have honorable independent advisors around him this time, which you don't now. And even though it was clear that he was showing a complete disregard for the rule of law and now it is mixing into this world of just dramatic economic uncertainty. And look, I wrote this op ed before I knew that when he was doing something as outrageous as trying to put an Apple specific tariff, a tariff on a specific great American company, that it was going to be part of a way of enriching his own family. People taking that in right now, when they have a choice, they're going to think hard. Yes, a few people will, if there's tariffs, will decide to increase some of their capacity here to sell to American consumers. But a whole lot of other people are going to think twice in a way that they never had to. And I think that a lot of business leaders, a lot of investment leaders are having buyers grab when it comes to President Trump.
- [55:26]
John Heilemann
One of the flashpoints where they did speak out and Trump did back down, sort of affirming that if they are able to find the courage or the gumption to say something, they do still have an effect on Trump was when he threatened to fire or talked about his ability to fire Fed Chair Jerome Powell. You write about that quote. Trump's increasingly aggressive criticism of Fed Chair Jerome Powell has created harmful uncertainty about whether Powell's eventual successor will operate with full independence. A pillar of American exceptionalism that has been found to lower our government's borrowing costs. The White House is now engaging in unprecedented attacks on the credibility of the independent non political Congressional Budget Office for daring to report that Trump's one big beautiful bill would increase deficits in August. Trump repeatedly and baselessly attack act the Bureau of Labor Statistics for fraudulently manipulating job statistics when it was simply conducting standard benchmark adjustments. How many negative economic releases would Trump swallow before bulldozing career economists and statisticians and the integrity of US Data? How or what does the business community navigate the manipulation of statistics and data about the economy itself?
- [56:45]
Matt Dowd
I remember When I started under President Clinton, people would not believe numbers coming out of China at all. It never crossed my mind that would ever happen in the United States. And to be clear, I don't think it's happened yet. But you have this assault on truth, on independence, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Congressional Budget Office, the Federal Reserve, Reserve. It's the same desire to take away the economic norms, the independent professionalism that gives people more confidence in the United States. So I don't think, you know, business leaders should pat themselves on the back too much or feel too reassured that he didn't do something as just economically suicidal as firing Jerome Powell and watching the market reaction, because what he is still doing every day is creating doubt as to whether the next Federal Reserve chairperson will take that job with independence and whether they can believe the economic numbers. It's really. Nicole, the one time I saw business leaders raise some issues where I was going to be on a show like this and say, okay, however much I disagree with Donald Trump, he took a step in the right direction, was when I thought over the weekend he was going to reduce the combination of economic insanity and just pure human cruelty in these attacks, these immigration raids on the 19% of our farm workers and 16% of our land crop and the hotel workers. And then, boy, by the time I'm on the show, and he's already reversed. So even that moment of sanity was now seen to be reversed by his own staff after he had publicly actually done something in the right direction for once.
- [58:42]
John Heilemann
Yeah. I mean, Charlotte, it gets to the COVID of the Economist, which I want to put up the American flag flying over, really Los Angeles, it looks like. Like on fire. I mean, the disorder. I mean, you can almost separate out the moral bankruptcy of the immigration policy and the economic damage that, to Jean's point, Trump seemed aware of at different points over the last 72 hours because he. He cast doubt on deporting people in the agriculture, leisure and hospitality sector. He then paused those deportations, and then, like Ste. Even Miller slamming his fist on a desk, put them back in place.
- [59:23]
Christy Greenberg
I think in that back and forth, what you see is something that's different in Trump 2 versus Trump 1. And many business leaders, I think, supported Trump this time around because they thought they could get tax cuts without the chaos and that his rhetoric would be more bombastic than his policy. And I think what you see this time around in Trump, too, is Trump pursuing a much more ideological set of policies which add up to fundamental incoherence in his management of the economy. Whether you look across his maximalist immigration campaign, the astonishing rhetoric around the Federal Reserve independence, which is a very low bar by which to judge a president on his economic policy tariffs. You could go on. But I think that you see, again, a president who's really interested this time around in pursuing policies because he says they're right, even though all economic evidence is that they're fundamentally wrong.
- [60:23]
John Heilemann
We have now enough evidence that there are not going to be 90 deals in 90 days. We now have one. What is the state of mind about the state of, of the trade war?
- [60:38]
Christy Greenberg
I think it was always a mirage, right, that we were going to have trade deals that were signed within 90 days. Trade deals take months, if not years to negotiate. You think about the time that went into negotiating the eventually abandoned Trans Pacific Partnership. So I think that you have, again, Trump putting on a show. I think that there's enormous amount of uncertainty that is accompanied by these tariffs. And he says, we saw in the clip that you showed at the beginning of our conversation his argument that tariffs are simple in implementation. They're anything but simple. Right. Because businesses can't make investment decisions for all the reasons that Jean outlined. And I think it's worth judging Trump not just by our own economic scorecard, but by his own. You know, he went out trying to defend American manufacturing, trying to defend blue collar jobs. And you see across his economic policies different measures that are counterproductive. So whether it's tariffs that raise input costs for manufacturing, immigration policy that may hurt farm belt states that voted for him. You know, I spent four years early in my career living in America's Midwest, spending week after week in Ohio and Michigan. The places that were more successful, that had stronger economies, were places that both were interested in manufacturing, but also had a strong hospital system, had a strong university system, this EDS and meds formula to help companies move out of an industrial area towards a service economy. Donald Trump's attacks on universities and on health research fundamentally undermined the economies of states that voted for him.
- [62:13]
John Heilemann
Yeah, I mean, Matt Dowd, I don't know that there's a greater betrayal in modern presidential politics that Donald Trump saying, literally until election Day, I'm going to make the grocery less expensive on day one. And then getting into the transition and saying, no, it's actually going to go up.
- [62:31]
Jacob Soboroff
Well, that's the fundamental problem that Donald Trump faces right now politically, I think, is this, that they don't seem, he doesn't, the White House doesn't seem to understand. He doesn't seem to understand that the reason they won this election last year was because of this 10 or 15% of people that overlooked his integrity problems and overlooked his personal problems and overlooked a lot of stuff and overlooked actually some of the retribution language and said I want to vote for him because he's going to do something about inflation or I think he's going to do something about the economy and inflation, none of which he's done. And as your this discussion has sort of unfolded here, and it's interesting to me, we're on the 95th anniversary of Herbert Hoover signing Smoot Hawley today in 1930, signed it today in 1930. That sort of shows where we are today. It's basically a perfect storm of three things, any one of which would have done serious damage to the economy. It's all the things that Gene talked about, the institutional integrity and the rule of law that are count on and predictability and people investing in our country. It's tariffs and it's what's happened with immigrants, any one of which would be problematic that Donald Trump is doing for the economy, all three of which is a storm in this. And you asked the question, I think it's a very important question. You asked Nicole about why did business leaders, with Donald Trump's language throughout that campaign and some examples of things he did in his first term, why did they not actually, you know, stand up and shout and stand against him in the course of this? To me, what it's like is a pirate ship and what they thought, these business leaders and which many Republican political leaders thought, which is I'm going to get on board a Blackbeard, the pirate ship. And so he's not going to storm my beach and he's not going to come into my cove and destroy my business. If I'm there, I'll get on, I'll get the booty that I can get out of it, tax cuts or whatever. And that's what I'll, I'll get out of this thing. What they don't realize or they didn't realize is they're joining a pirate ship that ultimately Blackbeard turns on them. They thought they were doing it to protect themselves, but ultimately they're members of a pirate ship.
- [64:42]
John Heilemann
I love that. I love that I cue the memes of Trump as a pirate. Gene Sperling, it's a fantastic piece. Thank you so much for joining us to talk about it. Charlotte Howard, always great to talk to you. Thank you so much for starting us off this hour. Matt Dowd sticks around with us because when we come back, one of the sharpest rebukes yet from a federal judge in nearly five months who called Donald Trump's cuts to NIH research, quote, illegal void and the worst example of racial discrimination he has ever seen. What happens now that those cuts have been ordered to be restored? That story's next. Then the writer E. Jean Carroll, will be our guest. She famously defeated Donald Trump in court, and her victory against him was upheld just last week. She has a brand new book out called Not My Type, and she'll join us later in the hour. Deadline White House continues after a quick break. Don't go anywhere. In another rather encouraging instance of an American institution telling Donald Trump flat out, no. A federal judge in Boston evaluating more than $1 billion in cuts to research grants at the National Institutes of Health now says the Trump administration's actions are, quote, void and illegal. Not only that, but given what was cut and where, namely grants with a perceived connection to diversity, equity, and inclusion. U.S. district Judge William Young, a Reagan appointee, accused the government of discrimination specifically against racial minorities and LGBTQ community members. From the judge, according to Politico, quote, I have never seen a record where racial discrimination was so palpable. I've sat on this bench now for 40 years. I've never seen government racial discrimination like this. I am hesitant to draw this conclusion, but I have an unflinching obligation to draw it. That this represents racial discrimination and discrimination against America's LGBTQ community. That's what this is. I would be blind not to call it out. My duty is to call it out. You are bearing down on people of color because of their color. Young said, the Constitution will not permit that. Have we fallen so low? Have we no shame? Joining our conversation, former criminal division deputy chief at sdmi, MSNBC legal analyst Christy Greenberg. Matt Dowd is still with us. Kristi, we've been on the air together for a lot of rebukes from a lot of judges appointed by presidents of both political parties, but I'm not sure there's one this brutal to date.
- [67:26]
Christy Greenberg
No. And what I took from this is the judge is saying, I don't want to have to say this, but it is my duty to say this. It is my obligation to speak this plainly and to call out what is blatant discrimination before my eyes. And this judge went through hours in a hearing of asking very pointed question, well, you know, you're terminating this funding. Where is the process? Where is the support for what you did? And upon, you know, continuing to find that there really was no support, no data, no Scientific research, no individual review of each project. Upon finding that, he had to call out what he. He saw plainly before him, that this was blatant discrimination. The Trump administration can have its priorities, but it cannot violate the Constitution. And so this judge had to call out what was before him. And certainly he's doing that knowing the risk, knowing what's at stake. As we discussed yesterday, so many of these judges are facing threats when they rule against the Trump administration. Threats to themselves, threats, threats to their families. And so for him to speak out the way that he did, I mean, this is truly a public servant doing his job without fear or favor.
- [68:41]
John Heilemann
I mean, Matt, doubt it speaks to the vacuum, though, that's been created in Congress by one of the two political parties and the one that controls Congress. This shouldn't have come to this. But time and time again, judges are serving the role as political background stops.
- [68:58]
Jacob Soboroff
Yeah, and you and I have had this conversation over time, and I'm sure Christie's had been involved, has been part of it as well. I actually think the greatest fault in this moment, I mean, we understand who Donald Trump is, even his supporters understand who Donald Trump is in all of his craziness and destructiveness and corruptness and all of those things. We all get it. The problem is, is the enablers of Donald Trump and the people that are unwilling that know he's doing wrong, that are unwilling to correct or do anything about his behavior. And that has become almost the entirety of the Republican Party, whether it's a House member or a Senate member or a governor in the course of this. And to me, that is the greater calamity than this. It's not Donald Trump all proximate problem that he is. It is that that part of our, part of the rationale for our country's existence and the separation of powers and all that, is that if we had elected somebody like Donald Trump, there was enough systems in place to fix the problem. We do have a judicial system in places, as evidenced here. But a huge other part of it was that the Congress would correct the behaviors. And we don't have a Congress. We have a Congress that's only facilitating his craziness and his corruptness and his coarseness in the course of this. And that to me, is more shameful than actually Donald Trump's own behavior.
- [70:24]
John Heilemann
Well, Christy, what happens now? I mean, you have this rebuke of the lawlessness of this, the rebuke of the immortality of it. Does the funding snap back?
- [70:37]
Christy Greenberg
So the judge was pretty clear that he is ordering the Trump administration to restore hundreds of these scientific grants that were terminated earlier this year because he said that the cuts were legal and void. They need to restore this funding. Presumably, there is going to be an appeal, if it hasn't been filed already. While that appeal is pending and going through the courts, the funding needs to be restored in the interim.
- [71:06]
John Heilemann
MATT Dowd, the health cuts, the efforts to destroy American universities, which are and again, you never know from a Trump story if this was the intent or the carnage. But destroying all of these beacons of research and scientific advances and Nobel Prizes has been a difficult story to cover because these are not people who find their way onto programs like this. The recruitment of scientists from all over the world is something that erodes slowly. You have the next Nobel Prize winner maybe graduating from high school this month, and where she decides to go to college may determine what country gets to boast that accomplishment. But what do you, what do you make of how Republicans in Congress are just nodding along with Democratic decimating America's standing in the world in terms of research and science?
- [72:08]
Jacob Soboroff
Well, unfortunately, I think it's part of a plan. And whether it's individuals are aware of it, there is there's folks that are aware that if you can, as they've done, if you can, undermine media and news institutions, which they've done and are continuing attempted to do, if you can undermine judicial institutions, which they are doing and attempted to do, if you can, if you can undermine any science, which they are doing and attempted to do, then people's outlet for where they get the answers and where the facts are and how can they make decisions. Ultimately, they have to turn on these rogue politicians or not so much rogue anymore, just the sort of norm Republican politician in the course of this. And they that's actually the ABCs of authoritarianism, is you undermine science, you undermine news media, you undermine judicial branches, you undermine all these institutions and those so people only have one place to go in the course of this, and that is obviously what's going on today. They say basically, you know, you read it earlier in this program is, you know, Donald Trump, you know, just trust Donald Trump. J.D. vance is basically saying Donald Trump has all the answers, which is basically the authoritarian response in this. And so that to me, and especially somebody like RFK Jr. Who comes from a family who are institutionalists at their core, who believed in the core institution, who believed in democracy, who believed in the service of this, who basically is giving Donald Trump all of the things he needs to do to undermine the elements of democracy. So ultimately he's the only one people should come to for an answer.
- [73:44]
Sarah Longwell
That's the problem.
- [73:46]
John Heilemann
Christi Greenberg and Matt Dowd, to be continued, I am sure. Thank you for joining our coverage today. When we come back, the writer E. Jean Carroll will be our guest. Her brand new book chronicles her legal triumphs over Donald Trump, resulting in tens of millions of dollars in damages she is owed. Eugene. Carol joins us next. Don't go anywhere. Donald Trump may have won reelection, but so far he has failed to convince a federal appeals court to revisit the jury decision that found him liable for sexually abusing writer E. Jean Carroll in the 1990s and then defaming her when she went public with her story. The court denied Trump's request on Friday, just six months after he lost his initial appeal. It is the latest legal blow to his fight against unanimous juries in two trials and millions of dollars he still has to pay Carol. All the while, she has been quietly doing what she does, writing brilliantly in extraordinary detail about the whole thing, beginning with Trump's repeated excuse and dismissal of her allegations. Right there in the title of her new book, not My Type, One Woman versus a President, Carroll writes this quote, I look at him, he looks at me. It is the most intense moment of my life. My look says the thing I want to say. He tilts his head. He gets it. He got it. He got it good. I turned back around and faced Judge Kaplan and the attorneys at the sidebar, never to know what Trump was thinking. For the next two days, I will be in the witness chair, 18 paces from him. Trials are always duels, testifying about the wounds he gave me. He will never meet my eyes again. As for Carol's plans for the damages awarded to her by two juries, a total of $88.3 million plus interest because of Trump's appeals. She writes this quote, I, E. Jean Carroll pledged to make Trump very, very mad by giving most of the $100 million to all the things he hates. If Trump despises it, women's reproductive rights, voting rights, climate solutions, et cetera, I'm going to be giving money to it. Joining us now is the one and only E. Jean Carroll. Thank you so much for being here with us.
- [76:10]
Tina Smith
Well, Nicole, I loved that introduction at the start of your show. You proved how much he loves money and how much he's going to hate when I give away all that money to women's reproductive rights.
- [76:25]
John Heilemann
Has he given you? So he's given you nothing that he owes you?
- [76:31]
Tina Smith
Not yet.
- [76:33]
John Heilemann
And what is the mechanism for Making sure that he pays up.
- [76:40]
Tina Smith
Well, this is a headline. Nobody knows this. Yesterday, his team is applying to appeal to the Supreme Court. So we just made headlines with this interview. He. He will go to the Supreme Court. They probably won't hear it. He keeps losing, Nicole, and that is why he'll have to, in the end, give me the money, and then I can give it to help bind up the wounds of all this democracy he's destroying.
- [77:12]
John Heilemann
I can't wait to cover that. Those awards. I want to ask you about the process of writing. You are a writer, and writers write from a lot of different places, but I wonder if you could just talk about the writing process and from where you wrote this book.
- [77:31]
Tina Smith
Well, Nicole, I'm an old journalist, and I found myself in the middle of a play, a high comedy, surrounded by characters that not even Agatha Christie could have come up with. And so there was. You know, what kept me going was this. I just wanted to prick his balloon. Prick his balloon. Also, he is rewriting history. I wanted to write the facts. So I use a lot of court transcripts, and I described what it's like being around Donald Trump, what he sounds like, what he feels like. He was so close to me, Nicole, I could have turned around and grabbed him by his hair. I could hear almost everything he said. It was an amazing and, I gotta say, very funny and absurd and surreal experience, and that's what I wanted to capture. I wanted to capture what it's like beating the most powerful man on earth twice.
- [78:52]
John Heilemann
Well, what is it like?
- [78:58]
Tina Smith
It feels. That's funny. Nobody's ever asked me what it's like to beat Donald Trump. It's obviously so big that I. My brain. I cannot wrap my brain around it. But what it feels like is I feel good for all the women in the country. I feel that finally somebody knows the truth. Although nobody paid attention to it, obviously, or he wouldn't have been voted into office. And I feel good that I got it down because, you know, it's very entertaining, and I think it's. I'm so knocked out by your question about what it feels like. It feels good. It feels fabulous. Okay, there.
- [79:46]
John Heilemann
Well, because I think we have, as women, two women went up against him and they didn't win. And so you are the rare woman who went up against him and won. And he has made this. This term about retribution. He said it. He said, I am your retribution. And he's been able to erase so much from the minds of his supporters, but he can't erase the this. And I Guess I want to know, I want to follow up by asking you what you think that does to him, that this stands, this judgment stands.
- [80:23]
Tina Smith
Well, I won because I have the greatest attorney in the world, Robby Kaplan. I mean, she was born with a lust for battle. She so upset Trump that in her closing argument, his face turned vermilion. He stood up during her final argument and walked out of the courtroom. So I really didn't do this. It was Robby Kaplan and a great team of lawyers out thinking him and Joe Tacopina, his defense attorney, and Alina Haba, his other defense attorney, who didn't know diddly squat about the law and who wore a diamond as big as a Ritz cracker and who wore little high heels. And when some days her hair was long and some days it was short. And Joe Tacopina had a voice like a shotgun. Wemy attorneys just demolished him. And Trump, no matter how he stewed at the defense table, he sounded sort of like raw sewage escaping from a leaky pipe. And he would slam his fist down and say, nasty man like that to the judge. The jury was enthralled. They were stunned with delight because Trump complained and moaned and hissed and spit during much of the days of the court. When he'd leave the courtroom, he would say to the cameras, I'm the one who suffered. I deserve the damages. And he would look like St. Sebastian tied to a tree, shot with arrows. I never heard anybody complain so badly in my life. And yet we just beat him very, very badly.
- [82:24]
John Heilemann
What did you think when he won this time?
- [82:29]
Tina Smith
Won what? Oh, the presidency.
- [82:31]
John Heilemann
When he won the presidency. Yeah.
- [82:38]
Tina Smith
I was. I was stunned and upset, but I was ready for the ride. And I really want to every day. Every day, if we just all get off our lazy asses and go outside like we did on Saturday. Saturday opened the front door. And the way you opened your show, Nicole, is the key. He loves money. He loves money and he loves to be popular. We have the controls over here. All we have to do is lift his wallet. We just, we, you know, you made it clear. You made the case. If we all get together, we could scare him and make him behave because we control the purse strings. We really do.
- [83:21]
John Heilemann
What is it about your. You didn't just beat him, as you said. I mean, you and your legal team kicked his rear end not once, but twice. What is it that you understand from defeating him that hasn't translated enough, I guess, in our politics?
- [83:45]
Tina Smith
Well, when I looked at him in court, it was like the kid in the Fairytale. I could see, you know, like the emperor has no clothes. Except he had clothes, Nicole. But in the clothes is an old guy wearing apricot makeup and his hair like Tippi Hedrens in the Birds. We can deal with him. I do not know why everyone is bending the knee. Why are we bending the knee to a man who spends that much time on his hair and his makeup? Why are we doing that? It makes no sense to me. Makes no sense. And he complains and bitches and moans all the time. What is the last positive thing you've ever heard him say during this last. During this last four months? It's amazing. Amazing.
- [84:37]
John Heilemann
What do you think the best strategy is? I mean, I think you alluded to it with the protests on Saturday. That drives him nuts. At least it used to when people were out in the streets opposing him. He wants to do what he wants to do, even if it's illegal, even if it's immoral. And he wants to be liked. What does your defeat based on the facts, based on your calm, cool, legal strategy. Strategy and that you're still out there. And this book is this perfect combination of your brilliant writing and just the facts, the transcripts. How does that translate into how we, as a pro democracy movement should take him on over the next three and a half years?
- [85:19]
Tina Smith
Nicole, it's so simple. We just have to stand up, get off our lazy asses and go outside. That's it. That we're all in our houses but being entertained on our phones and stunned. No excuse. I am an old woman. I beat Donald Trump. I am old. I am shriveled. I only weigh 107 pounds. I'm not particularly smart. I'm not. But what I am is energetic. I think that's what it takes. I. And, you know, watching your show every day, you know, get us riled up.
- [85:54]
John Heilemann
I think you're genius. I think you're gorgeous. I love that you're still writing about this. I mean, you are like his ultimate, you know, ultimate trigger. And the book is amazing. Thank you so much for coming here to talk about it. And come, come talk to us anytime. The book is brilliantly, brilliantly named. Not my type. One woman versus a president. Another break for us. We'll be right back. Thank you. For me, I'm a black man. When I see a Confederate flag, I'm angry and I'm scared because I see.
- [86:30]
Jacob Soboroff
That and that scares me.
- [86:32]
John Heilemann
And. And we do nothing about it. Is that woke because we want to remove a. What a black Nazi SWAT sticker is a Confederate flag and I don't think that's being woke. I think that's being real. I think that's being real. That was just one of many real moments with Doc of pure honesty and candor from legend, legendary NBA coach Doc Rivers. He delivered those truths during our conversation for the Best People podcast. He's not just a towering figure in sports but as you just heard in politics too. You can watch, yes, watch the entire conversation with Doc on YouTube. Just scan the QR code on your screen or head to msnbc.com thebestpeople as always, you can also listen to this week's episode. Wherever you get your podcast, I hope you listen to this one. It's one of my favorites so far. Tell me what you think on Instagram or bluesky and I'll try to write you back. Quick break for us. We'll be right back. Thank you so much for letting us into your homes. We are grateful.