"Stand your ground and fight"

Summary

Podcast Summary: Deadline: White House Episode Title: "Stand your ground and fight"
Host: Nicolle Wallace, MSNBC
Release Date: June 2, 2025

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Introduction to the Economic Situation

The episode opens with Justin Wolfers, a professor of economics, setting the stage for a critical discussion on the Trump administration's handling of the economy. He highlights the administration's aggressive approach to tariffs despite widespread public concern.

Expansion of Steel and Aluminum Tariffs

[01:00] Justin Wolfers: "When you find yourself in a hole, just stop digging. Well, today... the Trump administration isn't just refusing to put down the shovel. It is calling in an excavator and preparing to dig ever deeper."

President Donald Trump announced a significant increase in tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, doubling the current rates to 50%. This move has sparked debates about its potential impact on various industries.

[01:51] Nicole Wallace: "But do you have a prediction on how much it's going to impact the construction industry, for example?... there are a lot of elasticities in this very complicated ecosystem."

Treasury Secretary Scott Besant attempted to present a positive outlook, focusing on the steel industry's growth and job creation in regions like Pittsburgh, Arkansas, and Alabama. However, Wallace counters by emphasizing the broader repercussions on everyday goods and manufacturing.

Legal Challenges and Judicial Responses

The administration faces legal hurdles as federal courts have questioned the president's authority to impose these steep tariffs. Despite setbacks, the economic team remains steadfast.

[03:10] Nicole Wallace: "We're going to take that up to higher courts. The president's going to win like he always does. But rest assured, tariffs are not going away."

The tariffs were justified under Section 232, related to national security. This has led to ongoing investigations into various sectors, including pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, and critical minerals.

Impact on the American Economy and Consumer Behavior

The imposition of tariffs is projected to increase costs across multiple industries, ultimately affecting consumers.

[06:46] Justin Wolfers: "So I just want to make sure I understand... there's no deal with Nippon Steel, that we can review or look at."

A Consumer Pulse report by KPMG reveals that 50% of Americans are cutting back on purchases due to tariffs, with many seeking deals and discounts. This shift in consumer behavior signals growing economic strain.

[11:18] Nicole Wallace: "Consumers are worried about what's happening. They can't understand why it's happening."

Retail giants like Walmart and Target have indicated forthcoming price hikes, further burdening consumers.

Political Ramifications and Congress's Role

The administration's unilateral actions have placed significant pressure on Congress, which holds the constitutional power over tariffs.

[15:49] Nicole Wallace: "Congress isn't doing it, but it's being enabled by Congress. ... The biggest institution that I think is missing in action right now."

Wolfers points out the disconnect between public opinion and the administration's policies, highlighting that 66% of Americans oppose the tariff measures.

Conservative Backlash and Legal Opposition

A significant shift within the conservative legal community has emerged, with prominent figures opposing Trump's tariff policies.

[30:11] Nicole Wallace: "My mother-in-law wants to buy a washing machine. She feels exactly the same way."

[31:43] Justin Wolfers: "The signers are constitutional scholars... believe the Constitution draws bright lines between legislative and executive power."

Conservative legal experts argue that the executive overreach in imposing tariffs threatens democratic accountability and the separation of powers.

Republican Party Dynamics and Public Opinion

The Republican Party faces internal conflict as traditional conservatives and modern populists clash over economic policies.

[38:17] Nicole Wallace: "Most Americans will know this is unfair and this is not what makes us really great as Americans."

The lack of unified Republican response has left a political vacuum, with few standing up against the administration's policies despite overwhelming public disapproval.

Consequences for Law Firms and Corporate Trust

The administration's aggressive stance has led to significant repercussions within the legal community, affecting law firms' reputations and business relationships.

[50:44] Nicole Wallace: "Paul Weiss just a week ago lost four of their top partners who decided to start their own law firm and to leave."

Firms that resisted the administration's demands have seen increased business trust and client retention, while those that capitulated face internal dissent and loss of top talent.

[53:49] Justin Wolfers: "They look like craven fools and gutless cowards."

Violent Attack in Boulder, Colorado

Shifting focus, the episode covers a tragic incident where a man attacked peaceful demonstrators in support of Israeli hostages, resulting in multiple injuries.

[77:04] Nicole Wallace: "An extraordinary moment where the president and his team continue to talk about the importance of bringing prices down... but it's going to make goods like that more expensive."

The community and law enforcement express deep concern over rising violence and hate crimes, underscoring the critical need for a competent and impartial FBI.

Ukraine's Strategic Success Against Russia

In a pivot to international affairs, Nicole Wallace discusses Ukraine's impressive military maneuvers against Russia, challenging prevailing narratives about the conflict's trajectory.

[84:36] Nicole Wallace: "This is an extraordinary operation, amazing operation. It shows that Ukraine has capabilities."

Ukraine's ability to disrupt Russian air capabilities through innovative tactics showcases resilience and strategic prowess, offering a glimmer of hope amidst ongoing tensions.

Conclusion: The Need for Congressional Action and Public Advocacy

The episode concludes with a strong call to action, urging Congress to reclaim its constitutional authority over trade policies and to address the economic uncertainties plaguing American consumers.

[38:17] Nicole Wallace: "Congress might be, too, but Congress is also frightened to stand up to the president."

Wallace emphasizes the importance of public advocacy and the pivotal role of Congress in mitigating the administration's detrimental economic policies.

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Notable Quotes:

• Justin Wolfers [01:00]: "When you find yourself in a hole, just stop digging. Well, today... the Trump administration isn't just refusing to put down the shovel. It is calling in an excavator and preparing to dig ever deeper."

• Nicole Wallace [03:10]: "We're going to take that up to higher courts. The president's going to win like he always does. But rest assured, tariffs are not going away."

• Nicole Wallace [15:49]: "Congress isn't doing it, but it's being enabled by Congress. ... The biggest institution that I think is missing in action right now."

• Justin Wolfers [31:43]: "The signers are constitutional scholars... believe the Constitution draws bright lines between legislative and executive power."

• Nicole Wallace [38:17]: "Congress might be, too, but Congress is also frightened to stand up to the president."

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This episode of Deadline: White House delves deep into the Trump administration's economic policies, legal battles surrounding tariffs, internal conflicts within the Republican Party, and broader implications for American democracy and international relations. Nicolle Wallace and Justin Wolfers provide insightful analysis, urging both Congress and the public to recognize and respond to the administration's overreach.

Transcript

[Nicole Wallace]

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[Justin Wolfers]

Hi there everybody. Happy Monday. Hey, it's four o'clock in New York. Now, this is the kind of advice most of us get at one point or another in our lives. It goes like this. When you find yourself in a hole, just stop digging. Well, today, despite pleading from a majority of the American people on the topic of our very economy, the Trump administration isn't just refusing to put down the shovel. It is calling in an excavator and preparing to dig ever deeper. It starts with a round of new tariffs, or rather expanded ones, since we last met. Donald Trump announced he is doubling the current tariff rate on steel and aluminum imports up to 50%. Treasury Secretary Scott Besant was asked about that this weekend. He did his best to paint a rosy picture.

[Nicole Wallace]

But do you have a prediction on how much it's going to impact the construction industry, for example? Well, I have a prediction on how much it's going to impact the steel industry. And again, we'll see. There are a lot of elasticities that this is a very complicated ecosystem.

[Justin Wolfers]

So is it going to impact the construction industry?

[Nicole Wallace]

Maybe, but it's going to impact the.

[Justin Wolfers]

Steel industry in a great way. There's going to be capital investment and.

[Nicole Wallace]

The number of jobs is going to.

[Justin Wolfers]

Be grown around the country, whether it's in Pittsburgh, whether it's in Arkansas, whether it's in Alabama. Don't worry, there are elasticities. Sounds like a scrunchie. Of course, after not one, but two defeats in federal court last week. There's an open question as to whether or not Trump even has the authority to do this, to impose some of his steepest tariffs at all. Those rulings against Trump are currently on pause as the Trump administration prepares to appeal. But despite such an existential threat, such an open question around the cornerstone of Donald Trump's trade war, the response from members of his economic team so far has been essentially, who cares? Not us.

[Nicole Wallace]

We're going to take that up to higher courts. The president's going to win like he always does. But rest assured, tariffs are not going away. He has so many other authorities.

[Justin Wolfers]

We've studied every possible way that the.

[Nicole Wallace]

President'S Trump, President Trump's tariff agenda could be pursued. And so we're very thrilled, we're very.

[Justin Wolfers]

Confident that the judges would uphold this law. And so I think that that's Plan A.

[Nicole Wallace]

And we're very, very confident that Plan A is all we're ever going to need.

[Justin Wolfers]

But we called it A because we needed a name different from B in case we're wrong. So that there out loud Plan A suggests there are backup plans, maybe named B or C that Trump is preparing to roll out. If, for example, the courts rule against him, rule against his use of what they're calling, quote, international economic emergencies. It's the rationale for levying these deeply unpopular tariffs at all. This reporting in the New York Times explains, quote, the steel and aluminum tariffs were issued under a legal statute related to national security. It's known as section 232. To impose those types of tariffs, the president must first initiate an investigation into whether import of a certain item poses a national security threat. If that investigation determines that they pose a threat, the president has the authority to tax those imports. Trump has already used that authority to order tariffs on foreign cars and car parts. His administration is carrying out investigations into many other areas, including pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, lumber, copper, airplanes, trucks, and critical minerals. Those investigations could be used to roll out more tariffs soon, regardless of the outcome of the court cases. Digging ever deeper, Deeper and deeper is where we start today with some of our favorite experts in France. Anchor and correspondent for Bloomberg News, David Gura is here. Also joining us is Justin Wolfers, professor of economics and public policy at the University of Michigan. First, David Gurr, your reaction to I don't even know what we're at. Quadrupling down.

[Nicole Wallace]

So these were rolled out by the president, if you can call it that, at this rally that he held in Pittsburgh on Friday. And the backdrop to that was this announcement of a deal that he'd brokered, he says, with Nippon Steel and US Steel. I should say, first of all, we have no detail on what that consists of. And he threw out a lot of red meat at that rally. And that's what it was essentially was a rally to the workers who were gathered there about the promise of spending billions on renovating factories and the jobs that would come back. But there's very little meat on the bone. There's no written document, no deal that we've seen between NIP and Steel and US Steel. So here we have him now expanding these tariffs on steel and aluminum. He put out that coda over the course of the weekend in a social media Post to 50%. And this is going to have widespread effects, yes, on the steel industry to pick up on what Scott Bess of the Treasury Secretary said, but on all manner of things. And so we think of what Margaret Brennan so shrewdly brought up there in her questioning the effect this is going to have on construction, for instance. But we use so much steel and aluminum in our daily lives for all manner of things. So, yes, it's cars and tractors and buildings. It's also the sodas that you buy at the store, it's the canned food that you might get, the fruit, the vegetables. All of this is going to trickle down. So it presents this kind of very bizarre moment where the president and his team continue to talk about the importance of bringing prices down of everyday goods. And all the while, by raising tariffs in the way in which he proposes, it's going to be a trickle down economics of a different kind. It's going to make goods like that more expensive.

[Justin Wolfers]

So I just want to make sure I understand. So there are not, they promised 90 deals in 90 days. There are no deals. There's a framework with the UK and there were some on again, off again talks in Switzerland with China. There's also no deal with Nippon Steel.

[Nicole Wallace]

We've heard that they've come to some kind of agreement, but there really is no written document, nothing that we've seen. And so if you remember the history of this, and of course, central to this is this really stark reversal. This is a deal that President Trump was against on the campaign trail. He didn't think that a Japanese company should own an American steel company like US Steel. He's reversed that. All the while this went through a CFIUS review. This was reviewed by the government on national security grounds. That would have to happen again. Now, if there is this deal that.

[Justin Wolfers]

He'S talking about, let me just ask you One more question. So it was viewed as in our national security interest. Okay. With our national security to have Nippon's deal, to have that deal go through. How are they then turning to a national security argument to levy all their new tariffs?

[Nicole Wallace]

They're using what they call a golden share, which is how he and Secretary Lutnick and Secretary Bessant have talked about it, that the US will exert large influence on the way that this company is going to work within the United States. They'll have control over personnel in the way that the company is directed. They're making the case that it's a deal, it's a merger, in effect, of these two companies and the US will play a role in how it operates going forward here.

[Justin Wolfers]

Sounds like socialism in a way. Yeah, in a way. So we have socialism in a way. We have no deal with Nippon Steel that we can review or look at. Justin, what is happening?

[Nicole Wallace]

Wow. Ok, so as I understand it, the President turned up to a steel rally on Friday and in the back room, this is his description, said, how about a 40% tariff on steel? And they said, oh, that's good. And he said, would you prefer 50? And they said, yes. So that's how we're at 50% tariff on steel, by the way, on steel. And then the next day the White House clarified, when they said steel, they also meant aluminum. And if this sounds like a policy process, it's not. And then the other thing I want you to realise is in the background, the White House claims to be negotiating with 90 countries. Forget the 200 sub deals, it's already done. But if you and I are negotiating about international trade and in the middle of that negotiation, days before, apparently we're going to announce something, you all of a sudden start putting new tariffs on goods that my country produces, I'm going to feel pretty cranky about that. And this sort of behaviour just absolutely scuttles any possibility of there being any ser deal from anyone.

[Justin Wolfers]

So what happens now?

[Nicole Wallace]

Well, the first thing is actually that the country that the President is clobbering the hardest is the United States. The steel industry, you should understand, is a very, very small part of our economy, employs about 100,000 people in an economy of 160 million workers. I care about those people. My heart goes out to them. But I also want to remember the other 159,900,000, because steel is a small part of our economy, but it's a big part of the inputs through the rest of manufacturing. So if you wanted to find a way to really destroy American manufacturing. What you do is figure out a way to jack up the cost of steel for American manufacturers. And that's what the President's just done. In fact, he's done this once before in 2018. He put tariffs on steel. And studies of that episode suggest that he did actually succeed in saving around 1,000American jobs, which sounds terrific until you realize that the more expensive steel that rippled out through the rest of the manufacturing industry, which is much, much larger, cost another 75,000 jobs. So the president ended up destroying 75 times more jobs than he saved last time. He tried the exact same trick.

[Justin Wolfers]

We've talked a lot, actually. You guys have given me an education in sort of the foundations of our economy. And so much of its resilience and strength is the American consumer. Here's where they are today. This is NBC's reporting. A recent Consumer Pulse report from the accounting Firm KPMG surveyed 15001516 US consumers and found that, quote, in response to tariffs, 50% of them are cutting back on purchases, 49% of them are actively seeking deals and discounts. When asked specifically about summer plans, many said they are still choosing to travel but have otherwise cracked down on personal expenses. Quote, we're seeing a more selective and cost conscious summer travel season. That's according to kpmg. Quote, vacations are still the budget, but nearly everything else is on the chopping block.

[Nicole Wallace]

I'll defer to the academic economist on the latest data, but I'll say that this issue of sentiment is something that we've been tracking a lot since the beginning of this term. Consumers are worried about what's happening. They can't understand why it's happening. That's true.

[Justin Wolfers]

Can we stop there? What is happening?

[Nicole Wallace]

We've seen from company after company them say that this is going to raise the cost of the inputs that Justin was talking about, of products that we import from overseas. They're sounding the alarm that this is going to have real world effects.

[Justin Wolfers]

Walmart told us that they're going to have to raise their prices.

[Nicole Wallace]

Walmart said it Target and others. And look, many of them will try to shoulder that for as long as they can, but they can't do it in perpetuity. And we can talk about sort of the nature of this being an emergency, but as it stands, this is something that we anticipate is going to go on ad infinitum until a court stops it or lawmakers stop it or the President gives up. So this is something they're going to have to live with. And it's going to have significant real world effects on people who are buying things, companies who are hiring, companies who are deciding whether or not they're going to build another factory or not or expand. So that's kind of where we're at. And so that's where the sentiment kind of meets the harder data. And you hear the administration kind of trumpeting the success they've had with import data, for instance. It's not as bad as everyone feared that it might be. It's still backward looking and we still haven't reached the point. Again, I'll defer to Justin on this, where the hard data hasn't married with the sentiment data. But what the sentiment data is telling us is that people are very freaked out about what's happening and likely to happen here.

[Justin Wolfers]

So what's happening? And the other thing, Justin, that David mentioned is why it's happening, the only reason it's happening. Unlike five years ago when there was a global novel pandemic, the only reason it's happening is because Donald Trump ended up with zero advisers around him like Steve Mnuchin or Dina Powell or others who could say no to his worst impulses. And he's doing something that 66% of the American people oppose and two federal courts said was illegal. So that's the why to marry the what. What is your sense of what? Or who will be the first to respond to the public in what respect, Nicole? Well, who will stand up for the consumer? Who will stand up for the builders? Who will stand? I mean, it feels like there's a political vacuum right now, right, where reporters are just trying to understand what the hell is happening. I mean, I have tried for 10 years to never cover the economy because I barely understand it. And if I really need to, I call my friend Steph Rule like a lifeline. You've all brought me up to speed. But in terms of the American people, who 66% of them oppose Donald Trump's tariff policy, 63% of them disapprove of his handling of inflation. I think upwards of 60% of independent voters voted for him because they felt like things were too expensive. We're now told that goods will be more expensive. Maybe we can't build as much because of this new round of tariff over the weekend, who comes in and advocates for the American consumer or builder or small business owner?

[Nicole Wallace]

So historically and constitutionally, the most important body here is Congress. The Constitution gives the power over tariffs to Congress. Every congressman is going home. Every congressman's refusing to hold town halls. They know if they held town halls, they'd hear a barrage. I can tell you a personal story. I want to buy a family car, a second car. We were getting by with one. I got kids. It's a pain, but I don't want to be this sucker who buys a car today, given that tariffs might come off tomorrow. My mother in law wants to buy a washing machine. She feels exactly the same way. And your viewers will have the same stories in their families. And what you're going to see then is the store that would have sold my mother in law, that washing machine is going to be down on sales and they're going to therefore have to cut back on employment. And that store and that store's owners are going to be angry. And they wonder why their congressman's not taking action. So I think the most important thing I want to leave your viewers with is an understanding that if you're angry about the present moment, it's being enabled by Congress. Congress isn't doing it, but it's being enabled by Congress. And when the president says the court's getting involved is unconstitutional, the president's just worried. We can impose all the tariffs we want. The courts are just saying, hey, you know, Congress should be involved here. And the White House realizes that Congress isn't going to pass any of these things because they're foolish. But the tariffs are foolish. Congress might be, too, but Congress is also frightened to stand up to the president. And that's the biggest institution that I think is missing in action right now.

[Justin Wolfers]

Well, and if I could just marry sort of the political to that. I don't know that we've ever seen them walk in lockstep with Donald Trump for something that close to 70% of the American people disapprove of. I mean, they kept their mouth shut after January 6, which was deeply unpopular. But this is proactively helping Donald Trump destroy the vitality of the American economy by going along with something that almost 70% of Americans are not a fan of and they haven't hit yet. While I have both of you, I want to ask you to explain magnets to me. Why is that an issue? Why is that a looming crisis?

[Nicole Wallace]

Justin Mate, my high school physics teacher, is going to be thrilled to hear that I asked this question. So it's a North Pole and a South Pol, and they do all sorts of magic things. And my kids have got a terrific set and they do look like magic. Nicole, I understand your point. They're also really important for building engines and motors and all sorts of Industrial uses. They're a big part of a lot of our defence equipment. They're part of cars and so on. And the problem is there are rare earth minerals that are used. And the reason we call them rare earth minerals, guess why? They're rare. The US doesn't have many of them. The concern is that if we don't get access to those rare earth minerals, that's going to shut down production of a lot of our high tech output. The problem, of course, is that we don't have them. A lot of them exist abroad, some in Greenland, go figure. Some in Australia actually, but a lot in China. And the Chinese have taken a much more strategic approach to their trade policy. Rather than cut the United States off with everything, they're threatening effectively to cut off what would be a very small set of exports to them, but would be intensely painful to the United States. It's a way of maximizing the leverage that they have have.

[Justin Wolfers]

Are we being as clearly outplayed and outfoxed by China as, again, it appears from the outside and just a reader of the newspapers, I think that's the.

[Nicole Wallace]

Wrong frame and I want you to get rid of that frame. Nicole, let me go back and teach some economics, please. Economic, all of economics, but particularly trade, is about cooperation. How about you and I take the set of tasks that we have, whether we're husband and wife or America and China or host an interviewer. Let's take the set of tasks we have and let's divide them so that we can each do what we're best at. And if we do divide them right, you're going to ask the charming questions, I'll give the trench and economic analysis. Then we produce something better together than we would if we didn't do that. And so when we fail to get together and cooperate, that hurts you and it hurts me. And so basically, it's a failure, it's not a competition. The problem in Trump's mind is he thinks in zero sum terms, and the first word he thinks of when he thinks of trade is competition. But the first word an economist thinks of is cooperation. And that's the real shame here. There's so much cooperation that's going missing and getting lost, and it's hurting us and it's hurting them.

[Justin Wolfers]

It's a perfect correction and I appreciate it. Let me just ask you one more question on this. If Donald Trump is sort of an old dog that can't learn any new tricks and is never capable of seeing China as anything other than the competition, where does that leave Our country.

[Nicole Wallace]

Yeah, Let me give a somewhat more subtle, a somewhat subtle argument, which is I think tariffs are a bad idea. Let's put that aside. Not all of your viewers are going to agree with me, and that's okay. What is a bad idea is incompetent, incoherent, chaotic tariffs. So the theory of tariffs that the old dog Donald Trump has is that if you raise tariffs, then you make it more profitable to do business in the United States and therefore I might build a factory. Now, the thing is, Trump announced the steel tariffs on a Friday at like 5pm with no notice and forgot to actually mention there was tariffs on aluminum. The average tariff now is lasting, you know, it's lasting less than a bucket of prawns in the sun just a day or two. Given that, would I be willing to invest in a factory that would require us to get payoffs over the next 30, 40, 50 years? The answer obviously is no, which means we had all the costs and none of the benefits. Now he's going to say, oh, don't worry, I'll strike a deal. Who's going to do a deal with a bloke who hasn't lived up to his marriage vows, didn't live up to nafta, hasn't lived up to the Korea US Free Trade Agreement, the Australia Free Trade Agreement or any WTO obligations? And he just adds new tariffs whenever he likes. So we're getting all the cost and none of the benefits. So I plead with the administration, I think it's a bad policy, but don't do it stupidly.

[Justin Wolfers]

I feel like that's a T shirt in and of itself. I think it's all a bad idea, but don't do your bad ideas stupidly, Justin, as only you can make sense of these things. Thank you for doing so. David sticks around when he and I come back. Some of the most hard lying conservative activists who helped propel Donald Trump, Trump's third run for the presidency, are now some of the loudest voices trying to undo what we're talking about. His quote, Justin, stupid and unpopular global trade war. We'll have that conversation next. Also had new reporting on the law firms that decided not to fight back against the Trump administration. Turns out clients of law firms happen to prefer lawyers who stand out up for what's right. We'll bring you the latest on Trump's executive overreach. And over the course of these next two hours, we are expecting to learn more from officials in Boulder, Colorado, after a man launched an attack on a march in support of the hostages in Israel. That attack is now being called a hate crime. We'll keep an ear on that upcoming press briefing and let you know what we learn. All those stories and more when Deadline White House continues after a quick break. Don't go anywhere.

[Nicole Wallace]

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[Justin Wolfers]

When I come home to Kentucky, I talk to the Farm Bureau, which is opposed to the tariffs. I talk to the bourbon industry, which.

[Nicole Wallace]

Is opposed to the tariffs. I talk to the cargo companies, ups thl, all of their pilots are opposed to it.

[Justin Wolfers]

I talk to the hardwood floor people. I talked to the people selling houses, building houses.

[Nicole Wallace]

I have no organized business interest in.

[Justin Wolfers]

Kentucky for the tariffs.

[Nicole Wallace]

So I think it's worth the discussion and it's worth people remembering that the Republicans used to be for lower taxes. Tariffs are a tax, so if you raise taxes on the private sector, that's not good for the private sector.

[Justin Wolfers]

We are grateful to Senator Rand Paul for searching for the tariff fan and telling everyone that there aren't any. He's giving voice to what has been abundantly obvious to everyone outside of the MAGA bubble since day one, and we welcome him to reality. Pretty much as he said, no one wants Trump's tariffs. The Senator is just one of the many conservatives now publicly pushing back on insanity Donald Trump's attempt to play chicken with the American and potentially global economy. New York Times reports today that a supergroup of conservative legal giants have united to put forward an amicus brief opposing Donald Trump's tariffs as a massive overreach of presidential authority, which they are. They write this quote. The signers are constitutional scholars, legal historians, public lawyers, retired federal appellate judges, a former United States Attorney general, and three former United States senators. United by a common conviction. The endurance of the American republic depends not only on elections or policy outcomes, but on the faithful preservation of its constitutional structure. The signers do not appear to defend or oppose any particular trade policy. They file this brief because they believe the Constitution draws bright lines between legislative and executive power and that those lines are being blurred in ways that threaten democratic accountability itself. The powers to tax, to regulate commerce, and to shape the nation's economic course must remain with Congress. They cannot drift silently into the hands of the president through inertia, inattention, or creative readings of statutes never meant to grant such authority. That conviction is not partisan. It is constitutional, and it strikes at the heart of this case. That's nice. Now do democracy. This is just the latest in Trump's fracture, though, with conservative legal people. Late last week, Trump lashed out at Supreme Court puppeteer Leonard Leo as well as the Heritage Foundation. Trump called Leo a, quote, real sleazebag, end quote, and suggested that the Heritage foundation had led him astray on court picks after a federal court ruling blocked most of his tariffs. Joining our conversation is publisher of the Bulwark, host of the focus group podcast, Sarah Longwell. David's here as well. Sarah, David and I were talking in the break about how well to make sense of this. If you're not an economist or a business reporter, it is most helpful to think back to Covid and do all the crazy things we did for Covid. Put on a mask, Clorox your produce, stay home from school, take your kids out of school, don't go to work. But there's no Covid. That's essentially what he's doing. The economy, shut it down for no reason. Yeah, this is a bad idea. And I mean, everybody agrees it's a bad idea. And the people who foremost agree that it's a bad idea are free market conservatives. And so it's nice to see some of these elite conservatives speaking out. The problem that they have is in there. You just read this power should lie with Congress. Well, we've got a problem with Congress in that Congress doesn't seem to want that power. I mean, Congress could take back the power of its purse, which is its constitutional role and mandate, but because these tariffs could never get through Congress. And this is something that is replete on a number of issues. Right. If you took it to Congress, many people in the Republican Party wouldn't be able to vote for it, not even cause on principle because it's deeply unpopular. And so instead they let this lie with Trump in part because a, if Trump messes it up, you know, the problem is with him. But also they hope that Taco will persist and that Trump will always chicken out and that therefore they can let Trump sort of go back and forth on this and you know, do his saber rattling to other countries and then walk it all back and that everything will be okay and they don't have to do anything. But the real way to make this constitutional is for the con to do its job and for them to be the ones to step in and actually set trade policy. That's what they are supposed to do. Sarah, how much of this is the public feeling? Well, I mean they're starting to feel some of it. I mean the main thing they're feeling is the uncertainty. So when you do focus groups, you know, people are many of them are small business owners or they work for a company for whom the tariffs are going to make an impact. And so they're part of conversations where people are saying I'm not sure what to do or we're not sure how to make this decision or this amount of, you know, the cost of this particular thing is going up. And so you know, anybody who knows a small business owner right now, I mean, you heard that's what Senator Rand Paul's talking about. These folks in Congress, they're all hearing from people who own businesses who are saying this is a nightmare for us. And this is another place where you see, look, it's nice that there are some of these conservatives that are coming out and saying this. But the fact is the cowardice is the sort of deafening thing that you hear because you know, all of these Republican members of Congress are hearing from their small business constituents that they are supposed to represent that this is terrible for them, it's terrible for their customers, it's terrible for their bottom line and it makes it impossible to plan. And so you are hearing people worried about it, but the actual impact of it is probably still down, down the road, at least the major impact of it. I mean, the things that we've been talking about, the empty shelves, the massive price hikes, a lot of that stuff hasn't hit. It's more that people are living with the uncertainty right now. David I mean anyone, all of us who cover Covid know that that uncertainty for small business owner is deep and it's stay awake at night wondering if you'll have the business in a month. It's stay awake at night worrying if you could make payroll. It's stay awake at night worrying about the cost of health care versus how your sales are doing. I mean, that is real, you know, where the rubber hits the road day to day for small business owners. Are you surprised there aren't more politicians, more Democrats stepping into the void and being their voice?

[Nicole Wallace]

I wonder if others will join Rand Paul. But what you're talking about, I think is a kind of constitution I know that I don't have myself. But I think that is a very real fear that people who start businesses wrestle with every day, founders of companies wrestle with every day. And yeah, I wonder if others will join a very small chorus of lawmakers who are now sounding the alarm about this. I think what's so novel, so interesting about this friend of the corporation, it's very brief and I would urge everyone to look at it, is two things. One, it is is such a fascinating look at the way the president is calling this an emergency. And these scholars, most of whom are conservative, but there are some liberals in the mix as well, are really poking holes at that, that this in fact isn't an emergency. We heard the president talk about the prospects of ruination if courts would reverse his tariffs. They point out the fact that that really wasn't the case beforehand. And the kind of notion that this is an emergency really rings kind of hollow. The second thing is the way in which they're doing this. And we can kind of debate whether or not this is craven or shrewd. But they say this case is not about trade, it's about power, who has it and who must authorize its use. So they're kind of acknowledging the fact that this is a broader argument. And I think that that's to me fascinating the way that they're approaching this. They're not making any kind of judgment on the president's tariff policies. I'm sure many of them have more privately. But again, it's highlighting the fact here that what we're seeing the president do is take away something that's been so fundamental to Congress for so long, the power to tax, the power to impose tariffs. We were talking about it with Justin before. The fact that that's gone and they've been so idle as that's is really something I think that historians are going to pay a lot of attention to in the future. Why they so willingly let that go.

[Justin Wolfers]

Well, and to have this group speak out on this issue is another thing that history will record, for better or.

[Nicole Wallace]

For worse, Chuck Hagel, former Defense Secretary Phil Zelikow, whom I know, you know, from the Bush years. These are conservative names that are well known to a lot of people who again are joining this friend of the court brief along with Harold Koh, who is a senior lawyer in the Obama administration. So people who have real bona fides in the law, real bona fides in government as well, who see it as important to stand up again, not for trade policy here, but to a branch of government and its equal position here. When you look at the three together.

[Justin Wolfers]

And They've also got 66% of the American people, sort of a public opinion wind at their back. David Gura, thank you for sitting at the table with us. Sarah sticks around. Up next for us, a new GOP slogan for our times. We'll look at how the Republican Party latest messaging of quote, we're all going to die is playing with actual voters. We'll bring you that story next. They will be coming off. So we people are not well, we all are going to die. So for heaven's sakes, for heaven's sakes.

[Nicole Wallace]

Folks.

[Justin Wolfers]

We all are going to die. Peak maga, right? We showed you that moment on Friday. That was Republican Senator Joni Ernst in Iowa telling her constituents, quote, well, we're all going to die. She said it in her defense of her own support for Donald Trump's big, beautiful bill and the consequences which her constituents claim will make people die. The clip went viral. Joni Ernst was roundly mocked over her callousness, over her support of a bill that is going to do real damage to real people, people's lives, her constituents. She's supposed to at least pretend publicly to care. So on Saturday, she issued this apology. We're going to show it to you in full. She's up for re election next November. We want to show you how seriously she took the reaction to her comments. Hello, everyone. I would like to take this opportunity to sincerely apologize for a statement that I made yesterday at my town hall. See, I was in the process of answering a question that had been asked by an audience member when a woman who was extremely distraught screamed out from the back corner of the auditorium, people are going to die. And I made an incorrect assumption that everyone in the auditorium understood that, yes, we are all going to perish from this earth. So I apologize. And I'm really, really glad that I did not have to bring up the subject of the tooth fairy as well. But for those that would like to see eternal and everlasting life. I encourage you to embrace my Lord and savior, Jesus Christ. I don't know what's going on with her. I imagine she has consultants. Maybe they were on vacation. Yeah. Wow. Joining our coverage, Mitch Landrieu. He served as mayor of New Orleans and a senior advisor to President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. Sarah's with us as well. So, Mitch, I'm old enough to remember when the Republicans trumped up propaganda about death panels almost or certainly created a lot of legislative friction for President Obama's healthcare policies. I won't ask you where the outrage is because I think conservatives right in their own brief, as we were discussing in the last block about how conservatives in Congress have left the arena, but what do you make of just how out of it the Republicans are when they use their time and their platform and their on air moments to defend saying to a constituent scared about Medicaid cuts, quote, we're all going to die and then go on to mock them in that video?

[Nicole Wallace]

Well, first of all, it's great to see you and it's great to see my friend Sarah, who I love that comment. You know, I've done a lot of community meetings in my time and often and sometimes you'll say something that you don't mean and the next day you go, you know what, I was a little out of the way. I didn't really mean that. So I was actually more shocked by her not so much Mother Teresa explanation the next day. Sometimes people let you into a window of their soul that tells you who they really are. They don't really require much explanation. This bill, it really presents a clear choice. The Republicans think that for some reason there's an incredible need to give the wealthiest people in America a tax break. And to do that, that you have to take away life saving health care from the American people. Make no mistake about it. People will die because of this. If you live in a rural area and your rural hospital closes down and your daddy or your mama have a heart attack and they can't get them there in a reasonable period of time, they will die. If there's no early diagnosis from cancer and no treatment or a child falls down on the playground and really hurts themselves really badly, people are going to get hurt. So I can't find for the life of me think about why anybody in America thinks it's fair to give the wealthiest people in the country who really don't need it a tax break at the expense of taking life saving health care away from millions of Americans and On top of that, when you called on it to basically say that you're doing in the name of Jesus Christ, which is just absurd because anybody who professes to know much about that at all will tell you that it's about lifting people up and saving people, them, not hurting them, and then joking about it and being malicious. That's where their heart is. And it's really unfortunate that so many congressmen and women are so afraid of Donald Trump. They won't just stand up and say what is so patently obvious and fair for most of the American people. And it's really just a damn shame. And Joni should be ashamed of herself for that.

[Justin Wolfers]

Mitch, what opportunities do you see for Democrats to just speak to everybody, you know, to just sort of stand there and say, whoever you voted for, I will never stand here and shrug my shoulders and say people are going to die and there's nothing I'm going to do, even if I'm in the minority, even if I don't win. Right. I'm going to fight for all of you.

[Nicole Wallace]

Well, listen, there are certain things that are losing that are worth losing elections over. This Sarah and I have not talked for a long time, but I bet you a lot of money shall confirm what I'm about to say. Say if you're doing focus groups and there are Trump supporters in those focus groups, and you tell them, do you think it's fair to take health care away from working people that are going to threaten their lives in exchange for giving the wealthiest among us a tax break, they will say, absolutely not. And the same thing is true, by the way, of the tariffs. If and when they go into effect, they think they're not fair. So literally, this is really not anymore. We've said this many, many times, and I pray that the people in America will understand this isn't about being a Republican or a Democrat anymore. You're witnessing something far more onerous, far more dark than we've seen in the history of the country in a long time. And shame on the folks in Congress for not stepping up to the plate and who have the power and have the votes. And those of us out here, we just have to stand up and be counted every day, all day, do whatever it is that you can to push back against us, because fundamentally, most Americans will know this is unfair and this is not what makes us really great as Americans.

[Justin Wolfers]

Sarah, I've noted the absence of Steve Bannon in the Musk Bannon wars. And this is sort of the part of the MAGA base that Bannon used to be in the room advocating for and protecting people that depended on Medicaid for whom it was a matter of life and death. In Jodi Oren's comments, you sort of see the consequence of his absence. Yeah, I mean, look this, first of all, that video of her, it looks she must be having a nervous breakdown. She is in a cemetery while she is making that joke. And one of the first things, one of the first rules about making a joke like that is it should be funny. And there was nothing funny about that. It was, I think what the kids call cringe is how it felt. I mean, this is a, this is a thing they've learned from Donald Trump. Right. Is like you say something stupid, you don't apologize, you double down. And so that was her doubling down. But this is the kind of thing that Democrats should be all over because what she did was highlight the thing that is the most pernicious about the bill, which is that people are going to lose Medicaid. And Republicans right now are out there desperately trying to convince people that that's not true. They are lying to people about what this bill does because they know that that is going to be deeply unpopular and not just unpopular with Democrats. And this is where I think a lot of Republicans are trying to catch up to the fact that their coalition has changed. And it includes now a lot of people who are on Medicare, a lot of people who depend on these social services, a lot of lower income Americans in rural areas and so mocking them. That's why Trump is very populist about these things. He tries to act all the time like they were. We won't touch these programs. And so her sort of doubling down on this and drawing more attention to the fact that it will do real harm is one of those big PR disasters that I think they think they're being clever on, but is absolutely going to backfire. I have to sneak in a break, but I'll show you the partisan breakdown on who has benefited from Medicaid or knows someone who has. It's not what Republicans think it is. We'll all be right back. We're back with Mitch and Sarah. Mitch, I have these numbers on the show on Friday and they're really eliminating. So KFF polling shows that when asked the question if you've personally been covered or had a family or close friend covered by Medicaid, Democrats who say yes, 62%, Republicans who say yes, 62%, there is no partisan discrepancy between who has benefited directly from Medicaid.

[Nicole Wallace]

Well, I think there's no question about that. If you run the numbers, and we've known this for a long time, that if you go into rural areas in red states, a huge number of people, for example, in my state and Louisiana are beneficiaries of access to that kind of healthcare and SNAP benefits as well. And the working folks are going to feel it right now. They feel chaos, they feel uncertain, they feel like they're getting squeezed. They don't know which way is up, which way is down. The president one day is doing one thing, then he's doing another. But they're clear about this, that the Republicans are trying to give a tax cut to the rich and to pay for it, they're taking away health care from them and then telling them just go ahead and die a little bit early. I mean, that's just not, that dog don't hunt. And it's gonna, it's the wrong thing to do. It's painful for people to listen to and it's absolutely the politically wrong thing to do as well. So, so hopefully they'll wake up and find out the people in Congress will push back. But in the meantime, everybody out here needs to stand up and let folks know that we're paying attention.

[Justin Wolfers]

Sarah, this is the peril of single party rule. The Republicans are responsible for all of this. Yeah, they are. And I'll tell you what was interesting. So we did a focus group not that long ago last week with Trump voters who were older and we asked them about, about Medicare, Medicaid and these cuts and they just didn't believe that they were going to happen. They just, they, you know, the thing is the right wing messaging machine right now, and if you watch the Sunday shows, you saw Republicans doing this, they have decided to just lie about what the bill does, which is sort of par for the course, right? I mean, Donald Trump lied about how he was going to lower grocery prices. And you know, they just, they just lie about things. And, and there is a whole machine there to then convince people of it. And so this is one of those things, though. If it passes, the proof's just in the pudding. Like people will feel it when those cuts happen, the same way that when the tariffs start to really kick in, they will feel those, and it is those personal consequences that will really impact people. We'll stay on top of it with both of your help. Mitch Landau and Sarah Longwell, thank you both so much for joining us today. We want to let you know about an event in Washington this Friday. Sarah, along with the Bulwark and Crooked Media are hosting a live show and fundraiser on June 6th in support of Andre Hernandez Romero. He's a makeup artist from Venezuela who the Trump administration sent to that infamous supermax prison in El Salvador. The proceeds will go to the Immigrant Defenders Law Center. Check out their website for tickets and more information. Another break for us. We'll be right back. We've been monitoring a briefing by the FBI and Colorado authorities on yesterday's violent attack in Boulder, Colorado, with Molotov cocktails and a makeshift flamethrower used on people who were peacefully marching in support of the Israeli hostages still held by Hamas. The suspect in that attack was charged today with a federal hate crime for what the FBI is calling a, quote, targeted act of violence. He was also charged today on with 16 counts of attempted first degree murder by the state of Colorado. That's two charges for each of the eight victims hospitalized. NBC News reports that the suspect admitted to conducting the attack and investigators also found that he had 16 unused Molotov cocktails with him. We'll keep listening and monitoring and have a full report ahead. Up next for us, the consequences of appeasing Donald Trump. Trump the next hour of deadline. White House starts after a quick break. Don't go anywhere.

[Nicole Wallace]

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[Justin Wolfers]

That's what politics is about.

[Nicole Wallace]

It's engagement. We are going to dive deeper into the legal side of today's breaking news. The weeknight Monday through Friday at 7pm Eastern on MSNBC. You've gone after law firms because they've employed people you don't like or they have represented people.

[Justin Wolfers]

Obviously these are the biggest, most powerful lawyers. These are not.

[Nicole Wallace]

You got a lot of leverages, intimidated as president. You got all the cards. They paid hundreds of millions of dollars because they felt, I guess they probably.

[Justin Wolfers]

Felt they did something wrong.

[Nicole Wallace]

It was for survival, sir. No, it is. You're crushing the business.

[Justin Wolfers]

Hi again, Everybody. It's now five o'clock in New York. The targets of Donald Trump's revenge tour are from faced with a major decision over and over again. Go along with what the wannabe autocrat demands and hope for the best or stand your ground, hope the courts see it your way and fight. When it comes to Trump's attack on the big law firms, we saw several firms take that first path, the path of appeasing Donald Trump in exchange for a social media post announcing a deal. Those deals in and of themselves have turned out to be moving targets up for interpretation. But it was a choice to avoid crisis by their telling. But according to brand new reporting in the Wall Street Journal, the firms who did not do that, the firms who did not bow to Donald Trump's petty since ruled illegal and unconstitutional attacks, are now seeing business benefits for the their political courage. Quote. Support for the law firms that did not make deals has been growing. Inside the offices of corporate executives. At least 11 big companies are moving work away from law firms that settled with the administration or are giving or intend to give more business to the firms that have been targeted but refuse to strike deals. That's according to general counsels at those companies and other people familiar with those decisions. Among them are technology giant Oracle, investment bank Morgan Stanley, an airline and a pharmaceutical company. Microsoft expressed reservations about working with a firm that struck a deal. And another such firm stopped representing McDonald's in a case a few months before a scheduled trial. We saw nine firms reach deals with the White House in recent months. Four firms fought back and sued. Of those, four judges have struck down the orders against three of them and one is temporarily blocked. Most recently, the judge who ruled against Donald Trump's executive order against the law firm Wilmer Hale. A judge appointed by George W. Bush writes a scathing opinion that included 27 exclamation points. He wrote in part, quote, I have concluded that this order must be struck down in its entirety as unconstitutional. Indeed, to rule otherwise would be unfaithful to the judgment and vision of the founding fathers. So there are the legal victories in taking on the president and now with this Wall Street Journal report, clear evidence of a business advantage. Business victories as well. More from the Journal reporting. Quote. In interviews, general counsels expressed concern about whether they could trust law firms that struck deals to fight for them in court and in negotiating big deals if they weren't willing to stand up for themselves against Donald Trump. The general counsel of a manufacturer of medical supplies said that if firms facing White House pressure, quote, don't have a hard line, they don't have any line at all, end quote. That is where we start the hour with some of our favorite reporters and friends. Voting rights attorney, founder of Democracy Docket. Mark Elias is here. He's a former partner at Perkins Coie. Also joining us, investigative reporter for the New York Times. Mike Schmidt is here. Mike, you had the original reporting on the executive orders against the firms that capitulated and the ones that went to court and prevailed. And I guess my question for you, is there any remorse being communicated to you from the firms that went down and capitulated to Donald Trump?

[Nicole Wallace]

Well, there have been consequences for those firms. So Paul Weiss just a week ago lost four of their top partners who decided to start their own law firm and to leave. And so that is a major consequence because those lawyers had big clients and may take those clients with them. We know about dissent amongst associates, we know dissent amongst partners about partners at Paul Weiss who didn't want Paul Weiss to do what they did. But this is an important story because understanding the fallout from these deals was always going to take time. A firm like Paul Weiss insisted that they had no choice, that this executive order was existential, and that if they didn't reach the deal, they would have essentially gone out of business business or cease to exist in the form that they're in. And what we're going to see in the coming months is whether that is true or not in this instance. And what it looks like sort of early on here in the first few months is that if you were a firm that fought, you were not only able to legally survive, but you were seen more favorably amongst fellow law firms and amongst companies. And I think that comes back to something actually very basic about lawyers and law firms, which is that if you want to hire a lawyer to represent you, you want them to be a zealous advocate for you, to do everything to advocate for you. And what people have seen in these deals and what folks I've talked to in the legal community have seen and said is that what the firms that made deals did was capitulation. They've even called Brad and Carp, the head of Paul Weiss, they called it Carp Carpet Carpetization or Carpal, basically taking capitulation in Brad Carp's last name and combining them into two. So if you're an individual and you want to go out and Hire a lawyer and you want someone to represent you. Do you want someone that did a deal with Donald Trump and is on the hook for some sort of legal, pro bono legal work for the, the administration or for what Trump thinks he wants you to do it for? Or do you want someone that's going to fight? And there are some examples, like there is in this Wall Street Journal story that people that are hiring lawyers want people that are going to fight.

[Justin Wolfers]

MARCO lias it feels like it is all that. It is all of the things that Mike describes in the legal world, but it feels like it's a democracy story as well, that not only does someone not want a lawyer whose very name is now become its own word that embodies cowardice and capitulation, someone who has always stood for and with Democratic politicians and priorities, who goes in on bended knee to the Oval Office, he has his own word, that individual. It's also turned out to be a terrible business bet. And that feels in some ways like as big or perhaps the bigger part of this journal reporting?

[Nicole Wallace]

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, in addition to what Mike said, I had one more category, the judges. You know, in some ways, I think it may be the judges that kick this off, because judge after judge after judge that was called to review the lawsuits brought by the law firms that fought, not only faulted the administration, not only said that Donald Trump's executive order was unconstitutional and illegal, but were quite critical of the law firms that capitulated, bullied. So if you're out there looking for a lawyer and you're looking to hire the best, and these folks are charging you $3,000 an hour, right? Are you going to pay someone that the judges are looking down on? Are you going to pay someone who's, you know, maybe going to have to pull their punches against, against the administration? Are you looking for someone who will sacrifice being tough to save their own skin and make their lives a little easier? Or are you going to go with the folks who stand up and fight hard every single day and don't back down? And so it is a business story. It is a democracy story. The fact is that what Paul Weiss was counting on, what Brad Karp was counting on, is that in a news cycle where things move very, very fast, people would think it was distasteful what they did, but that it was smart, it was savvy, it was clever, and that in the end, the ends the of justified the means, and instead they look like craven fools and gutless cowards. And it hasn't gone away. The stench of what they have done has not gone away. Here's the deal, Nicole. I was sued by Donald Trump for racketeering. I didn't back down. I fought, we won. You know, he sick to John Durham and the rest of them after me. And I didn't fight. I didn't back down. I stood up, I told the truth, and. And I'm here to live to tell the tale. And when they went after law firms, then they mentioned me, and he gave a speech about me and he issued an executive order that mentioned me. I issued a statement saying very clearly we would never negotiate with the White House. We would not pull punches in what we did. And who we represented was our business and not the White House's. And you know what? I haven't heard from them since.

[Justin Wolfers]

I mean, Mike, is there something, something in here that the firms that capitulate can learn from that? If what they were seeking was to save their asses, they are completely exposed because Donald Trump smells their weakness, that they're in more danger now as law firms because even Donald Trump doesn't respect weakness.

[Nicole Wallace]

I think that the way to look at it is that these firms agreed to what was essentially truth social posts, that they agreed to do pro bono legal work and agreed to represent people, no matter their political persuasions. And Donald Trump put out pro bono, put out social media posts that laid that out. Those deals do not have sophisticated contracts behind them. That deal with, you know, what happens if one party doesn't hold up their other end of it and what is going to happen happen. And the question in the legal community is that if Trump tries to call in that pro bono legal work, what is going to happen? We have already seen based on Trump's public statements, that he has one understanding of the deal. He has said that the pro bono legal work can be used towards trade, it can be used towards the coal industry, and it may be evil to be used for his own personal legal representation. And, and we haven't seen examples yet of Trump call into those firms to activate that yet. But what it does is that it puts a firm like Paul Weiss in a situation where Trump could call them up and ask them and lean on them to basically come good on the commitments that they have made or come good on what Donald Trump thinks the commitments they have made. And at that point, they will have no recourse. See the firms that went to court and that fought got judges to step in and issue orders that protect them from the executive order. But if you're Paul Weiss, all Donald Trump has to do is dust off the old executive order and sign it again and put a new date on it and it will be in effect. And at that point, someone like Paul Weiss would be back at square one and would have to decide whether to make another deal or go back to court. And so we haven't really seen, seen the next act in this story yet where we get a sense of what is, what, what are these deals going to mean? Are they truly hollow deals that included a lot of platitudes in true social posts, or are they things that Donald Trump is going to call in on? And the firms that made the deals are living every day in that situation where Trump could, could turn to them. And if they have already made made deals, what would they do if Trump asked them? Okay, time to show me your pro bono legal work.

[Justin Wolfers]

I mean, Mark, the whole idea of going to your client and explaining, having to explain the status of your relationship with the White House and saying, we're under this truth social post agreement. We don't really know what it means, but trust us, we'll be here for the long haul. How do you even put that in marketing materials? How do you, do you even explain that to clients who are worried?

[Nicole Wallace]

I don't think they can. I think this is the problem. I think this is the reason why these law firms are in the hard spot that they're in right now because it is inexplicable. It's inexplicable to your, to your clients, it's inexplicable to your staff. It's inexplicable to the lawyers you're trying to recruit. Recruit. It's inexplicable to your partners who wake up every day and you know, and, and are, are at a law firm that is, seems to be led around by the nose by Donald Trump in the White House. And you know, I would say this. I am confident that the law firms that capitulated, they may squeal a bunch, but in the end they've made their deals like they're not going to back up. They're not going to back out. They're not, they are not going to stand up to Donald Trump. They had their chance to stand up to Donald Trump and they didn't do it. He owns them right now. And they may with tears in their eyes, say, yes, sir, when he comes to come call, come to pay up. And there was a news report and I can't remember if it was in the Times or in the Journal that suggested that Scadden Arps. When they were approached by a conservative, I think a former conservative Fox News host or something to do some kind of pro bono, they suggested that they would do it, but they do it behind the scenes and that they maybe, you know, should find local counsel to be out front. So I'm not so sure these law firms are saying now they may be keeping their head down around it, but I think when, when the, when the tale is fully told, we're going to find out that these law firms compromise themselves. And Donald Trump knows how to take advantage of a compromised law firm.

[Justin Wolfers]

I mean, Mike, in terms of how they describe their own brands, it feels like there was a place to say, well, we're aligned now with maga. And that would make maybe the MAGA universe think more of you. But for someone like, for a firm like Paul Weiss that's always been associated with the highest level Democratic politics, how is their brand anything other than what you said, capitulation? And how is it, how do they expect to recruit the best lawyers graduating from law school this year and next?

[Nicole Wallace]

I think what they would say and what happened at Paul Weiss is that Paul Weiss became much more of a corporate law firm that dealt with private equity and did corporate deals. And the individuals working for Paul Weiss, the lawyers and partners on that felt that if they were publicly adverse to the administration, then they weren't going to be able to get their deals approved. And it was going to, they were going to lose their clients over that because so much of private equity is about doing deals that ultimately require some sort of government sign off in one way or another. So that a law firm like Paul Weiss, when the executive orders come along, you know, Paul Weiss did have a long history of being, of being litigators and of being folks that supported Democratic causes, but they had become very tied to their corporate legal work over the past decade. And when, you know, the executive order hits, their corporate lawyers are terrified that being adverse to Trump will hurt their business. So when a business decision decision, they make the move to do the deal with Trump, that's where they find themselves. Now, does that mean that they will recruit a different type of lawyer? Will they recruit conservative lawyers? I don't know. I don't know where it leaves the firm. And it gets to the larger point of the importance of this story, which is what is the fallout really going to look like? What is going to happen to the revenues of these firms? What is going to happen to the recruitment? And we start to see some clues of that in the Journal story. Today about, you know, what, what an institution like Citadel, which is not some, you know, lefty, lefty, you know, NGO by any means thinks about firms that did deals.

[Justin Wolfers]

I mean, I guess, Mark, this is where it stops being a story about terrified corporate practices and becomes a story about the human history of a piece of. There is no example in human history of appeasement carrying out the means that the person doing the appeasing wants from the appeaser. There is not. I've said that a thousand times on this show. No one has ever been able to come up with a single example of a person carrying out appeasement actually getting what they want from the person they have appeased.

[Nicole Wallace]

That's absolutely right. And particularly with Donald Trump. Because the thing about Donald Trump is he doesn't respect people who are weak, but he also doesn't keep his end of the bargains. Like, so these law firms, you know, you say they're truth social agreements, they're actually one sided truth social agreements because the other side won't get any of the benefits that they think that they got from this. The moment Donald Trump decides that he wants something more that isn't in the agreement, he'll insist it was in the agreement and they will stay silent. And they will, as I said, perhaps with tears in their eyes, eventually say, yes, sir, because they are totally compromised by him. You know, the thing that I think we need to put a lie to here though, is the idea that somehow like Paul Weiss or these other law firms would have gone out of business. You know, people who are making 15, 20 million dollars a year maybe would have made 13 or 15 million dollars a year. You know, it would have taken an economic hit, but it hardly would have been the end spelled the end of these law firms. It may have dented profits. Maybe in retrospect, it wouldn't have dented profits. But the fact is that why a law firm as proud and as long with the history of these law firms would sacrifice their dignity and self respect, their ability to hold their head high and stand tall for a few extra dollars is to me one of the great mysteries of this entire tale.

[Justin Wolfers]

We'll stay on this story. Marc Elias and Mike Schmidt, thank you so much for starting us off this hour. When we come back, polygraph tests, firings and forced retirements, how Trump allies Dan Bongino and Kash Patel are causing and creating chaos inside the FBI at a time when our country faces multiple threats. Plus, we're learning more about the suspect and what happened in Sunday's deputy devastating attack on a rally for the hostages still being held by Hamas in Gaza. That attack left 12 people injured. We'll bring you the latest. And later in the program, a stunning surprise strike deep into Russian territory thousands of miles away from the front shows Ukrainian resilience and ingenuity years after Russia's invasion deadline. White House continues after a quick break. Don't go anywhere.

[Nicole Wallace]

I gave up everything for this. I mean, you know, my, my wife is struggling. If you think we're there for tea and crumpets, well, I mean, cash is there all day. We share, our offices are linked. He turns on the faucet. I hear it. He's there at, he gets in like 6 o' clock in the morning. He doesn't leave till 7 at night. You know, I'm in there at 7:30 in the morning. I, you know, he uses the gym. I work out in my apartment. But I stare at these four walls all day in D.C. you know, by myself. Divorced from my wife, not divorced, but I mean, separated, divorced. And it's hard.

[Justin Wolfers]

12 hour days, hard work. Seems that the current leadership of the FBI is finding out that leading the nation's top law enforcement agency requires 12 hour days. And hard work is something that requires institutional knowledge as well. And relying on experts and expertise from career public servants that fill the bureau. But FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino, who you just saw in the interview there, are taking the opposite approach. New reporting in the New York Times reveals that their actions are intensifying the unease inside the FBI. According to that reporting, quote, agents have been forced to out, others have been demoted or put on leave. And with no explanation, in an effort to hunt down the sources of news leaks, Patel is forcing employees to take polygraph tests. It is leaving employees to, quote, wonder whether they too, will be ousted either because they worked on an investigation, vilified by Trump supporters or had ties to the previous administration. All of this could have enormous consequences for the age of agency tasked with keeping all Americans safe. The New York Times reports that Patel and Bongino have, quote, obliterated decades of experience in national security and criminal matters at the FBI and raised questions about whether the agents taking over such critical posts have the institutional knowledge to pursue cornerstones of its work. Joining our coverage, NBC News justice reporter Ryan Reilly, plus former CIA director, now Ms. MSNBC senior national security analyst John Brennan and former Democratic senator, MSNBC political analyst Claire McCaskill is here. Ryan Reilly, add your reporting to what we're learning from this New York Times piece.

[Nicole Wallace]

Yeah, I think what Adam Goldman really captured here is just this real culture of people who are really scared about what's happening at the Bureau right now and losing all of that expertise. I think that individuals are really looking at that 20 year mark in terms of when they can retire with their, with their full pension, and that's really determining their path forward. You know, I don't think many people are overstaying that 20 year mark or that requirement to turn a certain age before you, before you leave and turn to the private sector. There's just a real, a real fear about what's happening inside of the Bureau right now. And people feel like the loyalty test is really there as well as, you know, this extreme turn towards these immigration cases is not really what a lot of FBI agents, FBI special agents signed up for and having to spend so much of their time basically playing second fiddle to some of the, you know, to ICE agents, for example, even when they can only really play a background role in thosein enforcing those administrative warrants because that's not their core duty. This isn't federal lawfederal law from, you know, going through the system that they normally go through, getting judicial authorization for and things of that nature. This is an administrative warrant by ICE that they're just sort of assisting with. So that's not really why these agents had joined up with, you know, something with the Bureau of Investigation.

[Justin Wolfers]

Director Brennan, I want to read you a little bit more from the Times reporting. In May, one senior official was forced out, at least in part, because he had not disclosed to Patel that his wife had taken a knee during demonstrations protesting police violence in the District of Columbia. In 2020, the veteran agent retired, but not before passing a polygraph as part of Patel's efforts to staunch leaks. I understand that polygraphs are a tool inside the FBI, but hunting down leakers is not the traditional use of them with your own workforce, is it?

[Nicole Wallace]

No, it's not. The polygraph, as you point out, is a tool and it's used to do look at individuals for security clearances as well as part of counterintelligence investigations if someone is under suspicion because they might.

[Justin Wolfers]

Have, you know, engaged with foreign intelligence services or whatever.

[Nicole Wallace]

But to do it routinely against individuals, to find out whether or not they are politically loyal to this administration, is really quite antithetical to everything I think that the Bureau stands for, which is to conduct investigations in a nonpartisan, apolitical way. And reporting indicates that there are so many individuals in the FBI at the senior ranks who are being dismissed or Leaving early because the ethos of the FBI, I think, is being undermined by the current administration, which really is quite, quite worrisome because in times of crisis or times of, for example, terrorist attacks, that's when you're going to really miss those decades of experience and the coming competence of individuals, particularly at the senior level. We're able to orchestrate these investigations in a thorough, competent and effective manner. And if there's this outpouring of individuals and competence from the Bureau, I really do worry for all the various things that the Bureau is responsible for in terms of keeping this country and our.

[Justin Wolfers]

Citizens safe and secure. Claire, I want to read you some more from this Times reporting. Female agents have been forced out. The Times reports this, quote, one FBI lawyer was removed from a key job overseeing human resources and notified while on medical leave. Others have been forced out of jobs, typically with no explanation. A succession of top agents, all women, were given an ultimatum, take a different post or be asked to retire. We don't have a counterfactual as to why that is, but another disturbing piece of reporting in this news story. Yeah, I read that article several times.

[Nicole Wallace]

Because I wanted to make sure I.

[Justin Wolfers]

Understood exactly what these dozens of interviews with people associated with FBI revealed.

[Nicole Wallace]

Keep in mind, Nicole, that the FBI is there to do the most highly.

[Justin Wolfers]

Complicated interstate and international crime. You know, international drug rings, the moving.

[Nicole Wallace]

Of money around the globe illegally.

[Justin Wolfers]

If they're worried about fentanyl, Canada is not the problem.

[Nicole Wallace]

The problem is that the director of.

[Justin Wolfers]

The FBI thinks it's more important to.

[Nicole Wallace]

Send FBI agents to try to justify.

[Justin Wolfers]

Right wing conspiracy theories than to get after the really serious, complicated things the FBI was built for. And you know, Director Brennan makes a really good point about the ethos of the FBI. The FBI has always attracted really good people that want to work there. What impact is all of this going to have on them?

[Nicole Wallace]

How many people are going to want.

[Justin Wolfers]

To go work for the FBI if they're going to be tasked to either play second fiddle to administrative orders on immigration law or try to go figure out who had the cocaine in The White House 10 years ago or 7 years ago or whenever it was, or figure out did the FBI do an.

[Nicole Wallace]

Inside job on the pipe bomb on J6?

[Justin Wolfers]

These guys are going to, you know.

[Nicole Wallace]

At the end of the line in all of this is a jury.

[Justin Wolfers]

And these guys are going to figure out, just like they figured out with the Epstein files, that if there's no evidence there, then they're going to have.

[Nicole Wallace]

To admit to all the people that.

[Justin Wolfers]

They have helped build up on these conspiracy theories that.

[Nicole Wallace]

Yeah, well, there's no evidence and that's already put them in an awkward position when it comes to the Epstein file. Wait for the rest of this stuff to hit the fan.

[Justin Wolfers]

Yeah. I mean, Director Brennan, I think Claire is speaking at what may be the more significant underlying issue here, that there's pressure now. I mean, these are two purveyors of some of the most vile conspiracy theories about the FBI under the leadership of Christopher Wray, a lifelong Republican handpicked by Donald Trump to lead the FBI after Trump fired Jim Comey. And what they're going to know to be true and not true, to hear Dan Fongino sit with the host of Fox News and talk about, complain about getting to the office at 7:30 and being divorced. Not actually, but I guess separated from his wife. It sounds like they've never gone to offices or haven't worked full days. That is so counter to the culture of the FBI. These are people who don't log their hours. They don't punch in and punch out. They are mission driven. And I wonder, just aside from all the crazy stuff, the culture clash is so obvious.

[Nicole Wallace]

It is, I must say, you know, a 12 hour day was considered a short day for most people in the FBI or national security environment. These are tough, complicated jobs.

[Justin Wolfers]

And these agencies, whether it be the.

[Nicole Wallace]

FBI or CIA or others, they attract.

[Justin Wolfers]

Attract individuals who really want to do.

[Nicole Wallace]

Right by their fellow citizens and to tackle those tough issues, whether it be terrorism or whether it be, you know, foreign espionage activities here in the states. They're principled individuals who really believe in the integrity that is necessary in order to conduct these, these investigations again in an apolitical, nonpartisan way. But if this new regime now is putting in place sort of of this test of loyalty to the Trump administration again that is just so similar to the totalitarian regimes that I've saw overseas for so many years in terms of making sure that the security services are doing the bidding of the political leaders, are not really carrying out their obligations and responsibilities to the citizenry, to the country, to their constitutions. And that's why I think, think that the FBI, I think is going to have a tough time attracting individuals that have that type of principled approach to government service. And I say the lack of experience at the senior levels I think is having a very, very harmful impact and it's hurting morale in the bureau. From what I understand from these press reports and others.

[Justin Wolfers]

Yeah, no one's going anywhere. I need to keep you all around Ahead for us, a story that underscores what we're talking about, the importance of having an FBI operating at the highest levels on top of its game. An attack in Boulder, Colorado at a rally for Israeli hostages that left 12 people injured. We'll bring you the latest on that next U.S. attorney's office with prosecuting the.

[Nicole Wallace]

Hate crime against the defendant, our office will be prosecuting the attempted murder charges and related charges. At the state level, 16 counts of attempted murder in the first degree. Eight of those counts are for attempted murder with intent and after deliberation, the other eight counts are attempted murder with extreme indifference. So 16 counts total.

[Justin Wolfers]

He's also charged with 16 other counts.

[Nicole Wallace]

Of attempted use of an incendiary device. And again, if convicted and if they run consecutive, the maximum on those counts.

[Justin Wolfers]

Would be 192 years.

[Nicole Wallace]

We've now identified four additional victims. So there's now a total of 12 victims. And as you'll hear from the FBI special agent in charge, we're going to continue to encourage victims and witnesses to come forward and contact law enforcement.

[Justin Wolfers]

That was an update from Colorado officials in the last hour on the horrific attack on the Jewish community in Boulder, Colorado over the weekend. As you just heard there, 12 people have been injured in the attack. The suspect, Mohammed Sabri salman, is a 45 year old Egyptian citizen who had overstayed his visa. He now faces a federal hate crime charge and state level attempted first degree murder charges for throwing Molotov cocktails and a makeshift flamethrower at a group of peaceful activists marching in support of the Israeli hostages still being held by Hamas. According to investigators, the suspect admitted to conducting the attack and said that he had been planning it for over a year. Investigators also found 16 unlit Molotov cocktails on him. We're back with Ryan, Director Brennan and Claire. Director Brennan there is reporting in the New York Times and other places about the incredibly high levels of terror that Jewish members of our communities feel. These vigils are basically peaceful vigils for the terror, for the hostages still being held by terrorists in Gaza. They have them in New York every week. And that's what this was, a peaceful, quiet vigil for innocent hostages.

[Nicole Wallace]

Yeah. Such a tragic and senseless attack by what clearly is a mentally deranged individual who carried out this awful, awful attack against individuals who, who are demonstrating their.

[Justin Wolfers]

Support for the return of the hostages.

[Nicole Wallace]

That remain in Gaza. And unfortunately, there are so many individuals who are now seeing as synonymous the state of Israel and what the Netanyahu government is doing in Gaza and the Jewish community. And what's, I think, ironic is probably many of these individuals who were injured, just like those two beautiful young individuals who were killed in D.C. about two weeks ago. They are supporting, supportive of Palestinian rights and are opposed to some of the military activities of Israel. But unfortunately, this individual, for whatever reason, decided to go ahead and carry out this attack. And unfortunately, I think while you still have thousands of Palestinians who are dying in Gaza, you're going to have more individuals who are going to unfortunately take matters into their own hands and carry out these attacks of violence, which really just again, further complicates the work of the FBI, local law enforcement and others. Because this is an individual who it appears as though he was acting alone, but it just makes so many individuals, whether they be Jewish targets or members of the Israeli community, vulnerable to these types of attacks.

[Justin Wolfers]

Ryan Riley I guess it just underscores that you can't f around with the institutional capabilities of the greatest law enforcement agencies in our country, and that's the FBI. Real people in all of our communities lives are on the line. Does this have the current leaders sort of thinking about how important it is to keep their most experienced investigators and agents close instead of repelling them?

[Nicole Wallace]

Yeah, I mean, this is a challenge. This is a long standing challenge for the FBI.

[Justin Wolfers]

Sorry, go ahead.

[Nicole Wallace]

I think this is a lot. Sure. I think this is a long standing challenge for the FBI, particularly sort of lone wolf actors in this nature, because it's just, you know, I mean, it's just really tough to prevent these types of crimes from happening, especially in this instance where it doesn't involve that sort of purchase. Apparently some of the reporting out there is that this individual did try to purchase a gun, wasn't able to, and so went with this sort of alternative route.

[Justin Wolfers]

But those are very basic ingredients.

[Nicole Wallace]

And so it's not something that's overly complicated to sort of go after a soft target like this. And law enforcement has long been, you know, aware of that issue. It's just, you know, we live in a country that prioritizes the First Amendment and free speech is, you know, a core part of being an American. And I think that a lot of that becomes very complicated when it looks into it, when you look into the extremist case, extremist rhetoric that's online, you know, and just all the tips that are sort of flooding in to the FBI, you really do need to have some level of violence before there's or attempted violence or threat before there's some sort of investigation. It's a Real fire hose. I mean, I've spoken with folks before talking about just the unprecedented amount of material that floods into the bureau to local law enforcement and sort of, you know, separating out the wheat from the chaff in those tips for both the FBI and local law enforcement is going to be a real challenge going forward. And particularly in this, in this sort of environment is really going to Beit's going to be tougher when you have have such deeply held beliefs on both sides of this issue.

[Justin Wolfers]

Claire, you get the last word?

[Nicole Wallace]

Yeah, I mean, I did think we should point one thing out.

[Justin Wolfers]

This was horrific.

[Nicole Wallace]

I have a lot of confidence in state and local law enforcement here.

[Justin Wolfers]

The bulk of the punishment this man faces come from state charges, the attempted murder. And that's what state prosecutors do, not the federal government.

[Nicole Wallace]

But he did try to buy a gun, Nicole.

[Justin Wolfers]

He could have had an AR15 if there wasn't a gun safety law in place that prevented him from buying a gun because of his status, his immigration status. So all the people out there that.

[Nicole Wallace]

Say gun control, gun safety measures don't work. We would have a different story today.

[Justin Wolfers]

If he'd had an AR15. There would have been people dead and.

[Nicole Wallace]

There would have been lots of people.

[Justin Wolfers]

Dead had he had a high capacity magazine and the weapon to go with it.

[Nicole Wallace]

And so thank goodness.

[Justin Wolfers]

I'm so sorry these people were hurt. I am so sorry they are being physically assaulted because of their religious beliefs.

[Nicole Wallace]

Especially in our country. But I am grateful and I want.

[Justin Wolfers]

To point out, and everyone should point.

[Nicole Wallace]

Out to everyone that gun safety measures work.

[Justin Wolfers]

They do save lives, and I hope.

[Nicole Wallace]

That'S one of the takeaways from this tragedy.

[Justin Wolfers]

Ryan Reilly, director John Brennan and Claire McCaskill, thank you for spending time with us on this. Up next for us, in the words of one expert, Ukraine just rewrote the rules of war. We'll bring you that story next. Don't go anywhere. Ukraine launched a stunning and complex surprise attack yesterday across Russia, targeting aircraft that Russia uses for near nightly strikes on Ukrainian cities. Ukraine says it destroyed or disabled 40 or 1/3 of the bombers stationed at Russia's air bases. Using aerial drones, Ukraine managed to smuggle the drones into Russia, then hide them inside trucks that brought them deep inside that country and then activate those drones, remember, remotely, when they were in position to strike. Russia says, according to the New York Times, that Ukraine's attack, codenamed Spiderweb, stretched across five regions in five time zones from Russia's western border all the way to deep Siberia, some 2,500 miles from Ukraine's border. Joining our conversation, former U.S. ambassador to Russia, MSNBC international affairs analyst Ambassador Michael McFaul is here. Your reaction to what's being reported and what this means?

[Nicole Wallace]

Well, this is an extraordinary operation, amazing operation. It shows that Ukraine has capabilities. And so when President Trump says, they have no cards, Mr. President, they have cards. They have real cards. And this is an extraordinary amount of damage with very little loss on the Ukraine, Ukrainian side. And by the way, military targets, not civilian targets like President Putin constantly is attacking inside Ukraine. So I think it underscores a point that gets lost sometimes in the day to day coverage of the war, is that there is this conventional wisdom sinking in, especially that President Trump underscores, which is wrong, which is that the Ukrainians are losing now. They're not winning. They haven't liberated their territory, but the Russians are not winning. And the idea that time is on Putin's side, I think is now challenged by what we just saw yesterday.

[Justin Wolfers]

Well, so much of the conventional wisdom also holds that Putin's making a fool of Donald Trump. And that bears out if you look at Russian state media. But it seems that by this attack, Zelensky is making a fool of him, too. He just looks like a foolish bystander with no control and no ability to do anything in the region. I wonder what this says about America's lack of influence in the whole region.

[Nicole Wallace]

Well, to me, it says two things. In the short term, it says exactly what you just said. President Trump is not in control here. He's not mediating any peace settlement. Nobody's listening to him. There were no Americans at the meeting between Ukrainians and Russians today. And we said, I want to be underscored to the reporting that I know about. I don't know if there's some secret channel, but the Ukrainians didn't tell us about this operation. Right. Because they didn't want us to tell Putin about it. That's a sign of our weakening and the fact that we are not a great power. But there's a longer term good news story here. This should be a story to other Americans, maybe not the president and his inner circle, but to other Americans about the utility of having strong partners and allies. Allies like Ukraine. What are they blowing up? They're blowing up bombers that if they're not being used against Ukraine, are targeting us with nuclear weapons. We want our Ukrainian army and intelligence services with this kind of capacity. We want them on our side. And I think there's been this notion that we're just giving, giving, giving to the Poor Ukrainians. And of course we are. And we should respect that. That and the Ukrainians do. But I think in the long term, people should begin to think about what Ukraine can do for us and our security and the security of the NATO alliance.

[Justin Wolfers]

Yeah. And the innovations and the ingenuity. They're learning it under the most dire circumstances. Ambassador McFaul, there's a story I'm going to tease out here. I'm going to have you come back. The Ukrainian national baseball team was in New York this weekend. I have some footage from that. I'm going to have you come back this week and we'll talk about how life tries to go on even in the most dire of times. Another break for us. We'll be right back. Today we launched it's launch day for our new podcast, the Best People. The first two episodes are live. You can listen to them. Yikes. It starts with my conversation with actor, director and all around great guy Jason Bateman. He's not only completely, completely hilarious, he's also a big time political junkie. He knows everything about everything we cover here and he just might watch more MSNBC than I do. The second episode we dropped this morning is my conversation with my dear friend Rachel Maddow. She is our north star around here. For all of us, we covered a lot of ground, including just what's giving Rachel hope right now. Something she's been seeing happen on a book tour watch at a couple of events.

[Nicole Wallace]

I said, you know, has anybody here done any sort of in person protest? Have you gone out and held a sign somewhere? And a lot of people applauded. Yeah, I did. And I was like, oh, wow, like.

[Justin Wolfers]

A significant portion of people.

[Nicole Wallace]

And I said, and when you did that, how did it make you feel?

[Justin Wolfers]

And the roar of cheers and applause.

[Nicole Wallace]

Like I'm getting tears thinking about it right now. That just this wave of like, yes, this felt good. This was the thing that's happened to me over these hundred days that felt great and made me want to do more of it.

[Justin Wolfers]

She's so good. You can hear the whole thing. You can download both those episodes right now. Wherever you get your podcast, just scan the QR code on your screen to subscribe. Later this week they'll, you'll be able to see what I just showed you. They'll be available on YouTube as well. I can't wait for you to listen. Give me your honest feedback. Tell me what you think. Quick break for us. We'll be right back. Thank you so much for letting us into your homes. We are grateful.