← Deadline: White House
Deadline: White House
“Standing firm in the face of intimidation”
00:42:52
Nicolle Wallace on the scenes of brutality from federal agents in Chicago and how Republican lawmakers are carrying out Trump's retribution campaign.
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- [00:00]
Nicole Wallace
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Nicole Wallace
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- [01:04]
Governor JB Pritzker
This is a convicted felon. I mean, think about that. Who is threatening to jail me? I gotta say, this guy's unhinged. He's insecure. He's a wannabe dictator. And there's one thing I really wanna say to Donald Trump. If you come for my people, you come through me. So come and get me.
- [01:26]
Nicole Wallace
Wow, fighting words. Hagan, everyone. It's now five o'clock in New York. Come and get me. Governor of Illinois standing firm in the face of very public and escalating threats in the face of intimidation. Illinois Governor JB Pritzker speaking there rather bluntly to my colleague Jacob Soborough today, responding to an earlier threat from the President of the United States that he, along with Chicago's mayor, should be jailed for not wanting the deployment of National Guard troops in their city. In a post on social media, Governor Pritzker posed the question. Trump is now calling for the arrest of elected representatives checking his power. What else is left On a path to full blown authoritarianism. Despite opposition from the governor, the mayor, other local leaders, and the people of the city of Chicago, the National Guard is now patrolling and on the ground in the Chicago area. According to a press release from the Pentagon, there will be about 500 total troops from both the Illinois and Texas National Guard combined, according to the Trump administration. The National Guard is there to protect ICE and other federal agents carrying out deportation efforts across the city. But what we have seen with our own eyes from those federal agents is an unprecedented use of harsh and dehumanizing and escalating tactics. There have been agents rappelling From Black Hawk helicopters onto and into apartment buildings and then proceeding to zip tie children who are American citizens. There has been the shooting of pepper balls and tear gas into crowds of demonstrators ripping non criminals from the streets. A reporter for the Chicago Tribune, which has been extraordinary, posted this frightening image showing a federal agent pointing a gun at a woman who was recording them with her phone. It followed the arrest of an undocumented immigrant in the Bourbon, Illinois area. Senator Chris Murphy commented on that incident with this statement, quote, these agents are there to cause trouble and violence, not to keep people safe. These are the scenes that play out in war torn destitute countries, not America, end quote. In fact, Americans have weighed in already. They do not want this type of aggression playing out on the streets of our cities. A new Reuters Ipsos poll finds that 58% of Americans, including 7 in 10 Democrats and half of Republicans feel that Donald Trump should only deploy armed troops to, quote, face external threats, end quote. That is where we start the hour with some of our favorite reporters and friends. MSNBC senior national and political correspondent Jacob Sobroff is back. He is still on the ground reporting from Chicago. Also joining us, former US Attorney, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Harry Lippman's here and with me at the table for the first time, I think right Vice President for Immigration Policy and campaigns at Forward us, Andrea Flores. Jacob, let me start with you. Just connect for me from what has happened since we last spoke and bring me up to date with what is happening right now.
- [04:34]
Jacob Soboroff
Well, these wide scale indiscriminate stops on the streets of Chicago, the Chicagoland area, all throughout Cook county, but primarily in the heavily Latino neighborhoods including Cicero, that is 90% Latino, largest Latino population in all of the state of Illinois. That continues. And so you don't have to wait for the National Guard troops to be on the streets to see a federalized military style police policing force out and about across this area. It is already happening and they are stopping people who are most definitely not the worst of the worst, as Donald Trump has continued to say. And that's why I wanted to talk to JB Pritzker today. Not just because Donald Trump has threatened him with arrest and did so overnight, but because, Nicole, this ongoing effort by the Trump administration continues to, in his estimation, encroach on his powers as the governor of the state. Or one of the things that I asked him about was I thought it was so fascinating to hear him talk to Rachel a couple nights ago about how the Border Patrol's justification for being here on the ground because they have to be within 100 miles of the border to be patrolling the streets of any place that they are operating is that Lake Michigan is a border of the United States. But, you know, eagle eyed viewers of this program pointed out to me that Lake Michigan doesn't touch Canada. So I asked him, would he be willing to go after the Trump administration, sue them based on the border patrol's deployment here? I want to show you a little bit more of what Governor Pritzker had to say about what he thinks is the lawlessness of the Trump administration. Watch this.
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Governor JB Pritzker
The Trump administration doesn't seem to respect any laws in the United States. They just do what they want to do and they'll keep doing it unless someone stops them here in Illinois. We're stopping it. We're doing everything that we can to push back. He wants to militarize major cities across the United States, especially blue cities in blue states, because he wants us to get used to the idea of military on the streets, military troops because of their 2026 elections. I believe that he's going to post people outside of ballot boxes and polling places.
- [06:41]
Jacob Soboroff
Do you believe we'll have free and fair elections in the United States of America during the 2026 midterms?
- [06:46]
Governor JB Pritzker
If we all stand up and speak out, we sure as heck will. And you see, there are literally hundreds of people here who are standing up to speak out. And we've seen in the no Kings protests, millions of people standing up. We need more.
- [07:01]
Jacob Soboroff
So it's not just the freedom of the law abiding people of Chicago that is on the line. Obviously, Governor Pritzker thinks democracy is on the line here. It's the same thing Mayor Karen Bass said when federal troops rolled into the city of Los Angeles. And we're basically seeing a repeat of it. Nicole, here in Chicago.
- [07:19]
Nicole Wallace
Jacob, let me show you something else that I saw on social media and we've corroborated it with our news organization. This is Reverend David Black getting hit. It took place on September 19th, but getting hit with pepper balls. Jacob, what are the publicly stated rules of engagement for peaceful protests? I mean, this, what, what is this? What are we looking at? What, who, why are they shooting this faith leader with pepper balls?
- [08:20]
Jacob Soboroff
Your guess is as good as mine. But what this reminds me of is our conversation, you and I, with Alejandro Barranco, the son of that landscaper out in Los Angeles who was violently taken to the ground and detained, the father of three U.S. marines. And when those three Marines, particularly Alejandro, talked about how the federal agents manhandled his father. He said that if he handled a detainee like that in the Marines, he would be accused or tried for a war crime. That's not what I'm saying is happening there. But the tactics are reminiscent of the same heavy handed tactics that we have seen in la. That's at the outside observer. Make no sense. There are, there should be rules of engagement. There are training, especially for local law enforcement. Go ask the Chicago Police Department about what they have been through, given the way they've treated citizens of this city in the past, about use of force and rules of engagement and what happens to police officers if they mistreat not just a detainee, but certainly a civilian on the street. And it is hard to watch that. It is hard to watch officers with less lethal weapons sticking out the windows of their car. Even that video that you and I watched together yesterday, patrolling the neighborhood with what seemed like a dozen armed masked federal agents rolling up on just A mother, a 53 year old mother, Maricela, who was taken after being in the United States of America for 30 years for doing nothing more than walking down the street to buy meat for a stew she wanted to make for her family yesterday evening.
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Nicole Wallace
Harry, let me ask you what the. I mean I understand what it looks like and feels like from the outside, but on the inside, what legal framework allows agents patrolling a rooftop to shoot a minister in the head with a pepper gun?
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Progressive Insurance Announcer
None. But let me give you the legal framework. The first, there is a rule of engagement. It's called the Fourth Amendment. And if you recall what people like Tom Homan have been saying is all we're doing is going up to people and questioning them briefly. We can do that. But of course the letter and verse and look at the Chicago complaint shows they are doing way, way, way more than that. That's a second really big part of the problem. You see that picture of the guy pointing his gun at the, at the woman. Any law enforcement officer is trained, never ever do that unless you intend to use it. I want to underscore Jeff Goldberg's point about these are people who don't know the first thing about handling citizens. Second, though, the legal framework can't even come into effect unless there is a rebellion. And every district court judge to consider it, most recently in Portland said there's no rebellion here. They echoed what JB Pritzker said. This is all bs. So even to send them out in the first place. And by the way, you have National Guard from Texas now fighting in Illinois. How harrowing. And Unprecedented is that. But to send him out in the first place, there need be a rebellion. That's what the court tomorrow will think about. And even then, you can only support, give logistical help, et cetera. And the anecdotes seem very robust, that they are, in fact, you know, busting heads and violating the Fourth Amendment at every turn.
- [11:44]
Nicole Wallace
Andrea, the public didn't think, I think they were getting this. I'm talking about the people that voted for Donald Trump. You hear some folks in the manosphere try to distance itself, but they very much knew what they were getting. Donald Trump ran on mass deportations, which Jacob was telling us for years. Is family separation the one policy so heinous and unpopular? Donald Trump reversed it in a first term. How do you sort of make sense of this moment? Whereas public opinion plunges for what Trump's doing, Trump seems to escalate that which is unpopular and more brutal.
- [12:23]
Andrea Flores
I think Trump is really benefiting from the fact that Democrats have not been very clear about what is happening and why they oppose it and what the alternative is. Without an alternative vision, all you really have is what Trump is doing, which is clear. Right. He names an enemy, he unites us against the common enemy, and he blames immigrants for every single domestic and international problem. So he's been doing that for 10 years. And on the other side, you have a party that came out of four years of Biden being very unpopular on immigration, kind of being unable to quickly adjust to where they need to be to the images that we're seeing. The fact that the Democratic Party right now, this is, I want to remind everybody, Hispanic Heritage Month, a time when in D.C. everybody's going to receptions and celebrating the Latino community. What I see is in Chicago, which has one of the oldest Mexican American populations, is being absolutely terrorized. I think there's a real absence of political leadership from D.C. and I'm so thankful for Governor Pritzker because I even felt myself as a Latino American, seeing him today be so moral and clear. I mean, what I make of it is that we have some missing and action opposition leaders right now who really need to step in and narrate this moment so people understand.
- [13:33]
Nicole Wallace
Why do you think they're not?
- [13:34]
Andrea Flores
I think there is a really difficult question. So Americans, when they're faced with polls, right, they support the enforcement of our laws and the enforcement of immigration laws, something I support. I'm a former employee at the Department of Homeland Security. But people forget this is a civil system akin to traffic court, right? Akin to something that should not look like the images that we saw, which are very extreme. But for so long, both parties have been funding these law enforcement agencies as though a family is just as threatening as an enemy combatant. Right. Why are they in military gear? Because Congress has funded that. Why do they have those weapons? Because Congress has funded that. So we're seeing now everything is in place for President Trump to do what he's doing. And so it's a little difficult, right, because you have to say, we both believe that people without legal claims shouldn't be able to stay in the country. But we also have had two parties since Reagan agree that it's actually impractical, unsafe, and too costly to do mass deportations. And President Trump is really the first one to be like, I want to try that out. And so this is what you get. We're nine months in, and he's just getting started. So hopefully. I thought it was interesting, the founder of Reddit even said he was looking back. He said, why don't we try what Reagan did when he looked at legalization rather than amnesty?
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Nicole Wallace
Reagan did amnesty.
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Andrea Flores
He did amnesty.
- [14:50]
Nicole Wallace
And I think Bush and Kennedy and McCain, if they'd done a deal without the Republicans, would have done amnesty for the 17 million people who were already here. Ultimately, Bush was persuaded not to do something without Republican support. I want to ask you to jump in on this part of the conversation, Jacob, because we've talked about this on and off television. But. But to Andrea's point, I mean, a quarter of all FBI agents have now been assigned immigration enforcement, according to the FBI. At a moment when former FBI leaders say that we face more threats from foreign terrorists than we did in the months leading up to 9 11. Let me read you this from the Washington Post. Nearly a quarter of FBI agents across the country are currently assigned to immigration enforcement, with the number climbing to upward of 40% in the nation's largest field offices, according to data from the FBI obtained by Senator Mark Warren, also shared with the Washington Post. The large number of reassignments reflect a vast reshaping of the nation's premier law enforcement agency, which has focused on national security threats since 9 11. The intense focus on immigration has raised alarm among current and former FBI agents who see morale is low across the bureau as Asians have less time to dedicate to the complex cases they were hired to work on. The other piece to lay over this, and I hope you'll do this for me, is that the FBI agents who fight crime are being asked to participate in immigration enforcement that targets people with jobs who are not accused of or suspected of committing any crimes other than perhaps the civil offense of being undocumented.
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Jacob Soboroff
And it's not just law enforcement agents within the Department of Justice. Let's remember that the Department of Homeland Security, the people normally going after undocumented criminals on the streets, are ice, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Enforcement and Removal Operations agents that are literally. And I've been out with some of these folks. I've been at the ports of entry, including San Ysidro port of entry, the largest land border crossing in the world. I have been with border patrol agents down on the line at Rio Grande, where they're actually doing the job of going after the worst of the worst. They are looking for narcotics trafficking, they are looking for human smuggling. They're performing the activities of the Department of Homeland Security. Andrea knows this better than I do, having worked within the department herself. I was just thinking to myself today, where are the actual ICE agents on the streets? They have got border patrol agents out here that are not trained to be inside of cities like this. And so they're reassigning people, as you point out, not just from within the Department of Homeland Security. They're actually supposed to be out there going after the worst of the worst, but they're taking federal agents away from other important national security duties and assigning them to this. In the hallway of 26 Federal Plaza, people have run into members of the Diplomatic Security Service that are assisting also Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, assisting with literally snatching people coming out of their legal immigration hearings because they are trying to do the right thing. I can't tell you every operation that those people were supposed to be on, but I promise you they were not going and rounding up otherwise law abiding people who live in the United States without committing crimes other than being here as an undocumented immigrant.
- [18:10]
Nicole Wallace
Harry, let me just ask you quickly to sort of take us through what you think would be a successful legal argument against all this.
- [18:20]
Progressive Insurance Announcer
There's no insurrection. Exactly. And there's no rebellion, just as Judge Immerget found. Moreover, there are all these fourth amendment violations. I just want to say quickly, Nicole, everything your guests say are correct, but it's a complete disconnect with what they're trying to everything about the immigration problem. It is zero justification to to bring boots on the ground as they've done. For that, they need to have the lie that there is a rebellion, which has a very precise definition. So the right resolution for tomorrow and the judge, as it was with Immerget, as it was with Breyer, is to say there is no, there's some sporadic acts of violence and mainly First Amendment protests don't equal rebellion. Get out of here. And that's, that's true legally, but also in a policy way that these are done really for immigration purposes, but they don't remotely give a president authority to make war on American cities as he's doing.
- [19:22]
Nicole Wallace
All right, no one's going anywhere. We have much more of Jacob's reporting. I think we have more of your interviews that you've been doing there. We'll have much more with our panel on the other side. Also ahead from us, we'll get reaction from a chance top House Democrat to the arraignment today of the former director of the FBI, Jim Comey, and the mounting problems the government shutdown is causing for every one of us. Congressman Jim Himes will be our guest. Also ahead, the shutdown is keeping the government in a data blackout. That means no jobs report from the Department of Labor, but plenty of private sector reports are out. They do not paint a pretty picture of Donald Trump's economy. We'll tell you what they say. Deadline White House continues after quick break. Don't go anywhere. Netcredit is here to say yes, because you're more than a credit score. Apply in minutes and get a decision as soon as the same day. Loans offered by NetCredit or lending partner banks and service by NetCredit. Applications subject to review and approval. Learn more at netcredit.com partners NetCredit Credit to the People.
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- [21:25]
Nicole Wallace
We're back with Jacob, Harry and Andrea. Jacob, I think we have more sound of an interview you did with a daughter of a woman who was taken yesterday. Let me play that.
- [21:35]
Jacob Soboroff
What's happening right now on the streets of Cicero and what's happening. What's happening right now on the streets of Cicero and what's happening in Chicago and what's happened to your mom.
- [21:46]
Maria Hinojosa
Obviously.
- [21:47]
Nicole Wallace
I am not okay. And I'm just having a hard time. I've always been anxious about ICE ever.
- [21:55]
Maria Hinojosa
Since I've heard of them as a, as a kid. And I knew and I had a.
- [22:03]
Nicole Wallace
Feeling the day would come, but I.
- [22:06]
Maria Hinojosa
Just didn't expect it to be around.
- [22:09]
Nicole Wallace
Here where it's a very Hispanic predominant area. A lot of families live here.
- [22:15]
Jacob Soboroff
Almost 90% of this community is Latino or Hispanic.
- [22:18]
Nicole Wallace
And the high schools nearby here.
- [22:23]
Jacob Soboroff
So that young woman's name is Samantha Nicole and she's the one who we showed that video yesterday of all those agents on the street. They were going after her mother. Her mother's name is Marisela. She's 53 years old. I mentioned her just before the break and this is her. We're watching her be detained by all of those agents. She's wearing pink pants, has a backpack on, a ponytail. She was walking down the street literally to go and get meat, to make a meat stew. And they picked her up and took her off the street. She's been here 30 years. Her birthday's on Halloween. She would be 54. Her daughter wanted to buy her perfume for her birthday. And her crime was other than being here in a law abiding citizen for 30 years happened to be undocumented, going to pick up dinner for her family. And that young woman, Samantha came up to me on the side of the road and said, can't find my mom. And so when we showed her a video, it was the first time she had identified her. And now she's in the Broadview ICE detention center awaiting her fate of potentially being deported back to Mexico.
- [23:24]
Nicole Wallace
Do they, do they have any ability to reach her? Do they know how or when they'll see her again?
- [23:31]
Jacob Soboroff
They've tried to get in touch with her and I don't know if they've been able to talk to her. But what I can tell you is the story that we talked about yesterday. The two men that were picked up outside the bakery left their coffee cups on the side of the road. It appears, although I can't confirm it that one of them is already on their way to Georgia from being in that same facility. They're not messing around. They are picking people up off the street and deporting them as quickly as they possibly can. And so, you know, just that little bit of information makes me think that Samantha's mother, Marisela, may not be in Illinois for very long.
- [24:04]
Nicole Wallace
Andrea, what does this make you think in terms of the best strategy to get through not just this particular rate on this particular street in this particular city, but the next three and a half years?
- [24:20]
Andrea Flores
I do think there aren't as many tools as I'd like there to be right now. Right. So Congress and their oversight powers are very limited, especially during the shutdown. But I do think in the congressional side, they can be doing more actions. I'd like to see more members when there have been deployments actually be in the streets of these communities. I see Jacob in every city, but I don't see my elected officials. Right. So there's the power of sort of showing congressional.
- [24:42]
Nicole Wallace
Right. I mean, princessional.
- [24:43]
Andrea Flores
Yes, congressional officials and Representative Ramirez has been there. But I think, like, I live in D.C. i have gotten used to the National Guard being in my neighborhood every day. That is exactly, I think, what this administration wants to accomplish. Right. So they'll say it's about immigration, they'll send in the National Guard. Suddenly, military in our streets is a very normal occurrence. So going back to strategies, though, I do think the citizens of these cities, they keep showing up and they keep peacefully protesting. Right. We've seen the faith leaders. Even if they're being attacked in horrific ways, they're still showing up. And I think. I think people can't lose sight of how important that is, because it really shows that the American people don't support what mass deportations turned out to be, which is that people with civil offenses who have no criminal convictions are now the majority of the people they're picking up and removing. And I wish that Democrats would be more clear that they're not going people who just recently arrived, they're going after this mother of this family who has been here for 30 years. It's really stunning to me just how invasive that's going to be and devastating to our communities. It's very hard to watch, and we can't get used to it. So I encourage people, the protests, the getting your governor out there, if they're not as out there yet, asking your members to show up physically. I always point to the example of Senator Chris Van Hollen just from going to El Salvador to investigate something. You expose so many details about what this administration is doing. Because what scares me is what Jacob was talking about with those detention transfers, these systems. The United States has not done mass deportations in the 50s. They don't know how to do it. They're going to lose people. People will die. And it's not exaggerating. The system isn't built for this scale. And I think more oversight in just terms of showing up and calling attention will reveal much more than we know today.
- [26:26]
Nicole Wallace
Harry, if I have this wrong, correct me, but didn't the Supreme Court weigh in and say that no one, US Citizen or not, could be deprived due process? Where in the system do you see any of these folks receiving their due process?
- [26:40]
Progressive Insurance Announcer
Well, in theory that what happens is before they're deported, now they can. They can make a hearing and make a claim we deserve asylum for whatever reason. And it was astonishing that the administration previously denied that. But I don't think that problem is at least widespread anymore. The problem is how they're treating citizens, their violations of the force, Fourth Amendment there, but especially being there in the first place. Whatever you think about immigration, and I do think the national consensus has ebbed since we've seen the raw face of this on the street. But it's just got nothing to do with the boots on the ground and the masked men there. That presupposes some kind of rebellion against US Authority that just isn't happening. What's happening is small, mainly peaceful demonstrations. So it's really that attempt to graft a system designed for true national emergency in bedlam onto their immigration operation that is so problematic.
- [27:45]
Nicole Wallace
Jacob Sobra, thank you for starting us off with your incredible reporting. We're lucky to have you there. Harry Lippman and Andrea Flores, thank you for starting us off this hour. When we come back, reaction from Capitol Hill to this story, as well as the arraignment of former FBI Director Jim Comey. Congressman Jim Himes will be our guest. He's the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee. Don't go anywhere.
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- [29:01]
Governor JB Pritzker
You know what's more nerve wracking than.
- [29:02]
Jacob Soboroff
Waiting for qualifying results?
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Progressive Insurance Announcer
Waiting for the green flag to drop.
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Nicole Wallace
Despite Donald Trump's weaponization of the federal government, the Justice Department to go after Trump's perceived political enemies being on full display this week with Trump's former FBI director Jim Comey appearing before court today to plead not guilty to criminal charges drummed up by Trump and secured by one of his former personal lawyers, Lindsey Halligan. Comey's lawyers say they will seek to dismiss the case as a vindictive prosecution. Republicans, meanwhile, are doing their part to carry out Trump's revenge campaign by going after former special counsel Jack Smith. Here they were yesterday at a hearing with Attorney General Pam Bondi.
- [30:03]
Progressive Insurance Announcer
Can you tell me why my phone records, when I'm the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, were sought by the Jack Smith agents?
- [30:14]
Congressman Jim Himes
We've got nothing but concerns today, but no concern at all for a Justice Department that is tapping the phones of.
- [30:23]
Jacob Soboroff
Sitting United States senators.
- [30:25]
Congressman Jim Himes
Because who knows why they don't like them. We already know that this was ordered by the special prosecutor, Jack Smith. This is an outrage, an unconstitutional breach.
- [30:37]
Jacob Soboroff
And ought to be immediately addressed by.
- [30:40]
Progressive Insurance Announcer
You and Director Patel.
- [30:43]
Nicole Wallace
Now, do all the Democrats whose phone records were taken during the first Trump administration? We should note that the phones of sitting US Senators were never tapped by Jack Smith's team. The cell phone data was captured and then analyzed by the FBI in the FBI's January 6th criminal investigation. Analyzing metadata or phone records is a common investigative tactic. We're going to bring in ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, Congressman Jim Himes of Connecticut. Tell me what the dynamic is. Is it really that they don't remember that in Trump 1.0 journalists and Democrats had their phone records surveilled by the first Trump administration. Is it really that they don't remember that there was a bipartisan congressional investigation that preceded a criminal investigation that resulted in an indictment of Donald Trump? I mean, what is it? Is there nothing other than performance and dissonance up there?
- [31:48]
Congressman Jim Himes
You know, Nicole, it's sort of hard to climb into the heads of somebody like Josh Hawley when he knows he is lying on national television that there were no phones tapped. Josh Hawley, also, he of Yale Law School knows that Eric Swalwell and Adam Schiff and others, as pursuant to other investigations, had certain information looked at by the Department of Justice. Look, no member of Congress, no senator is above the law. And by the way, the other thing that none of the Republicans told you yesterday is that these sorts of information requests happen pursuant to a grand jury deciding that they are. Okay, now, everybody, as long as we're talking about Josh Hawley, let's remember that when the insurgents were attacking this Capitol on January 6th, Josh Hawley, as he fled the chamber, did the fist wave at them. So I'm not gonna say that that's probable cause, but just because you're Josh Hawley or the chairman of the Judiciary Committee doesn't mean you're exempt from being investigated. Especially if a grand jury says there may be information that we wanna see there.
- [32:54]
Nicole Wallace
Why can't Democrats peel away Republicans, national security issues? There are no Republicans that think that making peace with Vladimir Putin is a good idea, at least when I was a Republican. There are no Republicans who think tariffs are a good idea the way that Trump has rolled them out. There are not Republicans who have historically believed that dismantling the FBI, whose rank and file are largely center to center right men and women, is a good idea. Why can't a national security caucus be cobbled together?
- [33:26]
Congressman Jim Himes
Well, because the dynamic that obtains here, Nicole, is that every single, well, not every single Republican, Thomas Massie in the House and maybe Rand Paul in the Senate, there's two Republicans in this building that aren't wholly owned, whose careers don't completely rely on the good graces of the President, United States, which by the way, is a little awkward in a system where we're supposed to be a co equal branch of government, government conducting oversight of the President of the United States. But every other single Republican in this building, other than those two, knows that if they raise an issue that makes Donald Trump a little mad, that that's the end of their careers. Nicole, you knew Mike Turner, Chairman Mike Turner of the Intelligence Committee. I worked with him for years leading the Intelligence Committee. Mike Turner was a traditional Reagan Democrat. He wanted to support Ukraine. He was very, very hard on Russia. He was pro NATO. And look what happened to Mike Turner. He was fired from that job. And every other Republican in this building sees that and says, if I am not a wholly owned subsidiary of Donald Trump, I'm looking for work. Now, why? These guys don't say, you know what, the dignified thing to do under those circumstances would be to go out and look for work, that I can't explain to you. But the dynamic is very, very clear. You cross Donald Trump, it's all over.
- [34:40]
Nicole Wallace
What are you thinking in terms of how to communicate with your constituents and with the country and voters about all the damage Donald Trump has done to our national security capabilities?
- [34:56]
Congressman Jim Himes
Well, you know, that's a really good and interesting question. And, you know, as the lead Democrat charged with oversight of the intelligence community, when I see Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence, Intelligence, yanking security clearances from 37 or so people simply because they were doing their job in the Biden administration, when I see people leaving the elements of the intelligence community because they've just had enough of the politicization and the weaponization by Tulsi Gabbard of the intelligence community, I think to myself, my God, we are losing people who understand China, who understand Russia, who speak Farsi, who are critical to our national security. The thing is, the American people aren't going to see that necessarily until something really bad happens. And, you know, I'm sad to report that the probability of something really bad happening is a lot higher today than it was seven months ago when we had a lot of very good and patriotic professionals on the job.
- [35:51]
Nicole Wallace
And it's not just national security threats that are more acute than they were seven months ago. Flying, commercial flying is more dangerous than it was seven days ago. What is your sense of how long the shutdown will go on?
- [36:05]
Congressman Jim Himes
You know, it's really hard to say. I think the American people understands that two things are true, that the Republicans control the House, the Senate, and the White House. And as a result, the polling numbers on this issue don't look good for the Republicans, for the President. Now, by the way, I report that with some sadness and with some pain, because we're about to see on October 15th an awful lot of pain visited on TSA agents on our military who are not going to get paychecks.
- [36:31]
Jacob Soboroff
Why?
- [36:32]
Congressman Jim Himes
Because Donald Trump said, and you can run this quote, although you can't drop the F bomb on your show. Donald Trump said, f the Democrats. Yeah, maybe you want to. He said, f the Democrats. And look, you can do that in the House, you can't do that in the Senate where you have a filibuster. You're either going to negotiate with Democrats in the Senate, which they did not do, or you're not going to get a deal done. So again, Mr. Art of the deal here started this whole process by saying, saying f the Democrats. And as a result, Americans are going to see their a lot of Americans are going to see their health care premiums double and triple and an awful lot of very patriotic soldiers, sailors, FBI agents, TSA agents aren't going to get paid in a couple of days. And that is on Donald Trump and the Republicans.
- [37:15]
Nicole Wallace
Congressman Jim Himes, thank you for joining us today. To be continued. I hope when we come back, there are worrying signs that Donald Trump's economy is on very shaky ground today. We'll bring you that reporting next. It's the sort of thing that happens when your government turns out the lights and slams shut the blinds. Monthly jobs data largely disappears and yet even without the Bureau of Labor Statistics monthly jobs numbers, the state of our economy isn't exactly a mystery to anybody. In addition to a rising number of foreclosures across the US And a surge in the price of gold, both negative bellwether, the Wall Street Journal reports this quote. Bank of America this week said it is seeing signs of rising unemployment and slowing job growth in its customers data. Private equity company Carlyle Group, extrapolating from companies in which it owns stakes, said Tuesday that it thinks overall US Jobs growth slid in September from an already weak official reading in August. Goldman Sachs said its measure of labor market tightness fell last month back to levels seen in 2015, indicating a tough landscape for job seekers. Joining me at the table, NPR financial correspondent Maria Aspen. Maria, we've had the policies and we've had the history what those policies do to people on Main Street. And now we have the data telling us what a lot of people predicted would happen, the policies Trump has championed. What are you seeing in terms of this moment for the economy?
- [38:49]
Maria Hinojosa
I think it's a very weird moment for the economy. And everything that you just mentioned are very worrying signs. But I do think there are a couple of important caveats. As you said, we don't have the official jobs data. The private data that we have is various proxies, but it's not the full picture. It's also important to point out that unemployment is still relatively low. I mean, all the information we have on trends in hiring is not, not good. But we're not at, we're not at like the worst unemployment that we've seen in the last several years. So I think it's important to point out that the signs are not good and people are absolutely feeling it. Consumers and small business owners are absolutely feeling uncertain about the economy. President Trump's approval rating on the economy is not good. So we're in a situation where people are very worried and feeling uncertain. Consumer confidence is down, but some of the underlying economic data is not yet terrible. Inflation is also, while it's ticking up, it is, and it's above what the Fed wants it to be. It's not as bad as it was a couple of years ago. So it's almost like we're back in that sort of vibe. Session.
- [40:01]
Nicole Wallace
Well, the vibe that's about to kick in is that millions of people are about to lose their health care. How does that historically factor into how people feel about their economic standing?
- [40:10]
Maria Hinojosa
I mean, health is incredibly personal. It's not going to. And expensive and expensive. Working on a cost of living series for NPR right now, and I'm talking to lots of people who tell me how much they are spending on health care and how that affects the decisions that they are making with all of their other spending. They don't go on vacation, they don't go out to eat. I was talking to a woman in Colorado last week who said, you know, she and her husband, they have good jobs, they're sending their two daughters to college, but they are spending, they are reserving and they're relatively healthy, but they're spending pretty much all of their discretionary money on health care and they're not doing anything fun with their money, what.
- [40:51]
Nicole Wallace
Impact does that have on the broader economy?
- [40:54]
Maria Hinojosa
Well, when consumers aren't feeling confident about the economy, when spending isn't healthy, when we're not seeing jobs being created, it's not good. And I think we're in this very, again, weird moment where the stock markets, which are not the economy, but which are often seen as a proxy for how business is doing and how the economy is doing, Wall street is doing really well. The markets are hitting record high after record high. But at the same point as you brought up, we're seeing indications that investors are worried about what's going on behind the scenes. The huge run up in the price of gold being the big one this week.
- [41:36]
Nicole Wallace
What's that about?
- [41:38]
Maria Hinojosa
Well, gold has been on a record, it's been on a rally for a couple of years. So Again, to put it in context, gold is what's known as the fear trade or a safe haven when investors or ordinary people are not feeling super confident about what's going on. They want something that's solid and shiny and has value in and of itself. It's also kind of impractical to hoard gold and we can get into that. But gold does seem, it's a flight to safety when people are worried about what else is going on. So since Russia invaded Ukraine, we've seen a years long rally in the price of gold. But this year it's just gone gangbusters. Some of it was we saw the price of gold hit $3,000 per ounce for the first time in the spring as President Trump unveiled his tariffs. And just this week we saw it hit $4,000 for the, the first time. While we're at a point where President Trump is exerting more, trying to exert more influence on the Federal Reserve and the central bank, the Federal Reserve has already started lowering interest rates and that could again potentially reignite inflation or at least fail to cool inflation.
- [42:49]
Nicole Wallace
You mentioned his approval ratings. I mean he's, his approval rating on the economy is lower than his approval rating, which is pretty low. What is the, what is sort of in, in the system? If the stock market is, is looks healthy, what reflects Main street concerns?
- [43:07]
Maria Hinojosa
Well, I think consumer confidence is one, consumer spending and, and then these behind the scenes indicators like the price of gold, you kind of show that consumers as well as investors are not fully confident about everything that's going on.
- [43:23]
Nicole Wallace
Thank you for making sense of all the headlines. There were a lot this week. Maria Aspen will continue to call on you.
- [43:28]
Maria Hinojosa
Thanks so much, Nicole.
- [43:29]
Nicole Wallace
One more break. We'll be right back. The Republican controlled United States Senate has today confirmed Donald Trump's controversial pick to lead noaa. NOAA is the agency responsible for making weather predictions and its new leader is a man named Neil Jacobs. Neil Jacobs has been criticized for bowing to political pressure and backing Donald Trump's inaccurate hurricane forecast named Sharpiegate in 2020. Remember that Donald Trump stood in front of a map and altered the map with a forecast on it with a black Sharpie to change the path Hurricane Dorian was taking and make it head toward Alabama as Trump had insisted he had to be right about the path of the hurricane. An investigation found that Jacobs, the acting director at the time, violated Noah's code of ethics by releasing a statement criticizing local forecasters, weather forecasters, and instead backing Donald Trump's Sharpie drawn inaccurate claims at his confirmation hearing in July, Jacobs said he would handle the situation differently next time. But as the New York Times reports, Jacobs did stand by the Trump administration's proposal to dismantle much of NOAA's climate science enterprise. It's another shocking but not surprising decision by Republicans to confirm someone to lead an agency facing uncertain futures about what happens next. We'll stay on top of that. We'll be right back. Immigration crackdowns, economic chaos, bruised hands, and a cult of personality that is about to backfire. That is a perfect storm former Trump insider Anthony Scaramucci sees on the horizon. Take a listen.
- [45:16]
Jacob Soboroff
People are getting over Trump. They've got Trump fatigue, a very large portion of them, and certainly the people that love immigrants. The second thing is the Trump movement is a personality cult. That's a very good sign for the opposition because when he leaves the stage, there'll be a personality void in a personality cult. And this is about something that James Carville would say to you. Okay, it's the economy, stupid it and the economy is not doing well. Nicole. Okay? And the numbers are showing you that we're heading for a soft recession and that people don't feel good about those prices that you just referenced and they don't feel good about their day to day life.
- [46:00]
Nicole Wallace
Anthony. Anthony Scaramucci knows the economy, he knows Trump, and he knows Trump fatigue when he sees it. He is my guest on this week's episode of the Best People. Scan the QR code on your screen to watch it on YouTube. It is a candid and frank reality check. You don't want to miss it. Download it wherever you get your podcasts and let me know what you think. Thank you so much for letting us into your homes today. We are grateful.
- [46:22]
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