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Deadline: White House
"We will not be ruled by a king or monarch"
00:41:52
Nicolle Wallace on the eve of the second round of No Kings protests across the country.
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- [00:00]
A
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- [01:03]
C
The original no Kings protest was 250 years ago, Americans decided they didn't want to live under the rule of King George iii. They declared their independence and fought a bloody war for democracy. We've had two and a half centuries of democracy since then. Often challenging, sometimes messy, always essential. And we fought in two world wars to preserve it. Now we have a would be king who wants to take it away. King Donald I that we're rising up again, this time non violently raising our voices to declare no Kings.
- [01:40]
D
I love Robert De Niro. Hi again everybody. It's five o' clock in New York. It is quite literally the most American thing you could be for if you wanted to have something that represents our country across your chest, you would wear a no King shirt all day, every day. The entire idea behind the founding of our country is that we would not be ruled by a king or a monarch. This country is for the people, by the people. That message actually has to be reiterated today in the days and times of Donald Trump because Donald Trump, the current occupant of the White House and his sycophants either forgot it or want you to forget it. They now equate America and Donald Trump as one and the same. He is the state. The state is him. Tomorrow will be the third no Kings protest held since Donald Trump took office again in January. The last one, held on June 14, saw a remarkable turnout with more than 5 million people across 2,000 rallies in all 50 states. And it happened on the day of a tragic political assassination in the state of Minnesota. Tomorrow, the New York Times reports this will happen. Quote, Organizers say that the tenor behind the protest movement feels more charged and that they expect an even larger number of participants. The number of people who have already signed up, which is not a requirement, is nearly double what it was in June. That's according to Hunter Dunn, a spokesperson for the coalition behind no Kings. Since the last no Kings protest, there has been a significant uptick in clearly brazenly autocratic moves by Donald Trump. Federal troops have been placed in multiple American cities. The immigration crackdown has escalated with even more harsh and inhumane tactics being used against fellow human beings, some of them against United States citizens, some against veterans, the United States military. Donald Trump has ratcheted up his retribution campaign in the last three weeks. He is using DOJ to criminally charge three of his perceived political enemies in the same number of weeks. Meanwhile, Trump's allies have gone after the no Kings protests and its message of free speech and literally not having a king. Republicans in Congress called the no Kings movement, quote, un American. Speaker Mike Johnson yesterday went so far as to call the attendees Hamas supporters, antifa types and people who hate America. The Bulwark spoke with the co executive director of Indivisible, one of the groups organizing the rallies, Ezra Levin, who said, quote, go to a no Kings rally. What do you see? You see moms and grandmas and kids and dogs and funny signs and dancing and happy displays of opposition to the regime. They're fundamentally nonviolent. On the other end, you've got a regime that's led by a guy who cheered the January 6th insurrection. The real question is why? Why is this coming out now? Why are they saying it? And I think it's quite clear. This is an authoritarian regime that is very scared of mass organizing, peaceful protest. And that's true of any authoritarian regime. It is the number one thing they're concerned about because authoritarian regimes are not popular. What Trump is doing is not popular. And he projects strength and is lashing out. And his hope is that people feel alone. The growing resistance to Donald Trump's wannabe autocratic regime is where we begin the hour with some of our favorite experts and friends. Chief political columnist, host of the podcast in Politik for Puck, MSNBC national affairs analyst John Heilman is here. And the Reverend Al Sharpton, president of the National Action Network, the host of Politics Nation on msnbc, is with me at the table. You are. You live this, right? That activism and nonviolent protest is your craft. Tell me how you see tomorrow.
- [05:29]
E
I think tomorrow is an absolutely timely response to where we are. When they did the first effort and many of us in the civil rights community supported it and supported tomorrow, the fear was, are we going to see them do this again? Because one of the things I learned from those that in the civil rights movement and I've tried to do in my engagement and others is that you have to have a consistency rather than them saying that's isolated and that's one off for them to be able to organize again tomorrow. And again, we're talking about grandmas, mothers, like it was described, and they to be attacked by not only someone that incited January 6th. Let's not forget Donald Trump came and was the keynote speaker before they walked over there. So how is he talking about people having a rally? He led the January 6 rally, told them he'd meet them at the Capitol. So it's not a question of people's right to assemble. The question is whether we're going to sit down and allow an autocracy to go when we see in 10 days Comey Tish, James and now John Bolton indicted, all because they did something adversarial to him. So it's not something that does not in the average American mind say, that is not necessary. We may not agree on a lot of things, but a lot of people that may disagree on certain particulars will be united against having an autocracy and go to the streets tomorrow.
- [07:02]
D
No Kings feels like the best brand that has been conceived in American politics since Maga because, you know, I have nothing nice to say about the policies that have been ushered in under maga, but MAGA was a brand that people were happy to be a part of. The poll suggests they're not as happy as they once were. No Kings is even better.
- [07:27]
E
No question about it. And the reason no Kings is better is it gives everyone something that we all can buy into, even if we disagree on whatever other issues it may be. And secondly, there's no one in our memory that has tried to be king more openly and arrogantly than Donald Trump. You don't have to convince anyone. What are you talking about? No Kings. Everyone sees what he's doing and he says it out loud. And there's not even the attempt to be subtle about it. He says, I'm the head of the Justice Department. I mean, this is unthinkable.
- [08:06]
D
My generals.
- [08:06]
E
My generals. I'll do this. I could if I wanted to. I mean, anything. He has no kind of ability to understand the democratic process of being elected president with a balance of power. So when you say no King it resonates. Not only does it sound right, it confirms what even the most conservative person says, yeah, I don't want a king. I might not agree with the Democrats, I might not agree with the progressives, but this guy talking about he runs the Justice Department, he decides, no, I don't want that. And I think that is why this brand has become so you've always had.
- [08:45]
D
This wider lens on what's been happening in the country in the time of Trump and where I think a lot of people have ridden a political roller coaster. It feels like what you always had in focus was, where's the country? Do you feel like the country is now doing the things that the country needs to do to bring about political change?
- [09:07]
E
I do. I think the country is standing up not only with marches and protests, but with outrage. When I see people now standing up, going to deportation centers and saying, what is going on here? There's a growing moral outrage when you see farmers saying that I can't sell soybeans to China because these poor tariffs, but then you give money to Argentina, bail them out and they're selling soybeans to China. It has now gone beyond whether you're Democrat, Republican, like this guy or not. You, it's your own self interest. And I think the self interest of people is always been the key to organizing. If you can appeal to what matters to the people, the people are going to stand up for themselves.
- [09:53]
D
Halman, I feel like this gets right at, you know, some of the stories we both covered over the last nine years and some of these questions that I just said to Sarah Long on the last hour about what's breaking through, what's not breaking through. Trump is so offensive to his own coalition in some areas that his overall approval rating is down to 37% underwater on economy and immigration, which used to be his two strongest political issues. What do you make of the, you know, response that we are expecting to see tomorrow literally in every corner of this country?
- [10:32]
A
Well, first I'd say, Nicole, that, you know, those 37% that we're down basically at the Die Hard MAGA diehards now that are that are still with Trump, most of the we've seen not only the things you just said, but there's been, you know, some New York Times polling recently that showed that, and I'm sure you talked about it on the show that shows that all of the major subgroups that Trump experienced these kind of some of these dramatic improvements with are those young voters, Hispanic voters, other voters that drove the expansion of his coalition in 2024. All of those gains have gone away at this point, just these over eight, nine months in. Which reminds one, if one has any sense of history of what happened with Joe Biden after the 2020 election, where he did incredibly well with a bunch of groups, then you saw very quickly that a lot of those core groups had drifted away from him. You know, people in the Democratic Party said Joe Biden is in serious political trouble when he runs for reelection in 2024. And they were right. Everybody should be looking at Donald Trump and saying basically the same thing, because the look at the numbers is quite similar. And I will say that, you know, that is one story. There is this other story, which is the fact that that weakening of his political support isn't stopping him from, isn't pushing him into caution. You know, you and I have seen a lot of politicians in our lives that when their numbers start to crater, they try to find safe harbor. You know, they go, they kind of, well, I did some unpopular things here. I got to try to find some things that will appeal to the broad middle to shore up my political support. Instead, Trump has, as we remarked many times on the show, continues to do the things, the very things that are making him unpopular. He's just turning up the volume on all those things. And I think that is why these no Kings protests are so important, because they are. You're not the people who were with Trump in 2024 and now have fallen away from Trump. They are not the no Kings people. His loss of support with them is important to his political power and to his weakening political power, I should say. But in terms of the stuff that Trump's doing that scares us the most, that endangers American democracy the most, that is the stuff that now, David Brooks, hardly a left wing agitator, is now writing in the Atlantic. You know, we need mass protests. We need the country to come together to resist Trump. A word that fell out of fashion after 2017, the resist label. But honestly, oppose, resist, speak out, against. That's why these protests are as important as they are and why. And we'll come back. I'm here in la and I can tell you a little about what's going on out here in terms of how big these protests are going to be here, apparently. But it's why they're so important, because it looks like they're going to be much, much bigger than they were in June, and they were surprisingly large in June. And that is the kind of thing that will register. We've seen it in advance. The Trump people have been nervous about this, obviously nervous about it. And if these events are as big as they look like they're going to be and they stay peaceful, it will leave a mark.
- [13:28]
D
I want to bring into our coverage Hunter Dunn. He's a spokesperson and national press coordinator for the 5051 movement, the organization behind the no Kings protests this weekend. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us.
- [13:41]
F
Thanks for having me on.
- [13:43]
D
Can I show you? I'm going to show you what. Actually, I don't want to play this. I just want to ask you about this. Mike Johnson has said that the no Kings protests are for people who hate America. What do you say to that?
- [14:00]
F
Well, no Kings protests are in the great tradition of America, opposing authoritarian leaders all the way back to 1776 and more notably in the 1940s against the Nazi regime. Mike Johnson, as part of the Republican House leadership, has claimed that the biggest threat to America today is anti fascism. That makes them anti anti fascist. And anyone who's been in a second grade classroom in America knows that that's a double negative. They're just fascists.
- [14:30]
D
Hunter, what are you. What is your message to the protesters? I've interviewed Joan Baez and Martin Sheen in the last few weeks, and those movements were inspired by and ballasted to Martin Luther King Jr. And the nonviolence tradition. And such a clear leader. And I wonder who you see as the leaders tomorrow and what the philosophy is and what the wishes are for how the protests remain nonviolent.
- [15:02]
F
Well, firstly, I want to emphasize that there's many groups around the country involved in planning no Kings protests, both organizing at the national level. Groups like Indivisible 50, 51, of course, AFT SEIU, other unions, other immigrant, immigrant rights groups move on, and so many more organizations around the country. There's like over 200 partners, last I checked, and thousands more on the ground in every city and town in the U.S. but the real leaders are we the people. We the average Americans, right? People, regardless of their race, class or creed, who recognize that Donald Trump's administration is the gravest threat to not just democracy, but to our neighbors, because they are kidnapping our neighbors, out of churches, out of schools, out of work, out of their immigrant court appointments. People who are doing everything right are being taken out of their homes, out of their places of work and being thrown into literal camps both outside the U.S. and in the U.S. and that is the biggest threat to American democracy since possibly the Civil War, right? So we the people are gathering together because we the people are the leaders of this protest because we're the leaders of a government that's supposed to be by and for the people, and the government's not respecting that right now. So we have to make them respect it.
- [16:22]
D
Heilman, you mentioned you're in Los Angeles. I anchored the day of the June no Kings protest. There was a lot going on that day. There was a tragic political assassinations in Minnesota. I think Donald Trump held his military parade that day. But some of the largest no Kings protests were in Los Angeles. My colleague Jacob Soboroff was there, and I think we still talk to people that he met, veterans and others who were there for all the things that Hunter's talking about, worried about their friends, worried about their neighbors feeling the pain of what their communities are going through. What does it feel like right now on the eve of you've got the Dodgers in the playoffs, but also on the eve of another big protest day.
- [17:09]
A
Yeah, let's not forget the Dodgers, Nicole, because I, you know, I mean, these. This is really important. The no Kings Day protest, but the Dodgers about to sweep the brewers is really, you know, really the most important news.
- [17:20]
D
It's a big baseball story.
- [17:21]
A
I'm here. It's a big baseball story. I'm joking about it being the biggest story in the country, but for some of us, you know, it matters a lot. Hey, I mean, look, those protests in Los Angeles, one of the few places where the protests got, where were some violent clashes happened here in Los Angeles because the police downtown, this has obviously been the sharp end of the spear on the ice enforcement. It was the first city that Donald Trump decided to militarize was Los Angeles. And it was right around that time that the no Kings protest happened. So there were some clashes on the street streets in downtown Los Angeles that I'm sure Jacob covered that day when you got. When you were anchoring. But I'll just read you this list. Southern California, which is, you know, a very. California is a very blue state. We all know that this is not Southern California is not a place that has been, you know, famous for large scale, widespread political protests. On a regular. On the regular, tomorrow, there's going to be a massive protest in downtown Los Angeles on the no Kings thing. But you also have a protest in Sherman Oaks, out in the San Fernando Valley, where I grew up, Whittier City Hall, Bixby Park, Torrance City Hall, Pasadena City Hall, Huntington Beach, Pier Orange, Santa Ana, Centennial Park, Riverside, Rancho Cucamonga, Redlands, Big Bear. Okay, those are mostly red places in Southern California, I just read a bunch of Orange county places to you. And the biggest protest is going to be in downtown Los Angeles. Let's not be confused. But the breadth of these protests, the fact that they are all over the Southland in places that are basically pretty placid, not places that see any kind of activism on your average day or average year, your average decade. And that again, many of the places I just named are places that are traditionally and long standing places as there are Republican strongholds. And, you know, we'll see what the turnout is in those places and we'll see what happens tomorrow. But I think there is partly because of what happened here and partly because of the incursion, the military incursion here that started off the whole campaign of all of the urban incursions. I think there is a degree of an understanding of the stakes of this fight, of the stakes of what's going on, of the scale of it, the stakes of it, the importance of it, because they have felt what it's like to be at the sharp end of the spear and they don't like it. And I think a lot of people in California and Southern California don't like it, regardless of whether they're liberal or conservative. I think they don't like the idea of a lot of troops marching around their streets the way they were. And I think that the fact that these protests are going to be this big is a sign of that.
- [20:08]
D
So it's so interesting, this tipping point where if you were excited about Donald Trump because you thought you'd finally see the Epstein files, you're not happy. If you were excited about Donald Trump because you thought he would deport the worst of the worst, you see, that is not the mission. You are not happy. If you were excited about Donald Trump because he was going to make the grocery cheaper, you're not happy because everything is more expensive. And we could we'll talk on the other side, whether it's chicken or the egg, which happened first, but it is a remarkable, a remarkable data point, all the places where protests are planned. Hunter Dunn, please wave your arms tomorrow, come back and fill us in in terms of how things are going and where you want us to focus our cameras. Thank you for joining us today. I'm sure you're very busy. We appreciate your time. We'll have much more with John and Rob on the other side of the break. Also ahead, Ukrainian President Zelensky. He is back at the White House today asking for more help, more aid, more arms in the fight against Russia and their brutal war against Ukraine. It's something Donald Trump was against and then seemed open to. But things may have changed again after a phone call from Vladimir Putin and later, the mysterious at this hour resignation of a top Pentagon leader, The head of U.S. southern Command, who reportedly raised questions about the Trump administration. Shoot first and ask questions later. Airstrikes on small boats in the Caribbean Sea. What we know now about why he's leaving, what the administration could be planning in Venezuela later in the hour. Deadline White House continues after a quick break. Don't go anywhere.
- [21:41]
A
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- [23:13]
A
So Mike Johnson recently said the upcoming no Kings Day protests are for people who hate America. Now I gotta say, that's pretty rich coming from a guy whose political party and incited an insurrection and has defiled our Constitution and undermined the rule of law. It's exactly the opposite. No King's Day is for Americans that love this country. We just hate Mike Johnson's vision for it. We hate racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia and the idea of a nation which serves only to benefit your white Christian nationalist friends. So join me on October 18th because in America there are no mother kings.
- [23:48]
D
I just think that if I had as a standard everyone who had to be bleeped, I could play two hours about tomorrow. It's an unbelievably diverse coalition coming out for no Kings Day, right. Animated by the things that are happening to their neighbors and their communities, animated by some of the things John talked about. Military in the streets with warnings from Donald Trump that he's going to send them to more places. How do you hold a movement like this together for an election?
- [24:18]
E
I think by what I said before, to break self interest, everyone has to see themselves as winning and being included in what happens in the next election and moving forward. And Donald Trump in some ways has made it easy because they have done racism, homophobia, transphobia, everything.
- [24:42]
D
Finance sounds, everything. Yeah.
- [24:43]
E
So they have given you all that you need if you know what to do in terms of organizing. And I think the genius of the organizing, and like I said, we've been supportive, is that they let everybody work in their space and not say here are the orders or here. But everybody's. If you're a trans group, if you're a civil rights group like National Action Network, if you're feminist group, whatever, work in your space, including middle Americans who may have voted for Donald Trump but don't like the idea of a king. And I think the more you serve people's self interest, where they don't have to be you to be involved, they can be themselves standing up for what they believe. That's, I think, the importance of what's happened in June and what will happen tomorrow.
- [25:33]
D
John, one of the other important things that's happened since the last no Kings protest is the Jimmy Kimmel fiasco, where Donald Trump bumped up against, you know, I'm thinking of electric fence for. But you know, he bumped up against the buzz, right? He got. He got rebuffed. Not because Disney felt bad or sad or regretted, but because they had an immediate financial detrimental impact to their company because of the capitulation, because of the pocket popularity of Jimmy Kimmel, because of the call and response. Here's Chelsea Handler calling for a boycott of another American company.
- [26:11]
H
If you're as disgusted as I am by these ICE raids, then we need to start boycotting the companies that are enabling or profiting off of these ICE raids. So I'm going to start with Home Depot, because Home Depot uses a surveillance system, it's called Flock, and they are able to surveil your license plates and your movement as soon as you pull into their parking lot. They can share that with whomever they want. They can share that with the police. They can share that with ice. They can share that with Kanye west if they want to. I'm against that. I'm against being surveilled and I'm against the Home Depot being an unsafe place for its workers and for its shoppers. So I am breaking up with Home Depot. I hope you will join me and hopefully this won't be the end of our relationship. Hopefully they will grow a pair and denounce ICE and denounced surveilling Americans.
- [26:57]
D
She's doing one of the few things that has worked so far, boycotts. Scott Galloway is calling for a national strike. I mean, there is a lot of chatter in this space. What do you think about.
- [27:13]
A
Well, there's a lot to say about this. Let's start with the. This is important in a number of different ways. I think there's a knee jerk reaction to celebrities who get involved in politics, right? There's a little bit of that the way, you know, whoever it was that told LeBron James to shut up and dribble, right? We don't, we have these celebrities, you know, they don't move the needle. And in a lot of cases, that's true if they are just doing fundraisers for a political candidate or if they are kind of predictable. And again, all due respect to Robert De Niro, you know, I would never want to criticize De Niro. He's profoundly consistent in his views. But when you see De Niro come out, you played that earlier. It's kind of expected at this point, right? A Chelsea Handler is not someone who's associated with liberal political activism. Certainly Zach Bryan is not associated with liberal political activism. And the Kimmel thing, that has ignited, truly, I think, ignited some stuff. I don't know. You may remember this or not, Nicole, but the morning after Kimmel's suspension, our mutual friend Jason Bateman was on Morning Joe doing promotion for Black Rabbit. And Jason, who has, who's been on with you, he says hi, by the way, but he's going to the Dodger game tonight. He's, you know, Jason has very, he has been pretty outspoken on his political views. We know where he stands on things. But when you heard him on Morning Joe Talk talking about Kimmel, it reminded you of the fact that there's all these kind of people who have a kind of unique kind of cultural power who are not, again, predictable, left wing, liberal. Oh, yeah, there goes that guy again. A guy like Jason Bateman or like Chelsea Handler. When you start to see a critical mass building where people who have strong views about politics but aren't out there blasting them, they don't have them on blast 247 when they're still suddenly moved. And if you listen to that interview that he did on Morning Joe, he wasn't, you know, his hair wasn't on fire, but he was pretty firm about the notion that there needed to be some kind of serious pushback over the Kimmel thing. And I think that the Kimmel thing is a turning point in that regard, because these people have a tremendous amount of power, a tremendous amount of cultural currency, huge numbers of following in social media. And again, many of them have kind of steered clear of politics in general, particularly steered clear of it in this second trumpet term, have now kind of reached their limit on their, like, you know what, Again, this is another point about, that you're making before about the. We've reached some kind of a tipping point and you start to see those people speak out. That is a big, that is also a big moment. And it goes hand in hand with these protests that we're seeing, I think, and why things are going to get more and more difficult for Trump in terms of the cultural conversation.
- [29:53]
D
Yeah. And I think for another day, I'd love to sift through, you know, are they creating a safe, you know, sort of space or are they following the people? Right. I mean, the people have gone first. Rachel has had the people protesting in their towns, some of them red towns and red states, since the day after the election. It is really, it is really interesting to see what they're seeing. And I think folks like Kimmel and like Jason and like Chelsea are putting skin in the game. I mean, Chelsea Handler's taking a risk by calling for a boycott. There are going to be people that don't like that. She did that. And so I admire everyone putting skin in the game. And it is also true that anyone jumping in now is following the American people.
- [30:37]
E
I think the people are leading this. The people want this. You can't have those amount of cities involved without people erupting. The only thing that I have said to people in some of the strategy meetings is that we've participated in is stress. They must be non violent, of course, that you cannot be provoked. There will be people there that want to get one shot of something violent and turn this whole thing into something that it is not. It's people peacefully saying they want their country to remain what it's supposed to be. I mean, Rachel's coming on with this documentary tonight of Andrew Young. What made the civil rights movement work, what made other movements that we tried to duplicate in other generations was that we were not what they said we were and that they've got to be superior in terms of their conduct.
- [31:28]
D
I also think to orient ourselves around doing exactly what they don't want. They don't want it to remain peaceful from coast to coast. So you have to not give them what they want most, which is a single example of violence. You guys, thank you so much for having this conversation with me on a Friday. When we come back with Donald Trump. Trump still doesn't understand about Vladimir Putin and his brutal assault on Ukraine. Trump met Ukrainian President Zelensky today at the White House. We'll tell you how that went and what comes next after a quick break.
- [31:59]
A
Hey, everybody, it's Rob Lowe here.
- [32:01]
D
If you haven't heard, I have a.
- [32:04]
A
Podcast that's called Literally with Rob Lowe.
- [32:07]
D
And basically it's conversations I've had that.
- [32:11]
F
Really make you feel like you're pulling up a chair at an intimate dinner between myself and people that I admire like Aaron Sorkin or Tiffany Haddish, Demi.
- [32:22]
A
Moore, Chris Pratt, Michael J. Fox.
- [32:26]
D
There are new episodes out every Thursday. So subscribe, please and listen wherever you get your podcasts.
- [32:35]
B
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- [33:34]
D
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky is back at the White House today meeting with Donald Trump again and making his case for U. S made long range missiles. Trump again today claiming Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to make a deal and end the war and that he Trump has made, quote, great progress with Putin over the phone yesterday. Plans are being made right now for a Second summit between Trump and Putin, this one in Hungary in an effort to bring an end to the war. Donald Trump promised to end the war within 24 hours of taking office. But President Zelensky is warning that, quote, nothing has changed for Russia. Just hours after Trump's call with Putin, Russia launched another round of brutal attacks, causing blackouts all across Ukraine, with hundreds of drones again targeting Ukraine's energy sector. Donald Trump is also raising new questions today about his own willingness to provide Ukraine with the missiles that President Zelensky is asking us for. Trump sharing that he asked Putin yesterday if he would mind him doing so if it was okay with him. And Putin responded that he, quote, really didn't like the idea. And so now it's an open question. Joining our coverage, former deputy national Security Advisor to President Obama. MSNBC contributor Ben Rhodes is here. Also joining us, former U.S. ambassador to Russia, MSNBC international affairs analyst Ambassador Michael McFaul. Ambassador McFaul, if you were trying to look weak, you would do these things. What is, if you're, when you talk to the Ukrainians, how do you analyze what is public facing in terms of the conduct of Donald Trump?
- [35:12]
I
I think it's very confusing to the Ukrainians. I think it's very confusing to the.
- [35:17]
A
Rest of the world.
- [35:18]
I
The President doesn't seem to have a strategy for how to negotiate with Putin. He changes his position night and day. Now he's talking about a cease fire. Recall that that's what he flew to Alaska to achieve and then met Putin. And then he came back saying, oh, we don't need a ceasefire, we're going to have a big deal. Just a few days ago, his administration was hinting that they're going to provide these long range missiles, these Tomahawks. Today it's clear that he's taken that off the table. He said, we need them, we can't give them to Ukraine. And this absurd notion, if it's true that he asked Putin for permission to give the Ukrainians Tomahawks, just shows that I think he fundamentally does not understand how to negotiate with Vladimir Putin.
- [36:01]
D
Ben Rhodes, tell me what you see when you look at all that is public facing, again, not just to Ukraine, but to Putin and the world.
- [36:11]
C
Well, it's not particularly complicated what Putin did here. Right. He saw the same thing everybody saw, which is that Zelensky was coming to Washington. Trump had gotten played in Alaska and therefore was willing potentially to give Zelensky these Tomax or some other kind of disaster, additional offensive military assistance. So what does Putin do? Calls him the day before the summit says, hey, why don't we get together in Budapest? You can get a big photo op. I'm sure he lathered him up with praise for his various peace efforts, and Trump couldn't resist that. And so now, instead of making some agreement with the Ukrainians about what capabilities they need or what additional support we can provide, instead we're tracking towards yet another Trump Putin kind of photo op. And look, I think Putin has figured Trump out. As long as you give him a big stage and the optics are good, then you talk about a commitment to peace. It doesn't really matter if you don't change any of your behavior, because if anything, Russia's behavior in Ukraine, as Mike can attest to, has gotten much worse while Donald Trump is president. I think people don't realize that the war has escalated, the attacks on Ukrainian civilians have escalated, the pressure on the Ukrainian front line has escalated. And so the real question here is, what is the strategy? Is it just to have a kind of photo op diplomacy here where we talk about peace, or are there consequences for Putin in the form of additional offensive military assistance to the Ukrainians or the provision of the significant amount of Russian assets that are frozen much of in Europe, could that be provided to the Ukrainians, additional economic consequences? Those are the kinds of things that might generate leverage. But right now, we don't have a lot of answers on whether Trump is willing to do that.
- [37:47]
D
Ambassador McFaul, the hallmark of Trump 1.0 was that Trump seemed to delight in syncing up with Putin. Right. I mean, he was very strong in his defense, was what starts the famous Helsinki, you know. Well, I believed him over my intel complimenting him throughout his presidential campaign in 1516. The evolution of the Trump Putin relationship is that Trump now keeps going back to a guy who publicly humiliates him. I mean, the brutal assaults on Ukraine, two of the most brutal ones came in the hours after Trump met with Putin and told him to stop. Why do you think Trump is accommodating Putin's humiliation of him?
- [38:30]
I
That's a great question that I don't have a great answer to. I think rhetorically you do see from time to time changes in President Trump's way of talking about Putin. Because I think at the end of the day, he is seeing what you were just talking about. And I want to underscore something that Ben said. The president likes to talk all the time. If it wasn't, if I was president, there wouldn't be this war. He said it again today, right I want to remind everybody of two things. First of all, the war in Ukraine started in 2014 and continued through the entire first Trump term and then escalated in 2022. Of course, the full scale invasion, but it is dramatically escalated while President Trump has been serving in his second term. Dramatically. The attacks are much higher on civilians, and he needs to acknowledge that fact. But the second thing is, even when he changes rhetorically, so far in terms of policy, he hasn't changed. So we're not providing any new weapons to the Ukrainians. I'm actually kind of embarrassed by the fact that we are. American companies are now making money off the Ukrainian war by selling weapons to the Europeans.
- [39:39]
E
They.
- [39:39]
I
But we're not sharing the burden of providing weapons. And number two, as Ben just said, there are billions of dollars, some in America, most mostly in Europe, that are sitting Russian central bank assets. We haven't, we haven't given them to the Ukrainians. That could be done. And third, there has not been one new economic sanction against a Russian individual or a company since Trump took over. So rhetorically he changes, but in policy, it hasn't been any change at all.
- [40:10]
D
It's really stunning. All right, no one's going anywhere. When we come back, I want to ask both of you what the resignation of a top Pentagon commander might say about the Trump administration's highly controversial attacks on small boats in the Caribbean. That's next. In an alarming update, the head of the US Southern Command is abruptly leaving his post less than a year into his tenure amid the Trump administration's escalating attacks on boats in the Caribbean. The New York Times reports this quote, Admiral Alvin Halsey is leaving his job as head of the US Southern Command, which oversees all operations in Central and South America, even as the Pentagon has rapidly built up some 10,000 forces in the region in what it says is a major counter drug and counterterrorism mission. In a statement announcing his departure, Admiral Halsey did not specify why he was leaving his post after less than one year. The New York Times, however, reports this quote, one current and one former U.S. official, both of whom spoke anonymously to discuss personnel matters, said that Admiral Halsey had raised concerns about the mission and the attacks on the alleged drug boats. Admiral Halsey's departure comes amid the news that the US has conducted a sixth strike on a suspected drug vessel. Reuters reports that the US Navy has two survivors of the strike in its custody. They are the first survivors of US Strikes on boats in the Caribbean. We're back with Ben RHODES and Ambassador McFaul Ben, there's so much to unpack here. I'll let you go whichever way you want to go with this developing story.
- [41:48]
C
Yeah, this is the most important story that people are not talking about enough because there's different dimensions to it. Number one, the strikes on these boats have no legal basis. I mean, we're essentially claiming that these are drug traffickers. We're not putting forward evidence and blowing boats out of the water. There's not any domestic authorization for that. Even if you, if, even if they are drug traffickers, that's claiming you can just shoot someone on the street corner who's selling drugs. It's, it's a wildly extreme view of presidential power. But more than that, there are these aligning stories about what might happen in Venezuela. Right. Which we should be clear as a dictator who is a bad guy, but is not a very significant source of drugs coming United States compared to China, which is a precursor for fentanyl, or overland from Mexico. Mexico or even from Colombia. You have the Trump administration and just in recent days reports that there's a CIA finding for covert operations in Venezuela. You've had Trump himself threatened land strikes in Venezuela. You have the chief opposition leader in Venezuela calling for a regime change operation there. You've had Trump say he's no longer negotiating with Nicolas Maduro. There are a lot of storm clouds gathering here that suggest that this operation is about more than just boats. You do not need the massive forces that have gathered in the Caribbean for the purposes of blowing a few boats out of the water. So there's been no explanation essentially of what our policy in Venezuela is, other than saying it's counter drugs. We know that the administration has claimed that the Alien Enemies act finds that we are at war with Venezuela. That's the basis under which we've been deporting Venezuelans out of this country. So this is one of those personnel stories that is about a lot more than just personnel. At a minimum, it seemed like Admiral Halsey was uncomfortable with the absence of a legal basis for these strikes. That's just what I'm seeing and what I am reading. But we also have to look at the bigger picture here. Where is this going in Venezuela and why do we not really know anything about it?
- [43:39]
D
Okay, so we will do this on Monday. We'll come back to this with more time with both of you at the beginning of the hour.
- [43:47]
I
I agree with everything Ben just said.
- [43:49]
D
So, so same place, same place, same time on Monday, and we'll spend more time here and bring some of our military friends into the conversation. Thank you both so much for joining me today. One more break. We'll be right back. We've heard from so many of you who loved hearing from actor and activist Martin Sheen at last weekend's MSNBC Live event. He made us think and he made us smile and laugh and cry. And he made us really, really miss having a president like Jed Bartlett in the White House. We realized not everybody could make it to the event. So if you missed it, you can watch our conversation on YouTube. You just scan the QR code on your screen right now. And here's the big News. Starting on October 26, you can get more Martin Sheen with the Martin Sheen Podcast. It is amazing. It's brimming with the kind of wisdom and heart and eloquence that are Martin Sheen's calling card.
- [44:38]
E
Listen, every life, even the clumsiest, like.
- [44:43]
A
My own, is a life of worth and honor. Those words are part of my story, Bobby, that I share on my podcast, the Martin Sheen Podcast. And they are a profound realization of.
- [44:56]
E
What it means to be human. That is the very heart of my podcast, what it means to be human.
- [45:04]
D
This is exactly what we all need right now. And you can download the Martin Sheen Podcast wherever you get your podcast, starting October 26th. He is a force of nature, but so is this guy.
- [45:16]
E
I feel like there's one branch of government we have left that hasn't failed us thus far. And that branch of government is the people.
- [45:26]
C
You know what I mean?
- [45:28]
E
We the people.
- [45:30]
D
That is Charlamagne. Tha God. Of course. His hit radio show, the Breakfast Club has been likened to sitting on America's front porch. Charlemagne has his finger on the pulse of this country like nobody else. Scan the QR code and subscribe to MSNBC Premium to listen to my conversation with Charlamagne. Th God right now. One more break. We'll be right back. Thank you so much for letting us into your homes for another week of shows. We are grateful.
- [45:54]
B
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B
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