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Morning Joe: Senate advances massive bill for Trump's agenda after GOP leaders sway holdouts
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Senate advances massive bill for Trump's agenda after GOP leaders sway holdouts
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- [00:00]
Katty Kay
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- [01:09]
Joe Scarborough
And if you don't, there isn't. It's all what you want to do as an individual member, if you have the courage to. Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina speaking with reporters yesterday, kind of speaking his mind after all this time. Finally, his vote against his party's massive tax and spending bill will be one of his last. As the North Carolina senator announced over the weekend he will not see reelection next year. We'll go through the implications of that decision and what comes next for President Trump's sweeping domestic policy package. Also ahead, the new developments surrounding the president abruptly pulling the plug on trade talks with China. We'll tell you the move that Canada has just made to try to bring the US Back to the negotiating table. And the case against billionaire music mogul Sean Diddy Combs will be in the hands of the jury today. We'll go live to the courthouse and get legal analysis on the high profile criminal trial. Good morning. Welcome to Morning Joe. It's Monday, June 30th. I'm Katty Kay and I am in for everybody. Joe, Mika and Willie, John, Amir, they're all off today. I'm sorry, it's just me. We begin this morning with the latest out of Curdell N in Idaho, though, where a man found dead on Canfield Mountain next to a firearm is believed to be the only gunman involved in the deadly ambush on first responders as they responded to a brush fryer yesterday. This is a super confusing story and we don't have all the details, but local authorities gave an update on the suspected shooter last night.
- [02:46]
Katty Kay
We have currently one dead shooter based on the preliminary investigation that was being conducted. Keep in mind, we have a We had a fire that was rapidly.
- [03:02]
Joe Scarborough
It.
- [03:02]
Katty Kay
Was approaching the body, so we had to scoop up that body and we had to transport that body to a different location. But based on the preliminary information, we believe that is the only shooter that was on that mountain at that time. So there is no threat to the community at this time.
- [03:30]
Joe Scarborough
So authorities believe that the suspected gunman started the fire intentionally as an ambush, luring those fire to the scene before opening fire. Around 300 law enforcement officers from multiple agencies responded to the incident and exchanged gunfire with the suspect over several hours. Two firefighters were shot and killed. Another one was wounded. A firefighter is out of surgery and is in stable condition. Authorities could not say what the suspect's motive might have been as of late last night, officials say the brush fire near Kerd is continues to burn. So joining us from Los Angeles, NBC News investigative reporter Andy Blankston. Okay, Andy, what are you hearing? What's the latest on this situation?
- [04:14]
Katty Kay
Well, Katie, as referenced earlier, the big thing is going to be trying to determine a motive here. Single gunmen earlier in the day because of the chaos of the situation and the thick brush and the response by firefighters thinking that they were responding to a brush fire. The question is, what motivated this individual, as the sheriff said, to fire on those firefighters? And that's going to be a challenge today because we have a situation where they had a crime scene where there was a fire encroaching. They had to take the body off the mountain quickly. They have to go back up there today at daylight to see what's happening with shell casings, the weapons that might have been up there, and then backgrounding the suspect and trying to determine that motive. So that's a key kind of part of what we're going to start seeing today.
- [05:06]
Joe Scarborough
And did we know if he knew the firefighters? Was there any kind of personal relationship between the shooter and and the responders?
- [05:14]
Katty Kay
That's going to be a big thing as they look through the digital footprint of this individual and background them, obviously interviewing people that the suspect might have known to try to get a determination of why exactly firefighters were focused on in this particular crime. I think when you look at the way things unfolded, the fact that the sheriff said it was a 100% ambush, that it's a very problematic possible motive here. And so we don't know exactly what's going on, but that's obviously going to be a focus.
- [05:53]
Joe Scarborough
Okay. NBC News investigative reporter Andy Blankstein, thank you very much. I know people who have trained to be firefighters. You train for everything. It's a really tough job. You do not train for people to be shooting at you when you go to respond to a fire as well. Okay. Let's turn now to Washington, where later this morning the Senate is expected to begin what's known as voterama only in Washington, D.C. on President Trump's sweeping domestic policy package. It comes after late on Saturday, the Republican led Senate advanced the package following a dramatic drawn out process that spanned hours, bringing it one step closer to passage. It narrowly advanced after Majority Leader John Thune and Vice President J.D. vance struck a deal with the holdouts. Trump also stayed in Washington over the weekend to engage in the whip effort, calling senators and hosting meetings. Ultimately, the vote was 5149 with two Republicans, Senator Thom Tillis, who you heard earlier, and Rand Paul joining all the Democrats in opposition. Yesterday, the non partisan Congressional Budget Office published its analysis of the bill saying it would increase the national debt by $3.3 trillion over the next 10 years. It's also projected that the proposed legislation lead to more than 11 million people losing their health insurance by the year 2034. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer spoke on the Senate floor on Sunday accusing Republicans of falsifying the math to get the bill across the finish line.
- [07:26]
Katty Kay
CBO just this morning said it will explode the debt by $3.3 trillion and they said it will likely cost more over time, more than that, closer to 4 trillion. Rather than be honest with the American people about the true costs of their billionaire giveaways, Republicans are doing something the Senate has never, never done before, deploying fake math and accounting gimmicks to hide the true cost of their bill.
- [07:58]
Joe Scarborough
Meanwhile, he's back. Elon Musk renewed his own attacks on the legislation. The Tesla CEO and former Trump adviser launched a series of criticisms over the weekend calling the bill quot utterly insane and destructive. Musk also referred to the bill as political suicide for the Republican Party, amplifying a poll that suggests it's politically unpopular. So let's discuss all of this. Bringing in managing editor of the Bulwark, Sam Stein, MSNBC senior Washington correspondent, co host of the Weekend, Eugene Daniels doing great work on Way Too early this Morning. Thank you, Jean. Congressional reporter for the Hill, Michael Snell and MSNBC contributor and author of the book how the Right Lost Its Mind, Charlie Sykes. Eugene, you've been covering this, of course, all weekend. The voterama what's the timeframe? First of all, why do we call it a voterama? Does Washington have to have a name like this for everything? It's like every time there's a storm, it's got some kind of new nickname. Anyway, we're about to start the voterama. When does it get through? When do we get a sense of whether this gets the president's desk? By July 4th?
- [09:00]
Katty Kay
Yeah, we gotta have fun in D.C. somehow. And that's why making ridiculous names for this, that's fun.
- [09:04]
Joe Scarborough
That counts as fun in Washington.
- [09:06]
Katty Kay
It's sad here. It's sad here. You know, I think, you know, the speed of this is, is going to depend on the types of amendments that come through this. The president has thrown up his hands and said, you know, July 4th was like a soft deadline. They can do it before, they can do it after. It seems like it's more likely that it's gonna happen after because remember, it has to go through the Senate and then back to the House. And there are lots of members in the House who still say they have issues, though they will probably vote for it anyway at some point. But it's going to be painful. I was talking to a Democratic senior aide to Senate leadership over the weekend, and they said some of the amendments that they are looking to put in there, protecting Medicaid, about Trump, family corruption, tax cuts for billionaires, and not being able to take snap benefits away from children. So they're looking for ways to make it difficult for Republicans to do this. Politically difficult. But I've also talked to a lot of people who are a little frustrated. They want to see Democrats doing more. It's hard to break through in this media environment. We all know that. But at the same time, you know, they could be on the steps of the Capitol doing a press conference. They could be doing their own shadow reading of the bill. There's all these types of things that they could do to bring more awareness, especially if they want to use this as a political cudgel in the midterms next year.
- [10:22]
Joe Scarborough
Yeah, Michael, your beat is the House. It comes to the House now. There are plenty of Republicans, too. I mean, Democrats may be fed up with the kind of efforts that they're making to try and block this. But talk to me about the Republicans and what you're hearing. Yeah. So first, Katty Morning. Let's talk about timing. House Majority Whip Tom Emmer sent out an announcement late last night saying that the earliest the House could vote on this bill is Wednesday morning. So that gives you a sense of how long they expect the Senate to take to finish things up and then when they're going to get started in the House. But I have to tell you, if you return on Wednesday and the deadline is Friday, that's not leaving Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House, a lot of time to work through this mountain of issues he is about to face. I did a lot of reporting on this over the weekend speaking to a number of Republican lawmakers and there are concerns across the conference from moderates to hardline conservatives. Moderates are really concerned about the level of spending cuts in the bill, particularly when it comes to Medicaid. The Senate's version of this bill has steeper cuts to Medicaid compared to the House's version. A number of them are staking opposition. By my count, at least six moderate Republicans say they are not supportive of this bill. The main reason is those Medicaid cuts. But there's also some concerns about the state and local tax deduction cap and there's also some concerns about the rollback of green energy tax credits. Now that's just one end of the politically, ideologically politically diverse conference. On the other end you have these hardline conservatives, people like Congressman Chip Roy, Republican from Texas, who's been railing against this bill on social media all over the weekend, complaining that some aspects of were watered down from the House's bill. So Johnson is taking fire from all sides. He's if this does get out of the Senate, which is still not confirmed at this moment because there are still a lot of changes that likely need to happen during Boat Arama to build that coalition. If this bill makes it to the House, Mike Johnson's going to have a tough time pushing it through because of this wide array of concerns. Turns out that when you write a bill that is 900 pages long, there is something in it for every single person to hate. Republican Senator Thom Tillis is one of those of North Carolina. He announced yesterday he's not even going to seek reelection next year. Tillis issued a lengthy statement about his decision saying he hadn't been enthusiastic about seeking a third six year term in the Senate. The announcement came a day after Tillis said he is opposing Republicans massive tax and spending bill in its current form. To the dismay of the President, Trump spent the weekend bashing Tillis on social media, but Tillis seemed to ignore the post.
- [12:52]
Katty Kay
Surprised by the extent of some of his political threats to you last night.
- [12:55]
Joe Scarborough
Just one after the other. Frankly, I never read them so I'm.
- [12:58]
Katty Kay
Not really sure how many there were do you know?
- [13:01]
Joe Scarborough
I mean, I really, I don't. I'm not on truth.
- [13:03]
Katty Kay
What is it? It's a truth social.
- [13:04]
Joe Scarborough
I'm not on that platform.
- [13:05]
Katty Kay
He sort of, you know, he pledged to meet with anyone that threatened to primary you. Oh, that's okay. You know, I told him actually via text that he probably needed to start looking for a replacement anyway before he posted that. If we're responsible for moving this bill, I believe that it's going to be a massive mistake. And sooner or later, you got to help the president understand that. He's gotten a lot of advice from people who have never governed and all they've done is written white papers. And it's very different to talk about the perfect versus implement the practical.
- [13:40]
Joe Scarborough
I love the way he said, I'm not on that platform. The president's favorite platform untillis has decided not to be on it. His departure is expected to set off a highly competitive race in North Carolina. NBC News reports the president's daughter in law, Lara Trump, is seriously considering a run there. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal editorial board has a new piece titled Trump Puts the Senate in play in 2026. And it reads in part, quote, a common feature of Donald Trump's two terms as president is that he can't stand political prosperity when events are going in his direction. He has an uncanny habit of handing his opponents a sword. The GOP pickup opportunities. So with Mr. Tillis departure, the Senate is in play for 2026. Oh, and on Saturday, GOP Congressman Don Bacon said he won't run for reelection in his swing Omaha seat. That's a likely gain for Democrats in the House. Tillis and Bacon didn't help themselves by echoing Democratic attacks against the GOP's very modest Medicaid changes. But then Mr. Trump and GOP leaders haven't helped them or the party by failing to make the moral and fiscal case for those reforms. GOP legislative refor reforms will have no chance if Democrats take the house in 2026. And if they also take the Senate, forget about confirming another Supreme Court nominee, the Trump presidency will be dead in the water. So, Sam, does Tillis really put the Senate in play? I know that it's North Carolina is kind of increasingly purple. It's one that Democrats always hope to take. But the map doesn't look great for Democrats next cycle.
- [15:20]
Katty Kay
I don't think he puts the entire Senate necessarily at play. Puts North Carolina at play for sure. And Democrats have a ex governor waiting in the wings who could run for that seat. And Roy Cooper, who would become the primitive favorite if he decides to run. But for the party to gain the majority, they'd have to flip a bunch of or a couple red seats, I should say. And one of them would probably be Texas. You can imagine how hard that might be. Not saying it's impossible, but it would be hard. But I want to get to another element of that Wall Street Journal editorial, which is, you know, I think Taylor's decided he shouldn't run, which is they said that the Medicaid changes would be modest. That's just not the truth. I think people need to sort of understand the significance of what's about to happen here. When you're taking coverage potentially away from 11 million people, and that's just the Medicaid stuff, and then on top of that, add a few more million people. When you have changes to Obamacare and the ending of enhanced subsidies for Obamacare, you're talking about the loss of health care coverage for 16 or so million people. That would be the most significant backtracking in health insurance coverage in our country's history. It would be the most significant reduction of Medicaid in our country's history. It would re undo progress that we've seen in terms of enrolling people in health insurance coverage over the past 10 plus years. And it would lead, frankly, to more people getting sick, more people losing loved ones, more people dying. And Tillis on the floor of the Senate said, look, what am I supposed do to. To do? I have 630,000 people in my own state who could lose their Medicaid because of this bill. Should I tell them that they're wrong, or should I tell the president that he's wrong? And I think he recognized that this bill would be calamitous for healthcare coverage. Now, the question I have, and I guess this is a good one for Charlie, is Till his right to retire. I mean, this is the fundamental question that has confronted people who have opposed Trump from within the Republican Party since he burst onto the scene. Do you fight the fight or do you leave the tent and fight the fight? In this case, Tillis is saying, look, I don't have any sway left. I'll stick it out for another year and a half, but I'm not going to even run in the primary. Same with Don Bacon. And I, I struggle with the question of whether or not that's the right decision. I'm glad he went to the floor and said what he said. But should he have tried to stick it out, and if so, to what end? Well, that is an Excellent question. And you know, it keeps coming up over and over again. Jeff Flake made the same decision. I mean, you tally up all, you know, the number of Republicans who have self deported who simply realize that there's no place for them in the Republican Party and of course you'd like them to stay and to fight. But that assumes that the fight that Donald Trump does not, you know, utterly control the Republican Party. I think there's a certain level of futility about all of this. Yes, I would have liked to see him, you know, stand and fight. But the reality is this comes back to the Republican primary voters and they are, and they are in fact taking their cues from Donald Trump. So you're Thom Tillis and you're saying, do I need this in my life? Do I need to go through a bruising, ugly fight where I'm either going to have to try to appease Donald Trump or I'm going to have to run against Donald Trump in a MAGA dominated primary and life is too short. So once again, achievement unlocked. Trump has driven another quasi normie out of the United States Senate, put the Senate more in play than it was before. But this has been a long time coming. I thought it was interesting that Tillis thought it was a defining moment to realize that there was no room for independence or bipartisanship. And you kind of wonder, well, you know, if only he had been warned, if only he had been given an indication earlier. But we've been seeing this pattern for the last 10 years and we'll probably see it again. But you know, Sam raises an interesting question. I would love to see people stand and fight on principle, but the question is whether there's any room, room for principled Republicans in Donald Trump's party anymore. And I think we're getting the answer.
- [19:22]
Joe Scarborough
Yeah, you wonder whether he's regretting that vote for Pete Hegseth that we know he didn't really want to take but ended up taking just totally to appease Donald Trump because he was afraid of being primaried. Well, now he's getting it anyway. Michael Snell, do you see any big changes that could happen between now and July? I don't know if the bill gets to Donald Trump by July 4, but whenever it does get to the president's bill, are there any significant changes that could come into effect that people should know about about? I think there's going to have to be just because of where the current level of support stands, starting with the Senate. For example, we heard from Senator Susan Collins, who we know is a moderate in the chamber. When she voted to proceed to this bill, voted to advance it, she made clear, do not in any way take my vote in support of advancing the bill as a translation that I'm going to support this final product. I'm not going to do that unless I see substantive changes. There have, of course, been concerns with the Medicaid cuts and how that could impact hospitals and constituents in her state. It's the same dynamic in the House. We're not just hearing some Republicans say that they're opposed to the current model. We're saying them, hearing them say that they are going to vote no. Take, for example, Congressman David Valadao. He's a Republican from California, he's a moderate. He comes from a swing district. He's saying that he cannot support these Medicaid cuts. So Republican leaders, if they want to get people on board, I suspect there are going to have to be changes. And, of course, conventional wisdom based on every twist and term of this process has been that, well, the Republicans at the end of the day, will fall in line. And, of course, there's always the strong possibility of that. Trump's pressure and the potential for his wrath is very strong. But we're seeing not just a few holdouts here and there. We're seeing large swells of people. It's not a few anomalies. So, you know, as the saying goes, there's strength in numbers. And these have been long stated qualms and warnings that some of these lawmakers have made. So that all being said, I think today's vote, a rama is going to be critical and very key. We're seeing a, of number, number of, of amendments being introduced by folks on both sides of the aisle. I'll go back to Susan Collins. She's introduced an amendment to increase that rural hospital fund from $25 billion to $50 billion. So, again, the Senate GOP leaders and House Republican leaders need to build a coalition for this bill. At the current moment, they're going to need to make some changes if they want to have enough support to get it over the finish line in both chambers. Michael, very quickly, I've even heard this, that there has to be safety in numbers. Do you know what the number size is that would make other Republicans feel comfortable saying no? Voting no? That is always the question. But I can tell you where things currently stand in the House. As I mentioned, I've spoken to at least six moderate Republicans who say that they are against this. Then there's also Thomas Massie, who voted against the first iteration of this bill in the House. He's by no means a moderate, but he's still a critic. We've heard from Chip Roy. So that's around 8 stated on the record, people who have qualms with the bill in the House, if there's full attention and all Republicans vote yeah. And all Democrats vote no, Republicans can only lose three of their own, so they're well over that number. And then in the Senate, we have Thom Tillis voting no. Rand Paul has made it clear he's voting no. So in the Senate, Republicans can only afford to lose one and still get this over the finish line. If they lose two or more, that's the ball game. So we're getting really close, or in the House's case, over these margins, which is why everybody is going to match. Okay. Congressional reporter for the Hill, Michael Snell. Thank you very much for joining us. My advice to those congressional Republicans who are opposed to this bill, delete truth social, which is exactly what Thom Tillis has done. You may want to stay off it for a couple of days. Still ahead on Morning Joe, we'll go over the big decision from the Supreme Court on birthright citizenship, what it means for the Trump administration's immigration agenda and the overall power of the presidency. And will explain the renewed criticism surrounding the presumptive nominee in New York City's mayoral race after Zoran again sidestep the opportunity to condemn a controversial phrase. And a reminder that the Morning Joe podcast is available each weekday, featuring our full conversations and analysis. You can listen wherever you get your podcasts. You're watching Morning Jo. We'll be right back.
- [23:39]
Katty Kay
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- [25:16]
Joe Scarborough
6:25 in the morning and there is the White House on this hot, humid summer morning. The Supreme Court has handed a major win to the Trump administration on Friday by allowing it for now to take steps to implement its proposal to end automatic birthright citizenship. That's because the ruling limits the ability of judges around the country to block President Trump's plan to end birthright citizenship. The president spoke about the decision yesterday on Fox News.
- [25:44]
Katty Kay
To a large extent, the court courts were almost like being the president and you can't have it. It was such a big decision. This is one of the biggest decisions where you would have a local federal judge who was radical left determining the policy for the whole nation. The whole nation. And now they can't do that anymore.
- [26:07]
Joe Scarborough
Okay. Joining us now, Supreme Court reporter for the New York Times, Adam Liptak, former litigator and MSNBC legal correspondent Lisa Rubin, and the president of Voto Latino Foundation, Maria Theresa Kumar. Thank you all. Thank you very much for joining me. Let's start with you, Lisa. Explain the significance of the ruling and what it means not just for birthright citizenship, but for presidential power.
- [26:29]
Katty Kay
Well, Kathy, the court decided by a 6 to 3 majority that universal injunctions are not within district court's power with a couple of exceptions by universal that term may or may not be interchangeable with national, national or nationwide injunctions. And here's what I mean by that. They say that at the time of our nation's founding, nobody ever contemplated that a judge would have the power to enter an injunction that covered everyone imaginable on the defendant's side. That doesn't mean, however, that courts won't be able to issue nationwide injunctions or issue relief that effectively has the same same scope as a universal injunction. There are two big holes in this decision that could apply to birthright citizenship, but also more globally. The first hole is one that Justice Amy Coney Barrett left in her majority decision where she said the states in this particular case that obtained objections in Two different cases, they may still be able to get what is equivalent to nationwide relief, because they say that having a patchwork of applications of the president's birthright citizenship executive order makes it impossible for them to administer programs that are dependent on citizenship or even to make decisions about who qualifies as a citizen in the first place, because in the natural course of life, we all move between states. The second big hole is one that Justice Kavanaugh left in his concurrence, and he says effectively, that big major federal statutes and executive orders of that same magnitude, there may be instances, and maybe often instances in which it is good national policy for courts to enjoin them so that there is a uniform answer while these cases are being litigated. So, yes, it is a very significant decision in that it curbs the power of lower, lower courts, but it is not the slam dunk, across the board, game over win that President Trump described it as in the clip that you just showed. Yeah, Adam, this is Sam Stein. Just to pick up on that, almost immediately, we saw a class action lawsuit against birthright citizenship filed by some of the same entities that were challenging birthright citizenship to get an issue on injunction. And you can easily imagine a future in which what the Supreme Court has, has done will increase significantly the amount of legislation, more class action lawsuits, more state AGs trying to get these types of injunctions. Is that the future that you envision now, where we're going to have a myriad of different legal challenges, and then the Supreme Court's ultimately going to have to decide on a case by case basis what, you know, qualifies for a nationwide injunction, what doesn't. That's an excellent point. What's likely to happen here is not less litigation, but more litigation, and much of that litigation reaching the Supreme Court. This withdraws power from individual federal courts, federal district court judges, increases the power of the Supreme Court, which is a theme we've seen in recent terms. It's not likely to shut down birthright citizenship. I think there will be other mechanisms. And the court itself didn't indicate anything about what it felt about the merits of birthright citizenship. But what it does do is decrease the power of individual federal district court judges to shut down presidential powers nationwide. And it kind of echoes the last decision of the last term on presidential immunity. It emboldens the president and makes the presidency more power.
- [30:14]
Joe Scarborough
Adam, this is something that the injunctions is something that Democratic presidents have disliked in the past as much as Republicans have done. I remember when Barack Obama tried to give citizenship to the parents of children who were born in the United States. And a judge in Texas blocked it, and Democrats were very unhappy about that. So actually, is this something that, in kind of less ferociously partisan times, might meet with approval as a way of blocking the power of individual judges around the country?
- [30:49]
Katty Kay
Quite right. Lots of people from both parties have hesitations about the idea that an individual judge can do more than decide the dispute before him or her and bind the parties before him or her and also say this applies to everybody. Everybody. That's a problematic notion in general terms. It might well, though, be appropriate in the birthright citizenship case and in some other cases, because it's just hard to imagine, as Lisa was saying, a patchwork of laws around the country where if you're born on one side of a state line, you're a citizen, and on the other side, not. Adam, one of the things that I keep thinking about, and I wonder how you see it, is the fact that while this decision invites more litigation, it also is occurring against the backdrop of an attack on law firms and lawyers by this same president who wanted this decision. How do you think that that attack interacts with the invitation to have more litigation? Is the is the fact that law firms are afraid to get into the fray now going to be a disincentive to bringing all of these cases that might have to occur in the 94 district courts across the country? I think that's a real fear. I think the president has attacked judges, has attacked lawyers, and that may have some effect at the margins. These cases mostly seem to be led by civil rights groups and advocacy groups, and not so much the big firms we saw in the first Trump presidency lining up to take him on.
- [32:39]
Joe Scarborough
Supreme Court reporter for the New York Times, Adam Liptak and MSNBC legal correspondent Lisa Rubin. Thank you both for joining this conversation. And Maria Theresa, when we that was the legal arguments. When you look at the impact of this on particularly onI mean, it's not just obviously Hispanic and Latino voters, but on people who are here in the country illegally who may be having children here. What does it mean for them? Are we suddenly going to see people who are here in the country illegally rush to Minnesota to try and have their baby there, and Minnesota hospitals get swamped with births. And what are they what are people talking about as a work around this?
- [33:18]
Katty Kay
Well, I think, Katie, I think one of the things that we have to understand is that basically what the Supreme Court did was allow for other executive orders that the president wants to implement, that it's going to basically create chaos at our judicial system. When we look at birthright citizenship, yes, you're creating a patchwork of laws that, to your point, some people may want to cross state laws to have their babies, state laws across their babies. But you're also talking about possibly the overhaul of our election systems. You're looking at defunding libraries and museums because those seem to be priorities for him. And the list goes on. And so when we're talking about almost a quarter million U. S. Born children every single year of undocumented folks, you're talking not about small population that all of a sudden can become stateless. So I do think that one of the things that we need to be looking at very precisely is that what happens next, because what we have seen is that often what Trump does is that he uses the undocumented community as a canary in the coal mine to test our institutions and to see how far we're willing to go to eroding their rights. But their rights are only the beginning. I think that in Sotomay mayor's dissent, she was very clear. God forbid you end, and I'm paraphrasing, but basically, God forbid you end up in the wrong state where your basic rights as a US Citizen could be abdicated, because all of a sudden, the laws in that state are quite different from the rest of the country.
- [34:41]
Joe Scarborough
Yeah. I mean, you can see a situation where you have a lot of undocumented workers, for various reasons, not just birthright citizenship, moving to blue states or to states with sanctuary cities, those states then getting their services overwhelmed or getting targeted by the president. I mean, you can see where this unravels politically very quickly and potentially provides a problem for Democrats. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is now working to create a temporary pass for some of those undocumented migrants who work in certain industries. Such a move would mark the latest shift in the administration's approach to immigration enforcement for farm workers. The president explained the decision during his Fox News interview that was taped on Friday. It aired yesterday.
- [35:24]
Katty Kay
Today, I don't back away. What I do have, I cherish our farmers. And when we go into a farm and we take away people that have been working there for 15 and 20 years who, who are good, who possibly came in incorrectly, and what we're going to do is we're going to do something for farmers where we can let the farmer sort of be in charge. The farmer knows he's not going to hire a murderer. But, you know, when you go into a farm and he's had somebody working with him for Nine years doing this kind of work, which is hard work to do, and a lot of people aren't going to do it. And you end up destroying a farmer because you took all the people away, it's a problem. You know, I'm on both sides of the thing. I'm the strongest immigration guy that there's ever been, but I'm also the strongest farmer guy that there's ever been. And that includes also hotels and, you know, places where people work. A certain group of people work. So we're going to, we're working on it right now. We're going to work it so that some kind of a temporary pass where people pay taxes, where the farmer can have a little control.
- [36:29]
Joe Scarborough
So, Maria, Theresa, the president has suggested this before. Then it sounded like the hardliners in the White House got in his ear and he seemed to reverse that position, or they seem to reverse that position. If you are working on a farm now or working in the hotel industry now, how do you know what the future look like for, for you?
- [36:49]
Katty Kay
I think that one of the reasons that we are in this mess is because we have not actually provided people an opportunity to come out of the shadows. And all of these folks are complicit. Where we're, they're talking about the farmers, where we're talking about hotel owners. Mr. Trump himself is a former hotel owner, and as his family continue have investments there, these are, there's an opportunity for us to do this the right way, and that is to recognize if you've been living in the same country for at least 10 years, you're able to demonstrate that you've paid taxes, that you are gainfully employed, that you pass background checks, provide a pathway to citizenship. When the American people said that they wanted to control the border and they wanted safe immigration policy, Trump did the first part. If you go down to the border, there's no influx of folks. People have gotten the memo, the border is secure now. What he's doing, though, is he's militarizing our cities and our countryside. And I do think that the American people didn't sign up for that. And when you're seeing increasingly American citizens being detained by ice, being held in detention for weeks on end, despite being able to prove that they are U.S. citizens, I think that's one of the reasons why he recognizes that this is not where the public wants him to be. And so my hope is that he does prove right on his promise that he does provide some sort of relief for farm workers and for those in our hospitality but to go a step further, there are dreamers that have been able to pass all of the requirements. If anything, they are some of our best contributors to society. Give them a pathway to citizenship. The system doesn't have to be broken. Right. At this point, KATIE K. It's become a choice. And I can tell you that the amount of people that are in fear, that are not just undocumented, is really palatable. I have traveled to Massachusetts, I have traveled to Texas, I've traveled to Arizona. And I can tell you every single place, regardless of status, you could be a US Citizen, a CEO, and everybody's concerned by the way people are treating the Latino community. Right. Right now. Yeah. I mean, I will just pick up on that. My hometown of New Haven, Connecticut, has been rocked by a story of a mother who was detained while her two young kids watched. Kids are US Citizens. Mother's not. I mean, imagine the psychological trauma that's going to be afflicted on those two children, having watched their mom being taken away from them, not knowing where she's going. And just back to Trump's interview, and this one's for Charlie. But I mean, what he's describing there is, is amnesty. I mean, that's what he's describing, right? I mean, he's saying we will give a protected status to a certain class of workers who I think are essential for this country, and they don't have to worry about deportation. They can be here, and we're going to let their employer decide who's good and who's not. And had any other Republican come at it from the other end, being like, you know what? We're going to give a, a protected status to certain people here. And then the others were going to go after and try to deport. I believe Trump would have gone after them and said, that's amnesty. But Trump gets to do it in the reverse way. And people are like, well, okay, so it goes. Talk about the sort of the, the hypocrisy of it. But also, I don't think people quite understand just how different Trump is in terms of the history of Republican politics with respect to immigration, how far he's gone out on a ledge with this inner city deportation stuff and the militarization of the Guard and, of course, the use of the military in places like Los Angeles. Angeles, yeah. Well, let's just go back to this, this latest flip flop, because this is the, the latest iteration of a policy that's been on and it's been off. I mean, it was a couple of weeks ago that it looked like he was doing a reversal and saying that, oh, I didn't mean it for farm workers and in hospitality workers. And then apparently Stephen Miller came in the office and told him, you know, Mr. Mr. President, you would need to be a hard line. And they backed off on all of that. So now it's back on. So to Katie's question, if you're working on a farm right now, what should you expect? And the answer is, you have no idea, because really no one else does. We are at a point now where this policy is being determined by Donald Trump's whim. And to your point, Sam, there's no consistent principle that runs through all of this. There have been a long tradition of Republicans who acknowledge that, look, we obviously, obviously want to secure the border and we want to deport illegal immigrants who commit crimes. But obviously, there's a lot of industries that are very, very dependent. I'm in the state of Wisconsin. Anytime you talk to dairy farmers throughout the state of Wisconsin or the Midwest, they'll tell you how important migrant labor is. So there's a reality factor here. But Donald Trump, again, Donald Trump drew this red line, or pretended to draw this red line that he was stronger than anyone else and shut down many of the more nuanced approaches to immigration. People who said, okay, we need to have pathways to citizenship, we need to recognize their value to the economy. This debate has been going on for 20 years with people including Republicans, saying, Look, the U.S. economy actually benefits from immigrants who are working, who are paying taxes. And now Trump is pretending like he has suddenly discovered this, having shut down many of these programs. So we're in completely uncharted territory. It's the economy by whim. It's immigration policy by whim. And we'll see later this week whether or not he has the same tune. And ICE is going along with the latest iteration of this policy.
- [42:21]
Joe Scarborough
Yeah. And of course, it's not just the workers. It's the farmers and the hotel owners and the servicing industry owners as well. If you're trying to run a business when policy keeps changing like this, are you going to make a big capex investment in the American economy for the next five, ten years when you don't know what the policy is going to be? Even next week. Charlie Sykes and Maria Theresa Kumar. Thank you very much, both of you for coming in early this morning. And coming up, a federal jury in New York will begin deliberations today in the criminal trial of Sean Diddy Combs. We'll have the latest from lower Manhattan when morning Judge returns.
- [42:54]
Katty Kay
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- [44:31]
Joe Scarborough
The case against music mogul Sean Diddy Combs will be in the hands of the jury today. This comes after a final day of closing arguments on Friday where jurors heard two very different views of Combs Combs actions. Prosecutors argue that Combs coerced, threatened and abused past girlfriends to force them to engage in sexual activities. Diddy's defence lawyers acknowledged the physical abuse but said the state did not make their case to prove the charges against him are true. Combs is charged with multiple counts, including sex trafficking, prostitution and racketeering. Joining us now from the courthouse in lower Manhattan is NBC News correspondent Chloe Melas. Chloe, thank you very much for joining us. What are you expecting to hear today? Today?
- [45:15]
Katty Kay
So first the judge is going to do something called charging the jury. And that's where he's going to give about an hour or more of instructions. It's basically a roadmap for these jurors when they get into the deliberation room because there's a lot to Go through, like you said, five counts with RICO conspiracy carrying up to a life sentence. And there's a lot to sift through. There are something called predicate crimes. There's about 10 of them. Everything from arson, bribery, kidnapping. And this is the sort of testimony that we heard from former assistants, former girlfriends speak to while the prosecutors made their case for seven weeks. Remember, Combs team, they didn't put on any witnesses. Their defense was 30 minutes. That's it. Over the course of nearly two months. And so RICO is complicated. And these jurors, they have a lot of testimony. 34 witnesses have testified in this trial. And there's a lot to say sift through, especially when it comes to that racketeering, that RICO conspiracy charge.
- [46:14]
Joe Scarborough
Chloe, what do they mean? Combs, his lawyers, I'm reading here your notes, when they say that this is a fake trial.
- [46:22]
Katty Kay
Well, they deny everything. Right. The only thing that his legal team, Combs, his legal team, has really owned up to is domestic violence. I think by now we've all seen that horrifying video of Combs brutally beating his then girlfriend, Cassie Ventura at a Los Angeles Hotel in 2016. What they say is, yes, he was violent and he regrets that, but that that is not a federal crime. That that is not any sort of evidence to support the two counts of sex trafficking. And that these women all were in consensual relationships taking part in these drug fueled sex parties with male escorts, which are nicknamed female freak offs, hotel nights, Wild King nights. You might have heard some of that over the last few weeks or seen it on social media. And what his legal team is saying is that he is not guilty of sex trafficking. That really this all should have been tried right down the street over here in state court.
- [47:17]
Joe Scarborough
Okay, NBC News correspondent Chloe Melas, thank you very much for joining us. And joining us now, NBC News and MSNBC legal analyst Danny Savalas. Danny, thank you. Thank you very much for joining us. Okay, I confess I've dipped in and out of this case. Sometimes the details just got too kind of grim and I honestly didn't want to listen to that much of it. But one thing that I did pick up on was, as Chloe was saying there, that Diddy's lawyers decided not to bring any witnesses. We had all of the witnesses for the prosecution. Why did the defense decide not to bring witnesses?
- [47:49]
Katty Kay
For the same reason that criminal defense attorneys often call no witnesses in a criminal case, including me, which is that it is the government that has the burden to prove each and every element to the highest degree in our legal system which is beyond a reasonable doubt. You can't think of a criminal trial as how many witnesses can the defense line up to counter each of the government's witnesses. That's because the defense has no burden at all. And you don't want to call witnesses on the defense unless you feel like you absolutely need something out of their mouths that you just can't get from anywhere else because the risk, risk is too great. Imagine if you snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. You start calling different witnesses and the prosecution scores points and helps their own case. It is a practice of risk aversion. So you have to be very careful not to call any witnesses that could get you in trouble. It is very common for the defense to rest calling zero witnesses no matter what they signaled. Now, whether that was a strategy to get the prosecution to have to prep to cross examine all these witnesses or not, the reality is we as defense attorneys really don't know for sure until game time. It is a decision made at the end of the prosecution's case. The only person you could predict was never, ever, ever going to testify was Combs himself.
- [49:09]
Joe Scarborough
And he didn't. When we listened earlier on in the trial to some of the prosecution's witnesses and we heard all of these details and it was, I found it upsetting listening to it. And it felt like, well, of course there's, you know, this is going to go before a jury and they're going to feel sympathetic to these women and nobody likes this kind of behavior. But actually, the prosecution's argument that this shouldn't be tried in court. This was just a series of difficult, troubled relationships. And everybody has troubled relationships. And it's whether he liked this kind of sex, that's not a crime. How much sway do you think that's going to have with the jury?
- [49:45]
Katty Kay
Yeah, that was the defense's argument and that was no surprise. It was always going to be their argument essentially that, look, we own the domestic violence. Yes, there was violence. Yes, there was an alternative lifestyle. Yes, there was some bizarre activity. But that does not mean that Combs committed these very specific federal crimes. If there was assault, they should have charged him with assault in state court. They didn't. Instead, he's not racketeering. There you see the charges. He's not sex trafficking, trafficking, and he's not committing these federal crimes. Here's the problem with that argument. The jury can conclude that these victims were willing participants. The jury can conclude that this was an alternative lifestyle, and they can still convict. They can go into that jury room and say, man, this is a case that probably shouldn't have been brought in federal court. But when you look at the elements, consider transportation for prostitution. There's evidence of transportation, there's evidence of prostitution. Constitution done. So they may conclude this is not a case they like. But if they look at the jury instructions, they may also conclude that they have to convict, maybe even reluctantly.
- [50:51]
Joe Scarborough
Okay. An alternative lifestyle, a phrase that covers a multitude of sins. NBC News and MSNBC legal analyst Danny Savalas, thank you very much for joining us this morning.
- [51:01]
Katty Kay
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Joe Scarborough
Haven't you?
- [51:07]
Katty Kay
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