← The Beat with Ari Melber
The Beat with Ari Melber
Jon Stewart Hits Trump for "Bombing" His Comedy Speech
00:41:15
Late-night comedian Jon Stewart criticizes President Trump over his performance at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. MS NOW's Ari Melber reports and is joined by political strategist Chai Komanduri.
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- [00:00]
Disclosure Day Narrator
Watch Disclosure Day at home now with exclusive bonus features. If you found out we weren't alone, if someone showed you, proved it to you, would that frighten you? Well, now the truth belongs to 7 billion people in an original event film directed by Steven Spielberg from a screenplay by David Koepp, starring Emily Blunt, Josh o', Connor, Colin Firth, Eve Hewson and Colman Domingo. Find Disclosure Day on major digital platforms now with no subscription required, also in theaters.
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Jay
For me, being a part of this place has always been about the people, not about the politics.
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Brian Hyatt
From the field to the studio, Jacob is finding the heart of the story. Connect with Jacob soboroff weekends at 10am Eastern on Ms. Now,
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Ari Melber
welcome to the Beat. Good to be with you tonight. I'm Ari Melbourne. We begin with a war in Iran that is by any accounts, much longer than Donald Trump promised and that is triggering a backlash at home that matters both for foreign policy, for the domestic repercussions that we've all been living through. The gas and high prices, as well as, of course, pressure on the midterms as Republicans seek any daylight between themselves and Donald Trump's unpopular policies at home and abroad. Indeed, if you happen to be with us last night, that's where we started the week, the midterm pressures. Today, it was really dramatized in a different manner because the president was meeting with Ukrainian President Zelensky as well as Israeli president, or I should say prime minister, formal title over there, Netanyahu. And while Zelensky has had his clashes with Trump and they have kind of repaired a little bit from where they were, the leaders were here in a show of old school diplomacy and solidarity. And they attended the funeral of a Republican senator who whatever you think of him and as many changes and stitches over the course of his career, Senator Lindsey Graham was, of course, very active on the world stage in foreign policy. There are plenty of senators who cast a vote here or there and sit out the rest of it. Lindsey Graham saw himself as an ambassador and statesman within his role as senator. He worked with McCain back in the day. He worked with Trump. He was, of course, dealing with the Russia, Ukrainian issues. And he was a longtime hawk. So the gram of it all fits in to the foreign policy we have right now. And with all respect to the senator. And of course, when you have a passing of anyone in public life, there is much talk and much eulogizing about what he did and what he tried to do and how he tried to lead his life. And a lot of it takes on a positive tone. The other fact with no disrespect to Senator Graham, is that the kind of hawkishness of starting wars in the Middle east or continuing them on an ongoing basis of going at Iran, which is something that Graham did support as a policy matter. These are things being tested right now in the Trump agenda. The Oval Office discussions take place as the war in Iran hits six months. The Strait of Hormuz remains closed. Gas prices, as mentioned, are up. There is still, of course, nuclear material in Iran. There is no view, even from the most pro maga supporters you could find, that would say that this has been a great job, a perfect thing, or they would claim that Trump won the war. You can't win anything that's not over. Indeed, the Wall Street Journal and other normally Trump friendly outlets have said he's basically on a path to losing if you compare it to the metrics that he himself set. Now, there's a familiar part of the news tonight where I'll tell you that the president is threatening more strikes. And obviously that's a real thing that you have to take seriously. But it also has an echo of the many past threats. And if you as a observer might tire of this, well, just imagine how it looks around the world where the US Military, of course, can do great damage. But Donald Trump's repeated threats in Iran don't carry the same weight that they did in the first few weeks. When Trump first announced strikes against Iran, he also told the American public it would be quick and he was kind of selling a version of Trumpism that he would get this done fast, get what you want, improve the situation for the American security and geopolitical gas interests abroad, and then come back home with a victory like many other Trump promises for people who still believed him. And that's fewer and fewer people. It might have sounded good, but it didn't happen. We were told weeks or days, not weeks or very soon. In his second term, we should note that Donald Trump has actually launched strikes in seven different countries. So he is a long ways from the ongoing peace promise that he would be a peace president. Trump has, of course, now tried, as usual, to run from his own statements, to spin them, but there is, of course, video. There are still fact checks in this country.
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Ken Casey
First of all, I didn't guarantee no war under Trump. We will have no more wars, no more disruptions, and we will have prosperity and peace for all. No more wars, no more disruptions. We will have prosperity and we will have peace. With our victory in November, the years of war, weakness and chaos will be over. I don't have wars. We had no wars. I could stop wars with a telephone call. I could stop wars with just a telephone call. If properly stated, it would never start. They said he will start a war. I'm not going to start a war. I'm going to stop wars.
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Ari Melber
He's not going to start a war. He's going to stop wars. It tells you something about where we are as a country with a muscular military and many past wars and misadventures in the Middle east, that this was from Donald Trump of all people. The popular claim, the thing to sell, whether you call that dovish or you just call that realistic, or you call it more isolationist. Whatever it was, Donald Trump, the candidate knew that's where the public was at, including the conservative Republican voting base. And he has won on largely divisive base elections. And yet he went forward starting the Iran war, launching these other strikes you can see on your screen. His team now says Trump could even weigh military options in Mali, another place where nobody really wants to get more involved militarily. And so where we begin tonight is the story that matters around the world. The sixth month of a war that Trump said would take weeks. And foreign leaders in the United States, in our Capitol, of course, marking the measure of a man, a public servant, a senator, but also in a very sort of real physical way. We see leaders of multiple countries looking at the US and its leader, Donald Trump, and wondering, does anyone believe what he says if his own voters are down to 30% here as he struggles to have any kind of public support going into these midterms and around the world? While again, nobody doubts what the US Military can do, they increasingly doubt whether Donald Trump's threats and promises, the carrot and the stick, are worth the seconds it takes him to express them. I want to bring in a noted expert in this field who we've called on about the Middle east and other foreign policy. Ambassador Dennis Ross served as a diplomat and peace negotiator in the Clinton administration, also served in the Obama and Bush administrations. Welcome back, Ambassador. I mentioned the sort of in person spotlight today in Washington because it is on Donald Trump's foreign policy and certainly the open ended commitment in Iran. Where do you see the president's challenge and leverage when, as mentioned, few believe him on either side of the border when it comes to a lot of the Iran claims, You know, I think
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Ambassador Dennis Ross
it matters less what you and I may believe. What matters is what do the Iranians believe? The Iranians have been objectively set back in terms of their military capability, but not enough so that they're not in a position where they can hit all their neighbors, especially against vulnerable soft targets, they clearly think that they have won. They are. They now have a lever, a chokehold over an important global chokehold, meaning the Strait of Hormuz on February 27th. They did not have that chokehold from 1988 until February 28th, until a few days after that. They didn't make an effort to block it because Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, understood from the 1988 period, when we reflagged ships, that that could produce a direct war with the United States and that could threaten the regime. But I think the big problem for us came not necessarily in terms of carrying out strikes against Iran's military capabilities, but trying to decapitate the regime. When the regime saw that Ali Khamenei A, was gone and B, that this seemed to be about regime change, they had nothing to lose. They didn't make an effort to control the Straits from 1988 until 2026, but when they had nothing to lose, they made the decision, okay, let's take the. Let's get control of the straits. Golubov, who is the negotiator for them, the speaker of the Parliament, a former commander of the Revolutionary Guard Air Force, said just last week, the Straits are worth. They are the equivalent of 10 atomic bombs. So they see themselves having a very clear lever. Now, having said that, the blockade is hurting them for sure. The fact that they, when the president stopped after 12 days of bombings, stopped continuing to carry out strikes, they stopped, in their words, retaliating. Now, that tells you they do have an interest in bringing this to an end, just as he has an interest in bringing it to an end. But the problem is they want to bring it to an end with them being in control of the Straits of Hormuz. They see that as a potential economic lifeline for a regime that is really in desperate economic straits. And when the war ends, they have to contend with a series of pretty profound inner contradictions. So they want some kind of economic lifeline, but they see the Straits as being a lever that they can apply to coerce others politically, economically.
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Ari Melber
Well, I'll jump in to say you're also describing a situation where they were pushed into a corner and they are going to try more severe things than as you've outlined, they even tried for decades. And Trump doesn't seem to have a move for that because there is no appetite. And I don't even think he could physically do it. For very long to have a full ground invasion of Iran,
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Ambassador Dennis Ross
one of the options has always been open the straits. The problem with opening the straits is you can provide convoys for ships, but if you don't take the coastal area in Iran, you don't take some of the small islands in the middle of the strait, even then, you have to contend with might be ballistic missiles and cruise missiles from a thousand kilometers away. It's a pretty difficult thing to do. You might well be able to do it, but it comes at a very high cost. A less risky approach is keep the blockade on. Sooner or later, this is an economy that is in absolutely terrible shape. The blockade squeezes them even more. The problem is the blockade also means nobody else can export oil, and that means the price of oil goes up. If the President is prepared to truly be strategically patient, he might well be able to outlast them. Their view is they can outlast him and he's caught in the horns of a dilemma because he wants them to give in. They don't want to give in to him. He can apply force. What he found we did 12 days of bombing. And it's pretty clear that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the head of centcom, Admiral Cooper, are both raising questions about the utility of continuing bombing. That is the equivalent of those 12 days. It isn't necessarily saying they wouldn't argue for stronger and more intense application of bombing, but they're basically saying doing what we were doing is not going to be something that produces real returns. The Iranians won't give in to that. The irony for me is that if you were prepared to do the blockade for say another couple of months, that would put the Iranians in a very difficult position. But I don't think that the President's prepared to wait that long given the economic costs of doing that. So unless he's prepared to do that, I think you're looking for some sort of face saving device for us to try to bring this to an end where the Iranians give some kind of fig leaf. But the reality is it doesn't hide that they are controlling the straits in one way or the other.
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Ari Melber
Right. Which would be a step backwards for the US Compared to as you put at the start of the war and echoes what the original peace deal looked like, which was trying to give Trump a way to announce at home, this is all done. Well, here we are six months in threats and it doesn't feel done. Ambassador Ross, our leadoff guest on this important story. Thank you, sir.
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Ambassador Dennis Ross
My pleasure.
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Ari Melber
Appreciate it. Tonight, we are also tracking Republican opposition to the Todd Blanche nomination ahead of the vote scheduled for this week. And we have an exclusive look at Rolling Stones new list of Trump era protest songs. That's something you'll only see here on the Beat by the end of the hour tonight. But first, I want to show you Jon Stewart, a real comic showing Donald Trump what was wrong with his attempt at comedy with some very serious punchlines. You're going to see that when we return in 90 seconds.
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Jay
President Trump attended the White House Correspondents
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Ari Melber
association dinner and ended his speech by
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Jay
putting on a Trump 2028 hat.
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Ari Melber
It was bad enough that he's a
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Jay
bully and a convicted felon, but now he's a prop comic.
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Ken Casey
The only funny part of the jokes was watching the crowd's reactions. It was a melange of confusion, boredom, shock, and at one point, a literal existential crisis.
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Ari Melber
That's one way one person kind of got through that kind of ineffable Trump speech, which is saying something that you almost don't know what to say about it. But the comics do. Because remember, this annual tradition which many people have pointed out has perhaps passed its sell by date, involves a president trying to do comedy. And different presidents have tried it different ways. Trump, by all expert accounts, failed. And many people in the room who of course are part of a press association that tried to get him to come there, also thought that he failed, that he went over the line, that he was distasteful. But also, and this is the ultimate sin, that he was boring and not funny. So tonight, while we haven't showed much of the actual Trump speech because it wasn't very newsworthy, I do want to show you now that the comics have come back on the air this week how they have tapped their own expertise. They're not college of comedy and punchlines to really rip into Trump, stepping on to their turf, if you will. Jon Stewart had plenty to work with.
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Ken Casey
Normally, I'd say don't quit your day job, but in this case, I will make an exception. It's simple. Set up punchline or every Friday night, every Saturday night, we're gonna have fights in front of the White House. But we do have something coming that's and I'm only kidding. You know, the one thing about we are gonna have Indy 500, Roger Penske's coming in mid August. Germany, Japan, all these countries, they spend billions and billions of dollars trying to win the Indy 500. On July 4th, we were over the mall and it was raining. It was supposed to be really bad again. And we didn't do it the following day and we didn't do it two weeks later. We did it when we were supposed to do it. It was a fantastic celebration. You set up the premise and then you just walk off into the street.
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Ari Melber
The first problem is, obviously the payoff to a punchline can't be four minutes later. Jon Stewart, of course, the ultimate expert on that. But the second point is one that we've seen across many different Trump appearances, which is a rambling, kind of off his game, confused, erratic performance. Imagine if Mitch McConnell or Joe Biden took four minutes to get from A to B, like you saw there, but in their own style, maybe less voluble than Trump and people would say, hey, this guy had a really bad night, or is he up to the job? Or what are the aging and health concerns that go along with that? This is bigger than, of course, any one speech or comedy effort. Coming up short, Trump is now getting ridiculed at his own rallies. And we've seen the joke turning from stuff that he likes to do and he's, you know, sassy and telling his jokes to this impersonator who got into that coveted spot behind him and got a lot of laughs. The poll numbers are dragged down by all of the stories we've been covering this week on Fox. Some hosts even sound a bit weary.
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Ken Casey
The president bet the tariffs would bring American factory jobs back. There's a new report out that says
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Ari Melber
it didn't work with higher energy costs right now.
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Ambassador Dennis Ross
And you drop tariffs in on top of that, you have some real inflationary concern.
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Jay
The big beautiful bill which Trump is
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Ari Melber
talking about on the stump has a terrible reputation.
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Jay
People don't like it.
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Ari Melber
Even Trump's base doesn't like it. Even the base. And politics is always about more than just the scorecard or the policy record. There is a mood and a vibe and whether it's even cool anymore to stick with this version of Trump. We can show you a UFC fighter talking to a MAGA podcaster. Keep in mind, both of these folks backed Trump as recently as 24.
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Brian Hyatt
It is kind of crazy, dude, how mainstream that, how unpopular Trump is when we're talking about, like hardcore Republicans. And even these guys are like, I just, I can't do any more Trump. I just like, I feel betrayed.
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Ken Casey
The people that have voted you, that
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Brian Hyatt
rallied around you, like you actively just spit in their face.
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Ari Melber
Blunt, but an assessment many recognize. Democrats now have a double digit lead in what is the generic congressional ballot. Over in Texas, the Democratic candidate is up five points over a hand picked Trump Republican again showing that the Trumpier the race the bigger problem for Republicans. So is there something larger here? I want to bring in our friend Che Kohman Duri for a special Che Day right after this break.
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Disclosure Day Narrator
Watch Disclosure Day at home now with exclusive bonus features. If you found out we weren't alone, if someone showed you, proved it to you, would that frighten you? Well, now the truth belongs to 7 billion people in an original event film directed by Steven Spielberg from a screenplay by David Koepp starring Emily Blunt, Josh o', Connor, Colin Firth, Eve Hewson and Colman Domingo. Find Disclosure Day on major digital platforms now with no subscription required. Also in theaters.
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Ari Melber
Simone Sanders Townsend and I have known each other for more than a decade, tussling over politics and policy when she worked in the White House and I reported on it. And now we're friends and colleagues and on our podcast Clock it, we are positioning ourselves at the intersection of culture and politics. Clock it is where we talk about what we we see and hear in the news. So you can start to clock it too.
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Brian Hyatt
Clock it with Simone and Eugene. All episodes available now.
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Ari Melber
It's a special day on the beat. It is Che Day. Many of you know the day is named after Cheiko Mendhuri, the political savant and Obama campaign veteran memorialized in that cartoon. Welcome back, Jay.
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Jay
Good to be back, Ari.
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Ari Melber
We had fun watching the comics skewer Donald Trump's failures at comedy, but there seems to be more going on there. And I'm not just saying that, as you know, a journalist on TV looking for an angle. I've seen years where the White House correspondence dinner is something we almost completely ignore. But the larger problem he had executing in the speech, communicating, keeping one train of thought and the larger potential mood in the country. The floor is yours.
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Jay
Yeah, I mean, Andrew Breitbart said politics is downstream of culture. And I think we talk a lot about policy and politics, but I think MAGA and Trump have lost the culture. Put it quite simply, Trump is not cool anymore. And I know a lot of Ms. Viewers may be like, well, when was Trump ever cool? Well, I would say 18 months ago. You remember after he won the election, you had Hollywood stars like Sly Stallone go down to Mar? A Lago. You had big country music stars like Carrie Underwood associated herself very much with Trump. Morgan Whelan, you know, the stormed off the set of SNL as a sign that he was not down with the woke comedy of Saturday Night Live and wanted to get back to God's country, the places that voted for Trump. You had athletes doing the Trump dance in football, in UFC. Kristen Pulisic, the U.S. soccer team captain at the time, did it as well. Now nobody's doing the Trump dance. The last time you saw the Trump dance was when Belgium did it after beating the US to mock Trump. You don't see any stars or celebrities or musicians who want to associate themselves with Trump at his America 250 celebration. He couldn't get anybody to perform. He couldn't even get Milli Vanilli to accept his invitation to be at that America 250 celebration. So it has fallen quite far for Trump. He is no longer seen as cool. He is no longer seen as. Ascendant. And the MAGA brand is not seen that way either.
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Ari Melber
I think that makes sense what you're saying. I mean, we have the Washington Post here talking about a lack of enthusiasm for Republicans, even among a traditional MAGA base that they see as downright, quote, scary. As you said, downstream from the culture. Is this a general mood that he is played out that he didn't just lie to the other guys? You know, politics can be very much a competition that's zero sum and people will excuse certain things on their side. I think when the history is written and you look at the inflection points that actually hurt Trump Epstein, the war, and of course these prices people have to pay, these are all areas where people aren't saying, oh, I never knew he lied. I never knew he exaggerated claims about his Democratic opponents, but rather, oh, he rolls like this on you. He's as disloyal to the people who are loyal to him as he is fierce and angry at everyone else. And while you mentioned our viewers, yes, informed news viewers might say, I noticed that with Michael Cohen first year out, I noticed that with a bunch of other stuff. The scattershot has gone so wide now that as mentioned, the podcasters who don't follow every detail, people who are just kind of looking up and noticing big storylines say, oh, wait, he betrayed them, as that podcaster put it, on everything.
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Jay
Yeah, I mean, I think what has really happened is Trump to a lot of Americans, now just looks like a normal politician whom they dislike. You know, when Trump first burst on the scene, what did people say? Oh, he was authentic. He was refreshing. He spoke his mind. You know, he promised to do things that other politicians would not do. Well, we've had 10 plus years of it and where has it gotten us? You know, we have an affordability crisis. People cannot afford housing, people cannot Afford healthcare. People cannot afford to meet their daily needs. We have a war in the Middle east caused by Trump. We have continuing conflict around the globe, all of which Trump has put gasoline on those fires. So Trump now looks just like a normal politician who said what he said to get power and is now breaking all the promises to the people who voted for him.
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Ari Melber
Yeah, it makes sense when you kind of sketch it out clearly. They say you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows, Jay.
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Jay
Right.
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Ari Melber
But sometimes you need a Che day. See the political wins. That's high Dylan esque praise, sir. Thanks for being here.
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Jay
Thank you.
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Ari Melber
Appreciate it. Our thanks to Che. We have Dylan on the mind because by the end of the hour, we're going to look at artists confronting big political interests from the old school to Trump. Today. There is a new Rolling Stone magazine feature and we have the special segment on that tonight, if you stick around. Next, though, we're going to look at the Republicans who are still making trouble for Donald Trump's Attorney General nominee with a vote this week. Most of Trump's Cabinet nominations have of course, been confirmed by his fellow Republicans in the Senate. But Todd Blanche's confirmation vote for Attorney General this Thursday still remains an open question of whether he has the votes. And that's already more of a setback than most of the Cabinet members he would join have confirmed. And it's all because two Republican senators are actually still using their power, at least as of tonight, to withhold their votes for concessions. Senator Cornyn even saying that this vote might be postponed past this week, which is pretty far from what the White House wants, which is him to announce beforehand that he would vote yes. Both of those Republican senators discussing the push to stop Trump's proposed but then frozen billion dollar crime fund.
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Ken Casey
Were you on Todd Blanche?
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We're still waiting on getting the changes
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Ari Melber
that are necessary in 1776 and audit. It has to be in writing and
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Ambassador Dennis Ross
signed by Todd Blanche.
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Ari Melber
Do you need to see that by
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Ken Casey
Thursday in order to be able to
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vote him out of commission?
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Brian Hyatt
Yes.
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Ken Casey
And can we?
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Ari Melber
So right now he should not be
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Brian Hyatt
counting on your vote unless that is done.
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Jay
Is that correct? That's correct.
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Ari Melber
The sound you are hearing is a Republican senator actually drawing a line saying he'll vote against what Trump wants. And AG is one of Trump's big priority positions unless they actually get this concession in writing, which Blanche suspiciously has resisted under oath. But we are not moving forward with the fund. Not moving forward ever.
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Ken Casey
Correct.
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Ari Melber
Oh, there's no more fun then, is
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Ambassador Dennis Ross
There any way that you could put this in writing?
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Ari Melber
I'm not committing to putting anything in writing. I'm going to set it today over again. Suspicious Cornyn, at the confirmation hearing, pressed on that very issue,
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Ken Casey
you have said
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that the weaponization fund is a moot issue. Is that your position?
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Ari Melber
Yes, it is a moot issue.
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Brian Hyatt
I suppose if President Trump's counsel sought
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Ari Melber
to enforce it, they potentially could, including the weaponization fund.
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Brian Hyatt
Well, they could try to enforce the contract.
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Ari Melber
Yes, they could. This is not complicated. If they really wanted to commit to ending the fund, they would end it. They are not doing that. You don't need to be a lawyer to understand that. The double talk, not wanting to put it in writing, the mealy mouth answers about, well, maybe somebody else could revive the thing that we. You haven't ended it. If you ended it, it would have ended. And that is suspicious because all kinds of people, from these Republicans to police vets to independent legal experts think that handing out your taxpayer money to convicted MAGA allies is a bad idea. Meanwhile, Epstein survivors also arguing against confirming blanche. Senate Democrats also raising new questions about the subpoenas to the New York Times, which we should note were already withdrawn. Another sign that pressure works. Maybe they could be revived later. But funny how when the White House and DOJ need a vote, they suddenly get a lot more cooperative even with requirements of the rule of law. This is a big story. We will stay on it. You can bet that the beat as well as all of Ms. Now will be covering the high stakes confirmation vote this week if it comes on schedule. Now I'm going to fit in a break and when we come back, we look and another problem Donald Trump faces. We've been talking about his problem sort of not being cool anymore. Well, he also faces a resurgent protest movement when we come back
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Jay
home to
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Ari Melber
the Rachel Maddow Show, Morning Joe, the
- [30:23]
Jay
briefing with Jen Psaki and more voices you know and trust. Ms. Now is your source for news,
- [30:29]
Ari Melber
opinion and the world. Learn more at Ms. Now. Donald Trump has now crashed to the lowest approval rating of any president at this point in their term, a rough 34%. For comparison, Nixon fell to around 30% even later in his second term as protests, the war and Watergate dragged down what was a once popular and defiant Republican. That may sound familiar because while the people change, history does follow certain themes. Both of those men were counted out and staged political comebacks. And those comebacks stoked their grievance and defiance, which then fed a governing style full of overreach, which and we're seeing this in real time tonight, sapped their own recently higher support. Both men had plots to kneecap elections, to punish dissent, to try to control the free press, generating those larger backlashes sometimes than had they just left well enough alone. Now, last generation's protests or Woodstock are really echoed in what we see today, ongoing huge no Kings rallies. And as I mentioned, just as the politicians change, so do the people who form the rebels and protesters fighting them. Nixon was facing a young anti war coalition and a burgeoning civil rights movement with a soundtrack by popular singers from Motown, rock and folk who kept hammering that unpopular aging incumbent. Today's protests are also huge and they channel contemporary styles and methods. There's been coordinating online and action in the streets. There's been ice out pins and other ways that people try to visualize and show their opposition to these Trump policies. We've seen young musicians who maybe didn't emerge from the same type of politics or even sort of sincerity of the original folk movement. These are artists who grew up making art in the more corporate worlds of streaming and social media. And yet we should note how many of them have protested Trump stealing their music for ICE propaganda or gone on to mock Trump as a joke, albeit a dangerous one in their view. Then there are classical icons from Neil Young to Bruce Springsteen, also penning new protest anthems for the MAGA era we're living through right now. I mention all this because many of these artists are featured in a brand new Rolling Stone list of the 25 best Trump era protest songs, part of the magazine's famed series of these kind of canonical lists, which often get music fans arguing with each other for weeks, months, even years. Best album, best protest anthem, and on it goes. And I'm thrilled to tell you tonight on the Beat, we have an exclusive from Rolling Stone's new list. I'm going to play for you briefly some of the contemporary songs on it, which range from Springsteen as mentioned, to that rap anthem that was basically saying forget Donald Trump because he doesn't have the answers.
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Ken Casey
City of flame fought fire and ice Neath an occupier's boots King Trump's private army from the DHS.
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Black diamond people in Listen to your
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Ari Melber
women, Stop killing black children, Make America
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Ken Casey
great again, Whatever it takes, Rid this dictator POTUS my tail Debater no more
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Ari Melber
greed again Got me. On your way. That song you just heard, Citizen Ice, goes right at how Donald Trump has changed. Many observed distorted recruitment to ice. They've poorly trained an army for our kids to fear. Today Take your mask and weapon and be on your way. Dropkick Murphy's Ken Casey joins us now, fresh off a stage in Italy. And as part of the list, Rolling Stones, Brian Hyatt. Welcome to both of you.
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Ken Casey
Thank you.
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How you doing? Good to be here. I'm coming to you live from the mayor's office. I hijacked mayor's office. We're playing in front of City hall today, and I came in the mayor's office.
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Ari Melber
Well, that's fitting, Brian. Yeah, you look. Brian, you're in our studio, and you look very official with government buildings behind you. But I'll tell viewers those aren't, you know, necessarily the real ones. And, Ken, you're doing the real deal abroad, so we'd love to see you getting a little municipal action. I guess I'll start with you, Ken. We have the song. I'm gonna play a little bit more of it so our viewers can hear it again. Remember it? I'd love to have you talk about what it means to you and how it's been received in America and abroad. But let's take a listen again to Citizen Ice.
- [35:50]
Jay
Out to be a co.
- [35:53]
Ari Melber
Citizen. I say, hey, Let's go, Ken. Tell us about it.
- [36:08]
Ken Casey
I mean, it's like a, you know, mock recruitment song for Ice Making. Making fun of their, you know, just inadequacies and, you know, the cosplaying as military people trying to, you know, just bully the citizens of the United States. And, you know, out of all the music on that list, thank you for including us, Rolling Stone. We're obviously the most aggressive, and we're a punk band, and we need to turn the volume up the loudest and be the kind of mode in your face. And our goal is to normalize speaking out. And when you say it loud and you say it without reservation or fear, then that's what gives people courage to. To step out. There's. There's plenty of other musicians that can do it in a more of a thinking man's way, but we're. We're there to kick the door down, you know?
- [37:04]
Ari Melber
Yeah. And, Ken, how has it been received?
- [37:10]
Ken Casey
I mean, people. People love it because people are pissed and people want to scream along. You know, they. They folk songs are great. You know what I mean? Obviously, we're carrying the tradition of Woody Guthrie, but turning up the volume times 10. You know, we're in Europe now, and we feel like we say what we say from stage, even if it's the Deep south or, you know, a European country who hates Trump. When we're over here, we feel like we're doing it to just let the world know. Like, most of the people in America are not okay with this. You know, we just came out of Scandinavia a few days ago, and here you have these countries, you know, that, that, you know, the new boogeyman. First. First it was trans, it was immigrants, and now apparently it's going to be communism. And, you know, you look at these countries in Scandinavia that just, they're probably more free and open markets than America is from a. From a, you know, capitalism perspective. But at the same time, they have, they take care of the people, they have good social services and people are happy. And it's like that's all that Americans want. And now we're being made to be the boogeyman for, you know, just wanting some health care and wanting my children to be able to afford a house someday and all that. And, you know, so I'm just going to keep being as loud as possible to just, you know, go down swinging if I have to.
- [38:32]
Ari Melber
Yeah, appreciate that. Brian, what comes through in the songs that made the list?
- [38:38]
Brian Hyatt
Well, a few things, I think, that we realized even as Trump teeters, as you said, on the edge of this truly historic unpopularity. It's also been 10 years of anti Trump songs, beginning, as you mentioned, with the YG song ftd, which he was very early with. It was in the 2016 campaign. And, you know, most recently, I think this, you know, certainly we had this amazing Dropkick Murphy song and then also the very, very powerful Bruce Springsteen song Streets of Minneapolis that came alongside a number of songs that addressed the deaths of Alex Peretti and Renee Goode. I think that musicians were stepping up to make sure that these sort of crimes were not forgotten, that these names were not forgotten. And I think that's one of the things that music can do.
- [39:32]
Ari Melber
Well, it's really powerful. You mentioned that, Brian, and many viewers remember songs that met the moment and it's harder to meet the moment. They call it the first draft of history and reporting because you don't know where everything's gonna land. And so if you look at a song like Ohio, it was news and it crystallized for people, government brutality. And you mentioned Springsteen here I have some of the lyrics where he says, and this is, as you mentioned, real time. Trump's federal thugs beat up on his face in his chest. And then we heard the gunshots and Alex Freddie lay in the snow dead. Their claim was self defense, sir, just don't believe your eyes. You tell us about that, Brian, and how you sort of assess as Rolling Stone, of course, is kind of the ultimate arbiter here, how you assess that type of impact.
- [40:23]
Brian Hyatt
I mean, for someone like Springsteen. I think, as you mentioned, the timeliness was a huge part of this. He went into, you know, he's lucky enough to have a studio on his property, but he went in the studio pretty much the day Alex Preddy was killed and recorded this song. I believe he had members of the E Street Band backup singers were. Came out in the snow, drove out to his farm to get the backing vocals on, and they mixed it and mastered and got it out. So some of it is timeliness. Some of it is, you know, the
- [40:53]
Ari Melber
power of the word.
- [40:54]
Brian Hyatt
Some of it is who's talking. I think, you know, one of the things that Dropkick Murphy's do that is so special is that you guys can. Are sometimes talking to people who may not agree with you. You're not talking always to the con. And I've seen you kind of confront your audience. I think that's really brave and powerful. And someone like Eminem is an example of someone whose fans aren't all naturally along with him in being anti Donald Trump. So when he steps up, we pay attention. So it's kind of a combination of things. My favorite is that Nicki Minaj actually had a song where she took on Trump before completely changing her mind. So that was probably my favorite inclusion on the list.
- [41:34]
Ari Melber
Ken, did you want to respond to anything Brian said?
- [41:39]
Ken Casey
Yeah, I mean, I definitely feel like we are. We're kind of on the front lines with a very working class audience. And I feel like we're definitely. This is no good or not worth its weight if you're just preaching to the converted. And yeah, we do take a message out to people that, you know, I see people walk out of our shows when I say what I gotta say. And hey, you know, if you're that offended from listening to me talk for 45 seconds about the state of our country, which, by the way, we've been doing since 96. We've always sung about, you know, politics of the everyday, you know, working people and regular people trying to get by in this country. So I don't know why it comes as a surprise to anybody, but, you know, we'll. We'll always be there on the front lines speaking truth to power. We played at Alex Freddie's memorial site one day and they all, we want to be on the front lines of this just because we know that it's right and you know, if you've been a band for 30 years and you don't step up and you know, what was it all worth in the end if America, you know, loses its freedoms and you stayed quiet? And so that's where I come from with this. And, you know, and it's great to see other artists. I wish there were more artists doing it.
- [42:55]
Ari Melber
Yeah, I hear you on that. I think this has been a special discussion. Really interesting. Folks can go online, of course, go to Rolling Stone and they've got the whole list there which is ripe for learning and debate. So thanks to Brian from Rolling Stone, Ken Casey from Dropkick Murphy's. The weeknight starts now. Join Ms. NOW Live in Texas for
- [43:20]
Brian Hyatt
our biggest event yet with Rachel Maddow, Jenny Psaki, Michael Steele and more. Ms. NOW live Together in Texas September 26th. Get tickets today at Ms. Now together.