← The Beat with Ari Melber
The Beat with Ari Melber
Trump DOJ Backs Down From Failed Probe Into Fed Chair
00:40:54
The DOJ has closed its probe into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, clearing the way for Trump's new pick, Kevin Warsh, to lead the bank. MS NOW's Ari Melber reports.
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- [00:00]
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Ari Melber
Hey, what's your pin?
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- [01:02]
Ari Melber
Welcome to the Beat. I'm Ari Melber. We all know about Friday news dumps. It is when the government or some entity wants to hide something. We have a version of that tonight, the Trump administration losing again. We've reported on their many failed efforts to indict or probe enemies or perceived critics. Well, now the doj, in a stunning reversal, is finally backing down from what had already been a failed subpoena, quashed, attempted probe into the Federal Reserve chair who wields power over the economy. Trump thought that he could abuse DOJ powers to berate Powell, Jerome Powell, into either doing what he wanted in the economy or maybe quitting the job that failed. Now part of this is the Trump DOJ and the administration blinking in a standoff with the Senate because Trump had put a new person forward for that job under the normal cycle of order, Kevin Walsh to lead the bank. And he couldn't do that, said senators who actually drew a line regardless of his qualifications if what they viewed as this flimsy or bogus probe continued. This comes days after the U.S. attorney for D.C. a face you might remember from Fox News, Jeanine Pirro, was claiming that they were going to continue even as they ran into brick walls in court, including judges quashing subpoenas last month. That was a sign they didn't even have enough to hold down subpoenas, let alone an indictment this is the latest of the very, very, very large list of supposed enemies who have faced this kind of probe, subpoena, indictment, retaliation. You see on your screen, many of these have failed. You can see the Powell case on the upper left dropped now. That's our update. Obviously, we recognize there's a lot to track if you looked at all the stamps, but the overall theme is of them failing. Indeed, if you looked for a single win, meaning they actually had enough evidence to convict a person, well, they are O and 20 plus at this point. Pirro announced this not in a formal press conference or a letter to Congress, which has been involved in oversight, but on that favored platform of so many Trump officials who are sometimes performative and more interested in X than results. She posted this on X. I have directed my office to close our investigation. She won't hesitate to restart it, though, if the facts warrant it. Notice that even in backing down, they're kind of referencing the idea that maybe the facts did not warrant it. The probe dropped as lawmakers, including Republicans, called this out for the fact. Free evidence, free likely retaliation that it was.
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Political Commentator
U.S. attorney Jeanine Pirro says the Department of Justice is dropping the criminal probe
- [03:47]
Ari Melber
of Fed Chair Jerome Powell.
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Political Commentator 2
There was sort of no grounds that anybody could find for the charges or for the effort. I think it's a good outcome. It's something that I felt should be done for a number of weeks.
- [03:57]
Ari Melber
I said I can't go forward until this bogus investigation is done with. Jerome Powell stood tall. He stared down the president. Tell the prosecutors in D.C. to do their homework before they launch a criminal investigation without a referral from Congress. Several of the voices you heard there are Republicans. And if you're thinking, gosh, they sound a lot tougher than they used to or even last year, well, this fits with the other big storyline this week, that Trump's polling is crashing, that major figures with larger followings than Republican senators on the right, like Megyn Kelly and Tucker, have been hitting Trump. We have more on that later. And so the whole mood has changed. Also fighting works, one of the quoted Republican senators there had said, as I mentioned, but it bears underscoring, they weren't going to move forward. They weren't going to give a vote to the next guy until this bogus case was dropped. Now, if this were a legitimate case, if all the facts were there, you wouldn't necessarily want Congress doing that. You need to trust their judgment if they're going to draw that firm align with another branch of government. But I showed you the chart when there's this many baseless open probes, some of them already dismissed and defeated in court, yes, you can draw a line and credit to the Republican who did. Now, we know the DOJ has been in crisis. We know Trump already fired Attorney General Bondi over partly these type of cases, not going anywhere. And now you have her deputy who's Acting Attorney General Blanche, trying to make all kinds of moves to show Trump that he can be as partisan as Bondi and maybe get more partisan results. He's striving to silence critics on the right with a conspicuous salvo of actions demonstrating what they view as progress on Trump's priorities. This is how the Times reports it. Among them, quote, payback against Trump's adversaries. Now, that's just a normal New York Times report. That's just a description of the reality. But keep in mind, that's not okay. That's not normal. We're now in a place where you have government officials admitting they're trying to show off that they are going to break the rules against selective prosecution. They want to revive the probes that failed against Comey and James. She recently appeared on the beat and discussed how she is not intimidated by what was then a failed probe. And they want to go at the CIA chief John Brennan, who has become, of course, like other government officials, someone who uses his First Amendment rights, sometimes criticizes a government he once served. You watch the news, you probably see on any channel a lot of former government officials giving their views. That's kind of part of our democracy, certainly part of our Constitution. And yet the fact that his views have been critical of Trump appears to be pushing an effort to, to literally criminalize his past CIA service. Because everybody knows back in the 2016 campaign, there were credible concerns about Putin and about Russian assets and Russian meddling in the election. He was involved in that. In the Times reports, few tasks are as central to mollifying this, demanding Trump as fast tracking that Brennan indictment, despite multiple inquiries failing to show evidence of any wrongdoing. I should mention again, he was a former CIA chief. Full disclosure. Brennan has been an analyst for us for years, not unlike other people from the military and national security wing. We have generals as analysts, we have former politicians. You've probably seen it. So full disclosure on that. But he is speaking out now on what is also in the news, the effort to go after him, he and others say, for his First Amendment rights. Take a.
- [07:22]
Todd Blanche
It's clear that this administration, Trump administration, wants to continue to try to assert
- [07:28]
Ari Melber
that there was some wrongdoing and I am quite proud of what we did to uncover and expose Russian interference in that 2016 election. They claim to be part of the Republican Party. This is not the Republican Party that I work with. Brennan speaking out. We've heard others speak out. Remember when I showed you that list? There are also people on there who are not as prominent a person as a former CIA chief who brings a certain kind of power and institutional relationships and may have better access to law firms, may have more funds. Some of the individuals are prominent. They're later in their careers. They have money, which is part of this. But I also have people on that list that include first time congressional candidates and junior members of Congress, people on public salaries who don't have those benefits. Tonight, we are following another loss for this agenda. But it's an agenda that can still hurt people and undermine our democracy even as it sputters in court. With that in mind, I want to turn, as we sometimes do on Fridays, to a very special guest, credible on both the law and the particulars of this Trump environment that we're in. Ty Cobb served as a White House attorney in the first Trump administration, as a former federal prosecutor with the Justice Department. Welcome back, sir.
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Ty Cobb
Good to be with you, Ari.
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Ari Melber
I mentioned the inner branch issues in the Fed case because both things I think are true. And I'm eager for our viewers to hear your views. Number one, Congress does have an oversight role, but you don't want the meddling in every case for any reason other than factual, valid oversight. Number two, these cases have been failing and the Fed case had already gotten problems in court. And tonight you see the DOJ basically throwing in the towel. And even as Blanche and others try to show Trump wins here, it would appear that both the Senate and the facts beat the revenge effort. I'm curious your view on how we should understand what is a big loss for them.
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Ty Cobb
So it's a huge loss. I think the essence of what happened today is a confession that it was always baseless, it was always political, it was always revenge, retribution oriented, designed to intimidate pal. You know, Judge Boasberg rightfully decided in connection with the subpoenas that were thrown out that there simply was was zero evidence. And today was largely a concession of that. When you say they've thrown in the towel, I guess I would caveat that they put it on the floor, but they haven't, they haven't let go of it. You know, as Piro said, you know, she's, she wouldn't hesitate to reinstitute It I'm not sure what's to prevent her from doing so, given Trump's narcissistic impulses toward retaliation and retribution once Warsh is confirmed. And if I'm Tillis, this really isn't the finality that I had demanded. And certainly if I'm Powell, who said I'm not gonna leave the Fed unless and until this is transparently and definitively finalized with a resolution in his favor, I'm not sure I would leave the Fed based on what Pirro said today. But is a walk away. It's embarrassing. And the other thing about it I think is sort of interesting is the way she tried to package it, as though she somehow had anything to do with what the inspector general at the Fed is doing. She doesn't have any authority over the inspector general at the Fed. She has no ability to have them initiate a case, and they have no obligation to her. The Fed reports to Congress, which, as the IG said in a statement today, that they were hoping to wrap this up and report to Congress, not to Pirro. And I think a fact that really gets lost in the mix here is Pirro's pretense that she somehow initiated an IG investigation is belied by the fact that Powell himself referred this to the inspector general well over a year ago.
- [11:36]
Ari Melber
Right. No, I think. And I appreciate both your nuance and those facts. When you look at Republicans pushing back. I mean, you've been both a man of the law where you go into court and you deal only with the evidence, but you've also been, as I mentioned, in White House and Washington, and there's other dynamics. What do you see here in the dynamics where some of those Republicans didn't make as much noise about some of the other discredited case load? Something about the Fed, obviously, and perhaps the environment I mentioned move them. What do you think about that?
- [12:09]
Ty Cobb
Well, there are two things. One, you know, keep in mind that the alleged basis for the investigation was in large part based on Powell's testimony before Congress. Congress didn't make a referral claiming there was anything irregular about that testimony. It was at the unilateral behest of Pirro and Trump that that allegation arose. And so there's, you know, Congress does have an interest here. And also these, the people on the Hill have dealt with Powell for years. I mean, he's been a. He's been a significant figure in financial policy going back to Bush 1.
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Ari Melber
Yeah.
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Ty Cobb
You know, 20.
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Ari Melber
Let me slow you down, Ty, because, sure, you're making a Great point. That while there's all kinds of issues, you're making the point that this is congressional turf, this is not like El Chapo, and they're coming in and there's only a certain broad oversight. This is something that was either allegedly an offense committed precisely because of Congress convening an under oath type proceeding, or not. And so you're saying they had basically more authority.
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Ty Cobb
Yes, and it is. I mean, I think that your use of the word turf is absolutely correct. And I think that's one of the reasons that they were concerned about the, you know, political football that it turned into, because it really was their game. And, you know, Trump, Trump tried to suit up and say, put me in, coach, but, you know, he really, really business doing that, other than, you know, what we've seen with Comey and others in terms of revenge prosecutions and trying to weaponize the Justice Department to bring about political ends. Something that we got through most of the last 240 years with the exception of Watergate without, and the ethics rules that were generated as a result of Watergate creating the independence or reaffirming the independence of the Justice Department. And that's been honored in the past 50 years until. Until this term when, you know, Trump has tried to use the Justice Department with the assistance of Bondi and now Blanche, you know, to beat up his enemies and bring about policy changes.
- [14:21]
Ari Melber
Yeah, we're usually pretty serious in our colloquies, Ty, but I believe you may have made your first musical reference on the show. Put me in, coach. I'm ready to play center field. So we love it when it happens. I wanted to show you how Blanche is auditioning. I know that you care, as I do, and any good standing member of the bar does, about the right to counsel. Former President Trump stood as the first former president indicted of multiple serious things, and he had every right to counsel, and the best counsel he could get, full stop. What's interesting, though, is how Todd Blanche seems to try to go beyond that and make a kind of make his political bones about this. Not that, okay, you can represent someone, sure, but rather that no one would, and he would. And it's of a piece with other comments he's been making that seem to try to remind not only Trump, but perhaps other sort of MAGA figures who might matter, that he can be as or more partisan than Bondi. Here he was.
- [15:22]
Todd Blanche
When we learned that Alvin Bragg was kicking the can, you know, kicking the tires and thinking about indicting the president, I was told, well, you got to Help us find a lawyer for the president in New York. And so I tried. I called all my colleagues and friends, all my Republican colleagues and friends, all my rockstar former prosecutor colleagues and friends who worked at small firms, big firms, have their own shops, and to a person, they all said no. I said, well, I can't find anybody.
- [15:55]
Ari Melber
What do you want me to do?
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Todd Blanche
Let me show you my resume.
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Ari Melber
You also served a very different capacity. White House Counsel's office. Your. Your view?
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Ty Cobb
Well, I, I think sadly, Blanche, who, you know, did a. Did a stint as a. As an assistant U.S. attorney and apparently did it well, although never in a leadership capacity. I think the list of friends that he referred to has dwindled dramatically as we now that he's had to move his family to the totalitarian enclave near Mar A Lago. And his transformation from a real lawyer into a Trump henchman has been sad to watch, I think, and will be studied as a tragedy in character over time. I suspect he is definitely auditioning. And when he first was put in this position, there was much discussion, part of which I was part of, about the fact that, you know, now he had a short period of time in which to, you know, put together a parade of horribles that he could use as a basis to get the top job. And he's certainly well on underway. I mean, we've. We've got Cash Patel and the FBI with Blanche's imprimatur targeting reporters merely for reporting the facts of the FBI abuses associated with Patel's girlfriend. We've got the, you know, the Southern Poverty Law center case that Blanche tried to present as ordinary and not political this week, which is really a grotesque effort by the Justice Department to criminalize something that, you know, was not only standard procedure, but well known to the Justice Department to the point that the informants that they're now charged with paying, the information provided by those informants had been routinely shared by the Southern Poverty Law center with the Justice Department to protect America. But that was back when they were reporting on people like the proud boys who, you know, the Trump administration now embraces. I mean, if you're a white supremacist group, and the Southern Poverty Law center is at odds with that, and you want to protect the white supremacists. That's what they're doing. It's just shocking. It's part and parcel of the pardons for the January 6th people and the elimination of the prosecutors associated with that case and the FBI agents. So I think Blanche is trying to put together a series of Trump pleasing abuses with which he can secure the Attorney General job. I hope the Senate is paying attention and don't and will not fall for it.
- [18:43]
Ari Melber
Yeah, all well stated, including the nuance of what we've been witnessing here. Ty Cobb, I really appreciate your time as always checking in with you on on the end of the week. Thank you very much. And the beat will be back in 90 seconds.
- [18:59]
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- [19:19]
Ari Melber
Hey, how's it going? Yeah, good. Thanks.
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- [20:18]
Ari Melber
We went through some of the big news, including that big defeat for the Trump doj. Now I want to turn to, as promised, the wider mood, the vibe shift, the inflection point, the Rubicon. There's many, many terms I admit here in the news and politics. Sometimes we sound like we're covering some great Peloponnesian War every week. But there is an actual inflection. Americans are grappling with a bad Trump economy. Gas prices up, no signs of relief. Experts even discuss it as a sort of K shaped economy where the rich are getting richer. The Wall street big stocks rallied over the last two weeks, even amidst the war problems. But it's actually worse for everyone else. Today in New York City, we see veterans who are struggling and went to a food bank just to be able to eat, some of them doing worse than they were a few months ago. Here was a candid set of remarks with one of our reporters.
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Veteran Interviewee
I'm a veteran. I put my time and my service for my country. No, I didn't die, but I put my blood, sweat and tears. There's only two class of people now, the poor and the rich. You know, that's the way it is now. Seems like for every two steps we take forward, we take five steps backwards.
- [21:35]
Ari Melber
We try to cover what's going on, and we definitely want to include and channel the voices of people who are living through this. In this case, someone who says he's served his country and can't afford this economy. Now, this pessimism is not really new, and it also existed during the last term. Indeed, one of the problems with the Biden administration was that while they said they were making progress, regular people or the bottom 90% of the, you know, economic ladder were struggling a lot more with high prices than maybe the top 10%. There was a schism, and it was something that Donald Trump tried to capitalize on with his words, with his rhetoric, but now he's failing to address it. And that's a problem for Trump and the Republicans in the midterms because as I've told you this week, the reality is catching up with the politics. Democrats up 6. In a nonpartisan assessment of the pivotal battleground districts, new polling shows Americans prefer Democrats to run this Congress, given what they see as Trump and Republican failures. And disapproval for Trump is at a record 58% of this country disapproves of him. That means a heck of a lot of people statistically who once favored him and voted for him are done with him. And then you have what has been a fissure that has rattled the White House. People with millions and millions of followers who are credible on the issues of maga. This is not seen as obviously coming from the left or coming from out of the blue or someone that you've never heard of. We're talking about leaders who, from Fox News and the new important digital space are tied to the MAGA movement and audience. And they are voicing something huge, louder than Republicans on the Hill. Tucker and Megan are through with this.
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Political Commentator
They're pissed. They don't like the war. They don't like what's happening in their bank accounts. And they're starting to think the Democrats might be the better option on the economy. 21% of independents support this war on Iran. 21. You've got 79% of independents who are against folks. You cannot win elections like that. You got 80% of the independents against you, you're effed. You need to adjust something asap. They gave Trump a year and a half. He's done nothing other than make things worse. This is how they feel. If you read the polls,
- [23:54]
Ari Melber
it's bad for Trump. And people are speaking up who are credible in the MAGA movement now in politics. Sometimes we get too close to it and we start having these sort of intramural debates. People say, well, why didn't Tucker say this earlier? I fact checked him this week to remind people that it's not true, that this was a new development for him. He said he'd hated Trump in 21 and he had been playing a MAGA supporter because I guess he thought that would work for him. But when we get too far into those details, we forget that to most people listening, it won't matter why they changed and what percent of it was genuine. All that matters is the angry Americans that Megyn Kelly's talking about, the independents who are done with Trump, a third of Republicans who are done with Trump. All of that and amplified online is congealing into something that could be more than a revolt. It could be the largest blue wave in decades if something doesn't change. We have a special guest on this next. Jason Johnson is here. And we're going to get into all of this. So thanks for coming through. I want to continue with our breakdown. So Jason stands by, but Trump is facing now this approval crash. The trend is clear over basically the second term, and you can see we're very divided. Sometimes things move a little slowly, but it's now accelerated after the Iran war and the gas crunch. Trump is actually in a worse spot than any president in the modern era. The last three decades. Six months out from the election. Now with the midterms coming, only a third of Americans really approve of what's going on. The number is falling. Come November, it could face a midterm wipeout that goes beyond just what we might call a correction. I mean, even Republicans in office don't say they're going to hold the House. There is a thought they could lose the House by a good margin, maybe even lose the Senate. Or it could be worse than that. The kind of blue wave that will seal Trump as a lame duck, have his whole party and the markets looking well past him for the following two years. Or as big as what Obama discussed as the 2010 shellacking.
- [26:03]
Barack Obama
I'm not recommending for every future president that they take a shellacking like I did last night. You know, I'm sure there are easier ways to learn these lessons.
- [26:15]
Ari Melber
Now, Obama's approval at the time was about 50%, which again gives you the context of just how bad Trump is doing. That's a 17 point gap and there was still a revolt. Things are also more dire for the president when you look at specific issues. One other difference, and the reason why the number of decades you go back makes it a harder comparison, is that the Congress can be more redistricted and gerrymandered. So sometimes it takes a bigger wave election to make up for the same number of seats. But Republicans have been losing their effort to rig through redistricting, including that setback this week. So if there is a free and fair open election, it is looking bad. Now as mentioned on the economy when you break it out, Trump is polling worse than Biden's lowest mark on high prices and inflation. So anything Republicans have ever said about Biden and how the country rejected him on that applies to Trump now. And worse, in 2024, high prices was blamed on Biden and this was seen as a huge factor going into the Democrats November loss.
- [27:15]
Political Commentator
Rising fuel and food costs have angered many Americans heading into the midterm elections, putting Democrats control of the House and Senate at risk.
- [27:23]
Ari Melber
Inflation continues to take a major bite out of our pocketbooks since Biden took office, prices are up nearly 18%. One year into a Biden presidency, they
- [27:32]
Political Commentator
aren't happy to fill my car.
- [27:34]
Ari Melber
In the beginning it was $30. Now it's 70.
- [27:36]
Ty Cobb
Bidenomics has not been a compelling and resonant a term or package in the minds of a lot of voters.
- [27:45]
Ari Melber
Voters looked at incumbents. That was the Biden Harris team and they made their displeasure known. In 2008, Americans held George Bush and the whole party responsible for something that was partly attributed to them because incumbents are in charge and Republicans had vastly deregulated the financial markets. They were cozy with Wall Street. So when Wall street blew it, well, the public was mad and they took it out. The economic pain on the GOP
- [28:12]
Ty Cobb
meltdown. The American financial system is rocked to its foundation.
- [28:17]
Ari Melber
Lehman Brothers is going bankrupt.
- [28:19]
Ty Cobb
We're working to reduce disruptions and minimize the impact of these financial market developments on the broader economy.
- [28:27]
Ari Melber
Bush was in office for eight years. Ain't do nothing but ran the country down.
- [28:32]
Ty Cobb
And the Republican Party is getting a drubbing tonight.
- [28:37]
Ari Melber
Our friend James right there a beat guest. So that's what happens with even what they call macro events where everyone kind of knows well a financial crisis that was complicated. It might have been years in the making. It's not all and only one party's fault. And yet I told you why they held Republicans accountable. But some things are all one person's decision. And that's the case when it comes to starting a war in Iran, which now has gas prices up, inflation worse, no end game. Even when we get the straight open, it could be months till your gas prices go back down. And a lot of experts saying the US Is literally in a worse position than before the war started. Well, everyone knows one person, Donald Trump, started that war.
- [29:23]
Political Commentator
I think there's a lot of frustration with President Trump right now. Obviously, the left hates him, but you've got 80% of independents who are against this war, who I don't think are enjoying his little parlor games.
- [29:34]
Tucker Carlson
We're implicated in this for sure.
- [29:36]
New York City Mayor Adonis Mamdani
Yes.
- [29:37]
Tucker Carlson
It's not enough to say, well, I changed my mind, or like, oh, this is bad, I'm out.
- [29:42]
Political Commentator 2
We're supposed to sit here and love this crap.
- [29:45]
Jason Johnson
It's just poll numbers go straight down and all the polls show the Republicans are gonna lose the midterms in seven months by a landslide. A disaster.
- [29:53]
Political Commentator 2
A total and complete disaster.
- [29:57]
Ari Melber
Now, if you don't take all those people's word for it or you think they're not credible on some issues, definitely the case with Mr. Jones, then why believe them on this? And so here on a factual news program, we will match what the right is hearing, because that's going to matter to them and whether they stay home, et cetera, with the facts. A third of Republicans, according to the polling, now disapprove of Trump. The resilient MAGA base no longer resilient. That's worse than the numbers of the last Republican president who was trying to defend a different unpopular war in the Middle east, but one that was actually, by comparison to this, much more methodically presented to the public and the Congress. There was a whole vote and debate, and George W. Bush still had, by the end of all of that, a 27% approval rating, a disapproval rating. I mean, in this party, 65% approve. The bottom line is that they also had an unpopular war, but Bush was not as opposed by his party as Trump is now. In other words, anytime you hear someone say, well, Trump's got this resilient base and it's more resilient than others. Fact check. False. And again, first term Trump, they were resilient even as they lost the midterms. Second term Trump, no, George W. Bush, who might be a less voluble, loud, Trumpy, braggy person, actually was stronger with his base now than Trump. New York Times notes GOP moderates were warning Bush had to basically show gains on the Iraq issue. And it was bad enough that all of this was being discussed in depth as people were waking up on a less political environment, drinking their coffee, getting the kids ready for school.
- [31:33]
Political Commentator 2
Watching The Today Show, 11 Republican congressmen brought up to the solarium. They said, Mr. President, this war is a problem for us in our district. People are talking about it. They want us to figure out exactly how long we're going to be there, what is going to happen. You need to come clean with us, be blunt with us, be candid with us. These are GOP moderates. They are swing voters. If they go the other way, if they turn against the president on Iraq and join with the Democrats, the president understands he's in real political trouble.
- [32:09]
Ari Melber
That was the political trouble. It was well known. And Trump is in a worse spot than that in Bush's case. He started with a lot of Americans behind the war. There was a post 911 unity, and again, as I mentioned, but it really bears contrast. They spent months trying to explain why they were going to go to the Middle east, what this was about, what the case was, even if later it proved faulty and they held a true bipartisan vote in the Congress. That is decidedly not the case. With Trump rushing the country into war with Iran without so much as a national address or congressional vote, the fallout is clear. There's no end in sight. Gas prices up more than a dollar per gallon since Trump on his own started the war. Presidents facing big problems like this and surging gas prices often discuss how we got into this, sympathy for the public, how they're going to address it. I feel your pain was an old saying. That's not Trump.
- [33:10]
Ty Cobb
We're having serious times. Families are squeezed by the high price of gasoline and feeling the pinch of food prices.
- [33:18]
Ari Melber
If you told me that we were going to be at only 92 a barrel, $92 a barrel, I would have been very surprised.
- [33:26]
Jason Johnson
All right, so.
- [33:27]
Ari Melber
And you know what? I'm very happy.
- [33:29]
Barack Obama
I want gas prices lower because they hurt families. Filling up this gas tank gets more and more painful and is attacks out of their pocketbooks.
- [33:37]
Political Commentator
How much longer will Americans continue to see these high gas pipes?
- [33:40]
Ari Melber
Well, they're not very high.
- [33:42]
Ty Cobb
Another challenge that families are facing and the one I think they're most focused on right now, high gas prices. This is a problem.
- [33:50]
Ari Melber
I said, yeah, it's going to hurt the market and it's going to drive up the price of oil and whatever it is. But that's peanuts. Peanuts. There's more than one way to do a job. There's more than one way to be president. Donald Trump may have benefited from a kind of collective amnesia going into 2024, where people were mad about the high prices and didn't remember how he is, what he does, whether he really cares about the words coming out of his mouth, whether he's really going to look out for you. Well, they remember now. And when you talk about more than one way to be president, look at the approval numbers. The American public, including a lot of independents, conservatives, and some Republicans, have decided the way Trump is doing his job is worse than every president in living memory. Jason Johnson is here. Our report is called Numbers Don't Lie and we will break them down with him.
- [34:47]
Jason Johnson
Next,
- [34:49]
Ari Melber
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- [35:04]
Nicole Wallace Announcer
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- [35:38]
Barack Obama
I'm not recommending for every future president that they take a shellacking like I did last night. You know, I'm sure there are easier ways to learn these lessons.
- [35:51]
Ari Melber
That was a president with much better approval numbers than Donald Trump has right now. Still acknowledging a midterm problem. Bush also better off than Trump. Right now, we're joined by Jason Johnson. How do the comparisons stack up, Ari?
- [36:05]
Jason Johnson
The key difference here is that previous presidents had some accountability. They knew how to say to the American people, if the economy was going wrong, if people weren't happy about wars, they could say, hey, look, is it too late for me to say I'm sorry, right? Our current president is, it wasn't me. Am I the drama? I don't see it's the media's fault, it's the Democrats fault, it's Iran's fault. He takes no responsibility for anything. So when people are in pain, they're infuriated because they don't have somebody in the White House saying, I feel your pain. I understand it and give me a chance to course correct. And that's why you're seeing the numbers that you see. Unless Donald Trump magically becomes a different person, this is going to result in a massive, massive. Worse than a shellacking this fall for Republicans. And I used to just think it was going to be the House. It might be the Senate, too.
- [36:52]
Ari Melber
Right. And for power. The Senate matters a lot for story, because we all live through big stories. You know, One of the 24 stories, maybe overstated, was people underestimated that there was still some kind of Trump nostalgia or base in this country. And there was at that moment in time. But the overreaction to that at universities, at law firms, on Wall street is measurably wrong and embarrassing. And I believe history, we've documented it, history will render its judgment. If you're one of these law firms that threw out your entire soul and professional existence, which is to fight, you fight in court, and then you couldn't fight for yourself because you kind of thought Trump was like going to rule this country forever as a dictator. Yeah, I don't think that's going to play well. And I ask you, look ahead into this. These numbers, if they hold through November and it is a big loss, then how do all those groups respond?
- [37:54]
Jason Johnson
I think they're going to look back, and I completely agree with you. The universities, the law firms, they're going to be ashamed. Right. And this is not like the terrorists. Right. You're not going to be able to get a rebate. You can't get your reputation back. You've shown yourself, you know, to be somebody who capitulates. And I think, think long term, what it should show people is that fighting back, like the Southern Poverty Leadership center or something else like that, that is what you need to do. And I think, quite frankly, Ari, anyone who's lived through history, anyone who's lived through the first Trump term, they should have known, look, the fall off was going to be inevitable. Right. He came in based on serious problems in the previous administration, but it doesn't mean that people were going to be happy with him. And the fact that anyone capitulated in advance is just going to be their own shame in history.
- [38:39]
Ari Melber
What is the key for an unpopular president in the midterms? Because we've seen people create distance, Democrats tend to often do it more quickly. But everyone can think of Democrats, for example, who are in conservative areas. Manchin and others who said, hey, just be clear, I'm not that guy. I'm a different type of Democrat. Do you see Republicans trying to catch up with that? I mean, they own this president's war and economy because they've let it run. But what do you see politically?
- [39:09]
Jason Johnson
I don't think they can run away from it. And what's interesting, I love the sort of setup that you did was showing Megyn Kelly and Tucker Carlson and Alex Jones, because that is what many Republican politicians would like to do right now. Tucker Carlson knows that, hey, maybe somebody will occasionally find his receipt, but he can change and pivot because guess what? Carrying water for someone who's unpopular is going to hurt his ratings, it's going to hurt his views, it's going to hurt his energy, it's going to hurt his ability to advertise and sell whatever it is he sells. But if I'm an elected official, I can't run from my votes. We're not even talking about the big beautiful bill. We're not even talking about healthcare. They can't pivot away from decisions they've made. So even if you were to turn around today and say, I disagree with the war, I think Trump is mismanaging the economy, all of your voters and your constituents are like, well, your votes don't line up with what you're saying now.
- [39:57]
Ari Melber
Right. Exactly, Jason. We sometimes put on a track more than once. That's how a song becomes a hit. Everybody wants to keep running it. And I never thought I'd say this, but bars from Tucker. He really did cover some ground. And we've replayed it, admittedly, like a new hit, at least by the standard of politics. Here's Tucker.
- [40:21]
Tucker Carlson
We're implicated in this for sure.
- [40:23]
Ty Cobb
Yes.
- [40:24]
Tucker Carlson
It's not enough to say, well, I changed my mind, or like, oh, this is bad, I'm out. You and me and millions of people like us are the reason this is happening right now. I do think it's like a moment to wrestle with our own consciences. We'll be tormented by it for a long time. I will be. And I want to say I'm sorry for misleading people. And it was not intentional. That's all I'll say.
- [40:51]
Ari Melber
Even if not 100% accurate, it still seems to matter. On the right.
- [40:57]
Jason Johnson
It does. And I don't believe Tucker Carlson for one second when he says it wasn't intentional. He was fully aware. And as you pointed out, he used to dislike Trump. But look, credit to him for having his 8 mile moment where he's finally going to battle back and say, hey, I'm standing up for who I am and I've made my mistakes in the past and blah, blah, blah, you guys know everything about me. What else can you say? I wish, though, frankly, that the people who were MAGA influencers, when they make these kinds of decisions, then come up with a solution. Because at the end of the day, Ari, a lot of people are going to say, I'm unhappy with the Republican Party, I'm unhappy with Trump. But unless you vote for the opposition, unless you say, and now I'm going to change my vote, it's not good enough to stay home. You have to actually vote for the opposition in order to move the country in another direction. And until they're saying that, I don't believe anything he's got to say.
- [41:43]
Ari Melber
Understood. Jason Johnson, ending the week with hotel fire. Always good to see you.
- [41:49]
Jason Johnson
Thanks, Ari.
- [41:52]
Ari Melber
Appreciate it. One of the rising Democratic stars, Mayor Mamdani, is taking on Trump even after doing those meetings. And in a little bit of local news, he's doing it with Chris Hayes. We'll explain next. Turning pushback on Trump's deportation agenda. And an Ms. Now exclusive. New York City Mayor Zoran Mamdani making news on how he is going to continue to prioritize his beginning period in office to go at Trump's deportation. He's condemning ICE raids in the city. This is in a new exclusive interview that's going to air tonight, but we've got the preview for you with our colleague Chris Hayes.
- [42:35]
New York City Mayor Adonis Mamdani
My relationship with the president is important to deliver for New Yorkers. And I've made it very clear to the president that increased ICE presence, it would just be an increase on what we've seen with ICE raids, which is just cruel and inhumane. I've also been honest about the fact that I think ICE is an agency that should be abolished. It's a modern creation. Our country has had answers to immigration long before we had ice. And we also see that these kinds of raids. Just a few nights ago, ICE detained a delivery worker. This is a man who came to this city with the dreams of building up a life for himself and his family. No active investigation, no warrant. He finished a grubhub delivery and then was taken by armed, masked federal agents. That's what we're talking about here in New York City.
- [43:20]
Ari Melber
Mamdani turning campaigning into governing now. And you can hear him talking about how to address this and a whole lot more in what we expect to be a pretty newsworthy evening interview. You can see that preview there. But the whole thing is available only exclusively tonight at 8:00pm Eastern on Ms. Now for Chris Hayes Show. So we'll be right back. Wishing you a good weekend and tomorrow Saturday. You can always catch the Beat weekend where we have some special reports, key interviews, moments you might not have seen this week. That's Saturdays at 4pm Eastern.
- [43:55]
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