← The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell
The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell
Ali Velshi: Donald Trump's trade rhetoric is not only outdated, it's divorced from reality
00:42:31
Tonight on The Last Word: Conservatives slam Donald Trump’s tariffs as unconstitutional. Also, tourism from nations hit by Trump’s tariffs plummets. Plus, while leaving his White House role Elon Musk dodged a question about a New York Times reports on his alleged drug use on the campaign trail. And Trump pardons criminals convicted of tax and fraud crimes. Jared Bernstein, Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford, Ruth Ben-Ghiat, and Brendan Ballou join Ali Velshi.
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Ali Velshi
Avoiding your unfinished home projects because you're not sure where to start. Thumbtack knows homes, so you don't have to, don't know the difference between matte paint, finish and satin or what that clunking sound from your dryer is. With Thumbtack, you don't have to be a home pro, you just have to hire one. You can hire top rated pros, see price estimates and read reviews all on the app.
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Brendan Ballou
Download.
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Ali Velshi
Today, MSNBC Films presents a six part documentary series, David Frost versus On the final episode, the Middle east conflict.
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Brendan Ballou
Yasser Arafat told me the other day that he trusts.
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Aaron Ford
Do you trust him?
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Ali Velshi
Tomorrow at 9pm Eastern on MSNBC.
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Jen Psaki
The last word with Ali Velshi. Hosting starts right now.
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Brendan Ballou
Hey Ali, it's a great story and it's important that we know about this because he did this with the, with the, with the head of the Library of Congress. You know, this, this excuse, everything, the excuse is all the same. It's promoting DEI or whatever the case is. These are not performance issues. These are not people who have failed in their jobs. It's just if you like diversity or you think diversity is a value, not going to be in this administration in any fashion.
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Jen Psaki
These are museums, as you well know, in our nation's capital that are free and supposed to represent the country that they are living in. So all of these initiatives are great.
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Brendan Ballou
Yeah. But we're going to invent a fake country in which we're not fully represented. After all these years of trying to make sure everybody is, that's where we're headed. But thank you, my friend. You have a great week.
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Jen Psaki
Have a good night. Have a good show.
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Brendan Ballou
See you next week. Well, good evening to you. Tonight, Donald Trump took to social media at 8:09am to publicly lash out against China after a rollercoaster few days for Trump's illegal tariffs that were first blocked, then they were confirmed blocked by a federal court, then they were temporarily reinstated. Donald Trump accused China of violating a trade truce that he claims the two countries agreed to. Earlier this month, he posted, quote, I made a fast deal with China in order to save them from what I thought was going to be a very bad situation. And I didn't want to see that happen because because of this deal, everything quickly stabilized and China got back to business as usual. China, perhaps not surprisingly to some, this part's in all caps, has totally violated its agreement with us. So much for being Mr. Nice Guy. Donald Trump didn't specify how China violated the agreement with the United States, but it didn't stop him from repeating that allegation.
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Donald Trump
The tariffs on China, you said.
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Brendan Ballou
That they violated the agreement with the U.S. well, they did.
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Donald Trump
They were. They violated a big part of the agreement we've made. You know, if you read that whole statement, I was very nice to them. I helped them because they were in trouble with the stoppage of a massive amount of business. But I'm sure that I'll speak to President Xi and hopefully we'll work that out. But, yeah, that's. It's a violation of the agreement.
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Brendan Ballou
Never any specifics. Today, Bloomberg News reported that the Trump administration is planning to extend sanctions on China's tech sector. Donald Trump's antagonistic approach to trade with China has JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon sounding the alarm. At an economic forum this morning, he said this. We have problems and we got to deal with them. And then the biggest one underlying both that is the enemy within. I'm not as worried about China. China is a potential adversary. They're doing a lot of things well. They have a lot of problems. What I really worry about is us. Can we get our own act together, our own values, our own capability, our own management. Now, that's the important point here. It's not that there aren't things to deal with with China, but we seem to have more things to deal with here at home. According to the US Trade Representative, Jameson Greer, Donald Trump's latest outburst seems to stem from China China's reluctance to lift restrictions on rare earth metals.
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Ruth Ben Ghiat
The Chinese are slow rolling their compliance, which is completely unacceptable and has to be addressed. We haven't seen the flow of some of those critical minerals as they were.
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Brendan Ballou
Supposed to be doing now. These rare earths, US Automakers, for instance, rely heavily on those metals. Yet Donald Trump seems determined to continue to sell this fantasy that's actually disconnected from our manufacturing and economic reality.
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Donald Trump
All of the manufacturers will build their parts here, too. I mean, it used to bother me. They make a apart in Canada, part in Mexico, apart in Europe, and sent all over the place and nobody knew what the hell was happening. I think it's ridiculous. You build a car, make it in America, and I gave them a little leeway on that, you know, gave them some leeway. But over the next year, they've got to have the whole thing built in America. That's what we want.
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Brendan Ballou
Apart in Canada, a part in Mexico, a part in Europe, and nobody knows what the hell is happening. Car production and sales span continents. The engine might be designed in Germany. The lithium battery components might come from Canada. The parts might be assembled in Mexico and yes, they might all come together in Michigan or Ohio or Kentucky. Quote, they've got to have the whole thing built in America, end quote. Does not reflect anything about either the automobile industry or for that matter the entire global economy in 2025. It does not reflect the reality in this country either. The factories to make all the parts to make a car don't exist in America. It would take years to create them. And in many cases, the materials those non existent factories would need to make the parts that also don't exist in America. Donald Trump's trade rhetoric is not only outdated, it's divorced from reality. And his reaction to it is tariffs. His reaction to everything to do with trade is tariffs. Two federal courts have now said the tariffs are illegal and unconstitutional. In fact, Article 1, Section 8 of of the United States Constitution speaks to this very issue. It's crystal clear. The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises. Now that's some antiquated language, but it means tariffs. The Congress levies tariffs, not the President. Except for a few exceptions where Congress very specifically delegated tariff power to the President. But if Congress doesn't give it to you, you don't have it. And again, according to federal courts, that does not include these Trump tariffs. Even conservative outlets are making the argument that the Trump tariffs are illegal and unconstitutional. The Wall Street Journal editorial board says President Trump isn't a tariff king. The National Review editorial board says the tariff power properly belongs with Congress today. The Atlantic's Ilya Soman writes that Wednesday's ruling from the United States Court of International Trade against Donald Trump's tariffs was, quote, a victory for separation of powers, end quote. She continues, quote, the court ruled that Trump does not have the unbounded authority he claims to impose unlimited tariffs on goods from nearly every country. The British overthrew King Charles I in part because he tried to impose ship money taxes without legislative authorization. The President of the United States is no king and he does not have the power to impose taxes in the form of tariffs wherever he feels like it's. The court's decision upholds this fundamental principle of the Anglo American constitutional tradition, end quote. Yesterday, Donald Trump's National Economic Council chair called the ruling a, quote, hiccup. In a month or two, you're gonna look ahead and see that countries have opened their markets to American products, they've lowered their non tariff barriers, they've lowered their tariffs, and all the countries that have done that are being treated very Respectfully and very well by the United States, end quote. Kevin Hassett. The Trump White House has also responded to these rulings against his tariffs by yet again attacking the judges who ruled against Donald Trump, which of course included a judge that Trump himself appointed. Adam Serwer wrote about this Trump legal strategy earlier this month for the Atlantic in an article entitled Trump is tired of courts telling him that he's breaking the law. Quote, Chief Justice John Roberts warned in an appearance at Georgetown Law School that the rule of law is endangered. One reason for that is Roberts own opinion that the President is nearly immune to criminal prosecution for law breaking, a finding that has emboldened Trump to ignore the law. Immunity is apparently insufficient. However, Trump also wants the ability to violate the Constitution at will without meaningful resistance from the courts, end quote. I'd only disagree with Adam Serber in that he wants the ability to ignore the Constitution without any disagreement from the Court. In the Oval Office today, Donald Trump defended his tariffs yet again.
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Donald Trump
Without the tariffs, our nation would be imperiled. We would really be imperiled.
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Brendan Ballou
Again, lacking in detail, what is he talking about? The peril is a president who thinks he's the king and that the Constitution doesn't matter. That's the peril, not the tariffs. And no matter what he says, when Donald Trump launches a trade war, we pay for it. When Donald Trump attacks the rule of law, we pay for it. When Donald Trump's tariffs are ruled illegal, he creates more uncertainty. And the global economy pays for it, and we pay for it. That's not leadership. That is simply chaos. Joining us now is Jared Bernstein, former chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers in the Biden administration. Jared, the funny thing about tariffs is that some Democrats like them, some hate them, some Republicans like them, some hate them. There are valid reasons to use them. But tariffs are a tool in a complete toolbox. You need the complete toolbox to build the house. Donald Trump is trying to build the entire House with hammers.
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Jared Bernstein
Yeah, it's a great analogy. I mean, I often think of tariffs, well applied as much more of a scalpel than a sledgehammer. Yeah, the problem with Trump's approach is sweeping tariffs. It's a problem economically for many of the reasons you just took us through. We pay. I thought your points on that were spot on. But also it's, it's, it's not constitutional. And I thought the, if you read the opinion from the court, the International Court, it's actually crystal clear. Yeah, it's actually quite good.
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Brendan Ballou
Let's examine that for a Second, because people who don't think of themselves as constitutional experts, you don't need to. They wrote it out very clearly. They said he has two reasons he's imposed emergency tariffs. One is to fight fentanyl from China, Canada and Mexico. And the things he's doing are not actually dealing with fentanyl at all. And the other is that if he wants to impose tariffs everywhere else, he has a methodology by which he and Congress can do it. It's not an emergency either.
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Jared Bernstein
Right. And one other point they made was he keeps talking about the trade deficit as an emergency. The trade deficit was last seen at around minus 3% of GDP, sort of toggles around 2, 3, 4%. It's been there since 1976. Okay, so we have persistent trade deficits in this country. We can talk about whether that's good or bad. What we can talk about is whether that's some kind of emergency. Clearly, what Trump has done is illegal. And another dimension of that problem is now all of these negotiations, including the one with China, have a real monkey wrench thrown into them. If you and I are having an argument, Ali, and the court just rules that, you know, your side is wrong, even if that gets stayed the next day like this one did, that's certainly going to influence me and my position towards our argument. And so just every dimension of this is chaotic. It's bad for the economy, and it's, it's, it's an authoritarianism that is counter, counter to the Constitution.
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Brendan Ballou
Let's go back to economics for a second and talk about tariffs as a scalpel in aid of a manufacturing strategy. Tariffs as a scalpel in aid of an industrial policy. I just want to hear the industrial policy and the manufacturing strategy articulated, and then you and I can either argue or agree on whether this is the right or the wrong approach to it, but we don't have a goal. We've got. We're casting about without some goal. He just wants all the cars made in America. He just wants all the planes made in America. There's a reason these companies internationalize their stuff. Some of its business efficiency and some of it is marketing. The Boeing Dreamliner was made in I don't know how many different countries. So different countries feel that they've got some ownership of it. So different countries are inclined to buy that plane.
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Jared Bernstein
Yeah, I agree with all of that. As you were speaking earlier, I was thinking about the North American. Not the America, the North American auto production system. Canada, US, Mexico. There's some other parts that come into it, but that is a, that's actually a very highly efficient system. It's one that has, by the way, union members in all three countries. The UAW in Canada is a, a powerful union with support over here. So that's precisely the kind of supply chain you're talking about. It's been working very well. When you go from 25 to 50% on steel tariffs, as Trump threatened today in his speech in Pennsylvania, you add thousands to the cost of a car. So let's be clear about that. To your question on tariffs, there are really two uses that I think are legitimate. One is on a very narrow kind of overcapacity dumping, which happens not infrequently and tariffs have been used successfully. And now I'm talking about like Rubber Tire grade 4, and you're dumping that in this country. We're going to tariff you so that you don't illegitimately try to boost your market share by selling under cost. The other utility of tariffs, and we did this in the Biden administration, is to target a particular good or even a sector, but more often a good that we want to produce ourselves. And that's an embryonic industry. So electric cars.
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Brendan Ballou
Right.
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Jared Bernstein
You know, taxpayers were subsidizing and are subsidizing the building of an electric car sector in this country, unprotected. Without a tariff, that sector would have a really hard time competing with China, which massively subsidizes their electric car production. It has done for a long time. So that's a kind of protective use of tariffs that I think is legitimate. Both of those are scalpels, not sledgehammer.
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Brendan Ballou
So you talked about the steel tariffs. Donald Trump announced that steel tariffs will increase to 15. Important thing to recognize here. You want to protect industries and their workers. Right? But, but there's a distinction that needs to be made economically between the people involved in the production of steel and the people involved in industries in which steel is consumed. Give me a, give me the high level argument here.
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Jared Bernstein
So for every one person that makes steel in this country, domestic steel here in the US there are 80 workers who use steel as inputs into what they're. Think of construction workers, think of autoworkers, think of people who build computers and so on. So last time Trump did this in 2018, he actually set off a significant job loss, a couple of million jobs lost in the manufacturing sector because he made production so expensive for that 80 to 1 ratio of people who use steel in their job versus people who make steel. Right now, I'm not saying we should disregard steel makers in this country. And you know, there are ways to help them without hurting the vast, the much, much larger number of workers who use steel by making the price of that input so expensive.
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Brendan Ballou
And that's just one example of many things that are like that. One of the things that struck me when Donald Trump was talking about the parts from Canada, the parts from Mexico, and nobody knows what the hell's going on. We all know what the hell's going on. Supply chains. And this is you couldn't, you actually.
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Jared Bernstein
Couldn'T build anything if you didn't know what was going on. So you know what you're getting. You have inventories. You actually, that's not the problem.
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Brendan Ballou
Hey, where's the wheels coming from? I don't know where the wheels are coming from for this car. Oh, my God.
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Jared Bernstein
I can't believe efficiently and in fact, if you, if you find out that a wheel isn't coming in, yes, you have capacity to act quickly to get it. So at any rate, yes, that's all nonsense.
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Brendan Ballou
Jared, nice to see you as always. Thank you. Jared Bernstein. All right, coming up, we're going to talk to one of the Democratic attorneys general who sued Donald Trump over his tariff madness, plus the damage that can still be done by Trump's tariffs in states that depend on visits from international tourists to fuel their economies. Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford joins us. Next Sunday marks the first day of June, which begins the start of a busy summer vacation season. And in towns and cities where tourists flock, big businesses like amusement parks and hotels and small businesses like souvenir shops, that and that mom and pop burger joint on the boardwalk. For them, this is the time of the year when they make most of their money. In fact, some businesses make almost all their money in this season. Lots of people started planning their summer vacations at the height of Donald Trump's tariff madness. And as the Guardian reports, quote, holidaymakers in countries hit the hardest by Donald Trump's trade tariffs are taking the US off their list for trips abroad. According to online travel booking data, the hotel search site Trivago has seen double digit percentage declines in bookings to the United States from travelers based in Japan, Canada and Mexico. CNBC adds that the World Travel and Tourism Council said this month it expects the US economy to lose a staggering $12.5 billion in spending from international visitors in 2025, a direct blow to the US economy overall, impacting communities, jobs and businesses from coast to coast, end quote. And nowhere in America could be harder hit by the decline in tourism because of Donald Trump's trade war than Nevada. How critical is tourism to that state? Earlier this year, the Las Vegas Journal reported, quote, Nevada's tourism industry was responsible for nearly $100 billion in economic activity, produced more than 436,000 jobs, paying out $24.4 billion in wages and generated nearly one third of the state's general fund revenue in 2024, according to a new report from the Nevada Resort Association. Joining us now is Aaron Ford, Attorney general for the great state of Nevada. He was one of the Democratic state attorneys general suing the Donald, suing Donald Trump and his administration over those tariffs. We're going to adjust that camera and get it back in a second. Attorney General, are you, are you there? Can you hear me? There we go. Okay. We got your picture and we got your face. Nice to see you.
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Aaron Ford
Nice to see you. Great to see you again.
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Brendan Ballou
We don't have to really struggle with this. We can go back to Covid when people couldn't travel freely, when people couldn't come into the country, and Nevada was hard, hard hit. Anybody in Nevada understands the importance of the tourism industry. And anybody in the tourism industry in Nevada understands what international tourism brings to that state?
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Aaron Ford
No, absolutely. Look, I mean, you mentioned Covid. That's a great example, you know, and we all know that our economy is interlinked with the tourism industry. And if people don't visit Nevada, we feel the heat. And we're already feeling this heat. Look, I mean, at the end of the day, we know that Nevada status as a vacation hotspot has put us at a serious economic risk if the President continues this ridiculous course of action. You've already talked about what the RJ said, but recent data is showing that, for example, 6.5% drop in tourism between April of last year and April of this year. And around 900,000 more people have visited Las Vegas by April last year than they have this year. And we are absolutely experiencing that. The legislature right across the street here is in session right now dealing with hundreds of billions of dollars of budget deficit. Dealing with that because of not just the terrorists, to be sure, but certainly the chaos that have been, has been created because of these deaths.
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Brendan Ballou
And there's a couple things going on here. Let's just take Canada, where you have a lot of people. Nevada is a great place to go to. From Canada, it's easy to get to. You can enjoy yourself. A, they're mad at the tariffs on Canada. They're also particularly mad because Donald Trump keeps talking about making it the 51st state. But B, there's this immigration stuff has got people a little bit scared. They're hearing stories and they're thinking, gosh, am I going to get swept up in some kind of thing and end up in South Sudan or Libya or whatever they're talking about this week about where you're going to go. All of this adds up to let's just vacation somewhere else or let's just stay home.
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Aaron Ford
Yeah, look, it's a confluence of all of these issues. I mean, it's complete and utter chaos. And you're right, we are seeing a drop in Canadian visitation, we're seeing a drop in Chinese visitation, international visitation, but also domestic visit. And it isn't affecting us. We're already in this state for 11 months in a row experiencing the highest unemployment rate in the nation. That won't get any better as long as we are having to experience not only the chaotic approach of his presidency second, but the unlawful approach that this president.
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Brendan Ballou
So let's examine, examine that. Let's examine the unlawfulness because the other day we had a ruling about the fact that the Mexico, China fentanyl thing is it's not what they're actually doing. So that's not lawful. And then the other tariffs are not lawful because it's not the president's purview to make that decision. It's Congress's purview to make that decision. What was your lawsuit claiming because you guys actually claim that you had direct financial harm as a result of these policies?
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Aaron Ford
Well, absolutely. We talked about something that it's hitting up pocketbooks here in the state. And frankly, there's a two pronged test that I always engage in when ascertaining whether I'm going to sue the administration. And it doesn't matter which administration. I want to say right now I sued the Biden administration under the same two prong test. For example, first off, do we consider inaction unlawful and if so, is it negatively affecting the battens? And in this case it was absolutely unlawful because the president tried to invoke the powers under this act called the International Emergency Economic Powers act, that is, which is actually a restraint on the president's powers, not a carte block ability to impose worldwide tariffs. And so it wasn't a surprise to me, frankly, that led by our colleagues from Oregon and Arizona, that we prevailed in that lawsuit because it was blatantly unlawful. To be sure, it's on the state right now and it makes sense. We have a judicial system that wants to ensure that they can do the checks and balances within their own branch of government. But I'm confident that we're going to prevail in that regard as well.
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Brendan Ballou
Yeah, the White House is bragging about the fact that they got their way. It's a stay. We just want to be clear. There was a ruling, a federal court upheld that ruling, and then another federal court put in, and that, that, that first federal court put it under stay. In a second federal court put it under stay. So, so this is not, this is far from settled, but there's a basic constitutional matter here, and that is, this is not the purview of, of the President. There have been four or five, maybe six instances of them using this particular emergency provision. And generally, it's about something that arguably is an emergency. The case this court's making is that this is not emergency stuff.
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Aaron Ford
Right. And even if he wanted to talk about the emergencies, like the fentanyl component, this doesn't even address fentanyl.
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Brendan Ballou
Right.
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Aaron Ford
At the end of the day, he must work with fentanyl.
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Brendan Ballou
Exactly.
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Aaron Ford
Assistance in that regard. Right. We could use that help if he's serious about it, and bring us assistance we need in that regard. But, you know, he is invoking this act. And let me back up and also say this. He actually has a way to do some of these things.
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Brendan Ballou
Yes.
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Aaron Ford
Follow the rules.
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Brendan Ballou
And the court said that. The court said, if you want to impose tariffs, you have methodologies, you have a roadmap to follow. This isn't it? And you're right, fentanyl is an emergency. But then you're. The stuff you do about it should address the emergency. That's what the court was saying. You're not actually doing stuff to address fentanyl. You're doing other stuff.
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Aaron Ford
Right out of our briefing. By the way, Ali, that was right out of our briefing.
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Brendan Ballou
Yeah. Well, we appreciate that. Nice to talk to you tonight. Thank you. The Nevada Attorney General, Aaron Ford. All right, coming up, Elon Musk officially left his White House job today after an utterly bizarre press availability with Donald Trump in the Oval Office that included plenty of lies about what Musk and Doge accomplished. But Doge was largely a failure. And the resistance that Elon Musk faced trying to tear apart the federal government seems to have had a lot to do with that failure. Coming up next with historian ruth Ben Guillot.
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Ali Velshi
MSNBC's Jen Psaki, host of the Briefing.
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Jen Psaki
We've never experienced a moment like this in our country, and it leaves us all with a choice. Are we going to speak out or are we going to be pressured into silence? I've worked for presidents. I've faced the tough questions from the press and even threats from the Kremlin. And if there's one thing I've learned, it's that you can't cower to bullies. We don't need to be hopeless. We have our voices and I will continue using mine.
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Ali Velshi
The Briefing with Jen Psaki Tuesday through Friday at 9pm Eastern on MSNBC.
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Brendan Ballou
Disease, starvation and death, that's the legacy of Elon Musk, according to New York Times opinion columnist Michelle Goldberg. A legacy of disease, starvation and death that Elon Musk left behind today as he stood next to Donald Trump. He had a black eye for some reason in the Oval Office for a bizarre farewell Q and A on his last day as the head of the so called Department of Government Efficiency. Musk's Oval Office farewell came hours after new reporting about Musk's alleged drug use during the presidential campaign. Citing people familiar with his activities, the New York Times reports, quote, Mr. Musk's drug consumption, well, went well beyond occasional use. He told people he was taking so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that it was affecting his bladder, a known effect of chronic use. He took Ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms, and he traveled with a daily medication box that held about 20 pills, according to a photo of the box and people who have seen it. End quote. Elon Musk himself admitted to using drugs shortly before endorsing Donald Trump in July and appearing on the campaign trail. And the Times reports that Musk had said he was prescribed ketamine for depression in the past. The Times reports, quote, around that time, Mr. Musk told People that his ketamine use was causing bladder issues, according to people familiar with the conversations. The report indicates that Musk's drug use was more than occasional, but the Times adds, quote, it's unclear whether Mr. Musk was taking drugs when he became a fixture at the White House this year to slash the federal bureaucracy. But he's exhibited erratic behavior, insulting cabinet members, gesturing like a Nazi and garbling his answers in a staged interview. End quote. Now, NBC News has not independently verified any of that New York Times reporting, but when NBC News asked the White House if it sought drug testing for Musk before his government employment began, the White House did not give a direct answer. Elon Musk was asked about the Times report in the Oval Office. He didn't deny any part of the story, but instead questioned the newspaper's credibility and told the reporter to move on. While in the Oval Office, Elon Musk and Donald Trump came up with a bunch of unverified numbers about what Doge has done. The total spending cuts claimed were well under the $2 trillion that Elon Musk promised on the campaign trail, well under the $1 trillion he revised down earlier this year. Musk's takeaway from his 115 days in federal government was this. There are many things that occur in the government because it's the banal evil of bureaucracy. Wow. Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, cut life saving food and medicine to the most vulnerable people on earth when he cut USAID funding, which is a rounding error, by the way, in the budget of the United States of America. But he's lecturing the rest of us about banal evil. Joining us now is Ruth Ben Guyot, professor of history at New York University. She's the author of Strongmen Mussolini to the Present. Hey, Ruth, here's the question for you. There are people who think Elon Musk could only stay in government for 130 days. It's 115 days now, and he had to go. But there are people who think that the public pressure did something here. The public pressure created some sort of rift between Donald Trump and Elon Musk. The public pressure cost Elon Musk real money with Tesla and Tesla sales and profitability. There's some argument here that people coming out and saying, we didn't sign up for this, nobody asked for this, nobody asked for this guy, might have had some effect.
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Michelle Goldberg
Well, absolutely. At the popular level, the Tesla boycotts and protests were very important and they hurt the bottom line of the company. And in that sense, they probably affected Musk's behavior. But rather than focus on the failures of Doge, what it didn't achieve, I want to focus as a scholar of authoritarianism and coups on what it did do, because we have seen in a way a very successful autocratic experiment. Accent on experiment. Trump and Musk have had a kind of power sharing agreement, which is unusual in strongman history. You showed my book. There's only one guy on the COVID of my book because that's how the strongman is. We've had two guys. We've had two guys in the Oval Office. We've had two guys holding press conferences, even two guys meeting. Musk has met with foreign heads of state on presidential property. This is not normal. And most of all, he's been allowed to have a kind of parallel civil service, a kind of hostile takeover of large parts of the US Government. And even though he may step Back. Doge is now embedded in over 30 government agencies. And there, we don't know exactly how many people they work in great secrecy. And they've been basically re. Engineering government to benefit Musk. They've been, you know, doing away with investigations into his companies and also steering government contracts to his products. So this, he has accomplished an enormous amount in a, in a kind of authoritarian experiment.
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Brendan Ballou
Let's, let's go a little further with that. Viktor Orban is in the United States. He's a, he's a darling of the conservative movement here, partially because the things that they've been doing in Hungary for about 15 years are a blueprint for what America wants to do. But one of the things that's interesting about Musk being in some of these meetings is it wasn't. He was, he was also involved in negotiating Starlink contracts around the world. He was involved in SpaceX stuff. So he's got the civil service job as Doge. He's kind of the acting co president with Trump, and he's doing deals for at least two of his companies all at the same time. This all got mixed up into the same soup.
- [30:59]
Michelle Goldberg
Yeah. So we're living through this innovation in the authoritarian playbook, which is awful for our country. And we see you mentioned the terrible humanitarian losses that this is causing, because the oligarch authoritarian leader model depends. Like in Hungary or in India or Russia, the oligarch is in the private sector and they buy up media companies or companies, other kinds of companies, and then they become the ally of the leader here, the richest man in the world, let's say the oligarch has been allowed to be part of the government and embed his private people who have locked out our elected representatives. Career employees have been physically and digitally locked out. So this is a kind of coup. These are kind of coup tactics. So this is unheard of. And so on the one hand, you had Project 2025, which was influenced by Orban, and that prepared the kind of plan they had, a plan for taking over civil service. But what Musk and Doge have been able to do, the reason it's been so fast, there's no equivalent in early Orban, early Putin, for the wrenching changes of the last months. That's because of Musk and Doge, who have come in from the outside, from the private sector, and kind of taken over.
- [32:21]
Brendan Ballou
Now, in fairness, there were some things we didn't know that Doge was going to do. They had these nondescript goals of cutting $2 trillion out, but we did know a lot of what's going on right now because of Project 2025. They wrote 922 pages of detail. It was a horrible read. I went through the whole thing and we talk about it every week. You remember this? We knew. Yeah, we knew what was going to happen. Which. Which makes me wonder about the 90 million people who didn't vote and the 80 million people who thought that was okay, who are now a little bit shocked by it. Most of this was very specifically written out in great detail.
- [33:00]
Michelle Goldberg
Yes. So there's two things. So there's the classic Orban style and Erdogan, et cetera, takeover of the federal bureaucracy, the hollowing out of institutions that was written that we knew, we predicted it. You and I talked about it. What nobody saw coming was the Musk. And I called it two weeks after the inauguration, I called it a new kind of coup because he came from outside. And that was not written UP in Project 2025. And formed this very quickly formed this parallel civil service. And it is now embedded. Now, again, he may be leaving and we'll see how much he really leaves. But Wired, which has done fabulous reporting, wrote that Doge is the government now. They are embedd. So that's something new that's not in the Orban playbook.
- [33:58]
Brendan Ballou
Yeah, we're going to have to figure out how people. Part of this is that they started cutting things that people didn't even know what they did, because good government and good civil services do things in the background, their background operations. Right. So the average American doesn't interact with USAID or a lot of these programs. So how do we even find out if they're embedded? And I agree with you, Wired has done remarkable reporting on this. But how do people protest the idea that there are people embedded in our government who we didn't ask for? Donald Trump claims everything's a mandate. There was no mandate for this. Nobody got elected on Donald, on Doge becoming the civil service.
- [34:35]
Michelle Goldberg
Well, it's challenging because it is. Again, I'm a historian of these kinds of takeovers. And this is new. And so we need a new playbook for resisting this. However, we have had very successful one because Musk is personaliz government. He is re engineering. Re engineering government to suit his own business interests. And so the protests against Tesla have been directed at him and his projects and his products, and that has been successful. So in a way, we have addressed that in part.
- [35:09]
Brendan Ballou
Ruth, thank you, as always. I'm sorry to say everything you said was going to happen is happening. But you can, I guess, hope us hopefully can guide us through the second part of this as we get out of it. Ruth. All right, coming up this week, the pardon that attorney Donald Trump's the pardon attorney at Donald Trump's Justice Department pledged, quote, no MAGA left behind what that means for our democracy in the presidency when the commander in chief uses the power of the pardon to reward loyalty. That's next.
- [35:39]
Ali Velshi
It's conversation, it's perspective. It's the weekend on MSNBC with three new dynamic hosts, Jonathan Cape Horn, Eugene Daniels and Jackie Alemani. And in the evening, it's the weekend prime time with Eamon Mohadin, Katherine Rampel, Elise Jordan and Antonia Hilton join them as they offer analysis on the week's most important events and set the agenda for the week ahead. The weekend at 7am eastern and the weekend primetime at 6pm eastern Saturdays and Sundays on MSNBC. MSNBC Films presents a six part documentary series, David Frost versus on the final episode, the Middle East Conflict.
- [36:17]
Brendan Ballou
Yasser Arafat told me the other day that he trusts you.
- [36:20]
Aaron Ford
Do you trust him?
- [36:21]
Ali Velshi
Tomorrow at 9pm Eastern on MSNBC.
- [36:27]
Brendan Ballou
This week, Donald Trump used his power to pardon more criminals and let them out of prison. Among them, reality TV stars Todd and Julie Chrisley, who were convicted by a jury of bank and tax fraud crimes. Republican politician John Rowland, who was convicted by a jury of concealing election crimes. The former Republican Congressman M. Grimm, who pleaded guilty to tax fraud. The New York Times writes, quote, president Trump is employing the vast power of his office to redefine criminality to suit his needs, using pardons to inoculate criminals. He happens to like downplaying corruption and fraud as crimes and seeking to stigmatize political opponents by labeling them criminals, end quote. Trump even implied that he could pardon a defendant currently on trial while the jury is still hearing evidence in the case.
- [37:17]
Ruth Ben Ghiat
You mentioned once in 2012 that Diddy.
- [37:19]
Brendan Ballou
Was a good friend of yours back then.
- [37:21]
Ruth Ben Ghiat
He has since found himself in some very serious legal trouble.
- [37:25]
Donald Trump
Yeah, that's true.
- [37:26]
Ruth Ben Ghiat
Would you ever consider pardoning him?
- [37:28]
Donald Trump
I don't know. I would certainly. Look at the faxing.
- [37:31]
Brendan Ballou
Well, look at that. Let's not forget, on Trump's first day back in office, he granted a blanket pardon to Most of the January 6th attackers, including those who violently attacked law enforcement. Now, the Independent reports that Ed Martin, the man Donald Trump appointed to review pardon requests at the Department of Justice, is already reviewing full clemency for Stuart Rhodes, the founder of the Oath Keepers militia group who was convicted of treason related charges in connection with the January 6 storming of the Capitol. Remember, Ed Martin didn't have the votes to be confirmed as the U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C. because of his enthusiasm for a Nazi sympathizer who was sentenced to four years in prison for January 6th before Donald Trump pardoned him. Joining us now is the former federal prosecutor Brendan Ballou, who also previously served as special counsel at the Department of Justice. He prosecuted cases against some of the January 6th defendants. He resigned from the Justice Department in January after Donald Trump pardoned the Capitol attackers. Brendan, thank you for being with us tonight.
- [38:36]
Ruth Ben Ghiat
Thank you.
- [38:38]
Brendan Ballou
You can pick one of these pardons out of a hat, and you can describe how crazy they not pardons have typically. And they've been sometimes done irresponsibly, but typically they've been about people who you think have been either unfairly convicted or. Or have got too much of a conviction for their crimes. There's nothing to these. They just seem to be loyalty and. Or quid pro quo, basically buying your way out of. Out of prison.
- [39:06]
Ruth Ben Ghiat
I think that's exactly right. You hit on both the points. You know, you look at who's gotten pardoned so far. It's, you know, a nursing home executive who divorced, averted $10 million that was supposed to go to nurses and doctors so that he could buy, in part, a luxury yacht. You know, it includes politicians that have been convicted of bribery of tax fraud, includes reality TV stars that have defrauded banks of $30 million. You know, at some level, you know, you can kind of imagine Donald Trump has a certain amount of innate sympathy for reality TV stars who engage in fraud. I think that there's something deeper here, which is that, you know, really, they are trying to show that if you are rich enough or if you are loyal enough to this, you are quite literally beyond the reach of the law.
- [39:56]
Brendan Ballou
There was a situation where somebody whose mother attended that Mar A Lago fundraiser got a pardon. And part of the issue is that, in theory, there shouldn't be quid pro quo for a pardon, and there shouldn't be a deal. Rudy Giuliani, you know, was being investigated for or possibly offering pardons for money. But we're past that point now. There's no actual quid pro quo. Cause nobody has to write anything, nobody has to say anything. Nobody actually has to exchange any information. The price of doing business is now known with Donald Trump. Basically.
- [40:29]
Ruth Ben Ghiat
Yeah. You know, your last guest, Ruth Ben Guillot, had a really good phrase about personalizing government. And I think that's exactly what this is which is trying to centralize really all decision making in our justice system in the hands of one man, which is the president. So once again, if you have the connections, if you have the money, if you're willing to prostrate yourself the way that Bob Menendez seems to be doing right now on Twitter, it means that you quite literally won't have to face any sort of consequences for your wrongdoing.
- [41:06]
Brendan Ballou
What's the long term danger of this? But notwithstanding the fact that if you read the Constitution, you understand that that was a document that was met, meant, didn't succeed at first, but it was meant to say that everybody's got the same rights. Clearly, we don't all have the same rights.
- [41:21]
Ruth Ben Ghiat
Clearly. I think that there are two things and I think it's implicit in your first question. So one is if this continues, we are going to have a two tier justice system where, you know, if you are unconnected, if you don't have millions of dollars, the laws will apply to you. But if you have either of those things, you really can do whatever you want because you, there won't be any crimes for you to be prosecuted for because you're getting pardoned for them. So that's, that's one problem. The second problem is that for people that are willing to enact violence in the president's name, like the rioters on January 6th, you know, like potentially those who threaten to kidnap Governor Whitmer in Michigan, that these people, if they are willing to be sufficiently viable in enacting the president's agenda, then they too will be beyond the reach of the law.
- [42:16]
Brendan Ballou
There is, it's sort of like tariffs, right? They're not good or bad. They are, when used properly, they can be valuable. Pardons are like that. There are people who, somebody threw the book at them and it didn't feel right that they got the sentence that they got for the crime they committed. What, what, how should we be thinking about pardons? Donald Trump has made us think pardons are a bad thing. They're not necessarily a bad thing. Every president has used them and some presidents have used them to reward loyalty. We're just seeing it at a rate that we've never seen, with a velocity that we've never seen and as blatantly as we've ever seen.
- [42:50]
Ruth Ben Ghiat
Well, two things. One is I think you're exactly right. The kind and scale that we're seeing here is really new. And historically, or at least in the ideal, pardons were meant to be a tool for justice. But here they're being used as a tool for impunity. But I think the second point, and I think it's important for people not to forget this, is that the president isn't all powerful here. You know, the president only has the authority to pardon federal crimes. And so in a world where the president is trying to put his supporters and those who are willing to donate enough money to him beyond the reach of the law, state and local prosecutors need to be looking at how they can hold these people accountable in a world where the federal government doesn't.
- [43:31]
Brendan Ballou
All right. We're going to examine that. Brendan, you've given us a thread to pull on here, and I appreciate that. Good to see you. Brendan Ballou.
- [43:37]
Ruth Ben Ghiat
Thank you.
- [43:38]
Brendan Ballou
We'll be right back. All right. Tomorrow morning on the Velshi Band Book Club, I'm going to introduce you to a children's book called Pride Puppy by Robin Stevenson. Now, it's a rhyming Alphabet book with brightly colored illustrations that tells the story of a puppy that gets lost during a pride parade. Right now, the book is at the center of a Supreme Court case about a small group of Maryland parents who do not want their children explode exposed to LGBTQ inclusive books like Pride Puppy in Public school. So much is on the line for authors, access to literature, and for families like the ones portrayed at the Pride parade in this children's book. I'll speak with the author Robin Stevenson tomorrow on the Welshie Band Book Club. And that is tonight's last word. Thank you for joining us. Hey, everyone, it's Chris Hayes. This week on my podcast, why is this Happening? Veteran progressive organizer, former head of MoveOn Anna Galland on where we go From Here.
- [44:33]
Jen Psaki
I just keep thinking like we're gonna be digesting the results of that election for the next four, five, ten years to really fully understand it. So we should have strong opinions loosely held and make some decisions on them and also not neglect the work of standing up right now to fight back because that actually if we get too preoccupied and navel gazing into what we just did wrong, we might actually undermine the work of confidently, powerfully standing up and resisting the very scary stuff that's coming at us.
- [45:01]
Brendan Ballou
That's this week on why is this Happening? Search for why is this Happening? Wherever you're listening right now, and follow.