Lawrence: Canada's Trudeau humiliates 'cowardly' Trump who backs down on tariffs. Again.

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Canada's Trudeau Humiliates 'Cowardly' Trump Who Backs Down on Tariffs. Again."

Podcast Information:

• Title: The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell
• Host: Lawrence O'Donnell, MSNBC
• Episode Title: Lawrence: Canada's Trudeau humiliates 'cowardly' Trump who backs down on tariffs. Again.
• Release Date: March 6, 2025

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Introduction

In this compelling episode of The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, host Lawrence O'Donnell delves into the latest developments in U.S.-Canada trade relations, focusing on President Donald Trump's controversial tariff policies and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's robust response. Drawing from his extensive political experience, O'Donnell provides incisive analysis on the economic and political ramifications of these actions, featuring insightful discussions with notable guests, including Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and Senator Angela Alsobrooks, as well as contributions from MSNBC's Michelle Norris.

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Trump’s Tariffs and Trudeau’s Reprisal

The episode opens with Lawrence O'Donnell critiquing President Donald Trump's recent decision to impose tariffs on Canadian and Mexican automobiles, labeling Trump as "the most cowardly president" for his inconsistent stance on tariffs. O'Donnell emphasizes Trump’s lack of economic understanding, particularly regarding tariffs, stating:

"Wall Street knows that Donald Trump is a pathological liar, which everyone knows. And Wall street knows that Donald Trump doesn't understand anything about economics. Nothing."
[Timestamp: 12:34]

Justin Trudeau's strong rebuttal to Trump's tariffs is highlighted as a pivotal moment where Canada stands its ground against what O'Donnell describes as "illegal Trump tariffs." Trudeau articulates Canada's position clearly:

"We are polite, but we will not back down from a fight. Not when our country and the well being of everyone in it is at stake."
[Timestamp: 14:54]

O'Donnell underscores Trudeau’s approach as not only firm but also economically sound, contrasting it with Trump's flawed policies. He points out that the tariffs are unconstitutional, as the power to impose tariffs lies exclusively with Congress, not the President, referencing historical context:

"Trump tariffs are illegal because the Constitution puts Congress exclusively in charge of tariffs."
[Timestamp: 13:55]

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Economic Implications and Wall Street’s Response

O'Donnell details the immediate negative impact of Trump’s tariffs on the stock market, noting a dramatic sell-off as investors lose confidence. He draws parallels to the Smoot-Hawley Tariff of the 1930s, suggesting that Trump's actions could precipitate an economic downturn akin to the Great Depression:

"The Wall Street Journal actually used the word Great Depression in a predictive headline of what could happen because of Donald Trump's trade war."
[Timestamp: 15:32]

The host also criticizes Trump’s misleading statements about the stock market, pointing out that contrary to Trump's claims, the market reached its highest points under President Biden. O'Donnell asserts:

"He [Trump] could go on and on, listing examples of why international trade is a good and necessary thing. That is a fact that has been known since before the American colonies were settled. But Donald Trump doesn't know it."
[Timestamp: 14:54]

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Supreme Court Ruling and Government Accountability

Transitioning to judicial matters, O'Donnell discusses a narrow Supreme Court ruling where a one-vote majority upholds a district court's order for the Trump administration to pay $2 billion to USAID contractors. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse critiques the decision, attributing it to a "court capture scheme" influenced by billionaire Mark Paoletta and Leonard Leo, asserting:

"If you perform on a contract, you get paid the money you are due by the government."
[Timestamp: 34:42]

This segment highlights concerns about judicial impartiality and the broader implications for government accountability.

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Senate Confirmation Hearing: Deputy Secretary of Labor Nominee

The episode features a critical analysis of the Senate confirmation hearing for Trump’s nominee for Deputy Secretary of Labor, Keith Sonderling. Senator Angela Alsobrooks questions Sonderling's expertise, highlighting his inability to articulate the basics of collective bargaining agreements:

"I think that what we know is that he was either unqualified or untruthful or both."
[Timestamp: 36:19]

O'Donnell criticizes the Trump administration for appointing unqualified individuals, emphasizing the potential threats to essential government functions:

"If the Republicans have their way, your local TV station will be covering the days when some of the oldest people in America are being kicked out of their nursing homes."
[Timestamp: 27:09]

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Impact on Federal Workers and Government Efficiency

In a discussion with Senator Alsobrooks, O'Donnell explores the repercussions of the Trump administration's targeted cuts to federal employees, particularly in departments like Agriculture. Alsobrooks condemns the nomination process and the broader campaign to undermine qualified civil servants:

"These folks are unqualified. It's outrageous that this administration has attacked this huge witch hunt against civil servants, federal employees who are actually qualified to do their jobs."
[Timestamp: 37:13]

O'Donnell echoes these sentiments, criticizing the administration’s approach to governance and highlighting the risk of dismantling critical government services.

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Michelle Norris on the Agricultural Sector and Economic Stability

Michelle Norris provides expert commentary on how Trump's tariffs adversely affect American farmers, drawing parallels to previous trade wars, such as the one against China. She emphasizes the immediate and long-term damage to the agricultural sector and the broader economy:

"The farmers already understand they got hit by the trade war against China. They got hit hard. They never fully recovered."
[Timestamp: 41:23]

Norris also critiques Trump’s lack of coherent policy explanations, noting the president's focus on personal branding over substantive governance:

"He [Trump] doesn't understand what he has done, what these changes have done to all the things that America's traditionally stood for."
[Timestamp: 42:38]

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Conclusion

Lawrence O'Donnell wraps up the episode by underscoring the significant challenges posed by President Trump's tariff policies and administrative appointments. He praises Justin Trudeau's steadfast leadership and highlights the critical need for informed and competent governance to safeguard economic stability and maintain international alliances. The episode serves as a detailed examination of the interplay between political maneuvers, economic policies, and their real-world impacts on both national and international stages.

Notable Quotes:

• Lawrence O'Donnell: "Wall Street knows that Donald Trump is a pathological liar, which everyone knows. And Wall street knows that Donald Trump doesn't understand anything about economics. Nothing."
  [Timestamp: 12:34]

• Justin Trudeau: "We are polite, but we will not back down from a fight. Not when our country and the well being of everyone in it is at stake."
  [Timestamp: 14:54]

• Senator Sheldon Whitehouse: "If you perform on a contract, you get paid the money you are due by the government."
  [Timestamp: 34:42]

• Senator Angela Alsobrooks: "These folks are unqualified. It's outrageous that this administration has attacked this huge witch hunt against civil servants, federal employees who are actually qualified to do their jobs."
  [Timestamp: 37:13]

• Michelle Norris: "He [Trump] doesn't understand what he has done, what these changes have done to all the things that America's traditionally stood for."
  [Timestamp: 42:38]

---

This episode of The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell provides an in-depth analysis of the ongoing economic and political struggles between the Trump administration and its Canadian counterpart, highlighting the broader implications for American governance and international relations.

Transcript

[Rachel Maddow]

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[Michelle Norris]

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[Rachel Maddow]

Now it's time for the Last Word with the great Lawrence O'Donnell. Lawrence, I thoroughly enjoyed being on set with you last night during that very long evening. I'm looking forward to your show tonight.

[Lawrence O'Donnell]

Well, it was. Well, the only fun thing about it was to actually be there with you and our friends. It was a very difficult thing for the country to get through the longest one ever, rambling, mostly incoherent. But, Rachel, you have developed a specialty that I am really grateful for, and that is covering the protests that are erupting around the country. I haven't done that during this hour, and I'm sure we will at some point, but I've first seen it in your hour and I've now come to rely on it. It's how I find out what's going on out there and how people are responding to this. And I have to say, for people who fully object to what Donald Trump is doing, to what the Republican Congress is doing, it is a really inspiring range of reports that you deliver about what people are really doing out there and what they can all do tomorrow, where they live.

[Rachel Maddow]

Well, the thing that's interesting to me, Lawrence, is that I feel like there's a lot there's like this concentric circles of politics, right? And at the center is what happens in Washington. And then there's sort of political professionals that are focused on Washington and then in state politics and stuff. But way outside that, on the edges of that are people who don't think of themselves as political beings at all, who think of ourselves just as citizens, who don't think of ourselves as either having our direct jobs or our direct, you know, livelihoods in some way connected to the workings of the government. And when you start seeing those folks, insignificant numbers, repeatedly bodily showing up places and saying, this is not okay with me. It means something whether or not there's like a formal democratic feedback process that they're participating in. When people show up, when people make a homemade sign and people go out there and say, I can't believe people like me have to go do things like this. It matters, and it creates really big ripples. And we're seeing that in red states, blue states, cities, towns, rural areas, really everywhere. You can see it in local news, you can see it in protests, you can see it in town halls. And I'm just trying to keep my ear to it because I think it really is the sort of. It's the chorus. It really is what the people are saying right now.

[Lawrence O'Donnell]

Obamacare exists tonight because of those people. They are the people who went to the town halls of their Republican members of Congress when Donald Trump was trying to repeal it. The Republicans came, as we all remember vividly, within one vote in the United States Senate of repealing Obamacare. And it was those people who were in the halls of Congress, they were in the Russell Senate Office Building, the Dirksen Senate Office Building, all the House office buildings. But they started out there in their communities and they determined the outcome of that vote. And there are tens of millions of people in America tonight who have health care because of those people.

[Rachel Maddow]

Yes. And it starts with people who don't think of themselves as political deciding to call their member of Congress, whether it's a Democrat or a Republican, whether you're a Democrat or a Republican or an Independent or nothing. When you realize that the government is doing stuff that isn't right and that you need to correct, you need to make them correct. Course, when regular people start doing that, the country changes. And we have been seeing that from almost day one since Trump has been in office. We're now six weeks into it. And the pattern of response, the pattern of Democratic feedback to what people are doing is really evident. They've had to claw back, or at least slow down, if not stop almost every single thing they've done. And it's all because of pushback.

[Lawrence O'Donnell]

Thanks for covering it, Rachel. I'm counting on you to do it. And a lot of millions of other people are, too.

[Rachel Maddow]

Thanks.

[Michelle Norris]

Bye.

[Rachel Maddow]

Bye.

[Lawrence O'Donnell]

Thanks, Rachel. Well, Donald Trump backed down today. It doesn't happen every day, but because Donald Trump is actually by far the most cowardly president we have ever had who's pretending to be a tough guy. He has backed down in his first presidency and now in this One more than any other president has done it. He backs down within a day of making decisions, pulls them back. Donald Trump backed down today and no one was surprised. There are people who have to make their living based on knowing when Donald Trump is going to back down. They include the richest people in America and their day to day investment practitioners on Wal Street. Wall street knows that Donald Trump is a pathological liar, which everyone knows. And Wall street knows that Donald Trump doesn't understand anything about economics. Nothing. Wall street has been listening to Donald Trump very carefully for years and they've never once heard Donald Trump accurately describe what a tariff is. The truth of tariffs forced Donald Trump to back down today. Wall street knows that Donald Trump lies every time he talks about tariffs. Everyone on Wall street knows that no foreign country has ever paid an American tariff and never will. Wall street knows the only people who pay Trump tariffs are people in the United States who pay for imported goods like, say, coffee. Unless you're one of the lucky ones who has tasted the very small batch and very expensive coffee grown in Hawaii. Not one drop of coffee you have swallowed in your life came from an American coffee bean. Every ounce of coffee you have swallowed came from another country. According to Donald Trump, the United States of America should be buying nothing from other countries. Tell that to the 211,000 people working in Starbucks just in the United states and the 361,000 people working in Starbucks worldwide. The coffee economy in the United States employs literally millions of people, all based on a product imported from other countries, imported from Africa, imported from South America. And this country could not survive a day without without coffee. And we all know it. I could go on and on, listing examples of why international trade is a good and necessary thing. That is a fact that has been known since before the American colonies were settled. But Donald Trump doesn't know it. And so Wall street knows that their job is to teach their slowest student, Donald Trump, whenever he goes dangerously too far on his illegal Trump tariff crusade. And the Trump tariffs are illegal because the Constitution puts Congress exclusively in charge of tariffs, just as Congress is exclusively in charge of income tax rates. But a provision that entered federal law during the Cold War provided the President with the authority to change individual tariffs only, only for national security reasons. The intention at the time was to allow the President to personally change tariffs in the event of war. No one writing that law thought that such tariffs could ever, under any circumstances, be imposed by the President of the United States on the most faithful and peaceful and supportive neighbor any country in the world. Has ever had Canada. And so lost in the noise about the Trump tariffs is that very simple fact that they are illegal because none of them have the slightest relationship to national security. Wall street did its job today and forced Donald Trump to back down from the most destructive aspect of his demented and illegal Trump tariffs on Canada and Mexico, the tariffs on automobiles entering the United States from Canada and Mexico. After 24 hours of that tariff being in place and probably not actually being paid by anyone, Donald Trump backed down, really backed down. And it was a classic Trump reversal, which he pretends is not a reversal, saying that he's going to pause, pause the tariff on automobiles from Canada and Mexico for 30 days, and he will pause it again. He will back down again. That tariff will probably never go into effect because Donald Trump will back down, because Wall street will once again convince Donald Trump of just how insane that idea is. Wall street does that by reacting defensively to the Trump tariffs, which means a dramatic drop in the stock market as investors seek safety in the middle of the Trump economic chaos and they sell off stocks. That's what happened the first time Donald Trump had his tariffs ready to go against Canada and Mexico. The stock market collapsed. And Donald Trump was able to withstand about two hours of the collapse of the day before the tariffs were supposed to go into effect. And by lunchtime then, Donald Trump announced that he was going to pause those tariffs. He wasn't going to put them into effect the next day. He would pause them for 30 days. Then the stock market started to work its way back up the next day. This time around, stock market thought they'd figured out Donald Trump. They believed Donald Trump would pull the same trick. He'd lie and threaten the tariffs, and then at the last minute, pause the tariffs. He would not impose the tariffs this time. They guessed wrong. And the most economically ignorant president in history actually did impose those tariffs yesterday. And once again, the stock market crashed in the middle of the trading day today when the White House announced that Donald Trump would pause the tariffs on Automobiles for 30 days. The stock market digested that news and started to go back up to exactly no one's surprise. One of Donald Trump's favorite lies until last night was that the stock market just loves him and that the stock market was never higher than under his first Trump presidency. And that was a lie, of course. The stock market was higher under President Biden than it was under Donald Trump's presidency. In fact, the highest point the stock market has ever reached in its history was in Joe Biden's last month of the presidency. And last night, Donald Trump spoke for 99 minutes in an incoherent, rambling, lifeless, exhausting presentation with nothing designed to appeal to anyone who hasn't already voted for him. Presidents use addresses to Congress and to the nation to try to reach out to voters that they don't already have on their side. Not Donald Trump. In those rambling 99 minutes, Donald Trump never said the words stock market. When is the last time you heard Donald Trump give a long, self congratulatory speech without telling you how great the Trump stock market is doing? Donald Trump was appearing, giving that speech on the night of a stock market market crash caused by him. And he didn't say a word about the stock market in his address to Congress and the country, a country that was worried about the stock market. Not one word. The stock market crash was created by one day of the Trump tariffs being in effect. One day. One day. And at the end of that one day, Donald Trump stood up in the House of Representatives and addressed the Congress and the nation. And he did not say one word about what happened that day because of his tariffs. He said nothing about the tariffs that went into effect yesterday. Nothing about that in his speech. The single biggest news of the day worldwide created by Donald Trump. The Trump tariffs not mentioned by Donald Trump in that speech last night because he was afraid of what he did. He was standing there last night terrified of what he did with those crazy tariffs. He was so afraid of what he did that he literally did not know what to say about it. Last night he talked about tariffs generally, but not about what he had actually done yesterday. And here's one of the things he said about tariffs that actually proved his tariffs are illegal.

[Donald Trump]

Tariffs are about making America rich again and making America great again. And it's happening, and it will happen radically, quickly. There'll be a little disturbance, but we're okay with that. It won't be much.

[Lawrence O'Donnell]

Supposed to be about national security. His tariffs are legally supposed to be out about national security. That's the only way they can be legal. Donald Trump is too ignorant, of course, to know that he was admitting in that statement that his tariffs are illegal. And of course, by a little disturbance, he meant a stock market crash and increasing prices here in the United States. The biggest problem Donald Trump ran into yesterday when he finally decided to go forward with the stupidest economic idea ever advanced by a President of the United States, is that the world stopped listening to Donald Trump about tariffs yesterday. And they started listening to someone else who actually knows what he's talking about.

[Justin Trudeau]

The United States launched a trade war against Canada, their closest partner and ally, their closest friend. At the same time, they're talking about working positively with Russia, appeasing Vladimir Putin, a lying, murderous dictator. Make that make sense. Canadians are reasonable and we are polite, but we will not back down from a fight. Not when our country and the well being of everyone in it is at stake.

[Lawrence O'Donnell]

That man got Wall Street's attention yesterday, which made them even more worried about what was coming. Because clearly, the Canadian government has every intention of fighting Donald Trump's illegal tariffs in a way that will be very, very harmful to the economy of the United States. So harmful that the Wall Street Journal actually used the word Great Depression in a predictive headline of what could happen because of Donald Trump's trade war. The last Great Depression in the United states in the 1930s was actually caused by these Smoot Hawley tariffs, the single stupidest economic idea of the 20th century in the United States. An idea that came from Republicans in Congress and that a Republican president went along with, but did not actually champion to the extent that Donald Trump champions his own illegal tariffs. The problem for Donald Trump yesterday is that he empowered Justin Trudeau to speak directly to the American people. As someone who not just knows what he's talking about, but sounds much more convincing than the blustering, lying President of the United States, I want to speak.

[Justin Trudeau]

First directly to the American people. We don't want this. We want to work with you as a friend and ally, and we don't want to see you hurt either. But your government has chosen to do this to you.

[Lawrence O'Donnell]

Your government has chosen to do this to you. And of course, by your government, everyone in the United States and Canada and the world knows that he means Donald Trump. Donald Trump has chosen to do this to you. He chose, of course, action yesterday that would add $20,000 to the price of American cars. Dodges, Dodge Ram pickup trucks, Fords. American cars sold in the United States that in the course of their assembly, often cross the Canadian border through Michigan more than once in the complex manufacturing process we have now.

[Justin Trudeau]

Your government has chosen to put American jobs at risk at the thousands of workplaces that succeed because of materials from Canada or. Or because of consumers in Canada, or both. They've chosen to raise costs for American consumers on everyday, essential items like groceries and gas, on major purchases like cars and homes and everything in between. They've chosen to harm American national security, impeding access to the abundant, critical minerals, energy, building materials and fertilizers that we have and that the United States needs to grow and prosper. They've chosen to launch a trade war that will first and foremost harm American families.

[Lawrence O'Donnell]

Who are you going to believe? That guy or the guy who lies about who actually pays tariffs? Donald Trump backed down today to that guy. The Wall Street Journal knows that Americans pay the Trump tariffs. The Wall Street Journal knows that no one else can pay the Trump tariffs. Only Americans can pay the Trump tariffs. Which is why the Wall Street Journal sees the potential for a Great depression in what Donald Trump is doing.

[Justin Trudeau]

The legal pretext your government is using to bring in these tariffs is that Canada is apparently unwilling to help in the fight against illegal fentanyl. Well, that is totally false. Let's look at the facts. Our border is already safe and secure. Far less than 1% of fentanyl flows and less than 1% of illegal crossings into the United States comes from Canada.

[Lawrence O'Donnell]

43 pounds. The total amount of fentanyl that crossed the Canadian border into the United States in a year is 43 pounds. You could bring that in in the trunk of your car. You could hide it under this desk. That is not a national security threat to the United States of America. Prime Minister Trudeau pointed out that Donald Trump is violating his own law. That he said was the greatest trade deal in history. Donald Trump initiated a renegotiation, a rewrite of the North American Free Trade Agreement during his first presidency. He renamed it the United States Mexico Canada Agreement and signed it, as did Justin Trudeau and President of Mexico. Donald Trump said then it's the greatest trade deal ever negotiated. Of course, that's the current trade law with Canada and Mexico right now. Until Donald Trump decided to change it. Why would he have to change the greatest trade deal ever negotiated? He negotiated it. That's what he told us it was. Greatest trade deal ever negotiated. NBC News is reporting that Donald Trump is very upset that his mass deportation plan is not going well. It is not mass at all. NBC News reports. A source familiar with Trump's thinking said the president is getting angry that more people are not being deported and that the message is being passed along to border czar Tom Homan. It's driving him nuts. They're not deporting more people, said a person familiar with Trump's thinking driving him nuts. So far, Donald Trump is on track to deport fewer people this year than President Obama did in a typical year. And so, to distract from his failed promise of mass deportations, Donald Trump apparently decided to play with tariffs and earn himself a prediction of a Great Depression from The Wall Street Journal Republicans in the House of Representatives fail today in their desperate attempts to humiliate a group of Democratic mayors who they accused of not being eager, eager enough to help Donald Trump deport people. If you watch the hearing, other than the embarrassing presence of New York's Mayor Eric Adams, who is still under indictment for bribery and was treated like a visiting dignitary by the Republicans, what was actually on display was an astonishing demonstration of Democratic Party competence and political talent in the city halls of Chicago, Denver and Boston. Boston's mayor, Michelle Wu, who is herself a daughter of immigrants, was nursing her infant baby daughter during recesses in the hearing. She said this when she was asked about Trump's so called border czar threatening to bring what he called hell to Boston.

[Michelle Wu]

Shame on him for lying about my city, for having the nerve to insult our police commissioner who has overseen the safest Boston's been in anyone's lifetime. Bring him here under oath and let's ask him some questions. I am here to make sure that the city of Boston is safe. Others may want to bring hell. We are here to bring peace to cities everywhere. Because our gun laws are the strongest in the nation, because our officers have built relationships over decades and because all of our residents can trust that when they call 911 in the event of an emergency or to report a crime, help will come. This federal administration's approach is undermining that trust. This federal administration is making hardworking, tax paying, God fearing residents afraid to live their lives. A city that's scared is not a city that's safe. A land ruled by fear is not the land of the free. We are the cradle of democracy and the city of champions. We are all of these things not in spite of our immigrants, but because of them. The false narrative is that immigrants in general are criminals or immigrants in general cause all sorts of danger and harm. That is, that is actually what is undermining safety in our communities. If you wanted to make us safe, pass gun reforms, stop cutting Medicaid, stop cutting cancer research, stop cutting funds for veterans. That is what will make our city safe.

[Lawrence O'Donnell]

Like so many Boston Catholics, she had her ashes on her forehead. Today on Ash Wednesday, there were some words that were very conspicuously absent from Donald Trump's marathon speech last night. Words like Medicare and Medicaid. Here's the last thing Donald Trump said about that before last night's speech.

[Donald Trump]

Social Security won't be touched. Other than fraud or something. We're going to find it's going to be strengthened but won't Be touched. Medicare, Medicaid, none of that stuff is going to be touched.

[Lawrence O'Donnell]

Won't be touched. He didn't say that last night. He said Social Security is full of fraud, which is a lie. And he literally never mentioned the existence of Medicare or Medicaid. Exactly a year ago in that same chamber, the President of the United States did mention Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security in a way that infuriated the Republicans sitting there. President Joe Biden, in the best televised State of the Union address I have ever seen, provoked loud objections from the Republicans when he accused them of wanting to cut those programs.

[Donald Trump]

Many of my friends on the other side of Iowa want to put Social Security on the chopping block. If anyone here tries to cut Social Security, Medicare, or raise the retirement age, I will stop you. The working people, the working people who built this country pay more into Social Security than millionaires and billionaires do. It's not fair. We have two ways to go. Republicans can cut Social Security and give more tax breaks to the wealthy.

[Lawrence O'Donnell]

You see that little head shaking? No. Sitting there behind the president, Speaker Mike Johnson shook his head no when Joe Biden said Republicans want to cut Social Security and Medicare.

[Donald Trump]

We have two ways to go. Republicans can cut Social Security and give more tax breaks to the wealthy. I will. That's the proposal. Oh, no. You guys don't want another $2 trillion tax cut? I kind of thought that's what your plan was. Well, that's good to hear. You're not going to cut another $2 trillion for the super wealth. That's good. Good to hear. I'll protect and strengthen Social Security and make the wealthy pay their fair share.

[Lawrence O'Donnell]

Best, quickest, most effective ad lib by a president in a State of the Union address. In that live moment of negotiating with the Republicans right there in front of everyone, Joe Biden saved Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare from Republican attacks for another year. There was no pledge last night from Donald Trump to not touch Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid because every Republican in the House of Representatives, except one, has already voted, voted to, at minimum, dramatically cut Medicaid by $880 billion. They voted for that in a budget resolution that is a promise to vote for exactly those cuts in what they call a budget reconciliation bill. When that bill comes through the House, it is impossible to achieve the trillions of dollars in budget cutting that Elon Musk is promising, that Donald Trump is promising, that the Republicans in the House and Senate are promising without the biggest cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. In history. For Social Security, that means cutting the amounts of money you will receive from Social Security. For Medicare, that means increasing the amounts of co pays you have to pay and reducing the amount of medical coverage that Medicare provides to you. For Medicaid, it means cutting the amount of healthcare coverage Medicaid provides and disqualifying current recipients and disqualify from continuing to receive Medicaid, which will mean throwing people out of nursing homes and shutting down most nursing homes in America, because Medicaid is the primary payer for nursing homes in the United States of America. So even if your family is actually paying the full price for your grandfather to be in a nursing home, that nursing home could be closed down when The Republicans cut $880 billion from Medicaid because most of the residents of that nursing home will get kicked out and there won't be enough residents who can pay the full price to keep that nursing home operating. Our health care system is very complex, as in that example I just gave you. And Medicaid and Medicare support much more in our health care system than just the patients who are the direct beneficiaries of those programs. And Donald Trump doesn't know that. If the Republicans have their way, your local TV station will be covering the days when some of the oldest people in America are being kicked out of their nursing homes after the guy who promised Sean Hannity he wouldn't touch Medicaid rips Medicaid coverage away from the poorest people in this country and the oldest people in this country. And that is the plan. And that's why Donald Trump did not dare to say the word Medicaid last night. That's why Republican members of the House of Representatives who have already voted for those Medicaid cuts have been told by the congressman in charge of funding congressional campaigns to stop doing town hall meetings where voters can voice their fears about what's going to happen at their local nursing homes. If you're one of the people, or if your grandmother is one of the people who gets kicked out of her nursing home because of Donald Trump and the Republican Congress, you're going to suffer something even worse than the Great Depression. The Wall Street Journal is predicting if Donald Trump doesn't continue to back down, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse will join us next.

[Jen Psaki]

MSNBC presents MAIN justice each week on their podcast, veteran lawyers Andrew Weissman and Mary McCord break down the latest developments inside the Trump administration's Department of Justice.

[Lawrence O'Donnell]

The administration doesn't necessarily want to be.

[Rachel Maddow]

Questioned on any of its policy.

[Lawrence O'Donnell]

I think what we are seeing is Project 2025 in action. This. This is it coming to fruition.

[Jen Psaki]

Main justice subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts for ad, free listening and bonus content. Stay up to date on the biggest issues of the day with the MSNBC Daily Newsletter. Each morning you'll get analysis by experts you trust, video highlights from your favorite shows.

[Rachel Maddow]

I do think it's worth being very clear eyed, very realistic about what's going on here.

[Jen Psaki]

Previews of our podcasts and documentaries, plus written perspectives from the newsmakers themselves, all sent directly to your inbox each morning. Get the best of MSNBC all in one place. Sign up for msnbc [e-mail] MSNBC presents a new original podcast hosted by Jen Psaki. Each week she and her guests explore how the Democratic Party is facing this political moment and where it's headed next.

[Rachel Maddow]

There's probably both messaging and policy issues, but as you look to kind of where the Democratic Party is, do you think it's more a messaging issue, more a policy issue?

[Jen Psaki]

The Blueprint with Jen Psaki subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts for ad free listening and bonus content.

[Lawrence O'Donnell]

Government as we know it is hanging by a thread tonight thanks to a Supreme Court ruling against Donald Trump. That thread is one vote in a 54 ruling written by Chief Justice John Roberts and joined by the Trump appointed Justice Amy Coney Barrett. Along with the three justices appointed by Democratic presidents, the Supreme Court supported an order by a district court judge that forces the Trump administration to pay $2 billion to contractors of the United States Agency for International Development for work that they have already completed. Joining us now is Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island. He's a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senate Finance Committee and Senate Budget Committee, and the Senate Environment Public Works Committee. Senator, what did we learn today? A one vote majority for preserving the government we thought we had feels rather narrow.

[Sheldon Whitehouse]

Yeah, I think it looks even narrower when you understand how obvious this decision was. There was a contract between the government and these parties. There had been performance by the parties of what they had been contracted to do. There was no allegation that the contract had been violated and then the government held back the payment for the contract for the work that was done. That should have been a simple 9 to 0. So how does it get to be 5 4? You get these four dissenters who are violating really basic principles of contract law. And I don't want to get too weird and conspiratorial, but when you look at what they're doing is they're opening up the project 2025 General Destruction of government. And they're the judges, most of them, who got put onto the court by the court capture scheme by Leonard Leo and his minions. Well, the billionaire funded court capture scheme had as one of architects a guy named Mark Paoletta, a little sidekick of Leonard Leos. Where is Mark Paletta right now? He's over at OMB implementing Project 25 as the council to Russell vote. So this whole thing gets tied in pretty closely to the whole billionaire funding scheme. And clearly for those four justices, their loyalty lies to the billionaire funded Project 2025 scheme and not to the basic principle. If you perform on a contract, you get paid the money you are due by the government.

[Lawrence O'Donnell]

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, thank you very much for clarifying it. Now I'm even more uncomfortable with the one vote margin. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for joining us. Senator, thank you. Coming up, there are 160,000 federal workers in Maryland who could be impacted by Donald Trump and Elon Musk's dramatic cuts. Maryland Senator Angela also Brooks will join us next. Here is Donald Trump's choice for Deputy Secretary of Labor, Keith Sonderling at his Senate confirmation hearing.

[Angela Alsobrooks]

Can you commit to abide by all terms and conditions of the department's collective bargaining agreement? And do you understand the collecting bar collective bargaining process?

[Rachel Maddow]

I am not a traditional labor lawyer, but I know we have a lot of experts at the Department of Labor career staff in the solicitor's office that are experts in dealing with federal government unions and collective bargaining.

[Angela Alsobrooks]

Now I trust you are a labor and employment attorney and you were a leader at the department for years. Correct. And you don't know about collective bargaining agreements.

[Rachel Maddow]

I know about them. But I would trust the experts who have done this their entire career to help guide us.

[Angela Alsobrooks]

Thank you.

[Lawrence O'Donnell]

Joining us now is Senator Angela, also Brooks of Maryland. Senator, it's such a strange answer because he's saying, I don't know. I'm a Trump appointee. I don't know anything. But the career staff at the department, they're going to help me. The same people who the Trump administration is trying to fire.

[Angela Alsobrooks]

Yeah, well, you know what I mean. I think that what we know is that he was either unqualified or untruthful or both. I tend to think that both. But it was outrageous to have a person who's worked already in the Labor Department. He's been a part of the transition team there for President Trump. He's a labor lawyer, for crying out loud, for seven or Eight years, and said he knows nothing really about collective bargaining agreements. Maybe he'd ask someone else in the building. And believe it or not, we received pretty much the same response from Mrs. Chavez, Darimer, who said that she wasn't sure that collective bargaining agreements were enforceable by law. So this is just a whole cadre of unqualified individuals, which is what makes it so outrageous that this administration has attacked this huge witch hunt against civil servants, federal employees who are actually qualified to do their jobs is just outrageous.

[Lawrence O'Donnell]

And by the way, what he said was actually the truth of the way a lot of the Senate confirmation process used to work, which is the nominee is there, they are qualified to whatever degree, but what you always knew is they're going into a department with career staff who do have the answer to everything. And so if this nominee doesn't know everything, the career staff will help that nominee get through the actual job. But those, as I said, are exactly the people they're trying to fire.

[Angela Alsobrooks]

Yeah, but you know what? That's true. And it is disqualifying to apply for a job, to lead the Department of Labor and to not know basics such as collective bargaining agreements. But this is what we're facing. You know, we saw the same with RFK Jr who couldn't tell us the difference between Medicare and Medicaid. These folks are unqualified.

[Lawrence O'Donnell]

Yeah. And if you were looking at a government saying, if we are going to get rid of some people, who should we get rid of? Well, you'd start with the people who don't know how to do it at all. Which is all. It's all of the trust. You wouldn't even have to look at them individually, just every one of them.

[Angela Alsobrooks]

Well, the basic qualification for the nominees who have come forward so far have generally been that they would vow loyalty to Donald Trump. That's the qualification it appears that he's looked for, which again, makes it not only outrageous that he has really accused the true professionals of being unqualified, but it also his idea about efficiency, we know, is also not true. When you fill the government with people who are unqualified, and when you are telling the people who actually can do the job that maybe they should go home for eight months and receive pay for it. This is why you know, that none of this is to be trusted.

[Lawrence O'Donnell]

Senator Angela, also, Brooks, thank you very much for joining us tonight.

[Angela Alsobrooks]

Thank you so much.

[Lawrence O'Donnell]

Thank you. Coming up, some of the wisest commentary I heard after Donald Trump's speech last night was from our next guest, Michelle Norris. Msnbc senior contributing editor who will join us after this break.

[Jen Psaki]

MSNBC presents Main justice each week on their podcast, veteran lawyers Andrew Weissman and Mary McCord break down the latest developments inside the Trump administration's Department of Justice.

[Lawrence O'Donnell]

The administration doesn't necessarily want to be.

[Rachel Maddow]

Questioned on any of its policy.

[Lawrence O'Donnell]

I think what we are seeing is Project 2025 in action. This is it coming to fruition.

[Jen Psaki]

Main justice subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple podcasts for ad free listening and bonus content. The first 100 days, bills are passed, executive orders are signed and presidencies are defined. And for Donald Trump's first 100 days, Rachel Maddow is on MSNBC five nights a week.

[Rachel Maddow]

Now is the time, so we're gonna.

[Jen Psaki]

Do it, providing her unique insight and analysis during this critical time.

[Rachel Maddow]

How do we strategically align ourselves to this moment of information, this moment of transition in our country?

[Jen Psaki]

The Rachel Maddow show, weeknights at 9pm Eastern on MSNBC.

[Lawrence O'Donnell]

One thing Donald Trump doesn't understand is that some people in this country actually have very positive relationships with the parts of the government they depend on. And the Agriculture Department, where Donald Trump is trying to cut jobs, is one of the most popular government departments by the people who actually use it. Farmers.

[Donald Trump]

Our new trade policy will also be great for the American farmer. I love the farmer. Our farmers are going to have a field day right now. So to our farmers, have a lot of fun. I love you, too. I love you, too.

[Lawrence O'Donnell]

Joining us now, MSNBC senior contributing editor Michele Norris. Michelle, one of the groups out there who already know from the first Trump presidency how bad his ideas can be, are the farmers, because they are so conversant on how tariffs affect them, how government policy affects them. And I feel like they're the leading edge for many others in the coming year, the rest of this year, autoworkers, others who are going to discover what farmers already know.

[Michelle Norris]

Yeah, a lot of people will see latent effects from some of the things that we see laid out last night, particularly the tariffs. The farmers already understand they got hit by the in the trade war against China. They got hit hard. They never fully recovered. But last night, what you saw was a president who laid out, explained the sweeping changes that he had made, but didn't really give us a cohesive understanding or explanation for why he was doing things. There were a litany of things that he said that were not true, you know, that he had inherited a catastrophic economy. That's not true. There are billions of dollars or millions and millions of dollars of Social Security fraud no receipts to prove that. And so it seemed like what he was trying to do was to control the narrative, to show that America is strong, to show mainly that he is strong. And for someone who is so almost obsessed with branding, it's surprising that. And maybe it shouldn't be surprising. Maybe we should know this. But it is sad that he doesn't understand what he has done, what these changes have done to all the things that America's traditionally stood for.

[Lawrence O'Donnell]

But he just pretends that that doesn't happen. And then when he gets basically orders from the stock market, like he did.

[Michelle Norris]

Today, oops, we'll do something else.

[Lawrence O'Donnell]

Yeah, he caves and then tries to present it as, no, Justin Trudeau didn't just win that round. I'm still the tough guy.

[Michelle Norris]

Well, that's what happens when you move with speed instead of deliberation, and they're moving very quickly. I mean, it's six weeks, and it feels like it's been six years, you know, to make all of these changes. And so they. But the overall goal is to. They say it's to reduce government. Some would say it is to remake government. It feels like they're trying to crush government as we know it. And without really understanding the key elements that we depend on. And when we're talking about the things that America's traditionally stood for, reliability, competence, these are things that our allies look to us for. When you don't think about government in an abstract way, but when you call the Social Security Department when you want to visit a national park, you expect that things are going to. That the trains are going to run on time and they're making indiscriminate cuts that seem to undermine the very things that governments stand for. He's concerned with one thing, and that's power, Maybe two things, power and strength. And that's a projection as opposed to actually, you know, if we truly were strong, we would be moving in a different way. If we truly were concerned about projecting strength. You don't have to, like, walk in with a chainsaw. You pick up a scalpel. I think most people agree that there probably are areas in the government that could use a haircut, you know, that you could pull back a little bit, but you don't walk around with a chainsaw. And just. Those are raggedy cuts. Raggedy is not a word that you want associated, you know, with government. Most people in business would not conduct themselves in this manner. And yet someone who's known, you know, that's how he entered the world stage, as someone who was a businessman has taken a rather strange approach to conducting business when he's making decisions about people's livelihoods, about the direction of the country, about, about the people that we align ourselves with on the world stage. And I think one indication of how wobbly this all is is generally, and you know this, Lawrence, when people deliver, when presidents deliver a State of the Union address, there's usually a rollout afterwards where they go out and they travel the country and they talk about their initiatives. And they didn't do that because I don't think that they can proudly walk into that space.

[Lawrence O'Donnell]

Yeah. Michelle Norris, please come by whenever you possibly can. The seat's always here for you. Thank you very much for joining us tonight. We'll be right back. MSNBC's Michelle Norris gets tonight's last word.

[Jen Psaki]

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[Rachel Maddow]

We're seeing a really radical effort to change the American system of government.

[Jen Psaki]

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