← The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell
The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell
Lawrence: Donald Trump is now America's biggest loser in the history of presidents' first 100 days
00:45:27
Tonight on The Last Word: Donald Trump rages online as his poll numbers tank. Also, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation projects that Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberal Party wins in a national election heavily influenced by Trump’s tariffs and threats. And voters pack town halls protesting Trump and the GOP agenda. Robert Reich, Timothy Snyder, and Rep. Joe Neguse join Lawrence O’Donnell.
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- [00:00]
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- [01:00]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Now it's time for the Last Word with the aforementioned Lawrence O'Donnell. Good evening, Lawrence.
- [01:05]
Rachel Maddow
Good evening. Rachel and I listened to your discussion of what you think is coming. Given how badly things are going for Donald Trump, you actually expect it to get a bit worse for us. In pre Trump politics, when someone gets the kind of polling Donald Trump gets that always dictated a course correction over toward what the polls were indicating would be the acceptable space, but you're saying no, the polls will actually drive him the other way.
- [01:41]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Yeah. No, this is a guy who is like driving a proverbial car along the road and gets a flat tire and decides the way that he's going to solve the flat tire problem is by setting the engine compartment on fire. Right. Like this is a guy who reacts to bad news by trying to make an even bigger catastrophe that makes you forget about the first round of big news. And so I expect some really wild punches and crazily reckless behavior to try to change the course of the way that people are talking about how badly the first hundred days have gone. But I think the big picture story is his failure and the American public rejecting him wholesale.
- [02:18]
Advertiser 2
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- [02:18]
Rachel Maddow
And according to the polls, they really see it. They're not confused about what he has failed at.
- [02:25]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Yeah. The American public don't think it's all gang members who are being snatched off the street. The American public don't think tariffs are Good for our economy. Like the stuff that they're saying, nobody's buying it. And it's not just disapproving of Trump and disapproving of Elon Musk. It's every single issue you ask about. Everything from crime and immigration to economic policy to foreign policy to education policy, to literally every single thing you pull on. Even the stuff he thought would be popular, like going after international students and all the other crazy deportation stuff he's doing. People hate all of it. People love due process more than they like anything else that he is doing. By a margin of like 40, 50, 60, 70%.
- [03:10]
Rachel Maddow
Yeah, they were paying attention in high school, it turns out.
- [03:14]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
- [03:18]
Rachel Maddow
Thank you, Rachel. Thank you.
- [03:20]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Thanks, Lawrence.
- [03:21]
Rachel Maddow
Thank you. Well, imagine a 78 year old man who often speaks incoherently and lies to you in ways that leave you wondering whether he is a pathological liar or delusional or both. Pocket dials. Someone he doesn't want to talk to at 1:28am and then imagine that same 78 year old man is angrily braying at the world at 5:24am claiming people have committed crimes, crimes that do not exist, and coming up with a name for those people committing the crimes that don't exist, using words that have never been joined together and make absolutely no sense, calling them negative criminals. Of course you would be concerned about the mental health of such a person. Of course you would assume some kind of serious neurological decline in the 78 year old man. Imagine that same 78 year old man also said, I run the country and the world. And now imagine if Joe Biden had done just one of those things. There would have been 4 inch headlines about cognitive decline. But that's just one news cycle with Donald Trump, who did every one of those things. He butt dialed a reporter for the Atlantic at 1:28am who he did not want to talk to, but with whom he did eventually do an interview in which he said, I run the country and the world. No one runs the country. No one ever has, no one ever will. This country was founded on that very principle. This country was founded by people escaping the rule of one person escaping the rule of a king. And so, no, the President does not run the country. The president, at best, if he knows what he's doing, runs a section, and only a section of the federal government, the executive branch. The President of the United States has absolutely nothing to do with thousands upon thousands of state laws that exist in this country and city laws and all of the different state tax rates that exist in this country, people have tried to run the world, people like Adolf Hitler, but no one ever has. And so, no, Donald Trump does not run the country and the world. And it sounds fully delusional when he says it in an interview with the Atlantic, which now carries that line as the title of the piece, I Run the country and the World. Some Republicans have tried to justify that delusional declaration by invoking the concept of the President of the United States as the leader of the free world. That is a cliche that I have never personally indulged in, but it really is just a cliche, and it's never actually been true. And no previous president, all of whom since Franklin Delano Roosevelt have at some point been referred to in the media as the leader of the free world, has never claimed that title for himself. No president has ever done that. Because every previous president who actually tried to lead other countries in one direction or another always knew that the easiest way to destroy a president's ability to lead other countries in this world to cooperate with us would be a publicly expressed sense of American presidential superiority over all of those countries and over all of those leaders of those countries who the American President might be trying to persuade. And so Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who brilliantly managed the allied countries who won World War II, and Joe Biden, who brilliantly managed the alliance of countries who have rushed to the support of Ukraine, always publicly did that kind of leadership with humility, because that's the only way the man who says, I run the world is being rebuked literally by the world right now. And every single day since he has imposed tariffs on the world, not one country has accepted those tariffs. Not one country isn't fighting back against those tariffs. And China, the principal target of the Trump tariffs, through a government spokesperson said, we will fight against till the end. That's how much Donald Trump does not run the world. Donald Trump started a trade war that he is losing every day. Donald Trump could not have chosen a stupider or more delusional moment to say, I run the country and the world. As of tonight, new polling indicates the country doesn't want Donald Trump running anything. Now, Donald Trump has achieved a new record. And all of Donald Trump's records are the most extreme form of negative achievement. A new Washington Post poll awards a record to Donald Trump, reporting that Donald Trump's job approval rating is, quote, lower than for any past president at the hundred day mark in their first or second terms. Donald Trump is now America's biggest loser in the history of first hundred day presidential polling, 55% say they disapprove of how Donald Trump is handling his job and only 39% approve. Donald Trump won 49% of the vote in the last election, but he couldn't come close to that now. The only comfort for Donald Trump in this week's new round of polling is that the richest person in the world polls just slightly worse than Donald Trump. 57% disapprove of what Elon Musk is doing, with just 35% approving. Americans think that the Trump invented so called Department of Government Efficiency allegedly run by Elon Musk isn't finding waste or fraud in government. 56% say that waste has either stayed the same or has increased compared to 43% who think it has decreased. And 68% say that fraud has either stayed the same or has increased. Donald Trump, speaking of fraud, is the first president of the United States to try to hustle private business ventures from the White House and do it publicly, auctioning off for money that he can put in his pocket, not for campaign contributions, dinners at the White House, creating his own cryptocurrency coin business. No president has ever tried to profit from the presidency while in the White House. 59% expressed concern that Donald Trump is doing too much to reduce the size and role of government, with 56% saying correctly that Donald Trump acted beyond his authority as president without justification. That's what's happening in the country that Donald Trump says he runs. 56% are saying Donald Trump is trying to act beyond his authority as president and that 56% understand that no one is supposed to run this country. That is not the definition of the presidency that a majority of this country correctly embraces or that the Constitution provides for. Donald Trump does run his private businesses. He still does every day. He runs them for profit from the White House. But he does not run the country and he absolutely does not run the world. It's not just every other country in the world that knows how harmful the Trump tariffs are. A huge majority of Americans know that 64% disapprove of Donald Trump's tariffs. The Washington Post calls it one of the least popular issues so far in Trump's presidency. 64% of the people in this country know that Donald Trump's tariffs are a very bad idea. 72% say they think it's very or somewhat likely that his economic policies will cause a recession. 72% say Donald Trump is on his way to causing a recession. And it's very, very hard in modern American politics to get polling numbers like 72% on anything, and it is virtually impossible to get polling numbers like 89%. Only something as obviously deranged as the Trump tariffs could produce that kind of number. In a poll, 89% think the Trump tariffs are likely to result in higher prices on the products they buy. 89% are saying in that poll they know Donald Trump lied every single time he told them during the presidential campaign that China would pay his tariffs. 89% are saying they know Donald Trump was lying when he said the tariffs that he will impose will be paid by Canada and paid by Mexico and by all the foreign countries he illegally imposes tariffs on, claiming that it's a national security issue, which it obviously isn't. Tonight, 89% know the man who claims to run the country and the world is completely wrong about who actually pays the Trump tariffs. They understand exactly what all those radio and TV ads from car dealers are about, telling them to rush in to get the pre tariff price on a new car. And they know time is running out or has run out for that pre tariff price and they're going to pay that tariff if they buy a new car. At 5:24am today, the man who thinks he runs the country and the world reacted to the Washington Post poll by, of course, attacking the poll and calling the people who conduct the poll, quote, his words, negative criminals. Donald Trump said these people should be investigated for election fraud. They are negative criminals. And so, as ragingly unconstitutional, delusional rants by presidents go, Donald Trump is once again the big winner because no other president has really had a public ragingly unconstitutional, delusional comment about anything. Donald Trump said in writing that the people who conduct the Washington Post poll should be investigated for election fraud should be investigated for a crime that should be a criminal investigation. Okay? That means his attorney general, Pam Bondi, should be in the middle of that investigation right now, tonight. That also means someone's going to have to completely rewrite the law on election fraud to make accurate polling illegal, which, of course, a little thing that Donald Trump has never comprehended the First Amendment will not allow. There isn't another president in history who thought that anyone working at the Washington Post was a criminal. Richard Nixon knew that Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein were on track in their investigative reporting in 1973 and 1974 to destroy the Nixon presidency and drive him out of office, which is exactly what they did. And Richard Nixon never called either one of them a criminal. Never. Richard Nixon never thought Woodward and Bernstein were criminals. Richard Nixon knew exactly who the criminals were. Richard Nixon knew the criminals were working for him. Richard Nixon knew he was a criminal. Richard Nixon knew the White House counsel was a criminal. Richard Nixon knew his Attorney General was a criminal. Richard Nixon knew his White House chief of staff was a criminal. And they were all found to be criminals in federal court except Richard Nixon, who received a presidential pardon a month after he resigned the presidency for all the crimes he committed during his presidency. Remember when the Trump team was promising 90 trade deals in 90 days? Around the world in 90 days solved the problem because the man who believes he runs the world was going to fix everything himself. We're going to run 90 deals in 90 days is possible. The boss is going to be the chief negotiator. Nothing's done without him looking very carefully at it. He has such a fine attention to detail. It's impossible to get more clownish than that man. That was 17 days ago. Do we have 17 trade deals? No. How many do we have? Zero. Exactly zero. 17 days and zero trade deals is what he meant to say. Donald Trump suggested that China would be begging for a trade deal. The president of China would immediately pick up the phone and call Donald Trump. The president of China hasn't done that. And Donald Trump is still trying to claim that negotiations on a trade deal with China, which would be the single most complex trade deal ever negotiated with a single country in the history of the world, is actually happening. A trade deal like that normally takes years and China says nothing's happening. China says there are no negotiations. Now imagine the president of China and everyone in the Chinese government watching Donald Trump publicly demonstrate just how weak he is compared to them by lying about them. Donald Trump is claiming that there are negotiations going on with China because Americans, as shown in those polls, hate his tariffs. The Chinese government has the luxury of not caring what anyone outside the government thinks of this trade war. The president of China doesn't run the world, but he sure does run China. So President Xi doesn't have to worry about public opinion the way Donald Trump does. That's why President Xi hasn't budged and Donald Trump has. The Wall Street Journal editorial report says China called Mr. Trump's bluff and seems to have won this round. In a new article titled Trump's Tariffs have Done what no US Adversary Could, Branko Marcellic writes, the blanket, erratic and often nonsensical nature of the tariffs has far from showing signs of jump starting. The long process of reshoring manufacturing jobs actually proven a major obstacle to that project, while also Leading manufacturers to shed jobs or scale back job their plans and plunging the entire US Economy into uncertainty. More broadly, this reached a crescendo with the mass sell off of U.S. treasury bonds earlier this month that briefly threatened to send the entire US Financial system buckling. Trump, in other words, has not just inadvertently demonstrated the extent of the United States dependence on China. He has also wound up demonstrating other key nations similar dependence on while revealing stark limits to Washington's ability to make even its allies do what it wants. So much for the man who says I run the country and the world. The guy who claims he runs the world has not been able to negotiate a single trade deal with a single country in the world since promising 90 deals in 90 days. That makes Donald Trump, according to his own definition of success in this arena, the biggest loser in international trade in the history of the American presidency. And no amount of delusional screaming about Donald Trump's negative criminals can change what Donald Trump has done to make himself such a humiliated worldwide loser. Leading off our discussion tonight is Robert Reich, who served as Secretary of Labor in the administration of President Bill Clinton. He's a professor of public policy at UC Berkeley and co founder of Inequality Media. Thank you very much for joining us tonight, Professor Reich. Donald Trump has discovered, or maybe can never comprehend the complexities involved in trying to deal with employment in the United States and trying to deal with international trade at the same time. And voters don't like what they're seeing.
- [21:37]
Robert Reich
No, Lawrence, in fact, if you ask the question, how much can be destroyed in 100 days of our economy and our politics and our international connections and allies, how much can be destroyed with regard to civil rights and human rights? You would not believe how much Donald Trump has accomplished. It's that bad.
- [22:04]
Rachel Maddow
When you are. Clint. Sorry. Go, go ahead, Professor. I'm sorry.
- [22:09]
Robert Reich
No, I was just going to say the public is catching on. This is not a, a public that is in any way information deprived. This is not a stupid nation. This is an intelligent public. And they are getting it. They understand what's happening. And I would dare say there's a lot of buyers remorse, even among Trump voters.
- [22:37]
Rachel Maddow
When you were in the Labor Department, when you were running the Labor Department, one of the key functions of the Labor Department when it came to international trade was to try to work for. On the issue of working conditions in the countries we were trading with, one reason why it is cheaper to make certain goods in certain countries is they have no minimum wage or their wages are much, much lower. And that was one of the really active aspects of the Clinton administration, led by you on international trade, was a real concern with improving and requiring in trade deals improved working conditions and higher wages in other countries as one of the balancing acts in competition. We've never heard a word from the Trump administration about that.
- [23:27]
Robert Reich
No. And it's a key point, Lawrence, if you are trading with other countries that are less developed, and most of the countries we trade with are in many ways less developed, what you want to do is help them raise their living standards. What you want to do is raise their minimum wages and raise the quality of their workplaces and safety so that as they ride the tide of development, they actually become more responsible competitors and more responsible traders. With you, it's a key point of international trade, and yet the Trump administration has not even mentioned it. The Trump administration is doing the opposite. The Trump administration has been with regard to American workers trying to lower the bar instead of raising the bar for foreign workers.
- [24:28]
Rachel Maddow
Professor Reich, what do you see in this new, this novel situation in the American presidency where we have a president who says delusional things, who says wildly unconstitutional things, and it's no longer the madness that is central to those statements is no longer the news, it has stopped being news that this president says things that are far beyond the realm of what anyone else in that position has ever said before. It's just taken for granted that he says profoundly crazy things.
- [25:06]
Robert Reich
Well, the central question I think we have to really focus on after this first hundred days of mayhem is can we wait till January of 2027, when hopefully the Democrats take at least one chamber of Congress, or will there be so much damage done to the institutional frameworks of the Constitution and everything else we need as a nation in the interim that we need to do something else? We need to do something more immediately. Can we trust the Supreme Court, for example, to really be a constraint on Donald Trump? Can we trust Donald Trump to adhere to what the Supreme Court says? And if he doesn't, what are we prepared to do then? Is there any way we can push members of Congress, particularly Republicans, particularly in Republican states and districts, to be more responsible to their consciences, more patriotic with regard to what the nation needs? Is there any other way that we as a nation, as people who now a vast majority, understand what is happening and what Donald Trump is doing to ruin this nation? Is there anything else we can do in the interim? Well, I think there are hopefully many things that can be done. And I think we also need to consider the possibility, if he decides to reject and not follow a Supreme Court order. We need to consider the possibility of pushing for yet another impeachment, the third impeachment, but a conviction this time around in the Senate.
- [26:58]
Rachel Maddow
Professor Robert Reich, former Secretary of labor, thank you very much for joining us tonight.
- [27:03]
Robert Reich
Thank you, Lawrence.
- [27:04]
Rachel Maddow
Thank you. We have breaking news at this hour. The polls have closed in Canada. We're going to be right back with the latest from Canada on that election. We'll take a break. Now.
- [27:20]
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- [28:22]
Rachel Maddow
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- [28:46]
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- [28:47]
Rachel Maddow
Including at 2121 15th Street north in Arlington, Virginia. Breaking news Canadian Broadcasting Company has just projected that the Liberal Party has won the Canadian election. Prime Minister Mark Carney, who stood against Donald Trump and his tariffs, has now won a full term of office. Joining us now from Toronto is Timothy Snyder, professor of History at Yale University. He's the author of the New York Times best sellers On Freedom and On Tyranny. And Professor Snyder, this day began for Canadian voters when voting was maybe an hour old in the east with Donald Trump posting on social media that Canada should become the 51st state. And in many ways, Donald Trump was a very serious factor in this election.
- [29:46]
Timothy Snyder
Yeah, I mean, that was an astonishing post, and it reflects an astonishing lack of reality. There's no. The Canadians don't have any doubt about who they are. Right. They don't have any doubt about who they are, where they belong, that their country is real. And so the depths of fantasy and that message are really great. But as you say, it's part of a much larger sweep of events here. The Liberals who are going to win and are going to form a government were down 24 points. They have a very competent leader, Carney. He's run an excellent campaign, but even at his best, he would have had no chance without Trump. When we speak about Trump's power around the world, this is the kind of power he has. He has the power to get people to do the exact opposite of what he would like for them to do. He has rallied Canadians around their own flag, and he's rallied many Canadians to vote differently than they were going to do. He's defined this election negatively against his own policies, but also positively as a chance for Canadians to assert.
- [30:56]
Rachel Maddow
I'm going to read for the audience exactly what Donald Trump did say this morning during what was about the first hour of voting in Canada. Good luck to the great people of Canada. Elect the man who has the strength and wisdom to cut your taxes in half, increase your military power for free to the highest level in the world, have your car, steel, aluminum, lumber, energy, and all other businesses quadruple in size with zero tariffs or taxes. If Canada becomes the cherished 51st state of the United States of America, no more artificially drawn line from many years ago. Look how beautiful this land mass would be. And, Professor Snyder, another example of delusional madness that Canadians were reading if they were on the way to the polls.
- [31:51]
Timothy Snyder
It's very. It's. I mean, it's offensive, of course, right? For somebody else's leader. I mean, if just a citizen of another country says your country doesn't exist, that's offensive enough. But for the head of state of another country to say that your country doesn't exist and that you don't know what you really need and in fact, you should just abandon your own country and join ours, that's. That's offensiveness at a level which is rarely seen in foreign affairs. And by the way, that whole notion of an artificial order is very familiar. For those who are paying attention to Russia in the run up to the invasions of Ukraine. So it's, I mean, I think the liberals were going to win anyway, but if, if the liberals were going to ask Trump to write something to help them, that was going to be it. Right? Exactly that.
- [32:40]
Rachel Maddow
Yeah. It's exquisite on this day where he says, where he's revealed to be saying that he runs the country and the world. He runs the world. That's his concept advanced to the Atlantic. This just couldn't be a better example of how insanely wrong that is. He tried to run Canada today. He tried to run just one other country, the neighbor to our north. And the rebuke could not be more solid. I want to go to Ukraine too, while we're considering Canada here, because we are seeing some developments there. Donald Trump doing some posts, social media posts, indicating he's not sure if he can trust Vladimir Putin. That's the first time he's ever done that. What do you make of where the situation stands in Ukraine now after that one on one meeting that President Zelensky had with Donald Trump at the Vatican over the weekend before the Pope's funeral?
- [33:41]
Timothy Snyder
I guess what the two situations have in common is that the United States can get pretty much everything at once when it keeps its allies as its friends. There's, there's nothing that we need from the Canadians that we couldn't have gotten as their allies and as their friends. We just chosen not to do that. And the Ukrainians were also our allies and our friends. If we could listen to the Ukrainians about what we need to do to strategize vis a vis Russia, we would be doing much better. But instead, as with Canada, we're telling Ukrainians, we're the ones who know everything. We will tell you your own interests, we will ignore you, and instead, we'll talk to Russia and we will base what we call our peace plan on what the Russians are telling us to say. And again, that's not just offensive to ignore a country which has been fighting for its life and which has been doing us a lot of good. It also just doesn't work practically because you don't know what the issues are. And you land in a place where it's not just that you're siding with the aggressor, you're asking for Ukraine to do things that it can't do. So you ask for my assessment. My assessment is fundamentally negative. We can talk about a peace plan all we want, but the basic reality is that we have stopped new supplies of weapons to Ukraine. They're going to run out in about two weeks and we have not applied under Trump any pressure on the Russians which would usefully move them in the direction of halting this war.
- [35:06]
Rachel Maddow
We are continuing to watch the situation in Canada. Professor Snyder, thank you very much for joining us tonight.
- [35:14]
Timothy Snyder
My pleasure.
- [35:14]
Rachel Maddow
And we will be. We'll be right back.
- [35:18]
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- [36:19]
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- [36:55]
Rachel Maddow
As we've seen in the results of the Canadian election, the breaking news results of the Canadian election in this hour tonight. The Trump backlash is now on both sides of the Canadian border. Here's what that backlash sounds like on the southern side of that border in the state of New York. Good evening, everyone. That is the sound of a Republican congressman in suburban New York on his way to a crushing defeat in the next election next year because of his loyalty to Donald Trump. As of tonight, Republican Congressman Mike Lawlor who reportedly harbors ambitions to run for governor of New York is in a completely unwinnable position in his congressional district north of New York City if he does not abandon the most unpopular policies ever advocated by a president since Herbert Hoover. Last night, Mike Lawler's constituents in a district where he won with 52.2% of the vote against the Democrats, 49.9% of the vote, made it very clear that a full Trump supporting candidate does not stand a chance in that congressional district next year. The Republican speaker of the House has warned Republican members of the House not to have town halls so they won't have to hear constituents yelling at them for supporting the policies of Donald Trump. The Republican speaker of the House has insisted that the people yelling at those few Republican members of Congress who have had town halls are infiltrators. They don't come from that Republicans congressional district. That's what the Republican line has been about. The protests that have broken out at the very few town halls Republicans have dared to hold. And so Mike Lawler thought he outsmarted the protesters by requiring proof of residence in his district in order to be admitted to the town hall. And so Mike Lawler then proved to us that every voice you've heard screaming at Mike Lawler is a voter who has the power to throw Mike Lawler out of office next year. And Mike Lawler knows that all the Democrats have to do is convince voters to throw out three of those Mike Lawlers and Hakeem Jeffries becomes the speaker of the House. And Donald Trump's reign of cruelty could become the stuff of Donald Trump's third impeachment in the House of Representatives. That's what was at stake last night in Mike Lawlor's congressional district. The power to investigate and impeach Donald Trump. A power that rests solely in the House of Representatives. Bloomberg reported. Last night's event was a quote, circus, like town hall. At the end of that town hall, Michael Lawler had to know that the only route to his survival as a politician in his congressional district or in the state of New York is to abandon Donald Trump. So you describe yourself as a moderate, yet you support all of the policies.
- [40:31]
Robert Reich
That this authoritarian administration is putting forth.
- [40:35]
Rachel Maddow
What specifically are you doing that warrants the label moderate?
- [40:47]
Robert Reich
So again, my record speaks for itself. I have been rated the fourth most bipartisan for a reason. Folks, if you want me to answer the questions, let the question be asked and then listen to the answer. If you're just going to yell back and forth, that time is going to run pretty quick. So folks.
- [41:17]
Rachel Maddow
I have never heard a Republican speak or anyone speak more foolishly about economics than Donald Trump. But Mike Lawler is now a close second. Last night, although he may not realize this, Mike Lawler, in his gibberish, insisted that Europe should pay higher prices for prescription drugs. He said this in the middle of his blather about tariffs, which was properly shouted down by the crowd. He was complaining that American prescription drug prices are higher than Europe's. The solution of that to that has nothing to do with tariffs and has everything to do with the fact that virtually every country in the world except the United States has some or many price controls on prescription drugs. Here is the economically and politically confused and lost Mike Lawlor, in effect, telling his voters he has no problem with them having to pay high prices on prescription drugs. He just wants Europe to have to do it, too.
- [42:24]
Robert Reich
Other countries have had significantly higher tariffs, barriers to entry, and price controls on Europe.
- [42:34]
Joe Neguse
And when you look at, for instance.
- [42:36]
Robert Reich
Europe, Europe has price controls on US Prescription drugs. US Prescription drug costs are significantly higher. US Prescription drug costs are significantly higher.
- [42:54]
Rachel Maddow
Joining us now is Democratic Congressman Joe Negus of Colorado. He is an assistant Democratic leader and a former impeachment manager in the House of Representatives and impeachment of Donald Trump in the United States Senate. Congressman Agus, thank you very much for joining us tonight. So now we know. Thanks to Mike Lawler. He proved every one of those voters is a registered constituent of his district with an address in his district, and that was their reaction to him.
- [43:24]
Joe Neguse
Well, good evening, Lawrence. It's good to be with you. And yes, you're right. And that reaction is certainly not surprising to those of us who, of course, been following this closely in the first hundred days of Donald Trump's presidency, which has been a disaster for the American people. As you noted, the vast majority of my Republican colleagues have been in hiding. They've refused to do town halls. The few that have, like the one that you just mentioned, have heard a very palpable frustration and anger from their constituents because the reckless agenda that they are pursuing is harming working families across our country. And so I think you articulated well what is, in effect a binary choice for House Republicans, whether they will choose fealty and capitulation to President Trump and the dangerous agenda that he's pursuing, or whether they will do right by their constituents and stand up for the communities that they represent. Unfortunately, none of them have chosen to do the latter thus far. Time will tell as to whether that changes in the weeks and months ahead.
- [44:23]
Rachel Maddow
So we're on the verge of May how many town halls have you held this year and what have you been hearing?
- [44:31]
Joe Neguse
I've held nine town halls thus far. I represent a district, as you know, Lawrence, that is larger than eight states across the Eastern seaboard. So I represent western and northern Colorado, 12 counties, incredibly large district. And I've held town halls in every corner of of the areas that I'm privileged to serve. And I have heard incredible frustration and anger at the economic chaos that President Trump has unleashed on the people of Colorado and the American people writ large. Folks are frustrated that prices are going up across the board and they are frustrated that House Republicans have refused, as I mentioned at this juncture, at least to do anything about it, to work with House Democrats in good faith and instead have capitulated to Donald Trump's whims at every turn. And I think that over the course of the next few weeks, particularly as the reconciliation bill makes its way through the Congress, the contrast couldn't be clearer for the American people as to who House Democrats are fighting for and who House Republicans and President Trump are fighting for. As you know, they are slated here in the coming weeks to potentially enact the largest cut to Medicaid in the history of that program, all to fund tax cuts for the richest billionaires in our country. There's a reason why these policies are unpopular. It is because they are making life harder for working families. And as you could see in that town hall, the American people are fed up with it.
- [45:58]
Rachel Maddow
Assistant Democratic Leader of the House of Representatives, Joe Magus, thank you very much for joining our coverage tonight.
- [46:04]
Joe Neguse
Thank you.
- [46:06]
Rachel Maddow
And coming up, tonight's breaking news is that Canada's Liberal Party, led by Mark, is projected to win a victory tonight in the election that has been defined by Donald Trump's attacks on Canada. We'll be right back. We return to the breaking news of the night. Voters in Canada have dealt Donald Trump a strong rebuke with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation projecting the Liberal Party has won tonight's national election in Canada. Trump's tariffs and repeated attacks on Canada's sovereignty became a central focus in the election, boosting the Liberal Party that was badly trailing in the polls before Donald Trump's trade war against Canada. In his closing argument to voters, Mark Carney said this. President Trump again imposed unjustified tariffs on our nation.
- [47:11]
Timothy Snyder
This time he targeted the auto industry.
- [47:14]
Advertiser 2
And the more than 500,000 hard working, dedicated Canadians.
- [47:19]
Timothy Snyder
He wants to break us so that.
- [47:21]
Rachel Maddow
America can own us.
- [47:23]
Advertiser 2
That will never happen. And our response to these latest tariffs is to fight, is to protect and to build.
- [47:37]
Rachel Maddow
And here's a Canadian magazine cover showing you just a sample of the media coverage that Donald Trump has been getting in Canada during this Canadian campaign. Back with us from Toronto tonight is Yale Professor Timothy Snyder. Professor Snyder, in our first discussion of this, we mentioned Donald Trump's crazed post this morning when Canadians were going to the polls. He actually, and you have to read it to believe it, he actually asked Canadian voters to vote for him. The first mad king of the United States asking Canadian voters to vote for him in the strongest possible terms they could muster. They voted the opposite way tonight.
- [48:28]
Timothy Snyder
I mean, just in the numbers, right? The democrats in the US lost by a couple points. Carney's liberals were down 24. So they have engineered something like a 30 point swing with the help of Trump. The Trump effect was obviously enormous. But on the positive side, you cite, you cited Legionado Morale. It's a French, a French language newspaper. The. In Quebec, an awful lot of people voted Liberal who wouldn't have voted Liberal. And that's, that's another way in which Trump has brought the Canadian nation together. And so the positive tone is to say, well, look, this shows that you can have a coherent resistance, which makes sense, which should be a lesson for us as Americans, but it also gives Canada a chance. Canada's got its problems just like we do, but they have a new prime minister who has a chance now to define Canada. And that's something to look forward to.
- [49:23]
Rachel Maddow
Donald Trump unifying the world against Donald Trump, one country at a time. Professor Timothy Snyder, thank you very much for joining us tonight.
- [49:32]
Timothy Snyder
My pleasure.
- [49:33]
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