← The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell
The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell
Lawrence: Elon Musk is the biggest loser in Donald Trump's world war on economic sanity
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Tonight on The Last Word: Elon Musk speaks out against Trump tariffs. Also, fired Justice Department attorneys speak out against the Trump administration. Plus, “Hands Off” protests demand action against the Trump agenda. And the Supreme Court pauses the deadline to return a man mistakenly deported to El Salvador. Catherine Rampell, Sen. Adam Schiff, Rep. Maxwell Frost, and Andrew Weissmann join Lawrence O’Donnell.
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Lawrence O'Donnell
And so, as the 77th day of the second Trump presidency comes to a close, we have arrived at a moment that we knew was coming. At some point, it had to come. We have arrived at the Musk versus Trump moment. The world has been wondering how long the bromance could last between the two most volatile and publicly irrational men in the world, Elon Musk and Donald Trump. Donald Trump is the only president in history who hired multiple White House chiefs of staff sequentially, only to end up calling each of them an idiot before and after he fired them. Donald Trump's first Secretary of State called Donald Trump an effing moron. Was documented, well documented by Bob Woodward and others said that after Donald Trump left a meeting and not long after that, Trump's first Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, was publicly being attacked by Donald Trump after Donald Trump fired him. The publicly much anticipated breakup of Donald Trump and Elon Musk seems to center on the question of when would Donald Trump turn on Elon Musk? That's what everyone was speculating about because Donald Trump has turned on virtually everyone who's worked for him in the White House. But Elon Musk is the richest person in the world. And there is no one Donald Trump wants to keep in his life more than the richest person in the world. Which is why Donald Trump was willing to suffer the public humiliation of Elon Musk publicly taking over a discussion in the Oval Office about Elon Musk's governing policies that left the actual President of the United States having about the same amount to say as Elon Musk's four year old son. We know Donald Trump doesn't ever want to turn against Elon Musk because he never wants to lose access to Elon Musk's money and the fear that that money creates, especially in the Republican Party. As long as Donald Trump has Elon Musk at his side, he can threaten any member of any Republican member of Congress with an Elon Musk financed campaign against that Republican in the next Republican primary election. And so it has always made more sense that when the break comes, it would be Elon Musk dumping Donald Trump. And now Elon Musk is indeed dumping on Donald Trump, calling Donald Trump's tariffs stupid. So far, Elon Musk is using surrogates to attack Donald Trump while Elon Musk directly attacks Trump surrogates. Elon Musk showed no gratitude to Joe Biden while Elon Musk's wealth skyrocketed every day of the Biden presidency. But he's already apparently distressed at losing more money under the Trump presidency than any other person in the world. Tonight, Elon Musk is the individual biggest dollar loser in the world as a result of Donald Trump's world war on economic sanity. And so Elon Musk began his attack on Donald Trump with an attack on Trump surrogate Peter Navarro, the only economic adviser to a president to have served federal prison time and who is the author of the deranged Trump Navarro Tariffs. Elon Musk tweeted this about Peter Navarro, a PhD in econ from Harvard and is a bad thing, not a good thing. Imagine what that means for Donald Trump, who only has a college degree from the University of Pennsylvania, which surely Elon Musk values even less than a PhD from Harvard. Peter Navarro shot back at Elon Musk calling him a car guy and who just wants quote, cheap foreign parts, which apparently is some new form of insult in Trump world that claims to be in the business of helping America's car guys, America's auto workers and car manufacturers. But because Donald Trump doesn't understand how his tariffs actually work, the stock market of every American car company is collapsing. Their stock is collapsing, including Elon Musk's car company stock, which collapsed even more today after a morning of Trump induced madness in the stock market. Today, a member of the board of directors of Tesla publicly attacked Donald Trump on Twitter. And you know that wouldn't happen without Elon Musk's approval, especially because that board member's name is kimbalon Musk's brother and apparently Elon Musk's authorized surrogate at Tesla to publicly attack Donald Trump. Kimball Musk tweeted. Who would have thought that Trump was actually the most high tax American president in generations? Through his tariff strategy, Trump has implemented a structural permanent tax on the American consumer. A tax on consumption also means less consumption, which means less jobs, which in turn leads to less consumption and even less jobs. That cycle of less consumption and less jobs is what we call a recession, which is what Wall street is now predicting, with Wall street analysts calling it the coming Trump recession. This weekend, during a video conference with Italy's right wing League Party, Elon Musk revealed just how dramatically and completely he disagrees with Donald Trump in private, where he apparently claims to urge Donald Trump to drop all tariffs between Europe and North America. I hope it is agreed that both Europe and the United States should move ideally in my view euro tariff situation, effectively creating a free trade zone between Europe and North America. And that that would be my. That's what I hope I hope occurs. And also more freedom of people to move between Europe and North America if they wish. If they wish to work in Europe or wish to work in America, they should be allowed to do so, in my view. So that, that has certainly been my advice to the President. That has certainly been my advice to the president. All right, then, in other words, Elon Musk's advice to the president is your tariffs are completely wrong, not that your tariffs are a little too high, but that the tariffs should be zero. That's what Elon Musk said. He's telling Donald Trump. That is by far the most dramatic difference in opinion anyone on the Trump team has with Donald Trump. Elon Musk wants zero tariffs and Donald Trump wants tariffs of more than 100%. Is it Thursday? I mean, it feels like Thursday already, Amy, but it's only a couple of hours into Monday. So I want to do a little tariff math. And I know we got Megan Casella waiting as well. So if I, if I'm doing this correctly, okay, maybe I'm not. We do a 50% additional tariff, punitive tariff on China. So if I layer that on to some of the tariffs that are kicking in and I know we already have 100% tariffs on electric cars that was put in place by the former President Biden, but on all goods that I think takes us above a 100% tariff, I think that's correct. That was CNBC's never before frazzled Brian Sullivan, who did an heroic job of trying to keep up with one of the craziest days in Wall street history today, including the false rumor that jolted the stock market this morning. Shortly after 10am, CNBC's screen flashed what appeared to be good news for the market that was suddenly flying around social media. Donald Trump's economic adviser Kevin Hassett was reported on the screen to have said that Donald Trump was considering a 90 day pause in tariffs for all countries except China. And that pushed the stock market straight up like a rocket. At 10:17am there's the green graph on your screen going straight up at 10:17am we are just seeing the same headline that you guys are reacting to right now on this 90 day pause in tariffs on all countries except China. We are still trying to confirm this our ourselves with the White House, but obviously a major change here, guys, and really different rhetoric even just from a couple of hours ago from this White House. Navarro, of course on CNBC saying that this is not a negotiation. And then again, Howard Lutnick, the Commerce Secretary yesterday was asked point blank whether There would be any postponing because there was some talk of that over the weekend and he said absolutely not. It's sort of obvious these have to go into effect while the president resets global trade. The president himself has been saying he won't strike any deals with, with China and the EU were the two countries he's been most focused on, or the two trading partners, and saying that there was nothing that they could offer because he wanted to see the trade deficits reduced. So a big shift here. We will have to see if this is confirmed. And then CNBC's intrepid White House correspondent Eamon Jabbers sent the market crashing back down simply by doing his job as a reporter. When I asked officials here in the West Wing just, you know, a minute ago whether or not there was any consideration of a 90 day pause, they said they hadn't heard that they don't know what that is and they'll get back to me basically. All right, well, this is AN Extraordinary, extraordinary 10 minutes in the market. Well, let's call it about 20 minutes in the market on what may not be actual news, guys. Minutes later, the grim reality finally set in. Eamon, really, you calling the White House press secretary and debunking these headlines really sent the markets back down, but because it was not a real headline that turned the market up. Yeah, in this case, Brian, fake news was fake news. And there you had a demonstration of just how quickly this problem could be solved. All Wall street needs to hear is that Donald Trump is going to stop doing what he's doing. Jeff, what do you make of the market action today? I know it's kind of a lame question on my part, but I'm not going to lie. I don't know what else to ask Sully. It has been chaotic when CNBC's always steady. Brian Sullivan is shaken to the point where he doesn't know what to ask. That's what chaos looks like on Wall street, especially Wall street tv. The powerful and precise Andrew Ross Sorkin began the day on CNBC wondering about the possibility of Trump administration officials, including obviously Donald Trump himself, engaging in insider trading with the knowledge of, before it happened, of just how bad the Trump tariffs were going to be. Given what the government's been doing and this administration's been doing. It would not shock me, and I hate to speculate if we were to find out that a whole bunch of people who work in Washington as our elected leaders one way or the other, ultimately sold stocks last week or potentially worse than that, shorted the market. Dan Ives, who has been a champion of Tesla stock for years, said on CNBC this morning that Elon Musk has personally delivered, quote, permanent brand destruction to Tesla and that the Trump tariffs are the worst thing that could happen to the American tech industry, which is so dependent on imported components. The sad thing, as someone that's such a supporter of US Tech for decades, is that what this has essentially done is cut US Tech at the knees. It would be like in a baseball game, me coming dugout for the game, okay, you're not going to have a catcher, you're not going to have a shortstop and no left fielder. Good luck. You should have a great game. But three years from now, I'll get you a catcher or shortstop. That's the problem. Dan Ives says that if iPhones have to be made in the United States, they will cost at least $3,000. And the wall Street Journal tonight points out that the cost of all cars will increase, including cars that are built in the United States. The lowest priced cars will increase by $2,500 to $4,500, and higher priced cars like Chevrolet Suburbans and Cadillac Escalades will go up $10,000 to $12,000, the Wall Street Journal reports used car prices will also climb as demand increases among consumers who don't want to pay higher prices for new cars. The Journal points out that Donald Trump's tariffs on steel and aluminum will make the production of cars in the United States more expensive and increase prices of American made cars, but that new car dealers like General Motors and Ford have more than one way of passing on the tariff increases. Instead of building in tariff increases into the listed price of the car, for example, they might simply increase the interest rates on car loans that those companies offer to cover the tariff price increases in a more disguised way. This weekend, in a social media post, Donald Trump said, this is an economic revolution and we will win. Hang tough. It won't be easy. Remember all those times on the campaign trail when Donald Trump talked about how easy it would be to impose tariffs that other countries would have to pay? He was lying every time he said that. And now that most Americans, including most Trump supporters, finally understand that they will be paying Donald Trump's tariffs. Only now does Donald Trump tell Americans it won't be easy. Elon Musk knows it won't be easy. How much more pain can Elon Musk take? How many more billions is Elon Musk willing to lose before he does something more than just telling Donald Trump privately that zero tariffs are the Way to go. How much longer can Donald Trump resist the advice of the richest person in the world to stop trying to destroy the world economically? CNBC repeatedly said today that Peter Navarro won, meaning that if there were any arguments inside the Trump administration about how wild and crazy the tariff should be, Peter Navarro won those arguments. But if Elon Musk publicly dumps Donald Trump, or if Donald Trump publicly dumps Elon Musk, then who wins? Today, Elon Musk tweeted a video of the late conservative economist Milton Friedman in praise of zero tariffs. There's not a single person in the world who could make this pencil. Remarkable statement. Not at all. The wood from which it's made, for all I know, comes from a tree that was cut down in the state of Washington. To cut down that tree, it took a saw to make the saw. It took steel to make the steel. It took iron ore. This black center, we call it lead, but it's really graphite, compressed graphite. I'm not sure where it comes from, but I think it comes from some mines in South America. This red top up here, the eraser bit of rubber probably comes from Malaya, where the rubber tree isn't even native. It was imported from South America by some businessmen with the help of the British government. This brass ferrule, I haven't the slightest idea where it came from or the yellow paint or the paint that made the black lines or the glue that holds it together. Literally thousands of people cooperated to make this pencil. People who don't speak the same language, who practice different religions, who might hate one another if they ever met. When you go down the store and buy this pencil, you are, in effect, trading a few minutes of your time for a few seconds of the time of all those thousands of people, what brought them together and induced them to cooperate to make this pencil? There was no commissar sending out offices from. Sending out orders from some central office. It was a magic of the price system, the impersonal operation of prices that brought them together and got them to cooperate, to make this pencil so that you could have it for a trifling sum. That is why the operation of the free market is so essential, not only to promote productive efficiency, but even more to foster harmony and peace among the peoples of the world. Leading off our discussion tonight is Kathryn Rampel, co host of the new evening edition of MSNBC's the Weekend on Saturday and Sunday. She's also an opinion columnist for the Washington Post. And Katherine, in honor of Brian Sullivan's brilliant CNBC coverage today, I Am going to ask the question he was embarrassed to ask. What do you make of the market action today? Markets are just desperate, desperate for any inkling that Trump might find an off ramp. And so far, he has been unwilling to find one. And that's partly because other than Elon Musk, I guess no one else in this administration is willing to tell the emperor that he has no clothes, that he is buck naked. Right. You see all of his cabinet members, his other aides going on TV and glorifying the tariff. Mageddon. We have just been through and are still going through. They all have contradictory stories about what the tariffs purpose were or how long they'll be around. Will they be temporary because they're a negotiating tactic? Will they be permanent because we need the revenue or because it's key to a manufacturing renaissance? The USDA secretary said over the weekend that it's really because Alexander Hamilton in 1791, when 90% of the country was farming and not working in, you know, banking or teaching or whatever else, that he thought tariffs were good then. Turns out we were a lot poorer back then. I don't think anybody wants to go back to those living standards. But that's the problem here, that markets are looking for some sense of rationality that someone will get through to the president. And his aides are generally either too dumb or too cowardly or, I guess, too meek, I don't know, to break through. Yeah, it seems if Wall street would be allowed or anyone would be allowed to pick one person to try to get through, it would probably be Elon Musk, richest person in the world. Donald Trump has a huge incentive to pay attention to him. But Elon Mus Musk also has that Twitter microphone, that Milton Friedman video, which was. That's by the way, of course, as we know, Ronald Reagan's favorite economist right there, saying exactly what Ronald Reagan believed about tariffs. That went out to all of Elon Musk's followers today. They were hearing from Musk for the first time in the last, say, 48 hours that tariffs can be, and in this case he believes are a bad thing. You know, on some level, I kind of feel bad for Elon Musk. What? Sorry, we ran out of time. Look, this guy spent what, $200 million paying for, or at least to help Trump get elected, basically so that Trump and Elon Musk could run the government. Right? And Elon Musk got his wish. But be careful what you wish for. For that $200 million investment, he has now lost over $100 billion with a B, because it turns out Trump and Musk are really bad at running the government, Right? Not to mention Musk is not ex Tesla anymore, which Tesla shareholders are somewhat peeved about. So, look, I'm glad, I guess, that he's finally speaking up. It would have been nice if he hadn't enabled some of the other terrible instincts that Trump has acted upon, let alone otherwise dismantling the infrastructure of government himself, as Elon Musk and Doge have done. But, you know, he is a lot poorer as a result. He is a lot poorer. I think there's a huge break here, and it's going to be fascinating to see what Musk achieves in his inside game trying to convince Trump to turn around. Katherine Rimpel, thank you very much for joining us tonight. And coming up with some Washington law firms bending to Donald Trump's intimidation, Democrats held a hearing in Washington today featuring witnesses who have defied Donald Trump's intimidation and paid a price for it. That's next with Senator Adam Schiff. Today's witnesses represent the antidote to the collective action problem we have seen when law firms, universities and other institutions race to the White House to cut their own deals rather than stand on principle in this defining moment, our institutions must not grovel before power. They must not retreat. They must stand together. They must lead. Law firms, universities, public servants, Congress, each has a unique role, an important role to play because a democracy that fails to hold power to account ceases to be a democracy at all. Today, House and Senate Democrats heard from witnesses who chose to stand against Donald Trump's threats and intimidation. Brian Croswell, who resigned from the Justice Department when he was instructed to dismiss the bribery case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, said this the message that this sent, intentionally or unintentionally, was that public officials may be prosecuted or may be protected from prosecution as long as they're politically aligned with the Trump administration. In a properly functioning justice system, any public official wishing to avoid prison has to live by one rule of thumb, obey our nation's laws. And this action raised an even more chilling question is a Justice Department that will drop charges against those who acquiesce to a political demand, a Justice Department that will bring charges against those who don't? Liz Oyer was the Department of Justice pardon attorney before she was fired for refusing to recommend that Mel Gibson's gun rights be restored to him. Liz Oyer testified that Donald Trump's former criminal defense attorney, Todd Blanch, who is now the deputy attorney general, planned to send armed U.S. marshals to her house on Friday night in an apparent attempt to prevent her from testifying. Today I learned that the Deputy Attorney General's office had directed the Department Security and Emergency Planning Service to send two armed Special Deputy U.S. marshals to my home to serve me with a letter. The letter was to be served at my home between 9:00 and 10:00 on Friday night. I was in the car with my husband and my parents, who are sitting behind me today, when I got the news that the officers were on their way to my house where my teenage child was home alone. Fortunately, due to the grace of a very decent person who understood how upsetting this would be to my family, I was able to confirm receipt of the letter to an email address and the deputies were called off. The letter was a warning to me about the risks of testifying here today. But I am here because I will not be bullied into concealing the ongoing corruption and abuse of power at the Department of Justice. Rachel Cohen resigned from the law firm Scadden Arps after the firm entered into a settlement agreement with Donald Trump that would allow the firm to continue to practice law in Washington, D.C. and not be barred from federal buildings. I believe our country is teetering on the brink of authoritarianism and that many leaders of our most prestigious and profitable law firms recognize this risk and choose to ignore it because they are afraid. It's likely they're afraid of losing profits, but I think it's also likely that these leaders are afraid because standing up to authoritarianism is scary. It is easier to ignore what is happening than to acknowledge the fight that lies ahead. Joining us now is Democratic Senator Adam Schiff of California. Senator, thank you very much for joining us tonight. It is so powerful to be hearing the testimony of of these witnesses today. What did you come out of that hearing believing should be next steps? Well, first of all, Lawrence, we held that hearing. I invited Jamie Raskin to do it jointly with me along with Senator Dick Durbin, because the Republicans won't do these hearings, because they won't do oversight, because there are really bad and corrupt things happening throughout the administration and in the Justice Department that they're unwilling to put a spotlight on. So we're going to do it for them. And you know what was really so impressive to me about these witnesses is they had the guts to come forward. One of the attorneys that you just profiled, Rachel Cohen, she's a third year associate at a major law firm. She resigns rather than going along with this capitulation to the Trump administration, you know, while you have very successful, much more wealthy and further along in their career, lawyers essentially capitulating. She says no. And these other lawyers were either fired at the Justice Department or quit because they wouldn't go along with unethical actions. In the case of Liz Oyer, because she wouldn't approve the restoration of gun rights to a friend of the president, Mel Gibson, she's fired, she's marched out of the building in front of her co workers. It's just appalling. But I will say this for those of us that have wondered, you know, what would we do? What would we have done in the McCarthy era? Would we have stood up to Joseph McCarthy, a bully like that, or would we have named names? Well, those witnesses that we saw today don't have to ask themselves that question because they stood up and defied these bullies at the Justice Department and in the administration. That is the question, by the way, in George Clooney's brilliant new play on Broadway, Good Night and Good Luck, in which he is playing in the group of people who decided to stand up against Joe McCarthy. And this really is the moment we're in. And without this hearing today, I don't know that we would have known that the justice department was sending U.S. marshals to one of your witnesses homes on Friday night to try to stop her testimony today. Well, that's exactly right. And in fact, it was quite reminiscent, Lawrence, of when we were doing the Ukraine hearings prior to the impeachment of President Trump over his effort to extort Zelensky. Because similarly, the Justice Department, not so thinly veiled, tried to threaten witnesses that came before our committee. Well, they're back at it again. Different cast of characters at the Trump Justice Department part two, frankly, worse set of characters with no limits on what they do, but the same kind of scare tactics, intimidation tactics. You asked at the outset, you know, what do we need to do? And frankly, we need to do a lot more of this. If they're not going to, they being the Republicans, do any kind of oversight, if they're going to essentially be supine for the whole Trump administration, someone is going to have to do this oversight. We're going to do it on the Democratic side of the aisle. When the Republicans wake up and are ready to do their jobs, we will welcome them to the hearings. But until that happens, we're going to bring forward witnesses like this and expose these abuses of the administration. And Senator, as you continue to do these oversight hearings, we will continue to cover them here on this program. Please feel free to join us whenever you've done them. And Senator Schiff, thank you very much for joining us tonight. Thank you. Coming up, Congressman Maxwell Frost was one of the hundreds of thousands of people who participated in a hands off protest demonstration this weekend. He will join us next. The testament of a movement is what you do when the world is watching, and the world is watching our country right now. We all know that we're living in some dark times. We see the foundations of our society. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the very safety nets that people have fought for for generations to ensure that our country lives up to its promise are being targeted by the billionaires and the oligarchs and the corporations. The message is simple. We're in this situation not because of our neighbors. I promise you, your bank account looks a lot more like your trans neighbors or your immigrant neighbors and nothing like Elon Musk's. In fact, we're all closer to being on the streets than having a bank account that looks like his. Elon's a great example that money can't buy you happiness and money can't buy you a Wisconsin Supreme Court seat either. That was our next guest, Florida Congressman Maxwell Frost, at one of the many protests around the country this weekend, telling Donald Trump and Elon Musk to keep their hands off the important government programs people depend on. The New York Times reports rallies were planned in all 50 states. And while crowd sizes are difficult to estimate, organizers say that more than 600,000 people had signed up to participate and that events all also took place in U.S. territories and a dozen locations across the globe. Demonstrators had no shortage of causes. They came out in defense of national parks and small businesses, public education and health care for veterans, abortion rights and fair elections. They marched against tariffs and oligarchs, dark money and fascism, the deportation of legal immigrants and the Department of Government Efficiency. Elon Musk was on the news the other day saying what the Democrats win, it's just going to be subpoenas and investigations. It's the one thing he's right about. You're damn right there's going to be subpoenas. You're damn right there's going to be investigations. Because when you steal from the people, expect the people to rise up at the battle box and on the streets. Joining us now is Democratic Congressman Maxwell Frost of Florida. He's a member of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Thank you very much for joining us tonight. I have to say one of the most fascinating things about these demonstrations this weekend is the range of Subjects that were of concern in the past. These things usually are about one issue, one issue at a time. This was pretty much everything the Trump government is doing. Exactly. And the flood the zone strategy, we all remember that Steve Bannon quote, flood the zone. Right. It's all about muzzle velocity. Doing so much that the opposition has a hard time tacking on the one thing, and that's made things difficult. But I'll be honest, I think it's really backfiring on them. Because when you have these massive demonstrations across not just the entire country, but across the entire world, they've done so much to piss off people. And not just Democrats, but independents and Republicans, and people that voted for him, that are feeling that kind of regret or buyer's remorse from voting for him, they've done so much bad that now there's a large coalition saying, hands off Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Hands off the things that we fought for, Hands off our people. And I think they've really unintentionally awoken a sleeping giant in this country. Rachel made the point earlier tonight in her extensive coverage of these protests that instead of having the one sentence, central protests, usually located in the capital of Washington, D.C. being able to have them in every state, much more accessible to people who otherwise could not travel long distances to get to a single location. Exactly. And it also shows that there is mass disdain across the country for this. I mean, we saw in towns that just have a few thousand people, in towns that have tens of thousands of people, we saw hundreds of people, thousands of people come up in these small towns, rural communities, a lot of red communities across the entire country. Which shows that this movement, it's more than an ideological thing. It's more than Democrats versus Republicans. It's the people versus the problem. Elon Musk is the problem. Donald Trump is the problem. This Republican Congress that is bowing to Donald Trump and doing anything he wants and not what their constituent wants, that's the problem. And that's why these mass public movements are so important. You know, I was traveling this weekend with my good friend Jamie Raskin. He kept pointing out to folks that throughout history, if you only have a legislative strategy, you will defeat a right wing authoritarian coup maybe a third of the time. But if you have a legislative strategy coupled with mass public movement, two thirds of the time, most of the time, you can beat back these insanely rich oligarchs and people trying to take over our government. And that's what we're seeing right now. It's not a strategy. In one place. It's a strategy across the entire country and everybody has a part in it. Congressman Maxwell Frost, thank you very much for joining us tonight. Thanks for having me on. Coming up, Donald Trump's deportation of so called gang members is now a matter for the Supreme Court of the United States, including the case of the man who the Trump administration admits was deported by mistake. That's next with Andrew Weissman. Chief Justice Roberts has indefinitely blocked the court order requiring the return of Kilmore Abrego Garcia. This ruling came out during the course of this hearing. So we now have the deportation of someone in violation of court order. And a further court ordering his return has now been countermanded by the Chief justice of the Supreme Court. Before Chief Justice Roberts paused the case today, a three judge federal appeals court panel unanimously supported ordering the return of Kilmar Garcia from a prison in El Salvador where the Trump administration deported him. In what they now admit was a mistake. The appeals court said the United States government has no legal authority to snatch a person who is lawfully present in the United States off the the street and remove him from the country without due process. The government's contention otherwise and its argument that the federal courts are powerless to intervene are unconscionable. More importantly, the government cannot be permitted to ignore the Fifth Amendment, deny due process of law and remove anyone it wants simply because it claims the victims of its lawlessness are members of a gang. Chief Justice Roberts set a deadline of 5pm tomorrow for each side to submit filings in the case. Mr. Garcia's defense attorneys have already submitted their filing to Chief Justice Roberts 24 hours before that deadline. In a separate case tonight, the Supreme Court ruled 5, 4, overturning a federal judge's temporary block of on deportations of alleged gang members. The Supreme Court majority agreed that each person taken into custody to be deported as a gang member should be allowed due process to defend against the Trump administration's accusations. Joining us now is Andrew Weisman, former FBI general counsel and former chief of the Criminal division in the Eastern District of New York. He's also an MSNBC legal analyst. Andrew, let's begin with the situation of Chief Justice Roberts intervening in this case of Mr. Garcia. Sure, people should not overread this. He is basically saying this is called an administrative stay and it gives the court time to consider the government's application. And he set a very short deadline to hear from those people. My big point to our listeners is this. What kind of government admits that they mistakenly deported somebody, that this person should never have been scooped up and sent away without any due process and then says, but we're going to not do anything to bring him back. The level of cruelty and lawlessness is really hard to understand when you are agreeing that you had no factual or legal basis to remove this person. The lack of humanity, leave aside, the lawlessness is, is just, it is unconscionable. And so that's the issue that the Supreme Court will be dealing with. And it is possible that Justice Roberts simply wants the Supreme Court to be the one that basically issues the same order that the appeals court has issued. That's a possibility here. Oh, absolutely. And to turn to the 5, 4 decision, I think people are really misreading this. It's 5, 4 on this issue of should this have been brought under a certain statute or brought under habeas. Nine justices rejected the Trump administration position that they could deport people without a hearing. That that is the headline here, that the court said there has to be due process of law. You can't just scoop anybody up and not give them a hearing to contest the facts. If the government can prove the facts, so be it. But they need to have to comply with the due process. All nine justices agreed with that. And Mr. Garcia did not get the due process that this Supreme Court now says everyone is due. And normally when that happens, the American judicial system rectifies the denial of due process. Absolutely. And my point to you, Lawrence, is it shouldn't have to take a court to do it. The Department of Justice, the executive branch, they're supposed to uphold the law. That is true for Democratic and Republican regimes, where you would basically, after a decision like this, you would, of course, try and rectify it. This is a human being. And so that is what's really so shocking. Andrew Weissman, thank you very much for joining us tonight. You're welcome. Andrew Weissman gets tonight's last word.