← The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell
The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell
Lawrence on Wharton's worst student: Trump is mentally incapable of doing the job he was elected to
00:41:25
Tonight on The Last Word: Donald Trump backs down from his latest tariff threat on Canadian metal. Also, Elon Musk won’t say Social Security won’t be interrupted. Plus, Ukraine agrees to the United States’ proposal of a 30-day ceasefire. And The New York Times reports tuberculosis is resurgent as Trump’s USAID cuts disrupt treatment globally. Catherine Rampell, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, and Dr. Atul Gawande join Lawrence O’Donnell.
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Lawrence O'Donnell
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And thanks for telling me about first of all, the one minute limit, which I didn't know about, and the new and the new three minute limit, which I'm going to love. That's a huge, it's a huge upgrade for me. It's like remodeling your house before you move in it. Yeah. And Rachel, Katherine Rampel is on Blue sky and she's our first guest tonight. She's my favorite, she's my favorite economics writer, currently working in an American newspaper at the Washington Post. And boy, is there a lot to cover in the not so boring old world of economics and trade wars and stuff like that. It's actually, as I think I've said before, it's a really exciting time to watch cnbc, which I don't say every day, but now I'm just telling you, I mean, I'm back and forth to msnbc, but it's great. I will admit to watching more CNBC and spending more time on Bloomberg than I previously. When the president of the United States tries to set fire to the US Economy a new way every day, you need to talk to the people who are like, this is how the economy works on fire. It's especially fun if you've watched CNBC in normal times, which I would call say the Biden administration, when the stock market's going up all the time because the tone, it may be a subtle change in tone for people who aren't used to it, but it's really been powerful. I'm going to show some of it tonight because I do think it captures this moment. And by the way. What we're going to see is a professor, an economics professor at the Wharton School, which has a very famous graduate who gets a lot of stuff, a lot of stuff wrong. Excellent. Looking forward to it, Lawrence. Thanks, Rachel. Thank you. Well, today, Donald Trump backed down. Big surprise. Donald Trump backed down again. So not so big a surprise. Donald Trump backed down again and once again proved himself that the weakest, most irrational negotiating president in history today when he backed down after one of his out of control threats to impose 50% tariffs, double them, 50% tariffs on Canada starting tomorrow morning. The stock market was already crashing downward and then sunk further after Donald Trump's unhinged threat of 50% tariffs against Canada. And then the stock market got some good news. Ukraine agreed to the terms of a possible ceasefire, which we'll discuss later in this hour. And Ontario's premier, Doug Ford decided to suspend the 25% tariff he imposed on electricity that Ontario sells to the northern border states of Minnesota, Michigan and New York, saying the temperature needs to come down. And then Donald Trump's temperature came down a little bit. He dropped his threat of 50% tariffs starting tomorrow morning. And the stock market then stabilized for the rest of the day with a huge loss. But it didn't keep sinking. It stabilized at a loss of 478 points. It was on its way to a much, much bigger loss. These are, as I was just saying, fantastically exciting days to be watching CNBC's daily coverage of the stock market, which normally puts reasonable people to sleep because normally CNBC is reporting on the most stable economy in the world and the strongest stock market in the world. And for certainly all of the Biden years, the stock market was doing very well, setting new record highs all the time. And the economists and stock analysts who appeared on cnbc and the CEO CEOs were all sharing variations on how to get richer that day in the Biden stock market. But now some of the CNBC regulars who, like good airline pilots, never want to sound panicked, sound as close to panicked as they can get. If those two good developments, perhaps a stand down on the Canadian tariffs and hopefully a ceasefire in Ukraine, if they hadn't come up, I think we would have had another thousand point drop day to day. I mean, it's clearly this disruptive, destructive, if I, if I should say so, up and down trade policy that has really worried the market and sowed uncertainty among consumers and businesses, disruptive and destructive. That is the distinguished Professor Jeremy Siegel, who teaches economics at Donald Trump's alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania. Wharton School. Here is what the worst economic student ever to attend Wharton said about that today. Mr. President, you mentioned the ups and downs in the stock market. You said, it will go up, it'll go down. But do you and your tariff policies right now bear any responsibility for the turmoil we're seeing this year? Biden gave us a horrible economy. He gave us horrible inflation, and I think the market was going to go very, very bad. Biden gave him the strongest economy any president has ever handed off to another president. He gave him the highest stock market any president has ever handed off to another president. And so that answer would get Donald Trump an F in Professor Siegel's class today. And what Donald Trump wrote at 10:15am today would get him kicked out of the Wharton School. That is when he publicly posted on social media his threat of 50% tariffs when the stock market was already headed down. Donald Trump's crazy statement about 50% tariffs made it so much worse. But the thing that would have gotten him kicked out of the Wharton School was not what he said about tariffs in that post. It's what he said about making Canada the 51st state. If Donald Trump had said that in a college class, they probably would have sent him straight to the infirmary to see if anything medical or neurological was causing the very early onset dementia that he would have been exhibiting in that classroom. Here's what he said that is very important to American workers about making Canada the 51st state. And let me first stipulate this, it's never going to happen. I don't even like to talk about it. I normally don't discuss the Canada 51st state thing in any detail because it's so ridiculous. But what's important about his statement about it today, it shows the profound depth of stupidity in what Donald Trump is saying about making Canada the 51st state. If he just said make Canada the 51st state and left it at that, that would be one level of stupidity. But he keeps going. He said this would make all tariffs and everything else totally disappear. There would no longer be a northern border problem. Now, autoworkers in Michigan and Ohio and factory workers everywhere in the country who Donald Trump pretends he's trying to protect should think about what that stupid thing Donald Trump actually said that will never happen would actually mean to them. It would mean that all the American cars being made in Canada right now that Donald Trump doesn't want to be made in Canada would still be made in Canada. Every factory in Canada would still operate, and there would be zero tariffs on anything coming into the rest of the states from our 51st state. Which means that every manufacturing job in Canada now would stay in Canada, and your manufacturing job in Michigan might just move over to that new state, state of Canada, because it's the same country. And how would factory workers in the 48 states below Canada feel about the newest state taking their jobs? That utterly demented statement by Donald Trump about making Canada the 51st state completely contradicts his stated desire to move Canadian auto manufacturing jobs across the border into the United States. And now, I apologize for even entertaining Donald Trump's dementia to that extent. But it is worth pointing out that within the stupidest thing he says in his social media post, there's actually an even deeper level of stupidity that is ignored by every single reporter who quotes Donald Trump saying that he once again wants to make Canada the 51st state. If Joe Biden had ever said anything like what Donald Trump said about Canada today, everyone else in the news media would have said what I'm saying about Donald Trump right now. Donald Trump's mind doesn't work. Donald Trump is mentally incapable of doing the job he was elected to do. It's not even close. It's not like, well, Donald Trump is almost smart enough for this job. No, Donald Trump's mind does not work. It is broken. It cannot be fixed. Donald Trump does not understand the English language. Some of the simplest words in the English language are beyond him. A word like, say, illegal. Donald Trump really doesn't know what it means. He doesn't, which is why he was convicted of 34 felonies in Manhattan. I believe Donald Trump didn't realize that the way he was paying off Stormy Daniels was illegal. But ignorance of the law is no defense in a courtroom. And Donald Trump's illegal imposition of tariffs is something that doesn't bother him in the least. But whenever Donald Trump does use the word illegal, he is always wrong. Like today when he said it is illegal for people to not buy Teslas. He said that and he's still president. He said it is illegal. 15 minutes after midnight last night, the president, who doesn't understand the English language and doesn't understand law, said that it's illegal not to buy Teslas. He said it's illegal to boycott Tesla. Boycott means don't buy one. Again. If any other president had ever said it's illegal not to buy a car, a particular car, they would have rushed that president into a neurological exam immediately in the middle of the night, when he should have been sleeping and resting. That 78 year old brain of his so it could desperately try to function the next day. Donald Trump wrote, the radical left lunatics, as they often do, are trying to illegally and collusively boycott Tesla, one of the world's greatest automakers and Elon's baby, in order to attack and do harm to Elon and everything he stands for. Well, he's right about the motivation. The people who are protesting at Tesla dealerships, including in Donald Trump's hometown of New York City, are hoping to discourage Tesla sales because they are hoping that the richest person in the world can be driven ultimately to the bankruptcy that he is falsely predicting for the United States government. Once again, Elon Musk said the United States government would go bankrupt. He said that today it's impossible. The United States government cannot go bankrupt and never will. But Elon Musk could theoretically go bankrupt if sales of Teslas stopped, if they just stopped in the United States. And as we reported earlier this week, sales of Teslas have dropped dramatically worldwide. In Europe, they've dropped dramatically. In the United States, they've dropped dramatically. And so Donald Trump, in his desperation to keep his biggest campaign contributor in history, the biggest campaign contributor in the history of American politics, to keep Elon Musk the richest person in the world, especially after Elon Musk is now, according to the New York Times report tonight, promising another hundred million dollars in campaign money for Donald Trump. Donald Trump did something illegal today, and he did it in the White House driveway. Donald Trump used federal property to do a TV commercial. Donald Trump stood with Elon Musk in the White House driveway with some Teslas in front of them, and Donald Trump pretended to buy a Tesla. It has been reported by legitimate news organizations everywhere that Donald Trump bought a Tesla from Elon Musk today, as if that's a fact. There is no evidence of that whatsoever. No bill of sale, no check was passed, nothing was signed. The two most awkward people in America stood there like statues trying to save Elon Musk's wealth with the completely fake stunt of Donald Trump pretending to buy a car from the richest person in the world with no money or paperwork changing hands and saying, when asked, that he illegally was hoping that this stunt that he was doing on federal property, against federal law, would push up his friend's stock price. You buying a Tesla will boost Tesla sales and boost Tesla. Well, I hope it does. He hopes it does. You can search the history books for the moment when any previous president of the United States used the White House to try to publicly push up the stock price of his richest friend's. Stock. It has never happened. It is illegal to use federal property the way Donald Trump and Elon Musk used federal property today, and neither one of them know it. It was Elon Musk who first said that boycotts are illegal, which is not true. Elon Musk said it was illegal for advertisers to boycott Twitter after he turned Twitter into a cesspool full of Nazis and assorted madmen. Elon Musk is not from around here. Elon Musk does not understand the country where he now lives. Elon Musk would fail by a wide margin. A high school AP American History test He grew up in white South Africa, going to a segregated elementary school and high school where he learned nothing about American history, American law, American free enterprise where every company gets to decide where, how and when they will advertise and where they won't, and where no company is allowed to advertise on federal property. A country where advertisers have never wanted to be associated with Nazis. Elon Musk is such a bad salesman that he was stupid enough today to bring even more attention to the latest disturbing challenges the Tesla owners are facing, thanks entirely to Elon Musk. I just want to thank the President for his support. This means a lot. And also thank everyone out there who is supporting Tesla. It's really terrible that there's so much violence being perpetrated against people at Tesla, Tesla's quarters, Tesla owners, Tesla stores. These are innocent people who've done nothing wrong. So, you know, so yeah, that's true. Those people have done nothing wrong. All the problems they are facing now because of their association with Tesla are Elon Musk's fault exclusively. Imagine you work at America's oldest car manufacturer, Ford, and you watch the President of the United States doing an illegal commercial today on federal property for the newest carmaker in America. Imagine you're a factory worker at America's biggest auto manufacturer that has the most auto manufacturing jobs in the United States, General Motors. And you have to watch today when the President of the United States does an illegal TV commercial at the White House for America's newest auto manufacturer because the owner of that company has given the president more money than anyone has ever given a politician in American history. NBC News reports a major automaker said Tesla has benefited more from taxpayer money than any other carmaker by far. Now the White House is marketing Tesla's vehicles. What's next? Donald Trump is a terrible actor. And so there was nothing convincing today in his pretending to buy a Tesla or pretending to even Like Teslas, they cost too much and they don't go far. Electric cars are good if you have a towing company. Other than that, it's terrible. This whole electric car, it's sick. It's sick. They don't go far. It's good. If you want to go to the grocery store, take a quick little drive. You know, they say the best thing about an electric car, the first 10 minutes you feel great. The next 45 minutes, you're worried about where the hell am I going to get a recharge. So it's a problem. But they don't go far and they. They're very expensive. And the other thing is, you'll never make them in this country because everything you need for an electric car is in China. We have the stuff that you need for our cars. It's called gasoline and oil. It's right underground. Ah, that's the real Donald Trump. Before Elon Musk bought the presidency for him, Donald Trump all but admitted today that he doesn't know how to drive or doesn't remember how to drive a car because it has been decades and decades since he's actually driven a car, long before he became president. You don't want me to drive it, do you, Mr. President? Gonna get wrapped in gold. Think Biden could get into that car? Yeah, I think Biden could get into that car. Here comes the president now. She looks great. We don't get to do this very often. Yeah. Feel like going for a ride? I'd love to. Why don't you drive? Hop in. Thank you, pal. The nice thing about this is you can outrun the Secret Service. This is the only time you get to drive is when you wait. Yeah, it is. It's a God's truth. I know it's true, and I miss it. Instead of trying to save Elon Musk's struggling car company on the White House driveway, Donald Trump should have been listening to Wharton Professor Jeremy Siegel on cnbc. You think the people in Florida, they would go off, you know, the accumulated wealth that they've done in the last 10 years are going to be all excited about, you know, some plant that Trump saves in erie, Pennsylvania, for 300 jobs or 500 jobs, by the way, producing something that they could have brought cheaper without the tariffs beforehand. I mean, it just doesn't make sense. Don't forget, almost half the American public owns stock, if not directly, indirectly, through their 401ks, through their IRAs, through their pension funds. You have 180 million, 150 million people there. So we're going to bring some manufacturing back to the U.S. how many jobs is that? Less than 1/10 of 1%. Yes, I understand what happened to the heartland and the manufacturing there, by the way, which happened everywhere in the world, which also happened to Europe and everywhere else. What we have seen over the last 40 or 50 years, the deindustrialization of the west, is really due to the fact that China, India, the rest of the world opened up, industrialized and could produce goods of equal quality at 30% to 40% less price. So, you know, I mean, that's just a fact of world trade. And we economists, I've talked about the gains from trade. We want to protect the people that are hurt. But this idea about, you know, going through a recession, unemployment, 6, 7%, and then what? When are these factories going to be built and how many are they going to employ? When, you know, if we're going to lay off 2 or 3 million, we're not producing anywhere near that amount of manufacturing. The numbers don't add up in that numbers. And that's why the Wall Street Journal's editorial on Donald Trump's trade war that will appear in tomorrow's print edition of the Wall Street Journal says, we said from the beginning that this North American trade war is the dumbest in history. And we were being kind. Let's see how kind our first guest is feeling tonight. Kathryn Marnell is joining us. She's an opinion columnist for the Washington Post. And Kathryn, I love reading you on all matters economic. This is a busy time for you to be. How do you even choose? Which hunk of the madness are you going to give 800 words to? There is a lot to keep track of because not only do we have trade wars on seemingly all fronts, including with our close friends, we also have a big fight brewing over the tax code and the supposed offsets that will not include Medicaid or SNAP or other things, obviously, according to Republican lawmakers. But the math says otherwise. You also have the gutting of the administrative state. I've written a lot about the disappearance, the mysterious disappearance of publicly funded data sets on climate, on teens who are having suicidal ideation, on bird flu. Lots of that stuff is disappearing, too. And there are economic implications of that as well, because these public data sets are the foundation upon which businesses make decisions, consumers make decisions, parents make decisions about where to move. You know, is the, Is the district safe? Does it have access to a good school? There's so much about our democracy and our economy that relies on this infrastructure that we have long taken for granted that Doge has just taken a wrecking ball to. So there's a lot of material. Yeah. If there's one word that is the principal craving of both the stock market and the American economy and the big operators in the American economy, that word is stability. It is the word you can never apply to Donald Trump. That is true. We knew that before. And for some reason business leaders in this country wished away that problem this time around. This is part of the reason why you are seeing markets very belatedly, in my view, plummet because there was some wish casting going on that markets thought, you know what, all of the baggage that we saw last time around, the trade wars, the erratic and arbitrary decisions, the, the degradation of rule of law also, by the way, not very good for the business environment. That's not going to happen. We're just going to get tax cuts and regulation. And so that was the assumption, I think a misplaced assumption, a hopeful but wrong assumption that a lot of the business community expected to happen. You know, Professor Siegel made a point that describes me too, which was he said a lot of people in the business community, and by the way, I'm not in the business community, that this was my thinking, believed he wouldn't do the crazy tariffs. That, that was just bluster, that was just campaign talk. He wouldn't do them because he knows that's going to crash the stock market. And so I thought he wouldn't do them. And then when it did crash the stock market that first day, I thought, okay, it's over, it's over. He's going to run away from this. He's not going to have anything to do with it. I was wrong. And everybody on cnbc and the CEOs who were thinking that way were wrong. He. He tragically means it. I also assumed that the only thing that could rein him in would be the stock market. Yeah, it's not even the polling to some extent, particularly since his polling among his base among Republicans is, is almost bulletproof. It would be the stock market. He lives in the past anyway. He has lived and died by the stock market, certainly has claimed credit when stocks have gone up. I thought at least he would get jitters when stocks have gone down. And you've seen that a little bit, Right? You've seen him impose tariffs or announce tariffs. The stock market freaks out and then he backs off and pauses them. But as you point out, the business community needs stability. So even if he's merely pausing tariffs for 30 days, as he has done several times in a row now on Canada and Mexico, for example, that's still terrible for the business environment. Maybe it's not quite as bad as having a 25% tariff or a 55, excuse me, a 50% tariff on steel and aluminum, which would also be devastating for, for example, the auto industry. But not knowing what the conditions are under which a company can do business is also extremely destructive. Katherine, thank you very much for joining us tonight. You helped me with my thinking about this every time I read one of your columns. Please come back as often as you possibly can and help me get through this crazy economic period here. My pleasure. Thank you. And coming up, if you're receiving Social Security or paying into Social Security, which is almost all of us, you'll want to hear what Elon Musk, who is now in control of your Social Security money, said today about a possible interruption in delivering that Social Security money. That's next when Senator Sheldon Whitehouse joins us. He held a town hall tonight on Social Security. I've never felt like this before. It's like, you just get me. I feel like my true self with you. Does that sound crazy? And it doesn't hurt that you're gorgeous? Okay, that's it. I'm taking you home with me. I mean, you can't find shoes this good just anywhere. Find a shoe for every you from brands you love like Birkenstock stock, Nike, Adidas and more at your DSW store or dsw.com 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. The administration doesn't necessarily want to be questioned on any of its policy. I think what we are seeing is Project 20 in action. This is it coming to fruition. 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. Now is the time, so we're gonna do it. Provide her unique insight and analysis during this critical time. How do we strategically align ourselves to this moment of information, this moment of transition in our country? The Rachel Maddow show, weeknights at 9pm Eastern on MSNBC. Today, Elon Musk was asked if he could guarantee that people receiving Social Security payments would have no interruption of benefits. And here's what he said. Can you guarantee people who are concerned about an interruption to benefits that there will not be? Yes, we're going to be very careful with any interruption to benefits. In fact, only by tackling the waste and fraud in entitlements like Social Security, Medicare can we actually preserve those programs for the future. So the question was, can you guarantee that there won't be an interruption of benefits? And Elon Musk does not promise that there won't be an interruption of benefits. He simply says we're going to be very careful with any interruption in benefits. Does he mean that he's planning an interruption in benefits? Tonight, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a member of the Senate Finance Committee, which has jurisdiction over Social Security, held a virtual town hall with former Social Security administration commissioner Martin O'Malley about saving Social Security from Elon Musk and Donald Trump. As we speak, they are dismantling this agency. They are gutting its staff, and they are breaking it from the inside to make it incapable of serving the American people. Who paid for it and who paid for the customer service? I do believe they want to break it so they can liquidate it because they want those trust fund dollars. Is there any possible rhyme or reason to what they're doing, or is this really just a path of destruction? It's a path of destruction. When Elon Musk says waste, fraud and abuse, that's just a line of booey. Joining us now, Democrat Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, member of the Senate Finance Committee, Judiciary Committee and Budget Committee. He's also the top Democrat in the Environment Public Works Committee. And based on what I just saw, I hope he's the next substitute host of this program when I take a night off. Senator, I know you had a big Rhode island audience worried very much about what's happening with Social Security. And there's, there's Elon Musk saying, I don't know, he's planning to interrupt benefits. Not clear to me at all what he has in mind. Yeah, I mean, the two choices are the little muskrats that he sent into Social Security are a bunch of arrogant, entitled little Silicon Valley operatives who don't really know what they're doing but are poking around trying to see what they can find for data that they can get out to the billionaires. That's the charitable version. The less charitable version is that there is something more sinister going on and that, as Governor O'Malley suggested, they actually want to break it. They want to break its operation. They want to cause interruptions. They want to cause a loss of faith in it because it has long been a Republican tenet to attack Medicaid, to attack Medicare and to attack Social Security. So this would be the attack from the inside. And that is certainly worth pursuing. And this comes the day after we had an under oath affidavit signed by a 30 year Social Security official, high ranking Social Security official, describing what Elon Musk has been doing inside Social Security. And she said she cannot guarantee that there won't be an interruption in benefits based on what she's seen. And if you look at what else he's been saying, I mean, some of his greatest hits, it's a Ponzi scheme. It absolutely is not. These are entitlements like Social Security are the big ones to eliminate. He said he made up all the fake waste that Trump then falsely repeated in his joint address. There's nothing like that for waste. They didn't frankly understand what they were looking at or they deliberately were inflating the waste. And then now he describes it as a magnet to attract illegal immigrants. When back to your conversation about not knowing what illegal means. Unless you are here legally, you don't ever get Social Security benefits. Your Social Security is deducted from your pay. So you contribute to Social Security but you never get Social Security benefits. So it's the exact opposite of an attraction for an illegal immigrant. Which begs the question, why are they lying so much about Social Security? Why is it such a persistent topic? What is the plot? We are going to find out the hard way, I guess when the time comes. Senator Whitehouse, please stay with us. We have to squeeze in a commercial break. I'd like to ask you about the other breaking news of the day. That is Ukraine accepting the terms for a possible cease fire. We'll be right back with Senator Sheldon Whitehouse. Skipping cold and flu season is plan A. But if you do get sick, be prepared for plan B with Kleenex lotion tissues. Kleenex lotion tissues moisturize skin, helping prevent the added discomfort of red irritated skin on top of your cold and flu symptoms. So this cold and flu season, grab Kleenex lotion tissues. Visit kleenex.com to learn more and buy now for whatever happens next. Grab Kleenex. Want to pull off the season's freshest trends? You just need the right shoes. That's where designer shoe warehouse comes in. Loving wide leg jeans. Pair them with sleek low profile sneakers. Obsessed with the sheer trend. Try it with mesh flats. Feeling boho comfy sandals. Nail the whole free spirited thing. Find on trend shoes from the brands you love like Birkenstock Nike, Adidas and more at dsw. MSNBC presents Main justice each week on their podcast, veteran lawyers Andrew Weissman and Mary McCormick break down the latest developments inside the Trump administration's Department of Justice. The administration doesn't necessarily want to be questioned on an events policy. I think what we are seeing is Project 2025 in action. This is it coming to fruition. Main justice subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts for ad free listening and bonus content. Today's agreement between United States and Ukrainian officials is a test for Vladimir Putin. After talks today in Saudi Arabia, Ukraine said it would support a US proposal for a 30 day cease fire and the US officials agreed to end Donald Trump's suspension of intelligence sharing and military assistance to Ukraine, the New York Times reports. The joint statement on Tuesday said the United States and Ukraine also agreed to conclude as soon as possible a deal to develop Ukraine's critical mineral resources, an agreement that was put on hold after the Oval Office clash. That joint venture is intended to expand Ukraine's economy and guarantee Ukraine's long term prosperity and security, the statement said. Speaking after today's meeting, the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio said this today we made an offer that the Ukrainians have accepted, which is to enter into a ceasefire and into immediate negotiations to end this conflict in a way that's enduring and sustainable and accounts for their interests, their security, their ability to prosper as a nation. Hopefully we'll take this offer now to the Russians and we hope that they'll say yes, that they'll say yes to peace. The ball is now in their court. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse is still with us. Senator, the ball, as the Secretary said, is in Russia's court and so far Donald Trump has been the entire time. You know, there's never been a great president who didn't understand the difference between freedom and brute force. Could you imagine Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a great president, telling Winston Churchill, you know you're going to have to make a deal with Herr Hitler and we're cutting off Lend Lease until you do. And by the way, you may not be able to keep your whole island. That would not have been a great president. That would have been a cowardly and shameful president. And that is the position that Donald Trump has consistently been in with respect to Zelensky versus Putin. So there's a lot to be discovered about how corrupt or extortionate the minerals deal is. What Putin is asked to give up whether the Ukraine can accede to the European Union or to NATO. What happens if a third Russian invasion of Ukraine were to commence. So we have a very general outline and every reason for very grave suspicion. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, thank you very much for joining us tonight. Thank you. Thank you. Coming up, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof is in Sudan right now and he has sent us some video directly from there showing what Elon Musk has done to starving children there. That's next. New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof traveled to Sudan to report on what is happening there since Elon Musk stopped sending food and medicine to starving children in the middle of a famine. I'm in a little village called Bobonice in South Sudan. And this is a country where historically 70% of the food aid came from the United States. And there was a mobile clinic that would come here to provide assistance to malnourished children in this village. But because of the cutoff of American aid, that mobile clinic is no longer coming here. Children are no longer getting that assistance. And, you know, in my first half hour in this village, I found about a half dozen children who were severely acutely malnourished, which means that they are at risk of death. And even those that survive may suffer long term impairments. Here you see the human faces of these kids who have been left behind because of politics in Washington. The New York Times reports today the United States contributed about half of international donor funding to tuberculosis last year. And here in Kenya paid for everything from nurses to lab equipment. While some of the tuberculosis programs may ultimately survive, none have received any money for months. Family members of infected people are not being put on preventive therapy. Infected adults are sharing rooms in crowded Nairobi tenements. And infected children are sleeping four to a bed with their siblings. Parents who took their sick children to get tested the day before Mr. Trump was inaugurated are still waiting to hear if their children have tuberculosis. And people who have the near term totally drug resistant form of tuberculosis are not being treated despite being fully treatable. Tuberculosis claimed 1.25 million lives in 2023, the last year for which data is available. If TB begins to spread unchecked, people throughout the world could become at risk. Nick Kristof also sent us a video from a now closed clinic in South Sudan. This is a major clinic here in Renk in South Sudan. It's a place where newly arrived refugees from Sudan would come, where children would get health care. And it was operated under a contract by the US Government and it has now closed five days ago. People come, they can't get medicine, they can't see a doctor Here they can't get help and now the tents are just flapping in the wind and there's nobody. When it happens, the upshot is children die. Joining us now is Dr. Atul Gawande, physician and former Assistant Administrator for Global health at the U.S. agency for International Development. And doctor, the last time you were here, weeks ago, you told us then what Elon Musk did means children will die. What Nick Kristof is reporting to us now, it's a grim situation. You know, I just left leading global health at USAID at the end of the last administration. So during the last year we were driving 30% reductions in the total costs of tuberculosis treatment for the world. US has been a leader in vanquishing tuberculosis around the world. Deaths have been driven down more than 40% over the last decade. This is a solvable problem among many. Add in hiv, add in addressing outbreaks, the malnutrition for severely famine stricken children. This is work that America has led and been proud of doing. We of course should want to help people we can help who are starving or who need medicine. If we have the medicine, we have the food. This country has literally more food than it knows what to do with and must actually ship it elsewhere. But to people who need a self centered argument, to people like Elon Musk or Donald Trump who need a completely self centered argument for being concerned in any way about tuberculosis in a foreign country, what is it that they need to hear? Well, let me start with tuberculosis. There is an outbreak in Kansas City right now. US is seeing an explosion there of tuberculosis. And the last thing we want is that a drug resistant variant comes that no longer can be treatable with the antibiotics that we have. That is the nightmare situation. And we see drug resistant TB moving around the world. Same goes for the global rate, the global control of hiv, global malaria. We had the first measles deaths. Two children in Texas. Well, two children in the south, one in Texas, one elsewhere. And they're the first measles deaths we've seen in this country for years. We are globally back up over 100,000 child deaths from measles and we ought to be leading the way. The US has been a critical driver of making these problems much smaller than they were. We can now sit on our hands and wait for others to step up. China has been gloating over the opportunity to supplant the US and our influence in Africa, in Asia and in other parts of the world like Latin America. It's a missed opportunity for our own benefit, for lives saved and controlling disease. And then we're allowing adversaries of freedom to come in and supplant our influence in the world. Dr. Atul Gawande, thank you very much for the work that you do. And thank you so much for bringing your insights to us tonight. Glad to be on. Thank you. Thank you. We'll be right back. Dr. Atul Gawande gets tonight's last word. Skipping cold and flu season is plan A. But if you do get sick, be prepared for plan B with Kleenex lotion tissues. Kleenex lotion tissues moisturize skin, helping prevent the added discomfort of red, irritated skin on top of your cold and flu symptoms. So this cold and flu season, grab Kleenex lotion tissues. Visit kleenex.com to learn more and buy now. For whatever happens next, grab Kleenex.