← The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell
The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell
Lawrence: The weakness of Elon Musk and Donald Trump has now been fully exposed to the GOP
00:40:56
Tonight on The Last Word: A government shutdown looms as the Trump-Musk budget bill fails in the House. Rep. Brendan Boyle, Sen. Jeff Merkley. EJ Dionne, and Norm Ornstein join Lawrence O’Donnell.
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- [00:00]
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- [01:00]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Are now watching live coverage of the total collapse of the Elon Musk Donald Trump partnership in governing in the House of Representatives. Tonight, Elon Musk and Donald Trump took over the leadership of the Republican House of Representatives, the leadership in that building in the last 24 hours, and negotiated what Donald Trump falsely called a deal. The problem was they were negotiating with themselves in Congress. A deal is compromise legislation that creates enough votes and you know ahead of time that it creates enough votes to pass a bill through the House and then pass it through the Senate with enough votes and then with the agreement that it will be signed by the president. That's a deal. In Congress, every deal is a three way deal involving enough votes to pass the House, enough votes to pass the Senate with a bill that the President has already agreed to sign. That's what a deal is. It was impossible for Donald Trump and Elon Musk to make a deal without negotiating with Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader in the Senate and President Biden. There is no deal in Washington now without President Biden's signature, something Elon Musk apparently doesn't know. But still, Donald Trump said, quote, speaker Mike Johnson and the House have come to a very good deal for the American people. That's what he said earlier today. Republican speaker of the House Mike Johnson obviously realized that both Elon Musk and Donald Trump are legislatively insane, decided to let the insane and impossible Musk Trump bill come to a vote in the House tonight.
- [02:57]
Chip Roy
This is Washington. This is how the lawmaking is done. It's a long process. Sometimes it takes a while to reach consensus. But we're going to do the right thing here tonight.
- [03:07]
Lawrence O'Donnell
No, no, no. That was not how lawmaking was done. Mike Johnson knew when he was saying that that the legislatively insane Musk Trump bill was going to fail spectacularly when the House voted a few minutes later, after a relentless 24 hours of pressure from Elon Musk, the richest person in the world, who is obviously the richest person in the history of Republican politics, three dozen Republican members of the House. 38 Republican members of the House of Representatives said no to Elon Musk. 38 Republican members of the House said no to Donald Trump after having their political futures threatened by both Donald Trump and Elon Musk. Trump and Musk said that anyone who voted against this deal should be knocked out of office in the next election. They threatened the political lives of those 38 members of the House. Donald Trump threatened Republicans who didn't vote for this bill today, saying they should be primaried and disposed of as quickly as possible. Donald Trump has never been more directly and personally threatening to Republicans than he was today. And Donald Trump lost. Donald Trump's threats MEANT Nothing to 38 Republican members of the House. Elon Musk's threats and his billions MEANT Nothing to 38 Republican members of the House. So far, Elon Musk has failed at every public lobbying attempt he has made since the presidential election. Elon Musk told Republican senators who they must vote for for majority leader next year and Republican senators said no. Elon Musk candidate came in third in the election for the Republican Majority Leader of the Senate next year. Elon Musk's support meant nothing to Republican senators. Elon Musk was part of the group that hatched the brilliant idea of having Matt Gaetz for Attorney General. Elon Musk lobbied publicly for Matt Gaetz to be confirmed as Attorney General. Elon Musk lost badly in that lobbying effort. And then yesterday, Elon Musk decided to tell the Republican speaker of the House and the Republican members of the House of Representatives that the bill that they negotiated to pass the House, pass the Senate and be signed by President Biden was no good. And so Speaker Johnson in effect today, said to Elon Musk and Donald Trump, go ahead, show us how to do it. And Elon Musk got crushed on the House floor by Republicans. 38 Republicans on the House floor crushed and humiliated Elon Musk and Donald Trump at the same time. Republican Speakers of the house in the 21st century have repeatedly had to deal with Some of the most ignorant and irreversibly stupid members of the House of Representatives in history, none more ignorant or more irreversibly stupid about legislating than Elon Musk, who in the last 24 hours has proved himself to be even stupider than Donald Trump about how the House of Representatives works, how the Senate works, how the presidency works. In other words, how a bill becomes a law. Elon Musk didn't learn that in his South African elementary school like the rest of us did in the United States in elementary school or high school at the latest. They didn't have that little song about how a bill becomes a law in Elon Musk's South African private school. Here is just one. Just One of the 38 Republicans who Elon Musk and Donald Trump promised to destroy today for voting against their bill. It's embarrassing. It's shameful. Yes, I think this bill is better than it was yesterday on certain respects. But to take this bill, to take this bill yesterday and congratulate yourself because it's shorter in pages but increases the debt by $5 trillion is asinine. And that's precisely what Republicans are doing. Does he sound afraid of Elon Musk? Does he sound afraid of Donald Trump? That's Chip Roy of Texas. Before the vote today, Donald Trump said this about Chip Roy. Chip Roy is just another ambitious guy with no talent. By the way, how's Bob Good doing? I hope some talented challengers are getting ready in the great state of Texas to go after Chip in the primary. He won't have a chance after Donald Trump's ultimate threat against Chip Roy and Bob Good. They were Both among the 38 Republicans who voted against Donald Trump and voted against Elon Musk after they both issued the ultimate threat they could possibly issue to a politician. We will kill your political career. They cast that vote against Donald Trump in the face of the most extreme threat he has ever issued to members of the House of Representatives. It is extremely unlikely, even at this stage, at this hour, of Elon Musk's spectacular failure as a legislator, that he knows there is only one person in the United States Senate who can bring a bill to vote in the Senate. Of course, he doesn't know that. Senator Chuck Schumer said in a statement, quote, it's a good thing the bill failed in the House. Now it's time to go back to the bipartisan agreement we came to. That's Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, the only person who can bring a bill to a vote in the United States Senate. You don't have to have a deal if the majority leader of the United States Senate has not agreed to bring your bill up to a vote and vote for it. So even if at the last minute those 38 Republicans decided that they really were too afraid of Elon Musk and Donald Trump and they voted to pass the Musk Trump bill, it would have passed the House of Representatives and then it would have died. It would have gone to the United States Senate. The phrase for that kind of bill arriving in the Senate is dead on arrival. But Republicans in the House killed the Musk Trump bill without Chuck Schumer having to even look at it. It is impossible to overstate how colossal a failure this is for Donald Trump, who is a lame duck now. Every day for the next four years, he's a lame duck. He can never run again. And for Elon Musk, who embarked on his first legislative adventure and could not have failed more spectacularly. And this, this is very good news for America. Donald Trump and Elon Musk are not in charge of legislating in con 38 Republicans think what Donald Trump and Elon Musk want to do is insane. Asinine is actually one of the words that was used on the floor today by Republican Chip Roy. The weakness of Donald Trump in the Republican House of Representatives has now been fully exposed and we have never seen anything like it in an incoming president with his own party. And the weakness and legislative stupidity of Elon Musk has now been fully exposed to all Republicans who all know how badly Elon Musk lost today. And enough Republicans are not afraid of either Donald Trump or Elon Musk even when facing the most extreme threats Donald Trump and Elon Musk have ever aimed at politicians. Obviously, Democrats in the House did not vote for a bill that Elon Musk and Donald Trump negotiated among themselves without speaking to a single Democrat about it. The Democratic leader of the House of Representative Sakem Jeffries said this before the vote that crushed the Musk Trump bill.
- [11:51]
Hakeem Jeffries
We reached a bipartisan agreement to be there for farmers and families, children, seniors, working class Americans all across the country, the men and women who serve this country in uniform and are veterans. House Republicans have abandoned that bipartisan agreement that we entered into in good faith. A bill that House Republicans negotiated gave us your word that we were going to move forward together on behalf of the American people. It was a Republican drafted bill that was posted by House Republicans and then one or two puppet masters weigh in and the extreme MAGA Republicans decide to do the Bidding of the wealthy, the well off, the well connected millionaires and billionaires, not working class people all across America.
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Lawrence O'Donnell
One of the changes Elon Musk and Donald Trump made to the bill was to eliminate support of research on children's cancer. And Donald Trump at the last minute decided he wanted to add a dramatic increase in the debt ceiling, an unprecedented increase in the debt ceiling to the bill. Even though the government won't come close to reaching its debt limit until June, Donald Trump actually wants to pass a bill that will completely suspend the debt ceiling, just totally eliminate it. There is no debt limit for the United States for two years so that Donald Trump can run up the debt to any level at all with his tax cuts for billionaires like Elon Musk.
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Hakeem Jeffries
The provisions in this bill, particularly as it relates to suspending the debt ceiling for two years, are designed to bring about a massive tax cut unpaid for, for wealthy donors and for wealthy corporations, for millionaires and billionaires who clearly some in this Congress are working for. And this bill is validation for it. Now what's been interesting to me is that for decades the Republican Party has lectured America about fiscal responsibility, about the debt and the deficit. It's always been phony. This bill proves it. The one thing we do know is that every time a Republican President comes into office, the one thing we can count on Republicans to do is to pass a massive tax cut for wealthy Americans and in the process stick working class Americans with the bill by raising the deficit and the debt. The phoniness in claiming that extreme MAGA Republicans are about working class Americans or the party of fiscal responsibility. Nothing could be further from the truth. When you run up the debt and the deficit, middle class families pay. Working class families pay. And we are going to defend them.
- [15:36]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Leading off our discussion tonight is Democratic Congressman Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania. He is the senior Democratic member on the House Budget Committee. Thank you very much for joining us tonight. I know you can't be sure what happens next. No one can be sure what happens next. But as of now, there no plan and the Musk Trump bill has crashed spectacularly. We are almost 24 hours away, approaching 24 hours away from a government shutdown.
- [16:07]
Brendan Boyle
Well, actually Lawrence, Elon Musk, Donald Trump, Mike Johnson and I all have something in common. None of us know exactly what they are going to do next. If they went back to plan A, which was the agreement negotiated by, as you know, what is sometimes nicknamed the Four Corners. House Democrats, House Republicans, Senate Democrats, Senate Republicans, handshake agreement announced just about 48 hours ago and Then what blew it up, of course, was Elon Musk, who apparently is the President Elect of the United States and the real leader of the Republican Party these days. He went about tweeting, and because he sent off a lot of tweets that scared Mike Johnson and enough House Republicans, they made the remarkable decision to pull their own bill that they negotiated and was agreed to by all sides and instead take this Republican only approach that, as you have documented very well, completely crashed in flames late this evening.
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Lawrence O'Donnell
So this, look to me, the speaker going ahead with a vote, look to me to be the move that we've seen other Republican speakers make when dealing with the crazies in their party. In this case, the crazies were not members of the House. The crazies were Donald Trump and Elon Musk and the Republican Speaker. We've seen John Boehner do it, where they just go, okay, we're just going to have a vote on what the crazy people want, just to show them how impossible it is.
- [17:43]
Brendan Boyle
Yeah, I think there's a lot of truth in that, that perhaps tomorrow or in the following days, it might make it actually easier now for Mike Johnson to get more people on his side to swallow a bipartisan agreement. But look, in the end of the day, we know how this movie is going to end. The only way we will be able to keep the government running, or perhaps reopen it in the days ahead will be a negotiated bipartisan agreement with a Democratic Senate, a narrowly Republican House with bad internal divisions, and of course, a Democratic president.
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Lawrence O'Donnell
What are the elements that you could foresee in such a deal?
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Brendan Boyle
Well, I have to say, the elements that I see in a deal that would win support from all sides were announced a few days ago. I don't think the final agreement is going to be much different than that, Lawrence. And it reminds me, if you remember, that government shutdown, the longest in American history, the first time Trump was president, around 2018, lasted 37 days. In the end, the way that ended was actually Donald Trump completely capitulated. We Congressional Democrats won. I mean, in the end, the American people lost because we had a government shutdown that they were forced to go through by Republican leadership and President Trump. But in the end, the way it was resolved was eventually Donald Trump got tired and threw in the towel. I think history is about to repeat itself.
- [19:17]
Lawrence O'Donnell
I mean, Elon Musk doesn't even. Doesn't really know what the government is. So the idea of shutting down something that he doesn't know what it is to him seems totally harmless.
- [19:26]
Brendan Boyle
Right. You know, there's always this fallacy that some very remarkably wealthy people who have had some success in business think that they automatically know politics or know government. The reality is this is a multi trillion dollar operation that's enormously complex, that people can spend 50, 60 years studying and still not entirely understand. So Musk's arrogance in this situation is truly breathtaking. And I think we saw today what the result of that was as he attempted to cosplay President Elect of the United States as well as Speaker.
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Lawrence O'Donnell
Were you surprised by 38 Republican votes against Elon Musk and against Donald Trump? Because they both unloaded the ultimate threat against every one of those 38 votes?
- [20:19]
Brendan Boyle
Yeah. You know, I'm glad you brought this up because I was, I was pleasantly surprised it was as high as 38. I thought it was going to be closer to 20. And beyond this currently incredibly frustrating situation of a pending government shutdown, I have to say I think it'll be healthy for the next two and four years that so many of my House Republican colleagues were willing to stand up to the pressure, the enormous pressure they were facing from Trump and Musk and vote against them. Had they just folded their tents then, I think that would have been a very ominous sign for what the two to four years ahead of us will be like.
- [21:00]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Yeah, Donald Trump was probably the most ineffectual president legislatively of our lifetimes. I mean, was without question, like nobody close. He got the tax bill through because you can do that with 50 votes in the Senate plus the Vice President voting for it. It's done by reconciliation. So they will get their tax cut because every one of Those Republicans, all 38 of them, want to vote for the tax cut. But it, but it's looking tonight that Donald Trump is not empowered legislatively to achieve anything else.
- [21:30]
Brendan Boyle
Well, you know, you bring up reconciliation. We've had the opportunity to talk about that before. Since I'm ranking member of Budget, of course it'll go through and be kicked off by the Budget Committee. My Republican colleagues on that committee are planning for us to start that process in January. The only thing I would point out that is, I think, a critical difference today versus eight years ago when Donald Trump was able to get his so called Tax Cuts and Jobs act, really a completely fraudulent title. That was just a giveaway to millionaires and billionaires. That's where 83% of the money went to the top 1%. Let's not forget, when he was able to get that bill passed through the House, the gap was enormous between Republicans and Democrats. In the House there were only 194 Democrats. In the House, Republicans had a 40 plus seat majority. Well, today they only have a few seat majority. For most of January, February and March it will be a majority of just 217 to 215. So I do think they're actually going to have a tougher time getting anything passed, including their most blessed priority to them, tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires.
- [22:44]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Carson, Brendan Boyle, thank you very much for starting us off tonight.
- [22:48]
Brendan Boyle
Thank you, thank you.
- [22:50]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Next year's Democratic leader of the Senate Budget Committee will join us with his Senate's perspective on the Trump Musk chaos and collapse in the House of Representatives and a lesson for Elon Musk on how a bill becomes a law. That's next.
- [23:12]
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- [23:40]
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- [24:11]
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- [24:45]
Lawrence O'Donnell
There is no plan. The Hill is reporting that Congressman Ralph Norman of South Carolina says there is no plan. Trump wants the thing to shut down. Republican Senator John Kennedy, normally a Trump sycophant, at least for now, disagrees with Donald Trump.
- [25:05]
John Kennedy
I think shutting down the government is masterclass dumb and I don't want to do it.
- [25:11]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Joining our discussion now is Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon. He's a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, which controls spending, and he will be the ranking member, the top Democrat of the Senate Budget Committee in the next Congress. Senator, this bill was never destined to show up in the Senate with 38 Republicans stopping it in the House of Representatives. Were you surprised by the size of that Republican vote against the musk Trump bill?
- [25:43]
Jeff Merkley
I was surprised by the number 38 Republicans, given the pressure that they're feeling. But the bill was so much worse than the first bill they put up. I mean, they took out, as you mentioned it, the child cancer research. Well, that's popular. They took out the cap on pharmacy benefit managers that would say, hey, all these money that those PBMs have been socking away and raising the cost of drugs to Americans, we're going to rein that in, we're going to correct that. And they took that out. They took out breast and cervical early detection cancer. I mean, that was popular. And they took out the cap or the ban on investing in and helping China's highest tech programs, quantum programs, semiconductor programs, AI programs. Those are things that are going to help China get ahead of us. That was an improvement. They took it out. And so they made the bill worse than it was the first time around after they were trying to follow Trump's advice. It was really kind of a crazy scenario.
- [26:48]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Yeah. And the idea that you'd go forward with a bill where no one involved, even talked to anyone in the Senate, where it would also have to pass to ever become law.
- [27:00]
Jeff Merkley
No, this was a kick it out of the House strategy and maybe we'll leave town and see what the Senate does with it. But what they put in is also important along with what they took out. And what they put in was say we're going to allow Trump to do unlimited debt increases over the next two years, a two year holiday on running up the federal debt. You know, the Republicans, they campaign on fiscal responsibility, but then what we see in every administration is a run up the debt far more than much more conservative, fiscally responsible Democrats. And I mean, I know they, they, they, they have a good campaign for how responsible they are, but the reality is that they have been a real mess. And this is just an example of it.
- [27:49]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Yeah. So Donald Trump's idea is remove, abolish the debt limit for me while I'm president, but make sure it comes back for the next PRESIDENT well, yeah, that's, that's, that's right.
- [28:03]
Jeff Merkley
Because here's what he wants to do. He wants to do this tax palooza, this, you know, this where he cuts basic programs for ordinary Americans and then in addition, raids the national treasury for about $4.5 trillion. And to do that, you don't want to have a debt ceiling preventing you from taking those actions. And all of that is for the purpose of lining the pockets of the richest Americans and the biggest, most powerful corporations. I mean, this is the exact opposite of what he campaigned on when he said he was going to fight for working Americans. Instead, he's selling them out. And it's right there in front of us.
- [28:45]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Senator Jeff Merkley, thank you very much for joining us tonight. You're welcome. Thank you.
- [28:49]
Jeff Merkley
Good to be with you.
- [28:50]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Coming up, a couple of expert observers of the workings of Congress who have never seen as spectacular a legislative failure as Elon Musk, who is 0 for 1 legislator E.J. dion and Norm Ornstein join us next. Here's Massachusetts Congressman Richie Neal, the former Democratic chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee.
- [29:23]
Jeff Merkley
I've been here for a long time.
- [29:24]
Lawrence O'Donnell
You have never won a government shutdown.
- [29:28]
Jeff Merkley
And you won't win this one, either.
- [29:31]
John Kennedy
Your currency in this institution is your word.
- [29:36]
Jeff Merkley
We reached an agreement. We came to modest achievements and a tweet changed all of it. Can you imagine what the next two years are going to be like if every time the Congress works its will and then there's a tweet or from an individual who has no official portfolio, who threatens members on the Republican side with a primary and they succumb?
- [30:05]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Joining us now, congressional historian Norm Orenstein. He's an emeritus scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Also, Washington Post opinion columnist D.J. dionne. He's a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a government professor at Georgetown University. And Norm, one of the rules of legislating is when you're weak, do not advertise it. When you don't have the power, do not advertise that you don't have the power. That is what Elon Musk and Donald Trump did today. They showed that there are 38 House Republicans more than willing to say no to Elon Musk and Donald Trump.
- [30:44]
Chip Roy
And that's something we're gonna see happen again and again, Lawrence. But, you know, it's a reflection of something else as well, and that is that Mike Johnson, who is not the best speaker that we have had, who got into that position by default, is going to have if Donald Trump were LBJ in his Great Society, period. Because he is not going to be able to control his own caucus. Donald Trump can't control them. Elon Musk can't control them, and Mike Johnson or whoever replaces him whenever that takes place, with what crazy fandango will have, starting on January 3, when the new Congress convenes and when, as you have said, they're going to be down to 217 votes to 215 Democrats, they're not going to be able to legislate in any effective way. And they have a whole lot of people who don't care and a lot of people now who think that shutting down the government is gonna be great because people will see that, hey, there's no government. Our lives are wonderful. That's not how it works.
- [31:57]
Lawrence O'Donnell
E.J. dion. A president elect doesn't normally get to demonstrate weakness until at least after Inauguration Day, 100%.
- [32:08]
John Kennedy
And a president elect doesn't usually form out his authority to a billionaire who happens to own a big social media company. I mean, this is what you get when you farm out the hard work of Democratic government to a billionaire who has no political experience but is absolutely convinced that he understands everything. I think the other lesson here is that Republicans in the House just can't govern on their own. Norm and Tom Mann wrote a book 12 years ago called It's Even Worse Than It Looks, and they describe the Republican Party as being made up of insurgent outliers. And what you got is probably about half of House Republicans really would like to govern. They do deals with Democrats. They try to get things done. But there is an enormous number of House Republicans who are really, really good at opposition, but not very good at governing or at passing things. And I think I'm glad Senator Merkley listed some of the provisions in the bill that they kill that Elon Musk killed, because a lot of those provisions would do good things and would be very popular and were bipartisan. There's, for example, a provision that got thrown out of the bill to continue to allow reimbursement for telehealth. It was put in there during COVID but that is immensely helpful to people living in rural areas, which are mostly Republican. And it's helpful to people going through drug treatment, which is something all of us agree we should be working on. So you killed a lot of good stuff that was bipartisan in the name of what? In the name of the will of a billionaire.
- [33:59]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Norm Richie Neal there asked the question of can you imagine what this tells us about how the next two years of governing in this Republican House are going to be and it seems that it's probably going to be the way it was in the last Trump presidency, which is they'll be able to get their giant tax cut legislatively and just about nothing else.
- [34:22]
Chip Roy
There will be nothing else that will follow except what Trump does, including overreaching through executive action and what he will do there, given the people that he has around him, whether it's Musk and Ramaswamy or the baskets of deplorables who he's nominated for cabinet positions and White House positions, are going to do enormous damage to the fabric of American society. One point we should make here, Lawrence, is I've seen a lot of criticism. Where's Joe Biden in all of this? Joe Biden has been so smart to say nothing here. Donald Trump got elected and basically acted as if he were president on November 6th. Joe Biden is still president. But everything about this now is going to be blamed on Donald Trump, Elon Musk and congressional Republicans. He shouldn't be interjecting himself in this. When they are destroying themselves. You don't need to step in and help them out of it.
- [35:26]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Right? And it was Joe Biden who masterfully negotiated the expiration of the debt ceiling for June for right in the middle of the first year of the next presidential term. Norm Orenstein, E.J. deon, thank you both very much for joining us tonight. Thank you.
- [35:42]
Chip Roy
Thanks, Lawrence.
- [35:43]
Lawrence O'Donnell
And coming up, there is nothing quite like seeing a dream come true. That's next.
- [35:53]
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- [36:22]
Nourish Representative
I've been working with a nurse dietitian for the last six months and it's been life changing. I've lost weight, healed my relationship with food and have way more energy. Working with a dietitian online to create a personalized nutrition plan was so easy. Thanks to Nourish. The best part, I pay $0 out of pocket because Nourish accepts hundreds of insurance plans. 94% of patients pay $0 out of pocket. Find your dietitian@usenourish.com that's usenourish.com.
- [36:53]
Hydro Representative
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- [37:27]
Lawrence O'Donnell
There is nothing quite like a dream coming true. And when you're a girl in Malawi, dreaming of going to high school is a very big dream.
- [37:40]
Toko Chikandi
This was my dream school because I used to see girls from this school go to the district during education visits and just like play netball, sometimes do different activities and I could see them in a car from this school. I really particularly loved and fell in love with their uniform. So I felt like that could be me one day and luckily I got selected to this school.
- [38:12]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Toko Chikandi got to wear the school uniform that she fell in love with when she was just dreaming about being able to go to high school. In Malawi where public high school is not free and the girl's graduation rate from high school is less than half the boys graduation rate. Tocco knew that the biggest thing standing between her and her dream was the tuition fees to attend high school. She knew her family couldn't possibly afford to send her to high school or even buy her a school uniform.
- [38:48]
Toko Chikandi
I was part of the girls who benefited from the scholarships that the church offered in this school and luckily I got selected to this school. At that time when I came to school here, the school was just maybe a few years old and they didn't have many scholarships. They were missionary missionaries that were here and I was part of the girls who benefited from the scholarships that the church offered in this school. And when I talk about scholarships, when you are talking about scholarships, I know exactly what it means, I know exactly how. It was a bridge to turn my dreams into a reality. So when I look at my girls, when I looked at the girls, it felt like me a few years ago. And whatever dreams they said they had, I believed they would achieve them because I was also beneficiary of some scholarship one day and it made my dreams come true.
- [39:58]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Scholarships do make dreams come true. I think we all know that Toco's old high school now has 60 girls in attendance there. Thanks entirely to your generosity to the kind fund, the partnership I created with MSNBC and UNICEF to provide desks like this one to primary schools in Malawi where the kids have never seen desks, and provide scholarships for girls to attend high school in Malawi. Something happened in Toko's first year of high school in Malawi, which is called form one, which suddenly sent Tocco in pursuit of another dream.
- [40:40]
Toko Chikandi
When I came here, I didn't know what I wanted to become. But in my. When I was in form one, there were visitors from the Malawi Broadcasting Corporation that interviewed us on a youth program on Radio 1. And on that day I said, I want to be a journalist. And I went to university to pursue journalism, to do journalism. So and here I am. And in that journalism I am a photo journalist. And to come back to photograph the same classes that I sat in when I just dreamt of being a journalist and doing that work in that school in those same spaces. It means so much to me and I hope the same for the girls that they'll be able to come back here in the capacity as whoever they want to be, to be able to put their school back on the map.
- [41:25]
Lawrence O'Donnell
You can help more girls pursue their dreams like Toko did by going to lastwarddesks.msnbc.com youm can make a contribution in any amount. You can specify that your contribution is for desks or for girls scholarships. And you can make a donation in the name of anyone on your holiday gift list and UNICEF will send them an acknowledgement of your gift.
- [41:48]
Toko Chikandi
It was very emotional for me to come back here because it is a school that made my dreams come true.
- [41:55]
Lawrence O'Donnell
UNICEF hired Tocco as the official photographer of our recent tour of Malawi schools. We were already scheduled to visit the high school she graduated from Before Tocco became part of our team. It was just a lucky coincidence. We asked a few of the 60 girls who are receiving kind fund scholarships at the school to tell us about their career dreams. And the first girl you will hear with Tocco standing right there as inspiration, said she wants to be a journalist.
- [42:30]
Toko Chikandi
I like school just because I want my dreams to be fulfilled. Me. My dream is that I should become a journalist when I finish school. And I want to be a politician. I want to be a doctor. Yeah, My dream is that I want to be a nurse. I write school so that I should stand on my own in future. And I want to be a surgeon.
- [42:57]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Doctor, journalist, politician, nurse, doctor. They've already achieved one big dream by attending high school and are aiming for even bigger dreams now. No one knows better than Toko how much your support of girls in Malawi means to them.
- [43:20]
Toko Chikandi
Scholarships change lives. It changed mine. So I hope more people donate to this fund so that more girls, more girls dreams can come to reality and there is just hope for every other girl out there. I come from this distance district in a village up there and I made it out of here to the city and I am from the city to come back to my village to work and not just work, to work on educated related programs. So I am so excited and happy and just hopeful for the future.
- [43:56]
Lawrence O'Donnell
You've heard me say many times here that scholarships change lives. I think that's something we all know. But there is nothing quite like seeing a life changed by a scholarship.
- [44:10]
Toko Chikandi
I just want to say thank you.
- [44:16]
Lawrence O'Donnell
You are looking live at the Capitol of the United States, where 25 hours from now, the government will shut down unless a solution can be found in that building. Where today, Elon Musk and Donald Trump failed in their attempt to find a solution, failed miserably in their first attempt to govern. Together with 38 members, Republican members of the House of Representatives defying Donald Trump and Elon Musk. And that's where it stands tonight. That is tonight's last word.
- [44:56]
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