← The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell
The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell
Lawrence: Trump predicts a ‘1929-style result’ if Trump returns the tariff money he illegally took
00:42:16
Tonight on The Last Word: Donald Trump is trying to distract from the Epstein scandal. Also, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse says Trump’s Justice Department “doesn’t care about truth or law.” And Trump lashes out at criticism of his tariff chaos. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse and Paul Krugman join Lawrence O’Donnell.
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- [00:00]
Lawrence O'Donnell
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Jen Psaki
All right, good.
- [01:14]
Lawrence O'Donnell
It's going to be a whole different thing. So, Jen, we are being joined once again tonight by Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman. The last time he was here, Donald Trump decided to attack him and throw really ugly insult at him, which I can even bring myself to say until Professor Krugman is with us later in this hour. That's when you'll hear it. And he'll get his chance to respond to Donald Trump's terrible insult of him. And I have a feeling he might not, he just might not stoop to Donald Trump's level. But we'll find out.
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Jen Psaki
We'll find out. We also know that Donald Trump is.
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Lawrence O'Donnell
A viewer of the last word, so there's that, too. Well, he's been throwing those kinds of insults at me for a very long time. Actually much, much worse than what he said about Professor Krugman. Much worse. Yes, that is true. Thanks, Jen. Thanks, Lauren.
- [02:11]
Jen Psaki
Have a good show.
- [02:13]
Lawrence O'Donnell
It's all a game of diversion. That's what one man on the street in Washington, D.C. said today about Donald Trump's deployment of a tiny force of National Guard soldiers to the streets of Washington, D.C. where they will have absolutely nothing to do because they are not legally empowered to do anything. As the deputy mayor of Washington D.C. explained today outside the Justice Department after a meeting of city officials with Donald Trump's Attorney general, deputy attorney general and FBI director.
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Jen Psaki
Does the National Guard have the power.
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Lawrence O'Donnell
To make arrests on a day to day basis?
- [02:52]
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse
How does that work?
- [02:53]
Lawrence O'Donnell
No, the National Guard is not law enforcement. And so as, as the chief said, we regularly because what we do in our city work with the National Guard and we'll do the same that they will coordinate through the Metropolitan Police Department for any services that they're providing during this time, they will do nothing. Washington D.C. officials, including Mayor Muriel Bowser wisely today downplayed the importance of Donald Trump's National Guard photo op in their city. The mayor is refusing to help Donald Trump in his game of diversion by indulging in the kind of outraged public commentary that could help Donald Trump keep the attention on his game of diversion in Washington D.C. with the National Guard. The man on the street explained Donald Trump's game of diversion this way. The whole idea that there is some kind of a crisis of disorder in D.C. is a made up phony story to distract attention from deteriorating economy, from the ICE raids which horrify even people who wanted action on immigration and of course from the Epstein Files. It's all a game of diversion. It's not really worth paying attention to the arguments as if they were real. There is no crime crisis in D.C. crime is way down and of course the Epstein files. Donald Trump will not divert us tonight from covering the important developments in the Epstein files story because the truth of what Donald Trump is doing in Washington D.C. is statistically insignificant. You will hear reported that Donald Trump is putting 800 National Guard troops on the streets of Washington D.C. and that is not true. Yes, a total of 800 troops will be deployed, which means that at any given moment 600 of them will will be comfortably resting, having breakfast, lunch or dinner, snacking or sleeping or watching TV, while only 200 will be in any way visible on the streets of Washington D.C. at one time. And that means, as I said here last night, there will be more hotel doormen on the streets of Washington D.C. than National Guard troops. The troops have no power and should be greeted as powerless visitors to Washington D.C. visitors being publicly embarrassed. By the way, the most incompetent and ignorant president in history is using them as diversion from his being the only president in history whose old friend was a child rapist. Which is to say Donald Trump was trying to divert attention from his involvement. Donald Trump's involvement in the Epstein Files from his name appearing in The Epstein files so many times that his Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General, who was his personal criminal defense lawyer before becoming Deputy Attorney General, went to the Oval Office to brief Donald Trump on exactly how many times they found his name appearing in the Epstein files. They deployed thousands of FBI agents to study the Epstein files and find every mention of Donald Trump's name. Donald Trump actually deployed more FBI agents to study the Epstein files than all of the National Guard troops that Donald Trump is deploying in Washington D.C. donald Trump is reassigning a relatively small group of FBI agents and other federal law enforcement agents who do have law enforcement authority in Washington D.C. and all over the country to help the Washington D.C. local police in doing their jobs. The FBI agents cannot tell the Washington D.C. police officers what to do, but the Washington D.C. police chief, in coordination with the Mayor, is wisely skipping the outrage that Donald Trump wants Washington D.C. officials to express so that Donald Trump supporters who hate Washington D.C. can feel Donald Trump is somehow effectively attacking local Washington D.C. officials. Police Chief Pamela Smith put the Donald Trump stunt in perspective today this way. So the federal agency is going to so the way we would do any operational plan across our city, we would create a plan, we would put our resources together, we would allocate and look.
- [07:42]
Jen Psaki
At the locations around our city where.
- [07:44]
Lawrence O'Donnell
We have where we believe there are areas of pockets of crime that we would like to address. We also know that there are opportunities for us to build upon our community.
- [07:52]
Jen Psaki
Engagement with our federal partners who work.
- [07:54]
Lawrence O'Donnell
With us every day. The federal government does have unique powers in Washington D.C. that don't exist in any other American city. But other large cities with Democratic mayors can expect the arrival of a tiny, ineffectual force of National Guard troops every time Donald Trump needs to play the diversion game. Democratic mayors should be ready for the arrival of National Guard troops in September when the House of Representatives returns to Washington D.C. with some members planning to ruin Donald Trump's game of diversion. Today, one Republican member of the House Oversight Committee said that Alex Acosta may be called to testify about his role in the plea bargain Jeffrey Epstein's lawyers arranged with Alex Acosta when He was a U.S. attorney, the first time Jeffrey Epstein faced federal charges for his abuse of young women and children. Alex Acosta was the U.S. attorney in the Southern District of Florida who negotiated an ultra lenient plea bargain with Jeffrey Epstein in which Jeffrey Epstein avoided serving actual prison time and instead spent his nights sleeping in a minimum security facility nearby while being allowed to go to his office every day for 13 months. Donald Trump then made Alex Acosta his first Secretary of Labor during the first Trump presidency. The Palm Beach Post reports the serial child sex abuser was allowed simply to plead guilty to two prostitution related felonies in state court and was sentenced to 18 months in the Palm Beach County Jail. He served just 13 months. A federal grand jury drafted a 60 count indictment against Epstein that was never used because federal prosecutors and then Palm Beach County State Attorney Barry Kersher agreed to allow Epstein to plead guilty to the two prostitution related charges in state court. Had local and federal prosecutors, most prominently Acosta, fully prosecuted Epstein, the Palm beach financier could have faced the decades in prison. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, our first guest tonight, has sent a letter to the Director of the Bureau of Prisons seeking answers about the transfer of Donald Trump's old friend and Jeffrey Epstein's convicted criminal co conspirator in sex crimes and sex trafficking, Ghislaine Maxwell. The letter says Ms. Maxwell was transferred without explanation and in possible violation of standard Bureau policy. Against the backdrop of the political scandal arising from President Trump's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, Ms. Maxwell's abrupt transfer raises questions about whether she has been given special treatment in exchange for political favors. Such a meeting would ordinarily be conducted by an FBI agent or a member of the local U.S. attorney's office, not the Deputy Attorney General. The meeting was doubly unusual because of Mr. Blanche's former role as President Trump's personal criminal attorney and the ongoing political scandal resulting in from the Wall Street Journal's report that Ms. Maxwell assembled a birthday book for Epstein that included a personal note from President Trump. Congress has a strong oversight interest in knowing whether these procedures were followed in transferring Ms. Maxwell and whether that transfer was part of a political deal. When Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna is working to get the birthday book that reportedly contains a letter bearing Donald Trump's name to Jeffrey Epstein for Jeffrey Epstein's 50th birthday celebration. According to the Wall Street Journal, the note, quote, contains several lines of typewriter text framed by the outline of a naked woman, which appears to be hand drawn with a heavy marker. A pair of small arcs denotes the woman's breasts and the future president's signature is a squiggly Donald below her wa mimicking pubic hair. The letter concludes happy Birthday and may every day be another wonderful secret. Following through on what he told us on this program, Congressman Khanna sent a letter to the Epstein estate saying recent public reporting indicates that the Epstein that the estate of Jeffrey Epstein is in possession of a document commonly referred to as the Birthday Book, compiled by Ghislaine Maxwell in 2003 in celebration of Mr. Epstein's 50th birthday, which has clear relevance to this case. To assist in bringing transparency and accountability, we request that you provide a complete unredacted copy of the 2003 birthday book no later than August 10, 2025, which may provide information essential to further our constitutionally obligated Congressional oversight efforts. Carson Khanna shared this response he received from the Epstein estate. The estate is on record that it will comply with all lawful process and fully intends to do so if and when the Committee issues an appropriate subpoena. We request that it recognize the important privacy interests of victims and other women who may be referenced in in a demeaning or disparaging manner and who without appropriate redactions, could become fodder for public speculation and innuendo. Congressman Ro Khanna is also planning to hold a press conference and this is very important, a press conference on September 3rd. So get ready for a big Trump diversion on September 3rd. That's a press conference on September 3rd with Republican Congressman Thomas Massie, joined by victims of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell's abuse, several of whom will speak publicly about the abuse they suffered for the first time, the Daily Beast reports, quote, Massie and Khanna will also provide an update on their discharge petition which would force a House vote on releasing the Epstein files, as well as discuss their Epstein Files Transparency act, which if passed would require Attorney General Pam Bondi to to release all documents related to the billionaire financier in a searchable and downloadable format. Congressman Massie, who has drawn Donald Trump's anger for voting against his Trump Republican budget bill, posted on social media on Friday, quote, the Epstein files are not a hoax. The speaker adjourned Congress early to avoid the topic. But we will not forget when the House returns from August recess, I can begin collecting the 218 signatures required to force a vote on binding legislation to release the files. Republican Congressman Doug LaMalfa heard from voters about Donald Trump's handling and now hiding of the Epstein files at a town hall yesterday in Chico, California. It's interesting. The Epstein situation was not an issue during the Biden administration. We need to have very clear transparency. What was going on with that Epstein situation. I'm hoping by the end of this August recess that we get back September the information will be available to us because there's actually two, two chunks of information that are being upheld by judges on that are being released that are grand jury Reports that grand jury reports traditionally have had the ability to have the sanctity seal. Now, we need to be able get this information out and get to the truth of what's going on. So we're very interested in the Epstein files. I think it's. It's a bad look to have this information continue to be suppressed, but there's also people involved in the way those files, some level, need to be redacted, so. Leading off our discussion tonight is Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He's also a member of the Senate Finance Committee and the Budget Committee. He's the top Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Senator, thank you very much for joining us tonight. I've learned so much in your letter to the Bureau of Prisons, a subject I don't know very much about, which was very clear to me when I read your point number six in what you're requesting. You said you want them to provide you Ms. Maxwell's security point score. What is a security point score, and what will that tell us?
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Senator Sheldon Whitehouse
It's the manner in which the Bureau of Prisons evaluates the risk or danger or harm that a prisoner potentially presents, and it relates to their qualification to move to incarceration at various levels of security. So it bears on the rationale for transferring Ghislaine Maxwell to the lowest level of incarceration, what people commonly refer to as the Club Fed level. And none of this seems to have been done by regular rule or under regular order. So we're looking for all different aspects of information that would bear on that decision, and that might provide some reason to believe that this was something other than a political deal cut privately between Trump's criminal defense lawyer, now Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, and Ghislaine Maxwell, who knows so much about Trump and Epstein, including things as simple as the page that Trump denies exists, which she apparently got from him for that birthday book you referred to. So there's just an enormous mix of interests here, and it looks like her transfer was designed to be transactional among those interests.
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Lawrence O'Donnell
So you're asking for every possible form of written record about this email. Anything. But what if it's just Todd Blanche's chief of staff, picking up the phone and calling the head of the Bureau of Prisons, or someone who gets this done by calling someone else, and what we have here is just a bunch of phone calls and no one's written anything down.
- [19:23]
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse
Then the question becomes, why? Because these decisions are made with paper trails. If you're trying to pretend that this was done in some kind of orderly or proper fashion, then that notion is pretty well blown up. When there's no paper trail of any kind, none of the regular forms or analysis are filled out, none of the regular procedures are followed. And instead, out of no place, the office of the Deputy attorney General is taking an interest in the incarcerated situation of a convicted sex offender who just happens to have a lot of insights into the Trump Epstein Association.
- [20:06]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Senator Whitehouse, we're going to squeeze in a quick commercial break right here. We're going to be right back with Senator Sheldon Whitehouse. We're back with Senator Sheldon Whitehouse. Senator, it looks like Democratic big city mayors better be ready for National Guard troops entering their cities in September, especially September 3, when there is a press conference that is going to be scheduled with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, victims, that press conference probably in Washington, D.C. joined by members of Congress.
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Senator Sheldon Whitehouse
Yeah. Well, I think these police departments could probably use some support. I think most police departments, particularly big urban police departments, are customarily very busy. And to have a couple of hundred extra bodies to file papers and do typing and run errands and do the administrative stuff that the National Guard is qualified to do in an American city can take the load off their real police so that they can spend more time dedicated to law enforcement functions. And so I think the sensible thing for a big city mayor to do is to make sure that, well coordinated, they take advantage of these extra bodies and they don't let them anywhere near powers of arrest or the core law enforcement functions of filing arrest reports, assisting with presentations to grand juries, testifying as law enforcement witnesses in court, all of those sorts of things, because they simply aren't qualified for that, aren't trained for that, and it wouldn't be legal for them to do that.
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Lawrence O'Donnell
And Washington's mayor and the officials in the city seem to be taking it in stride and giving Donald Trump none of the outrage he was probably hoping for to add to his diversion.
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Senator Sheldon Whitehouse
Yeah, I mean, sure, you want to give me 200 bodies to help do stuff, drive cars here and there, deliver packages. There's lots of stuff that can be done to help a working police department work. The notion that they're going to be out on the streets actually enforcing the law is simply not what is going to happen unless, you know, you have martial law declared. And there's no reason for that. And there's been no suggestion of that. This is just a photo op to put uniform National Guard folks in front of cameras to allow Trump to as the federal judge recently said about the grand jury testimony. Dodge transparency and do more diversion.
- [22:53]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, thank you very much for joining us tonight.
- [22:57]
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse
Thank you.
- [22:58]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Coming up, Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman will reply to Donald Trump's ugly insults when Professor Krugman joins us after this break. I'm Cyndi Lauper. My psoriasis was all over, even on my scalp, which may mean four times the risk for psoriatic arthritis. But Cosentyx works on both. Cosentyx Secukinumab is prescribed for adults with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis, 300 milligram dose and adults with active psoriatic arthritis, 150 milligrams dose. Don't use if you're allergic to Cosentyx. Before starting, get checked for tuberculosis. An increased risk of infections and lowered ability to fight them may occur. Like tuberculosis or other serious bacterial, fungal or viral infections, some are fatal. Tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms like fevers, sweats, chills, muscle aches or cough had a vaccine or planned to, or if inflammatory bowel disease symptoms develop or worsen, serious allergic reactions and severe eczema like skin reactions may occur. Learn more at cosentyx.com or 1844-cosentyx Ask your doctor about Cosentyx. MSNBC presents the chart topping original podcast the Best People with Nicole Wallace. This week she sits down with legal scholar Melissa Murray. If you're a person who's ambitious or you're a person who thinks they're something in the world to be solved, it's really hard to dial it down and sit it out. The Best People with Nicole Wallace listen now. For early access and free listening and bonus content, subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts. Start your day with the MSNBC Daily Newsletter. Each morning, read sharp insights from the voices you trust. Catch standout moments from your favorite shows.
- [24:52]
Jen Psaki
The second Trump administration has gone to.
- [24:54]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Unprecedented lengths to radically transform America. Stay up to speed with our latest podcasts and documentaries and get fresh perspectives from experts shaping the news. It's everything you love about MSNBC delivered to your inbox. Sign up now@msnbc.com Paul Krugman is back by popular demand. Even though one prominent viewer with no influence over this program attacked Professor Krugman after his last appearance here. Donald Trump leveled an insult at Paul Krugman far worse than anything ever said about a Nobel Prize winning economist, but not as bad as many of the things Donald Trump has said about me. Professor Krugman will be given an opportunity here tonight to reply to Donald Trump's insult if he dares. But we begin our discussion with some of the economic news of the day. Core inflation, which excludes food and energy prices, rose by 3.1% last month, the fastest annual pace in five months, the new York Times reports. The July data, which was released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, provides a clear sign that businesses are being affected by tariffs. Some have begun to pass along those related costs more readily to their customers after a prolonged period of mining muted price gains. The economy is weaker because of tariffs, said Stephen Stanley, chief U.S. economist at Santander. Businesses are being very cautious. They're not investing, they're not hiring, he added noted that customer consumers were also pulling back in the face of higher prices. And predictably, at 10:24am Donald Trump tweeted, quote, tariffs have not caused inflation or any other problems for America other than massive amounts of cash pouring into our Treasury's coffers. 100% of the tariff cash pouring into the treasury comes from the United States of America and only the United States of America. No foreign country has ever paid and never will pay a tariff imposed by this country. And there is only one president in the history of the United States who publicly insists that he doesn't comprehend that simple fact about tariffs. Every penny of the 130 billion that the United States treasury has collected in tariffs so far this year has been paid by Americans, American companies and individuals who have imported foreign goods into this country. They have paid those tariffs at the port of entry here in the United States, and they paid the tariffs directly to the federal government officials who collect those tariffs from Americans who pay them at the ports of entry here in the United States. And so if a federal Court of Appeals and the United States Supreme Court agree with the United States Court of International Trade, the experts on tariffs and rule that those tariffs are illegal and unconstitutional. All of the tariff money that has been collected might have to be refunded and would go to Americans. Which makes Donald Trump's lawyer's letter to the appeals court hearing the case against his tariffs all the more absurd. The United States Court of International Trade, which is the federal court that specializes in international trade, unanimously ruled that the Trump tariffs are illegal and unconstitutional. That case is now on appeal, and Donald Trump's Justice Department lawyer actually told the appeals court today in writing, quote, if the United States were forced to pay back the trillions of dollars committed to us, America could go from strength to failure the moment such an incorrect decision took effect. So that's Donald Trump's lawyer lying and telling the court that trillions of dollars have been committed to the United States. That's a lie. And telling the court that if the 130 billion in tariff money illegally collected by Donald Trump has to be returned to Americans, that would be a problem. Donald Trump cut the taxes of the highest earning Americans by a trillion dollars, gave them a trillion dollars. The Trump lawyer's letter to the appeals court said the President believes that a forced dissolution of the agreements could lead to a 1929 style result. In such a scenario, people would be forced from their homes, millions of jobs would be eliminated, hardworking Americans would lose their savings and even Social Security and Medicare could be threatened. That's the Trump prediction for giving Americans back the $130 billion that Donald Trump illegally took from them. It's a tiny amount of money within the context of the full American economy and the federal budget of the United States of America. The Wall Street Journal mocked the ridiculous Trump letter to the court as a doomsday tariff letter. Today's report on inflation by the Bureau of Labor Statistics was the first since Donald Trump fired the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics for telling the truth. Yesterday in an interview with Fox, Donald Trump's choice to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics, EJ And Tony said until it is corrected, the BLS should suspend issuing the monthly job reports but keep publishing the more accurate though less timely quarterly data. That is the single most absurd and reckless thing ever said by anyone chosen by a President to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Our next guest, Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman writes in his substack that Hannah Arendt's book the Origins of Totalitarianism Explain why Donald Trump promotes the incompetent Professor Krugman writes. Hannah Arendt explained why totalitarians I know Trump isn't a full on dictator yet, but he's clearly a wannabe. Promote the Incompetent Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first rate talents regardless of their sympathies with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty. Arendt also explained in advance the Trump administration's extraordinary hostility to research the extraordinary speed with which it is destroying America's scientific base. The consistent persecution of every higher form of intellectual activity by the New Mass leaders springs from more than their natural resentment against everything they cannot understand. Total domination does not allow for free initiative in any field of life. Joining us now is Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman. He is distinguished professor at City University of New York's Graduate center and a former New York Times columnist who is now posting his work on Substack. Professor Krugman, thank you very much for joining us again tonight. And before we get to Donald Trump's upset with you, let's just go to this issue as presented to the appeals court today by Donald Trump's lawyer, contending that if the Trump tariffs are ruled illegal and unconstitutional, if that ruling holds, we would be sent into some kind of 1929, like, disaster.
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Jen Psaki
Yeah, I mean, it's crazy. The amount of money. The federal government is a huge thing. So the amount of money is not that large. It will be a bureaucratic mess because what's happened is that Donald Trump has imposed tariffs using emergency powers, using powers that are only supposed to apply when we're suffering an economic emergency. Sorry about the cat in the background and the. Which clearly we aren't. And Trump himself says things are great. The economy is booming. So by his own admission, the conditions for him to impose those tariffs don't exist. The trouble is the money has been collected, and legally it has to be given back. But finding relevant people, sending, you know, cutting the checks to all of the importing firms, you know, some of this is Walmart, some of it is, is export import businesses, some of the small businesses that ordered stuff and pay tariffs, that would be a complete nightmare. But, you know, that's Trump's problem. That's not a problem for the American economy. That's a problem for Trump and his band of incompetence.
- [34:05]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Well, the treasury does know how to do it. It does issues millions of tax refunds every year. They're set up for it. They've never had to do it because no president has ever done anything this crazy. Today, the Treasury Secretary, Scott Besant, actually said that this is a, quote, the amount of money that's coming in here. I think the more deals we've done, the more money coming in, it gets harder and harder for SCOTUS to rule against this. So there's the Treasury Secretary saying that collecting $130 billion in tariffs makes it really hard for the Supreme Court to actually uphold the Constitution.
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Jen Psaki
Yeah, we've stolen a lot of money and it would be such a pain to have to give it back. So the Supreme Court must rule that it's legal. That's amazing.
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Lawrence O'Donnell
They are presenting in their argument to the court, which is really stunning. It's one thing for Donald Trump to go out there and lie to reporters, which he does every single day. About tariffs, but now they're lying to the court about this notion that there are trillions of dollars in what they call deals that the court cannot unwind when the court is actually going to find that no such deals exist.
- [35:17]
Jen Psaki
Yeah, well, that's going to be an interesting question. I mean, I don't trust this court, by the way. But if the court does its job, there are no deals. There are no. I mean, we know what a trade deal looks like. A trade deal is a signed agreement that is pass, passed by the US Congress and signed by the president and is also signed by foreign countries. You know, we've done many of them over the years. Trade deals normally run to hundreds or thousands of pages. They specify everything. They have the force of law. This is just the Trump administration saying, we have a deal in many cases. Now, the foreign countries with which we've supposedly made deals have said, we didn't agree to that. You know, the Europeans are going to give Donald Trump $600 billion in the slush fund. The European Commission says, no, we didn't agree to anything like that. So this is. These are fantasy deals. And the idea that the Supreme Court is going to overrule the clear meaning of U.S. law, and they might, I mean, given this Supreme Court, but the idea that they should over, you know, ignore clear US Law on the basis of Trump's fantasies about the deals that he's made with other countries, that's really something. That's not the America I grew up in.
- [36:32]
Lawrence O'Donnell
So we have Donald Trump's choice to run the Bureau of Labor Statistics saying, no need. No need to issue monthly data on this economy.
- [36:43]
Jen Psaki
Yeah. So, first of all, that's illegal. It turns out the monthly reports on jobs are not an optional choice by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The law says that it must issue reports every month. So this would be just another clear violation of law to stop issuing those reports. And of course, nobody, you know, nobody thinks that they are seriously worried about problems with the data. This is all, you know, one way to let Trump keep on boasting about how great the economy is is to prevent the release of data that shows that it isn't. And that's basically what this is about. Again, it's amazing. I keep on being astonished by just how bold they are in their hackishness here.
- [37:32]
Lawrence O'Donnell
And so the Bureau of Labor Statistics, even without the commissioner who Donald Trump fired still issued. Did their job, issued the report today on core inflation showing that it's up, up.
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Jen Psaki
Yeah. I mean, the tariffs are filtering through. It's not A huge one time you didn't. It's not a giant wave of price increases, at least not yet. What's happening is particularly the fact that nobody has known what Trump's next move is. A lot of companies have been reluctant to pass on prices. Walmart's paying a lot of tariffs right now. Walmart doesn't want to anger its customers if there's a possibility that, that there's going to be some real trade deals and the tariffs will come back down. So a lot of companies have been very reticent about actually passing the tariffs on to consumers. But we can see that visibly changing that. People are starting to say, okay, extremely high tariffs appear to be here to stay. And we can't keep eating this. You know, foreigners have eaten none of the tariffs. We can, we have data on that. And it's all come from Americans, but mostly so far from American businesses that have not passed it on to consumers. That can only last a few months at most.
- [38:47]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Professor Krugman, we have to squeeze in a commercial break here. And I want to give you a minute because when we come back, I'd like to give you an opportunity to respond to Donald Trump's insulting attack on you in which he described you in two words that I just cannot bring myself to say until after this commercial break. We're going to be right back with Paul Krugman Saturday, October 11th. From New York City, it's MSNBC Live 25. Join your favorite MSNBC hosts, Rachel Maddow, Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski, Nicole Wallace, Ari Melber, Alicia Menendez, Simone Sanders Townsend, Michael Steele, Chris Hayes, jen Psaki, Lawrence O', Donnell, Stephanie Rule and more. Visit msnbc.comlive25 to buy your tickets today. Here's why Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman added the words deranged bomb to his substack profile after Professor Krugman last appeared on this program last week. Donald Trump angrily wrote, Paul Krugman of the New York Times has been predicting doom and gloom ever since my great election success in 2016. In other words, he has been wrong for years as all markets have been hitting new highs and are now higher than ever before. People stayed out of the best market in his toy because of this Trump deranged bump. Sue them, exclamation point. Professor Krugman is back with us and I want to just start with the sue them part. He wants to sue, I guess, you and the New York Times. I think he thinks you still work for the New York Times. Sue you for talking about economics That's, I assume, a new one for you.
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Jen Psaki
Yeah, I mean, it turns out I'm not alone. He's now calling for Goldman Sachs to fire its chief economist, who's a very good guy, Jan Hatzius, but, but he didn't call him a deranged bum. So I have a special honor there, and I like to say I'm actually, you know, it is an honor. I did put it on my substack profile. It's, you know, and look, I've made some bad predictions. If you've never made a bad prediction, you're not making, you're not taking enough risks. I think my track record over the years is, you know, it's okay. In any case, you know, being wrong is. If being wrong was illegal and grounds for being sued, every economic official that has anything to do with Trump would be out on the street. Right. So it's great. I mean, I was immediately delighted to see him calling me a deranged bomb.
- [41:37]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Well, welcome to the group who've been attacked by Donald Trump with his ugliest words. I assure you he has said worse about me. But we might be getting his attention again, and this time. And Donald Trump has now moved into the space, as we were just saying, where he's got someone who wants to take over the Bureau of Labor Statistics, who's actively saying, let's just stop reporting economic data in effect, so people like Paul Krugman can stop telling us what's actually happening in this economy.
- [42:16]
Jen Psaki
That's right. And so again, that is, the law says that the BLS must report those data. That's not a, that's, that's not a, an executive decision. That's just their legal obligation. But, you know, if, if they want to cook the books. It's been something we thought about for a while. I thought about for a while. You know, it's going to be complicated. There's a lot of people at BLS doing their jobs, dedicated civil servants. And to actually corrupt that data, it's going to take of a lot, a lot of work and a long time. So it's not just, let's stop reporting bad news. Let's put a pause on everything while we have time to fire or intimidate enough people at the BLS that we can start to produce cook numbers. That's the only way to interpret this. But it's, it, it's, it's madness. I mean, it's, I mean, it could happen. It may well happen eventually, but it's not as if anybody's going to believe the numbers that the Trumpified BLS produces, it's just going to say, you know, the world's arguably the world's best economic statistics agency. We will just destroy it. Like so much else that's been destroyed.
- [43:20]
Lawrence O'Donnell
In this administration, presidents relying on and seeking serious advice from serious economists really began with Franklin Delano Roosevelt during his transition between his first election in 1932 and taking office in the middle of the worst depression in 1933. And it has continued uninterrupted with Republican presidents seeking the same thing, wanting to get serious advice from economists right up to Donald Trump, where it all just falls off a cliff and we've entered this madness zone where you find yourself quoting Hannah Arendt about what's really going on here.
- [44:05]
Jen Psaki
Yeah. Remember economics as an academic subject, economics is relatively conservative, not very, but there are plenty of certainly center right competent economists. There are all of these who would should be politically compatible at least with the Republican Party or what the Republican Party used to be, who do know how to do their numbers. But Trump and his whole party actually gravitate entirely to people who are not just ideologues, not just partisan, but just cannot get any numbers right. I wrote about this event that Trump did about how the economy is great, which was a presentation of that, aside from misspellings on the charts, was with Stephen Moore, who is notorious. He's got pathological inability to get a single number right whenever he issues a report. So this is who they prefer. And I think it is. Anyone who's competent, anyone who has a real professional reputation is a threat because they might say, no, I won't do that. I won't make that claim. I won't fake the data. And so they have to get people who are totally incompetent.
- [45:17]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman, we can only hope that Donald Trump awards you another badge of honor for your appearance with us here tonight. Thank you very much for joining us tonight.
- [45:27]
Jen Psaki
Thank you. My bum thanks you too.
- [45:29]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Thank you. We'll be right back. Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman gets tonight's last word.