← The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell
The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell
Lawrence: Trump seeks ‘biggest payoff in history’ as he tells kids to expect less for Christmas
00:40:37
Tonight on The Last Word: The stock market jumps after Donald Trump lowered China tariffs. Also, Trump wants to accept a $400M plane from Qatar. Plus, Bill Gates continues to call out Elon Musk over with USAID cuts. And NBC News reports the Trump administration has spent at least $21M flying migrants to Guantanamo Bay. Rick Woldenberg, Ben Rhodes, Andrew Weissmann, and Courtney Kube join Lawrence O’Donnell.
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- [00:52]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Well, absolutely no one in the world was surprised today when the most corrupt president in history agreed to the biggest payoff in history. And because he is the stupidest president in history, he agreed to that payoff. Payoff from a Hamas supporting dictator publicly, and to double underline his stupidity, he publicly said that only a stupid person, that was actually his phrase, a stupid person, would refuse to take the biggest payoff in history from a Hamas supporting dictator. The biggest payoff is literally, physically the biggest. The largest 747 that Boeing makes. It is owned by the Emir of Qatar who wants to just give it to Donald Trump as a gift. Just a gift from one person who has no idea about any of the words written in the Constitution of the United States to an American President with a severe case of constitutional dementia. The founders of the United States of America specifically imagined this very scenario before they could imagine anyone other than birds actually flying. Not, you know, the plain version of the scenario, but the other version of the scenario, the gift version. In the Constitution that Donald Trump and the Emir of Qatar have never read, it says that the President absolutely cannot accept any present emolument, office or title of any kind whatever from any king, prince or foreign state. Okay, they didn't specifically say an emir, but king and Amir are both four letter words meaning exactly the same kind of guy. Donald Trump will probably back down on this particular insanity in the same way that he backed down on his tariffs today. And so the Supreme Court of the United States might never have to tell Donald Trump that no, you can't take a 747 from anybody. Reports indicate that the payoff talks have been underway for several weeks. And so that means that every single day, Donald Trump was telling what he called baby girls who are 11 years old. That was his actual description of a baby girl. A baby girl, 11 years old. He said that he was telling those baby girls that they can only have two dolls for Christmas because of his tariffs every day. Donald Trump was saying that crazy stuff about two dolls. He was secretly working out the delivery of the biggest Christmas gift in the history of Christmas gifts. To himself. Donald Trump said one true thing about the biggest payoff in history today. He said, I appreciate it very much, and I'm so sure that he really does appreciate it. And then he said something the whole world knew already. He said, quote, I would never be one to turn down that kind of an offer. Yeah, we know. That's the problem. That's one of the many reasons you are not morally qualified to be President of the United States. We know you would never turn down that kind of offer. ABC News reports Donald Trump got his completely unqualified and incompetent Attorney General, Pam Bondi, to write a letter to his completely unqualified and incompetent Secretary of Defense saying that the Defense Department could accept the aircraft as a gift and convert it for use as Air Force One. And then, just when Donald Trump would need to use it as a private citizen, the Defense Department could just give it to Donald Trump's presidential library. And all that means is that Donald Trump wants to keep riding in a private 747 when he's no longer president. That's what this is all about. It's about, what's he going to fly in after he's president. How does Donald Trump get a free, ultra fancy 747 literally fit for a king to fly around in the final years of his life when he's no longer president? Giving up your private 747 is one of the harder things about leaving the presidency. And Donald Trump does not want to suffer that indignity again. And so he has reached into the kindness well deep in the heart of the Emir of Qatar. And this time, the emir, instead of doling out money to Hamas to support Hamas, has decided to support Donald Trump to support Donald Trump's lifestyle. It is every bit as filthy an arrangement as it sounds. Like Senator Bernie Sanders said, I don't know who needs to hear this, but no, Donald Trump cannot accept a $400 million flying palace from the royal family of Qata. Not only is this farcically corrupt, it is blatantly unconstitutional. Congress must not allow this over the top kleptocracy to proceed. The customization of that 747800 made it probably worth much more than $400 million at delivery, and the Defense Department would have to spend hundreds upon hundreds of millions of dollars, possibly billions, to convert that plane into possible use as an Air Force One substitute. The plane has none of the presidential level communication capacities that Air Force One has. It does not have the mini hospital and surgical center that Air Force One has, and it might never be possible to assure the integrity of that airplane because it has not been in the custody of the United States government since its birth, as every previous Air Force One aircraft has been, garrett Graf writes. To even begin to mitigate that risk from an eavesdropping, tracking, cybersecurity, or sabotage standpoint would involve stripping the plane down to the equivalent of the studs. And today's planes offer a lot of opportunities for hiding things, even before you get into talking about physical vulnerabilities or tracking devices. Trump's been known to be interested in this plane since he reviewed it at Palm beach in February. So it's not even merely the friendly intelligence services of Qatar that we should be concerned about. Every friendly and adversary intelligence service worth its salt surely has been looking for months now to get aboard that plane. And that plane is currently conveniently residing for everyone to inspect at the non Secure public airport in San Antonio, Texas. There it is. There are currently two fully functioning identical 747s serving as air Force One. Boeing is significantly behind on a contract to deliver two new ones. That contract was initiated during Donald Trump's first presidency. Donald Trump boasted about the genius of that contract and how no one else could have possibly negotiated the deal for Boeing to build two new versions of Air Force One, even though several previous presidents had ordered new versions of Air force one for 70 years or so. The current perfectly good versions of Air Force One are actually the same age as Donald Trump's personal plane, which was 20 years old when Donald Trump bought it because he could not afford a new Boeing aircraft. The 747 that Donald Trump wants to take from the main funder of Hamas is already 13 years old. It's not going to happen. This payoff is as ugly and stupid as it looks, and it is totally illegal. But it offers a perfect companion piece to Donald Trump's two dolls declaration for Christmas. American kids can only have two Barbies at most. But Donald Trump, at the very same time, when he was telling American kids they can only have two dolls, very same time he was doing that, he was having discussions to get himself the most expensive private plan in the world for nothing. Donald Trump has just spent months telling Americans they have to sacrifice because of his tariffs. Donald Trump has told Americans they have to pay higher prices because of his tariffs. Donald Trump has told little girls they have to accept that they're going to have less for Christmas because of his tariffs. And Donald Trump has told small business operators that when they go out of business because of his tariffs, America will be better and stronger because of it. And he was trying to negotiate a free plane for himself that whole time. Biggest plane in the world. Wall street proved today just how stupid they think Donald Trump is. The stock market skyrocketed today when Donald Trump completely reversed himself and surrendered to China in the trade war that Donald Trump started. Now think about why the stock market went down so badly because of the Trump tariffs and then why it came rocketing back as soon as Donald Trump removed the biggest tariffs today. It's because they believe Donald Trump is irreversibly stupid. Now, I don't study the stock market. I never think about it. Like most people, I have some retirement money that's floating in the stock market in some fund. It has been for years when Donald Trump terrified the stock market with his tariff and panic selling filled the trading days. I did absolutely nothing with whatever I have in the stock market because I always knew Donald Trump was going to surrender. I always knew that the person who started the trade war was going to end the trade war because it was going to become politically impossible for Donald Trump to continue the trade war. And that's exactly what happened. So whatever I was holding in the stock market in December, and I genuinely don't know what really is in that fund. It's a retirement fund. I don't pay any attention to it. I ended up doing the smartest thing you could do during the Trump stock market crash, which was to do absolutely nothing. The stock market cash was created by one person. And I always knew it was going to be reversed by the decision of that one person to just give up. But Wall Street, Wall street actually believed that Donald Trump is so irreversibly stupid that he was going to continue the tariffs no matter what. That's what the panic selling was about. Wall street actually believed Donald Trump is so irreversibly stupid that he was going to do what he said he was going to do. And they knew that if Donald Trump did what he said he was going to do, that that would destroy the economy, destroy the stock market. The stock market rocketing back up today was not some kind of vote of confidence in Donald Trump. It was a statement about just how stupid they thought he was. Last week, they thought he was so stupid that the stock market was scary. Turned out Monday, not as stupid as they thought he was. Stock market was shocked to discover that Donald Trump was not as stupid as they thought he was, because that's what they discovered today. Donald Trump did exactly what I've always said he was going to do. The stock market was shocked. He gave up. And they were shocked and they were thrilled. So they went on a buying spree today, driving up the price of basically everything. The New York Times reports, quote, it remains to be seen what agreements can be reached in future negotiations. But the talks this weekend and the tariff chaos of the past month did not appear to generate any other immediate concessions from the Chinese other than a commitment to keep talking. That's right. The Chinese government offered Donald Trump 0, and Donald Trump took it. Donald Trump said, okay, 0 is good enough for me to drop the tariffs. And so now the pointless and illegal Trump tariffs on Chinese products are down to 30% from the insane 145%. 30% is still a crazy level. It's a big enough tariff to kill American businesses and to make toys too expensive for parents this Christmas and to kill jobs in this country. The Yale Budget labor says that the average cost of the tariffs per household are still going to be $2,800. The Wall Street Journal editorial board writes tonight. Rarely has an economic policy been repudiated as soundly and as quickly as President Trump's Liberation Day tariffs. And by Trump's own hand witnessed the agreement Monday morning to scale back his punitive tariffs on China, his second major retreat in less than a week. As with last week's modest British agreement, the China deal is more surrender than victory. So after weeks of market turmoil, the economy is left with higher trade costs and greater uncertainty for business. CNBC's Brian Sullivan gave voice to that uncertainty. But while we're feeling good, and we should today, Monday and the markets are up, so why not feel good? Tom, we're just one tweet or true social post or headline away from maybe another market collapse. I want, isn't it important for your.
- [14:09]
Tom
Clients and our viewers and listeners to.
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Lawrence O'Donnell
Always accept that reality, that one hallmark.
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Tom
Of this administration is that you could.
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Lawrence O'Donnell
Get one person saying one thing and then a few Hours later or next day, somebody else saying something else.
- [14:22]
Tom
If the President says, well, China's not.
- [14:24]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Negotiating in good faith and we're walking away, I mean, there's a thousand point drop. In a piece on Substack titled When an Arsonist Poses as a Firefighter, Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman writes, a 30% tariff is still really, really high, especially combined with the 10% tariff we're imposing on everyone else. This wasn't a case of both sides backing down. China only imposed its tariffs as a response to Trump's gambit and has reduced them only because he retreated and retreat. He did. This was basically Trump running away from the killer rabbit. The prohibitive tariff has been paused, not canceled. Nobody knows what will happen in 90 days. The uncertainty level has arguably gone up rather than down. This retreat probably hasn't come soon enough to avoid high prices and empty shelves. The Chamber of Commerce, which has always been a supporter of Republican economic policy before Donald Trump, said while any agreement that reduces tariffs is good news, it is important to note that even with this China agreement, tariffs are much higher overall than they were at the beginning of the year. And many businesses, especially small businesses, are dealing with growing costs and disruptions. Okay, Dear Wall Street, I have a message for you. Write this down. The 90 day pause that Donald Trump announced today is going to last forever. Don't worry, he's not going to bring back the crazy skyrocketing tariffs. Yes, he's very, very, very stupid. But not as stupid as all you people on Wall street think he is. Joining us now is Rick Waldenberg, CEO of Learning Resources, an educational toy company. Rick, thank you very much for joining us. Once again, I wanted to get your experience on the paying end of these tariffs because it is you, an American importer, an American citizen, American business person, who actually pays these tariffs. How is your business faring as of tonight knowing that the China tariffs, if you pay them next week, will be 30%?
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Rick Waldenberg
Well, I mean, I'm depressed about it, honestly. We probably are going to have to make the choice to support our business to bring in some inventory. We have about $11 million of inventory sitting in China that we continue to make after April 2nd because we didn't want to default on our agreements with our trusted partners. I think we'll have to bring that in, which means we'll burn three or four million dollars, plus some other inventory that was sort of in never never land that we'll probably bring in.
- [17:18]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Let me just. Sorry, let me stop you right there for a second. I just Want to make it clear to the audience when you say we'll burn $3 million, meaning at the port, when you import that $11 million order, you will pay a tariff of something like 3.3 million.
- [17:34]
Rick Waldenberg
Yes. Plus we have another 13 containers that we were going to divert to the UK and we'll probably enter them now. It'll probably end up being $4 million, which is an enormous penalty for us. A 30% duty rate is confiscatory and it's a border tax on our assets.
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Lawrence O'Donnell
And I just want people to understand this. This is Rick Waldenberg, American, who personally is going to in effect stand at the dock and pay 3.3 million in tariffs. Donald Trump has always said China pays the tariffs. What was it like for you during the presidential campaign hearing somebody tell that lie to people, that someone other than you and your customers have to pay that tariff?
- [18:18]
Rick Waldenberg
I feel like we and the American people are being gaslighted. The concept that these tariffs are not infl. Inflationary or that it's some sort of passing phase is nonsense. They're trying to sell a bill of goods to people that I'm not sure are paying close attention, but they will pay close attention soon as all the price increases work their way through the marketplace. We've seen breathtaking changes in prices and I frankly don't understand why people aren't hair on fire about this now, including Congress.
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Lawrence O'Donnell
It seems that there's probably a lot of feeling out there like mine, which is I've been expecting Donald Trump to back down every day. Of course, I don't have the pressure on me that you do of trying to keep a business alive with these threats, which I just can't imagine. But I suspect that a lot of American voters watching this have that same feeling about Donald Trump. Well, he'll just back down when it becomes too burdensome.
- [19:16]
Rick Waldenberg
Hope isn't a strategy. I don't think he's going to unwind his program without legal coercion. We've sued him. We're going to see him in court in two weeks. And we're hopeful that a court will adjudicate the dispute that we have and hold that the tariffs were imposed without authority. We think they're illegal.
- [19:36]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Yeah. And I think those lawsuits are very strong, including yours. And so during this so called 90 day pause, it could be that federal courts come in and just basically erase these tariffs. Rick Waldenberg, thank you very much for joining us again tonight.
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Rick Waldenberg
Thank you.
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Lawrence O'Donnell
And coming up, Andrew Weissman and Ben Rhodes will join us to discuss the biggest payoff in history. That's next.
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Lawrence O'Donnell
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Lawrence O'Donnell
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Lawrence O'Donnell
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Lawrence O'Donnell
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Lawrence O'Donnell
Air Force One is the military designation for any Air Force plane carrying the President of the United States. The latter several generations of Air Force One have always been the biggest airliner that Boeing has been manufacturing at that time. Air Force One bears a color design chosen by President Kennedy's wife Jacqueline in 1961. Air Force One has been a 747 since 1990, and in the same sense that the Capitol and the White House are more than just buildings, Air Force One has always been more than just an airplane.
- [22:17]
Ben Rhodes
Air Force One is not just a random luxury airplane. It is a symbol of and a projection of American power. It has flown 15 different presidents. It carried President John F. Kennedy's body after his assassination and saw President Johnson be sworn in under unprecedented circumstances. When people see Air Force One on tv, when they see it land in other countries, whether in London or Tokyo or Brazil, they immediately know that America has arrived. Trump is selling out one of the most iconic symbols of American power that we have and what people will now see is the most powerful man on earth flying around in a plane paid for by a foreign government. It's disgusting. It's wildly corrupt. And just because they are doing the corruption in plain sight does not make it any less damning or sad or gross. No president should take free stuff from a foreign government and certainly nothing worth 400 million. The answer is no. Thank you. End of story. Very simple. End of story. I cannot take that.
- [23:43]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Joining us now is former Air Force One passenger Ben Rhodes, former deputy National Security Adviser, President Obama, and MSNBC political analyst. Also with us, Andrew Weissman, former FBI general counsel, former chief of the Criminal Division in the Eastern District of New York. He's also an MSNBC legal analyst. And Ben, as the former frequent passenger on Air Force One, I just want to get your reactions to any aspect of this.
- [24:09]
Andrew Weissman
Yeah, well, I mean, first of all, as a former passenger who flew over a million miles actually on Air Force One, I remember the first time I got on that plane and I logged onto the computer, Lawrence, in the back of Air Force One and found a set of remarks had been written for George W. Bush when Russia invaded Georgia. And what that reminded me is that I was a temporary employee. I worked for the American people. And I was going to be there after George Bush and before whoever came next. And it was a symbol of our democracy. Right. That that kind of aircraft, that iconic aircraft, passes from one president to the next and ultimately belongs to the American people, not to the individual who's the President of the United States. And to pull the camera back here, look, this is a manifestation of the rampant corruption that is characterized by the Trump administration. But let's remember what else has happened here. Jared Kushner received $2 billion from the Saudis for his investment fund. That wasn't for his investment acumen. That was because he was the son in law of the former and perhaps future president. He's received all manner of favors from different Gulf Arab states, the Saudis, Emiratis, the Qataris. He is launched a crypto mem coin that he's made hundreds of millions of dollars off of. He's normalized corruption in plain sight. He is using the office to profit for himself and for his family members. And that is not how the American people envision that office being. And I think this is a useful moment to not just look at this particular example of Air Force One being corrupted, but how the entire presidency has been corrupted under Trump. And until people decide that they've had enough of this, he's just going to keep squeezing every dollar he can out of the office. And that is at our expense. That's at the expense of what the American people want from their president. And that's just something that we finally have to draw a line in the sand and say we're just not going to take this anymore.
- [26:12]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Andrew Donald Trump took off on the real Air Force One today on a thank you tour of Middle east potentates who've been so generous and kind to his family, including Qatar, thank them for the biggest payoff in history. If is there a member of the Supreme Court who could possibly read the Constitution and say, oh, it's okay to take the plane because it doesn't say Emirates of Qatar, it just says king and prince giving you a gift?
- [26:46]
Tom
No, of course not. That, that can't be the ground. Of course, we do have our own issues with Supreme Court justices who have taken money and have and other gifts and favors. And as Ben said, that is not what you're supposed to do, that you're not supposed to profit from your public service where you owe a duty of loyalty to the, to the people and it's not your sort of personal piggy bank. A lot of people have talked about that. We're in a constitutional crisis. But this is a perfect example. You opened with the exact language of the Constitution where they were obviously quite worried about foreign states paying money to our leaders, let alone the actual President of the United States. And as Ben so aptly not. This is just the latest and the most easy to understand example of that corruption. But it's going on in cryptocurrency and Bibles and sneakers and sales of seats and tours to the White House. But this is such an easy one for people to understand, but it's directly contrary to the language in the Constitution. And it's not just language. It's so clear what people are concerned about, which is you do not want public officials, let alone the President, United States, to be taking money from a foreign government. In order to do that, Congress actually has to agree that it's appropriate. And you know, that's. That even this Congress I don't think is going to go that far.
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Lawrence O'Donnell
And Ben, the Constitution doesn't. The emoluments clause does not say you can't take a bribe. That's a different idea. This is saying you cannot take a gift. And the attorney general is justifying this by saying it's not a bribe, it's just a gift. In other words, it is exactly what the Constitution says you cannot take.
- [28:50]
Andrew Weissman
Yeah, I mean, does anybody think that you can get a $400 million gift and look impartially at the government that gave you that gift? Of course not. Anybody with a shred of common sense knows that if you receive a nearly half a billion dollar gift from a foreign government, you're probably going to take the phone call from the person that gave you that plane, Right? You're probably going to adjust the interests of the United States to meet the interests of the people that gave you that plane. And look, what's so outrageous about this, Lawrence, is, and this is where I think the Democrats have to go, is that you have people in Congress who are proposing, you know, massive cuts to Medicaid. They're taking money away from people who need taxpayer dollars to fund their health care, taxpayer dollars to deal with a housing crisis, while looking the other way is Donald Trump takes massive gifts from foreign governments. They're not looking out for you, they're looking out for themselves. And I think that's what's important, is you have to connect this corruption to what is being taken away from Americans, which is a sense of us looking out for one another, which is a sense that the government doesn't slash funding for people that are in need to give a tax cut to rich people while the President is taking gifts from even richer people from other countries. I mean, that's what's happening right now. And I think we have to tell this whole story together because Donald Trump is in this office to enrich himself, to enrich his friends, whether it's through graft and corruption or whether it's through tax cuts for rich people. And at the same time, the people that are suffering or the people in this country are hurting. And this should not be a hard story to tell for Democrats.
- [30:33]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Ben Rhodes and Andrew Weissman, thank you very much for joining us tonight. Welcome. Thanks. And coming up, Bill Gates has more to say about, quote, these are his words. The world's richest man killing the world's poorest children. That's next.
- [30:54]
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- [32:31]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Billionaire Bill Gates versus Billionaire Elon Musk continues. Bill Gates, who always publicly presents as modest unlike Elon Musk, is a master of understatement. Unlike Elon Musk. Last week Bill Gates said the picture of the world's richest man killing the world's poorest children is not a pretty one. Bill Gates was referring to Elon Musk's destruction of the United States Agency for International Development, whose mission is to provide food for starving children around the world, especially in Sudan at the height of a terrible famine there right now, and to provide life saving medicine to the poorest children in the world, among many other missions. And because Bill Gates has a modest habit of always trying to understate his case, and because Bill Gates once was the richest person in the world. Hearing him speak last week about, quote, the world's richest man killing the world's poorest children, end quote, was all the more striking. This weekend. Bill Gates muted his rhetoric a bit with Fareed Zakaria, but made the same point about what Elon Musk did to the United States Agency for International Development.
- [33:47]
Bill Gates
We're going to lose millions of lives and a poignant milestone for that will be the gabi, the group that buys vaccines for these poor countries. That 80% of that has been rich world governments. 20% is Gates Foundation. If that 80% is substantially cut, that alone will lead to lots more deaths.
- [34:11]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Bill Gates is going to continue to do his life saving work through the Gates foundation, where he plans to accelerate spending so that the foundation will spend all of its money down to zero over the next 20 years. But Donald Trump and Elon Musk are turning their backs on the poor children of the world. Elon Musk has succeeded in destroying the United States Agency for International Development, but he failed miserably in his ridiculous claim that he was going to cut $2 trillion in federal spending. Two trillion. In the end, Elon Musk identified what he thinks is $160 billion that he thinks maybe should be cut. Didn't come close, not close to what he said he was going to do. In the first spending bill that I ever worked on as a staff member in the United States Senate decades ago, we easily cut much more federal spending than that 160 billion that Elon Musk found. Bill Gates could easily mock Elon Musk, but the diplomat in Gates chooses not to, because Bill Gates knows that the only hope of restoring any funding to USAID is with Republican support during the next three years.
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Bill Gates
I think if you show up and say in a few months you can cut $2 trillion out of a $7 trillion budget, you aren't, you're not going to succeed. And so you go for the softest things and, you know, things that are overseas that you can mischaracterize, like, you know, characterizing it as condoms for Hamas. Didn't have one eye out of truth. And talking about people that he hasn't spent time with. I mean, I spent a lot of time in Africa. I go to Nigeria, Ethiopia, Kenya, you know, meet the USAID people. You know, he's a genius in some domains, but in global health, it hasn't been a focus. And so I'd say that, you know, firing all those people and cutting off all that money, that was a mistake. I don't think the US Values are to lose those relationships and destroy those health systems that increases the risk of a pandemic. We want to be a force for good. If there was a modest cut and a challenge to be more efficient or to get others to step up, I'm fine with that. But 80%, that's going to be millions of deaths. And it's a mistake.
- [36:50]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Elon Musk has lied obscenely about the United States Agency for International Development and the people working there, calling them part of a, quote, criminal organization.
- [37:02]
Bill Gates
Well, these are our heroes. I mean, to take a job in Africa and these aren't, you know, high paying jobs other than the military. These are about as honorable and they're the face of America to people who we want to be allied with us and we want their health systems to be, you know, tracking potential pandemics. So, you know, it's a shame that they were characterized in that negative way. As we build it back, fine, we'll do it with a bit fewer people. But demonizing them is deeply unfair.
- [37:46]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Bill Gates, ever the optimist, is hoping to rebuild USAID and rebuild the American conscience about our responsibility to starving children, suffering children. Children suffering from famine and dying from diseases that have been conquered here in the United States. Not all billionaires are the same, as the story of these two billionaires proves. And so tonight, when Elon Musk dreams his fantasy of going to Mars, which will never happen, Bill Gates dreams about what we really can achieve right here on this planet.
- [38:27]
Bill Gates
I don't want a legacy. I'm not trying to be remembered. That's not important to me. And so the fact that foundation will be gone. You know, the dream would be that malaria and polio. The legacy would be that nobody remembers what those awful diseases are.
- [38:46]
Lawrence O'Donnell
And coming up, Senator Elizabeth Warren found millions of dollars in wasteful spending that Elon Musk did not find. While Elon Musk was taking food away from starving children, the $21 million wasted on deportation flights to Guantanamo Bay is next to. Senator Elizabeth Warren has found $21 million in government waste that Elon Musk could not find because he would not dare to look for it. From her position on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator Warren forced the Trump Defense Department to tell her exactly how much money they have spent transporting migrants to Guantanamo Bay, which is currently holding 32 migrants in custody there after Donald Trump threateningly promised to send 30,000 people to prison there. We have 30,000 beds in Guantanamo to detain the worst criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people. Some of them are so bad, we don't even trust the countries to hold them because we don't want them coming back. So we're going to send them out to Guantanamo. Every sentence of that statement was a lie. They did not have 30,000 beds in Guantanamo Bay. None of the people sent to Guantanamo Bay were proven to have criminal records. And as of tonight, the grand total of people being held in custody there for immigration reasons is 32, at a cost of $21 million. Elizabeth Warren forced the Trump Defense Department to admit in writing that they spent 21 million flying people to and from Guantanamo Bay at a cost of $26,277 per flight hour. If Donald Trump and Elon Musk wanted to spend $26,277 per hour, they could have fed an awful lot of starving children and families in Sudan who are suffering from a famine right now. But Donald Trump and Elon Musk ripped food away from those starving people and spent the money on $21 million of wasted trips to Guantanamo Bay. NBC News is reporting. The naval base There currently hosts 32 MiG, according to a defense official, a tiny fraction of the 30,000 that Donald Trump that President Trump promised. Guantanamo has held a total of just under 500 migrants since Trump announced the effort in January, and it has never held more than 200 at any one time. Many of the migrants flown there are believed to have been flown back to the United States. So the people who Donald Trump said are so bad they have to be sent to Guantanamo Bay are almost all back in the United States. Tonight, Senator Elizabeth Warren said every American should be outraged by Donald Trump wasting military resources to pay for his political stunts that do not make us safer. U.S. service members did not sign up for this abuse of power. And joining us now is NBC News senior national security correspondent Courtney Kuby. Courtney, this is one of those situations where Senator Warren's ability to pull the teeth at the Defense Department and get us the facts really have been able to tell this story.
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Courtney Kuby
Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, these are the questions that we've been asking for months now, ever since late January when the Trump administration announced that they were going to take these sweeping actions against migrants. And then once we found out soon after that that they were going, as you just played the clip from President Donald Trump saying that he was going to be sending people to Guantanamo Bay, we have tried as reporters to get these details. Senator Elizabeth Warren, as part of a hearing with the head of U.S. transportation Command, General Reid, asked these questions, got them responses back from Transcom, and was able to share these with the public. That's why we have this level of transparency. As you mentioned, 46 US military flights carrying migrants over $26,000 per flight hour, accumulating up to over $21 million to carry migrants. You know, President Trump said that there would be 30,000 there. That was, that was to ultimately be spread out. Mostly those migrants were to be held in tents. Some would be held at the actual detention center at Guantanamo Bay, others at the migrant operations center. At no point have any migrants actually been held in those tents, though, Lawrence, the ones who have been held there have been either in the migrant operations center, most of them actually in a detention facility there. But as you said, at this point, there are 32 there in total. It's not clear whether any will continue to even be be transported there or not. Those are questions we've been asking the Department of Defense and not getting a whole lot of clarity still.
- [43:23]
Lawrence O'Donnell
And Courtney, what do we know about the decision to send people back and who do you who did they choose to send back to the United States from there?
- [43:33]
Courtney Kuby
Again, that's another issue that there's not a lot of transparency on. We've asked the question, we've not even really gotten a whole lot of fidelity about the individuals who were sent to Guantanamo and then sent on to other countries. But we do know that a large proportion of them were brought back to the United States, we believe to be held in some sort of a detention capacity here in the United States. But again, it's just not something we've had a lot of information on. The one of the sticking points here is that the US Military, yes, is transporting or has transported many of these migrants, but ultimately this is a Department of Homeland Security mission and ICE is also involved. And because of that, we just haven't gotten a lot of concrete facts or information about that. And Lawrence, you know, many of these flights carrying migrants have actually transitioned into charter flights and not the U.S. military in recent weeks.
- [44:26]
Lawrence O'Donnell
NBC's Courtney Kuby, thank you very much for your reporting covering this story for us. Really appreciate it.
- [44:33]
Courtney Kuby
Thanks.
- [44:36]
Lawrence O'Donnell
That is tonight's last word.
- [44:37]
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