← The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell
The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell
Shutdown to enter second week amid Senate stalemate
00:42:10
Tonight on The Last Word: Rep. Ocasio-Cortez says Donald Trump relies on the “impression of power.” Also, the government shutdown raises huge concerns for federal workers in Virginia. Plus, U.S. adversaries look to capitalize on Trump’s chaos. And farmers and businesses struggle with the cost of Trump tariffs. Timothy Snyder, Virginia House Speaker Don Scott, Rep. Adam Smith, and Sherrod Brown join Ali Velshi.
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So cool. The last Word is up next with Ally Vilshi in for Lawrence. Hey, Ally, a fantastic show. I was at a dinner last night where somebody said, give us a few minutes on, you know, the state of the world. That's like, I can't do that in a few minutes. But you did a great show. You did a great job of doing it in an hour. Sure you can.
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Sure you can.
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Well, you have a whole hour to do it and hours this weekend, too. Well, that's true. That's the good part. That's the blessing. We have a lot of time on TV to do it. You have yourself a great weekend, my friend. Thanks, Al. Get some good rest because these are busy weeks, no doubt. Well, it's day three of the government shutdown and the stalemate shows no sign of breaking. Mike Johnson says the House will not return to session at all next week. John Thune adjourned the Senate for the weekend after failing to pass a government funding bill for the fourth time. And Donald Trump seems to be missing in action. Donald Trump, who has not been seen in public since Tuesday, the day you will recall of his bizarre and unnerving speech to military leaders, might just be in what House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries calls the presidential witness protection program.
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Throughout this week, Donald Trump has been missing in action. He remains in the presidential witness protection program. House Republicans are on vacation all across the country and the world. And Senate Republicans continue to vote on.
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The same.
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Partisan Republican spending bill that's dead on arrival because it guts the health care of the American people.
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Now it's not just Democrats blaming Republica, Donald Trump and Republicans. Donald Trump's dictator shtick, his I alone can fix it act has one problem. He said that he alone would fix it. And that's why Trump is polling in the worst, the worst in the shutdown fight, 47% blame Trump and Republicans for the shutdown. 30% believe Democrats are to blame. Today, Trump chickened out again, caving on his plan to cut $187 million from New York's counterterrorism programs. Posting on social media, quote, I am pleased to advise that I reverse the cuts made to Homeland Security and and counterterrorism for New York City and State. It was my honor to do so. Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DJT failed to mention the cuts he made. The New York Times reports the frantic efforts to undo the rolling cuts made to Homeland Security grant programs, with the last $100 million slashed over the weekend, underscored the chaos unfolding as the Trump administration moves to punish political adversaries by stopping the flow of billions of DOL in federal funds that had already been allocated nationwide. Trump is using the shutdown to go after his perceived enemies in blue states like New York, where he's withholding $18 billion in infrastructure funding. But those cuts have consequences for the vulnerable Republicans in those blue states that sent vulnerable New York Republican Mike Lawler scrambling to let New Yorkers know he does not share Trump's desire to make their lives worse. Congressman Lawlor strongly opposes these harmful cuts, which undermine, amongst other things, our counterterrorism efforts on our critical infrastructure projects in New York. He has fought to secure investments in infrastructure that drive economic growth and improve the quality of life for all New Yorkers. End quote. And while some Republicans are scrambling to show just how serious this shutdown is, the Trump White House is posting racist memes to push baseless claims that what Democrats want is to give those who enter the country illegally free health care, which is not only not true, it's also against federal law. What Democrats are demanding is an extension of Affordable Care act subsidies, which most people understand is keeping the cost of their health insurance premiums down and saving them money. The Wall Street Journal reports President Trump has projected unwavering confidence that he is winning the messaging war over the shutdown. But behind the scenes, his team is increasingly concerned that the issue at the center of the debate will create political vulnerabilities for Republicans. Advisers are worried that the GOP will take the blame for allowing health care subsidies to expire, raising costs for millions of Americans ahead of next year's midterm elections, according to administration officials. Inside the White House, aides are discussing proposals to extend the enhanced subsidies for the Affordable Care act health insurance plans, the official said. Trump hasn't yet decided whether he will endorse such a proposal, according to officials. The Wall Street Journal reports that White House officials, quote, think they have the upper hand for now, they've amplified a Republican talking point that Democrats want to give health care to people in the country illegally. Unauthorized immigrants aren't eligible for ACA benefits and they aren't allowed to enroll in Medicaid under federal law. But some federal dollars do go toward emergency Medicaid coverage for migrants without legal status. Ending the subsidies would result in higher premiums for more than 20 million people. Of the 75 congressional districts where at least 10% of the population is enrolled in the Affordable Care Act, 62 are in red leaning Florida, Georgia and Texas, according to Kaiser Family Foundation, a health care policy think tank. More than half of the 62 districts in those states are represented by Republicans, end quote. I don't know how many of America's 340 million people have followed the sombrero meme war that's being waged by Trump and Vance for their perennially online fanboys, but I'm pretty sure it's less than the number of people who cannot afford to pay more money for the health insurance they already have, especially at a moment when inflation is up and the job market is worsening. The shutdown provided a respite for Trump from the bad economic news. The Bureau of Labor Statistics did not release the September jobs report that was scheduled for this morning. So we're stuck using a secondary private sector report from adp, the payroll company, which shows a weakening employment situation in America. Private sector businesses lost 32,000 jobs in September. The July jobs report, you'll recall, was so bad that Donald Trump fired the Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner. That, of course, didn't help him in August, which had dismal job growth. And just this week, Trump had to withdraw his nominee for the man to be the new BLS commissioner because he was too unqualified even for Republicans to vote for him. Think about how bad of a nominee you have to be to have Republican senators who confirmed such luminaries as Pete Hegseth and RFK Jr to reject this person. So that's the state of the shutdown tonight in normal terms. But these are not normal times. Here's how Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez sees what's happening in Washington right now. She told my colleague Chris Hayes what this so called shutdown fight is really about.
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I think there's two things that are happening at once, and this is something that's very important for people to understand. One, there absolutely is an unprecedented abuse of power, destruction of norms, erosion of our government and our democracy in order to prop up an authoritarian style of governance that is happening. However, they are weaker than they look. And it is important that we remember that, because what they rely on is the impression of power, the perception of inevitability in us giving up in advance to say, oh, what's going to happen if I stand up, et cetera. Nothing's going to happen. They rely on that perception of inevitability and power so that people comply in advance and acquiesce in advance and give up in advance. And at the end of the day, Donald Trump is at record levels of unpopularity in his tenure. The Republican House is at record levels of unpopularity. They are underwater across the board and they know it. And that is causing them to double down.
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Joining us now is Timothy Snyder, chair in modern European history and a professor of global affairs in public policy at the University of Toronto. He's the author of the New York Times bestsellers of On Freedom and On Tyranny. Professor Snyder, it's good to have you here. I think there are some real key takeaways to what Alexandria Ocasio said. They're weaker than they look and their record levels of unpopularity and that they rely on the perception of inevitability and power so that people comply in advance and acquiesce in advance and give up in advance. In her words, which are very similar to your own words.
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Yeah. No, I think, I think what the congresswoman said is very wise. It describes the past. It describes what too many people have done already vis a vis Trump. It describes the present, where we have a lot of people who are looking forward to the opportunity to compromising and that it could describe the future. But I think the reason why the congresswoman's words are so urgent is that we have reached an impasse with the, the crazy speech that Hegseth and Trump gave to those, the assembled general and admirals, with the government shutdown, with the presence of ice, with the worsening job numbers, with economic news about to get much worse. We're now at a moment where I think the message from American citizens has to be clear and public. We have to be outspoken now to break the spell.
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You know, she continued, by talking about that this time is different. I mean, half of those things you just mentioned happened this week. That crazy Trump speech about the enemy within, the Hegset stuff where he was calling the generals and the admirals fatties and talking about women can't heavy that was this very week, the declaration of war on drug cartels so that we keep on bombing these boats off the coast of Venezuela again was this week. I think people are realizing this time is different. This has nothing to do with the normalcy of a government shutdown. We've had them many times before. They're actually fairly normal events, and they come to an end. Something very different is happening right now.
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Yeah, I think something different is happening, and it has to do with the desperation of these people. They're pushing ahead in authoritarianism where they can, where it's easy for them, and they're pushing ahead where no one fights back. But the crucial part, symbolically and practically, is that we do some more fighting back, not just to slow this down, but to break the sense of inevitability that the congresswoman spoke about, to create new facts on the ground ground, to put them on the back foot, to make them realize that doing things which are both unlawful and unpopular isn't going to work out for them.
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I want to examine something else that she said. They're weaker than they look. Steve Schmidt, the political strategist, said something this week. He said, you know, you can shake the tree and the animals at the bottom will fall out, but then you get to the bottom of the tree and there's going to be some animal there that's going to say, you've gone too far, you're gonna stop. The implication is we are the animal. We, the American public, at some point have the agency and ability and strength and probably numerical strength to say no more.
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C
I think that's right. And if it's happening, it has to be the American people. Like the ones that are at the top of the tree are the oligarchs who went along. The tree didn't have to be shaken. They jumped off on their own. But as you get down the tree, you get more and more people, more and more leaves, more and more needles. And it's at that base of the tre where it has to stop. Right? And people can act by way of all kinds of measures. They can protest, they can communicate with one another. They can talk to strangers about how outrageous this is. We all have the power to create the sense that this is not normal. We all have the power to create the sense that this can't be stopped. And this is no longer about right and left. It's about up and down. It's about topsy turtle, about whether a republic is going down or whether it can still be propped up. That's what this is about at this point.
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AOC talked about holding two truths at once. Yes, we are horrified at the anti democratic abuses of power. And also America is still America. You wrote about this on September 29th in the Boston Globe when you said, I'm writing this from Dnipro, Ukraine, during an air raid alert. I had scholarly work to do here amid the missiles and drones. I mentioned this to keep, to help us keep perspective. Ukraine is being invaded by Russia. No one is invading America. The current threat is that we invade ourselves. And whether that happens depends on whether we choose to see the overall logic, call things what they are, talk to one another, and get on with the work of defending democracy, decency and humane values. The question, of course, is whether civil courage can be channeled into effective democratic resistance. That last sentence is the thing I want the answer to. Can civil courage, which I believe exists out there and is contagious, can civil courage be channeled into effective democratic resistance?
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Well, the history of the United States shows that it can. The history of the woman's suffrage movement shows that it can. The history of the civil rights movement shows that it can. But it only works if there are new alliances, new friendships, if risks are taken, and if some courage is shown. It's very important for people to remember that this is not. You don't have to solve this all by yourself. What you have have to do is your part. So if you were in the armed forces, you have to make difficult decisions about what is a lawful and an unlawful order. If you're in Congress, you have to do the things that you can do to stop this horrible deal from going through. If you're not in Congress, you can't expect Congress to do all the work for you. You have to protest, you have to talk to people. But if everybody does something, it is, as you say, contagious. And then the mood changes. And the mood can change very quickly.
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The sense of inevitability, people lose hope. You've studied history, you've studied all of the times in history where this has happened. An authoritarian has come in and they have presented their sense of inevitability and it becomes a myth. Do you have any sense of inevitability here? Do you have any sense that this is going to unfold a certain way? Or do you still believe that it can be stopped?
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It can be stopped. That's the right way of putting it. There are plenty of people who are courageous. There are plenty of resources on the other side. There are plenty of opportunities to protest. It can be stopped, but it won't be stopped on its own. That's the important thing. There's no institution there's no constitution, there's no history. There's nothing that can stop it on its own. It can be stopped, but only if people choose creatively and cooperatively to stop it. If they name the moment and they take and they take individual responsibility for what they can do about this moment, yes, it can be stopped. We can get through to the other side and things could get can get better, but only if each of us does our part. That's the crucial thing.
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Professor, always good to see you. Thank you for a hopeful message tonight. Professor Timothy Snyder is a chair the Chair in Modern European History and Professor of Global affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto. And a programming note, House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries will be my guest tomorrow on VELSHI, right at 10:00am Eastern here on MSNBC. I hope you'll join us for that conversation. Coming up with poll after poll this week confirming that most voters are correctly blaming Donald Trump and Republicans for the current shutdown, the usually camera obsessed president has been noticeably nowhere to be found, including delaying a trip to one of the two states arguably most highly affected by the shutdown. One of them is Virginia. We'll discuss that next with the Democratic speaker of the Virginia State House.
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Today. The White House press secretary Caroline Levitt responded to House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who, as we mentioned earlier, said Donald Trump is essentially living in a presidential witness protection program. Hakeem Jeffries has said that President Trump.
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Is in the presidential witness protection program.
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Since the shutdown has begun.
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What's the White House's reaction to that?
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That's just more ridiculous fodder from Hakeem Jeffries. As you all know, because you're here every day, the president is literally working around the clock right now. He literally works 24 7. Anyone who works in this place or covers this place and as you all do, knows that to be true. Sometimes a lie is just ridiculous on its face. Nobody, not even Trump's biggest fans, believes that he works 24. 7. He was literally on the golf course both days this past weekend. So we're down to 24. Five at best. And we've seen a social media addiction. So it's not 24 by any stretch. Trump has been curiously camera shy since the shutdown started. He left it to JD Vance to publicly defend the racist AI videos that he's been posting in hiding. Trump was supposed to visit the nation's largest naval base today in Norfolk, Virginia, and speak to the thousands of sailors stationed there. It's a pretty bold itinerary. Go and talk to a huge audience of people who work for the United States government. While you've allowed that government to be shut down indefinitely, surprise, that event has now reportedly been moved to Sunday. The official reason given for the date change is rough seas because the president wanted to arrive at the naval base on a US Aircraft carrier. Could be could also be another case of taco. Trump always chickens out. Instead of facing the 60,000 military and 25,000 civilian personnel stationed on the Norfolk Naval base, many of whom will be working without pay until the government reopens. Trump's back at the White House tonight doing nothing to solve the shutdown. Instead, he is once again posting on social media. But Virginia voters don't have to wait until 2026 like many people do, to make their voices heard. Early voting is already underway for the election in 31 days. With the governor's race at the top of the ticket, nearly half a million of those Virginia voters are federal employees or military personnel. The former congresswoman, Abigail Spanberger said this today about Trump's upcoming visit on Sunday. Quote, donald Trump needs to answer directly to Virginians about why he's actively cutting Virginia jobs and hurting the Virginia economy. The Trump administration has taken a sledgehammer approach to governing that has hurt Virginia's workers, businesses and economy. Virginians deserve a governor who will work aggressively to put the commonwealth's economy first, lower costs and create good paying jobs, not stay silent as Donald Trump destroys Virginia jobs. Donald Trump has not campaigned for the Republican nominee for Virginia governor, Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earl Sears. And a new poll today from the Washington Post shows Democrat Abigail spanberger with a 12 point lead in the race against Earl Sears, 55 to 43. Joining us now is John Scott, the Democratic speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates. Speaker Scott good to see you. Thank you for being with us this evening.
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Thank you for having me. It's amazing what's going on right now.
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It is amazing what's going on. So the number doesn't really tell it. When I said half a million of those Virginia workers are federal workers, that's not even a little bit of the point because so many people in Northern Virginia work in D.C. so stuff that they do is dependent on those workers in D.C. so now you're up to probably far more than a million people. And those people, if they're not getting paid or perhaps getting furloughed at some point, are not spending. So other businesses suffer. And you already got hit by the first wave of cuts during Doge.
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Yeah.
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It's amazing what Trump is doing to Virginia's economy. And right now, Winsome Earl Sears has doubled down and endorse his actions that he's taking against Virginia families. When you talk about this government shutdown, I know folks right here in my community, I can look out my window and see a aircraft carrier that's being worked on right now. I'm in a Navy community. I'm a Navy veteran and I talked to so many veterans who've been impacted by the shutdown and by the Doge cuts. It has been literally ripping families apart, taking mortgage payments away, making it impossible for people to be able to pay for their groceries. Inflation is up. Trump said that he would lower inflation on day one. I guess that's the same thing he's doing by working around the clock. He has not done a good job of lowering costs, ripping health care away from folks here in Virginia, not wanting to renew those subsidy help, that premium subsidy help for people who need to afford healthcare, but taking that money away and giving it to billionaires. So we know that it's impacting our families. We see it here in Virginia. We're feeling it for the first time since 2008. We've had eight straight months of job decline.
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Right.
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Job growth decline in Virginia. And I think Trump is devastating our economy.
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To be clear, Virginia is a high growth place. Right. This is a place where jobs have been going, people have been coming in. This is a, this is not the kind of place that you want to see, never mind a slowdown. But as you said, job declines, a reverse in 2025 in the modern world. In America, the richest country in the world, you're seeing job declines in Virginia.
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Yeah, we were the number one state to do business on until recently. And the youngkin Trump machine has really slowed Virginia's economy down to a grinding, halting, slow pace and taking people away from the job force and from the workforce and really hurting families and hurting everything we're talking about. And at the same time, Republicans are not addressing it. They won't stand up to Trump here in Virginia. And as a result of that, Trump's policies are hurting Virginians. And that's why he knows it would be a slap in the face to those hardworking veterans and civilian support for them that he would come here on the 250th anniversary of the Navy to come in here and celebrate with folks who he's literally not paying, not helping them pay their bills, not helping them make their mortgage payments. And these folks are hardworking folks. They're very proud folks. This is a Navy region, a Navy town, and they don't take kindly to folks coming in and damaging our economy in a way. And I think Virginia voters are going to send a very strong message to Mr. Trump this next November and 30 in 31 days or so.
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Yeah. And the turnout will be interesting because I think that this is the moment, as I was just talking to Professor Tim Snyder about, this is the moment to prove your agency and to prove your voice and to say none of this is inevitable, none of this has to happen. Speaker Scott, good to see you. Thank you for joining us tonight.
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Thank you for having me.
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The Virginia Democratic House Speaker Don Scott. All right, coming up, what were America's adversaries thinking this week when they saw the commander in chief and his defense secretary giving rambling, incoherent and often asinine speeches in front of hundreds of America's top military commanders? We're going to talk about that next with Congressman Adam Smith, the top ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee? The verdict is in on the shocking even for Trump's speech to 800 top military commanders earlier this week. The headline from the Atlantic, the commander in Chief is not okay. Tom Nichols writes in 1973. An Air Force nuclear missile officer named Harold Herring asked a simple question during a training session. How can I know that an order I received to launch my missiles came from a sane president? The question cost him his career. Military members are trained to execute orders, not to question them. But today, both the man who can order the use of nuclear arms and the man who would likely verify such an order gave disgraceful and unnerving performances in Quantico. How many officers left the room asking themselves Major Herring's question? The man who would verify that order is this man, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who now calls himself the Secretary of War. He focused his speech on woke culture in the military, people having beards and fat generals. So the domestic verdict is in, but there is another audience. America's adversaries and enemies were also watching those speeches. What did they make of that absurd public presentation by our commander in chief?
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It's crazy what's going on. That's the worst war that there's been since World War II. The number of soldiers that are being killed there is just crazy. From 5 to 7,000 soldiers die a week. Think of that. So I think we'll get that done. But that's turned out to be the toughest one. I'm so disappointed in President Putin. I thought, I thought he would get this thing over with. He should have had that war done in a week. And I said to him, you know, you don't look good. You're four years fighting a war that should have taken a week. Are you a paper tiger? And it's a shame, but I think eventually we'll get that one done.
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Russia invaded Ukraine. He should have had that war done in a week. Is Trump disappointed that Russia didn't succeed in taking Kyiv in three days like Putin hoped? Is Trump disappointed in the remarkable resistance that Ukraine has put up to an invasion by a tyrant? By the way, not one general in that room thought that Russia, Ukraine would be easy to solve. And by the way, there were barely any mentions of China, a country relentlessly working to dethrone America as the most powerful nation in the world during that entire rambling 71 minute speech. Instead, Donald Trump was focused on using American troops to fight American citizens.
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Last month, I signed an executive order to provide training for quick reaction force that can help quell civil disturbances. This is going to be a big thing for the people in this room because it's the enemy from within and we have to handle it before it gets out of control. It won't get out of control once you get involved at all. They all joke. They say, oh, this is not good.
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They don't joke about this not being good. The enemy from within. Joining us now is the Democratic Congressman Adam Smith of Washington State. He's the top ranking Democrat of the Armed Services Committee. He's just returned from a trip to China as part of a congressional delegation. I want to talk to you about that in a moment, Congressman. But the enemy, the enemy from within. The idea that America, American City should be used as a training ground for the military. In all of history since Rome, there's an understanding that the military is not used against a civilian population in a democratic society.
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Yeah, I mean, there's two big things about this. First, both of these speeches were rambling and incoherent. If you had asked, I don't know, a college sophomore in a foreign relations class to give a speech and say, tell us a national security policy for the U.S. both the president and the Secretary of Defense would have gotten Fs. I mean, it was just rambling and incoherent. Where they were going, nobody knew. And this was on display, as you say, for the entire world to see. And what they saw was two leaders had no idea what they were talking about in the first place. And second, what national defense strategy was laid out there? How did it explain the challenges we face from China and Russia and Iran and North Korea and what we're going to do about it? It didn't. It was just sort of a set of petty grievances. So it definitely made us look weak to the entire world. And it's deeply concerning about the leadership of both of these people over our national security apparatus, number one. And then number two, like you said, they seem most focused on using the US Military to settle their own political and petty grievances domestically, which is troubling on a whole series of levels. Look, I mean, to do this big a display on such a large stage and have it be such an utter clown show, it weakens this country.
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Yeah, I mean, he was carrying on about. Hexel was carrying on about generals being too fat and stuff like that. Meanwhile, on September 3, China had this military parade. Narendra Modi, who's not an ally of China's, was there. Vladimir Putin was there. You know, Xi jinping Put on 12,000 soldiers, were there goose stepping. You could see China as adversary ally or something in between, but they looked a whole lot like a world power. Meanwhile, we're blowing up boats in the Caribbean Sea. Right?
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Blowing up boats. And as you said, talking about Facial hair?
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Yeah.
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I mean, I don't know. I joked with somebody earlier today that if you did a parody of the Patton speech at the start of that movie, you couldn't do it much funnier than Secretary Hagseth did. It was just completely ridiculous.
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But if you're an adversary in the world right now, if you're Russia or you're Xi Jinping and you're trying to demonstrate that you're a organized and stable power, A, you're winning over countries that might want to do business with the United States, might want to have closer alliances with the United States, but the other superpower seems a little bit more organized and stable at the moment. And B, fantastic for our adversaries that America's not can't keep its eye on us because it's keeping its eye on its own people. It has an enemy within.
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Well, forget the clown show aspect of it for a moment and the incoherent speeches. The policy that these two people have implemented has weakened us across the country. We are alien, alienating every partner and ally that we have in the world through the tariff policy, through Trump's petty insults from time to time, through his attacks on NATO. That was our greatest strength, was our system of partnerships and allies. China itself has expressed envy about the partners and allies. Trump is weakening them every second of every day. You know, he has, as you outlined there, sided with Putin repeatedly in this war, undermined our ally Ukraine. So the policies that they're implementing, aside from the rather odd words that they use, are weakening us as well and certainly giving aid and comfort to our adversaries. And at the same time, as you said, for countries that are kind of trying to figure out which way to go, who are you going to back? You going to back the countries that seem to have a coherent plan, or are you going to back the countries that seem to be focused on the personal grievances of Donald Trump?
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Congressman, it's good to see you as always. I think I've got a special treat this weekend. I think I'm going to see you again this weekend on Velshi. So I always look forward to that. Congressman Adam Smith, thank you for being with us. All right, coming up, a new Pew Research poll shows that 53% of Americans say Donald Trump's policies are making the economy worse. My next guest, former senator and current Senate candidate Sherrod Brown, is out talking every day to Ohio voters. Did they vote for tariffs based on Trump's whims? How about a bailout for Trump's maga buddy in Argentina. I'll ask him next.
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B
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- [35:06]
F
People did you know that parents rank financial literacy as the number one most difficult life skill to teach? Meet Greenlight, the debit card and money app for families. With Greenlight, you can set up chores, automate allowance and keep an eye on your kids spending with real time notifications, kids learn to earn, save and spend wisely and parents can rest easy knowing their kids are learning about money with guardrails in place. Sign up for Greenlight today@Greenlight.com podcast Imagine.
- [35:36]
A
Relying on a dozen different software programs to run your business, none of which are connected, and each one more expensive and more complicated than the last.
- [35:44]
H
It can be pretty stressful.
- [35:46]
A
Now imagine Odoo. Odoo has all the programs you'll ever need and are all connected on one platform. Doesn't Odoo sound amazing? Let Odoo harmonize your business with simple, efficient software that can handle everything for a fraction of the price. Sign up today@odoo.com that's O-O-O.com the Trump tariffs, which are completely haphazard and based primarily on the King's whims, are causing across the board price increases for American consumers and uncertainty for American businesses. Trump is mad that Brazil successfully prosecuted and sentenced the former right wing leader for attempting to overturn an election that he lost. So Trump slapped a 50% tariff on Brazil, which means you have to pay more for coffee and fruit juice and other products that we import from that country and any country that finds itself on the so called tariff shelf.
- [36:46]
G
I said check the tariff shelf. No sir, the tariffs haven't started in that sector yet. I said yes they have.
- [36:53]
A
Yeah, that's your money on Trump's imagined tariff shelf. You're paying for Trump's big mad at Brazil and now it seems there's a bailout shelf that's next to the tariff shelf American taxpayer money is paying to help prop up Trump's MAGA buddy in Argentina. Newsweek was Newsweek reports President Donald Trump's offer to prop up Argentina's economy and the political future of the embattled President Javier Milei has drawn the ire of farmers and lawmakers who consider this an ill judged use of American resources. Amid this and Milei's declining prospects in the upcoming midterm election, President Trump said he would help his counterpart secure all of the things that you need to make Argentina great again. He actually said that perhaps he'll sell more hats as a result. No surprise, American taxpayers are not excited to pay to help the Mar a lago visiting authoritarian who wants to make Argentina great again. Here's the reaction from the American soybean farmers. Quote, US Soybean farmers have been clear for months. The administration needs to secure a trade deal with China. China is the world's largest soybean customer and typically our top export market. The US has made zero sales to China in this new crop marketing year due to 20% retaliatory tariffs imposed by China in response to US tariffs. This has allowed other exporters, Brazil and now Argentina, to capture our market at the direct expense of U.S. farmers. The frustration is overwhelming. U.S. soybean prices are falling. Harvest is underway. Farmers read headlines not about securing a trade agreement with China, but that the US government is extending $20 billion in economic support to Argentina while that country drops its soybean export taxes to sell 20 shiploads of Argentine soybeans to China in just two days. US farmers cannot wait and hope any longer. The American Soybean association is calling on President Trump and his negotiating team to prioritize securing an immediate deal on soybeans with China. The farm economy is suffering while our competitors supplant the United States in the biggest soybean import market in the world. End quote. You know where this is going, by the way, because it happened in 2018. It's a Trump bailout. Band aid for Trump inflicted tariff pain. The Wall Street Journal reports that President Trump is considering providing $10 billion or more in aid to US farmers as the agriculture sector warns of economic fallout from his far reaching tariffs. According to people familiar with the discussions, Trump did this in his last term. He sent $23 billion in aid to farmers to bail them out of bad Trump policies. Wasn't Trump's money, by the way. It was our money. American farmers don't want our welfare. American families don't want to pay for Trump's grievance campaigns against other countries in the grocery line. Joining me now is the former Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, who is again running for the United States Senator. Senator Brown, good to see you. You know the fullness of this story. If you're an American farmer, let's just take a soybean farmer in Ohio. Just as an example, your market is collapsing. The price of your soybeans is collapsing. Your soybeans are not actually being sold because they're developed to be sold to a particular market. You're paying more for your own goods, you're paying more for your own equipment. And your cost of everything else that you spend on is going up because we've got inflation.
- [40:30]
H
Yeah, exactly right. I mean you, you painted the picture exactly right. I, I grew up working at a family farm in Richland county, sort of north central part of the state. We grew beans, soybeans, we grew, we, we grew oats and wheat, we harvested corn, hay and we bailed hay. And farmers, you know, it's, it's, it's never an easy business. Nothing is really predictable. You can't predict the weather, you can't predict the price. But they don't want this. They want markets open. As you said at the beginning, China used to, US used to, China used to buy last year $12 billion worth of soybeans. Since, since the tariffs, it's now $0 of soybeans. @ the same time, farmers are paying more for hay balers and paying more for combines and tractors and school clothes for their kids because of these tariffs. And farmers are getting hit back and forth. And now our taxpayer dollars, including farmers, taxpayer dollars are going to Argentina for $20 billion. 12, $20 billion worth. And it makes no sense. Trump says he's going to make them whole. They don't want that. They want free markets. They've been in. You were seeing all this. Yet John Husted that I'm running against is doing nothing to deal with these prices. And people see people can't afford any of this. More money going out than coming in. People just want, they want some predictability in their lives. They want the Senate and the House. Like John Husted who cast the tie breaking vote, the deciding vote on all These losses, all 490,000 Ohioans losing health insurance, all these things, they want a government on their side. Their government said nothing about bringing prices down. They've made it worse.
- [42:14]
A
And think about Ohio is you could all the stories that are occurring in America, farming, manufacturing, they all happen in Ohio. Rural hospitals happen in Ohio. And the cuts to Medicare, Medicare subsidies or Obamacare subsidies are happening in Ohio. Like you can't escape it if you live in Ohio. There's nowhere you can be or look where you're not getting hit by some of the damage advantage of both Doge and now this, this budget.
- [42:39]
H
Yeah, we're, we're one of the biggest industrial production states. We're one of the biggest soybean producer states. And John Hustedt is more looking out for his corporate friends and a special interest in doing the bidding of those in Washington instead of looking out for Ohio farmers and Ohio consumers. That's why I asked people to come to Sherrodbrown.com and chip in $10 or $15. They spent $200 million last election. They'll do it again. I need people's help because they're not looking out for Ohioans. They're simply not on the side. You said and others are simply not on the side of Ohio farmers and Ohio consumers.
- [43:15]
A
How do you convey the urgency of it? Because some of these things that the Trump administration does are reversible and fixable, and you can fix it later. But for instance, in 2018, when this soybean problem started because Trump put those tariffs on China, turned to Brazil. Brazil and created an entire industry in Brazil because Brazil was not selling most of its soybeans to China, but China created an avenue for that. Now he's doing it with Argentina. In other words, once you start these markets where other people can send their ships full of soybeans, you may never get that market back.
- [43:47]
H
Well, I have hope, because Ohioans are fighting back. Americans are fighting back. People are speaking out against these policies of John Husted and others. People are going online and contributing to people like me@sherrodbrown.com and elsewhere, that's making a difference. But we know what we need to do to unspool this. It's not going to be immediate. It's going to be hard. We know the damage that's done. And we know Americans last year didn't vote for cuts or didn't vote for closing rural hospitals. They didn't vote for throwing 490,000 people taking away their insurance. They didn't vote for higher premiums for everybody else, not just those who are on Medicaid. I mean, everybody. They didn't vote for this kind of chaos. So people are going to welcome these changes, but there's a lot of damage done. I don't pretend to think we can. We can fix it all. We can fix a lot of it because people, you know, people that don't like what's happening in Washington are standing up everywhere. I, Connie, and I hear it at the grocery store. We hear it walking down the street. We hear it at church where people want to fight back. They don't always know what to do, but they want to fight back. They're speaking out against this. And I think we're going to see change soon and we're going to see it longer term.
- [45:00]
A
Senator, good to see you again. Thank you as always, for joining us. Sherrod Brown is a former Democratic senator. He's a current Democratic Senate candidate in Ohio. We'll be right back.
- [45:14]
C
All right.
- [45:14]
A
We've got a big weekend of news ahead of us. As I mentioned earlier, tomorrow I'll be joined by the top ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives, the Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries, on my Show Velshi at 10am Eastern here on MSNBC Sunday at 10am Eastern, I'll be joined by the former congresswoman Cori Bush, who's seeking her old seat in Congress in Missouri's reliably blue 1st District. She lost that seat in last year's primary to St. Louis county prosecutor Wesley Bell, but announced today she's running to try to win it back. I hope you'll join us this weekend. That's tonight's last word.
- [45:47]
F
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