← The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell
The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell
Stock market falls amid Trump trade war fears
00:41:26
Tonight on The Last Word: Social Security recipients worry Elon Musk’s changes could affect the payout of benefits. Also, federal courts block Trump executive orders targeting law firms. Plus, toxic masculinity is rampant online in the age of Trump. And the USAID cuts endanger global tuberculosis programs. Leah Feiger, Rep. Robert Garcia, Elie Mystal, Chloe Combi, and Maria Smilios join Jason Johnson.
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- [00:29]
Jason Johnson
USAA Jason Johnson is in for Lawrence tonight on the Last Word.
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Rachel Maddow
Good evening, Jason.
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Larry Kudlow
Thank you so much, Rachel, for starting us off. It's been an interesting news day. Thank you indeed. Good luck. Today. The Trump administration sent a very online guy otherwise known as JD Vance to Greenland in the hopes that we would be able to talk about that tonight instead of maybe this. Ouch. Couldn't find anyone to do a photo op with Usha Vance. Maybe they're just not that into you. But yeah, Trump might prefer that you read instead of say checking your bank account or your 401K or your grocery receipts because Donald Trump didn't want to do anything that was going to get you to pay attention to prices today. Today, U.S. stocks plummeted after the news that inflation has gone up at 2.8% and and consumer sentiment has dropped at a two year low. As one FOX Business anchor put it, this is a tough way to end the week.
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Jason Johnson
Whoa, folks, this is a tough way to end the week. If you're long the market, if you're long gold, you're happy. But dow is losing about 724. The S&P down 113. The NASDAQ down 484. That will do it for us.
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Larry Kudlow
Hello folks. Welcome to Kudlow. I'm Larry Kudlow. So markets crash over 700 points today after a bad inflation report. More tariff confusion. Oh, and by the way, Republicans really going to raise taxes. That could have done it into the second term of the Trump presidency. And Americans are not happy with the Trump economy. Not even Larry Kudlow, it seems. According to a new poll, 60% of Americans believe the economy is bad. And once again, Donald Trump's tariff threats are fueling that pessimism. This week, Donald Trump threatened a 25% tariff on imported vehicles in response to Donald Trump's threat. Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney said the.
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Mark Carney
Old relationship we had with the United States based on deepening integration of our economies and tight security and military cooperations is over.
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Larry Kudlow
What is clear is that we as Canadians have agency. We have Power.
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Mark Carney
We are masters in our own home.
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Larry Kudlow
Masters in our own home. Maitre chez no in French. That's an old nationalist Canadian slogan that goes back to the 1960s. Our once polite neighbors to the north are now dusting off old nationalist slogans to stand up to Trump's trade war. Mark Carney said that ahead of his first call today with Donald Trump. Donald Trump called today's call, quote, an extremely productive call. We agree on many things and we'll be meeting immediately after Canada's upcoming election to work on elements of politics, business, and all other factors that will end up being great for both the United States of America and Canada. Thank you for your attention to this matter. So I just want to point out here, Trump's correctly calling Carney prime minister now, not governor. And no mention of Canada as the 51st state. While Donald Trump didn't mention Canada's intention to enforce retaliatory tariffs, Prime Minister Carney said in a statement that he, quote, informed the president that his government will implement retaliatory tariffs to protect Canadian workers and our economy. Following the announcement of additional U.S. trade actions on April 2, 2025, one Wall street firm predicted that tariffs could make car prices go up by, get this, $10,000. The Wall Street Journal editorial board writes, quote, Mr. Trump justifies his car tariffs as a national security threat under Section 232 of the 1962 Trade Expansion Act. As we wrote in 2019 when he tried this gambit the last time, he apparently fears the attack of the killer Toyotas, Canada and Mexico, those global menaces, account for about half of U.S. auto imports. U.S. allies in South Korea, Japan and Europe account for almost all. All the rest. Imports give Americans more choices and at lower prices than they would otherwise have if all cars sold in the United States had to be made domestically. Americans, as a result, can afford more and better quality cars than they could just a few decades ago. This is a security threat to whom exactly? While Donald Trump was not working to lower your prices, he was pardoning three co founders of a cryptocurrency exchange who were ordered to pay a hundred million dollars fine earlier this year because they, quote, willfully flouted US Anti money laundering laws to boost revenue. He also pardoned Trevor Milton, a Trump donor who was convicted of defrauding investors. So since we're keeping track and score here. So crypto money launderers and a Trump donor comfortable with defrauding people, that's okay. Got it. Trump also took no action to hold any of his top officials who breached national security by sharing military attack plans in a group chat on a commercial messaging app that accidentally included a journalist. As Hillary Clinton put it in the New York Times, quote, it's not the hypocrisy that bothers me, it's the stupidity. We're all shocked, shocked that President Trump and his team don't actually care about protecting classified information or federal record retention laws. But we already knew that. What's much worse is that top Trump administration officials put our troops in jeopardy by sharing military plans on a commercial messaging app and unwittingly invited a journalist into the chat. That's dangerous and it's just dumb. And I haven't even gotten to the damage Mr. Trump is doing by cozying up to dictators like Russia's Vladimir Putin, blowing up our alliances, force multipliers that extend our reach and share our burdens, and trashing our moral influence by undermining the rule of law at home or how he's tanking our economy and blowing up our national debt. Trump and Republicans would absolutely prefer that everyone talk about the Vances being pariahs in Greenland than talk about what Elon Musk and Dodge are reportedly doing to Social Security and potentially the 70 million Americans who receive Social Security. Wired reports, quote, the so called Department of Government Efficiency. Dodge is starting to put together a team to migrate the Social Security Administration's computer systems entirely off one of its oldest programming languages in a matter of months, potentially putting the integrity of the system and the benefits on which tens of millions of Americans rely at risk under any circumstances. A migration of this size and scale would be a massive undertaking, experts tell Wired. But the expected deadline runs the risk of obstructing payments. Of course, one of the big risks is not underpayment or overpayment per se. It's also not paying someone at all and not knowing about it. The invisible errors and omissions, an SSA technologist tells Wired. Joining us now is senior politics editor at Wired, Leah Figar. Leah, thank you so much for starting us off on the show today. I just want to say this because there are so many different terrible things that Elon Musk has attempted to do to our government. But I'm thinking of this transfer of technology for the Social Security Administration. Look, I've worried about going to Best Buy and getting something transferred from my laptop to my iPad, right? That can take all day. We're talking about millions of people of all ages all over the country. How long should a process like this take? If it were done carefully and effectively and efficiently.
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Jason Johnson
Hi, Jason. Thank you so much for having me. Look, the Social Security Administration has actually looked into moving to moving its systems off of Cobalt for years now. It's an archaic coding system from the 1950s, and they've looked into moving it onto something more modern like Java. But during this, they predicted that a migration would take five years to safely happen. And Dodge's team wants to do it in months.
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Larry Kudlow
So that sounds crazy. I mean, just, just to be perfectly, perfectly clear. But here's the other problem, and I'm curious, based on your writing and your reporting, how do they plan to do that? Because usually if you're going to do something faster than the estimated timeline, it's because you're going to put more people on the job. Right. If it takes three years with 1,000 people working 24 hours a day, I'll put 3,000 people and then maybe we can take one year. How is Dodge planning on doing this so much faster? How are they taking a 5 year job and turning it into a 4 month job? Because it doesn't seem like they're hiring new people. If anything, they're cutting people out of the government.
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Jason Johnson
Right. Well, sources told Wired reporter McKenna Kelly that in order to migrate all of this code into the more modern language, within a few months, they'd likely need to employ some form of artificial intelligence to help translate the millions and millions lines of code. This is an undertaking that could really break just so many things. Even minor changes could result in massive failures across programs, delaying payments, miscalculating payments, and losing beneficiary data entirely. And across the way, it's a really, really dangerous thing that could be coming soon.
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Larry Kudlow
And Leah, I want to just close with this because this is also something that concerns me. How much can we trust who's responsible for this transfer? Because a lot of these people who seem to be working for Elon Musk, they're under his supervision, but they're not really being held accountable by Congress. We don't know who's doing this. We don't know if there could be leaks of this information. This is very private, intimate information about millions of Americans that could be sold to anybody. How do we know who's actually going to do this job? And are they accountable to anybody other than Musk?
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Jason Johnson
That's a great question. And while it's not clear to us exactly when this project would begin, sources are anticipating it happening soon. And Steve Davis, a senior DOGE leader and one of Elon Musk's key lieutenants, who's been with him at a number of his other companies, is organizing this effort. And Wired reporting last week actually showed that there were so many more DOGE people at SSA than anyone had previously thought and possibly among the largest Doge units deployed to any government agency. And we're talking about names that have popped up time and time again. Akash, Boba, Scott, Colter, Marco, Ella, Luke, Farader. These are familiar names if you've been following all of this. And again, really key to this, they don't have experience in these massive government systems. They don't have government experience. So in, in terms of who they are loyal to, that's, that's a really difficult question that I don't feel comfortable getting into. But we know that they have largely worked with musk organizations in the past. They were brought in by musk lieutenants and they're the ones with the to the kingdom right now.
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Larry Kudlow
In other words, Leah Figar, we don't know if we can trust him at all. Thank you so much for starting us off with that sobering news tonight. Great reporting.
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Jason Johnson
Thank you.
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Larry Kudlow
Joining us now is Democratic Congressman Robert Garcia of California. He serves on the House Oversight Subcommittee on Government Efficiency. Congressman, thank you so much for joining us this evening. I'm going to start with this. It's the sort of final question that I had for Leah. What's the oversight here? Right. I mean, Social Security information is incredibly important. It's not just Social Security numbers. It's who gets paid, it's how much they get paid, it's where they live. Who is watching the watchmen here? And is there anything that Congress can do to provide oversight while this process is happening?
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Mark Carney
Yeah. Well, thanks. Look, I literally right now just walked off the stage of a huge town hall that we had here back in my home district. I'm actually here backstage of this town hall and this exact question we actually just discussed what people want first and foremost is for Congress to fight like hell and to match the energy of the people on the ground. We know that right now we're actually winning some of these cases in the courts. But half the cases that we have filed on in variety of programs, in a variety of different courts, we actually have one people pushing back. He's also working. People are beginning now to activate, to organize, to push back in new ways, to call members of Congress, to call their leaders. That is also beginning to work. And in Congress where we don't have the majority, there are certainly people that are pushing back and fighting hard. They're demanding answers. They're pushing back on unpopular policies. And many of these cases, the White House is now actually retracting some of what they're doing. I mean, think about when they have tried in the past to, for example, cut some of the aid that we've been sending out to nonprofits as it relates to Social Security. There's no mistake. They're trying to damage Social Security as we speak. But we are going to the courts. We are launching our own investigations, even if we don't have the majority. And we're speaking out, trying to get Republicans to also do the right thing. We only need three Republicans to join us to actually stop some of these cuts.
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Larry Kudlow
Congressman, you know, one of the things that we hear a lot here at the network, the polling, is that the American people are frustrated, right? And they want the Democratic Party to be an opposition party. Not just the party out of power, but opposition, but also people want to hear a plan. So when I hear you say that you're pushing back and you're fighting into courts legislatively, is there anything that the Democrats can do right now? Is there any bill that's important to Republicans that Democrats can refuse to support in order to have some leverage in these negotiations? Because as much as people may want to march in the streets and as much as they want to sue in the courts, many Americans still feel like not enough is being done as their rights, their benefits and their freedoms are being snatched in front of them every day.
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Mark Carney
Well, look, I think two things. One is one of the reasons why many of us Democrats are pissed, especially in the House, is that we actually just had a huge opportunity in front of us just last week with this budget proposal that unfortunately, the Senate could not stop. And so that was incredibly disappointing. We lost a lot of leverage. We should never have lost as Democrats and as a Congress moving forward, what we have in front of us right now is a massive, massive bill that we know is going to come forward from Donald Trump that's going to have his tax plan, a tax on Medicare, attacks on Social Security, a border plan, all going to be in basically one massive bill. So absolutely right now, Democrats are working with also some Republicans, trying to see if we can get some Republicans to oppose some of these cuts. And we're also trying to make noise to actually pressure these Republicans because, look, on the votes, we don't have the votes. We're in the minority. We're three away. So we need to encourage Republicans to do the right thing. So what are we doing tomorrow? I'm going to be in Congresswoman Young Kim's district, who's a Republican, who's refusing to host a town hall. I'll be hosting a town hall in her district. We're having tons of her constituents coming out. We're encouraging them to mobilize against her. She's in a swing district and people need to know in her community that people are going to lose their Medicare. People are going to lose and can't afford to not have a Social Security check. We've got to encourage people like Congresswoman Young Kim, like Congressman Ken Calvert here in California to do the right thing. If you call yourself a moderate, but you're not willing to actually vote with us to save Social Security, then you should be defeated and you should be held accountable. So that's what we're working on right now, is trying to bring some of the Republicans across the aisle and also win some of these special elections. Coming in one of the seats in Florida is actually looking pretty promising right now.
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Larry Kudlow
Congressman Garcia, thank you so much. You have the kind of energy and passion that should be in leadership. I'm just going to say that right now. Thank you so much for joining us this evening.
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Mark Carney
Thank you.
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Larry Kudlow
Coming up today, Elon Musk's election law breaking was stopped by Wisconsin's attorney general as federal courts blocked Trump and Musk's chainsaw on America multiple times on multiple issues today. That's next when we're back.
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Spectrum Business
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Larry Kudlow
Another day, another week, another series of federal judges ruling that the Trump administration and Elon Musk acted lawlessly. Shocker. Today, U.S. district Judge Amy Berman Jackson blocked the dismantling of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency that has returned, quote, billions of dollars to consumers at no cost to taxpayers since 2010. Judge Jackson began her meticulous 112 page ruling with an infamous post by Elon Musk on the social media platform on February 7th, CFPB RIP. Now, Judge Jackson ordered that agency back to life, finding that the Constitution requires Donald Trump to, quote, take that the laws be faithfully executed, take care that the laws be faithfully executed, including the law enacted in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis that ensures CFPB's Operation Elon Musk smash and grab with the federal government has been stopped, at least for now, by multiple lawsuits claiming Dodge is violating the Constitution. Turns out that Elon Musk, not so knowledgeable about the Constitution, is also pretty ignorant about American election law. Today, Musk posted On Sunday night, I will give a talk in Wisconsin. Entrance is limited to those who have voted in the Supreme Court election. I will also personally hand over two checks for a million dollars each in appreciation for you taking the time to vote. Immediately, election law experts called him out and Wisconsin's Attorney General, Josh Call immediately filed a lawsuit. Because in Wisconsin it is a crime to, quote, offer anything of value to any elector in order to induce any elector to a vote or refrain from voting. Musk had to take down his post. And tonight he announced that entrance to his talk in Wisconsin will be limited to people who signed his petition. Womp, womp. Meanwhile, Donald Trump escalated his attack on law firms who might try to stop his lawless administration. So far, Donald Trump has targeted five major law firms. Three of them sued the Trump administration in court for unconstitutional abuse of power. And tonight, those law firms are three for three federal court victories over Trump, with federal judges finding Trump's executive orders likely violated the first four fifth and sixth Amendments of the Constitution, a trifecta including the rights of the firm's clients, of the lawyers of their choice. Womp, womp. To paraphrase Donald Trump, Trump is going after us and the lawyers are just standing in the way. Remember the first law firm Donald Trump targeted, Perkins Coy, was one of the most active in opposing Donald Trump's attempts to steal the 2020 presidential election. Trump attacked one firm today in part because of its association with lawyers who worked on the investigation into Russia's interference. To help Trump win the 2016 election seeing a pattern here. With everything else going on, the problems of the world's most successful law firms might not rank high on your concern list, but let's be clear what Donald Trump's target really is. Anybody who would stand in his way. Joining me now to discuss is Ellie Mostow, justice correspondent for the nation and authority of the new book out this week, bad law, 10 popular laws that Are Ruining America. Ellie Mostow, so excited to have you here tonight. As I always say, you are the Lewis Black of politics. I gotta start with this before we go to your book, which I love. Trump is bullying law firms. He is bullying law firms that Americans and federal agencies and private organizations are using to fight back against him. We already know that this is unconstitutional. We already know that this is autocratic behavior. My question for you, Ellie, is how likely do you think these firms are going to be in pushing back against him? Or do you think most will capitulate and offer all the free pro bono stuff to his personal causes?
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Ellie Mostow
I think we've seen already that most of these firms are sniveling cowards. And their sniveling cowardice is particularly heightened because these are some of the most powerful people in our system, in our country, who have the least to lose from Donald Trump. There are people out there right now risking their careers, some of them risking their lives, some of them risking deportation and rendition straight out of this country to oppose this fascist regime. And yet the lawyers, the rich lawyers, the white shoe lawyers, as they are called in the industry, the people with the most ability to defend themselves in court from Donald Trump, are bending the knee and folding like cheap chairs. And it is a sniveling cowardice that we are seeing from big law firms. One of the things that I really want people to focus on is a letter from Brad Karp, the managing partner of Paul Weiss, one of the first firms to capitulate to Donald Trump. He basically said that, well, he couldn't stand up to Donald Trump because if he did, clients who are pro Trump would leave his firm and go to other firms that would basically make nice with the administration. People who have reported on big law on these firms. And I got my career start reporting on them at a website called above the Law. I worked there for 10 years, 11 years reporting on these firms. Don't understand just how often these firms, I can't say collude, but let's say coordinate in ways that are not necessarily helpful to their clients when their money's on the line, right. They coordinate about, associate Salary. They can coordinate about partner benefits. They coordinate about billable rates for their attorneys. Right. So there is a mass ability for these firms to hold the line and act together, even when those interests are sometimes against their clients.
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Larry Kudlow
Right.
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Ellie Mostow
So they can do it. They're choosing not to do it. They're choosing to bend the knee and lick Donald Trump's boots right now. And it is pathetic and disgusting. There are some firms that are standing up, Perkins Coie, as you mentioned, they're fighting the good fight, but the fact that they are big law brethren do not have their back is pathetic. But as you say, Jason, this is kind of how authoritarianism works. This is how dictatorships work. It doesn't have to happen to everybody. It just has to happen to a few people, to a small group of people, and it scares and it chills and it cowers everybody else.
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Larry Kudlow
I want to switch now to your book, and here's what's interesting about bad law. 10 laws that are sort of ruining America. I don't know if you have this experience, Ellie, but I've seen this a lot of times as scholars and academics. You write a book, you have a brilliant idea, and then the circumstances of the world change in such a way that how that book hits is a little different. Right. I'm sure when you started writing Bad Law, it was like, you know, we'll still have a semifunctional democracy and judiciary in place that might be able to learn something from what I'm writing about. But in our current environment, where judges are being intimidated, where law firms are being intimidated, where people are bending the knee, where the institutions that are supposed to protect us are folding like lawn chairs? I just want to say, I want to ask, from a philosophical standpoint, what do you want people to take from this book in a time where it appears as though this country is moving towards lawlessness?
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Ellie Mostow
Yeah. Well, look, Jason, I wrote this book in 2024 knowing full well what was waiting for us on the other end of that election.
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Larry Kudlow
Right.
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Ellie Mostow
I wrote the book. I finished the first draft before Joe Biden's first debate. So I was under no illusions about what might happen in November. And my thought was, well, if Biden or eventually Harris was able to pull it out and win the election, then this book would be a good blueprint for what I want Democrats to do should they win power in 2024. Right. If the other thing happens and we are now living in the other thing happening, well, then this book becomes my first, best attempt to start writing project 2029. Because if you think about project 2025, they didn't start writing that after Biden's first debate, right? They started writing that in 2021 when they had no power. That's why Republicans, whenever they come into office, they come in with a hammer ready to smash things. When Democrats come into office, we come in with some tape and some super glue and some ideas about how to put things back together and protect institutions. And I want people to take from this book, Nah, bro. There are some things we can smash, right? I got Mulhollner behind me, right? We can pick up a hammer and smash some of these things that Republicans continually erect to frustrate progress, to frustrate fairness, to frustrate democracy and equality in this country. And so what I want people to take from the book is that there actually are things that we can do beyond saying orange man bad. There are things that we can do as a society and as a party to make our world better. And while that's not gonna happen right now, right now we are in survival mode. At some point, one hopes that we will come out of it. And when we come out of it, I at least wanna be one of the guys with a plan for what to do with it if we ever are allowed to get power again.
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Larry Kudlow
I'll tell you, Ellie, if there's anybody out there who is noble enough to lift that hammer, it is you. Thank you so much for joining us this evening on Last Word.
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Ellie Mostow
Thank you so much. Have a great weekend.
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Larry Kudlow
Thanks, man. Coming up, in the age of Trump, toxic masculinity is being seen by the political right as an asset, not a liability. And that's having a terrible effect on young men online. This is a topic I really care a lot about and I'm excited to talk about it next when we come back from breaking.
- [27:47]
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- [28:18]
Spectrum Business
This episode is sponsored by E Trade from Morgan Stanley. Dive into the market with E Trade's easy to use tools. And now there's even more to love. Get access to expert insights from Morgan Stanley to help navigate the markets. Open an account and get up to $1,000 or more with a qualifying deposit. Learn more@etrade.com terms and other fees apply. Investing involves risks. Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC Member SIPIC etrade is a business of Morgan Stanley.
- [28:43]
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- [29:02]
Larry Kudlow
Punching Fist, American Flag Fire that emoji triplet is one of the responses in the now infamous Signal chat that was revealed to the world thanks to Team Trump accidentally adding Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic to their conversation. Punching fist American Flag Fire It's a ludicrous way for a government official to communicate in response to a presumed kill of a US Military target. But given this administration, it's not surprising. It is a perfect example of the kind of performative masculinity, this culty, broish behavior that's seen as an asset in Trump world. How else do you explain things like Elon Musk appearing at a gold chain and oversized belt buckle wielding a chainsaw at cpac? Trump World, it seems, even sees that behavior as a political asset. That concept is explored in a new opinion essay in the New York Times by American University professor Rachel Louise Snyder, who's written extensively about misogyny and violence against women. Quote we live in a new world where words like women, gender and trauma are banned or limited. In research studies, phrases like women are property and gay people are mentally ill are no longer violations of conduct. At Meta, the fringe went mainstream and then became the US Government. This fringe mainstream mentality is going global and going viral. Polls show young women are moving more to the political left than young men. In the age of Trump and the independent reports quote, 60% of Gen Zers believe political leaders, including U.S. president Trump, are fueling misogynistic and divisive language online. This toxic bro culture is driving young women away from social media platforms. According to a recent Amnesty International UK poll, this online toxic bro culture is at the heart of Netflix's newest hit miniseries, Adolescence. Our next guest, Chloe Combie, watched adolescence with over 100 young people and wrote about it for the Independent. Quote, adolescence depicts the fallout after 13 year old Jamie Miller murders his female classmate. It transpires that the very likable and seemingly normal Jamie has been heavily radicalized by online manosphere culture, which has warped his view of women and girls, a tragic global reality Today, watching adolescents as an adult is a jarring experience because it pulls back the curtain on a world that every teenager with A phone is potentially exposed to. But watching it with teenagers and young adults made me realize that while the problem is prevalent among young people, the solutions might lie with them too. Joining us now is Chloe Combie, a columnist for the Independent. She's the author of the book Generation Their Voices, Their Lives. Chloe, thank you so much for joining me this week. I was so impressed with the article that you wrote. I watched adolescents as millions of people across the country have done here and in the uk. I'll just start with this after you watch the series. What compelled you to want to watch it with young people? I know a lot of people who are parents watched it and were terrified. They wanted to go into their kids phones or sit down and have a conversation. What made you think I need to get 100 young people together and sort of have a group discussion of this experience?
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Rachel Maddow
So two things. Number one, obviously lots of the responses and reactions to adolescents were coming from adults who, you know, all the good intentions don't live in those teenage worlds. Which is precisely, I think, what the show highlighted, how much there's kind of a chasm between adults and, and sort of Gen A and, and Gen Z. But the second one was, and lots of my work revolves around working with and researching young people. I've interviewed thousands of young people. The books and podcasts is quite often we have a tendency to really focus on the very worst of young people and sort of really exacerbate the bad stuff. And what quite often gets ignored, and I think this particularly might be true with young men, is there's lots of really good kids as well with good ideas. And quite often in our hurry to really understand what's going wrong, we don't want to understand or think about what's going right. And I think it's really important. So I did this screening and I was really interested in the response of all young people. But I think I probably included more responses of young men which were really interesting. And I think that not just that their kind of ideas, but their solutions and the solutions they were passing on to like younger brothers and younger people in their communities was actually really hopeful, I think. And that I think was one of the reasons the piece, I think resonated with people.
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Larry Kudlow
Yeah, one of the things that I was fascinated by, as you said, you know, when you talk to these young people, the happiest young men were the ones who had community outside of online spaces. They're the ones who had a football team. They were the ones who may have been active in their churches. They're the ones who had good relationships with older brothers and sisters and things like that. And that was sort of an optimistic sort of takeaway. My question is if you are a parent and you see this show or you feel like your son or daughter is getting influenced by these sort of online misogynistic, you know, incel type messages, what should you do? Should, should you sign them up in clubs? Should you just talk to them? What are some of the things that young people said about that?
- [34:34]
Rachel Maddow
Yes, three things really. I do think the loss and the sort of cessation of real life communities has essentially been one of the sort of missed and greatest tragedies globally. Because I think when you're in the real life and in real life communities and you have that kind of inspiration and humanity that you get from real life experiences that I think are absent from online ones, which are often quite toxic and I think it reminds, you know, young people of each other's humanity and it doesn't promote that sort of division that online communities do. I think the second thing is I think parents and carers need to be incredibly honest with young people. I think in the same way that once they might have had like, you know, the sex or drugs talk, I think the online world talk and, and being really clear eyed about that and also educating themselves I think is incredibly important. But I think the third thing that's kind of been missed, particularly with this kind of online bro culture is that this is quite literally a monetization and commodification of teenage rage and pain. These you bro influences, they don't care about their sort of young followers. They care about the zeros on their bank balance. And that is a far more powerful message than banning or saying all these are bad boogeymen which kind of reinforces their cool outlaw image. It's much better to kind of, as I say in the piece, kind of wizard of Oz them and pull back the curtain on what the true intentions are. And really for 15 years I think big tech has figured out that very upset and angry teenagers are very lucrative. And that's why these very extreme voices have kind of risen to the top and have gotten the biggest megaphones because it's a highly lucrative business. And I think being clear about those things, rather than doing that banning, which actually makes these influences kind of look like cool and outlawish is much more effective. And it's the approach that I've taken.
- [36:27]
Larry Kudlow
Far more that makes a lot of sense. Telling us telling a 14 year old Andrew Tate thinks you're a sucker Right. Thinks you're a fool is probably going to motivate them more than you know. Just don't look at Andrew Tate. Chloe Combi, thank you so much for your research. Really appreciate it.
- [36:43]
Rachel Maddow
Thank you.
- [36:45]
Larry Kudlow
Coming up, do you like the idea of a drug resistant variant of the world's deadliest infectious disease? Some experts worry it could be coming soon. And Trump's America. That's next on the Last Word. Tonight, we're facing a growing crisis that echoes the very real dangers of political neglect. The world's deadliest infectious disease, tuberculosis, which is completely curable if caught and treated, is on the rise again, both globally and right here in the United States. And it's spreading at a time when cuts to US Foreign aid, especially usaid, have slashed crucial funding for testing and treatment. Earlier today, the Trump administration announced plans to completely shut down USAID and fire the remaining employees by September. All remaining USAID functions will now operate inside the State Department. Though it's not clear Trump can shut down an agency without congressional approval. The impact of this cannot be overstated. The World Health Organization said this month that American government money supported a quarter of global funding to fight tuberculosis at a total cost of 250 million annually. Annually, a rounding error in the US budget. It's 0.03% of what we spent annually on defense. Without that funding, the World Health Organization reports that tuberculosis will resurge, endangering millions of lives. And let's not forget the memo from a top USAID whistleblower that was leaked to the New York Times earlier this month that said, quote, disruption to tuberculosis programs overseas will result in more patients arriving in the United states and a 30% increase in drug resistant tuberculosis thanks to declining US rates of tuberculosis in the last century. Most Americans today have no idea the type of effects tuberculosis can have on the human body. Here's a gruesome prognosis from the Atlantic. Some people die of TB when their lungs collapse or fill with fluid. For others, scarring leaves so little healthy lung tissue that breathing becomes impossible, or the infection spreads to the brain or the spinal column, or they suffer a sudden uncontrollable hemorrhage. Lack of appetite and extreme abdominal pain can fuel weight loss so severe that it whittles away muscle and bone. For billions of people, TB is already a nightmare disease, both because the bacterium is unusually powerful and because world leaders have done a poor job of distributing cures to help us understand. Joining us now is Maria Smilios. She's the author of Black Angels, which uncovers the Forgotten history of black nurses in New York City during the early 20th century who helped find a cure for TB. Maria, thank you so much for joining us this evening. This Tuesday, I believe, is World Tuberculosis Day and we are facing a resurgence of tuberculosis around the world. It used to be called consumption. And this book that you have talks about what black nurses did when they stepped into the breach, when many white nurses in America just didn't want to deal with the disease. So let's start there. What kinds of things were people facing in our last major tuberculosis crises that we were having maybe 100 years ago?
- [40:01]
J
Well, to start, what they were facing was, as that article described, a really gruesome illness with no cure and even more gruesome death. Tuberculosis stirred people's most potent fears. They were dying one in three. And then by 1940 it was about one in seven. And you know, the thing with tuberculosis is it's always been a disease of injustice. And I show that in my book. It always affects the most vulnerable and marginalized communities. You know, the poor, the unhoused, the incarcerated, the medically neglected. And that's all painted in this very gruesome landscape in the pre antibiotic days. You know, I paint that in my book. And these people had been stigmatized and because many believe they are less deserving of decent care or any care at all. So to connect it with what's happening right now, without mincing any words, these cuts to USAID are an injustice globally and on the American people. And it's a myth to believe that a rise in TB abroad will not affect us here. TB doesn't have any borders. It's one of the most difficult diseases to catch early. It is slow growing. Most diagnosis has happened between three and six months after someone gets infected. So that means they are contagious and they are spreading the disease. So it's essential to keep TB rates down here and abroad.
- [41:24]
Larry Kudlow
And one of the amazing things I really, really enjoyed this was very detailed. It's frightening. It's almost like a mystery in its own sort of way is many of the black women that stepped into this breach to serve this disease, they were unknown. They weren't necessarily given the sort of respect for some of the innovations and things that they came for. Do we see similar problems now? Do we see that in how, say first, first line people fighting Covid were ignored or the way that USAID is being cut? Are we seeing a repeat of mistakes of the past, of marginalizing the marginalized who have come forward to fight this disease?
- [42:00]
J
Oh, absolutely. I mean, health equity isn't just about patients. And I want to say that the patients in my book were probably, you know, the incredible victims of xenophobia and blame for a disease that wasn't their fault because tuberculosis is a social disease and it's a disease of marginalized populations. But to get back to the nurses, you know, the black angels in my book, it was a name given to them by the patients, are very similar to, you know, the nurses who took care of COVID patients. You know, caring, caregiving labor has always been racialized and undervalued in America. And during the TB crisis in New York, after the white nurses walked up, it was the black nurses who were called up to care for these patients who were considered second class citizens. And we continue to rely on women of color to bear the burden without proper recognition and support.
- [42:53]
Larry Kudlow
Maria Smelios, thank you so much. Your book is Black the Untold Story of Nurses who Help Cure Tuberculosis. It is a fascinating book. I encourage everyone to check it out.
- [43:03]
J
Thank you.
- [43:04]
Larry Kudlow
We have breaking news on Pete Hegseth right after this. Before we go, we want to bring you some breaking news from the Wall Street Journal. Quote, defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who is facing scrutiny over his handling of details of a military strike, brought his wife, a former Fox News producer, to two meetings with foreign military counterparts where sensitive information was discussed, according to multiple people who were present or had knowledge of the discussions. The report notes, quote, a secretary can invite anyone to meetings with visiting counterparts, but attendee lists are usually carefully limited to those who need to be there. And attendees are typically expected to possess security clearances given the delicate nature of the discussions. According to defense officials and people familiar with the meeting, there's often security near the meeting space to keep away uninvited attendees. Hegseth's wife, Jennifer Hegseth, isn't a Defense Department employee. Defense officials said it isn't uncommon for spouses of senior officials to possess low level security clearances, but a Pentagon spokesperson declined to say whether Jennifer has one. Jennifer didn't respond to requests for comment. And that's tonight's last word.
- [44:20]
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