← The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell
The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell
Velshi: With Trump back in office, are we witnessing the rise of an oligarchy?
00:40:34
Tonight on The Last Word: Donald Trump abruptly fires Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman CQ Brown. Plus, Kash Patel is sworn in as Trump’s new FBI director. Also, Trump attacks Zelenskyy while praising his talks with Putin. And PA State Rep. Mandy Steele warns against Trump’s medical research cuts. Jennifer Rubin, Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, and Michael McFaul also join Ali Velshi.
Loading summary
Transcript36 lines
- [00:01]
Ali Velshi
Now it's time for the Last Word with Ali Velshi. Good evening, Ali. It is convivial. Remember when Fridays used to be like that, the last day of the week, kind of took it easy. Crazy stuff didn't happen on Friday nights no more, my friend. Yeah, I know. You know what's funny is that in the first Trump term, I used to remember that, like Fridays was like Times Square, 9am on a Monday. Yes. And it wasn't like that during the Biden administration. It was a more normal time. And now we're back to the case. We're back to breaking news on a Friday night and firings and changings and all sorts of stuff. So you've earned your weekend, my friend. We'll see you Monday. Thank you, Ali. Appreciate it. Well, as we were talking about, for a guy who became famous on his old fake reality game show for firing people in front of the camera as president, Donald Trump seems to be more comfortable firing people late on a Friday night when a lot of people have stopped paying attention to the news. So Tonight, just before 8pm here on the East Coast, Donald Trump announced he was firing Air Force General C.Q. brown, who was serving as the chairman of the Joint Chief. The Associated Press notes the ouster of Brown, only the second black general to serve as chairman, is sure to send shock waves through the Pentagon. His 16 months on the job had been consumed with the war in Ukraine and the expanded conflict in the Middle East. Trump is nominating the Air Force lieutenant general, Dan Kane, they call him Raisin Kaine, to be the next Joint Chiefs chairman. Kaine is a career F16 pilot who served on active duty in the National Guard. A Pentagon official tells NBC News that Trump didn't do the firing himself. The defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, called Brown on Friday evening to inform him of the decision shortly before Trump posted it on social media. And this week has been full of this kind of chaos, including this afternoon at the White House when Donald Trump was told, quote, we'll see you in court. Now, I'm sure he's heard those exact words said to his face during his time as businessman Donald Trump. But think of it, the president of the United States told by someone inside the White House, we'll see you in court. The person who told him that was Maine's Democratic governor, this woman, Janet Mills, who said those words directly to him today, we'll see you in court. Now, in his first month of his second term in office, Donald Trump has signed 73 executive orders, including an executive order banning transgender athletes from participating in girls and women's sports. This afternoon in the state Dining Room in the White House, Donald Trump discussed that very executive order with a group of Republican and Democratic governors until he paused to call out, governor Mills, is.
- [02:43]
Donald Trump
Maine here, the governor of Maine? Are you not going to comply with it?
- [02:48]
Jennifer Rubin
I'm complying with the state and federal law.
- [02:51]
Donald Trump
Well, we are the federal law. Well, you better do it. You better do it, because you're not going to get any federal funding at all if you don't. And by the way, your population, even though it's somewhat liberal, although I did very well there, your population doesn't want men playing in women's sports. So you better comply because otherwise you're not getting any federal funding. I'll see you in court, every state. Good. I'll see you in court. I look forward to that. That should be a real easy one. And enjoy your life after, Governor, because I don't think you'll be in elected politics.
- [03:23]
Ali Velshi
Wow. Emboldened by kowtowed Republicans in Congress and a very friendly conservative Supreme Court majority, Donald Trump is shameless in his threats to withhold funding from other elected officials. And while Donald Trump's executive orders have faced lawsuits, Donald Trump is as brazen as ever in his attempts to ignore the rule of law. In an article titled In Trump's First A Relentless Effort to Remake the Presidency, the Washington Post reports, quote, trump's first month is striking not just because of the president's actions, but also because a significant number of Americans and members of Congress are applauding his aggressive approach to the job. The country appears to be in a dark mood, with some voters hunger for disruption outweighing their impulse to follow American traditions. What makes this moment particularly dangerous for those who care about our constitutional system is that Donald Trump believes he has a mandate to act this way, said Timothy Naftali, a historian at Columbia University School for International and Public affairs. End quote. The Washington Post continues, quote, trump's unconventional actions have been numerous and varied, but they all reflect his belief that Congress has no business telling him how to run the executive branch. He set about slashing the federal workforce with little regard to the myriad laws aimed at protecting it, end quote. Donald Trump addressed another one of those unconventional actions today. As first reported at this hour last night, Donald Trump is considering placing the United States Postal Service, a 250-year-old independent agency, under the control of the Commerce Department. This morning, the White House denied that report. And then this happened. There are reports that you are considering merging the United States Postal service with the Commerce Department. Can you elaborate on if this is something you're considering?
- [05:12]
Donald Trump
Well, we want to have a post office that works well and doesn't lose massive amounts of money, and we're thinking about doing that and it will be a form of a merger.
- [05:24]
Ali Velshi
Now his critics warn that this could be the first step toward privatizing the postal service, something Trump has talked a lot about before. And Trump has repeatedly attacked voting by mail, which raises a lot of other questions. Robert Dallek, an American historian who specializes in U.S. presidents, told the Washington Post that Trump's self centered qualities are not what make him different from his predecessors. That is a characteristic common to presidential aspirants. Where Trump differs, he said, is in his determination to bend the government to that view of himself. Everyone who runs for president has impulses to be the central figure in the country, the central political figure and a star. So they have to be driven by a kind of egotism, it seems to me, dallek said. What sets Trump apart is how far he may be willing to go in centralizing authority. Does he know the limits of his power? End quote. Does he know the limits of his power and do the billionaires who surround him know the limits of their power? Donald Trump was surrounded by some of the world's wealthiest people at his inauguration days after former President Biden warned of an oligarchy taking shape in America. So are we witnessing the rise of oligarchy in the United States? The former Labour Secretary Robert Reich seems to think so. In an article written for the Guardian after Donald Trump lied about Ukraine being responsible for Russia's invasion and J.D. vance criticized European leaders in his Munich speech, Robert Reich wrote, quote, since the end of the Second World War, liberal democracies have stuck together, led by the US on the opposite side have been the authoritarian states, led mainly by the Soviet Union, followed after the demise of the Soviet Union by Russia and China. But all this is rapidly changing. Russia and China have morphed into oligarchies run by small groups of extraordinarily wealthy people. The US has been moving from a democracy to an oligarchy as well, and is doing so at lightning speed under Donald Trump and Elon Musk. The Trump Vance Musk regime is not only undermining democracy in the US it's also laying the foundation for undermining democracies around the world. It is making the world safe for oligarchy. Joining us now is Jennifer Rubin, co founder and editor in chief of the Contrarian. She's also an MSNBC political Analyst and Ruth Ben Guiat, a professor of history at New York University. She's the author of Strongmen Mussolini to the Present. Welcome to both of you. Thank you for being with us. Jennifer, let me start with you tonight. The President has removed the Chief of Staff, the joint Chiefs of Staff in the military. Somebody who was approved. He was approved by the Senate in 2023 for a four year term. It's not meant to come coincide with presidential terms. It's probably not illegal, but it does go down this road of I'm ultimately in charge of everything and only loyalists will occupy major office under my administration.
- [08:16]
Jennifer Rubin
It's bad enough that he fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. He also fired the head of naval operations. He also hired all four of the forces, jags, that is the top lawyers in those branches of the military. This is his effort to compel the military to be loyal to him as opposed to the Constitution. He is not picking these people on the merits. The gentleman that he is attempting to replace as the head of the Joint Chiefs is a three star general who has retired, does not have central command authority or responsibility. He's clearly less qualified than the man he's replacing. But of course both he and Pete Hegseth have made all kinds of noise about quote, DEI and in fact they insulted the woman who was head of Naval operations, calling her a DEI hire. All of this is indicative of his authoritarian impulses both to crush the independence and the ethical code of any other branch of government, any other aspect of society, and also to reassert this white male dominance that he has been trying to perpetrate. It's interesting, a federal judge this evening actually enjoined a good deal of that DEI order. Unfortunately won't apply to the firings at the Pentagon, but this is absolutely par for the course, as is his repudiation of our alliance with democratic Ukraine Crane as his. His lie that Ukraine was responsible for the war, as this is his lie that DEI is responsible for plane crashes. It's all of a. Of the same piece.
- [10:07]
Ali Velshi
Yeah, it is. And one of the distinctions, Ruth Ben Giet, which I wouldn't mind getting from you given your historical perspective, is while it is all a lie of the same of a piece where it relates to the CIA intelligence gathering with Tulsi Gabbard, the FBI which has confirmed Cash Patel as its right now and the military feels a little different, right. It now feels like pre war Italy and pre war Germany where the actual apparatus by which the government enforces things are now loyal to the President. That's a little bit different than USAID or the FCC or the ftc. They're all bad in their own way, the way that Trump is dealing with them. But the apparatus of government in which it enforces, you know, laws and crimes is a little bit more worrisome.
- [11:00]
Ruth Ben Ghiat
Oh, absolutely. And there's a domestic and geopolitical dimension to this, because what we're seeing is a rolling back, as Jen said, of anything that has to do with ethical standards, objective fact gathering, intelligence gathering, replaced by fanaticism, in the case of Patel, by, you know, the principle of loyalty. And in fact, the FBI had to dismantle its foreign Influence Task Force. And there's a lot of dismantling of agencies and task forces that prevent bad foreign actors, including from autocracies. We know Russian influence is a huge problem from getting more sway here. So there's that part going on, and that's already very serious for our national security. But then placing people like Tulsi Gabbard, who has a history of echoing Kremlin talking points and like President Trump, has internalized a view of geopolitics that says that democracies are always the problem. In fact, both, you know, Gabbard and President Trump in the past have blamed. They've blamed, you know, President Biden or NATO for causing Putin to have to act in Ukraine because they supported Ukraine's NATO aspirations. So it's this whole view where democracies are the problem. They're the hostile actors, and autocracies are simply having to respond for their own legitimate interests. And so if you put these together, this is extremely dangerous for a national security and global security.
- [12:48]
Ali Velshi
Jennifer, there's been much ado about some hand gestures that Elon Musk made after the inauguration of President Trump. And, you know, it's hard to get in the head of people and what they actually mean when they make hand gestures that many of us associate with a very particular time in history. Steve Bannon suddenly, in the middle of a speech at the CPAC conference, shot his hand out and up with no explanation and nothing. I mean, I worry about the normalization of this stuff. In a world where we're sending signals to people to say authoritarian behavior is going to be okay and mob rule is going to be okay and things are going to go a different way. What do you make of this?
- [13:31]
Jennifer Rubin
It's interesting. A representative of the far right in France saw the Steve Bannon gesture and said he wasn't coming to cpac. So when you get to be more of a Nazi than the Nazis I think you better consider what you're doing. I think this is very typical for them. They always maintain some sliver of deniability. Oh, I didn't mean an actual bloodbath, as he said during the campaign. Oh, I didn't actually mean to make this look like a Nazi salute. Of course, it's all a message. Of course it is. All identifying and uplifting these figures. That's why he released from prison and commuted the sentences of people who espoused these views, who attacked our capital, who were violent insurance insurgents, and some who, although not violent themselves, joined in the violent mob. I think he is asking us to be def. Dumb and blind to ignore all this. And of course, we shouldn't. It's unfortunate that some in the mainstream media have continued to say, well, he claims that as if this is a plausible explanation rather than saying, no, this is a repeated pattern. This is how people of this ilk behave. It is very dangerous. It does normalize it, and it gives incentive to other people who are even more extreme to act out on their violent rhetoric, their violent prejudice and bigotry. And when the President of the United States has close advisors who do these things, it's a problem.
- [15:05]
Ali Velshi
Ruth, I want to ask you about that because, again, I've never done something that somebody's mistaken for a Nazi salute. But what does that do? What are these things meant to be? What are these little signals, assuming that they are what we believe they are, because there was no reason for Steve Bannon to lift his hand in the midst of his speech the way he did. What's that meant to be? What is that?
- [15:31]
Ruth Ben Ghiat
Well, quite literally, I have a whole, you know, part in my book about the Hitler salute. And whenever you entered a room or went to the bakery or anywhere you went, you had to perform it in. In Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy and Franco Spain had their versions, but the Nazi one was unusual because it wasn't just the hand gesture. You this. It became a law. You had to do this. You had to say, heil Hitler. And so you were wishing Hitler health. And it meant that in any interaction, Hitler was kind of present, even though he was absent. And so this was keeping his personality cult going. So this is the history of what is being done. And like Jen said, this is normalizing a whole heritage of Nazism associated with the biggest criminal operation in history, the Holocaust and genocide. And it's also when J.D. vance, our vice president, tells Germans, as did Elon Musk, that they shouldn't feel guilt anymore for what happened in their past. This is a kind of they're like these pied pipers trying to have a moral collapse to tell people, don't listen to your conscience. You can just be your worst selves. And if you need to commit crimes now, don't worry about what happened in the past. And that's very dangerous.
- [17:05]
Ali Velshi
And there's an election in Germany on Sunday with a far right party that has been encouraged by elon Musk and J.D. vance. Imagine this 80 years after a world order that was built to prevent the worst of World War II and the Holocaust. We're toying with some of these ideas again. Thanks to both of you this evening. Jennifer Rubin and Ruth Ben Guillot. We appreciate your time. Still ahead tonight, French President Emmanuel Macron is headed to Washington next week with a message for Donald Trump. You cannot be weak in the face of Putin. But first, Kash Patel once said he was going to shut down the Hoover Building, that's the FBI headquarters on his first day as FBI director. And while he didn't do that, he certainly made it a rough day at the office for hundreds of FBI employees. We'll discuss that next with the Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthy of the House Intelligence Committee. There will be accountability within the FBI and outside of the FBI, the men and women at the FBI. I have your back because you have the backs of the American people. You will, you will be held to the same high standard. Any deviation from that standard will not be tolerated at this Federal Bureau of Investigation. Well, that's a fun first day message to start with. That was the message of Donald Trump's newly sworn in director of the FBI today. Cash Patel, a Trump loyalist with an enemies list who's repeatedly attacked the bureau and vowed retribution. Kash Patel was narrowly confirmed yesterday despite bipartisan opposition, with two Republican senators citing concern that Kash Patel would use the FBI to settle political scores rather than to root out crime and corruption. Critics from across the political spectrum warn that Kash Patel will gut law enforcement and act as a rubber stamp for a Trump revenge campaign. And Cash Patel's actions in just one day signal that those warnings are not hyperbolic, despite his claims that he wants an FBI that's, quote, transparent, accountable and committed to justice, end quote. NBC News reports that Kash Patel struck a conciliatory tone with a message to the agency's workforce this morning, saying, as you heard, he will always have your backs and that he's committed to pursuing the justice and upholding the rule of law. But once inside the FBI building, Kash Patel appeared to be targeting individuals whom he deemed disloyal. Three people familiar with the matter tell NBC News that, quote, all the support personnel who worked in the FBI director's office on the seventh floor were told to pack their desks and leave before Patel arrived. Most are being reassigned, the sources said. The group includes the former director, Christopher Wray's longtime assistant, two sources said. When Patel and some aides came to the seventh floor, the sources said FBI employees sealed the director's wing, quote, so no one could see him move in and out, end quote. So much for transparency. Joining us now is the Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthy, Democrat of Illinois. He's a member of the House Intelligence Committee and the House Oversight Committee. Congressman, good to see you, Ruth. Ben Giett and Jennifer Rubin and I were just talking about this, that while a lot of this destruction of government infrastructure is all of a piece, that part that falls into law enforcement and intelligence gathering worries some of us more than others. So the FBI, the CIA, the director of National Intelligence, and of course, tonight, the firing of some senior military people in the United States.
- [20:30]
Raja Krishnamoorthy
That's right. I think that we all know that Donald Trump is trying to reshape the government in his image. But now, not only is he purging people who are not loyal to him, but he's potentially going to weaponize the FBI to go after people even outside of government who he perceives as his adversaries. We know that the media, unfortunately, is on Kash Patel's enemies list. I saw Adam Schiff was added to his enemies list. He's called law enforcement, criminal gangsters. And so the only people who are cheering tonight are our adversaries, Ali, the Chinese Communist Party terrorist organizations whom the FBI has been guarding against for years. And now we're taking our eye off the ball. And that makes people like myself and numerous others very concerned about our national security.
- [21:24]
Ali Velshi
Yeah, because when we've had bad things happen, it's because for some reason there's been a distraction and the eye's been off the ball. Let's talk a little bit about. You just mentioned Adam Schiff. Your colleague Elon Musk posted that Adam Schiff is a criminal. Just use those words. I don't understand a world in which you can just do that. And perhaps Congressman, Senator Schiff will sue. But there is this issue where you've got people in Trump's camp just sort of saying stuff, putting it out there. The FBI that you know of, the CIA that you know of, the intelligence apparatus that you know of are sort of hardworking People without particular political agendas who have the ability to see around corners to keep us at least try and keep us safe.
- [22:06]
Raja Krishnamoorthy
Oh, absolutely. And by the way, that labeling of Adam Schiff was not just a message to Adam Schiff, it was a brushback pitch to anybody who would possibly criticize President Trump. On top of that, however, you make a very good point which that the FBI DOJ is largely comprised of extremely hardworking, experienced, professional personnel. And a lot of them are going to flee for the exits. Ali. They're not going to stay around with a specter of Cash Patel and them necessarily being on his bad side and then being targeted by him as well. And so we're going to have some of our best talent leaving the DOJ and FBI. And one other collateral piece of damage is that our allies, our friends, partners and allies around the world who regularly share intelligence with the likes of the CIA, the FBI and others are going to stop doing that because they don't want this information necessarily to get in the hands of folks like Kash Patel.
- [23:09]
Ali Velshi
And so this is really important. This is really important. We have allies we work with on all sorts of things. Some of them are NATO, some of them are norad, some of them are five eyes. This is robust intelligence sharing that is based on mutual trust that if I tell you something, this stays within the construct of this intelligence gathering operation, probably keeps us safe from a lot of things. Tell me about this implication that if we spoil with these people, they feel that our intelligence law enforcement apparatus have been politicized. What could that actually mean?
- [23:42]
Raja Krishnamoorthy
It means we're less safe. They're just not going to share this information that could be timely, that could be actionable, that we could use to help foil a plot. Because they don't know how that information is going to be used and they don't know if we're going to somehow expose the sources and methods by which they collected that information, putting at risk their sources. So this has far reaching implications putting people like Tulsi Gabbard and Kash Patel in places of authority. I predict that I think there's going to be a siloization again of the intelligence community where people aren't going to be sharing even internally. And one of the reasons why 911 came about in the first place was because of that siloization, one part of the intelligence community not sharing with another. And I fear that that's going to get repeated again.
- [24:34]
Ali Velshi
Congressman, good to talk to you. Thank you for joining us tonight. We always appreciate your time. Congressman Rajakrishnamoorthy of Illinois is on the House Intel Committee. All right, coming up. Monday marks three years since Vladimir Putin's illegal, murderous, full scale invasion of Ukraine. And Donald Trump spent this week lying about who started the war, lying about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and sending his Secretary of state to Saudi Arabia, of all places, to meet with representatives of Vladimir Putin. We'll discuss Trump's dangerous and dishonest diplomacy next with Ambassador Michael McFaul. Today, the new York Post dedicated its front page to giving Donald Trump the clarification that he desperately needs. The newspaper, owned by Rupert Murdoch, is usually favorable to Trump's policies and brash comments. But take a look at this. A full page cover of Russian President Vladimir Putin that reads, this is a dictator. For days, Trump has been in a war of words that he started with Ukrainian President Zelensky lying when he called Ukraine's heroic president, quote, a dictator without elections, end quote, on social media and blaming Zelensky for starting Vladimir Putin's illegal war, a war that began when Putin's army invaded Ukraine almost three years ago. This morning, speaking on a conservative radio show, Donald Trump said of Zelensky, quote, I've been watching him negotiate with no cards. You just get sick of it. And I've had it, end quote. With a few exceptions, the reaction to all this from Republicans, once the party of Reagan and now firmly the party of Trump, has been muted. This afternoon, Donald Trump said this from the White House.
- [26:10]
Donald Trump
I've had very good talks with Putin and I've had not such good talks with Ukraine. They don't have any cards, but they play it tough. But we're not going to let this continue.
- [26:24]
Ali Velshi
We're not going to let this continue. What part the invasion? Earlier this week, Trump sidelined Ukraine's president from so called peace talks, sending Secretary of State Marco Rubio to meet directly with representatives of Vladimir Putin one on one. And our allies in Europe are taking notice ahead of French President Emmanuel Macron's White House meeting with Trump on Monday. Macron has been fiercely defending Zelenskyy and said this about Trump. I'm going to tell him, you can't be weak with President Putin. That's not who you are. It's not your trademark. It's not in your interest. I will tell him if you let Ukraine be taken, Russia will not stop. End quote. Russia will not stop. Like the New York Post, Macron is reminding Trump of some things that he should already know, that Russia will not stop, that Putin is a murderous dictator, that dictators cannot be appeased as the world learned in 1938, and that at least until now, America does not turn against its allies. Joining us now is Michael McFaul, who served as the United States ambassador to Russia under President Obama. He's also an MSNBC international affairs analyst. Ambassador, we're almost at three years of this war, a bit like January 6th. Anybody who watched it happen in real time and you were involved with me in the coverage of it, there's no way to mistake this. Ukraine didn't sort of ramble into Russia. Russia came into Ukraine with an intent to topple the government and seize the country. Now, discussing J.D. vance was very upset today. He said, don't call it appeasement. Sounds a bit like appeasement.
- [28:01]
Michael McFaul
Well, first of all, facts are facts. Presidents of the United States, even powerful ones like President Trump, can have opinions about everything. But facts are facts. Putin invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2002. That is a fact. Al Qaeda attacked us on September 11, 2001. That is a fact. Hitler invaded Poland September 1, 1939. That is a fact. And we shouldn't have arguments about it. And moreover, when the president says things like that, he does look weak. He does look like he's not in control of facts. And I hope somebody will explain that to him. For a guy who's so obsessed about looking tough, he looks weak. Moreover, Ali, as you just said, you intimated like, this has been a shocking week for me. I was at the Munich security conference. It feels like it was years ago. It's just a few days ago. And if you look at what's happened in just seven or eight days, all the Trump administration has done is give Putin what he wants. They told Putin Ukraine can't be in NATO. They told Putin that Zelensky has to give up territory. They told Putin that no Americans will be part of a peacekeeping force there. They intimated that we're going to lift sanctions on Russia. We're going to invite them back to the G7. We've already normalized relations with them. And what have they got in return? Absolutely nothing.
- [29:31]
Ali Velshi
Right, Right. And it's a bit perverse when Donald Trump says of Ukraine, they don't have any cards. Because if we think back to World War II, in theory, everybody who got invaded didn't have any cards. You know, that's if you had cards to play, you wouldn't be invaded or you'd be able to fight off your invaders. The card that Ukraine has is they have managed to get all of NATO and 20 plus more countries to say it's not right. We decided after World War II, countries can't just roll into other countries. That's their card. The card is the preservation of democracy and sovereign integrity.
- [30:07]
Michael McFaul
Absolutely. And that's a card that we want them to play. By the way, it is not in America's national interest to go back to an archic world when great powers can just invade whoever they want. Go back and read your history, President Trump. That is a horrific world we don't want to return to. But it's even worse than that. When he says they don't have cards to play, that's because President Trump is holding up his cards. If President Trump was trying to create permissive conditions for a deal, he would be sending more military assistance to Ukraine so that Putin understands that he can't just keep fighting, that he's got to negotiate. He would be implementing greater sanctions. He would be working with our European allies to seize the $300 billion of Russian assets. Those are cards that Trump is denying Zelensky. So it's even worse than just not saying he doesn't have any cards. We're actually taking cards away from him.
- [31:06]
Ali Velshi
I want you to go back in history again to 1938, 1939, because J.D. vance said today that you have to be a realist. And the reality is there's no world in which Ukraine is going to win this war on its own. So there's no point in having that discussion. What does that tell you? Because again, if that's how we approached the world in 1938, we did, by the way, in 1938. But if that's how we approached it in 1939 and 1940, the world would be a very different place. Hitler would have taken over most, if not all of Europe. And who knows where that would have stopped. We decided that wasn't going to be the case to say that it's inevitable that Ukraine loses, so we need to stop this. It doesn't make sense to me.
- [31:49]
Michael McFaul
Yeah. And that word realist just gets thrown around. That makes everybody else not real. And I just think realism is protecting the borders of our European allies, and that means helping Ukraine to protect their borders. Realism back in the 30s, by the way, would have been getting more involved in the beginning when so called realists said, oh, we don't have a dog in that fight. The Japanese went into China and the realists said, well, that's not our problem. Hitler invaded Poland, they said, that's not our problem. The Soviets went into the Baltic States. That's not our problem. And then it became our problem. And that was a most unrealistic policy. And when I look at the Trump administration and their echoes talking about America first, they sound a lot like those so called realists and isolationists from the 1930s. We should learn from our mistakes in history so that we don't repeat them again. And the beauty of this is the Ukrainians are not asking us to send our soldiers there. They're not asking us to do that. They're just asking us to help them to create the permissive conditions on the battlefield so that there can be a just and enduring peace negotiations. It seems like a great deal from my perspective.
- [33:04]
Ali Velshi
They're fighting this war themselves and have been with weapons and material that we help them with, but they're doing the fighting. Mike, good to see you as always. Ambassador Michael McFall. All right, coming up. While he loved to talk about the threat of the deep state and the need to drain the swamp, the truth is that Donald Trump's massive federal cuts and layoffs are disrupting the lives of Americans who are far from Washington. Pennsylvania State Representative Mandy Steele is already seeing it in her district and she's ready to do something about it. She joins us next. Every job that's lost, one less scientist who's fighting for cures, one last educator to teach the next generation, one less public servant. Keeping our food, keeping our environment, keeping us safe every day.
- [33:54]
Mandy Steele
Shame.
- [33:55]
Michael McFaul
Shame.
- [33:56]
Ali Velshi
Every dollar cut isn't just a shrink in the budget. It takes something from every single one of us. Hundreds of scientists and health care workers protested this week against Donald Trump's decision to cut jobs and budgets at the nih. The National Institutes for are crucial to protecting American lives. Health care, education, food, stability, housing, basic things that Americans depend on to feel safe and secure are no longer protected under the Trump administration. Every dollar Donald Trump cuts from these life saving programs will result in more Americans dying early and more Americans suffering. In Pennsylvania, local officials and state leaders are scrambling to sort out how Trump's cuts are going to affect the people they serve. Our next guest, Pennsylvania State Representative Mandy Steele, wants to protect her constituents from Trump's cuts to medical research. She knows the value of medical research in her community firsthand. Her daughter was able to recover from Lyme meningitis at Children's Hospital Pittsburgh thanks to the brilliant care of pediatric infectious disease specialists who spent years studying how to fight and treat the disease. Steel's mother suffered from Parkinson's and was able to get into a trial to help ease some of her symptoms. And Steel, who is at risk for A certain type of cancer gets screenings that could save her life by highly trained doctors in Pittsburgh. So now State Representative Steele is calling on Pennsylvania's Attorney General and Senators John Fetterman and Dave McCormick to do something about Trump's attack on the medical community that could impact Pennsylvanians health. In a letter to them, she writes, quote, the dramatic cuts in funding will result in a long lasting economic blow to the region I represent as well as the entire commonwealth and country. These cuts will negatively impact the health and well being of my constituents and all Americans. All of this will give China a serious advantage, something none of us want. As a state lawmaker, I will be advocating for legislation to support vital medical research and enshrine protection for Pennsylvanians. I hope to see you by my side at this fight. Please defend American medicine. We're counting on you, end quote. Joining us now is the Democratic Pennsylvania State Representative, Mandy Steele. Representative Steel, good to have you here. Thank you for being with us. I want to start with your mom and Parkinson's and trials. These trials are often funded by federal research by the National Institutes of Health, by universities. You don't think about them much until you need them. But when you get ill and someone has done that research, in many cases, you can thank federal research dollars for that. And much of that is going away.
- [36:24]
Mandy Steele
That's right. You know, it's something that we've all experienced in our own lives and our own families. We've been saved, mended, made whole by medical innovations. This country is the leader in that space and it has a direct impact in our daily lives. And the thought of that being put in jeopardy by significant cuts to medical research funding is really alarming. Not only are we dealing with the health of people that live here, but the economy in a city like Pittsburgh. We've been through this once before. We've been through a tremendous hit to our economy in the 80s and 90s when we lost the steel industry. And staring down round two of this has put my constituents, the alarm bells are ringing for them. And so I intend to use my voice as a state legislator to really advocate for us fight for that NIH funding. We need it for our economy, we need it for our health, and we need it for our national security. We've seen recently that China is investing more than ever in their medical research funding. They've increased their funding in that area by more than any other area, including their military spend. Yet the American medical system is going to be put into a tailspin over these cuts. So we've got to come Together and really defend American medicine. And I'm calling on our attorney general and our federal senators to do just that.
- [37:46]
Ali Velshi
And by the way, you point to the economy, Pittsburgh and the area is, we call it a meds and EDS place. Right. When things went bad after the downturn in steel, these cities really leaned into educational institutions and medical institutions. So in fact, cutbacks to medicine do directly have an impact on communities like yours or people who live around Philadelphia or people who live around Houston. Cities that really have leaned into becoming world class medical centers.
- [38:17]
Mandy Steele
Absolutely. We have people that live in the district that have lost their jobs, a staggering number of people. This is the primary employer in Pittsburgh and the suburbs that surround it. And so when we, when we, if we see a big hit like this to the meds and Ed's economy, it's going to be felt in the city, but it's going to be felt way out in these suburbs too, where we're going to see young people moving away, a lack of jobs, a lack of work, housing prices are going to go down again. We've been through this before in Pittsburgh. We do not want to go through this again.
- [38:50]
Ali Velshi
Yeah, and you built it back up. I mean, now young people move to places like Pittsburgh and they live in these lofts, you know, that used to be industrial places. Once you've seen it go wrong, you don't want to see it go wrong for absolutely no good reason. Mandy Steele, good to see you. Thank you for being with us. Pennsylvania State Representative Mandy Steele. We'll be right back. A programming note before we go. Be sure to watch Velshi this weekend at 10am Eastern here on MSNBC. I'll be joined by a young woman who's become a very special friend of our show. I first met Nastya Shpat in 2022 in Warsaw, Poland. At the time, she was a 15 year old Ukrainian refugee fleeing the Russian invasion. Her father, an army chaplain, was on the front lines of the war in Donetsk. Displaced from her home, separated from her father, just a teenager, Nastya decided to do volunteer work in Warsaw helping the more newly arrived refugees. It kept her busy and positive, but she really missed her father. Thank you for coming here. Thank you. And talking to us and we will pray for your father and I'm sure he's going to be fine. Thank you. But you are supporting us. Thank you. It's very important. Not for me, it's important for my family and my friends. I know that I'm not alone and who lost everything. You're not alone. Thank you. You're not alone for sure. Thank you for being with us. Can I hug you? You'll get through this. That was nearly three years ago. And this weekend, as the full scale war nears a grim three year milestone and a new American administration is changing the reality on the ground for her country. I'll check back in with Nastia, who's back in Ukraine. That's this weekend, 10aM to noon Eastern on MSNBC. And that is tonight's last word.