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The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell
What really happened in the Trump-Musk Cabinet meeting
00:42:36
Tonight on The Last Word: The New York Times reports Elon Musk berated Cabinet secretaries for not firing enough civil service workers. Also, Democrats fiercely criticize Donald Trump for caving to Vladimir Putin. Plus, Trump’s Treasury Secretary downplays the stock market drop. And Elon Musk is spending millions to try and flip the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Kurt Andersen, Rep. Adam Smith, Robert Reich, and Ben Wikler join Ali Velshi.
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- [00:00]
Ali Velshi
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Donald Trump
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- [00:25]
Ali Velshi
Could start saving money in no time. Get a quote today. Restrictions apply every night. Next week at 9:00pm Eastern here on MSNBC. Now it's time for the Last Word, hosted by the great Ali Velshi.
- [00:38]
Kurt Anderson
Good evening, Ali.
- [00:38]
Ali Velshi
Hi friend. I'm really glad that you started off with the protests about science around this country. I was talking to Chris Hayes the other day about the National Institutes of Health. Probably the best return on investment for your taxpayer dollar there is in America. These GLP1s ozempic things like this people associate with weight loss, but they're really to fight diabetes. Diabetes and heart disease, biggest killers in this country. Discovered by two scientists working at the NIH under a taxpayer funded grant. We all think Novo Nordisk came to market with these things, they commercialized it. But the drugs were, they're inventing drugs at the NIH that are gonna save our lives that we don't even know from illnesses we don't even know exist or that we have. I mean every treatment and intervention, every treatment and vaccine and preventive intervention we with a pharmacological nexus of the last 20 to 30 years, you can trace in one way or another back to nih. And to just cut them wholesale is so. What's the word? Stupid. That it was cathartic today to see so many people out there today standing up for science. And I appreciate you focusing on those various protests just about the science part, because it's hard to know what you're fighting for in this craziness that's going on. When they're cutting all these things that are not household names that you don't think about all the time. It is important for people to go out and say this stuff really does matter. There's a reason government exists. It can be more efficient, there's no question about it. But this wholesale cutting of things is going to hurt us a lot. So thank you for doing that right now. That's right. Have yourself a great weekend. Appreciate it. See you next week. Well, we've entered the Trump Musk Fun house. Nothing is as it seems. Things are deliberately distorted, deliberately absurd, deliberately untrustworthy. And that is by design. It's to keep you disoriented as the world as we know it is smashed and reshaped. Our task is to try to find the exit to not be put off course by the wavy mirrors showing us a fake reality. So we're going to talk later about how Elon Musk is on the ballot in Wisconsin in an election coming up in three weeks. Voters still have the last word in America, so we'll see what they say. There's a governor's race this year in Virginia, a state seriously impacted by Musk's Doge chainsaw. Donald Trump is a 78 year old man with a bottomless need for attention and a tortured relationship with facts. Elon Musk is the richest man on earth, wealth created in no small part thanks to your taxpayer dollars, who is a freak. He reportedly has 14 kids with four different women, wants to colonize Mars, admits to using drugs on the regular, and claims to be running multiple companies and the US Government simultaneously while posting a thousand times a week on social media. He's not a Norma. And while Americans can tolerate that in a tech tycoon, they didn't vote for that guy to be president, which is kind of what he is now. We had that confirmed again today in some truly excellent reporting by the New York Times. Inside the explosive meeting where Trump officials clashed with Elon Musk, Subtitled Simmering anger at the billionaire's unchecked power spilled out in a remarkable cabinet room meeting. The President quickly move to rein in Mr. Musk. Trump quickly moved to rein in Mr. Musk. Doesn't sound like Trump, but we'll see. It's a very, very hard to do. It's a hard thing to do. Good reporting in the Trump Musk fun House. Reporters want to find the truth and the funhouse is fake. It's full of illusions and alternative facts and alternative math. But there's a lot of truth to be found in this particular New York Times report if you read it the right way. First, here's what Trump said about Musk. The Musk cabinet meeting to the press yesterday. Remember, the press for Trump now doesn't include the ap, but it does include Breitbart and Marjorie Taylor Greene's boyfriend reporter. Okay, so with that, here's what Donald Trump said yesterday. You spoke today with your cabinet members and Elon Musk. I did. What did you tell them in regards to Elon Musk and his authorities to Carry out actions.
- [04:56]
Marco Rubio
We had a great meeting. We had Elon and we had some of the representatives for, you know, the business reps. We also had most of the cabinet members. Not all of them. It doesn't really pertain to all of them, but many of them. And I thought it was a really good meeting.
- [05:15]
Ali Velshi
Thought it was a really good meeting, he says. Here's the New York Times reporting on that really good meeting. Quote, Mr. Musk and the Transportation Secretary, Sean Duffy, went back and forth about the state of the Federal Aviation Administration's equipment, tracking airplanes and what kind of fix was needed. Howard Lutnick, the Commerce Secretary, jumped in to support Mr. Musk. Mr. Duffy said the young staff of Mr. Musk's team was trying to lay off air traffic controllers. What am I supposed to do? Mr. Duffy said. I have multiple plane crashes to deal with right now, and your people want me to fire air traffic controllers? Mr. Musk told Mr. Duffy that this assertion was a lie. Mr. Duffy insisted it was not. He had heard it directly from them. Mr. Musk asking who had been fired. Give me their names. Tell me their names. Mr. Duffy said there were not any names because he had stopped them from being fired. At another point, Mr. Musk insisted that people hired under diversity, equity and inclusion programs were working in control towers. Mr. Duffy pushed back. Mr. Musk did not add details, end quote. All right, let's see how Trump quickly reined in Elon Musk. Quote, the exchange ended with Mr. Trump telling Mr. Duffy that he had to hire people from MIT as air traffic controllers. These air traffic controllers need to be geniuses, he said, end quote. The unelected billionaire berating Trump's Senate confirmed cabinet secretary with DEI boogeyman and accusing that secretary of straight up lying. And. And Donald Trump reined in Elon Musk by agreeing with him that the FAA should fire a bunch of air traffic controllers and hire geniuses. Problem solved. Total boss move there. How did nobody think of hiring geniuses? We did perhaps get a clue about where this might have come from.
- [07:03]
Marco Rubio
The FAA is actively recruiting workers who suffer severe intellectual disabilities, psychiatric problems, and other mental and physical conditions under a diversity and inclusion hiring initiative spelled out on the agency's website. Can you imagine?
- [07:21]
Ali Velshi
Can you imagine? Don't sleep on this. Howard Lutnick, the Commerce Secretary, jumped in to support Mr. Musk. Why is the Commerce Secretary siding with Musk in a dispute about aviation policy? Well, a quick Google search will show you Musk wanted Lutnick to be Treasury Secretary. To be the Secretary of the treasury, not Commerce Secretary where Musk lieutenants have obtained access to systems with your bank account, your Social Security number, and all kinds of sensitive and very valuable information about you. That's what Elon Musk has done under the guy he didn't want. What would Musk be doing at treasury if his guy, Howard Lutnick, had actually become the Treasury Secretary? The actual Treasury Secretary, Scott Besant, was not at the Cabinet meeting because he was on the road defending the Trump tariffs. Here's how that really good meeting went for Trump Secretary of State Marco Rubio. First, keep in mind that Marco Rubio has always exactly known who Donald Trump is. Donald Trump is a con artist. The party of Lincoln and Reagan and the presidency of the United States will never be held by a con artist. All right, here's the New York Times on how it's going for Marco Rubio. Quote, Marco Rubio was incensed. Here he was in the Cabinet Room of the White House, the Secretary of State seated beside the President and listening to a litany of attacks from the richest man in the world. Seated diagonally opposite across the elliptical mahogany table. Elon Musk was letting Mr. Rubio have it, accusing him of failing to slash his staff. You have fired nobody, Mr. Musk told Mr. Rubio, then scornfully added that perhaps the only person he had fired was a staff member from Mr. Musk's Department of Government Efficiency. Mr. Rubio had been privately furious with Mr. Musk for weeks, ever since his team effectively shuttered an entire agency that was supposedly under Mr. Rubio's control, the United States Agency for International Development, USAID. But in the extraordinary Cabinet meeting in front of President Trump and around 20 others, details of which have not been reported before, Mr. Rubio got his grievances off his chest. End quote. Will Secretary Rubio do what he's done before and stand up for usaid? Is this the moment a Republican who spent more than a decade in the Senate, served on the Foreign Affairs Committee, and as Vice Chair of the Intelligence Committee, stands up on a subject he surely knows more about than Elon Musk. Let's see. Mr. Musk was not being truthful, Mr. Rubio said. What about the more than 1,500 State Department officials who took early retirement in buyouts? Didn't they count as layoffs? He asked sarcastically whether Mr. Musk wanted him to rehire all those people just so that he could make a show of firing them again. Then he laid out his detailed plans for reorganizing the State Department. Mr. Musk was unimpressed. He told Mr. Rubio he was good on TV, with the clear subtext being he was not good for much else, end quote. So Marco Rubio's response to Elon Musk's accusations that he didn't fire enough State Department employees was, I did, too. Let's see how Trump quickly reined in Elon Musk this time, end quote. Quote. Throughout all of this, the President sat back in his chair, arms folded, as if he were watching a tennis match. After the argument dragged on for an uncomfortable time, Mr. Trump finally intervened to defend Mr. Rubio as doing a, quote, great job, end quote. Mr. Rubio has a lot to deal with, the President said. He's very busy. He's always traveling and on tv and he has an agency to run. So everyone just needs to work together, end quote. Everyone just needs to work together. It is literally impossible to imagine any private sector boardroom where that person would be allowed to participate in decision making, let alone be the actual decision maker. No, the President did not quickly move to rein in Mr. Musk. I don't think he reined in Mr. Musk at all. In fact, here's more of what Trump said about the really good meeting yesterday before the New York Times report came out.
- [11:37]
Marco Rubio
I had a meeting and I said, I want the Cabinet members go first. Keep all the people you want, everybody that you need. We're going to be watching them and Elon and the group are going to be watching them. And if they can cut, it's better. And if they don't cut, then Elon will do the cutting.
- [11:55]
Ali Velshi
If the Cabinet secretaries don't cut, then Elon will do the cutting. Doesn't sound reined in. So what happened? Yes, there is a report, a valuable report of who said what and who sat where and what was discussed during the meeting at the White House. And of course, Trump lied straight face to the news cameras about what actually happened. But what happened is this. No one stood up to Elon Musk and said, I don't answer to you. I don't serve at the pleasure of Elon Musk. And no one forced Donald Trump to admit, oh yes, you do. What does Marco Rubio think? His job actually is to advise and influence Trump's foreign policy. Trashing Zelensky, defending white South African farmers doesn't seem like Marco Rubio's fingerprints on those policies. Sounds like from this reporting, Rubio's more like a mid level HR manager at the State Department. What actually happened is that Elon Musk showed once again that he is in charge more than Trump more than the Cabinet members, and not one of them dared say or show otherwise. But what also happened is some New York Times reporters who weren't in the room found out about it with details and direct quotes. The Times reports this account is based on interviews with five people with knowledge of the events. End quote. So which five people decided to tell it like it is? People who signed up to work for Trump and now actually work for Musk. People who thought they'd be working in a Republican White House, not a Trump Musk fun house. Dare I say someone with a shred of personal dignity left. None of these people are desperate. They don't have to be berated by Elon Musk to pay their mortgage. It's their choice to be there, to subject themselves to this. Adult men and women whose kids will one day read about how they let themselves be abused by a person they did not work for while their boss sat back and watched. So who talked? Who talked to the New York Times? Why? What did the people who talked to the New York Times hope to achieve? One result is Trump being mad. Trump lied about the meeting yesterday to make it seem like he's in charge. I had a meeting, but seems like Trump was a nobody in that room. A minor character. And today, when Trump was asked about the New York Times report, he couldn't deny the truth. Mr. President, since you last spoke about it yesterday, some details have come out about your Cabinet meeting with Elon Musk and some clashes potentially between Secretary Rubio and Secretary.
- [14:27]
Marco Rubio
No clash. I was there. You're just a troublemaker and you're not supposed to be asking that question because we're talking about the World Cup. Elon gets along great with Marco and they're both doing a fantastic job. There is no clash.
- [14:40]
Ali Velshi
But Mr. President, who? Bottom line, NBC.
- [14:44]
Donald Trump
No wonder.
- [14:45]
Marco Rubio
Mr. President, NBC.
- [14:46]
Ali Velshi
Who has more authority?
- [14:47]
Donald Trump
Elon Musk or your Cabinet secretaries?
- [14:50]
Ali Velshi
Note that little thing, by the way. That's enough, NBC. Joining us now, Kurt Anderson, the New York Times best selling author of Evil Geniuses, the Unmaking of America and Fantasyland, How America Went Haywire. Kurt, nice to see you again. Thank you for being with us.
- [15:05]
Robert Reich
My pleasure.
- [15:06]
Ali Velshi
I don't know what to make of it. The idea. First of all, we know from reporting, contemporaneous reporting not 24 hours old, that what Donald Trump said happened in that meeting is not what happened. That there is tension between Elon Musk and the Cabinet secretaries, that the normals in the room, you may not like or share Marco Rubio's policies or the policies of the maga Transportation Secretary. But there are some people in the room who don't think that Elon Musk should be running the country the way he is at the moment.
- [15:39]
Robert Reich
Yeah, that's, that's so. And, and you notice that the people who at least talked back to mosque and defended themselves and called him a liar and so forth. Transportation Secretary and Rubio were none of the Tulsi Gabbard, Bobby Kennedy, Pete Hegseth, the people in the Cabinet who would not be nowhere close to the West Wing or a cabinet secretaryship if not for Donald Trump.
- [16:08]
Ali Velshi
Right.
- [16:09]
Robert Reich
As you say, Ali, in your introduction, these are people who have careers and have jobs and could get work elsewhere. So, and in the case of Marco Rubio, was, was a, was a US Senator. So those are the people who had enough backbone to say, hey, dude, you can't treat me like this. The other thing, you know, it's so, I mean, it was effectively a public spectacle. Not like with Zelinsky in the Oval Office last week, but next door in the Cabinet Room. And there are 20 people in a room. It is public. You know, you know, 1 or 2 or 10 or 5 in this case are going to talk to somebody like the New York Times and give them the blow by blow as they did. So that's the thing. And in this case, it wasn't Trump and Vance suddenly, for whatever set of emotional impulse control reasons, yelling at Zelensky. It was, it was their boy Musk. And it's just extraordinary. And again, it gets to how Musk is so different than any of these other Cabinet secretaries, these minions who are minions. He has his own power. His, as you say, richest man on Earth is $300 billion. Well, now, much less than that because of how much Tesla has gone down. But, but it's a different thing. He's not just either a, a, a public servant of a kind or, or a freak that, that, this, that Trump has hired. He, he has his own, his own bases of power. And that makes it a whole different, you know, question. Like, it's really easy. You're gonna rein him in. Very apt. Because how do you, how do you reign this guy in?
- [17:58]
Ali Velshi
You know, there are a whole lot of people. If Elon Musk, who is unaccountable to the American people because nobody voted for him, is a problem, there are a whole lot of people watching this show tonight who would be just as upset with Donald Trump and a whole, and the Pete Hexis and the Tulsi Gabbards and the Cash Patel's and the RFK juniors of the world for their actual policy decisions, but they're somewhat accountable because they're appointed to cabinet position and approved by the Senate. What's the distinction here? That an unaccountable billionaire, you know, we throw the word oligarch around, but there's something very weird here. Elon Musk funded Donald Trump's campaign. He's now funded a new series of ads. This is a, this is a roller coaster. This is a, this is a merry go round really. Elon Musk continues to fund Donald Trump. Donald Trump continues to do Elon Musk's bidding.
- [18:51]
Robert Reich
Yeah. And of course, there are various, there's litigation challenging this very fact. And so we'll see how that goes. And for instance, one of the, one of the sets of lawsuits challenges it on the basis of a constitutional provision that says he can't be running a thing like this. And of course, the White House has said, oh, he's not running it. Well, he clearly is. As Donald Trump said the other day, he said at his, you know, speech to Congress, Elon Musk is running Doge. And, and clearly the yesterday was a vivid example of the way in which he is you know, the other thing he said to the point of the incredible disrespect he showed these people, as well as of course, the disrespect that Doge, by its nature, by its mission practically is showing to federal workers is, is, you know, you're a liar, you haven't fired anyone. All that stuff that he said to Rubio, but he said he then defended himself as, as Maggie have Everman and John Swan reported in that article, say, hey, I built, you know, several multi billion dollar companies from the ground up. I know how to hire and fire good people. Well, I mean, okay, maybe, but also you don't, you, you ostensibly don't work here, even though where we're effectively reporting to you. And you, as you say, you haven't been appointed, confirmed by the Senate or by any legal constitutional means. Even this power that you have been granted.
- [20:25]
Ali Velshi
It's a worrisome set of developments, but we'll continue to follow it. Kirk, good to see you as always. Thank you for joining us. Kurt Anderson. All right, coming on, Donald Trump is upending the last 80 years of geopolitical order on this planet, siding with a murderous invader named Vladimir Putin instead of the Ukrainian president and champion of democracy, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. What does this mean for the future of this nation, for Europe, for NATO, for Ukraine and beyond. Congressman Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, joins me next.
- [20:55]
Ben Wickler
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- [21:58]
Ali Velshi
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- [22:29]
Kurt Anderson
This is an ad by BetterHelp. Think about the people who inspire you most. Guess what? They don't have all the answers, but they do know how to ask for support when they need it. Therapy is a great way to find that support. BetterHelp has experienced therapists ready to help you with challenges ranging from clinical issues to the stress of everyday life. And it's convenient too. Visit betterhelp.com today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp h e l p.com.
- [23:03]
Ali Velshi
For the past week, beginning with the stunning and monumentally stupid ambush of American ally Volodymyr Zelenskyy in in the Oval Office by the President and Vice President of the United States, Republicans, their right wing media echo chamber and even some other members of the press have been treating this clash as a difference of opinion on foreign policy. Frankly and because this is a family show, let's just say that's crap. This is not a difference of opinion on foreign policy. What we're seeing is an administration, for reasons neither beneficial nor precedential to the United States and its allies, upend and cast aside 80 years of geopolitical world order that has kept kept large scale multinational wars a thing of the past. And seemingly on cue, an emboldened Russia led by murderous invader Vladimir Putin escalated its attacks on Ukraine. Late yesterday and early today, Vladimir Putin's military hit critical infrastructure, including power and fuel facilities. In a video released today, President Zelensky said Russia launched both cruise and ballistic missiles as well as attack drones. Ukraine's ability to anticipate and respond to these attacks is actually hampered right now because of the White House. Reporting from Kyiv, Time magazine senior correspondent Simon Schuster, a frequent guest on this program, writes this, quote, the U.S. decision to suspend the flow of military intelligence to Ukraine this week has aided the Russian advance along a critical part of the front, weakening the negotiating position of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and killing many Ukrainian soldiers in recent days, according to five senior Western and Ukrainian officials and military officers familiar with the situation. Quote, as a result of this pause, there are hundreds of dead Ukrainians, one of the officers told Time in an interview on Friday in Kyiv, asking not to be named when discussing sensitive military operations. The biggest problem is morale, he added, as the armed forces of Ukraine are being left to fight without some of their best weapon systems, not as a result of Russian attacks, but American pullbacks. It's really causing an advantage for the enemy on the front line. That's not a foreign policy dispute, that's the president of the United States, quote, really causing an advantage for the enemy on the front line, end quote. And simultaneously, according to Politico, quote, four senior members of Donald Trump's entourage have held secret discussions with some of Kyiv's top political opponents to Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Just as Washington aligns with Moscow in seeking to lever the Ukrainian president out of his job, the senior Trump allies held talks with Ukrainian opposition leader Yulia Timoshenko, a remorselessly ambitious former prime minister, and senior members of the party of Petro Poroshenko, Zelenskyy's immediate predecessor as president, according to three Ukrainian parliamentarians and a US Republican foreign policy expert, end quote. Causing an advantage for Ukraine's invading enemy and meeting with the political opposition to Volodymyr Zelenskyy. It's impossible to overstate how far, far past normal the foreign Policy doctrine of Donald Trump's second term is shaping up to be. Today, Donald Trump said he is, quote, strongly considering new sanctions and tariffs on Russia after its latest assault on Ukraine. But Donald Trump says a lot of things, often things directly contradicting other things that Donald Trump has just said. So for now, we're going to focus a lot more on what he's doing. And since last Friday's fight in the Oval Office, the things he's doing are hurting Ukraine and helping Vladimir Putin. Joining us now is Congressman Adam Smith, Democrat of Washington State. He's the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee. Congressman, good to see you in person. You're often a very regular guest for us and we appreciate that, particularly early in the weekend mornings. Let's talk about this. This war between Russia and Ukraine has in many cases been a war of attrition. Slow moves here and there, slow advances by Ukraine, certain setbacks. But they have depended on certain things from US Military equipment, materiel and intelligence. In fact, the intelligence has probably been the most important part of it. We just suddenly stopped that. We stopped giving them certain intelligence. That's going to make it a lot easier for Russia to make advances in Ukraine and to weaken the Ukrainian resolve.
- [27:10]
Adam Smith
Absolutely. The effect of what Donald Trump has done is to empower Putin and Russia, weaken Ukraine and crucially prolong the war. Cuz if Putin thinks he's winning, he's gonna keep going right to Kyiv.
- [27:23]
Ali Velshi
He doesn't need a ceasefire.
- [27:24]
Adam Smith
Right. You have to be able to deter him. Now, whether or not Trump's decisions were because he's just not that smart at negotiating, or whether or not it is the darker case that I heard Thomas Friedman make on this network earlier today, that Trump ultimately doesn't care if Putin takes Ukraine, I don't know. But the effect is 100% certain. And it is to empower Putin and prolong the war. Now, Trump and his supporters like to say, look, he just wants to end the war. He wants to get a peace deal. What he's doing is having the exact opposite effect. He's putting all of the pressure on Zelensky, crippling Zelensky as you just described, while Zelenskyy is already under enough pressure from Russia, from Putin, and Trump is completely throwing the door open for Putin. Putin's not gonna come to the table if Trump's taken all the pressure off of him. So his moves are either idiotic or, or clearly designed to abandon Ukraine in favor of Putin. Either way, it's a disaster for US Credibility and for Our global interests, not to mention, of course, for Ukraine and much of Europe.
- [28:28]
Ali Velshi
Yeah. So there's this obsession Donald Trump has with getting paid back. Now, that misses a lot of the point, and that is much of the aid we give Ukraine is spent in the United States. Its armaments, it's foundries that are working 24 hours to provide the stuff that we need.
- [28:43]
Adam Smith
Actually, that point aside, what we get back is we get what you just described. We got 80 years of peace post World War II.
- [28:50]
Scott Besant
Yeah.
- [28:50]
Ali Velshi
That's the more important thing.
- [28:51]
Adam Smith
There's this perception that we have been so just benevolent to the people of Europe. Look, we are the richest, most powerful nation in the history of the world. And a big part of that is what you said. We have stopped world wars from happening. Of course, we have gotten such a return on our investment in Europe that you just wouldn't believe. And if we pull that out and take us back to the 19th century world that Trump envisions, which is nation states fighting each other, we saw how that came out in World War I and World War II and decided, let's try something different. Trump wants to take us back to that brutally might makes right competitive world that ends in disasters.
- [29:28]
Scott Besant
But he.
- [29:28]
Ali Velshi
It's the same thing he's doing on trade. He'd like to be in individual negotiations with everyone because he thinks the United States is stronger one on one than everyone. And he's quite possibly right about that. But that's not how the world has kept relative peace for 80 years. It's not that we've had total peace for 80 years, but we've not had World War Three for 80.
- [29:46]
Adam Smith
But plus, we're not going to be that much stronger for too long if we alienate absolutely every country in the world. The BRICS nations have formed. China, Russia, Argentina, Brazil. They're forming an economic alternative. And the more we punch people like Canada and Mexico and Europe and all of our allies in the face, the more they're going to turn away from us and strengthen other countries because they're gonna know we're unreliable. Not just unreliable, but we're actively trying to harm them because somehow Trump perceives that that benefits us and it really doesn't.
- [30:21]
Ali Velshi
He said he wants to get back into. He says he's written to the Iranians to get back into the Iranian nuclear deal. We had one until he pulled us. Till he pulled us out of it. You and I have a lot of things to talk about. So I'm giving you a standing invitation now to come back and we'll continue to have this conversation, not just about foreign policy and military matters, but about about the Democratic Party and how we fight back against what's going on with Donald Trump. Adam Smith is the House Armed Services Committee ranking member and a Democrat from Washington. Good to see you.
- [30:48]
Adam Smith
Thank you.
- [30:48]
Ali Velshi
All right, coming up, we finally have some hard data on the effects of Donald Trump and Elon Musk's pillaging of the federal government. And if you like a strong economy and a job market, the news isn't so great. The former Labor Secretary Robert Reich is my guest next.
- [31:03]
Ben Wickler
We all have that one friend who can fall asleep like anywhere, at the movies, on car rides or at live sporting events. And I have always been jealous because on the other hand, from noise machines to mouth taping, I'm a lost cause. Or at least I thought I was until I decided to make this simple change. Get a new pillow Coop's original adjustable pillow completely changed my sleep. I used to toss and turn all night, waking up with like neck pain and feeling drained. Since switching to Coop, I sleep soundly and wake up energized and pain free. No matter if you sleep on your side, your back or your stomach, you can adjust the pillow's height by adding or taking out the fil. It's a mix of microfiber and memory foam that stays plush and never goes flat. And they offer a 100 night better sleep guarantee you deserve to wake up feeling refreshed and ache free. It's the perfect time to try Coop with their Sleep week sale and get 20% off site wide from March 9 to March 15, get 20% off. Visit our website at coopsleepgoods.com health that's copsleepgoods.com health this season, let your shoes do the talking. Designer Shoe Warehouse is packed with fresh styles that speak to your whole vibe.
- [32:13]
Ali Velshi
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- [32:37]
Kurt Anderson
This is an ad by BetterHelp. Think about the people who inspire you most. Guess what? They don't have all the answers, but they do know how to ask for support when they need it. Therapy is a great way to find that support. BetterHelp has experienced therapists ready to help you with challenges ranging from clinical issues to the stress of everyday life. And it's convenient too. Visit betterhelp.com today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp h e l p.com.
- [33:10]
Ali Velshi
Here are the top stories on the Wall Street Journal front page tonight. S and P Post's worst week since the election. US added 151,000 jobs last month below expectations. Tariff fights keep the Fed in holding pattern over rates. Stock market saw its worst week this week since September. Lucky for Trump, he's not even watching the markets, end quote. During his first term, Trump constantly used the stock market as a metric for success. He constantly told VOT supporters during the campaign that there would be a stock market crash if a Democrat was elected, even though the market has never been higher and your 401k has never done better than it did during the Biden presidency. But now Donald Trump wants us to believe that he's, quote, not even watching the markets. Treasury Secretary Scott Besant has been doing damage control on Trump tariff induced chaos in New York this week because you know, they're totally not watching or extremely worried about the markets.
- [34:02]
Adam Smith
If we ever went down 20% on the Nasdaq or 15% on the S and P with people that want Trump to fail, that's going to be splayed across every newspaper in the world.
- [34:13]
Ali Velshi
I'm just wondering whether the tolerance for.
- [34:16]
Adam Smith
Something like that for the administration.
- [34:18]
Ali Velshi
Well, look, as you said, Joe, market was up 20% last year. 20% house money.
- [34:24]
Adam Smith
No, no, no.
- [34:25]
Ali Velshi
I'm going to put it another way, okay? The did the Biden administration succeed? The American people weren't buying it just because the market was up. That's Donald Trump's treasury secretary stating a true, the market was up 20% under Joe Biden as the economy roared back after Covid. But then Bessen says correctly that the stock market is not the only economic issue people vote on. Correct. It's not even the main one. But the stock market is a temperature check for the economy. It is in a sense a bet on how people think the economy will do. And the economy is people, workers, consumers, businesses. There's never a time when wages are up and jobs are plentiful and interest rates are low and the stock market is crashing. So when the stock market nose dives, as it did a couple times this week, it's a signal that there's possibly a problem. That problem might be contained to the stock market, but in this case it might be broader. If Donald Trump's erratic on again, off again trade war with Mexico and Canada continues, investors will remain uncertain and businesses won't hire Trump was at it again today with a new tariff threat on Canadian dairy products and lumber. One day after announcing a pause on some imported goods from Canada and Mexico. This is the first jobs report of Trump 2.0. The US economy added 151,000 net new jobs in February, falling short of economists expectations of 170,000 jobs. The unemployment rate rose from 4% to 4.1%. Federal government employment fell by 10,000 thanks to Doge. The impact of Donald Trump and Elon Musk's mask firings are only just starting to emerge. And Trump and Elon Musk will say, oh, these are just federal worker jobs. Federal worker jobs are jobs. Federal workers have families, they buy coffee, they buy lunch, they buy dinner when they are employed, they have cars, they have mortgages, they take vacations. The impact doesn't end with laid off employees. And they are not just in D.C. and Maryland and Virginia, but in all the places across the country. Veterans hospitals and Social Security offices and IRS buildings and farms with USAID contracts. Yeah, there are a lot of them. A lot of USAID contracts buy agriculture from American farms. We're just starting to see the real impact. Joining us now, Robert Reich. He served as the Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton. He's a professor of public policy at UC Berkeley and a co founder of Inequality Media. Professor, it's always good to see you. Thank you for being with us. This does come across a bit like chaos. The, the, the tariffs on, the tariffs off, the, the, it just, the whole thing doesn't make, there's no, there's no theory of the game here unless you have one.
- [37:11]
Scott Besant
I don't have one. I'm sorry. It is chaos and the markets hate chaos. You know, investors don't like uncertainty to begin with. And by the way, that unemployment report that you got was based on surveys that are done in the middle of the month. They were done in the middle of this past month. But the real chaos broke out with regard to the tariffs over the last couple of weeks. So I don't even want to predict, but I worry about the next unemployment report.
- [37:45]
Ali Velshi
Let's talk a little bit about what we're solving for this. A lot of business reporters today and yesterday were trying to get to the bottom of the, some of them were conservative, but they're saying what exactly are you solving for? You and I have talked for a long time about the fact that there's fundamental inequality in the United States. There's a lot of wealth, there's a lot of stock market value, there's A lot of GDP in America, it's not equally divided. That's the thing that someone should be solving for. It's even a thing that Donald Trump argued he would solve for. But that's not what any of this is doing.
- [38:16]
Scott Besant
No, in fact, it's just the opposite. The people who are paying really in a very large way for the inflation and the inflationary expectations that a lot of consumers have right now. In fact, one of the most important reports out last week was that consumer confidence is going down and their expectations of inflation are going up. And the people who pay most are obviously people who are working class and poor because it takes a larger chunk out of their paychecks. What we're also seeing, Ali, is a great deal of uncertainty with regard to prices. You remember, Donald Trump was elected by a lot of people who thought the economy was bad. You and I know that the data actually show the economy to be pretty good. But prices did not come down.
- [39:07]
Ali Velshi
Right.
- [39:07]
Scott Besant
And what they really wanted was prices to come down. Prices are not coming down. Donald Trump is doing nothing to get prices down. In fact, quite the opposite is happening. Those tariffs, if they go through, and I assume they will be going through, are going to raise prices. And if he goes through with his threat to expel and kick out of the country, you know, 11 to 15 million American workers, even if they are not properly here, that's going to also have a huge negative effect on prices.
- [39:42]
Ali Velshi
But the Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessant, said something interesting. They're changing the narrative here. He's saying low prices. I'm paraphrasing, but he says it's not really the American dream. That shouldn't be our goal. Whether that's true or not, whether we should be paying more because we should be, we should have universal health care or we should have higher wages, that's a different story. Y'all campaigned on bringing prices down, and you're actually engaging in things that will bring prices up while supporting a federal budget that is going to take all of these cuts that Elon Musk is undertaking and put them toward tax breaks for the wealthy.
- [40:21]
Scott Besant
Exactly. And it's not just Doge and Elon Musk's compatriots who are making these cuts. The Republican budget also talked about $880 billion of cuts in Medicaid and other social programs that people depend on, particularly working class and poor people, in order to make way for what is expected to be four and a half billion trillion dollars of tax cuts. I mean, this is reverse Robin Hood on steroids. This is not what a lot of Trump voters voted for. They probably, I would expect that they have a lot of buyer's remorse right now.
- [41:03]
Ali Velshi
Well, the 4.5 trillion in cuts, so there's some fancy math going on with alternative math, let's call it. The argument that Republicans are using is that don't count those because because they were already on the books, we're just extending them. So they shouldn't count as $4.5 trillion, which is kind of like saying I spend 250 bucks a week on groceries and I'm going to keep on spending 250 bucks a week on groceries. So let's just take it out of the budget because it's already there.
- [41:31]
Scott Besant
It means that the federal debt keeps on growing and the deficit keeps on growing and the amount of that money that pays, actually bondholders, people who hold the debt keeps on growing. So in that way as well, average working people and the poor are being shafted.
- [41:50]
Ali Velshi
The question is when they'll catch up to this, because the average viewer is astute. They knew they were paying more for the price of eggs. They understood that you can't tell people they're not. They're also going to realize they're paying a lot more for the price of eggs now and a whole lot of other things. And they're going to see a whole bunch of wealthy people get a tax cut at the expense of their Medicaid, their community health centers, their VA hospitals. Bob, good to see you again as always, former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich.
- [42:15]
Scott Besant
Thanks, Alex.
- [42:15]
Ali Velshi
All right, coming up, while a lot of attention is deservedly going toward the havoc that Elon Musk is wreaking on our federal government with the unchecked band of Doge Bros. Our next guest is keeping his eye on something, keeping his eye on something else that Musk is up to, namely pouring his cash into a state election in Wisconsin.
- [42:32]
Scott Besant
Why?
- [42:32]
Ali Velshi
Well, the Wisconsin Democratic Party chairman, Ben Whitler joins me next to explain. In the state of Wisconsin, the next big election day is April 1, and Elon Musk is on the ballots. Wisconsin Public Radio puts it this billionaire Elon Musk is pouring millions of dollars into Wisconsin's Supreme Court race as his electric vehicle company wages a legal fight that could reach the state's high court. Musk is backing Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimmel, the conservative candidate in the race and former state attorney general. The April 1 election pits Schimmel against Dane County Judge Susan Crawford, the liberal candidate in the race. Musk's money has helped tip the funding scales in conservative favor, but it comes as Tesla is suing the state over a decision that prevented the company from opening dealerships in Wisconsin, end quote. In addition to the Tesla lawsuit in Wisconsin, there's something else that might be a reason why Elon Musk is so interested in this campaign. Wisconsin is, as anyone who follows national politics knows, a battleground state. And when Joe Biden won the 2020 election, it was up to the Wisconsin Supreme Court to reject Donald Trump's attempt to overturn the will of Wisconsin voters. When Trump challenged the state's results and reject Donald Trump, the Wisconsin Supreme Court did in a 4 to 3 decision. So you can see why it isn't just Elon, but also Donald Trump and the Republican Party who would love to tip the scales in this election. But Elon Musk isn't the only one buying ads in this election. So is the Wisconsin Democratic Party firing.
- [44:05]
Scott Besant
Air traffic controllers, cutting rape crisis centers, attacking Social Security. Elon Musk is out of control.
- [44:13]
Ali Velshi
And now the power hungry billionaire is.
- [44:16]
Scott Besant
Unloading millions to buy the Wisconsin Supreme Court. He knows MAGA politician Brad Schimmel is for sale and will abolish the checks and balances that protect us. He thinks he's above the law. Protect our last line of defense. Vote Susan Crawford for Supreme Court.
- [44:36]
Ali Velshi
Joining me now, Ben Wickler, the chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. Ben, good to see you again. Let's talk about this. There are, this is one of those fights in the country. There are a lot of people who think the next fight is the next congressional election. But in fact, so much has happened now. There is a rare opportunity for voters in this country, in Wisconsin, in Virginia, who still have agency, you still have the vote to be able to say what you think about what's happening.
- [45:05]
Donald Trump
That's exactly right. The Wisconsin supreme court election is 25 days away. On April 1, voters will either vote for Susan Crawford, who's the kind of dedicated, lifelong public servant that Elon Musk seems intent on vanquishing from government service, or for Brad Schimmel, who is nakedly for sale, who was just saying to Turning Point usa, a far right group, that Trump was screwed over when the Supreme Court failed to overturn the 2020 election result in order to hand that election to Donald Trump. So this is an elemental choice. And if voters fight back, if people go to peoplevmusk.com and volunteer and donate, they can help Susan Crawford beat Brad Schill and send a message to the country that Elon Musk's millions cannot buy the court system in the states the way he seems to have bought the federal government.
- [45:50]
Ali Velshi
I want to read from The Washington Post that's been writing about this. I said two years ago, liberals gained a 4, 3 majority on the court after 15 years of conservative control. They threw out legislative maps that gave Republicans commanding majorities in the state House, reinstated the use of absentee ballot drop boxes and accepted cases that will decide whether abortion remains legal in the state. But with a liberal justice retiring this year, conservatives now have a shot at regaining the majority. If they do not, liberals are poised to control the court until at least 2028, and interest groups are expected to file redistricting litigation that could give Democrats one or in Congress. Ben, let me ask you about this. Who is the target here? Is it Democrats who are the last line of defense, or is it moderates and centrists and Republicans who may not have voted for Elon Musk and wanted him to be controlling how politics works in your state, in this country?
- [46:45]
Donald Trump
Anyone who doesn't think that Elon Musk should be able to take his chainsaw to Social Security, to the Veterans Administration, to Medicaid and healthcare programs and food inspection and cancer research, anyone who who doesn't think Trump and Musk should be able to circumvent Congress and the Constitution and shred the American system of government and American democracy should vote against Brad Schimmel and for Susan Crawford. That's every Democrat and a lot more people than that. And the fight is coming soon.
- [47:12]
Ali Velshi
Ben, good to see you as always. Thank you. Ben Wickler is the chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party. The last thing you want to hear when you need your auto insurance most is a robot with countless irrelevant menu options. Which is why with USA Auto Auto.
- [47:23]
Donald Trump
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- [47:25]
Ali Velshi
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