Chris Hayes (4:18)

What you see in Virginia tonight, if you look at county level, is basically every single county moving towards Democrats, including.

Chris Hayes (4:25)

The rural ones, right?

Chris Hayes (4:26)

So one of the things we saw in the Trump years was you'd have these nights where the top line would be the Democrats are doing well, or Trump is, you know, Republicans are doing well. But when you went down, you saw the Trumpier counties getting Trumpier and the non Trumpier counties getting even non Trumpier. What we're seeing tonight, Virginia, if you look at the county level, everything moving towards the Democrats, including the Trumpy counties, and in demographics too. So young people, men, women. So what we're seeing is like a real kind of wholesale shift as opposed to just the continuation of those, all of these.

Ron Filipkowski (4:59)

Now, let's bring in Chris Hayes of msnbc, soon to be known as Ms. Now.

Interviewer (5:06)

Chris, it's great to see you. So is Donald Trump going to have to sue for billions of dollars his own social media platform right there. People want the truth right now, right? And to Me, when Trump just continues to lie, it's just at odds with what people are experiencing.

Chris Hayes (5:23)

Yeah, I think it's particularly true on.

Chris Hayes (5:24)

The economy where it's just really hard to tell people.

Chris Hayes (5:28)

I mean, keep in mind, he didn't.

Chris Hayes (5:31)

Say we're going to bring inflation down.

Interviewer (5:33)

Right.

Chris Hayes (5:33)

Inflation is the rate of growth, of prices.

Chris Hayes (5:36)

He couldn't say we're going to get.

Chris Hayes (5:37)

Inflation back to 2%.

Chris Hayes (5:38)

His promise was prices will come down. Now, prices coming down is an almost impossible promise to deliver on unless you.

Chris Hayes (5:46)

Induce a recession or a depression. Inflation is just part of the way that modern economies work. There's always some inflation, some price rise.

Chris Hayes (5:54)

So the promise he always, he overpromised. And now they're under delivering because not only are prices not coming down, they're actually going up by more. We've seen inflation tick up, and largely that's driven not by macroeconomic conditions, like.

Chris Hayes (6:10)

What happened in, for instance, you know, January, February 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine and oil prices spiked and we saw inflation go up to 9%. We, Joe Biden couldn't do anything about that. Right.

Chris Hayes (6:24)

It's the unilateral application of the tariffs. So it's a crazy situation in which he promised to bring down prices, which.

Chris Hayes (6:30)

He can never really do.

Chris Hayes (6:32)

Prices are going up, he's lying about it. And also the thing that's driving the increase in the rate of prices going up is the unilateral application of literally hundreds of billions, if not trillions of dollars in terrorists that he alone has put on the entire thing is, is completely a lie. And I do think it's one of those situations where, you know, there's big lies, there's little lies.

Chris Hayes (6:53)

There are lies about trivial things, there's lies about central things. But lying about that so flagrantly is a really tough one to get away with.

Ron Filipkowski (7:00)

You know, he floods the zone with 10,000 lies a day, it seems, at this point, and he floods the Zone with so much information, it's hard to keep track of it all.

Interviewer (7:13)

Just what's your approach, Chris, in terms of your reporting?

Ron Filipkowski (7:16)

What, when you're delivering this to the audience on MSNBC or Ms. Now to say, here's what we need to be.

Interviewer (7:23)

Focused on right now, here are the issues that matter. And how do you try to remain fearless in the face of the barrage of attacks that you personally come under and your network comes under?

Chris Hayes (7:35)

Well, to take the last question first.

Chris Hayes (7:38)

Like, I don't care what people are saying about me or us or whether.

Chris Hayes (7:42)

It'S the president or Republicans Like, I got. We got a job to do. I know what we're trying to do.

Chris Hayes (7:46)

Which is tell the truth and.

Chris Hayes (7:49)

Act.

Chris Hayes (7:49)

As part of a broader effort across civil society to preserve American democracy in the face of its foes. That's really the project right now.

Chris Hayes (8:01)

And just.

Chris Hayes (8:01)

And to eventually get to a point where you see a more just and thriving country than the one we have now.

Chris Hayes (8:10)

So I don't, you know, I really.

Chris Hayes (8:13)

Don'T, day to day, minute to minute, care that much about whatever is being said about me or about us in.

Chris Hayes (8:20)

Terms of what we do. We do try to focus on what.

Chris Hayes (8:22)

Is true and what's not.

Chris Hayes (8:24)

We, you know, there's a certain degree to which you're always calibrating how much.

Chris Hayes (8:28)

Are you chasing the ball that he kicked and how much are you trying to assert what's important. Certain stories, like the shutdown, they just are the story. And they're both substantively important, and I think they're compelling to people.

Chris Hayes (8:43)

Sometimes with something like the ballroom.

Chris Hayes (8:45)

The ballroom.

Chris Hayes (8:46)

Such an interesting story because substantively, again, in the.

Chris Hayes (8:50)

In the ranking of things he's done, for instance, like unilaterally destroy usaid, perhaps killing hundreds of thousands of people, that's not even an exaggeration. You know, getting rid of a ballroom doesn't have the same moral weight, but.

Chris Hayes (9:03)

It also just symbolically, viscerally, narratively packs a real punch. And so we're sort of always balancing those different things. Sometimes there are stories that are really weird, morally urgent, but a little remote.

Chris Hayes (9:15)

Sometimes there stories that are really, really.

Chris Hayes (9:16)

Visceral, that are less morally urgent, but.

Chris Hayes (9:19)

They tell a story. Sometimes those two overlap is in the case of, like, SNAP benefits running out.

Chris Hayes (9:24)

There's always this kind of calibration of.

Chris Hayes (9:25)

These different, you know, these different equities at stake in terms of what story you're trying to tell and where you're trying to focus attention, you know.

Ron Filipkowski (9:34)

And I think that Ballroom also serves as a connective tissue to the USAID dismantling. When you look at the Great Gatsby parties and you see, here are where his priorities are. Here's 42 million Americans losing SNAP. Here's USAID being defunct.

Interviewer (9:53)

Here's 20 million Americans having their health care ripped away, but they're having a grand old time at a party where the theme is a little party never killed nobody, as people are. As people are dying. But on any given day, though, like, just take this morning while we're recording this. I just checked. I just said, what's he posting? I've got Chris Hayes going on, like, what's Donald Trump even saying today? Where in any other time, someone who behaved and made these posts, this would be front page news everywhere. 25th amendment, like, this is just this morning before you and I did this interview, he goes the real shutdown story. And he's posting an account, May 15 prophecy. It's a Trump prophecy account that when you get into it, all these bizarre claims that he sent from other world, like, very strange. Then he posts patriotic pinups, half naked women dressed like in bikinis and American flags. And then he follows it up by saying that former President Barack Obama should go to prison for a Russian collision. Not collusion, but Russian collusion. Now, had any person make these posts, if Obama posted this, if Biden, your.

Chris Hayes (11:05)

Coworker, forget the president. If your friend, forget the president. If your friend or your co worker, you'd be like, buddy, you okay? How are you doing? I feel like things, something's up with.

Chris Hayes (11:16)

You, what's going on.

Interviewer (11:20)

But you've gone there and lots of reporters don't go there. I mean, like you've talked about, like, look at what this guy's saying. Like, look at his. Let me show you this, Chris. This was what you were focused on as we were focused on during the campaign. Let me just show this report that you did and then let's talk about it. Let's play it.

Chris Hayes (11:37)

Good evening from New York, I'm Chris Hayes. We've got some breaking news tonight. An exclusive all in scoop. It's this. Donald Trump is 78 years old. Did you know that if elected, he will be the oldest person to ever be sworn in as president United States? He is a man that is suffering from, I think, pretty obvious mental decline. But in contrast to the breathless coverage of Joe Biden's age and fitness, which again, made certain amount of sense prior to his dropping out of the presidential race, we are not seeing nearly as much discussion about Trump's diminished mental acuity.

Interviewer (12:12)

Chris, I think it's so important that.

Ron Filipkowski (12:13)

You focused on that then we did. Many others didn't talk to us about that.

Chris Hayes (12:18)

Yeah, I mean, I think he doesn't.

Chris Hayes (12:21)

I mean, with him it's always weird because he's always been so addled as long as he's been in the public eye. But it is strange the degree to which, like so much of that story.

Chris Hayes (12:32)

In 2024 was about Biden's age.

Chris Hayes (12:35)

And it was very clear that A.

Chris Hayes (12:36)

Biden was the oldest man who'd ever occupied the office, and B, that we.

Chris Hayes (12:41)

All know the presidency Ages people quickly, right? So when you combine those two things.

Chris Hayes (12:46)

If you have someone who's already fairly advanced years and they, they're aging quickly, like it can have a real effect. And I think that was the, you know, part of what happened to Joe Biden.

Chris Hayes (12:54)

It's weird that everyone just stopped applying those two things, those two obvious truths to the situation we're in now where they elected an even older person who also is on an accelerated aging schedule. I mean, his nickname for Joe Biden.

Chris Hayes (13:08)

Was Sleepy Joe Biden.

Chris Hayes (13:09)

He literally fell asleep for 20 minutes in a White House event the other day in front of the camera. I don't think Joe Biden ever fell.

Chris Hayes (13:18)

Asleep on camera for 20 minutes.

Chris Hayes (13:20)

And this isn't even like there's a lot of things that are uniquely awful about Donald Trump. This isn't even a uniquely awful thing about Donald Trump. The guy's 80 years old.

Chris Hayes (13:28)

He's 79.

Chris Hayes (13:29)

Yeah, he's probably been up all day. The President, he fell asleep in the middle of a meeting. But again, that is a problem, right? Like, didn't we have a whole huge thing about this just exactly one year ago? And you also see it how, I don't know if it's aging.

Chris Hayes (13:43)

It's his particularly is his particular variety of being addled or it's how out of touch he is. But even just the last day when he had the exchange with Laura Ingram where she said, you really think a.

Chris Hayes (13:55)

50 year mortgage is a good idea?

Chris Hayes (13:56)

Which obviously is like a ludicrous idea.

Chris Hayes (13:58)

On its face, and he said, well.

Chris Hayes (14:00)

It'S just 10 years more than what is now 40 year mortgage. And she's like, no, it's a 30 year mortgage.

Chris Hayes (14:06)

And that's another one of those examples of the kind of thing that for.

Chris Hayes (14:10)

Most of my life covering politics, if the President United States didn't know what a standard term on a mortgage was, the 30 year mortgage, the 30 year fixed mortgage. We all know the 30 year fixed mortgage. It's like the pillar of American homeownership going all the way back to the aftermath of the New Deal and the aftermath of World War II. Everyone has who's a homeowner basically has interacted with a 30 year mortgage.

Chris Hayes (14:32)

The man doesn't know what the standard mortgage is. That would be a big story in other environments with him. It's like barely makes it for a.

Chris Hayes (14:40)

Story for more than five minutes.

Interviewer (14:41)

Right. And then there's just the issue that.

Ron Filipkowski (14:43)

We were talking about before. I just think moral clarity. Right. As you said, if I had a friend Or a coworker, or just somebody I knew who behaved this way, who posted those types of things, who conducted themselves the way he does. I mean, what the other day, Donald.

Interviewer (15:04)

Trump post, air traffic controllers, get back to work now, exclamation point. I'm putting you on a list. Like, if someone who you worked with behave that, we'd be like, who is this? Who is this guy? And so I just think there's also this recognition sometimes when we cover politics, like a horse race, this party, that party, this day, that day, who's winning, who's losing, we lose some sight of the moral clarity of like, is this a good person? Like, why are they behaving badly? And do I want my kids to behave like that?

Chris Hayes (15:35)

Part of it, too, is just this.

Chris Hayes (15:36)

Process of acclimation, which is a part of. It's just a human issue, right? Like, human beings acclimate to all sorts of crazy scenarios. And that acclimation process is part of what makes humans so incredible as a species, so adaptable, so able to live in environments from Amazon to the Arctic. Humans can get used to things.

Chris Hayes (16:00)

And part of what's happened with Donald.

Chris Hayes (16:02)

Trump use this cliche of normalization, but.

Chris Hayes (16:04)

It'S just part of it is just the acclimation process.

Chris Hayes (16:08)

If you had a coworker who acted like that, to go back to the way we're discussing it, if you had a coworker who every day was in the Slack channel saying crazy things like.

Chris Hayes (16:16)

That, your initial reaction would be like.

Chris Hayes (16:18)

What is going on with this guy?

Chris Hayes (16:19)

If they never got fired and they never got held to account and they just continued being like that, at a certain point, you start to tune them out. You would. Now, it would be toxic in many.

Chris Hayes (16:31)

Respects for the workplace and for the organization that tolerated that behavior and would have all.

Chris Hayes (16:36)

It would have to start to have all sorts of insidious effects for people.

Chris Hayes (16:40)

Around this co worker.

Chris Hayes (16:41)

People would probably leave the job, right?

Chris Hayes (16:43)

It would be harder to hire other people.

Chris Hayes (16:44)

There's all sorts of reasons to be bad. But for those who are, say, stuck with the job and those who are sitting there next to this co worker.

Chris Hayes (16:51)

Every day being a ranting maniac, you.

Chris Hayes (16:53)

Would have to find some kind of.

Chris Hayes (16:55)

Way to get used to it.

Chris Hayes (16:56)

And I think that kind of describes.

Chris Hayes (16:58)

A lot of what's so broken right now, both in the sort of way the public discourse operates, both in just like the general press and politics is.

Chris Hayes (17:06)

That people have found whatever way, even if they don't approve of it or.

Chris Hayes (17:11)

They, when they take a step back.

Chris Hayes (17:13)

They realize how crazy it is.

Chris Hayes (17:14)

There's an acclimation process that's happened with him that is really, really insidious.

Ron Filipkowski (17:18)

And before we go, msnbc, name change, Mississippi.

Interviewer (17:23)

Now, as it embarks, as you embark.

Ron Filipkowski (17:26)

On this next chapter in the Ms.

Interviewer (17:28)

Now phase, what should we expect?

Ron Filipkowski (17:32)

I mean, leaning in more on digital stuff as well?

Interviewer (17:36)

I mean, talk to us about, I.

Chris Hayes (17:37)

Mean, the biggest, the coolest thing about.

Chris Hayes (17:39)

The change and like, the name changes basically doesn't matter at all, at least from the, from the perspective of, like, what the channel is and what we're delivering. It's just. It's just a new name, barely a new name. It's. What is it? It's. Is it 40% of a new name.

Ron Filipkowski (17:54)

Two letters, five negative, 1700% of the new.

Chris Hayes (17:59)

We're going to bring the name prices down. So the most exciting thing is that.

Chris Hayes (18:04)

We are really creating now this media organization that's just fully committed to the mission that we have in a way.

Chris Hayes (18:13)

That was never quite possible when we.

Chris Hayes (18:15)

Were part of NBC News. And that's no knock on NBC News. NBC News is a different mission than we do. We're doing slightly different things. There's overlap, but that overlap meant that.

Chris Hayes (18:25)

We couldn't produce a newsroom that was.

Chris Hayes (18:29)

Solely devoted to making, doing MSNBC, MSN, MSNow reporting and MSNow content and Ms. Now across all platforms. And like the MSNow vision of the.

Chris Hayes (18:41)

World, now we have that for the first time. And I've been here, I've been at.

Chris Hayes (18:45)

Ms. Now for what, 14 years, since 2011, as a contributor before that. So I've been hosting a show for 14 years. I've been part of the network for 15 or 16 years. This is the first time in my time here that we now have this dedicated newsroom of all these great reporters.

Chris Hayes (19:02)

Who are out there, all of all.

Chris Hayes (19:05)

Oars rowing in the same direction, trying to fulfill our mission, which is to kind of tell the truth as we see it, report the stories that matter to our audience, that matter to the survival of American democracy, that point towards a future that is going to be more just, more equitable and where all Americans can thrive. And that's a really exciting thing that we've never had before in my entire career.

Chris Hayes (19:28)

So that, that, that is the most. That's the biggest change from the audience perspective. There's zero change. Like, we're on the same channel, on.

Chris Hayes (19:36)

The same tv, the one you got.

Chris Hayes (19:37)

Mounted on your wall.

Chris Hayes (19:38)

The same time.

Chris Hayes (19:39)

Just press the same button. It's right there. We're not going anywhere.

Chris Hayes (19:43)

From our perspective, the really exciting changes is creating this entirely new newsroom.

Ron Filipkowski (19:50)

Chris Hayes, Mississippi. Now. Thanks for joining us. We hope you come back.

Chris Hayes (19:54)

Really enjoyed it.

Chris Hayes (19:55)

I'll come back for sure.

Ron Filipkowski (19:55)

Everybody hit subscribe. Let's get to 6 million subscribers. Want to stay plugged in? Become a subscriber to our substack@midasplus.com you'll get daily recaps from Ron Filipkowski, ad free episodes of our podcast and more exclusive content only available@midasplus.com.