← The Rachel Maddow Show
The Rachel Maddow Show
From policy to personnel, Trump scores historically low poll numbers
00:45:48
Rachel Maddow checks in on new polling data about how Americans are feeling about the first few weeks of the second Donald Trump administration and the numbers are not good for Trump.
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Rachel Maddow
The data is in. It's been a month officially as of today for this new presidential term. And what the data says, sort of broadly bottom line, is that the country kind of hates this guy. I shouldn't say hate. It's not the right word. It's not a nice word. Maybe it's can't stand him or maybe I shouldn't characterize it at all. Well, just I'll show you the numbers. I will say we probably should have seen this coming. I didn't necessarily believe that it was coming this far, this fast. But, you know, right out of the gate, Gallup did polling just after the inauguration. They did their first poll on public opinion of Trump in this second term, starting immediately after the inauguration, literally, they had their first poll in the field the first full day Trump was in office, the day after he was sworn in. That is the definition of the honeymoon period. Right? That's when you are at your high watermark in terms of what people are expecting from you and hoping for from you. But in that first Gallup poll of this presidential term, sort of shockingly, Trump was already underwater in his first week in office. More Americans disapproved of him than approved of him. I mean, only by one point, but still, that's unheard of. That's a more than unusual thing in presidential polling. Gallup, in fact, said at the time that in the 70 plus years they have been doing presidential polling, Donald Trump is the only president for whom his approval ratings were underwater right at the start of his term in office, meaning more people disliked him than liked him. So in that first week Gallup poll, Trump was underwater, 47 approving, 48% disapproving. So that means he was coming in at minus one. And like I said, that was something we haven't seen with any other president. And to me, actually, it was shocking enough that I didn't think it would stand. I thought that would be sort of an outlier. But now look at this. Gallup just did its follow up poll now one month into Trump being back in office, and his numbers have gotten worse. He's not minus one anymore. Now he's minus six, which makes him, at this point in his term, not only the most disliked and Unpopular President in 70 plus years of Gallup polling, Gallup says it actually puts him 15 points below the average polling for presidents again over the last 72 years in which they have been doing this polling. At this point in a presidential term, one month in the average is 15 points higher than where Trump is right now. Nobody has ever started off a presidential term this poorly in the eyes of the American people. I mean, all presidents are above water at this point in their presidencies. Right out of the gate. Trump's the only one. Trump was underwater with the American public from day one, and since then, he's been sinking like a cinder block in an ocean trench. I did not know to expect that. And, you know, to be fair, part of the reason I'd expected that that Gallup number might go up and not down is because Gallup's not the only game in town. There were other national well regarded, quality polls that came out right at the start of Trump's term that did show him in positive territory. Not big, positive territory, but still positive. Like, for example, the Quinnipiac poll, which came out in late January right after Trump was sworn in. It showed Trump doing okay. I mean, not great, but in that poll, he was above water. He was plus three. But now, though, again, one month in that same poll, Quinnipiac, oh, it's flipped. He has gone from plus three in his first week in office to minus four. Now, that is a quick turnaround for a poll that initially looked okay for him. Less than a month ago it looked okay for him. Now it looks terrible for him. Why is that? Well, it's because Trump's been doing stuff. And what the data shows is that almost every single thing he has done is soundly and clearly and in some cases, wildly unpopular with the American people. Again, just look at that Quinnipiac poll that shows Trump underwater right now. More Americans disapproving of him than approving of him. Right. He was plus three right after he got sworn in. Now he's minus four. You can see in the internals of that poll a little bit about what's driving that. Do you approve of Trump's handling of foreign policy? No. Do you approve of Trump's handling of trade? No. Do you approve of Trump's handling of the federal workforce? No. No. Do you approve of Trump's handling of the Russia Ukraine conflict? No. Do you approve of Trump's handling of the Israel Hamas conflict? No. No, no, no, no, no. Do you approve of Trump's handling of the economy? No. No. The American public does not approve of his handling of the economy. And stick a pin in that one, because that one's interesting for a number of reasons. And we will come back to that. But you take a look at the broad areas of responsibility a US President has, and on all these broad points, the American public just says no. Donald Trump, we do not like the way you are handling any of these issues. And then when you drill down, not just to, you drill down from the like broad categories of things to instead the stuff he wants you to focus on. The very specific things he's done, his signature specific issues and his signature gambits thus far since he's been in office. The stuff that he thinks makes him look great. Well, those things are even worse than the broad categories on those things. The stuff he's doing is catastrophically unpopular. I mean, look at this. This is from the same poll. Do you like Donald Trump's genius idea for Gaza? By a 40 point margin, the American people are against Trump on that. How about dei, which they've tried to turn into a slur. Do you think policies focused on increasing diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace are a good thing? The American people say yes, actually. Yes, actually, we do think that's a good thing. By a 15 point margin, Americans are for that. How about tariffs? Donald Trump's favorite thing, right? Do you think Donald Trump's tariffs will help the US economy or hurt it? By an 11 point margin, the American people say his tariffs will hurt the American economy, not help. How about Vladimir Putin? All right, this is one of the most important things that Trump has done since being back in office. You know, Trump sitting there in the Oval Office telling reporters, yes, I trust Vladimir Putin as He throws out 70 plus years of our post World War II alliances and decides that now we're going to be allied against Europe and with Russia, all because he trusts Putin so much. Well, Quinnipiac polled on that specifically. Do you think the United States should trust Russian President Vladimir Putin or not? 81% of the American public says not, not. But Trump does the same. National polling shows the American public do not approve of Elon Musk individually. Elon Musk's approval is minus 12. But everybody else in his government is underwater. The American public has apparently seen enough already to be against, to be disapproving more than approving of not just Elon Musk by a mile, but Trump as well. And also J.D. vance is underwater. And Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The Brain Worm podcast guy who's now U.S. health Secretary. And Tulsi Gabbard, who really is the Director of National Intelligence, believe it or not, and Kash Patel, who was confirmed today as FBI director, all of them are underwater in the new polling. The American public does not like any of them. Not a single one of them is above water. Nobody who they pulled on is above water in the Trump administration. And it's not just Quinnipiac. Look at the polling on Elon Musk in the new CNN poll that's out today by a 2 to 1 margin. Elon Musk having this prominent role in the administration is seen by the American people as a bad thing two to one against his prominent role in the administration. In the new Washington Post poll, which we're going to talk about in a second, they've got an Elon Musk question as well. Are you concerned about Elon Musk in government role gaining access to your personal data and information? The American people say yes. Yes, we are concerned about that. By a 29 point margin, Elon Musk being somehow empowered to shut down federal government programs. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? By a 2 to 1 margin, the American people think that is a bad thing. In today's CNN poll, overall, Donald Trump is underwater by five points in the new poll from Pew Research. Donald Trump underwater by four points in the new poll from Reuters. Donald Trump is underwater by seven points in the new poll from the Washington Post. And Ipsos that's out today, they've got Trump underwater by 8 points. All of this absolutely historically unprecedented. No president has ever come out of the gate with numbers like this ever before. And it is across the board. But you know, on that Washington Post, one look at this. Look deeper into that. They've got a minus 8 look. The proportion of Americans who are strongly for him is 27%. The proportion of Americans who are strongly against him is 37%. So, yes, your perception, your anecdotal perception is correct. He does have a small, fervent base of support, but the base of fervent opposition to him is much larger, like 10 points larger. The same poll also asked, do you want the next Congress, the Congress that's going to be elected next year in the midterms? Do you want that Congress to be controlled by the Democrats to act as a check on Trump, or do you want it to be controlled by the Republicans to support Trump's agenda? By a 13 point margin? The country says Democrats, please. We would prefer the Democrats to be in charge in the next Congress. In the Washington Post polling, do you support Trump banning transgender people from the military? No, by 11 points. Do you support Trump laying off large numbers of federal workers? No, by 19 points. Do you support Trump shutting down USAID? No, by 21 points. Do you support Trump pardoning people convicted of violent crimes related to the attack on The Capitol on January 6, 2021? Do you support Trump's pardon of people convicted of violent crimes on J6, what do you think the number is going to be on that one? The answer obviously is no. The American people do not support that. But the proportion of Americans who say that is 83%. That was his first major act upon taking office as president. 83% of the public disagrees with it. That's a bad plan in politics. Trump started off this term in office with less of the public approving of him than any other president has ever measured in modern polling. Since then, everything he has done has made the public dislike him even more strongly. And the things he went out of his way to do first and the things he crows the loudest about are the things the American public likes the least. So the stuff that he's decided to make the biggest deal out of, to like, hitch his wagon to, to make his presidency all about because he thinks the public loves it, the public hates that stuff the most. And, you know, I mentioned the economy. I said, stick a pin in that. There's something interesting there. Whether or not you think the economy is the most important thing in the country, whether that is what you know, floats your boat. We have learned the hard way about the distance between what Americans think about the economy and how the economy is actually doing. I understand, I understand. So I understand there's a lot of feelings about polling, about the economy, what that means for politics. But in Donald Trump's history as a political figure, one thing he has been able to bank on is a perception, reality based or not, that he knows what he's doing when it comes to the economy, right? This is the whole billionaire vibe, right? Oh, he seems so rich, so therefore he must be good with money. It's never felt to me like somebody who buys golden toilets is the obvious choice for a good steward of money. But what do I know? That said, look at what's going on with Trump and specifically the perception of whether he knows what he's doing or not. On the economy. I mentioned in the Quinnipiac poll, when Americans were asked, do you approve of Trump's handling of the economy? The answer was no, he's minus four on the economy. Americans disapprove of Trump's handling of the economy. CNN specifically asks, has Trump done enough to reduce the price of everyday goods? 62% of the public says no. Even among Republican leaning voters, specifically, a majority of Republican leaning voters say Trump is not doing a good job on bringing price down. In the Washington Post, do you approve or disapprove of Trump's handling of the economy disapprove, he's minus 8. That is the worst number he has had on the economy in that poll since the first year of his first term in office in 2017. Look, in the Reuters poll, the number of voters who approve of the job he's doing on the economy is only 39%. That's lower than they have ever recorded for him in that poll, including all of his first term. Asked specifically if people approve of his handling of prices of the issue of inflation, the Reuters number is even worse. 32% approval. That's an absolutely disastrous number for somebody who has done everything it can to try to make American politics all about prices and inflation. And again, you may not think that prices or voters perception of the economy or voters feelings about the president's handling of the economy are the most important things in the world. That may or may not be what drives your own feelings and motivations when it comes to politics. But you know what those things do? They keep every politician who has to run for reelection up at night, all night, every night, because perceptions on the economy and general approval, disapproval numbers, those are the closest things we've got to something that is determinative to political careers in American politics. And I can hear you through the tv. I can't see you through the tv. I could lie and say that I can't, but I can get the vibe from here. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, yeah, Maddo, sure, sure. Okay. That's all well and good, provided we're ever going to have another election. I know, I know, I know. It is physically impossible to outflank me when it comes to pessimism as to what the Trump movement has in mind for our country. I am right there with you on that. But you know what? I am not thinking here about 2026. I'm not even thinking about the off year elections in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race in April or in Virginia in November. I'm not even thinking about that. I am thinking about right now in Washington D.C. and about how much farther they're going to be able to go with what does feel like an attempt to blitzkrieg right through the law to abolish the constitutional republic and impose a new form of government in which they don't intend to abide opposition of any kind or to ever leave power. That is what I think is going on. And you know, you can plan that for years, you can even plan that for generations, but when you do it, you need to effectuate it quickly, which is what we are experiencing now and why the last month has been so insane, because they are trying to go as far as they can, as fast as they can, because they know this moment is the time when they will be able to move the furthest, provided they can get there fast. The extent to which what they're doing can be slowed, the extent to which things can just be made more difficult for them, more annoying and uncomfortable for them, then the less far they'll be able to go. And the thing that slows them down, if we are being real, the thing that slows them down and makes things more difficult for them and more annoying and uncomfortable for them is resistance to what they're doing. Resistance of all kinds. And their own party, the Republican Party, is not the only thing that matters, but it is crucial. It's crucial on the negative side because Republicans do have their own political power to stop things or complain or ask questions or take action, particularly in Congress, they could do something if they wanted to. But also on the positive side, because when Republicans do enable them and nod along or even encourage them, well, then they are encouraged not only to go as fast as they like, but to go even farther than they might have planned. And so Republicans are not the end all, be all in terms of what is going to happen to our country, but they are in a crucial and important position. And so, yeah, when we get a data dump like we got today with all these national polls that have been released in the last day or two, when most Americans who are opposed to this administration see numbers like these ones that just came out, I mean, what this says to you, if you're in that boat tells you you're not alone. The rest of the country sees what's going on, too. They think essentially like you do about this guy. They are against not only him in general, they're against all his folks and they're everything he's trying to do. And if you are opposed to this administration, that may give you some courage, right? That may certainly change your feeling. You're not alone. Maybe that'll make it more likely that you'll go to that town hall that you'll call your member of Congress or your senator. Maybe you'll go to that protest. Maybe you'll join an indivisible group. Maybe you'll do something you haven't already done, because this buoys you a little bit. But on the other side, when Republicans see these same numbers, it may not make them feel good, but it may change the math for them. It may change their own raw political calculation of whether they are going to ever swallow hard and say something or maybe even do something, whether they might actually use their power to say no, at least on one thing. No on this. I'm not going along. We've got a story for you tonight on one Republican senator who got an absolute earful from her constituents last night, who appears from reports of that town hall, appears to have found herself agreeing with what her constituents were telling her about how much damage Trump was doing to her state. That Republican senator, having spent last night that way, she got up this morning, went to work in Washington and cast a vote against him. Right? That dynamic is real. He is unpopular. He is historically unpopular. He is the least popular president in the history of modern polling at this point in his presidency, the country does not like him. They do not like what he is doing. They do not like the people that he is putting in place. The more he talks about specific things he wants you to associate with him, the more the American public hates those things. Specifically, the more the country shows that, the better chance that Democrats will get stronger and faster and more bold in their opposition, and the better chance that Republicans might start to join them. It is that simple. There is no magic bullet. There's no shortcut in standing up for democracy. When you're standing up for democracy, you know what's in your toolkit? Oh, look, democracy. That's it. This is how it works. And the hardest part of it is to. The hardest part of it to build. The hardest part of it to get on your side is public opinion, right? But on this guy, we're only one month in, and public opinion is definitely already there on this guy in a way that no president has ever seen before. And that is really good for people who are opposed to him and people who are trying to construct a regime of opposition, opposition to him that includes all comers, right? Public opinion is against him. That is irreplaceable and necessary and huge. And public opinion being against him, mark my words, is only going to get worse for him because, again, it's simple. Look at what he's doing. Just look at these headlines from the past 48 hours. Headlines. TRUMP team plans deep cuts at office that funds recovery from big disasters. The Trump administration plans to all but eliminate the office that oversees America's recovery from the largest disasters, raising questions about how the United States will rebuild from hurricanes, wildfires and other calamities. The administration plans to cut the staff of that office by 84%. Headline Trump administration cancels federal contract for 911 research Trump administration cuts 911 survivors fund Republicans join Democrats in rebuke long lines and canceled rentals. Firings bring chaos to national parks. Quote. At Yosemite on Friday, the Trump administration fired the only locksmith on staff. He was the sole employee with the keys and institutional knowledge needed to rescue visitors from locked restrooms. The wait to enter Arizona's Grand Canyon national park this past weekend was twice as long as usual after the administration let go four employees who worked at the south entrance, where roughly 90% of the park's nearly 5 million annual visitors passed through. At Gettysburg National Military park in Pennsylvania, last week's widespread layoffs gutted the team that manages reservations for renting historic farmhouses. Visitors received notifications that their reservations have been canceled indefinitely. Here's a popular one. Deep cuts to the center for Alzheimer's and Related Dementias at the National Institutes of Health. This is a research center that is actually named for a Republican senator. Its full name is the Roy Blunt center for Alzheimer's and Related Dementias. Donald Trump is gutting that. That's going to be a really popular cut because obviously that's a lot of waste, right? Research to try to cure Alzheimer's. Who wants that? Well done, President Trump getting rid of all that waste. What do people with Alzheimer's contribute anyway, right? Who cares? Have you ever had any trouble getting in touch with the IRS when you needed to? Have you ever needed or like, getting something from the IRS website or like, calling into their call center using their chatbot or anything? Have you ever needed help from the irs, needed a form, maybe you needed some instructions on how to file something? Have you ever called into one of those helplines? Because it is tax season now and today the irs fired nearly 7,000 people who work at the IRS. So this year, over these next few weeks, if you have any problems, any glitches, any delays, any trouble getting through, thank you, Donald Trump headline. FAA fires hundreds of workers sparking concerns about air safety. Americans have been clamoring for that headline. Trump dismantled Government fight against Foreign Influence operations. Oh, they just sent out notice. The government just sent out notice tonight that telehealth appointments aren't going to be covered anymore on Medicare. Oh, good, Everybody's clamoring for that already. This kind of thing, the way they're running the government, is creating what politico.com tonight calls private Republican panic over the fact that Republicans in Congress are being, quote, inundated with calls from frantic constituents. Yes, I bet they are. And that is set to get worse, not better for them. Unless they can get him to stop at least some of what he's doing. He started off a month ago, historically unpopular. Now one month in, his poll numbers are even worse. And just bear with me a second. Just take a quick look at what, just a sampling of what local news coverage is like right now in our country. And tell me if you think from looking at local news, you think the public is going to start liking him any better given what he is doing. Federal funding that has been frozen by President Trump.
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Cory Booker
The commissioner says not having access to critical funds is causing economic hardship for Maine farmers.
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Rachel Maddow
Federal cuts hit the Bonneville Power Administration the hardest. They lost about 20% of their workforce. Nonprofits in Michigan are trying to survive a stop work order issued by President Trump. This is a team that services some of the most at risk youth in the Bay Area.
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Cory Booker
It's a lot of young people who are particularly vulnerable, who have been abused, exploited. Yesterday they got a notice from the.
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Rachel Maddow
Federal government to stop work on their contract to provide legal services to their young clients. What could a mass federal layoff mean for local forecasting? For all of us, we've got cold weather advisories. NBC 5 Storm Team starts many mornings with thorough forecasts to help you plan your day. And most of the data they share comes from scientists and meteorologists. Here at the National Weather Service in suburban Romeoville, concern is growing that job cuts could be coming and what that would mean for local forecasting. The information depends upon having the people in place. This is not something happening in Washington. It's your neighbors. It's your neighbors. That's what local news looks like. A little bit slice. A little slice of it just today. I really think that they are trying to make it so the laws of politics no longer apply because we no longer have politics. Right. So the public hating what they're doing will no longer matter because they don't intend to ever have to answer to the public ever again. I think that is ultimately what they are aiming at, but that's what they're aiming at. It doesn't mean we're there yet. And right now in our time today, the unpopularity of what they're doing really does create real political pressure at the source to stop him, to at least slow him down. And on that, we've got much more to come tonight. Stay with us all you want, but I can't understand 10 people, let alone 100 people at once. Do your job. They're shouting at the end there. Do your job. Republican Congressman Rich McCormick hosted a town hall tonight in Georgia People lined up tonight outside Roswell City hall in Georgia for a chance to ask this congressman about the federal spending cuts and the mass firings of federal employees and other things the Trump administration's doing. In another clip that was posted by Greg Bluestein at the Atlanta Journal Constitution, you can hear one woman reminding Congressman McCormick that it is Congress, Congress that is supposed to control the budget, not the president. And you are doing us a disservice to set that down and not stand up for us. A lot of this stuff will be litigating. I don't think it's going to be litigating for it. You don't think I'm going to stand up for you? Stand up.
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Cory Booker
Please.
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Rachel Maddow
That's all we have. No, bend over. You don't think I'm going to stand up for you? You need to stand up. And then you hear the woman at the end going, don't bend over again. That was Roswell, Georgia, tonight. Congressman Rich McCormick, a Republican of Georgia, getting a very hard time from his constituents. One of the latest scenes of questions and pushback on what Trump's been doing his first month in office. Earlier today in Oregon, people packed a room in the Pendleton, Oregon Convention center for a town hall with Oregon Republican Congressman Cliff Benz. Congressman Benz tried to defend Trump's cuts. So the potential federal budget reduction impact on Oregon CE2, these are the kind of things that will be impacted. Usda, Medicaid, Forest Service, Bureau of Reclamation, College and University, federal grants, Veteran Administration and other federal agencies each of. Now, when I say affected, it may be for the best, as hard as it might be, as hard as it.
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Michael Graetjas
Might be.
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Rachel Maddow
It may be for the best. Rain of booze. Nobody in that room thinks it's going to be for the best. Senator, I mean, Congressman, Excuse me, Congressman Cliff Bentz of Oregon. That was today in Oregon. Last night in Alaska. This is interesting. Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski faced questions from her constituents in a big teletown hall. And Senator Murkowski, in that teletown hall, according to accounts of how that went, really appeared to take her constituent side as they expressed their grave opposition to what Trump is doing. She reportedly told her constituents on this town hall that Trump's efforts to hold back funding that's already been appropriated by Congress, quote, cannot be allowed to stand. She said, quote, if we in Congress allow that, we effectively cede some of our authority. She said, quote, we have to stand up. The. We has to be more than just me. And this is where it becomes more of a challenge. We have to stand up today in the United States Senate after that call with her constituents last night, Lisa Murkowski was in fact, part of a very small we. She was one of two Republicans along with Susan Collins, who joined every Democrat in voting against Kash Patel to be director of the FBI. Now, bottom line, they needed four Republican noes to stop him. They got two. But two is not none. Joining us now is Senator Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey, who's at the Senate tonight as a vote Arama is underway on a budget. Well, Senator Booker, it's really nice of you to step out to talk to us tonight. Thanks for being here.
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Cory Booker
It's so great to be with you, Rachel, thank you.
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Rachel Maddow
First of all, can you tell us what's going on in the Senate right now and what you see as potential outcomes both of tonight's kinetic activity, but also ultimately this bill, it is essential.
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Cory Booker
That we use every procedural lever we have. The Republicans in the Senate are trying to put forth their budget bill to extend the Trump tax cuts and frankly, extend trillions of dollars of tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and corporations. And so one of the procedural tools we have is that we can bring up unlimited amounts of amendments. So we're going to be here until tomorrow morning really pulling an all nighter and into the morning to push forward amendments that are just common sense that the majority of not just Democrats agree with us, but independents and Republicans. We're going to put things forward about housing, about health care, about no tax cuts for billionaires. We're going to be putting a lot of things forward that just make them squirm and have to show us who they are. We've already seen something that usually doesn't happen in these, which is at least one Republican Susan Collins, breaking to say this is such an abjectly obvious thing that we should do that we're going to I'm going to stand with the Democrats on this. So tonight is a night for us to expose what this is really about. This is Doge, Elon Musk and Donald Trump trying to cut money away from vital services for our health care, for our veterans, for our 911 responders, for others, whether it's our national parks or other things you've shown. This is them trying to cut those things so that they can feed tax cuts to the wealthiest in our nation who do not need our help and the wealthiest corporations who have been making record profits in the last years.
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Rachel Maddow
Senator, I feel like one of the things that has started to happen in the last few days is that this White House and The president's top campaign donor who has a large role in the government. Now they seem to keep grabbing hold of a series of third rails. So Elon Musk is talking about Social Security as a scam and it is full of, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars of waste. And it's a program that essentially needs to be destroyed because it's so corrupt. The president endors the House Republicans plan that has huge cuts to Medicaid, which tens of millions of Americans depend on for their health care. Today, the White House said that President Trump is open to, yes, taking a whack at Medicare, cutting Medicare. We just had reporting tonight from the Washington Post, and this is a different order of magnitude, but they're talking about dissolving the leadership of the Postal Service and absorbing the Postal Service into the administration somehow meaning getting rid of the post office. All of these things for different reasons are third rails in American politics because they're foundational to what Americans get from our government. What do you make of their willingness to grab so many things that have felled lesser politicians than these guys?
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Cory Booker
Well, for me, it is them finally saying or showing what they're all about. Donald Trump repeated over and over again, I'm not going to touch Medicaid, I'm not going to touch, touch Medicare. I'm not going to touch Social Security. But now he is endorsing the legislation that will do just that. They are running to try to do everything they can to distract with misinformation and lies. And we've seen Elon Musk put up data after data after data that is just, just completely wrong, misleading or frankly just misinformation about the cuts that they're making. The truth of the matter is in a little over a month, they have cut some of the most precious things that Americans know and value from our air safety to our protection from global infectious diseases. They're cutting the most valuable staffs and even have letters going out from Republicans, not public, saying, do not do this, this is wrong. And so we are now at this, I think, a turning point in America where more Americans are beginning to see what this is really about. We saw it in his first time in office where the first thing out of the blocks, he tried to take away our health care. He tried to take away valued things like, hey, if I have a pre existing conditions, insurance companies can't stop me from getting health care. And here he is again doing what made him wildly unpopular, doing what made him one of the most unpopular presidents of the modern era, why he lost the 2020 election. And now we see him doing just the same thing again. This is a massive grift and grab of the resources of Americans in order to go to special deals, benefits and wealth creation for people like the very conflicted Elon Musk. This is the president, before he even got in office, is publishing new meme coins so he can make millions and millions, excuse me, tens of millions of dollars of grift. And so I just find this a moment of truth where we as Americans have to begin to tell folks who are not listening, who don't understand what's happening before it's too late, before they get a massive budget bill passed. And because their margins are so thin, especially in the House, we have the power. We stopped him when he tried to take away health care. We have to stop them on this bill. Because even though they don't want it necessarily, even though they have authoritarian tendencies, the reality is we are still a democracy. And in a democracy, the power of the people is greater than the people in power if we use our power. And the most common way people surrender their power is not realizing they have it in the first place. Folks need to now, right now, use their voice to condemn what is going on.
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Rachel Maddow
New Jersey Senator Cory Booker tonight hard at work and will be there overnight in his words, making the Republicans squirm as they fight over this budget bill. Sir, thanks for stepping out for a moment to talk with us. Good luck tonight. Thank you.
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Cory Booker
Appreciate you. Thank you so much.
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Rachel Maddow
All right, more news ahead tonight. Stay with us. For 26 years, the state of Missouri was represented in Congress partly by Republican Roy Blunt. He started as a congressman, served in House Republican leadership for years, then he became a senator. Among everything else Roy Blunt did in Congress, he was a persistent advocate for, for Alzheimer's research, specifically funding it at the NIH National Institute of Health. And so when Senator blunt announced in 2022 that he was retiring from public service, the NIH decided they were going to dedicate their very important Alzheimer's research center to him. They call it the Roy Blunt center for Alzheimer's and Related Dementias Research. At the dedication ceremony in 2022, Senator Blunt talked about the importance of the NIH, the importance of Alzheimer' funding, specifically. A bunch of other Republicans from Congress showed up at that event as well to talk about how important it was to fund that specific program. Here, for example, was Republican Congressman Tom Cole, who is still a member of Congress today, to be able to do what we've done, a five fold increase in Alzheimer's and Dementia response is a very special thing. This is our most expensive disease. And you can look at the trend line on what it costs to pay for Alzheimer's, and it will pretty quickly make the point. It's cheaper to try and cure it or at least manage it and delay it than it is to deal with it. And that has really guided the investments here more than anything else. It's a very special thing. Congressman Cole making the point that funding Alzheimer's research, funding that Alzheimer's center at NIH isn't just a good thing to do in the abstract. It also in the long run, saves the government money. You can probably guess where this is headed. The New Republic now reports that the Trump administration has slashed funding to that Republican beloved Alzheimer's center. Michael Gracious, a neurologist at Stanford University, tells the New Republic, quote, the center has developed infrastructure and a brain trust that is really unmatched in the world in terms of its advances in Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Weakening it will set Alzheimer's and Parkinson's research back substantially. I should tell you. We reached out to Congressman Tom Cole's office to see if he had any reaction to these reported cuts to this very special thing that he so publicly supported. He hasn't gotten back to us yet. We hope he will. But, you know, if you're looking for a poster child for something this administration is doing that has no evident support from anyone, that will cause grave harm, and that can be expected to have not just public opposition and expert opposition, but specifically Republican opposition, too. I think today, at least, you've got your winner. More ahead. Michael Graetjas is the founding director of the Stanford center for Memory Disorders, and he's the principal investigator of a lab at Stanford that's focused on the genetics of Alzheimer's disease. We've just learned that Trump's cuts are now targeting the Roy Blunt center for Alzheimer's and Related Dementias research at the NIH. Joining us now is Stanford University neurologist Michael Graetjas. Dr. Graetis, thank you very much for joining us tonight.
- [41:44]
Michael Graetjas
Thanks for having me, Rachel, thanks for covering this issue.
- [41:48]
Rachel Maddow
Everybody's got a decision to make every day about what to cover. I'm shocked both by the attack on Alzheimer's research, but also because I would expect the political support on this to be bulletproof. What do you make of these cuts?
- [42:01]
Michael Graetjas
Well, yeah, first, I agree with you completely. I mean, Alzheimer's is sort of the sort of ultimately nonpartisan disease, right? I think everybody knows somebody either in their family with Alzheimer's or has a friend with Alzheimer's in the family. It really affects everybody, Ohioans and Texans as frequently as Californians. So this is the first round of cuts that we've seen at the NIH level for Alzheimer's research. This is the intramural program, the flagship of the intramural program for Alzheimer's disease research. It's already, I think, reflects a big loss in terms of research infrastructure and the progress that's been made over the last three years since that intramural center was funded. As just one example, they recently submitted a paper where they've done sort of state of the art whole genome sequencing on more than 350 brains. So this is not just, you know, important research that's being done by investigators. This is also legacy data that reflects, you know, the research efforts of hundreds and thousands of participants over the years. So it really has lots of rippling effects. And this is really just the intramural program we're talking about. There's a much larger extramural program that supports Alzheimer's disease research across the country, and it's unclear whether that's also at risk. I think that would be even more devastating.
- [43:25]
Rachel Maddow
Is it fair to say that this hub, this center at NIH, getting cut and getting targeted in this way is going to have an impact not just on what is done at nih, but what is done around the world? The intramural extramural distinction that you're making, I'm not sure is one that, that our viewers necessarily understand unless you can explain it quickly. I think people are wondering if this is just one center that's going offline or if this is going to set us back as a country.
- [43:51]
Michael Graetjas
Right. Well, so the intramural center that we're talking about is one center. For example, there are 35 Alzheimer's disease research centers that the NIH funds across the country across a whole patchwork of states. One of the best is in Missouri, for example. North Carolina has a great couple of these centers. Even if it's just the intramural program, that's going to be a huge loss. My lab, as you mentioned, does research on the genetics of Alzheimer's disease. Those 350 genomes that are derived from brain tissue are incredibly valuable. And of course they're being publicly shared as a research resource. That's a large part of what the NIH does, is sharing these hard fought hard to come by databases and also biorepositories, brain banks, blood samples that have been again collected over decades. This is not something that you can shut down in a month and then decide a year from now to pick back up. I think there's real risk of a generation or more of data being lost. This comes at a time when I think we're particularly close to making real headway against Alzheimer's disease, closer than we've been. And that could be a five year window before we get a definitive treatment or if we really handicap the research infrastructure, that could be back to 20 years.
- [45:06]
Rachel Maddow
Wow, that is stark. Thank you for helping us understand it. Stanford University neurologist Michael Graetjas, thank you for your work and thank you for your clarity tonight. I appreciate it.
- [45:15]
Michael Graetjas
Likewise. Thank you, Rachel.
- [45:17]
Rachel Maddow
I'll be right back. Okay, I gotta go, but I got one last thing. The new episode of Alex Wagner's podcast Trumpland just dropped today. This episode is called the War on Yoke. It's about how the avian flu, the bird flu, is messing with everybody, from farmers to consumers to everybody who has to do anything with eggs. It's really, really good, and I recommend that you should listen. Anyway, it just came out. You can use that scannable code on your screen there to get it. All right, I'll see you again tomorrow.