Trump power grab tripped up by distinctly American resistance

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Rachel Maddow Show – "Trump Power Grab Tripped Up by Distinctly American Resistance" Release Date: March 6, 2025

In this compelling episode of The Rachel Maddow Show, host Rachel Maddow delves deep into the tumultuous actions of President Donald Trump’s administration during the first six weeks of his second term. The episode meticulously examines various attempts by the administration to exert control over federal operations, manipulate economic indicators, and enforce controversial policies—all met with significant resistance from within the government, the public, and the judiciary. Below is a detailed summary capturing the key discussions, insights, and conclusions presented throughout the episode.

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1. Trump’s Misuse of Military Resources for Political Agendas

Rachel Maddow opens the episode by spotlighting President Trump’s questionable use of military aircraft for non-military purposes, highlighting instances where large cargo planes like the C130 and C17 were employed for politically motivated missions rather than their intended operational uses.

• High-Cost Photo Ops: Maddow critiques the administration's decision to deploy a C130 to Guantanamo Bay for a Fox News photo op, noting the inefficiency and extravagance involved. She states, “When you use a plane like that to fly nine people into a Fox News photo op, you know what that is? That's a really expensive photo op” ([15:30]).

• Exorbitant Costs: Highlighting the financial implications, Maddow points out, “They spent on that one flight nearly a quarter million taxpayer dollars for that one trip” ([22:45]).

2. Failed Attempts to Detain Immigrants at Guantanamo Bay

The show examines Trump’s controversial plan to utilize the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba for detaining up to 30,000 immigrants, a move fraught with legal and logistical challenges.

• Operational Hurdles: Maddow notes, “Trump’s plan to use the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to detain 30,000 immigrants has been hitting major legal, logistical and financial hurdles” ([19:10]).

• Administrative Reversal: The administration faced setbacks as their efforts to establish the detention center proved untenable, leading to a quiet cessation of the project with Maddow observing, “Now they're just quietly no longer doing it and not saying anything about it” ([25:20]).

3. Reversal of GSA Real Estate Sales

Rachel Maddow addresses the abrupt halt of the General Services Administration’s (GSA) plan to sell 443 federal properties, including sensitive locations like the CIA’s Northern Virginia campus.

• Abrupt Policy Changes: She outlines the timeline, “Yesterday the GSA posted a list of 443 properties it was considering for sale... In the next five hours, more than 100 of those 443 properties were removed” ([28:00]).

• Potential Risks: Maddow underscores the dangers of such sales, stating, “Including one specialized satellite facility for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Maryland... They tried to sell the CIA” ([28:15]).

4. Mass Federal Employee Firings and Legal Reversals

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to exploring the Trump administration’s attempts to terminate thousands of federal employees across various agencies.

• Court Interventions: Maddow highlights multiple instances where courts intervened to block mass layoffs, saying, “The Merit Systems Protection Board ordered the reinstatement of more than 5,000 people who work for the USDA” ([30:50]).

• Broader Implications: She emphasizes the pattern of these actions, noting, “The Pentagon's planned firing of 5,400 employees has been temporarily delayed after a federal court decision blocking such dismissals” ([31:25]).

5. Supreme Court Clashes Over Foreign Aid Funding

The episode covers the Supreme Court’s involvement in compelling the Trump administration to adhere to court orders regarding the resumption of foreign aid funding.

• Judicial Authority Affirmed: Maddow explains, “The Supreme Court’s ruling was 5 to 4... They are telling Trump no” ([35:00]).

• Ongoing Legal Battles: She points out the continuous legal struggles, “Both sides... are going to have to file a joint Status report by 11am tomorrow” ([35:15]).

6. Efforts to Manipulate Economic Indicators

A critical segment discusses Commerce Secretary Howard Letnick’s proposal to alter the calculation of GDP by excluding government spending, raising concerns about the integrity of economic data.

• Changing GDP Metrics: Maddow reports, “Trump’s Commerce Secretary, Howard Letnick, floated the idea of changing the way we calculate GDP... Take government spending out of the equation” ([40:10]).

• Expert Opposition: She includes a response from Jared Bernstein, Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, who warns, “These folks are really playing with fire when they suggest manipulating the numbers like that” ([43:40]).

7. Nationwide Pushback and Civil Resistance

Maddow highlights the robust resistance against Trump’s policies, showcasing protests, legal challenges, and internal government pushback.

• Public Protests: “People were arrested protesting the fact that HIV treatment still isn't restarted... Engaged in civil disobedience” ([32:50]).

• Governmental Resistance: She notes, “Lawsuits, court orders, individual officials refusing to go quietly... There is friction and resistance inside the government” ([34:00]).

8. Interview with Congresswoman Maxine Dexter

In an insightful interview segment, Rachel Maddow speaks with Democratic Congresswoman Dr. Maxine Dexter from Oregon about the impact of federal policies on her constituents and the broader sense of urgency among voters.

• Constituent Concerns: Dexter shares, “Our democracy is sick... Let’s see you intervene, you take action, you do something” ([33:17]).

• District Dynamics: She discusses the partisan landscape of her district, stating, “I have the preponderance of my district is going to be Democrat... They are very clear with me at this point” ([35:15]).

• Call to Action: Dexter emphasizes the need for decisive action in Congress, aligning with the sentiments of her constituents: “Our title, job title and job description are the same” ([34:20]).

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Key Takeaways and Conclusions

• Exhaustive Administrative Overreach: The Trump administration's aggressive maneuvers to control federal operations, manipulate data, and enforce controversial policies have been met with significant opposition from multiple fronts, including the judiciary, federal employees, state governments, and the general public.

• Judicial and Legal Resistance: Courts have played a pivotal role in curbing the administration’s attempts to implement sweeping changes, particularly in the areas of employee terminations and foreign aid funding.

• Public and Internal Pushback: Grassroots protests, civil disobedience, and internal government resistance have effectively hindered the administration’s objectives, showcasing a resilient democratic framework.

• Threat to Economic Data Integrity: Efforts to alter economic measurements like GDP by excluding government spending pose a severe threat to the transparency and reliability of economic indicators, with experts vehemently opposing such changes.

• Urgent Call for Congressional Action: Representatives like Dr. Maxine Dexter highlight the immediate need for congressional intervention to address the systemic issues undermining democracy and public welfare.

Rachel Maddow concludes the episode by affirming that the distinctly American resistance—manifested through legal battles, public protests, and steadfast governmental integrity—is successfully tripping up President Trump’s power grabs, ensuring that democratic principles remain intact despite formidable challenges.

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Notable Quotes:

• Rachel Maddow ([15:30]): “When you use a plane like that to fly nine people into a Fox News photo op, you know what that is? That's a really expensive photo op.”

• Rachel Maddow ([25:20]): “Now they're just quietly no longer doing it and not saying anything about it.”

• Jared Bernstein ([43:40]): “These folks are really playing with fire when they suggest manipulating the numbers like that.”

• Congresswoman Maxine Dexter ([33:17]): “Our democracy is sick... Let’s see you intervene, you take action, you do something.”

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This episode of The Rachel Maddow Show serves as a thorough examination of the early actions of President Trump's administration’s second term, highlighting the robust mechanisms of resistance that uphold democratic norms against authoritarian tendencies.

Transcript

[Rachel Maddow]

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[Maxine Dexter]

Have you ever been at the beach and seen a Coast Guard helicopter doing Coast Guard helicopter things like at the beach or at the seaside? My dad, God bless him, he's like a savant when it comes to identifying planes and helicopters in every other way. My dad seems like a normal man, but you'll be talking to him and there's some tiny fly speck on the horizon that you can't even hear and you can barely see, and he'll whip around and say, ooh, a DC7, I think that was built in 1978. Or it'll be like, oh, I didn't realize that Citabria was still flying out of that airfield. I haven't seen that there in a few years. Like, dad, how do you know this stuff? I've always been very impressed with my dad that he could do that and a little embarrassed that I can't. But when it comes to Coast Guard helicopters specifically at least those, I can usually say, hey, that's one from the Coast Guard. It's because they are usually painted in very bright distinctive like orange and orange and white. But also, unless you're around a bunch of other military aircraft for some reason, they are usually bigger and way more serious looking than anything else that might be flying around. Like than any news helicopter or tourist sightseeing helicopter, anything like that. They're really recognizable. The most recognizable helicopter that you see for things like Coast Guard search and rescue and Coast Guard law enforcement missions is this one you see here, the CH65 dolphin. And that one, once I point this out every time you see one, you'll know exactly what it is, because it's not only got the normal helicopter rotor on top, it's also got this distinctive vertical tail rotor as well, that circular tail rotor. It's unmistakable. It's a really big aircraft. And ones like this, they really stand out. But did you know if you need to, you can stuff one of those huge orange Coast Guard helicopters inside another aircraft? You can take that helicopter and put it inside another aircraft. It's like a Turducken. Look. This is one of those big Coast Guard search and rescue helicopters being put inside another aircraft being put inside a Coast Guard C130. Just to give you some idea of how big a Coast Guard C130 is, that's how huge that plane is. You could put a whole helicopter inside it. One of the big ones. C130s can carry whole helicopters. C130s are so big, they can carry six wheeled armored US military vehicles. C130s can carry more than 21 tons of cargo and airdrop it wherever you need anywhere, anywhere in the world. C130s are just massive for US military transport. They have no trouble hauling more than 90 fully equipped US troops, plus all their gear anywhere in the world. They're just. They're just massive. They're like airplane hangars that are also airplanes. Last week, the Trump administration sent the US Secretary of Defense and a Fox News host and a Fox News Channel camera crew all the way to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba to be there for the arrival of a C130 to be there for the arrival of one of these C130 military aircraft. One of these huge cargo planes landing at Guantanamo with very important cargo on board. They landed one of these huge military aircraft there, this one that can hold more than 20 tons of gear. It can carry multiple armored vehicles. It can carry whole helicopters in its belly. They landed one of these huge planes there and out popped nine guys, a total of nine people that they flew to Guantanamo on an active duty US Military aircraft with massive cargo capacity, presumably because they wanted it to look like a big operation. After all, they had the 7pm host from the Fox News Channel there and the Defense Secretary there in person. So this thing had to look big. But I kid you not, there were only nine guys inside that whole huge plane. When you use a plane like that to fly nine people into a Fox News photo op, you know what that is? That's a really expensive photo op. And if you think that C130 was a little big for that job, consider that the Trump administration, in its infinite wisdom in Its relentless search for efficiency. They not only have been using C130 for flights like this, they have also been using C17s, which are an order of magnitude bigger. In a C17, you can't just fit one helicopter inside. You can fit whole fleets of helicopters inside them. You can roll eight Humvees into a C17 all at once. You can put a 70 ton M1 Abrams tank in there and drop it anywhere you want. C17s are just unimaginably enormous. And the Trump administration, again, I kid you not, has also been using C17s, according to the Wall Street Journal, approximately 30 times to fly random little groups of immigrants to different places for a flight, say to India. They charged the taxpayers $3 million for a single flight on one of these military aircraft just so they could do it using one of these huge planes. Cost for using one of these big military planes at minimum is like over $28,000 an hour. But that's what they're doing. That's what they're using it for. Why are they doing this? Why are they wasting all of this money and all of these military resources? Active duty military resources, quote. The administration has opted for military planes for these flights, quote, for reasons of optics, said one US Defense official. Optics. Got to get the photo op right. Tell me more about all the waste, fraud and abuse you're targeting by firing the people who contain Ebola outbreaks while you're using C17s and C130s to fly. You used a C130 to fly nine guys to a Fox News photo op. You could have fit those guys in two Nissan Sentras with a seat left over. But no, they spent on that one flight nearly a quarter million taxpayer dollars for that one trip. So it would look very militaristic and cool and tough. On The Fox News 7pm show with Laura Ingraham. Hey, that's your money that they spent on that. The Wall Street Journal was first to report today that the Trump administration is finally now suspending costly deportation flights using U.S. military aircraft, quote. The Trump administration has conducted roughly 30 migrant flights using C17 aircraft and about a dozen on C130s. According to Flight tracking data. The military flights have taken longer routes and transported fewer migrants at higher cost to tax than the government's typical deportation flights on civilian aircraft. Alongside that, Reporting from the Wall Street Journal today, NBC News is now reporting that the whole sending people to Guantanamo thing is off as well. President Donald Trump's plan to use the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to detain 30,000 immigrants has been hitting major legal, logistical and financial hurdles ever since. He surprised many in his own administration by announcing it. Now, as agencies spar over responsibility for operations there and over blame for what has gone wrong, there is a growing recognition within the administration that this was a political decision that is, quote, just not working. The Pentagon is also discussing bringing home some of the more than 1,000 US troops who were surged to Guantanamo in the first days after Trump's announcement. You might have remembered that Trump announced that they were going to fill up Guantanamo with 30,000 bad guys. Remember, he said it was going to be the worst of the worst. The largest number of people they sent was 178, all of whom were quickly shipped out to somewhere else. More than a quarter of the people they had there at the time when they had the highest numbers there. More than a quarter of the people they had sent there had zero criminal record and zero criminal charges pending against them. The worst of the worst, gotta put them there with Al Qaeda and we're going to have 30,000 of them and we're going to drop them off on five motorcycles, really. But apparently that's done now. You know, it was never clearly legal for them to be using US Military resources for these flights or for what they were having the military tried to do with these folks at Guantanamo, but they nevertheless announced it. They made a bunch of social media videos out of it and Fox News hits and now they can't get away with it for any longer. And so now they're just quietly no longer doing it and not saying anything about it. We are barely six weeks in and this already is quite the thing. They are trying all sorts of incredibly reckless, incredibly expensive, incredibly ill advised things and then those things fail because they can't work or because they can't handle the pushback against them or they face lawsuits and court orders because these things are obviously illegal or they're just too stupid to live. And so then they stop doing these things and they cave and they try to pretend they weren't doing them at all. We're only six weeks in and we're already seeing this for military flights, for deportations and sending immigrants to Guantanamo for some reason. Right. Those things already appear to be over as of today. Also this one today, Trump agency pulls 443 sites off market in real estate reversal. Real estate reversal. What this is from Bloomberg News quote at 2pm Tuesday. So yesterday the GSA posted a list of 443 properties it was considering for sale. An inventory that ranged from a toll booth in El PASO to the FDA's research campus in Silver Spring, Maryland. In the next five hours, more than 100 of those 443 properties were removed from the catalog, including the agency headquarters of the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Health and Services, the Department of justice, the Department of Labor, and the VA. By this morning, less than 24 hours later, the entire list had been removed. Quote, the about face capped a stunning 18 hours that shook federal agencies and threatened already wobbly commercial real estate markets. The sale of some of these properties could have created unique problems. The inventory of properties for disposal included, for example, one specialized satellite facility for the national oceanic and Atmospheric in Maryland. Also a 3.1 million square foot FDA research lab. Also get this, get this. Look at this. A Northern Virginia campus that doesn't appear in federal property records, but has long been associated with the Central Intelligence Agency. They tried to sell the CIA. The president had his top campaign donor try to sell the CIA and the headquarters building of the Department of Justice and the headquarters of the VA and the specialist satellite facilities without which we cannot have, I don't know, weather forecasts. They tried that yesterday and then, oops. Oh, pushback. Who could have expected? And so then Today, less than 24 hours later, they took it all back. They took them all down. Trump tried to fire the chief of the Merit Systems Protection Board. A court ordered her reinstated. Today, that Merit Systems Protection Board ordered the reinstatement of more than 5,000 people who work for the USDA, for the U.S. department of Agriculture. 5,000 people who were illegally mass fired by Trump. Those more than 5,000 people must now be reinstated for at least the next 45 days. That ruling comes after Trump tried to fire another person he's not allowed to fire. Hampton Dellinger, who heads up the federal office that oversees whistleblower protections and civil service protections. Trump tried to fire him, too. That is apparently illegal. Dellinger has fought it vociferously in the courts, including one trip already to the Supreme Court. And it looks like another trip to the Supreme Court is probably on the way. But in the meantime, while he has been reinstated, he told the Merit Systems Protection Board to weigh in on the mass firings at usda, which appeared to be blatantly illegal. That board did weigh in on them. They had to fight their own firings along the way to get there, but they fought them. And now Those more than 5,000 workers at USDA must be reinstated. A ruling by a federal judge in California on the illegality of mass firings carried out by Trump's Office of Personal Management. That ruling appears to have stopped Trump for now from going ahead with his plan to fire More than 5,000 people from the Department of Defense. Quote, the Pentagon's planned firing of 5,400 employees has been temporarily delayed after a federal court decision blocking such dismissals. Same thing at the National Science Foundation. The director of the National Science foundation has ordered 84 of the 170 employees who were laid off from that agency last month to be reinstated immediately. The reversal comes in response to a federal judge's ruling that the Trump administration exceeded its authority when it outlined steps to fire an estimated 200,000 federal workers. Same vibe, different explanation, or rather sort of lack of an explanation when it comes to people fired from the CDC. Quote, Emails went out Tuesday to about 180 CDC employees who got termination notices last month. A message was sent with the subject line, quote, read this email immediately. It said, quote, after further review and consideration, a February 15th termination notice has been rescinded. Employees were told they were cleared to return to work today, Wednesday, quote, you should return to duty under your previous work schedule. We apologize for any disruption that this may have caused. Associated Press notes, quote, the CDC is just the latest federal agency trying to coax back workers soon after they were fired. Similar reversals have been made among employees responsible for medical device oversight, food safety, bird flu response, nuclear weapons and national parks. So military flights for deportations? No. Sending random immigrants to Guantanamo like they're al Qaeda or something? No. Selling the CIA? No. And the Justice Department and the VA and every other federal building they can find in the phone book? No. Firing the guy who's in charge of whistleblowers? No. Firing the Merit Systems Protection board? No. Firing 5,000 people at USDA? No. The firings at the National Science foundation and the CDC and the fricking Pentagon? No. No, not all of them. At least not as many as can be stopped. And then there was today at the United States Supreme Court, an unsigned, mealy mouthed, mild mannered, seemingly deliberately obtuse and confusing little ruling from the United States Supreme Court. Did I mention it was unsigned? But it nevertheless did brush Trump back. Supreme Court today allowed to stand that court ruling we covered here last week in which Trump was ordered to restart foreign aid funding that was approved by law that he had nevertheless illegally stopped. That federal judge had ordered Trump to restart that funding. Trump had not done it despite the judge's order. Then last week, on Wednesday, that judge issued a motion to enforce to compel the government to actually follow his order and restart that funding and that deadline for them to restart that funding was Thursday at midnight. Thursday, just before midnight, Trump rushed to the Supreme Court to try to get them to rescue him from that deadline. And they did say they would consider it. They considered it Friday midday and then they sat on it Friday night, Saturday, Saturday night, Sunday, Sunday night, Monday, Monday night, Tuesday, Tuesday night. Who knows, maybe they were waiting till Trump did his State of the Union thing last night. But then this morning, after the State of the Union, they slid this thing under the door. An unsigned, as I say, mealy mouthed, mild mannered little court order that nevertheless does require Donald Trump to start that funding. He cannot blow that judge off. The ruling was 5 to 4. Chief Justice John Roberts and Trump appointed Justice Amy Coney Barrett, siding with Elena Kagan, Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor and telling Trump no, in terms of what happens next, both sides in that case, the Trump administration and the plaintiffs, they're going to have to file a joint Status report by 11am tomorrow in the courtroom of the judge who told the Trump administration they need to restart that funding. They need to file a joint status report tomorrow at 11am saying what they're going to do. But the Supreme Court has weighed in on this now and they are not as yet on this, letting Trump just blatantly break the law. So we'll see what happens tomorrow at 11. But, you know, no rush, right? No Russian restarting this funding. I mean, among other things, the Supreme Court's been sitting on it for nearly a week and that funding is still stopped. I mean, in the meantime, today, this morning, people were arrested on Capitol Hill outside a meeting between a Trump State Department official and members of Congress. These people got arrested protesting the fact that HIV treatment still isn't restarted, even though the Trump administration keeps saying that that's one of the things that they agree shouldn't be cut off and they agree that should get a waiver and they agree that funding should be flowing. It's not fun, it's not flowing, it's not happening. And so these people today, we're on Capitol Hill, engaged in civil disobedience, getting arrested to try to get that funding pried loose, to keep people alive. Pushback comes in all sorts of ways. Lawsuits, court orders, individual officials refusing to go quietly and fighting personally as high as they possibly can to keep standing the systems and protections inside our government that are supposed to protect us and protect the American government from arbitrary and corrupt lawless action. There is friction and resistance inside the government and in the US military, when people are being asked to do things that are expensive and pointless and wasteful and embarrassing and ultimately indefensible, even when they happen on Fox News at 7:00, there is journalism and therefore public attention to the indefensible costs and consequences of some of their most hurtful and ill advised decisions. The local news coverage, for example, of the cost to American families and especially to American small businesses of Trump's, this tariff stunt that he's pulling. The local news coverage of this has just been devastating and it is unavoidable. It is in red states and blue states all across this country, in cities and small towns and anywhere there is a news outlet. And so, yes, today they've started to say, okay, maybe not on some of these tariffs. We will have more on that coming up tonight. But it's also very brave people, very relentless and brave people protesting, engaging in civil disobedience, people who are willing to be arrested if necessary. It's also people peacefully protesting in the streets. Look, this was Boise, Idaho yesterday. This is at the Capitol of one of the most conservative states in the country. This is Boise, Idaho. People protesting against Trump in the lead up to his State of the Union address last night. This was Phoenix, Arizona yesterday. Another big crowd protesting at their state capitol ahead of Trump's speech last night. Look at the numbers that turned out yesterday in Utah, in Salt Lake City, Utah. Look at this, Utah, bright red Utah. Look at the people who turned out in Little Corning, New York, and in Bakersfield, California, and in West Hartford, Connecticut, and outside the office of the Office of Personnel management in Washington, D.C. pushback takes all forms. And it has turned them back or at least slowed them down on almost everything they have tried to do already. And it's easy to get overwhelmed with what they are trying to do. But look also at what they have been stopped from doing, what they have been slowed down from doing, what they've been embarrassed over and what they've had to quietly claw back hoping no one notices. I mean, they're clearly bent on an authoritarian takeover and destruction of the US Government. Right? There's no illusions now as to what they're trying to do. They know they need to go fast if they are going to go far. Today the headline showed the increasing scope of their appetite, Right, to try to destroy more and do it more thoroughly. They want to fire 80,000 people from the VA and they'll tell you they love veterans while they're doing it. The firing of 80,000 people from the VA, among other things, will be the firing of tens of thousands of veterans themselves who hold those jobs. But they're going to try it, see how much of that they can get away with. They said today they want to fire 40,000 plus people from the IRS because what better way to grind a country into dust than to eliminate the means by which it collects funds so it can continue to operate. If last night's State of the Union and the latest pronouncements from the president's top campaign donor are anything to go by, it would seem that they're about to come. Next for Social Security. So the va, the irs, Social Security, and then tonight there's this reopening the immigration prison where they locked up all the little kids. The Trump administration is reopening a sprawling detention center in South Texas for migrant families facing deportation, resuming the practice of detaining children four years after the Biden administration ended it. Everywhere they go, everything they have tried to do, they are running up against opposition, annoyance. They are running up against their own stupidity. They are running up against their own ignorance. They are running up against the law. They are running up against journalists figuring out what they are doing. They are running up against the revelation that the American people really dislike what they are doing and people are willing to let that be known. They are running up against constituents, even Republican constituents, people who live in bright red districts and states telling their members of Congress and their senators how much they dislike, dislike what Trump is doing. They're running up against people protesting against it. The pushback all over this country has thrown down stop strips in the road to flatten their tires and at least slow them down and sometimes to stop them. And it has happened everywhere. And none of it has been easy given the scale of what they are trying to do to this country. But the feedback loop here is very clear. Six weeks in, it is working and redoubled efforts will mean redoubled results. We've got a lot more to come on that tonight, plus one big warning for something to watch for that is coming. It's all ahead. Stay with us.

[Paige DeSorbo]

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[Rachel Maddow]

As President Donald Trump returns to the White House, what will the first 100 days of the presidency bring? Follow along as his agenda takes shape with the new MSNBC newsletter, Trump's first 100 days, weekly updates sent straight to your inbox and expert insight on the key issues and figures defining this second term.

[Maxine Dexter]

We're seeing a really radical effort to change the American system of government.

[Rachel Maddow]

Sign up for Trump's first 100 days at msnbc.com trump100 hey everyone, it's Chris Hayes.

[Jared Bernstein]

This week on my podcast, why Is this Happening?

[Maxine Dexter]

Author and journalist Ellie Reeve on the.

[Rachel Maddow]

Darkest corners of the Internet, I did.

[Maxine Dexter]

All work analyzing where all this stuff comes from, everything they believe, their tactics, the tactics that work, the tactics that failed, what worked to bring the alt right down. And nevertheless, their ideas and tactics and vibes and aesthetics have become the mainstream of like at least 50% of the American culture.

[Jared Bernstein]

That's this week on why Is this Happening?

[Maxine Dexter]

Search for why Is this Happening wherever you're listening right now and follow Heartbreaking emails and phone calls have been pouring into my office over the past month. The impacts to our entire state, and especially rural Arizona, are astounding. Let us be clear, chaos is not efficient. Slashing jobs, gutting essential services and leaving communities scrambling to pick up the pieces is not efficiency. It is destruction. That was just tonight, just within the past hour or so, the attorney general from Arizona, Chris Mays, speaking in a high school gym in Phoenix tonight. She was speaking at what's being billed as the first of a series of community impact town halls that are being held by Chris Mays and by Democratic state attorneys general from other states. There are going to be these town halls all over the country on the impact of the mass firings in the federal government and Trump's other attempts to dismantle the U.S. government. Again, Democratic state attorneys general holding these town halls, the first one tonight in Phoenix. It's ongoing right now. Also tonight, the leader of the Democrats in the House, Hakeem Jeffries, is holding what they're calling a national update and call to action after Trump's speech to Congress last night. That's happening right now as we speak online. Hakeem Jeffries and a number of other Democrats, including the newly elected chair of the Democratic Party. On Planet Republican, things are a little different. Yesterday, Republican members of Congress were told explicitly by their leadership that they should stop having town halls with their constituents. Stop meeting with the people who voted for you. This isn't a good time. Democrats are getting no such advice. Quite the opposite. And Democrats have been holding huge town halls. For example, look at this. This is Oregon. This weekend, more than 1,000 people showed up for a town hall in Gresham, Oregon, hosted by Congresswoman Maxine Dexter, a Democrat. There were so many people who turned up for her town hall, they had to pull out extra bleachers. There were people sitting on the gym floor because they still couldn't get into the bleachers. A lot of people were there just to cheer her on. A lot of people were there to also ask her to do more to oppose the Trump administration. One voter at the event told Oregon Public Broadcasting, quote, I've been calling and messaging her office every day for the past month, asking her to take more drastic action than she is. I think we're running out of road right now for that huge town hall for Congresswoman Dexter and her constituents. That was Saturday. Last night, Congresswoman Dexter was back across the country at President Trump's speech to Congress. She was among several Democrats who left the House chamber during President Trump's speech. And I will tell you, I screwed up and twice described Congresswoman Dexter as being from Maryland. It's because I had written in my handwritten notes to self, Congresswoman Dexter, MD, to remind myself that she's a doctor. And in the moment, because my brain is the size and texture of a teaspoon of split pea soup, at this point in my career, I read MD As Marilyn, not She's a doctor from Oregon. Congresswoman Dexter, on the left here, walked out of President Trump's speech last night along with her fellow Oregon Congresswoman, Andrea Salinas. Joining us now is Democratic Congresswoman Dr. Maxine Dexter from the great state of Oregon. Congresswoman Dexter, I am very sorry for saying you are from Maryland last night, and I did it twice. I apologize deeply.

[Jared Bernstein]

Oh, no offense taken at all. I was delighted to hear you said my name. And thanks so much for having me, Rachel.

[Maxine Dexter]

Well, I'd had you on the brain anyway, because I had looked at that footage from the huge town hall that you had in your district this weekend on Saturday. It's one of the biggest ones that I've seen anywhere in the country. Seeing that high school gym or middle school gym, that school gym like that with your constituents and seeing some of the tape from there, seeing the energy, it was, to me, it was very moving. I just have to ask you what you made of that and whether that was what you expected.

[Jared Bernstein]

I didn't know what to expect. It was my first solo town hall. I'd Had a couple with Senator Merkley, but I didn't know if anyone was going to show up. I was hoping, but Rachel, I too was moved. There was one point in particular where it was a groundswell of emotion and people trying to convey to me their concerns and their fears and their desire for me to do something. And that is what I mentally took a note of and said, I've got to take that with me back to Washington next week.

[Maxine Dexter]

When your constituents are bringing that frustration and that sense of urgency and desperation to you, are people articulating what it is they want you to do or if there is some idea of scalable action or more effective action or more dramatic action that they think is within reach that they want to see you do, or is it more an inchoate sense that something must be done, but I don't know what it is?

[Jared Bernstein]

Yeah, our democracy is sick. My voters understand that. Our constituents across the country, you just showed footage, clearly understand that. And I am a critical care physician and my job for 20 years has been to look at a patient and say, sick or not sick. This is a democracy that is sick. And certainly what you don't do when someone's sick is sit back and say they might get better, they might get worse. Let's see you intervene, you take action, you do something. So it resonates profoundly with me what my voters are saying right now and what we do here in Congress or what we all should be doing in Congress is representing our people. As Nancy Pelosi says, our title, job title and job description are one and the same.

[Maxine Dexter]

Representative, you represent a district that voted for you. A blue district. Right next door is a red district. The part of Oregon that you're in is a patchwork. And terms of its ideological makeup and the relative levels of passion among its citizens about various things, I have to ask if there's anything that's happening that might be surprising to you at all or sort of coming down in non predictable partisan ways as we're starting to see some of the impact of these big cuts to federal workers and big cuts to government programs, is it coming down in a way that couldn't necessarily have been predicted in advance in terms of the impact in different types of districts?

[Jared Bernstein]

Yeah, you know, I, as you said, I've got a very blue district. It's a D plus 22. So that means, you know, I have the preponderance of my district is going to be Democrat. And they are very clear with me at this point. They don't want us to work with Republicans who are undermining our democracy. And that was actually in this town hall. One of the areas where I got the most pushback from my constituents was when I was talking about we've got to work on these issues together and there's good people in Congress who really want to do the right thing. I think we've lost trust. They are feeling so scared and so threatened and really it's a great betrayal. People voted for Donald Trump because they thought he was going to be the working American champion. And he's turned out to be quite the opposite. He's firing them left and right.

[Maxine Dexter]

Congresswoman Maxine Dexter of Oregon, thank you for joining us tonight and stay in touch. Seeing that huge turnout in your district last night, you're saying it's the first in person, single solo town hall you've ever done is really interesting. As you continue holding these events and you see the way things are evolving in your district, we'd love to have you back. Keep talking about about how your constituents are feeling. Thank you.

[Jared Bernstein]

Thank you. I appreciate it.

[Maxine Dexter]

More news ahead. Stay with us.

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[Maxine Dexter]

For a president on the way to give a State of the Union address, this was not a great headline for that day. Quote Atlanta Fed Shock sounds Trump Session warning the Federal Reserve bank in Atlanta, forecasting yesterday that the US economy, American GDP, is shrinking right now at an annualized rate of 2.8%, minus 2.8%. Now, that is just one forecast. It's an early forecast, but, you know, Trump session is not a great headline for a President Trump on the day of his first big speech. But here's another one from today, the morning after his big speech, quote, private employers added just 77,000 jobs in February, far below expectations. And again, this is just a forecast in this case from private industry. We don't get official hiring numbers until the monthly official jobs report comes out the day after tomorrow. But. But 77,000 is less than half the new jobs that were created last month. And it's half of what Wall street has been expecting. It's all very worrying economic news, and it comes on top of Wall street posting its worst loss of the year this week on Monday, when Trump announced that he was going through with his tariff plan on Canada and Mexico and China. Some of those losses in the markets were regained today after Trump had second thought and walked some of that back. But barely six weeks into this second Trump presidential term, economic indicators are blinking red in response to Trump's action as president. But you know, they're called economic indicators for a reason. Measurements like these, measurements like the jobs report and GDP and economic growth and all these things, they're supposed to indicate what is going on in the economy. They're supposed to help the public and businesses and policymakers understand what is happening with the economy. What if they could just change those indicators, though? Turn the lights off so they didn't blink at all, red or otherwise. What if they could just change what these numbers mean and whether they indicate anything real about the economy? And I said at the top of the show, I had a big warning for you. This is what it's about. Over the weekend on Fox News, Trump's newly appointed Commerce Secretary, Howard Letnick, floated the idea of changing the way we calculate GDP in this country. Letnick says he wants to take government spending out of the equation. Just take that out and say that's not part of it. Which would, of course, obscure the effects of everything Trump does in government, let alone his top campaign donor, who's given free reign to do whatever he wants to the government. It also turns out Elon Musk, the president's top campaign donor, is into this idea. On Friday, he himself posted online that we should change the way we calculate America's economic growth, America's gdp, never mind the pesky concerns of economists about interference in the federal data, we should just calculate it in a different way, a better way, a way that suits them better. In the category of watching what they do and not what they say, though, here's something that Commerce Secretary Howard Letnick has just done. Wall Street Journal was first to report that Secretary Letnick has now disbanded two advisory committees whose job it is to make sure that the economic data from the federal government are accurate. An expert who worked now who worked on one of those now disbanded committees tells the Wall Street Journal that their work, quote, goes to the essential trans of these statistical agencies. When you remove that transparency, then that diminishes trust. Already just six weeks in, Trump has taken a number of actions that have potentially disastrous economic consequences in this country. And in many ways the country is already feeling it. If they are going to cook the books so that economic indicators like unemployment numbers and economic growth and weather or not we're in a recession or a depression just don't mean anything anymore because they've recalculated them with special Trump numbers, what does that mean for our ability to know the truth about what's going on and what does it mean for us economically? I'll ask somebody who knows next. How worried should we be about an economy that is slowing in all of this? We saw the GDP last week. Are any of these movements moves worrying you that we're actually going to see it cut into growth over the near term negatively?

[Rachel Maddow]

No. No, no.

[Maxine Dexter]

So let's you know, the Commerce Department runs the statistics of gdp.

[Howard Letnick]

They count government spending as part of gdp.

[Maxine Dexter]

So I'm going to separate those two.

[Rachel Maddow]

And make it transparent.

[Maxine Dexter]

Donald Trump's commerce secretary asked on Fox News about worrisome new economic indicators and his response is don't worry, I control the statistics. I'm going to change those. Joining us now is Jared Bernstein, who is chair of the Council of Economic Advisors under President Joe Biden. Mr. Bernstein, it is nice to see you. Thank you for being here.

[Howard Letnick]

A pleasure to be with you.

[Maxine Dexter]

Is it possible to change the basic statistics we have for the US Economy? And what would be the consequences if those data are no longer considered reliable level?

[Howard Letnick]

Well, it would be possible to do if you took over agencies that would resist you very, very strongly. Some of the most our agencies, our statistical agencies are staffed by people with tremendous integrity who would fight as hard as they could. But we've seen some of the tactics that this administration uses against such folks. So of course it's worrisome and the consequences will you partially outlined them earlier yourself, Rachel, and you were spot on. If you're an investor, a global investor trying to figure out where our economy is going, if you're a student thinking about an occupation where you might be needed in the future, if you're a local town trying to think about your infrastructure, think about all the trade data we've been talking about over the past few days with that other problem that's going on over there with this, this budding trade, trade war. All of that information is essential to not just, you know, number crunching nerds like myself, but to the well being of markets, the country and the people in it. So these folks are, you know, really playing with fire when they suggest manipulating the numbers like that.

[Maxine Dexter]

The Federal Economic Statistics Advisory Committee, the Bureau of Economic Analysis Advisory Committee, those are impressively boring titles, Jared. But why would you want to get rid of those things? What is it that entities like that do that the Trump administration might want to do away with? Mr. Letnick has done away with those committees as of today.

[Howard Letnick]

Really important question, because I think once you start thinking about that, you can get worried pretty quickly. First of all, let's be very clear that these committees are typically staff by volunteers. They cause virtually nothing to run, and for two decades they've been advising our statistical agencies on making their good work even better, improving transparency. And all I can think about is an old adage that says if you want to control the numbers or the information flow, first get rid of the experts. I have a hard time figuring out why you would chop away at an institution like that. That, again, is virtually costless and provides essential information to keep improving an already really, you know, excellent statistical system. So I don't like what I'm seeing here one bit.

[Maxine Dexter]

Jared Bernstein, Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Joe Biden. Jared, if this, if it is what it seems like it's going to be, I have a feeling we're going to be talking to you about this a lot in the next few days. So stand by, my friend. Thank. Thank you. You'll do.

[Howard Letnick]

Thank you.

[Maxine Dexter]

We'll be right back. All right, that's gonna do it for me for now. I will see you again tomorrow and every night this week at 9:00 Eastern here on MSNBC.

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