last word. stephanie ruhle, nbc news senior business analyst and host of the 11th hour, and chris hayes, host of the show i'm the lead-in for, all in. thank you for being here. this is going to be fun. i'm very jealous i'm getting to hang out with you in person. >> there's a seat. >> i'm here virtually. i want to get to some expectation setting. i'm going to go to you first for that, lawrence. i will warn you i may have to rudely interrupt you. >> this is an odd speech, only the second such speech in presidential history, barack obama delivered the first one, which is essentially rejoice, america. congress did not destroy the country. and so it's not quite a victory speech, and i think the president will try to make it feel like a victory for the american people, not exactly a victory for him. he has to somehow find a way of speaking to the democratic base voter and make them feel better

about this agreement. but his primary audience is actually going to be that undecided swing voter in the middle, and really try to sell it to that voter. >> right, and chris hayes, this is a strange thing for biden. is that the fundamentals of the economy are good, and yet people feel bad. and so he's constantly in this position of trying to sell reality to people who are sort of defying reality with their sort of feel, their sort of feelings about things. >> to lawrence's point, i was a little surprised, precisely for the reason you enunciated. okay, we nade it. like not a speech giving occasion, but i think what it's going to be, to your point, it's going to be about the biden economy. i do think, look, inflation has been bad for lots of people. it has eaten into real gains. people also had a higher level of personal disposable income and that's come down as the sort of recovery has happened, as that money has sort of been

spent down. there's a lot of reasons people do feel uncertain. but the fundamentals look pretty darn good. >> i'm rudy interrupting. here comes biden. >> fellow americans, when i ran for president, i was told the days of bipartisanship were over and democrats and republicans could no longer work together. but i refuse to believe that. because america can never give in to that way of thinking. the only way american democracy can function is through compromise and consensus. and that's what i work to do as your president. you know, to forge bipartisan agreement where it's possible and where it's needed. i have signed more than 350 bipartisan laws thus far, in 2 1/2 years. including historic law that rebuilding america, so we can rank number one in the world in infrastructure instead of where we are ranked now, number 13 in the world. another historic law, rebuilding

the manufacturing base so we'll lead the world in making semi-conductor chips. so many more and so many sophisticated ones, and now, a bipartisan budget agreement. this is vital because it's essential to the progress we made over the last few years. it's keeping full faith and credit of the united states of america and passing a budget that continues to grow our economy and reflects our values as a nation. that's why i'm speaking to you tonight. to report on the crisis averted and what we're doing to protect america's future. passing this budget agreement was critical. the stakes could not have been higher. if we had failed to reach an agreement on the budget, there were extreme voices threatening to take america for the first time in our 247-year history into default on our national debt. nothing, nothing would have been more irresponsible. nothing would have been more catastrophic. our economy would have been thrown into recession,

retirement accounts for millions of americans would have been decimated. 8 million americans would have lost their jobs. default would have destroyed our nation's credit rating, which would have made everything from mortgages to car loans to funding for the government much more expensive. and it would have taken years to climb out of that hole. and america's standing as the most trusting reliable financial partner in the world would have been shattered. so it was critical to reach an agreement. and it's very good news for the american people. no one got everything they wanted, but the american people got what they needed. we averted an economic crisis. an economic collapse. we're cutting spending and bringing the deficit down at the same time. we're protecting important priorities from social security to medicare to medicaid to veterans, to our transformational investments in infrastructure and clean energy. i want to commend speaker

mccarthy. you know, he and i and our teams, we were able to get along and get things done. we were straightforward with one another, honest, respectful with one another. both sides operated in good faith. both sides kept their word. i also want to commend other congressional leaders, house minority leader jefferies, senate majority leader schumer, senate minority leader mcconnell. they acted responsibly and put the good of the country ahead of politics. a final vote in both chambers was overwhelming. far more bipartisan than anyone thought was possible. so i want to thank the members of the congress who voted to pass this agreement, which i'm going to sign tomorrow to become the law. here's hot the deal does. first, it cuts spending. over the next ten years, the deficit will be cut by more than $1 trillion. that will be on top of the record $1.7 trillion, $1.7

trillion i already cut the deficit in my first two years in office. and it's clear, we're all in a much more fiscally responsible course than the one i inherited when i took office four years ago. when i came to office, the deficit had increased every year the previous four years. and nearly $8 trillion was added to the national debt in the last administration. and now we're turning things around. that's good for america. you know, my dad used to have an expression. he said joey, don't tell me about your values. show me your budget, i'll tell you your values. that's at the heart of this debate. what do we value? protecting seniors. you may remember during my state of the union address, there was a spirited exchange between me and a few republicans spontaneously occurring on the floor of the house of representatives. i was pointing out for years some of them were putting forward proposals to cut social security and medicare. and some of them that night took

exception and they said very loudly that that wasn't true. so i asked them, on the floor that night, i asked a simple question. will you agree not to cut social security, not to cut medicare? would they agree to protect these essential programs, lifeline for millions of americans. programs that these americans have been paying into every single paycheck they have earned since they started working. and that provide so much peace of mind. the bright lights and cameras on, those few republicans who were protesting, they agreed. they said they wouldn't cut it. that's how we protected social security and medicare from the beginning. and from it being cut, period. health care was another priority for me, a top priority. i made it clear from the outset, i would not agree to any cuts in medicaid, another essential lifeline for millions of americans including children in poverty, the elderly in nursing homes and americans living with

disabilities. original house republican proposed would have cut health care for up to 21 million americans on medicaid. i said no. medicare was protected. and so were millions of people most in need. look, i have long believed that the only one truly sacred obligation that the government has is to prepare those we send into harm's way and care for them and their families when they come home and when they don't come home. that's why my last budget provided v.a. hospitals with additional funding for more doctors, nurses, and equipment. to accommodate the needs of veterans with more appointments. house republican plan would have meant 30 fewer million v.a. health care visits for our veterans. we didn't let that happen. in addition, this bill fully funds the bipartisan pact act, the most significant law in decades for veterans exposed to

toxic burn pits and for their families. expands access to those veterans and their families to health care and to disability benefits. look, we're investing in america and our people and in our future. we have created over 13 million new jobs. nearly 800,000 manufacturing jobs. where is it written that america can't lead the world again in manufacturing? unemployment is at 3.7%. more americans are working today than ever in the history of this country. and inflation has dropped ten straight months in a row. in this debate, i refused to put what was responsible for all this economic progress on the chopping block. this bipartisan agreement protects the law that will help us build the best infrastructure in the world. fully protects the chips and science act, which is going to bring key parts of our supply chain to america, so we don't have to rely on others.

like semi-conductors, those tiny computer chips smaller than the tip of your finger, that affect nearly everything we rely on from cell phones to building automobiles to the most sophisticated weapons systems and so much more. we protected another law that i passed and signed last year. that finally beat big pharma, which i have been trying to do for over 30 years. finally gives medicare the power to negotiate lower drug prices, just like the v.a. has been able to do for veterans. this law is already dramatically cust the caught of insulin for seniors. from as much as $400 a month to just $35 a month for insulin. negotiating lower drug prices not only saves seniors a lot of money, it saves the country a lot of money. $160 billion that's not having to be paid out because drug prices are more rational. we pay the highest drug prices of any industrial nation in the world. it's just the beginning.

you know, we also protected the most significant breakthrough ever, in dealing with the existential threat of climate change. today, new wind and solar power is cheaper than fossil fuel. since i have been in office, clean energy and advanced manufacturing have brought in $470 billion in private investment. it's going to create thousands of jobs, good paying jobs all across this country. and help the environment at the same time. you remember at the beginning of this debate, some of my republican colleagues were determined to gut the clean energy investments. i said no. we kept them all. and there's so much more to do. we're going to do even more to reduce the deficit. we need to control spending if we're going to do that. we also have to raise revenue and go after tax cheats and make sure everybody is paying their fair share. no one, i promise, no one making

less than $400,000 a year will pay a penny more in federal taxes. but like most of you at home, i know the federal tax system isn't fair. that's why i kept my commitment again that no one earning less than $400,000 a year will pay a penny more in federal taxes. that's why last year, i secured more funding for more irs funding to go after wealthy tax cheats. the nonpartisan congressional budget office, it is nonpartisan, says this bill will bring in $150 billion and other outside experts expect it would save as much as $400 billion, because it's forcing people to pay their fair share. republicans may not like it. i'm going to make sure the wealthy pay their fair share. i'm also proposing closing over a dozen special interest tax loopholes for big oil, crypto traders, hedge fund billionaires, saving taxpayers billions of dollars.

republicans defended every single one of these special interest loopholes, every single one. i'm going to be coming back, and with your help, i'm going to win. right now, catch this, right now, the average billionaire in america pays just 8% in federal taxes. 8%. teachers and firefighters pay more than that. that's why i poposed a minimize tax for billionaires. republicans are against it, but i'm going to keep fighting for it. no billionaire should pay less in federal taxes than a teacher or firefighter. look, let me close with this. i know bipartisanship is hard. and unity is hard, but we can never stop trying. because moments like this one, the ones we just faced, where the american economy and the world economy at risk of collapsing, there's no other way. no matter how tough our politics gets, we need to see each other

not as adversaries but as fellow americans. treat each other with dignity and respect, to join forces as americans to stop shouting, lower the temperature, and work together to pursue progress, secure prosperity, and keep the promise of america for everybody. as i have said in my inaugural address, without unity, there is no peace, only bitterness and fury. and we can never become that country. i can honestly say to you tonight that i have never been more optimistic about america's future. we just need to remember who we are. we are the united states of america. and there's nothing, nothing we can't do when we do it together. thank you all for listening, taking the time tonight to listen to me. may god bless you all and may god protect our troops. thank you. that was president biden

from the oval with some lovely pictures of his family behind him. very bideny speech. back with me, alex wagner, lawrence o'donnell, stephanie ruhle, and chris hayes. he opened with bipartisanship and ends with it, but he sandwiches in hits at republicans. >> did you say me, joy? >> yeah, to alex. >> happy to talk. you know, i think that he recalled that moment in the state of the union rightfully so when he basically outed or shamed republicans on their potential -- their appetite to cut social safety net programs, and in so doing is trying to burnish his resume as protector in chief. this was a set of remarks that were, yes, about bipartisanship, yes, a case for the biden economy, but also biden as a leader, someone who cares about the american people. and in that, he's outlining the way in which he's trying to protect the most vulnerable in

society by protecting medicaid, medicare, and social security, and drawing a contrast with the republican party, which had its knives out for those programs at the outset of this year. that's an important case he needs to make, given the strength for keeping those programs in tact that we have seen across this country. even the gop's position on this has changed. this is not -- you can't talk about slashing social safety net programs publicly as a republican candidate in the same way that you used to be able to. it's becoming increasingly the third rail in american politics and so biden was very much using that as a case for his own candidacy in 2024, which he alluded to, towards the end of those remarks. >> did it surprise you that he didn't go to some of the other sort of fiscal ideas that appeal to more -- to younger voters, things like student loan debt relief, he's in court fighting right now on whether or not student loan forgiveness can happen. he was leaning on the bedrock democratic policy ideas, medicare, social security, does

that surprise you? >> i think his nod to younger voters was especially the climate stuff, which they are very animated by, rightfully so. as the existential issue facing all of us, this planet. but you know, i think part of it is the student loan program is a court issue to a large degree. and there's only so much you can do to control that. so he knows that climate matters. he touted that a lot in the way in which his key climate provisions were preserved as a result of these negotiations, and i think that's his hat tip to young voters. i think you're right, joy. largely the case is being made to swing -- the mythic swing independent voters who are the kind of people who are going to tune in to an oval office address and may not have been following the sausage making in washington, d.c. that's unfolded over the course of the last couple weeks. >> stephanie ruhle, he did a long stretch laying out the fiscal consequences of not doing what was just done. it's weird because it's kind of

hard after president obama and donald trump to get used to a low caffeinated president, a decafversion of a president. he's very calm in his delivery, but he was delivering actual facts on what we risked had we not gone ahead and done this deal. there's a politico article here that says that fitch actually might still downgrade the u.s., our sort of our credit rating and they say this is why. u.s. policymakers have risked damaging the economy's otherwise strong fundamentals thanks to a steady deterioration in governance, partisanship as witnessed by the contested 2020 election, repeated brinksmanship over the debt limit, and failure to tackle fiscal challenges from growing mandatory spending. in other words, the fight republicans just keep bringing to democratic presidents might be the thing that ends up threatening us even though biden got the deal. >> without a doubt. i would say the most important thing he said is not every side

got what they wanted, but america got what it needed. right? this shouldn't be a giant achievement. we should never be in the scenario where the united states could default. every citizen relies on our rating. the world economy does. he was very careful. he gave a compliment to kevin mccarthy because from his perspective, he's the person who ran on saying i'm going to be the bipartisan president, and everyone laughed at him, given how polarized things are. but this isn't it only bipartisan thing done. gun measures, the infrastructure law. he was careful in the last two week, you did not see this white house leaking much, talking about kevin mccarthy, because you can't dunk on a guy and expect him to come to the table, and he did come to the table. there's a zillion terrible things we can say about kevin mccarthy. but this thing did get over the line, and america needed that. >> yeah. i think, joy, just one other

thing that's weird about this moment, and i think in the speech, i think he's mostly doing here's what the biden domestic policy agenda has been, which is kind of a 60/40 agenda in the polling. the stuff he's touting and part of the reason democrats did so well in 2022 is the substance of the domestic policy agenda has been popular. wasn't the case, for instance, with the aca. i thing wrongly, but the other thing that's so frustrating about this is there's a difference between the process and outcome. like when a basketball player chucks a ball from 32 feet with like tons of time on the shot clock left, and it goes in, you're like, all right, you made the shot, like in this case, the outcome is fine, it doesn't look that different from a normal budget deal. in that respects, i think it's a decent deal. the process is nuts. the idea that we're just teeing up another one of these processes for 2025, that to me is the bigger issue here. >> that's what fitch is saying. that's why fitch is like, you guys -- >> we're not doing that at all. this is the deal where -- and

wall street, by the way, is relentlessly stupid about the affairs of wall street, about the affairs of washington and they still are. with this deal, you should upgrade this debt because it turns out everyone in the republican house of representatives who we suspected was insane enough to default on the debt, they didn't mean a word of it. never, ever. and they all went along with this. including the chip roy posers who voted against it. they all wanted to not default on the debt. there's not one of them who was in favor of defaulting on the debt. we didn't know that a month ago. we didn't know that six months ago. so if you're really watching this from wall street, you should say this debt is way more solid than we thought it was. it's all just imposed by republicans. >> that's also why the markets didn't blink. we sat here and covered every word --? i'm responding to the notion this might be a reason to

downgrade. >> he went down to the new york stock exchange and said boys and girls. we got this. >> the thing about this again, what happened was it transformed into a normal budget negotiation. and partly it transformed because biden went out and said we're not negotiating about this. we agree, i still think as a matter of like sound engineering, that like leaving this thing lying around, to go off at a future point, is ridiculous. get rid of the debt ceiling. you appropriate and spend the money and pay the debt. get rid of the limit. >> i think biden made the best case for that. go ahead, alex. >> if you read the reporting on how this deal came together, there was concern in the white house until several days beforehand. there was a legitimate examination of the 14th

amendment which i don't think is entirely off the table, working it through the courts to see if there could be a way to get the debt ceiling off, and concern up until three or four, five days in advance of when we got a deal that it wasn't going to come together. in that way, it's absert that this is what you need to have hanging over your head to get a normal budget deal done. >> to lawrence's point which is also one of the great lessons here and a credit -- it is a credit to kevin mccarthy honestly and a credit to joe biden. it became clear early on mccarthy wasn't going to shoot the hostage. and once that happens, i had a very wise person once say to me, you cannot invent leverage you don't have in a negotiation. the whole pretense of the debt sealing is taking leverage you don't have. we only have one part of government but we're going to get everything we want because if we don't, we'll blow up the economy. when it's clear that's not a credible threat, the leverage goes away. the idea that you could get

everything you want also goes away. >> this sentence we heard from the president, i commend speaker mccarthy, just imagine the four years of the trump presidency. imagine a sentence that begins with i commend the speaker. it's inconceivable. that line, i think, to the average viewer of this, is the most important line because you're either with biden on these policies before he opens his mouth or halfway with him on these policies or you're not. but on human decency, there is no comparison between the front-runner for the republican nomination and the person who just spoke, who will be the democratic nominee. that's the kind of language that that voter in the middle likes to hear, has lived with most of their lives with previous presidents. and it's back. that basic human decency was back in the heart of that message. >> isn't that what people voted for in the midterms? >> yes. >> isn't the question, though, and to the very point you're making, lawrence, can america

get unaddicted to the kind of drama that republicans -- because their only purpose, the people who are making the most drama ahead of this that were risking our whole faith and credit were never going to vote for the bill, as i think we have all talked about it. they just wanted the drama and just wanted the pretend leverage. it seems to me they're unserious, but if they have the power to do this every couple years, to go back to the point that was being made by stephanie, if they can do it every couple years, then we should get downgraded because now we are functioning with an actual spraz for mcconnell, for schumer, and people doing the job. that seems like a big risk. >> i don't think there's any american addiction to any of the stuff we saw. americans want their drama in sports and theaters. that's proven by the simple polling number which is kind of unlike anything we have ever

seen before on a major candidate. 60% of america does not want donald trump to be president again. 6-0. okay. that's not a country that wants drama sitting behind that desk in the oval office. >> joy, these weeks also proved, right, for the last few months we're going, my gosh, how powerful are the likes of marjorie taylor greene or lauren boebert and they have got mccarthy hostage. they don't. they don't. and that's what we see. what's jim jordan going to do next? have an investigation that results in a grand total of nothing. and all those things that the likes of jim jordan are working on aren't resulting in anything. the majority of the american people are saying less drama, let's move forward. >> you need campaigns to have essentially bumper sticker rationales and joe biden's was back to normal. this is nuts, let's get it back to normal. let's get covid under control,

let's get this maniac out of the white house. to the degree you can deliver on that with bipartisan deals that feel very normal. this deal in the end was a very normal budget deal. to the degree you can deliver on that and substantively like, inflation comes down, the disruptions go away, people can book vacations and everything isn't all completely haywire, that's the core thing. i promise normal, and we're back to normal is the full rationale for the re-election campaign. >> we have gotten out of covid faster than any other developed country. our economy, even health wise, we came back. we are back to somewhat normal. look at the jobs numbers. despite the fact that we have seen rates go from 0% to 5%, we're chugging along in a positive way. >> i think the narrative, the numbers are always important, but the narrative is hugely important. at one point in this set of remarks through the speech from the oval, biden says our teams were able to get along. both sides operated in good

faith. both sides kept their word. that is a study in contrast with trump, but it's something you have not heard from a president in a long time. i mean, president obama would not have necessarily said that about republicans in congress who were dead set on not negotiating with him. to have the president of the united states be able to say that from the oval office i think for the people who are not following the ins and outs of washington and just want things to be normal, to hear a president say that means a lot for them. >> the question i have is what are the political incentives that are still driving a part of the republican party to believe that the kind of politics which are ineffective, they got nothing, the people who were the loudest, the marjorie greenes, ended up being completely powerless to stop this deal. it ended up being the normal old school og politicians, joe biden and even kevin mccarthy, who was a normi at one point, a normal

politician, i wonder then, why the political incentive still seems so strong for people like chip roy, et cetera, because they don't accomplish anything and it enrages their base even more because they can't win. >> it's republican primaries. they believe that somewhere in the congressional district is someone crazier than they are. and they have to sound at least as crazy as the craziest possible candidate to run against them. and what we discovered in this is they don't mean any of it. they don't mean any of it. you know, they said if kevin mccarthy does anything like this, we will yank him out of that job immediately. they didn't mean any of it. not a thing. >> they also don't -- the other thing, the paper tiger aspect here, which there's this sort of, you know, the kind of bluffing and the bark worse than the bite. there's also the fact these are not policy people. budget deals are granular. if you have someone who is really dead set on policy, they didn't even know what they wanted. they want to own the libs, but

marjorie taylor greene is like, here's a wi we're going to structure s.n.a.p. work requirements. they have to go on podcasts and fill in on newsmax. none of them want to actually do this. in the end when you're actually doing a deal like this, the most dangerous people, and lawrence is someone who has worked on the hill, people who combine idealogical verosity with knowledge. that's why stephen miller was so dangerous on immigration stuff. he knew what he was talking about. these folks don't have that. they can't actually extract meaningful policy concessions because they don't have the knowledge to do it. >> sorry, alex, i want to ask you specifically this. there was one other policy personality the table that got a lot. chris hayes did talk about it last night on his show. let's talk about joe manchin for a moment. the thing is this was a triumph of ordinary politicians. he's og of ordinary politicians

and focused on getting one thing, lots of goodies for oil and gas companies. he winds up getting actually a very sweet pipeline deal out of this otherwise i think very stable and very good, you can say a lot of good things about it deal. so that's the downside of the triumph of normal, right? >> well, yeah. it was the reason joe biden -- sorry, joe manchin got the sweetener, that's how they secured his vote for the inflation reduction act. it is not great that they're expediting the construction of this pipeline from an environmental perspective, but if you look at what it is set against, the climate gains in the ira, it's not comparable. it's not apples to apples. it's a massive investment in environmental energy and climate change and combatting climate change in the future. again, would it be better if there wasn't a natural gas pipeline being expedited across

west virginia and virginia? absolutely, and especially if you're tim kaine who was not consulted on this at all, which if i'm tim kaine, he has every right to be p.o.'d, but the fact of the matter is, i think people -- i think the biden administration would argue this but even some of the most thoughtful writers and reporters on environmental science say look, do not let the mountain valley pipeline distract you from what has been preserved and that's why the president made such a focus on talking about climate in the oval. >> and joy, these things come down to unfortunately something as simple as how many democratic senators do you want. and do you want one from west virginia. and these are the kinds of deals that presidents make to try to hold on to the number of democratic senators they have in the senate. >> you also have to remember, joy, with regard to joe manchin, he represents the reddest of the red states in west virginia. his constituents are not living on the upper east side or the san francisco bay area, and he's

going to be facing potentially jim justice running against him in the next election. so we always just have to put joe manchin in context with who his constituents are and how he can remain in the seat. if he wasn't in the seat, we could end up with a jim jordan of west virginia. >> yeah, and it is once again a demonstration of the fact that the two parties could not be more different in the sense that the democrats represent a polyglot group of americans. racially diverse, geographically diverse. they're in the north, in the west, in the south, they're all over. they're younger, they're middle aged, they're older. whereas republicans are very unipolar. a very white, much older, it's easier to navigate and sort of steer them all in one direction. democrats have a harder job because their base is much more diverse and they have to keep all these diverse interests and constituencies together. again, that is a good argument for a joe biden, somebody who is a politician who knows what he's doing, has done it a long time.

lawrence, i'm going to give you the last word on that because i think that this speech sort of demonstrates joe biden's core competencies. is that he won't let go of a thing that i actually doubted a lot, too, this idea of bipartisanship, of washington kind of working the way it used to work when it was all old white guys but still being able to function. keeping the country secure financially and economically, but also he took some shots at republicans and what they weren't willing to do, but not in a way that ever seems venomous. that does seem to be his biggest strength. no matter how much people may not be enrapttures by it, it is effective. >> if someone had pulled on this list on joe biden's inauguration afternoon, and said here's what i think he can get done in the first term, and these are bipartisan ones. i would say that's impossible, that's impossible, pretty much every one of them. what i did know at the outset is joe biden knew just as much as everyone else knew how

intractable these republicans were. but what he knew that i didn't know is there was a way. there's a way to pick at that lock. there was a way to get through it in certain situations. a month ago, i didn't think this was possible. i couldn't have ever figured this out, but joe biden and the experienced people he has in the white house figured it out. and it is just remarkable. >> and i'm going to leave it to you, chris hayes. you have a slight thing to do. >> oh, yeah. look at that. >> but i would love for you to comment on lawrence having gotten the last word on biden, does biden's ability to do this, to make these kinds of deals and to show his opponents, his current set of maga opponents to be ineffectual, to be incapable of getting whatever it is they're claiming they want, and show they are marginal in washington, what does that do if anything to this new crop of potential opponents? because it doesn't seem like

anything is changing their political incentives to be just like donald trump as much as possible in some cases only weirder. >> and i think the weirdness factor is there's a growing gap between how weird they're getting and how weird america wants for its politicians. and i think it comes down to biden's benefit. i think it's a huge threat to the political -- the nominee that emerges from the primary as it currently is set up is a big threat politically to the republican party because i do think in some ways even, even when kevin mccarthy, this is an interesting thing, when kevin mccarthy was going in there and he was doing his whole schtick about spending. it's bs, it's nonsense. no one cares about spending. they all pretend not to care, but it's normie politic schtick. republicans have been saying that for years. he wasn't talking about like,

have you seen the latest shirt at target? he wasn't talking about -- i'm serious. it was like, this is bread and butter stuff. there's a reason joe biden goes back to bread and butter domestic policy priorities. you're going to pay cheaper prescription drugs, we're going to protect social security and medicare, climate investments. there was a reason mccarthy was fairly able to maneuver politically well when he was just doing meat and potatoes republican stuff, and there's a wisdom embedded in that, not saying a moral one, but a tactical one about politics here that joe biden seems to get and the republican party right now, or at least the crop of people running don't seem to. >> it's funny because i think when you think about kevin mccarthy, there's the kevin mccarthy that is absolutely pandering to donald trump and following him around with his golf clubs in his hand, and pretending to be maga. and then there's the kevin mccarthy who clawed his way up to speaker. that is a very different kind of politician.

and it's a reminder that no matter what he pretends to be, he's a politician in the old style like joe biden. and in the end, i am quite sure when he's behind the scenes with, you know, wall street executives he's assuring them he's not the crazy person he's pretending to me and behind the scenes apparently that's actually try. but he'll probably go back to sucking up to donald trump tomorrow. alex wagner, lawrence o'donnell, chris hayes, thank you very much. chris, we will see you in just a little bit. followed by alex at 9:00 eastern. stephanie is going to hang out with me. we're going to talk more finance stuff. we'll be right back. ere, anywhe♪ ♪ a beach house, a treehouse, ♪ ♪ honestly i don't care ♪ find the perfect vacation rental for you booking.com, booking. yeah.

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i know bipartisanship is hard and unity is hard, but we can never stop trying because of moments like this one, the ones we just faced where the american economy and world economy is at risk of collapsing, there's no other way. no matter how tough our politics gets, we need to see each other not as adversaries but as fellow americans. treat each other with dignity and respect. to join forces as americans to stop shouting, lower the temperature, and work together to pursue progress, secure prosperity, and keep the promise of america for everybody. >> we are back with stephanie ruhle, host of the 11th hour, and joining us is ali velshi,

msnbc chief correspondent and host of velshi. velshi and ruhle. i managed to get velshi and ruhle back together. i'm proud of myself. >> my man. >> one of my favorite things. i'm going to go to you first, ali velshi. so biden and his sort of low caffeinated version of the presidency, one of the things i feel like it's really done is it really does demonstrate for everyone to see, undeniably, how ineffectual the screaming mimis on the other side who get a lot of our time, they get a lot of oour attention, they actually are completely ineffectual because they make a lot of noise and get a lot of headlines but in the end, it's the normie politicians who go behind closed doors and save the economy and pass things like making sure our debt doesn't go over the hill, they protect medicare and social security. i wonder if at some point, even republicans start to say, maybe we're exhausted by having a million little trumps. maybe we want the economy to

stay good. >> i think it's both that people are exhausted by trump and the million little trumps and there's something to be said for just demonstrating what slow and quiet work does. i was enjoying the conversation you had for the first half of the show about not just joe biden but kevin mccarthy both sort of signaling at some point as chris hayes said, that mccarthy is not going to shoot the hostage. all of these people on his side who kept shooting and saying these things at that point were not really holding a lot of power because this is not -- had this gone to the brink and it did seem that joe biden and kevin mccarthy did not believe it would get there, although we came awfully close. i think a lot of americans would understand that the reason you get september to washington, if you go to washington, no matter who you are and how far either side of the political spectrum you are, is to get certain things done. there's a bare minimum about what you can do. that should be budgeting, appropriations, and paying our debt. after that, you can do whatever you want, but these are basic

responsibilities, and there are a whole lot of people in congress who did not seem to get the memo about that. fortunately, kevin mccarthy did seem to get that. the point you make is after 15 ballots clawing his way to the speakership, we didn't know whether that would mean he would have the ability and the authorities to pull this off. and i am pleased for the country that he did. >> joy, this is -- >> i will note that -- i will just say very quickly that biden very pointedly thanked hakeem jeffries because in the end, democrats were needed in order to deliver this because there weren't enough republicans to do it. >> a lot of democrats needed. >> joy, it also shows that that marjorie taylor greene, matt gaetz faction, what they are are media stars. they are very, very loud media stars, because remember, as chris hayes said a moment ago, and filling in on newsmax, that's their next gig. in the middle of kevin mccarthy's multiple votes, i interviewed lauren boebert. during the commercial break, you know what she said? how do i get a gig like this?

that's what they're thinking about in their next move. how do i become a paid speaker? how do i speak at the nra convention? because that's their jam. in the last administration, marjorie taylor greene wasn't even sitting on a committee, and kevin mccarthy just showed up at the table, and again, there are lots of things to complain about him, but i would also say this vote was so consequential to us just doing the bare minimum, it's really an issue for any lawmaker to vote no, and while we all sat here and said these republicans that are obstructionists that are voting now are trying to tank the economy, people are also looking to democrats here, and while i totally get it, they in many senses they want to not just play to their base, but serve what they went to congress to do, something like the debt ceiling isn't something you could be a purest about, because if we went into default, the consequences are catastrophic. >> you're talking about hakeem jeffries. hakeem jeffries, the reporting

indicates, was in the wings for mccarthy saying if you can get enough of your people on side, i can get the rest of the people to do it. >> that is what we need of lawmakers. hakeem jeffries, not drop kicking him in the hallway. and trust me, he has a million reasons why he could and should hate kevin mccarthy's guts. but he -- >> he wasn't all over tv. he wasn't talking about it. he was in the wings saying, the president and to mccarthy, we'll get this done. whatever you need once this is about to cross the finish line, we're here. >> and the thing is, you know that we now know just through reporting there was essentially a group of democrats who were prepared to back mccarthy if one of the, you know, out there crowd decided they were going to try to pull this move of trying to have a vote of no confidence in the speaker. the deal was made the way old fashioned deals are. you did talk about the progressive caucus' challenges with the deal. first, the climate deal that was made with joe manchin, i think was one issue.

but there are these questions about whether we're balancing the interests of seniors, you know, seniors, social security, medicare, et cetera, and balancing the needs of the most -- the people who need the most in this country, ali. there was a lot of talk on the republican side about gutting food stamps, about work requirements, people already are working. trying to really stick it to the same people they always try to stick it to. and you know, i think lawrence will say this all the time. you can make a statement vote when your vote isn't needed, but if their votes had been needed to pass it, you have to believe the democrats at least would have gone on and passed it if votes were needed. talk a little bit about that. we don't really talk about the working poor. people say things like working class, but there are a lot of people who are working hard every day and still do need food stamps. >> i think that would surprise a lot of people who don't live in that world. that is the number of people in this country who are on food stamps or other forms of assistance with

and anybody with a calculator on your phone, take it out and understand the federal minimum wage remains $7.25 an hour. multiply that by 40 hours a week if you're lucky enough to just have to work 40 hours a week. there's nowhere in the country you can live for that. in most places it's not $7.25. it's $9 or $10, effective minimum wage of $15. you're making $30,000 a year, so why are we looking, if you have a view that we don't take in enough money or spend too much money, both of which can be true. you can either get more revenue or spend less, why is it's it's a great false narrative. to tell people that those people sitting in the suburbs that welfare are not working.

and those republican voters don't know any different. >> and meanwhile, stephanie, we are sitting in on 3.7% unemployment rate. we are sitting at, essentially full employment, 339,000 jobs created in may which was well above expectations. the average hourly wage only went up 0.3%, up to $33.44 an hour. there are all these disconnects, right, telling people going out and work when we are essentially at full employment. >> people are working. we have more open jobs than we have unemployed people in america. because of the mismatch, either they are in the wrong place or have the wrong training. you hit the magic number there. 339,000 new jobs. stephanie, when we used to get 150,000 jobs in a month we would think that was, whoa, blowing the roof off. 339,000 -- and yet look at the small wage growth, there. the poor people are not causing the problem, they're not causing the inflation, they're

not doing these things. as you and i discussed the other day there are actual studies to show that if you increase the work requirements for the assisted's that people are getting in many cases that they already work for, you don't reduce unemployment, you don't get more people on to the roles. what you do is you have less people getting federal assistance. oh we are going to achieve with these work requirements is a slightly higher poverty rate. >> we do not have affordable childcare in the united states. what you are seeing people, go up and get a job. instead of, on the heels of that job, they are taking care of elderly people or children which is huge hugely expensive. >> and i have to go back just for a moment because, joe biden will be the nominee obviously on the democratic side. one of the republicans, and they are each sort of jumping over each other to become more far-right and more extreme. and i wonder at some point, the

republican primary voters decide that they actually want somebody that wants to govern, and not to do a show. because as you said, they are all looking to get on fox, they are all looking to get now on newsmax. but then you've also got republicans who are pushing things about chick-fil-a having diversity and inclusion. and screaming at target. the republican party is so focused on social issues but i can't remember the last time they said anything about the economy other than yelling about inflation, and completely forgetting about it after the 2022 midterms. >> and this becomes the problem because as we interview a lot of these folks who are trying to get past talking points, trying to get to the idea that if you take the only things that the constitution says that congress has to do, appropriations and death payment, these are policy issues. you actually have to have some policy prowess to understand how to negotiate them. and what we are doing is having a debate about the debt ceiling based on bumper stickers. and that was what was worrying me.

i would say this, to stephanie 's point about democrats who didn't vote for the steal. the democrats were not whipping their team very hard. in other words, i think it if it had come down to the idea that we needed all democrats to do this you would've had 100 percent of republicans. at this point, hakeem jeffries and joe biden were doing mccarthy the favorite to get him the votes. it turned out to be more than a lot of us suspected. if push came to shove and joe biden hakeem jeffries had to tell their caucus, guys we have a problem, they would show up. they might want to get other concessions but they would show up. >> they show up because the differences between the two parties is that the democrats are governing party that actually cares cares about policy outcomes. at this point there are a handful of republicans who clearly do not want to drive the country off a cliff. but they are beholden to the party, the part of the party that only cares about drama, but only cares about inciting their base and scaring them but their teachers are going to turn their kids trans.

it's so disconnected that it's hard to understand how this country can function. and that, i think, is what mitch is saying. if this is the way you function and the way you operate, even if we've got this deal we might still downgrade you because your politics are so toxic. >> fitch put that statement out, and that warning, they put it out a week ago. but when you have to look at all of this and say what exactly does the republican party stand for? because it used to be pro business. but you've got a republican candidate in ron desantis -- >> fighting disney, the states biggest taxpayer. >> one of the largest employers in the state of florida and one of the most beloved brands across the country. >> and you've got vivek ramaswamy who is saying let's get rid of the fbi. last i checked, republicans were the party of law in order, the patriots. so it's like, their base is super loud and passionate, but they are shrinking. >> but not affective, and they don't govern.

let's get back to the republicans who argue with us on tax rates. stephanie ruhle, we'll see you this evening on the 11th hour. and we'll see you on the west word tonight, and again, we'll be back. we'll be back. ♪♪ voltaren. the joy of movement. ♪♪ - this is our premium platinum coverage map and this is consumer cellular's map. - i don't see the difference, do you? - well, that one's purple. - [announcer] get the exact same coverage as the nation's leading carrier. starting at $20. consumer cellular. >> all in with chris hayes

starts now. >> tonight on all in. >> it's hard to predict but i would think we are talking about a matter of days not months.