yard equals one win prize picks. run your game. >> today. >> hi everyone. >> happy monday. >> it's 4:00 in new york. on a busy day of news, an avalanche of developments. >> by design. >> each one more. alarming than the next. it amounts. >> to a. >> disruption on a scale that. >> is darker and. >> more extreme than. >> what. >> donald trump. publicly promised. >> from hundreds. >> of billions of. dollars of tariffs that threatened to upend the global economy, to the wholesale takeover and, in some cases, dismantling of entire government agencies by unvetted outsiders led by elon musk. >> we have. >> a lot to get to today, but

we're going to start with the war being waged by the trump administration against the nation's top law enforcement agency at the expense of our national security. a possible purge by team trump of agents. >> who worked. >> on the january 6th investigation, that is the largest investigation in fbi's history. that internal investigation coming. >> to a head. >> this afternoon. a questionnaire went out asking staffers what, if any, role they played in that probe. it was due this afternoon. the new york times reports this quote, the form requires the employees to say if they collected evidence, provided support services, interviewed witnesses, executed search warrants, or testified at trial. basic activities of fbi employees during the normal and lawful course of their duties. the number of employees involved could be as high as 6000. about a sixth of the fbi's entire workforce. removing all of them at this time would potentially be a major blow to national

security. here's former republican governor of new. >> jersey, former. >> u.s. attorney chris christie. >> understand how long it. takes to get a new fbi agent on board. if you fire hundreds. >> if not thousands. >> it'd be thousands on this. >> list of fbi agents. >> it takes 12 to 18. >> months to. >> get them on board. by the. >> time. >> you go. through the. >> interviewing process, the. >> vetting. >> process, then they go to quantico for their training. >> and then become onboarded as. >> a brand. >> new. fbi agent in the threat. assessment we have right. now across the world. >> to lose. >> that many agents and then. >> take a year to year. >> and a half to try to replace them. >> is incredibly. >> dangerous for our national security. and for what? because they did their. >> jobs for what? >> now that purge, should it come to pass, would be on top of at least eight very experienced, high ranking senior fbi executives who were removed last week. firings that a former trump doj official tells nbc

news are clearly illegal. the purge is being met with some pushback at the highest levels of the agency itself. new york times is reporting that the head of the fbi field office, james dennehy, reportedly told his team in an email this quote, today we find ourselves in the middle of a battle of our own as good people are being walked out of the fbi and others are being targeted because they did their jobs in accordance with the law and fbi policy. dennehy adds that he has no intentions of stepping down, saying this, quote, time for me to dig in. the trump administration's whitewashing of january 6th, now threatening the very functioning of the fbi, even as the country faces multiple threats at home and abroad, is where we start today with some of our favorite reporters and friends. new york times justice department reporter glenn thrush is here. plus, nbc news justice reporter and author of sedition hunters how january 6th broke the justice system. ryan riley is

here, and msnbc senior national security analyst frank figliuzzi is back. he's a former assistant director for counterintelligence at the fbi. with me at the table, former top official at the department of justice and msnbc legal analyst andrew weissmann is here. andrew, i'm going to start with you and frank. what's going on right now at the fbi? >> i think they are waiting for. >> an ax to. >> fall from. >> from the department of justice. and your report. >> about the. head official in new york is that is one. of what i understand are many people at the senior leadership level, up to and including the. acting director, who are pushing back on this? they want to protect their people. they did. nothing wrong. just so. that you understand, it's one thing to have pardoned people who participated. >> in the january. >> 6th attack. we all witnessed that. it's one thing to take. >> that outrageous step. >> it is.

>> another to. >> put together essentially an enemies list of the thousands of people who engaged in the righteous. investigation and prosecution of those cases. >> that is what is happening from. >> the trump. >> administration officials at the. >> department of justice. at main justice, they have. >> demanded that. >> list from the fbi. the fbi leadership is pushing back on that. >> if the court. >> does not intervene, and we haven't seen a court case yet. >> but i would say. >> you know, we'll. >> see what happens. >> there's this. stalemate where you could see actions. taken by the department of justice against all of the people at the fbi. >> who are. >> pushing back, which would mean all senior leadership. >> actions taken. what do you mean? >> mass firing, saying. >> you we. >> ordered you to do this. >> and you're not doing it. people. >> as you read with respect. >> to the special agent in charge. >> in new york. >> is saying this is.

>> improper. >> putting that list together, there is no good. >> reason for that list. >> it is only there to take retaliatory action about those people. >> that is what emil. >> bove said. >> he wants a list. >> in order to. >> figure out what kind of employment. >> issues there. >> are up. >> to, and including. >> termination. that is improper. >> there are. >> civil service. >> rules, but. >> the trump administration's. >> view. their legal view is. >> we can ignore all that. >> we can do whatever we want. it doesn't matter about. >> civil service protections. >> we can blow. >> through all of that. and what you're seeing. >> at the fbi is they're. >> trained with all. >> of the imperfections. >> of any agency. >> they are trained. >> on facts and law. >> and the. current law is that there are civil service protections for. >> career fbi agents. >> for career doj officials. >> they're not. >> allowed to be. >> fired without cause. and you know what's not? cause working on. >> a. righteous prosecution is

not a cause to. >> fire someone. it is a cause to commend. >> them for. >> what they did. >> frank figliuzzi, what are you hearing this hour? >> what i'm. >> focused on. >> is a couple of things. first, it's clear to me that donald trump lacks the capacity. >> to seriously understand. >> how seriously fbi agents. >> take their oath of office. >> i don't think he grasped that. >> i don't think. >> it's a concept he gets. but when you raise your right hand and swear to preserve. >> protect and defend the. >> constitution, i don't think anyone takes it. more seriously than the us military and the fbi. number two, i can't overemphasize the. degree to which the drama playing out right now inside the fbi. >> and with doj. >> is unprecedented. this is this has never happened before. >> in fbi history. >> the threat of thousands of fbi agents. and let me be clear on something. there are only

14,000 special agents in the fbi. if we lose 6000 of them, this. >> nation's national security is done. >> this country, the fbi, is tracking multiple terror plots. there are surveillance teams right now watching. the act. >> there are. >> undercover agents right now inside domestic violent extremist groups and international terror groups trying to prevent the next act of terrorism. when you do away with layer upon layer of headquarters and field office management, including the heads of washington field office, miami, las vegas, all have happened some, by the way, some of. >> the. >> people walked out of the. door aren't eligible for retirement. they have no salary on the way to pay for food on the table or the kid's college tuition. our adversaries are watching this. they know there's a bunch of disgruntled.

>> fbi agents. >> with no. income coming. this is a. >> national security. >> crisis. and we are less safe because of it. >> let me just hit pause. andrew weissmann, how is it legal for mr. bove or bove to walk in and fire people for whom, if they hadn't done what he's accusing them of doing, they would have been breaking the law. crimes were committed. capitol police officers were physically assaulted, charges were filed, cases were brought. agents had to investigate them because there were prosecutions. the trump supporters pleaded guilty. i mean, you were the general counsel of the fbi. how is that legal? how is there not a court that has stepped in today and kicked them out? >> so let me just be a nerd and tell you what emil. bove has said in writing on january 31st. >> so everyone. >> has in black and white what the second highest official at the department of justice today has said to justify what he's

doing, he quotes the trump executive order and says this executive order was issued on january 20th, 2025 by president trump. appropriately characterizing the work involving the january 6th prosecutions as having involved a grave national injustice that has been perpetrated upon the american people over the last four years. the january 6th prosecutions are. >> a grave. national injustice. >> we have trump saying it, and we now. have emil beauvais, the number two at the justice department. and to answer your question directly, it is not lawful. there are congressional statutes. this is a question of the courts, and it is also a question of congress. this is one where in this area and in a number of areas right now, the executive branch is it's not just the unitary executive theory. >> of. >> like we. can do whatever we

want. it is a unitary theory of that is that is that we do not have to obey congress or the courts. there are laws. the current law is that these people at the fbi are protected legally. they cannot be fired without. >> why isn't. there a legal device to stop both the agents from being outed as part of retribution and any, any more firings happening for people who simply follow the law? and again, trump won. he can put anyone he wants in charge of the fbi. and i suppose he could elevate and demote people he chooses. but you can't fire people for following the law, can you? >> that that. >> is absolutely right. until such time as the supreme court says, changes the law, civil service rules are gone. okay, that's not the world we're in now. right now. like if i were if you were asking me this as the current fbi general counsel and you were saying. >> to me. >> like you were the fbi director and you said, can i do

this? i would have told you and i would tell you the current law does not permit what the department of justice is doing. the current law is that each of these people is entitled to only be fired for cause, and that they are entitled to a hearing and due process. that was the rule. when i was there. there were people who i thought should not be there, but they were entitled to due process and all. >> of the what. >> you would get in a court before you take that action. the idea that this is coming from the department of justice, which is supposed to be upholding the law, is remarkable. is way too mild. that is why, you know, in terms of keeping your eye on something, let's keep our eyes on the court, because this is one to your point that you can't imagine that there aren't going to be people both at main justice, the lawyers and agents and analysts and other staff at the fbi who are going to seek legal recourse.

>> well, i guess, ryan, really the reason to hit pause is that this isn't just an assault on the history of january 6th and the guilty pleas and the convictions of the trump supporters who participated in the insurrection. if you're going to now erase all of the agents who either they worked on the cases because it was their job to work on the cases they were assigned, the cases they were assigned. it was the largest investigation in fbi history. and that's how it works. if something different is going to happen, i think we're maybe staring at the wrong or, you know, or touching the wrong piece of the elephant. i mean, if the fbi is no longer going to be a law enforcement agency, what is it going to be? >> yeah, i mean, it's a good question. and remember, i mean, the context here is that there were a lot of signs that, you know, weren't really i don't think the bell was really rung that loudly ahead of january 6th for a number of reasons. the fbi historically, you know, and for a lot of deep legal reasons, including the difference between domestic and foreign terrorism and, you know, the first amendment protections, which are really important that the first amendment protections are really

drilled into into agents heads. and i think that that sort of meant that there wasn't a lot of, you know, big alarm bells going off ahead of january 6th, even though a lot of this was happening on the open web. and now, you know, after this, after this attempt and, and targeting and purging of individuals, attempted purging of individuals who were involved in january, six cases in any way, it's certainly not going to set the fbi up for success going forward on any of these threats from domestic terrorists, you know, particularly right wing terrorism, which is a real big problem in the united states and has been deadly in recent years. that's something that the fbi needs to be very good at. it needs to have the right people in place for and, you know, this sort of targeting can, can have really, really bad consequences. i think, you know, remember, there's still this investigation going down about the plane crash that we saw right here in dc. the fbi is involved in that. and just imagine the sort of distraction that that's causing for people who are trying to respond to this and take part in this investigation when they're

worried about their jobs. this is a massive, massive distraction for the fbi right now. people who are just desperately worried about what's going to happen with them because they handled one of these cases. and again, there's just no allegations of wrongdoing. you know, today i went down to the u.s. attorney's office and watched a bunch of assistant u.s. attorneys who worked these cases walk in altogether. i believe we have footage of it. they walked in altogether to go surrender their electronic devices, because on friday they were fired even though they were going to be working a lot of these other kinds of cases in d.c, these are people who joined up with the government on those january 6th cases, and initially they were put into this sort of temporary status, and then they and now they've been working sort of other kind of cases. and now all of them were forced for forced out and fired and terminated. so that's not all january 6th prosecutors, but the ones that they could quickly target and get rid of very on an expedited basis. they did that. and they had to turn in all of their, their gear and pick up a lot of

their personal items today. in fact, there was one prosecutor's father who came back with flowers to sort of greet her, you know, on the way out where you just have people who, you know, young people who wanted to get involved in government, who worked these cases, who tried to vindicate the rights of officers who were viciously assaulted that day and get justice for them. and now their careers in government came to a really swift end, not because of any allegations of actual wrongdoing, but just because they handled cases involving supporters of the now president. >> well, what's amazing, glenn thrush, is that ted cruz described january 6th as, quote, domestic terrorism. so why, if you were a young prosecutor, would you ever think that you were walking into something potentially partizan, when ted cruz, of all people, described january 6th as domestic terrorism until he undid his characterization of january 6th as, quote, domestic terrorism on an appearance with tucker carlson. take me inside the cash. is cash patel for or against the firing of one sixth

of the fbi workforce? >> boy, that's a great question. at his confirmation hearings on thursday, which went. >> from their perspective. >> swimmingly. >> he was asked. >> a very interesting question by cory booker, which is, will. you abide by internal. >> processes. >> including reports from the inspector general and internal. reviews of the conduct of employees before firing people? now, it appears that that booker had some. sense of. >> what was. >> going on in. >> the building at the. >> time, but. >> he clearly. >> laid down. >> a. >> marker and patel said yes, that he would. >> abide by all. >> of. >> those all of those benchmarks. here's the problem. kash patel. >> is. >> not inside the building right now. todd blanche, the deputy attorney general over at the department of justice who'd be. responsible for interfacing with the fbi, is not in the building. pam bondi, the presumed new attorney general. she's not in the building. emil bove is in

the building, and he seems. >> to be. >> willing to expedite the firings. and this massive review. before they get there. so they have plausible deniability. >> whether or. >> not they had advance knowledge of this. their folks are not saying, but this certainly seems. >> to have. >> been something. that was planned. and from all of our reporting, it is emanating from. >> the white. >> house with beau's consent. and bove, for the uninitiated. along with todd, blanche was led trump's criminal defense team, adding to what ryan was saying. and i would urge everyone to get his excellent book, sedition. >> hunters. >> which speaks which. which really documents, i think, in very clear terms, the extent. >> to which. >> these individuals who were convicted committed crimes. i think what's going on internally now in. >> both the department. >> and the bureau is damage that cannot be repaired, regardless

of what the outcome. let's say if we turn around tomorrow and like so many other initiatives, folks back off. and a lot of these. >> agents and prosecutors get to. keep their jobs. well. >> there is now the message that has been sent indelibly not. >> to pursue these kinds of. >> cases. >> not to go. >> not to venture into an area where you could potentially. >> find yourself. >> the. >> subject of an internal witch hunt. >> so apart. >> from. >> all of the. >> changes that are taking place, the. structural changes that trump wants to enact at the at the bureau. the leadership changes, with kash patel. potentially leading the agency. i think you're now dealing with a general sense of being chastened and being having now understanding if you're working in any of these two institutions, that you could find yourself in a lot of trouble, or at least. >> have a. >> lot of a. >> hassle for just just doing your job legally and ethically

as you've been trained to do it. >> well, i need to turn back to frank and andrew and ask what you do then. if you become aware of a plot and outing, that plot might save some people, but outing that plot might anger some people. i have to sneak in a break before i put that question to them. also ahead for us, the trade war with canada is set to go into effect rather inexplicably, but because donald trump says so in a few short hours, as trump continues to play with the expenses and bills and economic livelihoods of every american household, what it means for everybody, for the prices here at home, and in terms of our relationship with some of our longest and best allies. and later in the broadcast, the elon musk show his illegal dismantling of a government humanitarian agency, leaving longtime employees fearing for their safety personally and their privacy, and recklessly putting many, many people and many, many places all around the world at risk. we'll have all those

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take my hand, darling. >> the first. >> 100 days, it's a critical time for our country. and rachel maddow is on five nights a week. >> now is. >> the time. >> so we're going. >> to do it. settle in. >> the rachel maddow show weeknights at nine on msnbc. >> what we. >> do is try. >> to cut right to the bone of what we're seeing. >> in. >> washington that day. >> if you. >> are suddenly taking out the most experienced folks at justice or at the fbi, how does that make us stronger? and what he's saying is every fbi agent that somehow touched the january 6th investigation, that was a comprehensive investigation. i've been told there were almost. >> half of. >> all the fbi agents at least had some involvement. remember, this was a case that was taken up against these rioters all across the country. if you're suddenly going to get rid of all of those, that could be

thousands. yeah. what does that mean for cybersecurity? what does it mean for our trafficking and stop against fentanyl and other drugs. what does it mean in terms of, you know, serious crime investigations? this would be devastating. >> frank figliuzzi, i mean, the textbook definition of the decapitation of an agency is to remove all of its leaders. chris wray resigned and patel isn't confirmed. is the fbi right now functionally decapitated? >> yeah. >> every single. >> executive assistant director is gone. >> yes. >> and so, you know, it's funny what's happening now. there's always. >> been this. >> tension between headquarters in the field. right. >> and there. >> are certain career, seasoned, grizzled agents who say, i'll never serve at headquarters. >> i don't. >> i don't want that. i don't need them. well guess what? now, here's the possibility of 5 or 6000 fbi agents in the field being dismissed for. simply doing their job and doing it well enough to convict 1500 people who. >> breached the capitol. >> and assaulted. police officers. >> now there's. >> a wake up call. right? and

everybody is one. if donald trump wanted to just totally disrupt. >> the. >> fbi and. totally prevent. >> them from. >> doing their mission. >> he has united them. >> when you have the head of the. biggest office. >> in the country. >> in new york saying, we're digging in, we're in a fight now, the acting director, who. >> by the way. >> was a hostage rescue team commander, you don't mess with him. he kicks in doors for a living. and so they've got this all wrong. >> and this. >> is. >> an agency where you know what agency. >> agents did in the last few weeks, just the last few. >> weeks, they captured two top ten fugitives. >> that's never happened before. in just about a week. they did that. they were at the bottom of the potomac river looking for parts. >> in the d.c. >> air crash. they were. >> in philadelphia. >> for that medevac plane crash. they were. picking up bits and pieces of evidence in bourbon street in in. >> new. >> orleans on new year's day. >> that's what they do. on top of losing some homes, fbi employees have lost their homes to fire in california in just

the last 30 days. >> and this. now comes. >> to them. not right. >> i guess the reason i, i like to understand where we are at the moment we're on the air is because it ends up mattering. right. so on on january 6th, it's not clear that trump was functioning as the commander in chief. right. we've we've learned since that it's pence that's on the phone with the pentagon ultimately and right now with christopher wray's resignation, the firing of all top fbi leadership and mr. patel not confirmed, do you agree with frank's assessment that functionally the fbi is decapitated? >> i agree with that. what's not decapitated and what you're seeing is the next level of leadership. >> if they're allowed to rise. >> right. well. >> what i'm saying is the ones who are there now are obeying the law and the facts. and what you're seeing is fbi training, which is we take an oath to the

constitution. you're right that that leadership level has been taken out, in my view, totally illegal, violates the civil service rules and the protections of them. there was no process. there was no cause. if it happens again, same thing. you need cause to remove those people. i want to make sure people understand. i'm old enough to remember the saturday night massacre. and i want people to understand. you might be thinking this is a story just about the fbi. it is not. it is enough that it's about the fbi. but i want to make people understand it's it is far more egregious than what nixon tried to do by just removing the special counsel to say i shouldn't be investigated. this is saying i am a king. i can disobey all civil service rules. he has the number two at the justice department agreeing. so. this is unlike what happened in the saturday night massacre,

where the justice department was saying, fire me because i'm not doing something that's illegal here, where you're seeing that pushback, that allegiance to the constitution and to the american people, is that next layer in. >> the field. >> office, in the field offices around the country? those people are doing their duty to their oath of office to the constitution. it's hard to see this as anything more than like playing out a morality play of like pure patriotism against lawlessness on the part of the of the justice department. >> i guess the disconnect, though, is, is every one of the fbi field offices is led by a special agent in charge, and every one of those field offices is in a state where they have two senators. where is the legislative branch? >> the legislative branch needs to obviously wake up, and it's not just out of loyalty to the fbi. it's out of any sense of

their own oaths of office. we talked about this when we had cassidy hutchinson obeying her obligation to the rule of law, and we were saying she showed more gumption than a whole host of other people. i would hope that lisa murkowski, senator murkowski, could take what she is seeing at the fbi to convince her colleagues to do the right thing. and one of the right things to do, of many, is to make sure that they ask pam bondi and kash patel the question that you just asked about where are they and what are they going to do about this? they have not been asked that all of the everything that we've seen over the weekend is, is new. kash patel gave pretty inconsistent description of his position. they need to be under oath answering this there. i mean, it is going to be it will show complete complicity. if there aren't four republican

senators to go along with at least having a real as opposed to a sort of puppet show of a confirmation hearing. >> it's just it's just amazing. in the 24 years since nine over 11 that you've got republicans totally awol on domestic terrorism, foreign terrorism, homeland security. glenn thrush i raised the question about a plot because one of the things we learned after january 6th is that it was the norfolk field office that had some chatter about, right, white supremacist groups. and it's donald trump's last hand-picked fbi director who replaced comey after he fired him, who testified under oath in 2020 that by far the biggest threat to the country's domestic violent extremism and in the bucket of domestic violent extremism, by far the biggest threat is white supremacist violent extremism. what is the impact on pursuing what christopher wray, long

associated with conservative politics, described as the gravest threat in a bureau that's been chilled, to your point, irreparably? >> yeah, i don't think that's going to happen. i mean, i can't speak for, for the, the, the volition of. >> individual agents. >> who could act responsibly, but there appears to be from the top. and, you know, again, this emanates from the white house, one of the first executive orders the president signed was. on on. >> d. >> day, and he appeared willing to shut down the entire government, you. >> know, a. >> self sort of a self-inflicted government. >> shutdown with. >> the. omb memo based. on dni stuff. but i think, you know, the point that that folks are making about the agents sort of rising up, this is a really fundamental. political point. let's just. >> switch over to the. >> political argument here, right? >> trump ran. >> on law and order during bondy's hearing. she brushed aside a lot of these questions,

having to deal with the issue of governance and whether or. >> not she'd be independent. >> by saying, let's stop crimes. kash patel, over and over. again said he kept using. >> rape, the. >> rise in rapes. >> as. >> an example that as fbi director, he wanted. to attack that. at the same time, patel talked about recent polling that showed 40% of the american. >> people support the fbi run. >> run down to. >> its lowest level. >> in years, in part because republicans have attacked, have attacked the bureau relentlessly since the trump investigations. but there is a difference between not liking the bureaucracy and not liking the. fbi leadership and going after fbi agents who the public views as frontline cops. big difference going after. the bosses. fine. >> going after the. >> institution, which has had a checkered history since j. edgar hoover. okay, you. >> start going. >> after fbi agents.

>> like. >> the head of the new york field office who are decorated marines who. >> have gone on. >> raids, risking. >> their lives gun in hand, hostage rescues. you're talking. >> about something else. this could be a political disaster for trump. and the other thing about it is, as you start cutting body counts, as you start removing people from positions. example is ryan talked about those january 6th. >> prosecutors. >> a dozen of them were to be assigned to superior court in dc to deal with misdemeanor cases. and trump ran in part on the crime wave in washington, dc. yeah. so you're going from sort of going after. institutions to going after cops on the street. and we haven't even talked about the pardon of. >> all. >> those people who committed violence. >> against law enforcement. >> this is a very politically dangerous move for the president to be making. >> and of his campaign promises,

this this bucket of conduct. to your point, glenn, is the least popular. he didn't win because he promised retribution. he won despite the promise of retribution. he actually ran on our next topic, lowering prices, which he seems to be doing the opposite of that as well. thank you, though, for bringing it back to some of the politics. glenn thrush, ryan riley, frank figliuzzi the best of the best. thank you so much for starting us off, andrew. we're going to keep you here as long as you'll stay up next for us. mexico and the u.s. have reached a one month deal to stave off what would be a very dangerous and a very expensive and completely pointless and unnecessary trade war. but canada is still saying there's no deal on our end. much more on what all this means and how it all started and why we're how it all started and why we're doing th (♪♪) some people just know they could save hundreds on car insurance by checking allstate first. like you know to check first that you bought seats in the right section. kansas fans, get on your feet!

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canada. an additional 10% on all chinese imports. earlier today, donald trump said the u.s. and mexico reached an agreement to delay the promised tariffs on goods from mexico, a one month delay in exchange for increased security at the border. but still. and yet the american people who told us that the cost of food and groceries were the most important issue by a mile in their selection of donald trump over kamala harris in the november election, they stand to pay a fortune more than $1,000 extra on items on groceries, items like avocados, tomatoes, strawberries, beer, tequila and who doesn't need tequila these days? maple sirup cars, trucks, gas, consumer electronics. you know, phones, ipads, all that stuff. lumber. you're doing a renovation or building a new fence on and on and on, affecting every aspect of an american family's everyday life. joining our conversation, nbc news white house correspondent

yamiche alcindor and nbc news senior business correspondent christine romans. christine, why? >> well, before the why? i mean, i guess the breaking news is that justin trudeau, the from canada, just tweeted that there will be a 30 day pause on those canadian okay, those canadian tariffs. so mexico got a pause earlier today. so this is sort of how this is going to go. the why is the big mystery. i mean donald trump says that the u.s. has taken advantage of the u.s. is bullied by these much smaller countries like canada with 37 million people. and that the u.s. can sell, can't sell its products all over the world. but we take in everything. so there's just this sense of an aggrieved. is that true? i mean, there are certain. i mean. >> does canada bully us? >> does i mean, canada sells us a lot of stuff and we sell canada a lot of stuff. it's one of our closest trading partners. i mean, if you look, trump is basically threatening a trade war with canada, china and mexico, by far the three biggest countries that send us stuff, a lot of stuff, $1.2 trillion of

stuff just in the 11 months of the first 11 months of last year. all of those things, if these tariffs go into effect, would cost more money. and we know that it is mostly it's importers and it's consumers who bear that cost. >> yamiche, when trump says a little pain, a little pain, this is a guy who downplayed the impacts of covid. i mean, when he's had a little pain, i wonder what they're really worried about. >> well, what's really. >> striking, because we all know that president trump campaigned on this message and this promise of lowering costs for everyday americans. it's something that i heard over and over again on the campaign trail from voters, whether they were voting for president trump, frankly, or vice president harris. the, the message was that they were very worried about cost of living. but to hear president trump say that there may be some pain, but that that cost of pain will all be worth it down the line, i think, was him trying to hedge and prepare the american people for prices going up on everything from avocados coming from mexico, beer coming from

mexico, lumber, of course, people trying to buy new homes or build new homes. so this is going to be something that he knew was going to hit the consumers, much like experts, including, of course, christine romans and all her great sources tell us when you talk about tariffs. i think i want to go back, though, to this what justin trudeau just just posted online, because i think it is striking to hear now that there's going to be this pause on 30 day pause on tariffs to canada, much like we heard from mexico earlier today. and canada is basically saying it's going to roll out new border security measures, which really does go to the what president trump said he wanted out of canada. i want to read part of it. it says that canada is making new commitments to appoint a fentanyl czar. they're going to also list cartels as terrorist groups. and for 24 hours on the 24 hour eyes on the border watch of canada, u.s. strike force to combat organized crime, fentanyl and money laundering. and they also said he signed a new intelligence directive on organized crime and fentanyl. and they'll be backing with $200 million. he also said he's going to be sending, or at least having nearly 10,000 frontline

personnel. it's not clear if those are going to be new troops, but we know in mexico they're going to be sending an additional 10,000 mexican national guard troops to the border. so despite what people might have, and i know there are a lot of critics, of course, of this trump tariffs that came out there is now mexico and canada saying that they're going to as a result of these tariffs and as a response to these tariffs and conversations with president trump, they're going to be beefing up their border security. >> well, yamiche, let me just put up how much fentanyl actually comes from the northern and southern border. at the southern border, 21,000 pounds of fentanyl at the northern border, 4343 which is bad, right? we don't want any fentanyl here. but let me just say what the trump narrative would have you believe. is that the only way to have the nations of mexico and canada cooperate with the scourge of fentanyl is to threaten a globally disastrous trade war that damages the world's economies. is there any contemplation that perhaps next time we'll have a meeting about dealing with fentanyl? >> well, it's going to be really

interesting to see, because president trump might walk around and really do a victory lap here, saying that he got canada and mexico to do what he wanted them to do. but we saw with the stock markets, we saw with even republicans like senator chuck grassley, who was asking for an exemption for his state, for some, some of the items that would have really cost his constituents money. there was panic, real panic happening, including in the republican party, if this tariff war were to actually happen in this trade war, were to actually happen with our closest allies. let's remember, canada and mexico are our largest trading partners. so there's a real issue there. but president trump is leaning in on this idea of using tariffs as a diplomatic tool. and as you said, canada says that they're less than 1% or about 1% of the fentanyl that comes into the united states comes through canadian borders. but even as they're saying that saying fentanyl doesn't come through here. justin trudeau saying, well, i'm going to have a new fentanyl czar. so it tells you that maybe some of this is him just wanting to placate president trump and saying, i'm going to do this, but this is him saying, look, we're going to

do what you what you want, which is have new people have new resources going to the border with the united states. nicole. >> let me show you, mitch mcconnell taking to 60 minutes to argue, i guess, against trump doing this. >> it will drive the cost. >> of everything up. in other. >> words. >> it'll be paid. >> for by american consumers. i mean, why. >> would you want to get in a fight with your allies. >> over this? >> i guess you mean even mitch mcconnell didn't understand the strategy? and i totally appreciate cracking down on fentanyl imports from the northern and southern border. but even mitch mcconnell wasn't in on the threat of a trade war as a pathway to fighting fentanyl. >> that's right. it was striking to hear senate former senate majority leader mitch mcconnell, someone who's had a long, long history leading republicans. but let's remember, this is no longer really the republican party of mitch mcconnell anymore. this is a republican party where mitch mcconnell has wanted to be the only republican, or one of three republican senators who went out

on a limb just to vote against pete hegseth, but that that nomination still went through. so it tells you a little bit about, yes, mitch mcconnell still has a voice. he's still someone who, of course, has a legacy within the republican party, arguably would say the supreme court couldn't have been the six three majority without mitch mcconnell. but there is a sense that mitch mcconnell, the trump white house, and trump himself is listening really to what mitch mcconnell says. but i think chuck grassley, one of the senators asking for an exemption for his state. it to me, it was an insight into the fact that republicans were really, really worried that their constituents were going to wake up and have a lot more cost of living, and that they were going to go to the grocery store and see $15 for eggs and other things that were going to really, really make life harder for americans. so i think this really is in some ways underscores that people were very worried about the prices going up in this country. nicole. >> yamiche alcindor, thank you for your reporting. christine, we'll go through why they were so worried. some of the, i guess, targeted retaliatory

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more complaints on groceries when you buy apples, when you buy bacon, when you buy eggs, where the price of bacon, the price of lettuce, the price of tomatoes, bacon, lettuce, tomato, all the everything is so much higher than it ever was. we're going to bring those prices way down because people can't afford their groceries, and they're going to be affording their groceries very soon. >> i think he's made a blt. christine, tell me the real world implications for an american household to this tariff battle. >> okay. so we tax foundation, you know, nonpartisan tax foundation says $800 a family will be the cost in the near term. if you if you have these all go into effect. we saw inflation exacerbated by the first round of trump tariffs in 2018, 2019. we saw that you look at the pce, i don't want to get too geeky. >> let's put the chart up. the chart you. >> can see. so the. >> blue line. so the blue line is what. >> those are nine tariff

categories of goods. >> what was it. >> those were a variety of washing machines were in there. there were a bunch of different things in there. and then he was very targeted and strategic with those. and then the rest are all other consumer. it was it was a period of, of, of low inflation. but you could see the products that had a tariff on them. those are prices that were rising faster. now we are in a period of two high inflation. so if we're going to start talking about raising prices on all kinds of things across the board from three different countries, not targeted tariffs like that, that's what the big concern is for so many economists. they are arguing today about how much prices will rise and how much it will hurt the economy, not whether prices will rise or whether the economy will be hurting. >> and what's the big stuff if you if you go to walmart to get your groceries and all your toiletries and all your stuff, what goes up? >> so 40% of fresh fruit and vegetables come in from the northern and southern border period. so you can't really keep that in a warehouse for very long. so those are things that will go up quite right away. and a lot of people in this business tell me the margins are so razor thin that probably the full 25%

goes to consumers. the consumer tech association says you could see $200 on a smartphone, $300 on a laptop, another $250 on, say, a video game console. i mean, those are a lot of things that are made in china. they would have tariffs right away. now, in the first trump administration, there were exemptions for some apple products. so you wonder if the president's new friends in tech are actually lobbying for some of their own products that they make to be exempted from these? we haven't heard of any exemptions yet, except for canadian oil. canadian oil at at $10 or 10% tariffs that still would raise gas prices 15 to $0.25 in the midwest. and here's why that alberta crude is sent to the u.s. there are u.s. refineries that are made specifically to refine that alberta crude into gasoline, that gasoline goes into cars in the midwest. it's refined by men and women in the midwest. so there's a real two way street here of trade in some of these very important things. and we know americans don't want higher

gas prices. >> they don't want higher anything. prices talk about canada's threat to target red states. >> so we have seen retaliation before. you heard senator chuck grassley of my home state of iowa talking, concerned about making sure there were some exemptions for iowa, the big concern for farmers and for iowa and for some of these red states is the retaliation that would happen. the second level effect, where all of a sudden you have big countries that are saying, we are now going to put a 25% tariff on your pork. devastating for american iowa farmers. we're going to put a 25% tariff on your soybeans. we haven't seen that yet. we have seen strategic lists of things that would irritate red state governors, but then wouldn't hurt necessarily. i mean, food prices for the whole globe right now. but all of that is certainly on the table. if this devolves into a full blown trade war. >> well, i conversation you and i had before the election was all the support for trump, or at least a lack of vocal opposition against trump from business leaders. trump didn't run on

raising the prices of everything from a tablet to a video console to everything in the produce aisle. what is the sense of how politically viable it is for the cost of everything to go up? >> i'm not sure that trump agrees with all of these economists who say prices are going to go up. there's also this other notion that the other part of the trump. >> presidency does, he think won't go up. >> well, if you have big tax cuts, if he has big tax cuts for american families, he might be able to sell. you're going to pay more for everything, but i'm going to get you a tax cut to pay for it. >> i think biden tried that. >> well, you know look it's all of it. there's a big agenda, trump agenda here. the fact that he's taken this as the very first, most important thing before tax reform, i think, is, is something that rattled the stock market. certainly. but i you know, i just don't know how it's going to play out. i do know that jamie dimon at davos, who's the you know the ceo of jpmorgan chase. he said look it's going to be inflationary. tariffs could be a little bit inflationary inflationary get over it i think a lot of ceos

have just accepted trump won. it's a fait accompli. now they're trying to figure out in their c-suite offices. now what do we do. >> must be nice in their c-suite offices. christine romans, andrew weissmann, thank you for joining us today. the latest purge coming from donald trump and the unelected elon musk. and the unelected elon musk. we'll have that —hi! —hi! ♪♪ chocolate fundraiser. ♪♪ with the chase mobile app, things move a little more smoothly. ♪♪ deposit checks easily and send money quickly. [coins clinking] ♪♪ that's convenience from chase. make more of what's yours. nothing makes a gathering great like eggland's best eggs. they're just so delicious. with better nutrition, too. for us, it's eggs any style. as long as they're the best.

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>> what we. do is. >> try to. >> cut right to the bone of what we're seeing. >> in washington. >> that day. >> so this has nothing. to do with. making the us government more efficient. >> and everything to do with aiding and abetting our adversaries around. >> the world. >> elon musk. you didn't create.

us aid the united states. >> congress did for the american people, right? and just like. >> elon. >> musk did not create us. >> aid, he doesn't have the power to. destroy it. >> and who's. >> going to stop him? >> we are. >> we're going to. >> stop him. >> hi again everyone. it's now 5:00 in new york. democratic lawmakers today taking a stand against the new trump administration's recent attacks on usaid, the u.s. agency for international development, usaid was created in 1961. it is tasked with overseeing america's humanitarian assistance operations all across the globe, according to the washington post. quote, more than 10,000 people work for usaid, about two thirds of whom serve overseas, according to the congressional research service. usaid projects include providing assistance to famine stricken regions in the sudan, providing textbooks for

displaced school children in ukraine, and training health workers in rwanda. that's according to an archived version of its website, usaid. overseas work is critical not only to the countries receiving the assistance, but to the u.s. as well, helping alleviate national security concerns regarding the agency's cost. the washington post writes this quote in fiscal year 2023, usaid managed over $40 billion of appropriations, less than 1% of the federal budget, according to federal records provided to about 130 countries. it is that 1% of federal spending where the trump administration most publicly. elon musk have placed a bullseye. elon musk and donald trump railed against the agency in recent days. musk at one point called the agency, quote, criminal and said, quote, it needs to die, end quote. hundreds of usaid employees and contractors have been fired or furloughed. dozens of senior career leaders at the agency

have been sidelined in u.s. foreign missions have been brought to a standstill. a very disturbing situation developed on saturday, when two security leaders at the agency were put on leave after they refused to let members of musk's doge team access secure systems that included personnel files and classified information. nbc news reports this, quote the doge employees were eventually able to gain access to the secure systems, but it was not clear what information they were able to obtain. this assault on the agency could have disastrous effects as forbes. forbes reports, quote, humanitarian groups have warned any move to dismantle usaid would carry dire consequences for the countries it supports, with oxfam arguing, quote, dismantling usaid would be a callous, destructive political power play that would have deadly consequences for millions of people living in dire humanitarian emergencies

and extreme poverty. earlier today, secretary of state marco rubio announced that he is currently the new acting usaid administrator. it's a move that could very well run counter to u.s. law, as the agency's independence is outlined in a 1998 act that says it only receives policy guidance from the state department. in a statement, rubio said he notified congress that, quote, a review of usaid foreign assistance activities is underway with an eye towards potential reorganization. that is where we start the hour. some of our favorite reporters and friends. nbc news white house correspondent vaughn hillyard is here. plus, new york times correspondent teddy schleifer is here. his focus is on billionaires and their impact on the world. also joining us is former obama deputy national security advisor ben rhodes. ben rhodes, to many people. let me just speak for myself. i needed a reminder and a refresher of how important usaid is. will you give us that real quick?

>> yeah. >> and it's. >> not just the things. >> that you. >> read off, nicole, which. >> you. >> know. >> most americans. might think of as. worthy humanitarian objectives. there's very significant national security objectives tied to usaid. >> it's not just. >> textbooks for ukrainian children. >> it was. >> the. >> kind of sustainment. >> of the ukrainian government when it. >> was in its most dire circumstances that u.s. usaid carried. out in areas where we have. significant counterterrorism. >> challenges, places. >> like somalia. >> where you have al. >> shabab, it's. >> usaid money that tries to. >> build up a. >> local. >> capacity that can. >> deal with long term security challenges. obviously, to take a recent. >> example. >> pandemic preparedness. >> usaid is out in the field. >> trying to. >> stop epidemics before they reach american shores. so there's. >> a. whole range. of dangers that. >> usaid is meant to address by making by being essentially preventive medicine. >> it's cheaper. >> to spend money. >> on usaid. >> than it is to spend money on a military intervention or on a pandemic. i think the other important national security

interest that people should keep in mind is that china spends a ton of money on international development. this has been the centerpiece of their effort to build influence in the world over the last decade or two. >> you go to africa, you go to, say. >> the african union, the most important political institution in africa. it was built, the. headquarters by china. china builds roads. china builds infrastructure across places like africa to gain influence. if the united states just withdraws. things like health programing and food security programing, yes, that's. >> going to cause. >> people to die. let's make no mistake. from a humanitarian perspective, lives are at risk. but also we're essentially just saying to the rest of the world, yeah, go with the chinese international order. we're out of business here in the united states. and that will have massive medium and long term consequences for u.s. interests, whether it's geopolitical interests, whether it's natural resource interests. it's essentially ceding the whole globe to china and other countries to fill the space that was once filled by the united states. >> of america. >> so this is not just, you know, cutting some feel good programs. this is life saving

assistance, but it's also incredibly strategic national security interests of the united states, which, you know, elon musk just seems to care less about. and donald trump as well. >> as you're talking, ben rhodes, i remember being in the bush administration when condi rice, as secretary of state, would, would walk in and fight vigorously for usaid programs with the same sort of orientation. you're articulating u.s. national security. i want to ask you one follow up question, and then i want to bring in our journalists. so i don't want to do what we did the first time. right? careen from one trump manufactured catastrophe to the other. and i want to ask you, what could be the reason? i mean, frank figliuzzi and andrew weissmann, long time former senior fbi leaders, describe the fbi as functionally decapitated, with its leadership and its director gone and its next leader not yet confirmed. what is the impact if you are an american adversary,

to having the fbi functionally decapitated and usaid offline today? >> well. >> first of all. >> you're right to frame the question in the way you did. and we should also see why trump is focused out of the gate on these areas. if you look at other autocrats, they want control over power and resources. and those are the agencies that he's focused on law enforcement, the ultimate power of the state, bringing that to heel resources, the u.s. government's resources through usaid. again, not 1% of the budget, but a substantial amount of money. he wants to turn that into an extension of his own personal political interests, so that any resource allocation from the u.s. government, any power of the u.s. government is in his hands to serve his political interests. that is a sea change in how american government works. and then in terms of u.s. adversaries. look, we're just taking the eye off the ball everywhere while trump is breaking things and trying to rebuild them in a maga image. if you consider the fbi, if it's

going after his opponents, if we're getting rid of these people at the top of the fbi, that is hundreds if not thousands of years of experience in fighting terrorism, in counterintelligence against our adversaries, in trying, you know, counter-narcotics against cartels and the people they fired thousands of years of experience, probably, you know, certainly hundreds in dealing in conflict zones. and so it's a gift to our adversaries because our eye is just off the ball here, and they're not going to stop trying to carry out terrorist attacks under the nose of the fbi. they're not going to stop trying to spy in the united states. underneath the eyes of the fbi counterintelligence capability, they're not going to stop trying to gain influence in parts of the world where usaid is prevalent. and so as we're going through this kind of chaotic reconstruction of the u.s. government and donald trump's image, the world is not stopping and waiting to see how that plays out. and they're going to fill all the space that was once occupied by the law enforcement activities of the fbi, the assistance activities of usaid, the u.s. military, working with alliances. this is

a, you know, golden age for u.s. adversaries who want to take the place of u.s. interests or enter into places that were once off limits because of the actions of organizations like the fbi. >> teddy, you have some reporting that that really contextualizes some of what ben's talking about. you write this quote, usaid funds democracy promotion programs around the world, including in european countries where right wing populist movements are thriving. mr. musk has become an ally of those movements, some of whose leaders have specifically targeted the agency's pro-democracy programs in recent years. supporters of viktor orban, the right wing leader of hungary and a darling of pro-trump conservatives in the united states, have personally criticized samantha power, who led usaid during the biden administration for trying to import american values into their country. why is elon musk so against the importing of american values, at least as long as they include democracy

in europe? >> well, for him, this is. >> you know, if you look at what. >> he. >> says publicly ■abou about. >> usaid. this is this. >> is just, you know, to him about kind. >> of rank corruption. i don't think he's. >> necessarily seeing. >> this as a way to kind. >> of ally himself with. >> rightward movements, though. >> you're correct. of course. they are sort of celebrating. >> what elon is doing, you. >> know. >> generally covering musk, what you see on the internet in terms of how he describes his motivations. is pretty honest. and you can take that for how it's for any direction you would like. but, you know, elon. >> is kind of seeing. >> information online that. >> you. >> know. >> that he thinks. >> suggests that. >> usaid is. rife with corruption. >> and, you know, this. >> is a stain on american foreign policy. >> you know, i think. >> he described the agency as run by left wing lunatics or something like that. i think it's as simple as that to him. and, you know, obviously, you. >> know, ben is. >> making the case of kind of all the things that usaid does

that are not, you know, the projects of left wing lunatics. but for him, he is sort of imbibing the. >> the. >> misinfo. misinfo and disinfo that's. >> on. >> the internet and sort of then taking action based on that information, which is what we've seen over the last 72 hours. >> well, that's the scariest thing i've heard all week. and teddy, i mean, elon is seeing information online that he that he thinks the agency is corrupt. i mean, he's now the right hand. he's now the co-president of the united states of america. and i'm sure donald trump is giving him access to all sorts of things, state secrets and whatnot. i mean, does that suggest that elon musk is not read in on how anything works and is really just deriving information from his own broken platform? >> i do think that the. main source of information for elon musk is his own platform. yes, that that is not maybe how things should work given the amount of influence he. >> has. >> yada yada yada. but yes, i mean, i think everything we know about elon's information diet is it is driven by the, you know, 500 or 1000 people he currently

follows online. those people have extraordinary power. and, you know, those are pseudonyms. those are those are real people. i mean, elon obviously also is a well known participant. in many kind of silicon valley group text threads. i would not discount the influence of. >> the memes. >> that are sent around there as well. >> and this is. >> not elon is not somebody who. >> is. >> who is, you know, kind of. >> doing his own. >> research and kind of deriving information from experts. he's not watching us right now. he's not reading the new york times. he is generally processing information that is coming to him through memes and jokes and friends, some of whom are qualified, some of whom are not. and that sort of is then manifesting in the us government, because of course, elon is not just a private citizen the way he was six months ago. you know, there are tons of people who have the right to be misinformed or the right to enjoy memes, but elon is able to act upon that in a way because he has so much

power. >> teddy, we need you here every day. honestly, it's the most revelatory thing i've heard, and in light of it, i just want to share the reporting on what this person informed by memes and his own. in my view, broken social media platform has been up to this weekend. elon musk's team now has access to treasury's payment system. this broken? the new york times saturday quote treasury secretary scott bessent gave representatives of the so-called department of government efficiency access to the federal payment system late friday, according to five people familiar with the change, handing elon musk and his team a powerful tool to monitor and potentially limit government spending in a process typically run by civil servants. the treasury department carries out payments submitted by agencies across the government, disbursing more than $5 trillion in fiscal year 2023. access to the system has historically been closely held because it includes sensitive personal information about the millions of americans who receive social security checks, tax refunds and other payments from the federal

government. and in wired, these are the people doing the work based on elon musk's consumption of memes and group threads. quote. wired has identified six young men, all apparently between the ages of 19 and 24, according to public databases. their online presences and other records who have little to no government experience and are now playing critical roles in musk's so-called doge project, tasked by executive order with modernizing federal technology and software to maximize government efficiency and productivity. so again, i will take teddy's reporting to the bank. but the power that this meme informed oligarch has seen must rattle some folks inside the trump white house now. >> right? >> i actually. >> don't know that, nicole, but what i would say is right. i've followed teddy's reporting of elon for years now, from his time before he emerged onto the. political scene. and for me and

my reporting on elon musk largely has been focused on his efforts to deconstruct, destabilize and cripple usaid. over the course of the last week and a half. and in just that week and a half, there is an incredible amount of testimony about elon musk's hold on to power that i think is representative in so many ways of his emergence on the tech scene over the course of the last decade. when you look at the last week and a half, you take last week more than 50 senior career civil servants at usaid were placed on administrative leave, and there was another official at usaid, a civil servant who effectively was head of hr at usaid, who. after trump's allies placed those 50 plus officials on leave, he sent an email to them saying that they were illegally placed on leave and that it was not the power of the administration to sideline them from their respective roles as civil servants. that individual,

nick gottlieb, less than 24 hours later, was promptly removed from usaid himself. then this weekend, doge individuals attempted to enter usaid hq and access those private personnel files, and it was the director and deputy director of the security office of usaid who attempted to block elon musk's doge representatives. what happened to the director and deputy director of the security office of the usaid? they were promptly also dismissed and placed on administrative leave. and then, just in the last hours, elon musk on x posting that they are attempting to weed out and find leakers, government civil workers inside of usaid who are talking to the press. and why is this so important? i have talked to now a number of government employees that it's almost becoming to the point where i could say that it's countless number of current government officials at usaid who myself and i know other reporters are talking to as well, who have either been

fired, furloughed, or placed on administrative leave or in just the last hours had their access to email and in the internal network cut off. and there is paranoia because they believe that doge has access to their emails, their phones and any communications that they are having with others. to the extent that that is reality, it is not clear because doge has not been transparent, but at usaid they have essentially paralyzed the remaining operation that is at play here in just the last hours. elon musk saying that he is pursuing leakers, individuals who are attempting to get the word out to journalists about what is happening internally at what is the backbone, humanitarian assistance, humanitarian aid organization here in the united states. >> why? i mean, if you blow up an agency. yeah. i mean, but let me just ask. i'm not being glib. if you blow up an agency so publicly and so clumsily, why are you mad about leaks? >> it's a good question. >> i think that there is, to a

certain extent, an effort to suppress clearly anybody and any individuals and to and as one individual at usaid, a current official suggested to me an effort to force them into submission. and we heard this in the lead up to the 2024 election. right. j.d. vance was the one who audibly said that they are going to seek to remove 95% of the civil workforce and replace them with individuals who would carry out the trump agenda. they are sending a direct message here first to usaid, and we are learning in real time. similar messages have been sent to the small business administration this afternoon that if you are not willing to comply with the efforts of the trump administration and the executive branch's mission under donald trump, that they will seek to remove you and what the message is being sent to usaid employees where the headquarters were shut down today, doors covered up, yellow tape put in front of the doors. them being prevented from doing their job is that if you are unwilling to carry out the agenda of the

trump administration, there will be consequences. and just because you're a civil worker and maybe have been doing the work for decades to carry out the mission of the united states, that doesn't mean that you're going to have a future in this administration. >> all right. we're going to go deeper. i feel like between the four of us, we can figure out a little bit more of what's really going on. this is not what even trump's biggest maga supporters thought they were getting. the dismantling of things that were not known to be raising the prices of eggs and whatnot. we'll have much more on the dismantling of usaid, the assault on the federal workforce, what amounts to a government takeover led by elon musk after a very short break, also ahead, in the shocking early days of the trump presidency, it might be easier to grasp what's really happening if we imagined how we'd cover it, if it were happening in a foreign country, how we'd cover all these events and how doing that, how undertaking that exercise helps make clear just how extreme and destabilizing

they really are. we'll have that conversation later in the hour. conversation later in the hour. deadline. white house as americans, there's one thing we can all agree on. the promise of our constitution and the hope that liberty and justice is for all people. but here's the truth. attacks on our constitutional rights, yours and mine are greater than they've ever been. the right for all to vote. reproductive rights. the rights of immigrant families. the right to equal justice for black, brown and lgbtq+ folks. the time to act to protect our rights is now. that's why i'm hoping you'll join me today in supporting the american civil liberties union. it's easy to make a difference. just call or go online now and become an aclu guardian of liberty. all it takes is just $19 a month. only $0.63 a day. your monthly support will make you part of the movement to protect the rights of all people, including the fundamental right to vote. states are passing laws that would suppress

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your funds as soon as the same day your loan is on deck. >> the first. >> 100 days, it's a critical time for our country. and rachel maddow is on five nights a week. >> now is the time. >> so we're going to. >> do it. settle in. >> the rachel maddow show weeknights at 9:00 on msnbc. >> this show began and continues being the place to have the hard conversations. >> we're back with teddy and ben. let me get come back to you, teddy, on this thread from senator chris murphy. the immediate consequences of this are cataclysmic, malnourished babies who depend on u.s. aid will die. antiterrorism programs will shut down, and our most deadly enemies will get stronger. diseases that threaten the u.s. will go unabated and reach our shores faster, and china will fill the void. those developing countries will now only be able to rely on china for help. they will cut more deals with beijing to give them control of ports, critical

mineral deposits. et cetera. u.s. power will shrink. u.s. jobs will be lost. but why? why hand a victory to terrorists in china and russia? why kill babies intentionally? who benefits when trump is so soft on our enemies? maybe billionaires musk who feel who make money in china? maybe someone buying all that secret trump meme coin. it all feels so corrupt. does does elon musk have any? i know he's financially invested in trump's political health on the front end on the other side of the election, but is he invested in trump's political success and popularity as a president? >> well, look, i mean, elon musk has tons of business in china. i mean, there's a there's chris murphy is correct to at least kind of offer that as a theory. and we don't really totally know all kind of levels of conflict of interest here because musk is a special government employee, the white house confirmed today, which means that it's not really

going to be subject to lots of the ethics rules that typically govern, you know, somebody who is in a cabinet position or is, frankly, just in a rank and file position in a white house where there's kind of lots of disclosure regimes? look, i mean, i think two things can be true at once. it is definitely true that the conflicts are there. i think it is also true that, as i mentioned earlier, elon believes a lot of what he's saying publicly, and that is motivated maybe, maybe in part by kind of his experience in the business world. but, you know, to talk to trump officials, that's sort of the whole point here. the whole point is that elon musk has all this business experience and has all this time that he's spent in the private sector, and that's kind of what's driving him to get involved. and, you know, they say in silicon valley, no conflict, no interest. the point of the conflict is why he's involved in the first place. that's why he's interested in getting involved, because he wants to bring his his kind of years in the tech sector to bear. one of the things that we know to be true is that

political violence is destabilizing to an economy. and one of the things that the former usaid leaders are talking about is their sense of their lack of feeling safe, their sense of insecurity. let me read nbc's reporting on the usaid security leaders. quote, no one feels safe to go anywhere near the ronald reagan building where usaid is headquartered, a usaid official told nbc news, quote, we just had elon musk call us a criminal organization. our security chief was escorted out. we know we are being surveilled by doge. ben, your thoughts on the surveillance reporting thread that vaughn has pulled for us, this questionnaire that was due this afternoon from the fbi by mr. bove, the new acting attorney general, this surveillance state that trump has erected and the very real

threats of violence that critics of donald trump face since he removed the security details of mr. pompeo, bolton and milley. >> yeah, i mean, i think there are two elements to it that i'd highlight, nicole. i mean, the first is to get at your question to vaughn, too, about why you make these leak allegations, why try to get into people's personal information? we are currently living through a very rapid paradigm shift for the entire us federal workforce, which is that essentially the vast, vast, vast majority of that workforce works for institutions. and only a very small number of people come in and are political appointees, like you and i were in administrations. and generally those people, therefore, they carried out a function of the us government. what trump is doing is saying every single person that works for the united states government, even if it's been in conventionally apolitical agencies like the department of justice or usaid, no longer works for an institution or a function. they work for me. and

you're not going to know just how much i can see about who you're emailing or what's on your phone. you just have to assume someone's looking over your shoulder. so if you're not going to carry out everything that i say, or if you even, you know, think about or talk about some discomfort with the things i tell you to do, you could be out of the job tomorrow. and again, this is we've never seen this before. this is a paradigm shift in how government and power functions in the united states of america. and that's what this is about because it's a deterrent point to nicole. it's not just those people at usaid. it's sending a message to everybody in the federal workforce that you could be next. you know, the doj's goons could come knock on your door next week, and that's how they want it to filter out. then i think in extreme circumstances where there are people that do challenge trump, particularly people with any kind of profile, then there's the example being set that, hey, you could be vulnerable, we could unleash maga on you, you could be getting death threats. all of a sudden. you could have no

security to prevent people who want to do you harm from doing that harm. and so this is him trying to gain a full monopoly on power in the united states of america, which may sound strange to be talking about, but it's actually not unusual. there are other countries where this is how power operates. trump is trying to make the united states like those countries, which is obviously totally countervailing to our system of checks and balances and distribution power and the federal government. but that's that's what's happening. >> so von hilliard, doge isn't a government agency. it's not a congressionally approved office of anything like like, i mean, it is made up by the trump team to give elon musk something to be in charge of, but some of sort of throwing it around as though it were official, as though it were an official agency that goes in and takes the personal information of every person, the fbi or, i'm sorry, the treasury department

disburses funds to makes it sound more official. and now it is putting some more sort of might behind that name that branding explain. >> right. and that is where we haven't been through anything like this before. and from our conversations with sources at these various agencies and departments, there's legal questions here. we are just finding out literally this afternoon that the white house is now considering elon musk to be a, quote, special government employee, which gives him the ability to work within the federal government for 120 days, whether he needs to disclose his financials. there's a lot of questions. and does that give somebody without senate confirmation the ability to go across executive branch agencies and departments and demand access through other employees, very sensitive information, including social security numbers, medical information, personnel databases, not just here domestically, but abroad. there's a lot of serious legal questions here, and i think that that is where to ben and you

were just talking about just literally while you guys were having that part of the conversation, the acting u.s. attorney here in washington, d.c, again, this is somebody that's not been senate confirmed. this was the acting d.c. attorney, ed martin, just put out a statement in which he is suggesting that, quote, our initial review of the evidence presented to us indicates that certain individuals and or groups have committed acts that appear to violate the law in targeting doj employees, implying that there are individuals within these agencies that are blocking doj's efforts to these files. and parts of the certain part of the building goes on to say that we are in contact with the with the fbi to proceed rapidly. we also have our prosecutors preparing in real time. you have the acting d.c. attorney here who is suggesting that they intend to prosecute any individuals who attempt to obstruct. again, with so many legal questions still outstanding, obstruct anybody who is working for elon musk and

federal government from accessing these very records that we're talking about. nicole. >> okay, let me try to wrap this up. the acting u.s. attorney who's a stop the steal guy, has threatened to use the fbi, which is, according to frank figliuzzi and andrew weissman, functionally decapitated as we are on the air to enforce the rights of doge, which isn't a thing against people protecting the classified information at usaid. welcome to monday, folks. vaughn hillyard, teddy schleifer, and ben rhodes. thank you for starting us off. when we come back, we might all be more clear eyed about all of this. if it were happening in another country. we'll have that country. we'll have that conversation ♪♪ well would you look at that? jerry, you've got to see this. i've seen it. trust me, after 15 walks, it gets a little old. ugh. i really should be retired by now. wish i'd invested when i had the chance... to the moon!

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>> get the real. >> value from. >> your life. >> insurance when you. >> need it. >> with abacus. >> it has only been 14 days and by design, those 14 days were designed to feel like we are drinking from a fire hose, trying to keep up with five alarm news coming from the white house meant to distract and disorient and terrify. it's something that trump deployed the first time. and yet, here we are in year nine of the trump story, seemingly incapable of processing it again. questions arise about whether donald trump is setting the stage for a revenge purge at the fbi by threatening to fire agents who were in the criminal investigations into him, or january 6th crimes that took place on live tv, that far right oligarch elon musk and his ragtag group of recent high school graduates have now seized

control of usaid and the treasury department's payment systems. the news that trump is threatening to plunge the united states into an economic crisis by enacting steep tariffs that will be borne by the american consumer at the grocery store. tariffs on our closest trading partners and some of our closest allies. and believe it or not, that's just the news from the weekend that we've had time to tell you about today. here are some other alarming headlines that you might have missed as trump began. succeeds in flooding the zone. cbs news plans to give the fcc, now headed by a trump crony, a transcript of a 60 minutes interview with former vice president kamala harris. that interview was at the heart of a lawsuit by trump. he claims that the interview was edited to aid harris's campaign. a prominent new york hospital system, nyu langone, has begun canceling appointments for transgender kids after trump signed an executive order threatening to withhold federal funding from

hospitals that perform gender affirming care for minors. and the trump administration ousted nbc news, the new york times, npr, and politico from workspaces in the pentagon and replace them with far right outlets one america news network, the new york post and breitbart news network, as well as the huffington post journalist garrett graff, pointing out that if the sheer volume of democracy threatening events from the weekend took place in any other country, the coverage would look very different than what you see. here is how he says musk's efforts to seize power would be reported if they were taking place abroad. quote what started thursday as a political purge of the internal security services accelerated friday into a full blown coup as elite technical units aligned with media oligarch elon musk moved to seize key systems at the national treasury block. outside access to federal personnel records and take offline governmental communication networks with rapidity that has

stunned even longtime political observers. forces loyal to musk's junta have established him as the all but undisputed unelected head of government. in just a matter of days, unwinding the longtime democracy's constitutional system and its proud, nearly 250 year old tradition of the rule of law. joining our conversation, the author of that, journalist, historian and contributing columnist for the washington post, gary graff, is here. also joining us, professor of history at new york university, ruth ben-ghiat garrett. i read it three times. i sent it to everyone i know in and out of the news. take me through it. >> yeah, i think this is a challenge. >> and you. saw it. >> i think in a lot of the conversations. >> you had in the. >> last half. >> hour where we are caught up in trying to wrap our heads. around this story as. >> it. >> unfolds. >> because we. >> are used. to thinking. >> of covering american politics in. >> the. >> frame of a. >> democracy, of a

representative democracy with. >> rules and norms. >> and the rule of law.nd overseas. when we write, when we see. foreign correspondents from the us. >> write about. >> authoritarian regimes or politically. unstable regimes. >> we have. >> all of these. >> tropes and terms. >> that we're. >> much more. >> easily able to. deploy and define and. name that i. >> think we. >> are really struggling. >> to apply here. >> at home. >> even as we are. >> watching. >> you know, the. gravest threat to. american democracy that we have ever. >> seen play. >> out hour by. hour that, you know. >> elon musk is. >> staging a coup. >> on the american federal government. and i. >> think that that is something that we are having. >> trouble trying. >> to define. >> and. >> name in the way that we should. >> garrett, i took it all to heart. and you articulated this

lack of opposition better than anyone has in in three months and especially in 14 days. let me read some more from your piece. quote. throughout the weeks fast moving seizure of power, one that seems increasingly irreversible by the hour, neither loyalists nor opposition, paramilitary or parliamentary leaders raise meaningful objections to the new regime or the unraveling of the country's constitutional system of checks and balances. a few members of the geriatric legislature body offered scattered social media posts condemning the move. but parliament, where both houses are controlled by so-called maga members hand-picked for their loyalty to the president, went home early for the weekend. even as musk's forces spread through the capital streets, it was unclear what role, if any, musk's forces would allow parliament to have in the new governmental structures by the time it returned next return to the national assembly. known as capitol hill, this abdication of one of the branches of government is, to me, the most under-covered story that i've

ever seen. and i worked in the white house. i worked in the executive branch. i never worked in capitol hill, but this this abdication of the role of advise and consent, this, you know, give me maga, but give me a maga with a brain and a moral compass. it happened so quickly it seemed to destabilize mr. thune and mr. mcconnell and others. and i wonder what what you i mean, trump could appoint anyone he wanted to his cabinet, but picking people who had real personal trespasses, people like like mr. hegseth, he initially picked mr. gaetz, both of them credibly accused of criminal acts, picking inexperienced people, mr. patel and others. what what would that look like in your view, if again, if a if a sort of check on those kinds of people being in control of the military and the department of justice and the, you know, internal police, as you write in your piece, if that were happening somewhere else. >> yeah, absolutely. >> because i. >> think that.

>> to. >> me is one of the things that has. most stunned me. i mean, over these past two weeks and of course, over the last nine years is the way that congress has just. failed to stand up for itself as. >> an. >> independent and co-equal branch of government. that was it. particularly over the last couple of years, we've seen so much. >> activity by the. >> supreme court actually saying, you know, that there are limits on executive power, that actually. congress needs to have. >> a bigger. >> role in many of these public policy debates. i mean, that's effectively what the dobbs decision was about, start to finish. and yet, what we have seen over the past. >> two. >> weeks is congress just give up both the republicans and. >> the democrats. any meaningful. >> check on. >> the presidency. >> the rubber stamp on these clearly unqualified officials, the lack of interest in enforcing the laws that a republican congress passed about. federal spending.

>> you know, that's the thing. >> about all of these congressional appropriation bills is they are the force of law, that these payments should go to these organizations, that these agencies. >> deserve, these. amounts of funding. >> that elon musk seems to be sitting there with, you know, some 19 year olds in a government office deleting one by one of his own accord. >> all right. no one's going >> all right. no one's going anywhere. i want to pull ruth in how did i ever miss this? before you were preventing migraine with qulipta? you'll never truly forget migraine, but qulipta reduces attacks making more zero-migraine days possible. it's approved to prevent migraine to help give you that forget-you-get migraine feeling. don't take if allergic to qulipta. get help right away for serious allergic reactions like trouble breathing, face, lip, or tongue swelling, itching or rash, which may occur when taking qulipta or days after. common side effects include nausea, constipation, and sleepiness. learn how abbvie could help you save. qulipta, the forget-you-get migraine medicine. for more than a decade farxiga has been trusted again and again, and again.

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g7 countries newly installed president and mid-level oligarch named donald trump appeared amid musks moves to be increasingly merely a figurehead of state. trump is a convicted felon with a long record of family corruption. he'd been charged with attempting to overthrow the peaceful transition of power that had previously removed him from office in 2021. but loyalist elements in the judiciary successfully blocked his prosecution and incarceration, easing his return to power. the mentally declining and aging head of state, who has long embraced conspiratorial conspiracy thinking, spent much of the week railing in bizarre public remarks against the country's oppressed racial and ethnic minorities, underscoring his apparent disconnection from reality. reports surfaced that the president had ordered military forces to unleash an environmental catastrophe and flood regions of a separatist province known as california that is led by a high profile

political opponent. your thoughts? >> garrett is exactly right to have this. >> framing, and. >> that's what. >> i've always done, is. >> look. >> take the lens of. global authoritarianism and look at the us for maga, for trump. and i've been trying to puzzle through what is typical of authoritarian states and what. is an. >> innovation, so to speak. >> so there are many things that are just happening very fast. and that's by design. we're living through what i call in my book, strongman, a shock event where there's a high speed kind of blitzkrieg of things to disorient us. but the substance of what's being done, many of these things are typical of authoritarian states. you have, you know, the massive purge of judiciaries and civil service. you have the declaration of a state of emergency which allows you to send, you know. state

forces. and now there's this, you know, we haven't had this big discussion over. we're now using the military for domestic operations. right. and then you have the outreach to other dictatorships, other, you know, and donald trump during the campaign, he made a very revealing statement. he said, if you have a smart president and he was referring here to north korea, russia and china, they're not enemies. you'll make them do great. and so as your last segment said, so many things being done are going to benefit china. and he just gave a big gift to venezuela, deciding marco rubio to, you know, deport over 300,000 venezuelans who had fled maduro's dictatorship back to venezuela. and that's a gift to the dictator. so there's many things that are typical, and i'll just add the setting up of an informer structure that encouraging or requiring civil

servants to inform on each other if they're not loyal to the leader. so setting up a whole thing around the leader's needs, organizing, you know, organizing power around the loyalty to the leader. but the speed is very unusual in my study of authoritarian states, it's only really after a coup that you see such a speed, such an obsessive haste to purge a bureaucracy so quickly, or when somebody is defending themselves, like erdogan after the coup attempt against him, massive purge immediately. so that's unusual. and then, of course, this now. elon musk may now be what a special government employee all of a sudden. but this, as garrett said, is highly unusual. i don't have another reference point for a private individual coming in, infiltrating, trying to turn government to the benefit of his businesses and locking out and federal employees. it is a coup. i'm a

historian of coups, and i would also use that word. so we're in a real emergency situation for our democracy, i feel. >> i want to ask you, ruth, what the protective measures are at this junction. if you are now able to sort of agree with garrett's description of this as a coup. >> if you look at what sometimes you know, nations do in situations of emergency, for example, brazil, when bolsonaro was trying to have his january 6th, 2023 coup, which was the playbook of january 6th in our country, applied there. and steve bannon was an adviser. it didn't work. and all of the major authorities went on television and made, you know, a declaration united to declare, you know, this fraudulent attempt to say the election was a fraud wasn't going to work.

and then they eventually prosecuted bolsonaro. i believe what we need here is democratic authorities going on camera together to state to the people, my fellow americans, what is happening, what musk has been allowed to do, because it was the treasury secretary who gave musk access to come in and take over, and he ended up physically occupying the offices and locking, you know, civil servants out. i think we need a stand, a show, even just for the morale of americans that democrats are responding united with a very plain message to inform people what is happening. that will go a long way, as it has gone a long way at other crises in other nations. >> garrett, there is something so different about this trump presidency. a lot of it does take place in full view. what is

your sense of the explanation for the complete paralysis? public facing, at least of many members of the democratic party? >> because i think we have spent nine years, you know, almost a decade now. every single institution in american life thinks that someone else will step up and deal with donald trump, that, you know, this is why the republicans in that primary in 2014, 2015, 2016 didn't stand up and stop him. that's why, you know, we the senate didn't impeach him or didn't convict him after january 6th. and this idea that sort of someone else is the person that we're waiting for has failed our country for nine years now. and we need to realize that sort of we're the ones that we've got and that, you know, this is the democratic leadership in the in

the house and the senate that we have, and we need them, as ruth said, there, to stand up and be counted in this moment. >> ruth, would it work if chuck schumer and hakeem jeffries and chris murphy seems to have the most backbone in this moment? and aoc, if they came out every day and communicated with the country, are is a public interest in this information in these situations? >> well, the i mean the public is very worried. they're you know, it's you just need to very clearly communicate the gravity of the situation, the uniqueness of the situation. what a break it is with our democratic traditions. small d and it's certainly better than what's going on now, which is seeming like nothing to americans who feel frightened. and that's not going to help the cause of the democratic party for the midterms or going forward, if

they are seen as being kind of absent at this moment of national crisis. >> i mean, i guess i ask because i have invited chuck schumer and hakeem jeffries on the show every day. i have not had any luck booking them. maybe it's a personal thing, but maybe it will help to know that it would aid our democracy in this hour. ruth ben-ghiat garrett graff, thank you for the piece and the conversation and for spending conversation and for spending time with us. your gut is like a garden growing both good bacteria and bad. that balance is key to a healthy gut environment. benefiber's plant-based prebiotic fiber gently nourishes the good bacteria, working with your body to help your gut, and you, flourish. effortlessly. every day. grow what feels good. with benefiber. place. but replacing your. place. but replacing your. windshield doesn't have to be. i'm thinking of updating my kitchen... —yeah? —yes! ...this year, we are finally updating our kitchen... ...doing subway tile in an ivory,

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>> optima tax relief. the first. >> 100 days. it's a critical time for our country. and rachel maddow is on five nights a week. >> now is the time. >> so we're going. >> to do it. settle in. >> the rachel maddow show weeknights. >> at. >> nine on msnbc. >> what we do. >> is try. >> to cut right to the bone of what we're seeing in washington that day. thank you so much for letting us into your homes during these trying times. we're really grateful. the beat with ari melber starts right now. hi, ari. >> hi, nicole. thank you very much. >> welcome to the beat. i'm ari. >> m