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everyone. it's 4:00 in. >> new york. >> i'm ali. velshi in for nicole wallace. we are following multiple. >> developments in what has. emerged as the single biggest roadblock. >> to the. >> trump administration's agenda in its first few weeks action by the courts. breaking this afternoon, a federal judge in rhode island. >> ruled that the trump administration. >> was violating a court. >> order that. >> restored billions. >> of dollars of federal aid, making. >> it clear. >> that the administration must, quote, immediately. restore frozen funding. and at the very top of the ruling, the judge demands that, quote, all orders and judgments of courts must be complied with promptly. >> end quote. >> if the administration wanted to freeze funding for a. specific program, the judge said, they would have to go through him and ask for an exception to his restraining order. now, this ruling is just one of the many flashpoints between team trump and a motley

crew of democrats, activists, unions and others opposed to the administration. 40 lawsuits have been brought in all. another legal battle is unfolding over the federal payments system at the treasury department, which effectively acts as the government's checkbook, distributing funds to people and to state governments. just to give you a sense of this, this payment system spent $6.75 trillion in the last fiscal year. it's 90% of all payments made to anyone by the u.s. government. a federal judge on saturday blocked elon musk and his team from accessing the system, citing the risk of, quote, irreparable harm and the possibility that the system would be more vulnerable to hacking and that sensitive information will be stolen. the judge ordering any information that was downloaded by musk and the doge program to be destroyed. the suit was brought by 18 blue state attorneys general, one of the plaintiffs. new jersey attorney general matthew platkin said that the injunction by the judge meant that, quote, the world's richest man has stopped, has been

stopped from stealing your data, end quote. the justice department has appealed that order that blocks elon musk and doge. but the public reaction from team trump has been furious. donald trump called the ruling crazy. elon musk called for the judge who ruled against the administration to be impeached, and he reposted a user who said, quote, i don't like the precedent it sets when you defy a judicial ruling. but i'm just wondering what other options are these judges leaving us? end quote. jd vance went further on x. he posted this quote. if a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal. if a judge tried to command the attorney general into how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that's also illegal. judges aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate power. end quote. now, as yale law grad and vice president jd vance surely knows, courts have ruled on military matters and on the powers of the attorney general. it's actually part of their job. courts are

meant to act as a check on executive power. as one law professor told nbc news, quote, under the rule of law and the constitution, it is the courts that determine whether some use of the executive power is lawful or not. that's the critical point. end quote. what vance's demand amounts to, then, is a call to defy the rule of law. brookings institution fellow quinta jurcic tells new york times, quote, what vance's wording suggests here, without directly saying it, is that the executive could potentially respond to a court order by saying to the court, you're unconstitutionally intruding on my authority, and i'm not going to do what you say. at that point, the constitution falls apart. end quote. joining us now, nbc news white house correspondent vaughn hillyard on capitol hill. plus, msnbc legal analyst and nyu law professor melissa murray is here, and former republican congressman and msnbc political analyst david jolly. welcome to all three of you. thank you for being with us. vaughn, let's start with you. this is moving. it's moving fast and furious through the courts. but there's

not as much going on in congress. there are senators and representatives trying to do things about this, but we're not hearing a ton from republicans to say, first of all, elon musk and his team need to get out of government systems. and second of all, you can't do things that are constitutionally given to congress to do right. >> republicans have struggled to respond to this over the last two weeks. when i have asked a litany of them about the efforts to stop already previously congressionally appropriated funds from making their way to the places that congress set in its budgets through the appropriations process, whether they took issue with the executive branch's efforts to bring those funds to a halt, there's been largely silence in defense of president trump, elon musk and the administration when usaid came essentially operationally crippling to its effective end. the headquarters shut down. we've heard largely silence from republicans up on

capitol hill. and the issue here that i think is important, ali, is the fact that j.d. vance has foreshadowed this moment specifically for years back before he was even running for the u.s. senate, and then during his 2022 campaign in ohio, he was suggesting that this idea that somehow 90% of the so-called administrative state were made up of liberals, liberals, civil servants. >> in fact, let me let me just stop. >> you there. the right of the. >> i've got that here. let's let's actually play this j.d. vance from from the podcast talking about defying the court if donald trump wants to undo this. this is from 2021, the 2022 campaign, but it was 2021. let's listen to this. >> we should just seize. >> the administrative. >> state for. >> our own purposes. >> we should fire. >> all of the people. >> you know, like. >> i think. >> trump is. >> going. >> to. >> run. >> again in 2024. >> i think he'll probably. win again in 2024, and he'll win by a. margin such that he will be the president of united states in january of 2025.

>> i think. >> that what trump should do, like if i was giving him one piece. >> of. >> advice, fire every single mid-level bureaucrat, every civil servant in the. administrative state. replace them with our people. >> and when the courts. >> because. >> you will. >> get taken. >> to court. >> and when the. courts stop, you stand before. >> the. >> country like andrew. >> jackson did and. >> say the. >> chief. >> justice has made his ruling. now let him enforce it. >> and he did this. vaughn. and then you talked to him about this afterwards because it was outlandish even then. and now it feels like a roadmap for what we're watching. >> right when he was campaigning for that senate seat in may of 2022, i very explicitly asked him the extent to which it had sounded like authoritarian rhetoric, the suggestion that there would be a mass removal of the civil servant workforce, and particularly the defiance of the courts. and i think it's important to note that quote of andrew jackson that he cited there in that podcast, essentially the idea that if the supreme court rules against you, tell them to come and enforce the law. that was in reference to andrew jackson's supposed statement back in 1832, when the

supreme court ruled against the state of georgia, who claimed the cherokee indian tribes land, and andrew jackson backed the state of georgia, defied the supreme court, and moved the cherokee indians off of their land. and it was actually about 20 years ago, stephen breyer, he talked about that moment and how we went from an 1832, a president's defiance of the supreme court to brown versus board of education and dwight d eisenhower sending the military in to force the desegregation of schools in the south. how? over the course of 140 years, we got from point a to point b, and he was very explicit, saying, it's part of our national history and getting to the point in time in which the american public has, quote, not only just taken a system that is based off of the constitutional liberties, that is simply fine words on paper, but quote, also of habits, customs, expectations, settled modes of behavior engaged in by judges, by lawyers, by the general public. those were the

words of stephen breyer 20 years ago. and i think that it is notable to hear the current vice president not only several years ago, but then to echo those very statements now in the actual position of vice president, suggesting that the executive branch, when it is just for them to do so in defense of the constitution, may defy the courts, and that potentially could even be the supreme court. ali. >> so, melissa, we, we talk a lot and have talked a lot in recent years about things that are constitutional crisis, to the point that people may not really know what what counts as a constitutional crisis here. so we've had a few things that have happened since the beginning of the trump administration, where there have been lawsuits filed and courts have, have, have said certain things. some of them are about the constitution. so birthright citizenship is in the 14th amendment of the constitution, the congressional right to appropriate funds is in the constitution. but then there's this defiance of judges. what part of this is a constitutional crisis, or is it? what's your take on this? >> so in my. >> view. >> ali. >> all of this is a constitutional crisis. we're

watching this unfold over time. >> and i. >> don't mean to be hyperbolic. >> about this or to. >> be on. 11 all of. >> the time, but. >> the idea that the president. >> can step. >> in and. >> appropriate congressional. >> powers over how money is. disbursed and to whom. >> it is disbursed, is. >> a usurpation. of the lawmaking authority that is a genuine. >> constitutional violation. >> and the fact. >> that it. >> hasn't been corrected, or that it's only been limitedly corrected and it continues to go on among this executive is a constitutional crisis. the fact that the vice president of the united states, who is a law school graduate, a graduate of the same law school that i attended and from which i graduated, and who should know better, is talking about open defiance of the courts. that is a genuine constitutional crisis. the supreme court is not like the president. it doesn't wield the power of the sword. it's not like congress. it doesn't wield the power of the purse. all it has for us to understand its work and to abide by its work is some sense that it's legitimate. and what jd vance is doing is

stoking the idea that when the courts weigh in and rebuke this president and his d.o.j. minions, it is somehow illegitimate. and that is a dangerous, dangerous place to be. >> yeah, the harrison field, the white house spokesman said in a statement today. any legal challenge against the trump administration is nothing more than an attempt to undermine the will of the american people. so let's talk about that for a second. david jolly. the will of the american people is usually indicated by who they vote for as as president, or who they vote for as their representatives in in congress or senate. why are we not hearing? and i want you to sort of think, dig deep into your your your former republican colleagues. there must be a lot of them very, very uneasy about the overreach, the fact that decisions that are actually given by the constitution to congress are not being abided by by this administration, like at some point there have to be enough people. it's a very slim majority who are prepared to say this is not right. >> i don't know that there are,

ali. i mean, i'm fascinated by the question. i think ten years. ago there were maybe five years ago. >> there were. >> but in today's. modern republican congress, i don't think so. this congress has collapsed. it has collapsed. >> and to build on what. >> melissa was. >> saying, i believe. >> personally we are. >> in a constitutional crisis right now. >> and it's not fully because of. >> the actions of donald trump and the white house. >> it's because of. >> the collapse of the congress. >> now, what do i. >> mean by that? we have seen executive malfeasance. >> before. >> and it leads to impeachment. we saw it with nixon. we saw it with donald trump. >> the malfeasance. >> of an executive branch or. >> of a president does not. >> by itself create the constitutional constitutional crisis. it violates the constitution. >> but provided that the congress. >> provides the check that the courts in this case are trying to provide, you forestall or you avoid. >> the. >> actual constitutional crisis in this environment, you have lawlessness by donald trump and his administration, absolute lawlessness. we've seen it before our eyes, and now we have

the words of a court saying, you are defying the law now under the constitution. to enforce that. requires typically the executive branch to enforce the law. >> the court has. >> some enforcement mechanisms, but they're not. they're fairly elusive compared to the actual enforcement mechanisms of the executive branch. well, now you have j.d. vance and others, donald trump, presumably through his words, saying, not only are we going to defy it, we're not going to worry about enforcing it on our administration. >> so the one. >> body, the. one check that is available that the founders thought would rush into a fire is the legislative branch, is the congress who are seeing their their constitutional responsibilities, be it the power of the purse or be it other authorities that the congress have getting trampled by this administration. and yet republicans don't care. they do not care. this congress has collapsed. and i think that's creating the crisis. >> vaughn, are you hearing anything? i mean, when you're at congress, are you are there are there whispers that there are? because we always hear there's some republicans who think that donald trump's gone too far, but they're not prepared to say it

publicly or they're not prepared to deal with the primary challenge, or they're not prepared to do it before an election. is anybody doing it? is there is there some world in which some republicans are gathered somewhere where you are saying, guys, we got we got to do something? this is not this is just not how the constitution was written. it's not how this country is set up. >> not that i'm aware of all the republicans here in the senate and the house republicans are going to be making their way back to washington this afternoon. confirmation votes are going to begin to proceed for the likes of tulsi gabbard and robert f kennedy jr. but, you know, frankly, the only the only pushback that i've heard so far in the last month since donald trump ascended to the white house were among three senators susan collins, lisa murkowski and mitch mcconnell on pete hegseth nomination specifically. and the second one were a few republican senators on his gaza remarks. but by and large, there has not been a staunch defense of the legislative body. last week, a week ago, i was down in doral when the house republicans were

convening, and there was that immediate funding that was halted from agencies, and there was no audible discontent or suggestion that the executive branch was not acting within its right. and i think that that is worth noting, because it is not clear what that threshold is for republicans to speak up. i think we heard from those that covered the obama administrations, the biden administrations. there was audible expressions of discontent with executive orders that were signed. you know, marco rubio was one of those on the front lines of taking on the obama administration and the number of executive actions that were taken. yet you hear just largely silence or efforts to, you know, to defend the president trump's administration and the decisions that they've made. but i think that it's a question of in the weeks ahead, just how far will they allow donald trump and elon musk, who is quick to shoot off attacks on

x and go after those who try to undermine this administration's efforts? >> melissa, one of the reasons people worry about so-called constitutional crisis is because, in theory, it gets to the supreme court and we hope that the supreme court will make good decisions. but we've we've you know, we that's been brought into question in the last couple of years. chief justice john roberts, at the end of the year, put out his report in which he said it is not in the nature of judicial work to make everyone happy. most cases have a winner and a loser. every administration suffers defeats in the court system, sometimes in cases with major ramifications for executive or legislative power or other consequential topics. nevertheless, for the past several decades, the decisions of the courts, popular or not, have been followed, and the nation has avoided the standoffs that plagued the 1950s and the 1960s. within the past few years, however, elected officials from across the political spectrum have raised the specter of open disregard for federal court rulings. these

dangerous suggestions, however sporadic, must be soundly rejected. does the must be soundly rejected? tell us something about how we're going to see this unfold? because he wrote this before donald trump started doing all this stuff? >> no, i think that's a really important point. ali, when the chief justice wrote his year end report, i think he was likely thinking of the public response to the immunity decision back in july, where so many people were rightly outraged by what seemed like a very broad and expansive reading of inherent executive authority. i will also note that j.d. vance had nothing to say about not following that ruling when it was announced in july, so apparently it is a very selective understanding of the court's authority to intervene, to interpret the provisions of the constitution that deal with executive power. but i think the point remains here that this court understands that it is a crisis of legitimacy, not only for the constitution, but also for itself as a body. if there is an executive that is

unwilling to heed the words and the pronouncements that this court makes. and so i will be watching as this inevitably percolates up to the supreme court, it seems obvious that these actions that have been undertaken over the course of the last two weeks raise grave constitutional questions about the separation of powers, about the whole question of constitutional design. the point of the constitution is to limit government power, to limit the power of the government broadly, but also within the different branches, so that no single branch can consolidate power and become despotic or tyrannical. we are now, as david says, in a position where congress has basically rolled over for this president and the only bulwark that we have left against a president who is charismatic, nimble and moving quickly are the courts. and surely chief justice john roberts understands that. >> melissa and david stick around with us. vaughn, thank you for your great reporting. and we will be right back after

a quick break. when we come back, donald trump has said he intends to test his executive powers over just about every government department. the next target is the agency tasked with protecting americans from fraud and abuse. how democrats and workers at the agency are fighting back today. plus, threatening a new round of tariffs meant to hurt our trading partners. we'll look at who they really have an impact on and later in the show. another black eye for independence when it comes to the justice department and the white house. all those stories and more when deadline white and more when deadline white house continues we've never spoken. but you've told us many things. that you love stargazing, hate parallel parking, and occasionally, your right foot gets a little heavy. the lexus es didn't begin in a studio — it began with you. ♪♪ my name's dan and i live here in san antonio, texas. i ran my own hvac business and now i'm retired. i'm not good being retired. i'm a pain in the neck. i like to be able to have a purpose. about three or four years ago, i felt like i was starting to slip. i saw the prevagen commercials. after a short amount of time taking prevagen, i started noticing a difference--

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which donald trump's newly minted director of the office of management and budget. russell vote is looking to effectively shut down on saturday night. vote sent a series of directives in an email, which was obtained by nbc news. employees were instructed to, quote, cease all supervision and examination activity, cease all stakeholder engagement, end quote, pause all pending investigations, not issue any public communications and pause enforcement actions. vote also told employees not to approve or issue any proposed or final rules or formal or informal guidance, and to suspend the effective dates of all final rules that have been issued or published, but that have not yet become effective. end quote. among other directives, the agency was created. the cfpb was created as a result of the late 2000 financial crisis and recession to protect consumers from banks, lenders, credit unions, and other financial companies. as one employee told nbc news, they're pulling hundreds of the examiners out of the field. the people who make sure your

grandmother isn't getting ripped off by scammers, your kid isn't being deceived by predatory student lenders, end quote. joining us now is the democratic senator tina smith of minnesota, a member of the committee on banking, housing and urban affairs. senator, good to see you. thank you for being with us. this one's a little confusing to some people because the cfpb has been in the crosshairs of republicans since the since the days of its inception and conception. really, it's been it's been troubled. but it got out there and in the end has saved american consumers, i think around $20 billion in junk fees and overdraft fees and all the stuff that you would imagine your voters and everybody's voters would like to see gone. why this? why is this a target of elon musk and donald trump? >> well, so what elon musk and donald trump did is they said to the cops on the beat for protecting consumers. >> just stop it. just stop. >> protecting consumers. we want the big. >> banks and. >> wall. >> street to. >> have their way. >> and that is exactly what congress didn't want to have happen. after the financial.

>> crisis and the. >> collapse of the housing market in 2008, we said, somebody. >> needs to be on the side of consumers when they are going up against these big. >> banks who. >> are ripping them off. >> and that's the whole idea. >> behind the consumer. >> financial protection bureau. >> which. >> a lot. of americans might. >> not have heard of. but they sure. >> know what what good it's done. >> for them in their lives. >> it's helping them. it's keeping them safer and protecting. >> their financial well-being. >> although arguably that's the problem with the gutting of all these agencies and that there are things that are happening and if they happen properly, if the cfpb is doing its job well or air traffic control is doing its job well, you don't really know. you just get the benefit of it, right. there's a there's a charge. you don't know you were charged. there's a there's an overdraft. you don't know that you're. and is that part of the problem here that they're doing away with things. and obviously there is a protest that's about to happen. but it's hard to protest when you don't know that government is working. >> well, you. >> know, i think that is such a great point. >> you may know about this. if you were one of the people that was. ripped off by wells fargo,

11 million fraudulent accounts set up in people's names, and they never even knew about it. you may have known about it if you were one of the customers of bank of america, where, you know, which ripped. >> off $100. >> million. >> of american. >> citizens, you may. >> have benefited. >> if you were going to be protected from exorbitant overdraft fees, which is one of the things that the consumer financial. protection bureau was in the middle of doing before russell vogt. >> and elon. >> musk and donald trump said no. okay. so you always ask yourself. >> in situations like this. >> who's going to benefit? who's going to benefit if this work is stopped? certainly not consumers. but i can tell you that the big banks and the wealthy. >> financial interests. >> they are the ones that are going to be better off because of this. and so you've got to ask. >> yourself. >> why is donald trump serving those wealthy. interests right now and not americans? >> so what can you do? i mean, i guess this question applies to every single one of the topics that we've been discussing in the last couple of weeks, because they all seem some of them appear to be unconstitutional. some of them have faced judicial orders. but what can you actually do about this attack on the cfpb?

>> well. >> listen, i. >> mean. >> you know as well as i do that the united states senators who are in the democratic party have 47 votes in the senate. we stayed up all night long. we worked our hardest to stop russell vote from getting this nomination. >> but every. >> single one of my republican colleagues went along. >> with it. >> so this is a question to ask my republican colleagues. because they're the ones. >> that. >> have the. >> power to stop. >> these kinds of shenanigans. and what they are doing instead is just sort of going along with everything that donald trump wants to do. and i do not believe it is in the best interests of americans. and so what i'm doing is speaking out in every way that i know how, and making sure that people. understand what is happening here. and i believe that people. >> are mad about it. >> let me ask david jolly. he's still with us, and david jolly are still with us. david, let me just ask you to senator smith's point, democrats are trying they're trying to do what they can do. but in neither house do they outnumber republicans. tell me about the value in that. if you are a republican in the house who is uncomfortable with what's going on, is there value

or is there just value to the public in democrats doing what they're doing? >> there's absolutely value. listen. >> i think. >> i think democratic leaders, democratic senators, members of congress have been getting an unfair shake the last two weeks. the crime and the crisis is caused by republicans and their malfeasance. and to somehow suggest that democrats in the minority could just stop it tomorrow is really not possible. so democrats are rightly using their voice, taking the case to the american people to move public opinion to pressure republicans. that's the tool they have. the tools republicans have on capitol hill is actually shut down the crime and the lawlessness, and they're not doing it. but i think the cfpb issue is such an important one. you're right. republicans fought it for maybe a decade or more on constitutional grounds. supreme court has said, no, no, it's constitutional. you can't fight it there. i actually think a theme of this administration that will lead into the midterms is that donald trump is putting billionaires over consumers. he's putting corporations over over customers. he is looking

out for the rich guy and making government work for them while it's working against you. look on, on on the issues, the policy issues of foreign aid and the civil service. those are important ones, but those aren't really politically popular. and so republicans want to draw democrats into that fight, the real fight right now over protecting consumers from fraud. boy, that is a fantastic opportunity for democrats like the senator and her colleagues to get out there in front of the american people. >> i've never really understood, and i followed this from the early days, how you how you end up on the wrong side of this one, senator smith. but there was an argument from republicans at the time during the formation of the cfpb. the argument was the most robust argument they made was that it doesn't fall under enough congressional oversight. the director of the cfpb does not is not like an agency head that gets appointed by the president at election. they're off cycle. in fact, what russell volt has tried to do is undo that. in other words, they've tried to say first we bring cfpb basically under the

executive and the office of management and budget, which russell vote also runs. and then we dismantle it. we defang it. it was designed not to be defanged by a president. >> and that's exactly right. i mean, it was. designed to be immune from the political pressures of congress. and that's why its funding. >> comes through. >> the federal reserve and its leader has. been appointed, not on a presidential schedule, but on an independent schedule, so that the individual could be fighting for consumers and not fighting to do the president's bidding. and you know, what i think is happening here is americans know that there is something wrong in our country when these big, powerful economic interests, big corporations. have so much powe, and it feels like american consumers are left holding the bag. and yet here we have in the first weeks of the trump administration. >> again, they're. >> coming down on the side of big concentrated power, big economic interests, and against the interests of americans who are getting ripped off by these big corporations. and people are not going to like it. that's just wrong. >> melissa, let me ask you this. obviously, there are questions that the supreme court has to evaluate in terms of what's

legal and what's not legal. but at some point, how does the supreme court, whether you are a liberal or conservative on the court, express its dismay or dissatisfaction or disapproval of what j.d. vance said of this idea that courts aren't really all that important and don't really have the power that they say they have. >> well, it's very rare for the justices to speak out, although there have been occasions where they have made statements. i'm thinking specifically of the time when the chief justice, in response to something that president trump in his first term said about a quote unquote, obama judge, the chief justice weighed in to say that there weren't any obama judges. there weren't any trump judges. there were just federal judges doing their level best to apply the constitution. and so in situations like that, when someone is attempting perhaps to politicize the work of the court, the chief justice might step in. but i think they do most of their talking through their writings, but also in terms of the cases that they accept. and we've been talking about the cfpb. and you're

right, the cfpb has been the bet noir of the conservative legal movement for a number of years since its founding. just last term, the court took up a case that questioned and called into question the constitutionality of the cfpb's funding structure. if they had if they had found that the funding structure violated the constitution, it would have been the beginning of the dismantling of the cfpb. there were votes to do that, but ultimately there was a majority that prevailed, upholding the funding structure and upholding the cfpb. that's just one of a number of challenges that we've seen over the years. what the trump administration is doing now is something that the conservative legal movement has not been able to do in a lawful way, which is to piecemeal dismantle this. now they have someone in the driver's seat as the acting head of the cfpb, and that work is going to begin afresh. and yes, congressional democrats need to underscore that this is not just business as usual. it is an assault on the american people, on the common man. it is a rebuke of this faux populism that they

chanted throughout the election cycle. >> melissa, thank you for spending time with us this afternoon. senator tina smith, thank you for being with us as well. david, i'm going to ask you to stick around. we're going to talk about tariffs. coming up next. what's behind donald trump's bombastic and often trump's bombastic and often repeated threat of 5k fun run! say hi to patty. celebrated social worker... whose coming in second? self-appointed social chair. hmmmm. potluck. kickball. “last call”. sign up for goat yoga! you name it, she's on it. and you have 47 emails to prove it. but her capacity to care is unmatched. you need patty. patty needs a retirement plan. work with principal so we can help you help patty with a retirement and benefits plan that's right for her. good night, guys! let our expertise round out yours. end-of-season savings just landed at wayfair. our presidents' day clearance is here! and with deals this big, you'll be like, am i a... big deal? yes you are. which is why you deserve our best deals since black friday. with fast shipping straight to your door. this sale ends february 18th

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>> on every country. >> every country will be reciprocal. >> all countries. >> will always go on. >> everybody still. >> including canada and. >> mexico. >> for example. >> any steel coming into the united states is going to have a 25% tariff. >> what about. >> aluminum to. >> i feel like if the reporter just kept asking questions, he was going to say, yeah, that too. chewing gum. as we await any detail on that promise of reciprocal tariffs on every country, donald trump's latest announcement for a 25% blanket tax on all steel and aluminum imports is adding to a growing list of concerns about a global trade war and just how much this is all going to cost the american consumer. because even in this second term, donald trump continues to frame tariffs as fees that other countries pay, when that cost. actually, more often than not, we're going to show you a chart in a second that explains this falls to consumers. now this is all very reminiscent. if you feel like you've heard this before of the tax on imported steel and aluminum that donald trump imposed back in 2018 that made

united states customers pay more, it made us companies that use those products pay more. and it sparked retaliatory tariffs on us exported goods. and this is where it gets complicated with these new plans. this could all happen again from the new york times today. quote, the tariffs will invite plenty of controversy. they're already likely to rankle america's allies like canada and mexico, who supply the bulk of u.s. metal imports. they could incite retaliation on u.s. exports, as well as pushback from american industries that use metals to make cars, food packaging and other products, end quote. joining me at the table, nbc news senior business correspondent, my longtime friend christine romans. david jolly is back. welcome to both of you. christine, let's talk about these particular tariffs that that that were imposed in the in the trump administration the first time around. i want to put up this chart that shows inflation. the red line is inflation on on all goods and sort of it's pc. you'll explain

it. and the blue line is the stuff that that in 2018 we put tariffs on. >> let's just marinate on that for a second here. that blue line there were 9 or 12 categories nine i think things that were had tariffs laundry machines, appliances, furniture, bedding i could go on. but these were things that donald trump said. if you import those, we're going to put a tariff on them. and those other things are not tariffs. you can see the prices rose. that's prices rising. inflation was faster for the things that had tariffs on them. and the people who pay the inflation are the people who bought those items. so the betting you know, the sewing machine, the sewing supplies, those things cost more than if they had not had a tariff on them. and that's that's when economists get so worried about tariffs, because they know that it can raise costs for consumers and for businesses. but donald trump, president trump just universally rejects this. he thinks that china is paying money into us coffers, into the us treasury and paying that. and that's just not how it works. >> right. and david jolly, donald trump says tariffs is the most beautiful word in the english language. and other

people say tariffs are the worst thing in the world. they are neither beautiful nor bad. they are a useful tool when employed strategically and properly. generally speaking, over time we've worked as a world to try and have fewer of them, but sometimes they're necessary. this is not this is not going to work. donald trump ran on the basis of curtailing inflation. this is not how you do this. >> yeah. and typically there's a comprehensive strategy for tariffs usually economic strategy but sometimes non-economic. you've seen the president try to lever it when it comes to immigration or maybe getting greenland or the panama canal. i think what is most concerning about this, aside from its contribution to inflation, which is going to be real, is the lack of any coherent economic strategy, right? there is not a plan to expand domestic production of steel and aluminum. donald trump just wants a trade war. if you move to agriculture during his first term, he tripled the amount of direct subsidy, direct federal subsidies to domestic farmers. as a result that was needed because a result of the trade war at the time. so to

small government, conservatives consider that not only did he raise prices of ag products, but he turned around and tripled the amount of subsidies that obama was providing to farmers. he tripled that during his term. and i think that's where this all gets kind of loose on the wheels. we know the consumer impact will be hit pretty hard, but there's no coherent strategy to turn our domestic production in any of these verticals in a direction that actually replaces some of the supply that is needed. and that's where we get into some really scary territory. >> so now we have christine romans from iowa who can who can tell us about this. right. so we impose these tariffs in 2018. china then imposed tariffs on and restrictions on us soy production, soybean production and. >> so pork and other. >> things and pork, corn a lot of things. right. so now we increase our subsidies. as david jolly said, subsidies are taxpayer money. so you're now paying more for goods that you put tariffs on. and by the way, you're also increasing subsidies that are also your tax money. >> so taxpayers bailed out

farmers, farmers who had retaliation from china because of donald trump's first round of tariffs. so it starts to get messy. these these trade wars start to get very messy. what's really interesting in my reporting in swing states and in iowa in particular, there was support among farmers for donald trump. they saw the taxpayer subsidies that bailed them out after they got slammed by a trade war. they saw that as trump coming to their rescue. interesting. so it's interesting how the psychology of the republican party, that used to be the party of free traders, right, has completely shifted in the past 30 years. >> so and david, you make another interesting point when that happened with the agricultural products, in many cases, china went looking for other markets and beefed up other markets. so they were buying some stuff, for instance, from brazil. but then they decided to get a whole lot more from brazil. brazil starts to become a much bigger exporter of agricultural goods, and these are not on off switches. so suddenly the tariffs go away. you still got american farmers now who have lost their contract or have not are not selling as much stuff or the prices are depressed. >> yeah. whether it's in ag or

steel or industry, wherever it is, you and christine know this far better than i do. but if you look back at the last time we made a major pivot in our economy, from a manufacturing economy to a service based economy in the 90s, we decided we're going to pursue free trade, and it's going to come with some some pain and some hurt domestically, we're going to lose some manufacturing capacity and we're going to lose jobs. and so the government stepped in and said, we're going to create subsidies for people to transition off the manufacturing economy and move the nation towards a service based economy that gets us to cheap goods. and consumers are happy. but in this case, it's like donald trump apparently might be trying to take it in reverse, but with no strategy and no articulation of that actual, broader, comprehensive move. this is just kind of petty vengeance by donald trump, who fully misunderstands tariffs, but he's able to sell it to his maga base in a way that kind of defies the law of economics. >> yeah. all right. both of you stay here because we have a lot to talk about, and i have a lot more charts to show people.

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donald trump's just making a bunch of side deals. he doesn't really like this whole multilateral nafta, usmca, all these big deals in which everybody kind of feels like an equal partner. this wants to be on the other side of the table with every country because because america will be more powerful than every other country. >> yeah. the art of the deal leverage. i mean, you can see this in foreign relations. you can see this in his economic policy part of it. you know, the hard questions are, are you kind of staining american leadership on the world stage by being the bully as opposed to being the principled leader? and i think that's always a fair question when it comes to donald trump. i also think we have to kind of unpack donald trump may not actually care about the tariffs or what the end result is, but for him, it's simply a tool of leverage, even though he engages in truthful hyperbole. and we later learned that a lot of what he gets in concessions were already there in the first place. we saw that with mexico. we saw that with canada. but i think if you look at how donald trump threatens tariffs for

non-economic reasons, it gives us a window into perhaps what he is thinking, which is i'm going to be the bully. i'm going to say, i'm doing this and you're going to have to come to me and you're going to have to give me something to get me to back off. now, like we've seen, it's not always a lot. it's not what donald trump says it is. but i think that might be more at this, just his own kind of impulsive id than any economic strategy. and if you're maga, you see it as a win. you want the bully on the world stage instead of the principled leader. and donald trump's your guy. >> christina, i want to be clear that there are probably reasons to have these discussions about china, right, about figuring out like, this is not a binary. there must be tariffs. there must be no tariffs. let's take a look at what china has imposed. retaliatory tariffs on the us coal, liquefied natural gas, crude oil, farm equipment, some cars. now here's the problem. in theory these tariffs can come off if we wanted them to. and because we would take our tariffs off and things would generally speaking, go back to normal. but that's in theory. in practice there are going to be american businesses that shut down because of some of this stuff. >> i mean, tariffs when you

start putting on tariffs and also those export controls, those are critical rare earth minerals. the us has already been moving away from sourcing those because we know how important they are. but it's like it's a ball rolling downhill. it's really hard to stop it. i talked to a woman who runs a person she imports purses from, from china. she's got 7 or 8 different employees and 10% more tariffs, which already went into effect. i mean, there's a graphic artist she can't hire. so you can look at a tariff at the border and you play it out in the economy. and you can see that's a job that didn't get added. right. because there's just not the margin for something like that. so you start to play that out over all industries, different sized companies, and it starts to get chaotic, which is why economists are not arguing about if tariffs will raise costs for consumers and slow the economy. but how much and for how long, right. that is the debate among the number crunchers. >> and look, with canada and mexico, a 25% tariff would could possibly send both of those countries into a recession. >> there's no question. >> it's possible that america

could get through some of this unscathed, but. >> they're so tightly bound, these three. and by the way, these are allies. and president trump actually wrote the rules for how these important allies trade with each other and now is threatening. >> to the usmca, which used to be nafta. >> right. >> was a trump thing. >> he wrote those rules and now is saying we need to rewrite those rules. i will say, for all the bluster and all of the very significant threats, you've only seen 10% tariffs added on china so far. very interesting. that's that's the only thing that's actually on the book is the 10% tariffs on china. china has retaliated. but we look at the value of that. it's about $14 billion. >> small numbers. >> showing you that china is saying we're not going to take this without retaliation. but there's more that we can try to do. >> might for the moment be some saber rattling. but the day it crosses into not saber rattling posturing. >> right. but the only the only tariffs that are on at this moment are are china. >> christine. thank you. nice to see you, my friend david jolly. thank you. i got a bathroom. break now. david jolly joining

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with msnbc. >> what we do is try to. >> cut. >> right to the bone of what we're seeing in washington that day. >> we're going to. >> meet with. >> first responders today. >> but to pardon. >> people who. >> assaulted first responders? >> no, i pardoned people that were assaulted themselves. they were assaulted by our government. i fired i pardoned six people who were assaulted by our government. that's who assaulted. and they were treated unfairly. >> hi again everyone. it's 5:00 in new york. i'm ali velshi in for nicolle wallace. what donald trump showcased this weekend when answering that question was his underlying view of justice in this country. if you committed a crime in service of him or in support of him, the rule of law does not apply. and as he's been clear, if you're on the flip side of that, if you have investigated or will investigate him, he's going after you. trump's retribution tour has been in full force during the first three weeks of

his presidency, already from firing january 6th prosecutors to pardoning all of the rioters to having his new attorney general create a weaponization work force, end quote, making a brand new memo sent by trump's white house counsel a troubling escalation in trump's assault on the rule of law. the washington post obtained this memo, written by white house counsel david a warrington quote, explicitly saying the president and vice president and their top lawyers can discuss ongoing criminal and civil cases with the attorney general and her deputies. end quote. now, this is a reversal of the doj's previously stated independence from the executive branch, a precedent emphasized in the post-watergate era. the post reports, quote, that guidance, which is not legally binding, is significant in an administration that has vowed to upend the justice department and the fbi, which trump and his allies have accused of mistreating him. legal experts say the guidance could erode guardrails that have traditionally given the justice department a degree of

independence from the white house. that is not that does not exist for other executive branch agencies. end quote. just listen to how the last administration dealt with this separation versus how the current one views it. i want to play for you, the former attorney general, merrick garland, and then donald trump announcing his new attorney general, pam bondi. >> only an independent justice department. >> can ensure. >> that the. >> facts and the law. >> alone will. >> determine whether. >> a. >> person is investigated. or prosecuted. >> it is. >> the obligation of each of. >> us to adhere to our. >> norms, even. >> when and. >> especially when. >> the circumstances. we face. >> are not normal. >> i know i'm supposed to say she's going to be totally impartial with respect to democrats, and i think she will be as impartial as a person can be. i'm not sure if there's a possibility of totally, but she's going to be as total as you can get. >> wow. >> as the post notes, this new

memo outlines not only a shift from the biden administration, but from trump's own first term as well. quote, the memo largely reflects guidance given during the first trump administration, though it more clearly specifies that the president is not prohibited from discussing any types of cases with the attorney general. end quote, a deeply concerning shift as belief and trust in the impartiality of the rule of law are crucial to maintaining american democracy. that's where we start this hour with professor of history at new york university, ruth ben-ghiat, and with me at the table, msnbc legal analyst and former top official at the department of justice, andrew weissmann, plus distinguished political scholar and professor at princeton university, eddie glaude, welcome to all three of you. thank you for being with us. ruth. i want to start with you, because i hadn't talked to you in a couple of weeks. and, boy, a lot has happened when it comes to the undoing of the things that we as citizens of america, largely have taken for granted as things that work the way, the way the public service operates sort of in the background, the separation of the executive from

from the department of justice. what concerns you most about everything you've been watching? >> honestly. >> the. >> the speed at which things are. >> happening. >> which is by design. >> the blitzkrieg. >> it truly is sending me back to mussolini's. >> definition of fascism as a revolution. >> of reaction, where you you break stuff, you upend everything. you have a kind of violent, wrenching of society into a different state. the reaction is, is in his day as now against feminism, against racial equity, against workers rights. but it's the speed at which everything is being broken and dismantled is reminding me of that. and it stands out with an authoritarian history. it's although trump was, you know, did not come to power via coup. he was elected. the only times you see such speed of destruction of the status quo is

after a coup or in, for example, in erdogan's turkey, when erdogan was had had a coup against him and he was doing a crackdown. so some kind of authoritarian crackdown, that's the only reference point i have for the speed of, of which all these things are being done. >> andrew weissman, you worked for the department of justice. let's explain this a little bit. what is different about the department of justice in either in policy or in practice, than some other department, where it wouldn't really matter if there was a lot of interplay between the white house and that department. >> absolutely. so a lot of people will be asking that question like, you know, i don't understand. this is the attorney general is in the cabinet. why isn't she or. he treated. >> just like any other cabinet. >> official who reports to the president? and the president can talk. >> about anything in. >> since watergate, republican and democratic presidents have done this, but for trump. so i want to make sure this. is apolitical. right. the reason that there are norms with

respect to the white house and the department of justice is almost. precisely getting at what the clip is that you played from donald trump is that you don't want the white house saying, prosecute this person, do not prosecute that person. and the prohibition that is a norm is that the white house does not weigh in on individual prosecutorial decisions, so that those are removed as far as possible from politics. there is nothing wrong in any administration, in any way, to have the white house talk about policy. if the president has an agenda that we may all disagree with, which is that i think there should be more enforcement in general on immigration. there should be more enforcement on drug enforcement, and there should be less on white collar crime, which is all of that is what this administration is doing. basically, it's a free for all for white collar criminals. that's a policy

choice. he may have consequences at the ballot box. that's fine. what's wrong is saying, you know what, you get prosecuted. but you know what? you gave me a lot of money. you don't get prosecuted. that is the reason for these policies. and it separates us from countries that don't have a rule of law, where basically it just goes to who's a friend and who's a foe and who pays money and who doesn't. >> all of that is pretty confusing these days about who who's who's in charge of what. i'm glad that ruth said that. the thing that sort of catches her attention is that the speed and the velocity of what's going on. eddie, this becomes hard for people because a it's all complicated legal stuff in many cases or laws we don't really understand, but b it's, it's a fire hose. what do people do? if i were i mean, i heard people tell me i don't i don't really watch tv anymore. i don't watch the news. like i get it. i, you know, i understand that. what are you supposed to do? >> i think there are a number. of responses, a range. of responses, at. least some people just check out as you just

described. others are in. enveloped in a kind of full blown panic. we don't know what's going to happen. there is a sense that maybe he's acting in a way. that's on behalf of my interest among certain folk. other folk think he's literally dismantling the very structure of american democracy itself. i think it's important for us to understand the context of merrick garland's comments. he was actually responding to donald trump's accusation that he was being unfairly targeted politically by the democratic biden administration. and so there was an affirmation of the independence of doj in the face of donald trump's lies. remember, he either projects or he confesses, now he's the president of the united states, and he's revealed that he wants to. how can we say it? execute executive power without constraint and limit. >> ruth, to some degree? you know, we've been watching this doge thing with elon musk and his minions who are getting involved in in things that we're learning on a daily basis. they're not supposed to be getting involved in things we

would have assumed to be true. i'm wondering if this is part of the mission. in other words, donald trump, in theory, could get access to all these things through normal governmental channels. he can he can he can defund government government departments by using his congressional allies who have a majority in both houses of congress to do it. but he's choosing not to. he's choosing to use these extra governmental ways of doing things. put that in some context for us. >> yeah. this is this is definitely i've lost sleep over this. this is something new. and it's a form of a coup. i mean, when a private citizen, even though he's been delegated as a special employee, brings in these, you know, college student age people, and they're locking out our elected officials from government offices. that's a form of a coup. and, you know, authoritarians always have these inner sanctums where they have sycophants and family members, lots of sons in law, and often they have people who are

unelected and they have the real power. and so it does build on that. but this is an this is an escalation beyond anything. that's why time magazine put, you know, musk on the cover as president. and it's really a kind of hostile takeover of, of us government by somebody's private citizen for the good of his private businesses. and i found it interesting and a testament to how important the free press is going to be to get to the bottom of the get the full story that immediately, you know, like usaid and other other government things, were investigating musk's businesses and all those probes were shut down. >> andrew, whether it's the department of justice, the fbi, the cia, there are these threats, right? there are people, fbi, both agents and probationary employees, lists of people going around. talk to me about the chilling effect on on national security and justice

that this has, because there must be rank and file employees of all of these agencies, including the department of justice, who are like, hey, you know what? i'm going to go into private practice. i'm going to do something else. what's the danger of us losing expertise and these people? >> so former governor christie, i think, talked very cogently about this problem. let's just take the fbi as one example. first. these are people who spend their career becoming experts and developing that expertise. they don't sort of go in and out of government, which happens more for lawyers at the department of justice. so when you have people who are at the very senior leadership, and i know this firsthand from having been at the bureau, these are people who have such depth of knowledge as to what the threats are and how to handle it. and they have really the sort of the history of the bureau and sort of what's worked, what has not worked. and they can sort of see around corners that is vital,

absolutely vital to our national security. and everyone in the intelligence community would tell you that the it's everything about doing that job is judgment and knowing where to look, because there is so much you think that we've talked a lot about the fire hose of what's happening now that happens in the national security field in spades, where there's so many threat streams, you have to be able to do smart triage for to be effective. the idea that you would take out, that just taking the top band, that you would take those people out needlessly, there's been absolutely nothing about any cause. there's no factual predicate for taking them out other than sort of retribution. i don't like the fbi because guess what? they enforce the law as to me, donald trump, that is something that puts his interests way, way over the national security of the united

states. eddie. >> yeah. >> you know, it's the imperial presidency on steroids. i mean, it's clear. but i also want to say this without these constraints, without this contemporary iteration of the fbi of d.o.j, it brings back memories. cointelpro, hoover. it's not like this organization in relation to some communities. it's always been, you know, this stellar and. no, no. >> but then we had the church committee and we realized as a country that that's not where we want the fbi to be. >> where is donald trump trying to take us? is he trying to take us back to that? is he trying to take us back to the spoils system of andrew jackson? what are the constraints that were in place to, shall we say, police the abuses and what are being released, what's being released so that he can engage in unbridled use of power? and we need to understand that. >> the other thing you and i were talking about in the green room is the attack on the civil service. take take aside the part that's retributive, the

part about the fbi agents or whatever the case is. let's just talk about the taking apart of the civil service, trying to make it that much smaller. >> yeah. >> my argument is that the civil service has largely worked in america, which is why. what are you protesting? if you're wondering about them closing down usaid? because most americans don't know. because we don't we don't think about the operations of our government. maybe it can be more effective. maybe it can be more efficient. there's no question about that. but we're taking apart things that we have grown to just decide to distrust as a society. >> i mean, it's a brilliant point and on so many different levels. but, you know, we've been hearing this since the 1980s and before this. >> yes. >> small government, big government is bad. and so this is the logical conclusion. not only is big government bad, we need to just simply break it, right, so that all the responsibilities can redound to the states. well, we know that that's not possible. so you're absolutely right. so some folk who have been wanting small government or government broken, we're going to see the implications. think about what happens if they actually defund or abolish the department of

education. >> yeah. >> think about what's going to happen. all the children who are not going to get food. yeah, i mean we can. >> go on donald trump. donald trump said he's going to send it back to the states. it's like the states do set curriculum. curriculum is not set by the department of education at all. ruth ben-ghiat, let me ask you this. we never know in this pursuit of democracy or this pushing off of autocracy or whatever it is we're seeing going on right now, we never know where we are in that race. you have the benefit of being an historian, generally speaking, in in working democratic societies, when things like this have happened, they have been undone. and those societies have, generally speaking, resumed their democracy. what is your sense of our trajectory as we are, as we stand right now? >> well, it's not so good right now, in part because there's a lot of new research on democratic backsliding. and one of the biggest, one of the biggest factors is holding bad actors in the system accountable. and if they're if

they're not held accountable after, say, a self-coup like what happened with the accountability served up to bolsonaro or president yoon of south korea, if you go the opposite direction, which is what america did, then all kinds of lawless energies are unleashed. and really where where these these people who don't want to recognize conflicts of interest, rule of law. if now the courts are having successes against the early moves of the trump administration, they're saying, well, we're not going to be judges have no power over the executive. they want, as eddie said, an unbridled executive. and this is this is a direction that that this is their moment and this is their time in history, and they're going to do everything they can to push it forward as fast as possible. however, there will be a reaction as we're talking, because the american people will see the costs of this. and so i believe that there will be a reckoning. >> many around the world, people

might just say, hey, we're going to let's just stop this role to crazy government. melissa and i were talking in the last hour about this rhode island judge who has said to donald trump, you're not an individual. american cannot break the law. i put down an order. you're in defiance of it. you need to stop. if you want to carve out for any particular reason, you got to come through me. that is the judiciary is trying. >> so i'm going to give a shout out to justice security, which is an nyu legal forum where anybody who wants to try and keep track of all of the cases and what's happening, they can go there and there's a tracker because god knows right now you need that. so there is a massive amount of litigation because to your point, the trump administration, they're not really focusing on we're trying to tailor this to make it constitutional. it's just we're just doing it right if it's constitutional or not. like good luck with the courts. and the courts are pushing back and

saying this is. and so there are a series of restraining orders saying you cannot implement this. the rhode island judge is the latest to say you actually have defied my court order. and that could be the first really big constitutional test of, you know, because the courts don't have an army, right? but we all know we should know internally there are checks and balances. and if there's a court order, you this is your option, obeying it and appealing it, you can appeal it. and if you can get it reversed, fine. but you have to obey it. the same motion is being made in d.c. before judge nichols with respect to usaid, with the same arguments being made that this administration is not complying with judge nichols order. if this continues, this is going to be a real constitutional showdown. and, you know, to ruth's point, i really don't think that the country voted for that. no, they're on the ballot, was not if there is a lawful order from

a court, should you appeal it and you know, and is that your remedy or can you just is it a law of the jungle where you just decide yourself what the law is? remember, we do have a the person who is the president of the united states is a criminal. he is a adjudicated criminal. so we shouldn't be surprised, but that this is the result of that guy. >> stick around. nobody go anywhere. when we return, amid a flurry of activity by his doge team, we're learning more about elon musk's ultimate goal for the federal government. new reporting on that. after a short break plus three weeks into the second trump presidency, we'll talk about what our friend ben rhodes wrote in the new york times this weekend. this really isn't, as andrew just said, what most people were voting for. and new details about donald trump's recent conversations with vladimir putin, what it means for our allies in ukraine as the war there approaches the three war there approaches the three year mark. deadline. w (♪♪) 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

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>> all right. there's no person who has emerged as more central to the second trump administration. do you say it? say it for me. correct. the tech billionaire turned government dismantler elon musk. he steamrolled his way through washington, wielding unprecedented power in what appears to be, as ruth said, more of a hostile takeover than a cleaning up of the government's budget and the ultimate goals of his power grab starting to become a little more clear. the washington post describes musk's takeover this way quote, in less than three weeks, musk's u.s. doge service has followed the same playbook at one federal agency after another install loyalists in leadership hoover up internal data, including the sensitive and classified gain control of

the flow of funds and push hard by means, legal or otherwise, to eliminate jobs and programs not ideologically aligned with trump administration goals. end quote. the chaos might be the point, at least partly, but musk has bigger goals in mind, according to the post, which says his playbook quote appears carefully choreographed in service of a broader agenda to gut the civilian workforce, assert power over the vast federal bureaucracy, and shrink it to levels unseen in at least 20 years. the aim is a diminished government that exerts less oversight over private business, delivers fewer services, and comprises a smaller share of the us economy, but is far more responsive to the directives of the president. end quote, the next agency subject to musk's playbook could be the state department. with nbc news reporting today that doge now has workspace and staff inside the state department offices. joining us now, washington post white house economics reporter jeff stein, who bylined that piece of reporting. ruth, andrew

and eddie are all back. jeff, thank you for being with us. give me a sense of is there some narrower sense because elon musk wasn't all about donald trump all his life or his career or about republican ideology or conservative ideology? is there something specific he's going for, or is it all of the above? >> i mean, if you listen to what elon musk is saying, and we didn't get into this as much in the piece as maybe we should have, but he's clearly articulated, i mean, every chance he's gotten, including, you know, in his social media posts and his speeches, the speech he gave on inauguration day is that he regards one of the greatest imperatives for mankind to establish non earthbound forms of existence. civilizations on other planets. and he has said that to do this, you need the government of the united states to be the sort of

lead engine of that. and for that to happen, you need to arrest the fiscal problems in the us and to reduce regulations that constrain the us economy and us businesses. and if you think of musk as working backwards from that goal. it helps click into place. and i think our story helps. click in place what has looked like from from even from the inside of dc, this sort of chaotic blitzkrieg where one agency after another, one department after another, one sort of function of the federal government after another has been disrupted in this sort of unbelievable, sort of chaotic campaign. >> ruth, let's just mind that for a second, because regardless of how you get to that conclusion that jeff just came up with, the conclusion that the government needs to reduce regulation works in in elon musk's favor. when we use the word oligarchy around the world, even modern oligarchies, that's what we see, right? that these

these folks who make money want alliances with government and a reduction in regulation. in other words, i scratch your back, you take all the regulation off and give me freedom to do whatever i want to do and make money however i want to make it. >> yeah. and, you know, privatizations and deregulation, this is the nirvana state of many, many right wing authoritarian dictatorships and authoritarian states. and somebody like musk, he truly believes that he is above all laws. but many others who aren't don't have to be the richest man in the world. they and they want to create environments around their own needs, which is to escape any kind of regulation, escape taxes. they're profoundly egotistical, profoundly selfish. and i think we should remember, though, that that trump shares many of these views. just the other day he was quoted, he was on camera and he said, everyone is replaceable. i think that most people should, you know, be working in the private sector. and so they really don't believe

in they never believe that government has a duty of public welfare or public service. that's just they think that government should work for them. and so they're trying to engineer an environment where they all of their dreams of, of liberty and the right to plunder the workforce, the environment, it all can come to fruition. >> jeff, in your reporting, is it clear that elon musk and his merry band of marauders are uniquely qualified for this? because, again, these do seem to be like engineering coding things. why elon musk and why this band? i guess my question is, if donald trump wants this end goal of making government smaller and getting retribution on people, what does he need elon musk to do this for? >> well, what. our story discusses is how the approach from the musk team is to take, as you said, the sort of small band of, you know, engineers,

coders and say, can we basically have them hoover up all this data from the education department, from the treasury department, from, you know, the interior, other parts of the government, and then have our artificial intelligence models run analyzes of that internal data and figure out what functions of the federal government could be replaced by ai by some form of automation, by something. i think certainly, you know, less human and arguably, if not certainly less effective, less less powerful. it's a really a vision of weakening the government, in part by using these sort of futuristic silicon valley tools that i think musk somewhat rightly sees the government as not the current government is not having that many. you know, this has been a long standing thing. the reason that musk took over the us digital service at the beginning. that's why trump powers the doge in the digital service, was because this was a

thing that was created because the government has had trouble bringing in high end engineering coding talent to revamp all of government. so that's that's the playbook that they're following. they're saying, can we get the coders in there, look at all these different federal functions and use that to cut back on what the government spends? i think that's also sort of just the most the most generous possible interpretation. as others have pointed out, there's huge conflicts of interest here. and beyond that, these this is information that in many cases, these people are not supposed to get statutorily or otherwise. and so, you know, again, being as charitable as possible to them, what they're doing is being willing to break or stretch or evade some of these long standing norms and laws to enable this sort of all of government restructuring in a sort of tech way that's nebulous, undefined, and if unsuccessful, could really hurt a lot of people. >> jeff, thank you to you and

your colleagues for your excellent reporting on this. jeff stein of the washington post. when we come back, we're going to discuss the new column from our friend ben rhodes, former former deputy national security adviser under president obama, about why, after just three weeks in office, this is not the donald trump that a lot not the donald trump that a lot of americans thought they were a chewy order is on the way for radar — who knows that sounds means... kibble... squeaky toy... ...and birdseed. delivered fast — at prices everyone loves. for low prices. for life with pets, there's chewy jeans. i feel like taking chances. i feel like. brand new. chances. i feel like. brand new. whoa. oh. to. tap into etsy

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value from your life insurance when. >> you. >> need it with abacus. >> does it feel like an own goal? as the trump administration forcibly pulls the united states back from the world stage, former obama aide

ben rhodes wonders if the united states is, quote, a declining superpower grasping for lost status. the 20th century reminds us what happens when a strain of nationalism emerges unbridled by rules, institutions, or aspirational values. large nations, led by nationalist strongmen inevitably clash. people inevitably suffer. andrew, ruth and eddie are back. eddie, a couple conversations ago you said, as it related to the fbi and the department of justice, we've been there before where things have not been good. and we decided as a society that we like, we like the way we do things now better. ben's making the point that on a global level, for 80 years, we've decided more than that, really, for more than 100 years, we've decided we like the rule of law. we like territorial integrity. we like we like systems that work. and donald trump apparently doesn't. >> there's always been an underbelly to that, to those commitments, though, because just we could talk about the empire of right. we could talk about us relation to the

philippines, to cuba. we could talk about the moment in which teddy roosevelt imagines a certain kind of white anglo-saxonism that defines us foreign policy. i'm talking about the end of the 19th and 20th century. so there is this sense in which donald trump is harkening back to a period right where the where the united states imagined itself as an imperial kind of force, kind of informed by its democratic principles and ironic and contradictory sort of position. and it's also the case, i want to say this, that there's always been this tension between america as an idea and america as blood and soil. this is the distinction between good nationalisms and bad nationalisms, right? we think we're driven by the constitution. but there's been an idea underneath it that this country must be, must be, and must always be a white nation. and that ideology has driven policy decisions. and what's interesting about the current moment, we have a second gilded age. we have a reassertion of us

imperial power, and we have the latest articulation of white supremacy. at the same time. >> ruth. >> let's just talk about this assertion of whatever we're doing here around the world. donald trump thinks he did not campaign on something to do with the panama canal, making canada the 51st state, buying greenland, and what he's just discussing in gaza, which is so outlandish that most people just discount it out of hand. except there's a whole bunch of very, very, very far right wing people in israel who are like, oh my god, we have nobody's talked about this for 30 years. we're back. >> well. >> you know, i mean, donald trump, if you look at his pronouncements first, if you look at who he admires in the world as models of leadership, it's always dictators that she it's putin. it's the leader of north korea. and he truly has internalized a kind of autocratic view of geopolitics

that blames, you know, democracies for, as he sees them, as the hostile, disruptive actors. and he has sympathies. it's not a secret for dictators and their views of the world. and, you know, he america will become part, tacitly or overtly, of this autocratic axis that's been shaping up because these, these, these autocracies are getting weaker individually. but that's why they're working together more often. and, you know, trump had a quote during his campaign. he said, if you're a smart president and he's referring to north korea, china and russia, he said, you don't see them as enemies. you'll make them do great. and so this is the backdrop for a lot of things that are going on. yes. as eddie said, there is this strain in american history and that's part of it. but it's also inserting america into a mentality about

politics and international affairs. that's an autocratic one. it's very scary. >> andrew, during the break, i handed you a very long statement that the american bar association has put out because it's all complicated and long, and i figured i got a lawyer here. let's actually deal with it. one of the things that they talk about, which which struck both of us, is that we've had we've done good things and bad things in our history, but generally speaking, we have thought we are doing things according to the law, and we've changed the law and we've changed the constitution along the way. if you want to change america right now and you want to make smaller government, you want to be more conservative, you're actually in a position to do that. the republicans control all. they control everything. it doesn't have the point american bar association is making there is that none of this needs to be done illegally. if you are, if you would like a more efficient government, have at it. we don't have to break the law to do it. >> yeah. i mean, this is really a statement that's saying that they support the rule of law. it's sort of shocking that they have to issue this with respect to the white house. but as i said, we have somebody who is

adjudicated a criminal who is the president. so that's why you end up with a statement. and i think there's something important in here, which is it's really important for people not to think and not to be viewing what's going on as just we want to make government smaller and more efficient. no one's going to dispute that. and there can be differences about how big and how small and is this efficient or not, and what are the sort of parameters that's not what's going on. to put together a list of 5 to 6000 fbi agents who worked on a righteous case has nothing to do with efficiency. to have pam bondi issue a statement that says, you know what? we're disbanding a corporate fraud task force because apparently we think corporate fraud is good. that's not what we want to have our resources. that is not about efficiency. to say that we think that it's fine to violate the foreign agents registration act so that foreign governments and

officials can act here surreptitiously without worrying about criminal prosecution. that has nothing to do about efficiency. those are, in my view, bad policy decisions. and it's going to be really important that people don't think, oh, look, he's just making government smaller in the way that ronald reagan did. that is not what's happening here. >> yeah. although ronald reagan certainly planted the seed for this idea that don't trust government, you know. >> yes, yes. but you know, i agree with that. and but it's i think, you know, to be fair to him that if he saw this, i mean, a lot of traditional conservative republicans are appalled by what's going on. >> i'd like to hear from a few more of them. ben, ben rhodes, peace. he says those of us who are alarmed must recognize that there will be no return to the past. no alternate story for how to make america great again or restore a lost post-world war two order. there will have to be new ideas for how the united states can constructively engage people around the world and peacefully coexist with other

nations. to reach that future, however, we must look inward. it's not enough to defend the idea of foreign assistance or oppose territorial aggression. we must also become the kind of nation that is able to see our own self-interest as connected to something larger than the whims of strongmen. now, you know, i love ben. he writes well, but that that had echoes of eddie glaude. >> i. >> i completely agree with everything he said. and in order for us to do that, in order for a new america to become a possibility, we're going to have to tell ourselves the truth. but right now, i must admit, i'm grappling with an intolerable bitterness of spirit. there's something that feels like this place might be irredeemable because it's an unpardonable thing that we're experiencing. because we should know better. we should know better. given our history. we should know better than to be right here again. >> and yet, people like. you and people like you, and people who you worked with at the justice department, there are many who are standing strong saying it

might feel irredeemable, it might feel gross, it might feel horrible, it might feel anti-democratic. but what choice have we but to stand up and continue to fight? >> it's true. but but to eddie's point, who would have thought that the even with all of our problems and a very checkered history, that the roots of democracy were this shallow, that we could find ourselves in this position this quickly? i think certainly for me, and maybe i was naive. i thought that they were deeper and that it would take a lot more to get to where we are today. >> ruth, talk to me about that for a second, because in some of the places you've studied, including germany and before world war one, it was it was, i mean, until hitler got involved, it was actually a pretty solid place. they were amongst the most advanced in the world, in the arts, in literature, in science. you know, it was a working place. so people who didn't believe the place could fall apart were proved wrong. but, you know, it's sort of like america. we think this is a pretty good place that generally works. we're all getting a little surprised now.

>> yeah. and this is, this is what my research i was i was surprised at the recurrence of surprise. and not just germans, who, as you said, is one of the most advanced societies in the world. but this kind of the mix of denial and naivete, an underestimation of the bad actor, because authoritarians specialize in bringing the unthinkable into being, both in terms of what they do, you know, to enemies and the way they recast the system. and people lack the imagination to think that that can happen to them. it's only happening elsewhere. and an amazing example is even after a coup in the coup in chile in 1973, the conservative christian democrats, who let's say were like the gop, they were backing the coup because they

wanted to tame the left. and the head of the christian democrats actually thought that the military junta was going to restore order and stop people from coming over the border, the same narratives, and then give power back to them, the civilians. and of course, that didn't happen. and eventually this, this, this, this official, this head of the christian democrats, he started speaking out and then he was murdered. so that is even when there's a coup, there are those who are are hoping that it will return to normality. and so we need to be very clear eyed and sober about what is happening to us. now. >> you may apply for your your continuing education credit to doctor ruth ben-ghiat. thank you for that. we appreciate that. i always like this. context is very helpful. ruth, andrew and eddie stay with us when we return. we're learning about donald trump's recent conversations with vladimir putin about the war in ukraine.

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true. however, today, moscow is pushing back on trump's assertions. nbc news reporting that, quote, russian deputy foreign minister sergei ryabkov told a media conference earlier today that relations with washington are balancing on the brink of a breakup and that he reiterated the war in ukraine would last until kyiv drops its ambitions to join nato and withdraws from the four regions that are occupied by russian forces. let's bring in our national security reporter for the washington post, john hudson. john, thank you for being with us and for your reporting. this is like two worlds. donald trump talking about how he was going to end the war on day one and all the things he was going to do, and the russians out in public saying that, no, this is nothing has changed. and no, not really. >> yeah. >> oh, absolutely. >> you know, what's extraordinary about this is oftentimes when. >> you. >> have two adversaries. >> like. this that. >> are creeping towards. >> the diplomatic. >> discussion. >> creeping towards. >> negotiations. >> they both. >> usually outline. >> a very hard line policy. >> the russians.

>> are playing the usual playbook. >> they're saying. >> diplomatic relations. >> are at an. >> all time low. >> they're saying the. >> possibility of. >> a. >> massive. >> horrendous, all encompassing. >> conflict is just around the corner. what trump is doing is the unique thing. he is. really trying to sell. >> the positive. >> vibe going. >> straight into these negotiations. he's saying. >> we're having. >> very productive talks. >> we're having positive. >> positive things are coming out. >> of this. >> i think. >> it's likely. because what. >> trump is doing. >> is, is what's really difficult to do in a. >> u.s. context, which is. >> make the case. >> for diplomacy with. >> russia. >> where. >> you know, largely the foreign policy. >> establishment has. >> downplayed the likelihood. >> of success. >> in that. and. >> you know, people have had a lot of suspicions about his. >> policies towards russia. >> for a while. >> but but. >> he's putting. on a very positive beat at the very. >> outset of. >> the negotiations. >> and it's quite different.

it's quite unusual. >> and just to be clear, john, from your studying of this, there is nothing that has basically evolved in the russian position as it relates to ukraine. we're coming up to the third anniversary of this war, and what this russian official said is basically what they've been saying for the better part of three years. >> yes. that's right. >> their language has. >> not changed very much. we don't. >> have an indication. >> that they are. >> taking new. >> concessions. >> but you got to be. >> frank. >> we this. >> is not something that they would be doing in public. what we do know is. >> there is. >> a growing. appetite both amongst the russians and the ukrainians. >> to start negotiating. >> i mean, hundreds and thousands of. >> people have. >> died in this conflict. the battle lines have not moved very much. i've spent two summers in ukraine reporting on this conflict in the country. and so the environment is, is more potentially fruitful towards negotiations. >> but this is just. >> at the opening stages. and so

there's really no incentives for the russians to start saying. >> that they're. >> gleeful or willing to, to cut a deal at this point. >> john, thanks for your excellent reporting. john hudson joining us. he's a national security reporter at the washington post. i want to thank andrew weissmann and eddie glaude and ruth ben-ghiat. thank you all for spending some time you all for spending some time wi zyrtec allergy relief works fast and lasts a full 24 hours so dave can be the... deliverer of dance. ok, dave! let's be more than our allergies. zeize the day with zyrtec. there's blink. >> nutri tears. it works differently than drops. blink nutri tears is. >> a once daily. >> supplement clinically. >> proven to hydrate. >> from within, helping your eyes produce more of their. >> own. >> tears to promote. >> lasting. >> continuous relief. >> you'll feel. >> day after day. try blink

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