>> elon i don't know. he they met and i assume he wants to do business in india. but india is a very hard place to do business in because of the tariffs. they have the highest tariffs just about in the world and it's a hard place to do business. no, i would imagine he met possibly because you know he's running a company. he's he's doing this as a as something that he's felt strongly about for a long time because he sees what's happening and he sees how the country is really being hurt badly by all of the fraud, waste and abuse. >> going on. whether he's meeting with the. >> ceo or. >> meeting with. >> a representative of your government. >> well, he's meeting with me in a little while, so i'm going to ask him that question. all right. i'll ask him that question. yeah. >> what should we expect, sir? you mentioned obviously steel and aluminum and pharmaceuticals. >> what are. >> you thinking of? >> i think autos are coming soon. i think they're all coming more or less at the same time. and it's not going to be a big

shock to the system. but what it's going to do is it's going to bring pharmaceuticals back to our country. much more important than the money. it's a lot of money, but it's going to bring pharmaceuticals back to our country. it's going to bring chips back to our country. it's going to bring automobile. we're going to do a lot more automobile manufacturing in our country. you know, when i did this, when i announced this during the campaign, they were going to build the largest car plant in the world in mexico. it was almost under construction. it was just starting. and when they heard me make that statement and they thought i was going to win the election, actually, it was a few months before the election itself. china was. building the car plant. it was going to be the largest in the world. they

immediately stopped construction. you can see the foundations there. they immediately stopped when they heard i was doing this. that would have destroyed detroit. it would have destroyed michigan. this plant would have taken up more than almost the whole state built. and it would have it would have been very destructive when they heard me speak and they said, wow, if he gets in, we're going to we're going to lose our shirt. so they stopped building. that's the impact that tariffs have. again, you know, i say it and i say it loudly. it's the most beautiful word. but now i say religion love and a couple of other things are more beautiful because i got a lot of problems with the fake news when they said, oh, other things are more important, god is more important. but these are the words. but i would say it's number 4 or 5. to me. it's the most beautiful. and i'll tell you what i think really reciprocal tariffs those two words reciprocal reciprocal makes tariffs really fair. >> there needs. >> to be no exemptions right. >> it would be all auto imports. >> any exemptions. no because you don't need to with reciprocal. you don't need to. >> mr. president. >> mr. president. you arrived. >> at press. >> box radio. do you have a. >> update on. >> the tiktok negotiations. >> yeah. we have a lot of people.

>> running out. >> sure. well, i have 90 days from about two weeks ago. right. and i'm sure it can be extended, but let's see, i don't think you'll need to. we have a lot of people interested in tiktok, and i hope to be able to make. >> a deal. >> donald trump there. >> talking broadly. >> in the. >> oval office about a lot of things. including tariffs. this announcement that he's going to advise or tell all of his advisers, his cabinet heads, to look for. >> reciprocal tariffs. >> on the eu, try to rebalance things, as he. >> says. >> also try to encourage more american companies to come. >> back and make their things here. >> joining us now, nbc news white house correspondent yamiche alcindor and cnbc senior analyst and commentator and ceo of efy, ron insana. there is so much here. i have only touched the surface of it. >> he also. >> talks very he talks at length about canada and how he wants it to be the 51st state, maybe using the idea of loving stronger tariffs against canada, or maybe security issues to try, i assume, to get canada to

volunteer to be the 51st state. he's also talking about russia, saying it should be part of the g-7. and then a little bit later on, he questions whether mitch mcconnell had polio. he didn't know about it. he said in talking about the rfk confirmation. all right, yamiche, give me the lowdown on these tariffs and why this announcement today? >> well, president trump is essentially. >> saying that he wants. >> to. >> have reciprocal tariffs, which means that he. >> really, in his mind, wants to make sure that the united states is getting as much. >> as possible. >> in their trade relationships with other countries. he's pointing out that he believes that there are other countries that are charging the us high tariffs, and that now the us really needs to look country by country to look at what tariffs those countries are charging us and to try to charge countries the same. the big thing we should we should really underscore here is that there's a lot of lead time here. he's asking aides and economic aides in his administration to go country by country to look at what these tariffs are. but there's also this sort of 180

day period, maybe even longer, where there's going to be a report submitted to him to look at all this. the other thing that legal experts are talking about here is that the president isn't just going to be looking at sort of what are tariffs, what tariffs countries are charging us. he's also going to be looking at things like, well, does he believe that some countries, maybe china are devaluing their currency. and that could also be used as a way to get at raising tariffs on countries i want to put up for people what the president posted online, though i know we were just talking in the oval office, he said on truth social. for many years, the us has been treated unfairly by other countries, both friend and foe. this system will immediately bring fairness and prosperity back into the previously complex and unfair system of trade. america has helped many countries throughout the years at great financial cost. it is now time that these countries remember this and treat us fairly. a level playing field for all american workers. the other thing i want to underscore, katie, because he ran on this idea of lowering costs. lowering the cost of living for all americans. he's now bracing americans for cost

to go up. he was asked a number of times in this oval office address, should people be ready for the cost of living to go up? and he essentially said, yes, short term americans should be ready for things for their grocery prices and other things to go up. i was just at the grocery store yesterday looking at a dozen of eggs, eggs, and they're now being limited. and not only is the price going up, but now there are stores that are saying you can only buy one dozen of these per customer. so he's really telling americans, get ready for that. that's going to go up. but he's saying overall that the country is going to get better for this. there's going to be jobs created. that's his argument for why americans should be able to deal with what he's calling a temporary pain. >> in the egg issue has to do greatly with bird flu. and bird flu is something that's not being they're not they're not messaging on it from the cdc any longer or as, as fulsomely as they were in the past. so bird flu could be around for quite a while. and that's just not something you can control when you're the president of the united states. all right, yamiche, don't go anywhere. i've

got a couple more questions for you. ron, i want to ask you on, broadly speaking, donald trump is saying that if you are an american company and you are a building overseas, just come back to america. there's no tariffs in america. if you build here. he's saying arguing the goal is to get manufacturing back on american soil again. it is something that americans generally would want to happen. i don't think that's a controversial desire. can you explain if that's likely, if that's going to happen, is this the way to do it? >> well, it is a way to do it. it may not be the most effective way to do it. i don't know that reciprocal tariffs, particularly in the way in which the currently being discussed, katie, will draw american businesses back to the united states. we'll probably see punitive tariffs from other countries in response to this. and we could see a trade war that would be, you know, all enveloping since he's looking at every country in the world with which we do business. you know, the chips and science act that was passed by the biden administration actually brought

manufacturing to the united states, taiwan semiconductor, which the president referenced, which, you know, does have the lion's share of advanced chip manufacturing in the world, built plants first in arizona, and plans to expand further in the us. there are a variety of ways you can bring manufacturing to the united states. what i don't understand about about this is that they're also looking at non-tariff barriers, value added taxes that are very popular in europe. they're effectively consumption taxes that aren't really tariffs per se. whether or not a country devalues its currency. as yamiche said earlier, it can be an arbitrary decision because the us dollar has been extremely strong, which by default means other currencies have been weak. and that, yes, that does give them a certain advantage in selling products in the united states. so there's a lot, as you mentioned, to kind of, you know, go through here. but but in the simplest sense, i don't believe that anyone who doesn't currently have plans to build manufacturing facilities or other operations in the united states would use this as a reason to come back. there are

other incentives that would probably be far more potent. >> what about prices? what is the likelihood or what should we expect if these reciprocal tariffs are levied on eu countries? >> well, any country for that matter. i mean prices would by definition go up if we were to put taxes on, you know, imported goods, whatever that number is, if it's 100%, obviously consumers would feel that it would be effectively a one time increase in the price of those goods, assuming the tariffs don't roll off at some future date. and so that would boost inflation. some economists say that tariffs, if we engage in this type of behavior on a prolonged basis, would push inflation up by about a half percent, which is not something that would make folks terribly happy. and you referenced eggs separate and apart from all of this. it does absolutely have to do with bird flu, which started in 2022. 140 million chickens have been culled of late. so we now have egg shortages. and so there's really no effort currently by the administration to bring down prices in any meaningful way. this would only

exacerbate the situation for groceries and other products that come into the united states. >> let me play this sound bite from donald trump just a moment ago talking about prices. >> or prices going to go up short. >> term, long. >> term necessarily. i mean, not necessarily, but i'll tell you what will go up is jobs. the jobs will go up tremendously. we're going to have great jobs, jobs for everybody. this is something that should have been done many years ago. china did it. i mean, china did it at a level that probably nobody's ever seen before. if you manufacture a car, you couldn't send it into china. the tariff was so high. so everybody went and they built in china. it was no big secret. so we're going to see, but it's going to mean tremendous amounts of jobs. and ultimately prices will stay the same. go down. >> also, let's play kevin hassett a little bit earlier today, one of his senior advisers on economic policy.

>> can you, without invoking the past administration, guarantee that prices won't rise because of these tariffs. >> i know prices move up, prices move down. that's the way the world works, right? the economy. >> but you're an economist. >> you forecast trends like. >> no, no. >> so will consumers see prices rise. >> my expectation is that prices will fluctuate. >> the story we led. with yesterday, ron, was the story of inflation, which you just talked about a moment ago, how it is on the rise very clearly not under control. when you couple this with the inflation report of yesterday, you know, forecast out for us. you know kevin hassett didn't want to do it but forecast out for us. >> yeah i believe he was referencing a very famous stock market participant from the early 1900s who said prices would fluctuate with respect to the stock market. that is true of overall prices. look, it's fairly certain, and most economists agree that if you impose tariffs, prices will go up, not not fluctuate. i mean,

we do have we i should say we have found that inflation at this point is a little bit stickier than we had anticipated, the so-called last mile getting inflation back to the 2% target from where it was during the post-pandemic environment when consumer prices were up 9%. we're now back to about two and a half to 3%. getting them pushed down further is something that that could take some time. we also have heard things from the white house that they want to lower demand and increase labor supply. that's a recipe for stagflation. actually, it's not really a way to bring down prices. so we're getting some very conflicting commentary coming out of the administration with respect to how or whether prices will go down, how they will get them there. they've talked a little bit about the fed. the president wants the fed to lower interest rates, which it's not going to do with the inflation rates that we've seen in the last couple of reports being a bit stickier than anticipated. so it's hard to parse all the commentary and make a prognostication about

where things go from here. what we know today is jobs are still growing fine. inflation hasn't come down as much as we wanted, and we're more than likely to see prices go up if more and more tariffs are imposed on imported goods to the united states. >> yamiche, can i go back to you this time on the subject of canada, what's the deal with his obsession with making canada a 51st state? >> well, i can tell you that the president has been asked now numerous times whether or not he's serious about making canada the 51st state. and every single time he said that he is serious. let's go back to the idea that he said that. in the pre-super bowl interview with fox news, he said that also a number of times in oval office addresses, and he's saying that again today. so, of course, canadian leaders have been very clear that they continue. they will continue to be and want to be an independent country. but it is, i think, striking that the president is not sort of joking about this in his own words. he's not saying this with sort of levity. he's saying that he is. vision for canada would be to make it the

51st state. now, of course, that's that. that could mean a lot of different things. but katie, that's just what he's saying. so we're going to just take him at his word that he is going to continue to say that he wants to make our neighbors in the north the 51st state. >> yeah. and just by the way, it's just it would not be legal according to the global order, to just decide to annex any country. he's now talked about taking over gaza. he's talked about taking over the panama canal. he's talked about taking over canada, making it the 51st state. he's talked about taking over greenland. there was one congressman who proposed this as a resolution in the house. he wants to rename it red, blue and white land or white, blue and red land, something like that. let me also ask you about this russia, donald trump talking about russia, joining the g7 at the same time that pete hegseth, his defense secretary, was vocal about ukraine not joining nato, that it shouldn't be a part of this deal. he's kind of walked

that back. but those two things taken together. >> it is striking. katie. it's also interesting that the president has said a number of times that he wants to bring the war in ukraine to an end, but what that actually looks like for ukraine, i think, is a very big question, because we have heard a number of administration officials say that ukraine's goal of retaining all of the territory that it had before russia started invading it, that that is sort of not a realistic goal, whether or not that that's the stance that the trump administration will ultimately take is still a big question. but you have the president saying that he's talked to president putin, that he believes putin wants to see death stop. and we know that there's been a lot of questions about the relationship between president trump and president putin. but we know now that the president is just continuing to say that he wants the war in ukraine to end. i think it will be very interesting to see what that actually looks like and what that looks like on paper. i will also point out that you talked about gaza. he was asked again whether or not he was serious about the united states owning gaza, and he said, yes,

he is serious that he wants the united states to own gaza, that he sees it as a big real estate property. he also at one point said that he thought that the palestinian people who live there now that they could be relocated to other arab nations, but that then they could be welcomed back into that territory, into gaza. he is now sort of contradicting himself and at times said no, he doesn't believe that the palestinian people should go back, of course. our reporting at nbc news, talking to people on the ground in gaza, has been that palestinians do not want to leave their territory, that they want to stay there, that they want to be able to rebuild. they understand that there's a lot of work to be done on on gaza, but that they also believe that that is work that the palestinian people can do. so now, you asked me about canada, but and ukraine, but i also have to add gaza in there because the president's been talking a lot about that as well. katie. >> okay. finally, there's so much more to go through. but i'll ask you this one last question on mitch mcconnell, who's now voted no on a number of donald trump's cabinet nominees. he voted no on tulsi gabbard today. he voted no as well on rfk jr. donald trump was

asked about that. and then he seemed to question whether mitch mcconnell ever had polio. >> that's right. i mean, the stance of mitch mcconnell is a very interesting one. he is fast becoming a republican, that is that is willing to buck the trend, willing to buck the party to vote the way that he feels he needs to vote and wants to vote for these different nominees. but i think we have to remember that a lot of people, including republicans, i mean, of course, critics of president trump as well, say that mitch mcconnell is one of the main reasons why donald trump was able to run for office. it was him that that led the republicans in the senate to not find president trump, then former president trump, guilty when the insurrection on january 6th happened in the capitol attack happened, there were a number of people who said that mitch mcconnell could have stopped him from even running for office. so it is clear now that mitch mcconnell is not shy about sort of pushing back and contradicting donald trump. but there is this relationship that mitch mcconnell and donald trump had, where they will able to not only allow for a second term of

the trump presidency, but also people would argue that it was mitch mcconnell who allowed him to have three nominees on the supreme court, which is why you have a63 conservative majority. so even as mitch mcconnell is again pushing back against donald trump, he, through his leadership in the republican senate, his long time as majority leader in the senate. now, of course, he's not in that role anymore, but that he was able to help donald trump achieve so many of his goals even now, as he as he pushed back, pushed back in the way that he that he is doing now. just to go back to what i said before, it is actually red, white and blue land. according to the georgia congressman who tried to introduce or is trying to introduce h.r. 1161 as a resolution to take over greenland. all right. yamiche alcindor, ron insana can't make this stuff up. thank you guys very much for joining us. still ahead, we are still watching the oval office, where pretty soon we're going to see the new hhs secretary sworn in. that's rfk

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on us. $50 instantly. prospects, run your game. >> msnbc presents a new original podcast hosted by jen psaki. each week, she and her guests explore how the democratic party is facing this political moment and where it's headed next. the blueprint with jen psaki. listen now. >> what donald trump wants. donald trump is getting say, for matt gaetz. the president has been able and looks like he will continue to be able to convince republicans in the senate to say yes to all of his nominees, even the ones some of those senators appear to be deeply uncomfortable with. >> was edward. >> snowden a traitor?

>> senator. >> my heart. >> is with my. >> commitment to our. >> constitution and our. >> nation's security. >> ours, too. was he a traitor at. >> the time when he took america's. >> secrets, released. >> them. in public, and then ran. to china and. >> became a russian citizen? >> senator, i'm focused. >> on the future. >> will you. >> reassure mothers? >> unequivocally and without qualification, that the measles and hepatitis b vaccines do not cause autism? >> senator. >> i am not. >> going into the agency with any. >> kind of a yes. >> or no question because. >> so if you're because the data is there and. >> that's kind of a yes or no. >> and i don't mean to cut you off, but that really is a yes or no. if that is there, i will absolutely do that. now there is the data. just because i used to i. >> used to do. >> hepatitis b, as i said, i know the data is there. >> at least they were deeply uncomfortable because tulsi gabbard was confirmed yesterday. and just now rfk jr was confirmed. we're going to get into exactly what he can do to

this country's institutions of health with an expert in a moment. the next nominees on deck for the senate to get a vote are kash patel for the fbi, which should go to the floor next week, and linda mcmahon for education secretary, a department that donald trump and elon musk want to eliminate. >> what would you say to parents in my state who are concerned about the president's. >> attempt to cut all. >> federal funding to new. hampshire and to eliminate the department of education? >> are you. >> telling parents that their children should lose access to special education services, for example, or lose access to trained teachers or school nurses? >> the residents in the state of new hampshire should not be concerned that federal funding is going to be removed from their schools. how they get that federal funding may change. >> what department. >> do you. >> suggest would. >> then administer that funding? >> which funding does. >> special education funding? >> special education? i think it could very well go back to hhs, where it started. all right. so i just want to be clear.

>> you're going to put special education in the hands of robert f kennedy junior. >> why do you think that it is better to stick the functions of dealing with children with disabilities in. >> a huge. >> department that. >> will not. >> have the same priority? >> thank you very much, senator, for that question. the bottom line is because it's not working. the department of education was set up in 1980, and since that time we have spent almost $1 trillion and we have watched our performance scores continue to go down. >> joining us now, chief capitol hill correspondent ryan nobles and nbc news justice reporter ryan riley to talk about the future and kash patel. so, ryan nobles, let's start with you. first. the nominations of rfk jr and tulsi gabbard sailed through. linda mcmahon was on on deck today for her hearing. it looks like everybody is going to get confirmed. >> yeah, that's exactly right, katie. outside of matt gaetz, who pulled himself out of the

running very early in the process, donald trump is going to get what donald trump wants from republicans in the senate. he's made it clear he's going to accept nothing less. and these republican senators have agreed to those terms. i think that this really came to a point during the pete hegseth nomination process, where you saw a real concerted effort by senate republicans to try and message to the white house that they thought he was a problematic nominee. he even got to the point where even more revelations about his background came out. and the white house basically told republican senators, we don't care. we want you to vote yes. and instead of taking the risk of challenging donald trump with a no vote, they decided to capitulate. and it was confirmed from then on, from there on out. we've seen a similar process play itself out where even though there are these serious concerns about a lot of these nominees that weren't even talked about behind closed doors were very openly discussed in these public hearings, both for robert f kennedy jr and for tulsi

gabbard. it just wasn't enough for any of them to stand up and say, i'm voting no. and donald trump is going to get the nominees that he wants. katie. >> was linda mcmahon basically saying, vote for me for a department that i'm going to dismantle? >> that's exactly what she was saying. and i think that, you know, the one thing about these early days of the trump administration is that they are not running away from anything that they campaigned upon. they campaigned upon cutting $2 trillion from the federal budget. they campaigned on the fact that he was going to give elon musk the keys to reining in and reshaping the federal government, and he campaigned on the idea of eliminating the department of education. so none of this should come as a surprise. they did write a book about it called project 2025, where a lot of this was outlined with great detail and specificity. so when you know you you press republicans on some of these issues and they're controversial aspects around it, they say that this is what he campaigned on. and so we're going to support him because he got more votes than the other guy. >> all right. let's talk about kash patel going likely to the

floor next week. ryan, what's what's your reporting on kash patel's aims for the fbi? >> there's a lot of worry within the fbi. i mean, there's just so much chaos in the past, you know, three and a half weeks, i guess. 24 days since trump's inauguration. i mean, this all obviously started feels like a lifetime ago, but with donald trump pardoning all of the january 6th defendants. and then, you know, we had the firing of u.s. attorneys who were the assistant u.s. attorneys who were hired to prosecute those cases. and then we had the list of fbi agents who worked on january 6th cases being demanded by by the trump administration. we it's just been, you know, event after event after event, including some of the latest news today. and, you know, with kash patel, you know, he's been pretty explicit about what he thought about the fbi. he has some connections to these conservative former fbi officials who have some real deep grievances about the fbi and how they handled those those january 6th cases. and so, you know, it's a question of how

much of that sort of persona that he had on, you know, a lot of the podcast. and when he wrote the children's book calling donald trump a king, how much of that persona is going to be brought to the fbi, which we should say, this is not a normal cabinet pick. theoretically, the fbi is supposed to be more removed from politics. it's that's why it had a ten year term. this is not just four years that we're talking about here. we're talking about the next decade of american life. we're talking about the next decade of fbi history. and at the moment, within the fbi, there's just a lot of panic. i think people are looking for the exits, looking for the door, because it seems as though there's going to be this very political approach that the fbi is going to take. and, you know, some people might be on board with that who the politics align with kash patel. but i think for a lot of folks who sort of grew up in the, in the, in the, you know, what the fbi is all about, that's sort of, you know, the end of the line for them. >> yeah. i mean, we've got our we've got to start planning some segments on exactly what the fbi is going to look like going forward. also, what it would

mean not to have the department of education just go line by line, what it would mean for individual states, what it would mean for individual programs. we were hearing the senators bring up special needs programs. big deal. it's a it's a big part of what the department of education does. we're going to have to save that for another day because we're going to watch right now. rfk jr gets sworn in in the oval office. this happened just a just a few minutes ago. donald trump is now speaking at the lectern before rfk jr will be sworn in. when we come out of this, we're going to talk to a practicing physician, an expert in health systems management. that person is going to give us everything about what it would mean, what it would, the purview and the remit for rfk jr. so let's listen to this and then we'll come out. we're not going to listen to this. i'm so sorry i keep i'm i'm sorry we're going to watch this. for now joining us practicing physician and expert in health systems management and hospital revenue cycles, doctor drew

updyke. all right. so we are going to watch as rfk jr gets sworn in. remit and purview. what is he going to be in charge of at hhs and what is he going to be. what does donald trump want him to do? >> great question katie. >> and before we begin. >> i just need to let. >> the. >> viewers know. >> that these views. >> are expressly. >> my own and not those of my employer. or affiliates. and as you mentioned, i am a practicing physician, so i can't promise that these aren't the views. >> of. >> patients that. >> i have. so the nominee and. >> now. >> the person that is being tapped for the biggest job at who is responsible for all of the different government agencies which end up doling out delivery of health care services across this country. and also, very importantly, payment for medical services across this country. and so the secretary is going to be tapped to execute

the orders from the oval office. but also, more importantly, they're supposed to be executing the mission, vision and values of the department of health and human services, as well as all of the sub agencies, which include the centers for medicare and medicaid services, the cdc, the nih, etc. >> and when you're talking about being in charge of medicare and medicaid, that funding is a big part of the funding for pretty much every hospital in this country. what sort of authority do you have when you are in charge of that federal money? >> great question katie. >> so the person who's in charge of hhs, or the person who's in charge of centers for medicare and medicaid services, they themselves are not supposed to be the person who is in charge of that money. that money is set aside by congress through the direction of the social security act, to pay for medical services that are reasonable and necessary, and fall within the

purview of the centers for medicare and medicaid services. and so there are laws about what it's supposed to pay for. and so that money, which is taxpayer money, goes to hospitals and supports anywhere between one third and one half of most of their budgets. and so you can imagine that if a person or a party were to say, let's go ahead and control the flow of that resource, let's put hurdles in place that make it either more difficult for hospitals and doctors to get paid for the patient care that they're doling out every single day. to all of our viewers and all of the americans in this country, then that could be a really big problem. >> what makes this so interesting is that is exactly what happened with the executive order banning transgender treatment for kids under 18, under 19, really, they changed the wording in in the instructions for hospital that that tied their federal funding up. so if you're giving

transgender care to a minor and you're a hospital anywhere in this country, you're going to lose either a third or half of their budget, as you just said a moment ago. >> absolutely, katie. and so that is kind of the sick brilliance of how that executive order was written on january 28th. i feel for all the patients and their families that had their care canceled literally overnight by the direction of the president. and now he's tapping rfk, the nominee, and now the secretary, to execute and implement. if hospitals continue to provide that care. he's telling the secretary to withhold money that they would receive for caring for all of their patients. so it's not just the patients that are receiving those services. the administration's trying to marginalize, dehumanize and degrade. it's really putting at risk all of the resources that take care of every american when they go to the hospital. and so

that can put a huge constraint on any hospital's budget. and as you saw over the last three weeks, katy, hospital system after hospital system acquiesced to that executive order. now, i don't think that any of them wanted to they wanted to continue providing that evidence based care for their patient population. that was called out in that executive order. but what happened was the hospital executives had to make the hard decision of whether or not they could withstand that kind of threat, and whether they could withstand having half of their resources held hostage by the white house and potentially by the secretary of. >> doctor, thank you very much for joining us. as rfk junior gets sworn in to lead hhs. appreciate it. coming up, what we know about the abrupt resignation of the top federal prosecutor in new york. lisa rubin predicted this yesterday. rubin predicted this yesterday. we're going t with hotels and vacation rentals,

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just 4.99 a month. call 1-888-246-2612 or visit homeserve.com. >> i was just talking with doctor drew updyke about the executive order that banned transgender care to kids under 19, and it tied federal funding to hospitals. if they did it, they would revoke the federal funding. well, literally just as we finish talking, we got news that a judge has issued a nationwide temporary restraining order to pause portions of president trump's executive

orders that pertain to two things one defining sex as biological and the other the stoppage of the federal funding for transgender medical care for people under the age of 19. the judge noted that the plaintiffs, those who brought the case, have a strong likelihood that they would succeed. he also noted that the executive order threatens to harm the lives of transgender youth and whole communities if hospitals lose significant funding. all right, so that just happened a moment ago. we have other breaking news, and this is about something that's happening here in new york city. the acting u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york has resigned. that's according to a senior news official. nbc news senior officials speaking to nbc news. joining us now, nbc news, national law and intelligence correspondent tom winter, msnbc legal correspondent lisa rubin, and nbc news homeland security correspondent julia ainsley. because this ties into immigration. so let's first start with what happened. lisa, you predicted this yesterday. you predicted this could happen

yesterday. >> because i thought it was curious that emil bove, who is now the acting deputy attorney general, had issued this memo on monday directing the southern district and specifically danielle sassoon, who was the acting u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york, to dismiss this case. and yet. >> against mayor adams. >> against mayor adams. and yet on wednesday, yesterday, it still hadn't happened. there was no movement on the docket whatsoever. and so i was literally just about to publish a piece talking about the fact that danielle sassoon still hadn't done this and what might be her calculus. when we received news that she had, in fact, resigned, the choice was stark. for her, it was either resign or be fired, or carry out the wishes of the department of justice. there was no other strategy that a savvy person could figure out to navigate this. she is a savvy as they come, but she had the backs of her line. prosecutors who felt that this was a righteous case that needed to be tried.

>> yeah. >> let's go back to that. this is this case, the case against mayor adams. it's a corruption case. this pause on the corruption case, not not a full ending of it, because the trump administration has said that they they can bring it up again. they can look into them again. you know, if he doesn't become mayor again or if he's they imply that if he doesn't cooperate with them on immigration policy, they could look into it again. explain what mayor adams was charged with. >> well, mayor adams was charged with a slew of different things tied to public corruption. as you said, katie, the idea of receiving gifts in the forms of travel, first class upgrades, luxury hotel suites in exchange for helping out turkish officials here in new york, a host of other campaign finance related charges. i do want to get to some news, katie, because we have a memo that was sent by emil bove, who's the acting deputy attorney general for the united states, to danielle sassoon was delivered to her shortly, or i should say around 1:50 p.m. today. acknowledging

her resignation, he said, first, your resignation is accepted. the decision is based on your choice to continue pursuing a politically motivated prosecution, despite an express instruction to dismiss the case, he says, you lost sight of the oath that you took when you started at the department of justice. i'm suggesting that you retain discretion to interpret the constitution in a manner inconsistent with the policies of the democratically elected president and a senate confirmed attorney general. he also says that the assistant u.s. attorneys these are the prosecutors. the line prosecutors involved in the case have been put on leave. they will continue to be paid. their access to electronics have been immediately revoked. the access to any federal facility has been immediately revoked, according to bove. he raises for the first time some concerns that he has with the facts of the case, the way the case was presented to the grand jury and some other issues around it. these are facts and issues that the prosecution had previously strenuously objected to in their court hearings involving the mayor and his counsel and things

we've heard. and of course, the backdrop of all this, katie, is that if you told me we had mayor adams news this week, i would have said, well, it was likely that he was facing a superseding indictment because prosecutors were talking about the idea of additional charges in this case, both on conduct that they found in connection with some of the public corruption charges, but also witness tampering, that they say in their court filings previously that they uncovered involving the mayor. now, we have an eight page memo from bove effectively attacking certain parts of this prosecution, noted that sassoon, in her meetings in washington, dc, brought in assistant u.s. attorney with her in, as he says, to provide a transcript of what was going on. so very clearly, sassoon knew what this was all about, knew what was going on in. this is not somebody you know. i've already gotten emails saying another biden appointed u.s. attorney going against trump, another left leaning attorney. far from it. this is somebody who clerked for justice scalia. and apparently, in her email to the department of justice

headquarters, main justice is referred to, notes justice scalia, who she clerked for in her reasoning for making the decisions that she did. so she has resigned. it is over refusal to drop this case. subsequently, our colleague ryan riley has heard that the case was transferred to the department of justice's public integrity section in dc. those two top prosecutors have now also resigned. katie. so we have three significant resignations this afternoon at the united states department of justice and all the line prosecutors, some of which are thought of quite highly in new york legal circles, have now also been placed on leave. the final chapter in this book has been far. >> from. >> i feel like you've just hit me with buckshot. with the amount of news that you've just unveiled here, with just the firings, the leaves or not, even the firings, the leaves and the i'm sorry, were they fired the. >> resignation resigned. >> resignations, leaves the way that emil bove worded that

acceptance of her resignation. julie, i'm going to bring you into this. you you cover immigration. this is a story about corruption in new york city. how does immigration fold into it? >> it ties into it because new york has been a sanctuary city for some time, which means that nypd would not hand over immigrants that they encountered in their daily operations over to ice at the end of their interaction, even if that meant sentencing and time served for as an incarceration. of course, sanctuary cities are across the country. in chicago, that was a place they filed their first lawsuit to try to challenge policies there. but in new york, the trump administration had a bit of a window because mayor eric adams appeared at least somewhat cooperative to work with the trump administration to allow for more cooperation with ice in new york city. that could be a huge win, especially for trump, who wants to boost his deportation numbers. and thinking of the mass influx of migrants in new york city over the past four years. what's happening here, katie? and i

think that the two people who are sitting next to will know far better than i will is that adams could then see trump as his deliverer out of this messy legal situation, and then have something to, oh, the trump administration. i think that's the underlying. >> current is maybe what you're referring to. >> i think that's what we want to get to. of course, we don't want to get out over our skis, but that seems to be what the underlying current would look like. if you're trying to read the tea leaves here, we know that borders are. tom homan was meeting with eric adams today, and this all comes as the trump administration filed a lawsuit not against eric adams or new york city, but rather the state and the commissioner of the dmv over licenses. driver's licenses issued in new york to undocumented immigrants. it's really different from what they did in chicago, where they went after chicago, the city, cook county and illinois for sanctuary city policies. and it could be again, we don't want to get into anyone's intentions without knowing it, but it could be because they want eric adams

to come around on the sanctuary city policy. >> all right. julia ainsley, lisa, i know you want to add something, but please, quickly. >> i just want to add that the memo that tom was referring to also initiates two investigations, one by the office of professional responsibility at the department of justice, but also puts in the bucket of the weaponization task force, an investigation of danielle sassoon herself and the two ausas. this is definitely not over yet. and the fact that people i said during the last hour, people were putting their heads down, not really worried about how this was affecting them, as long as it didn't interfere with their work, to the extent that now the department of justice is investigating actively colleagues of theirs on administrative leave, i think that really changes the calculus in the department of justice and the southern district. >> danielle sassoon yes, she works in new york, but she clerked, as you said, for justice scalia, not exactly a bastion. >> for the federalist society went after former president biden in a recent op ed in the wall. >> it doesn't it does fall in line with what donald trump has

done, which is pulling the security clearances for people who have worked with him. it doesn't matter how how whether you did what he asked you to, it seems it doesn't matter how conservative you are if you run afoul of his current current policy aims and goals, i guess you're you're going to get looked into. it appears that way at least. tom winter, lisa rubin, julia ainsley again, thank you so much. still ahead, what's already happening to some of the federal workers who didn't take donald trump's buyout offer? the former head of the consumer financial protection bureau joins us. >> for gentle. >> dependable constipation relief. >> try seneca. it works differently than other laxatives because it's made from the senna plant, a natural vegetable plant, a natural vegetable laxative ingredient. gen when emergency strikes, first responders rely on the latest technology. that's why t-mobile created t-priority built for the 5g era. only t-priority dynamically dedicates more capacity for first responders.

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ingredient. gentle. dependable. seneca. also available in delicious gummies. >> we do. >> need to. >> delete entire. >> agencies as. >> opposed to leave part of. >> them behind. >> because if you leave. >> part. >> of them behind. >> it's easy. it's kind of like leaving a weed. if you don't remove the roots. >> of the weed. >> then it's. >> easier for the weed to grow back. but if you remove the roots. >> of the weed, it doesn't stop weeds from ever. growing back. but it. >> makes it harder. >> so. >> so we have to. >> really delete. entire agencies. >> many of them. >> elon musk likens some american government agencies to weeds today, telling dubai's annual world governments summit via video link that certain agencies, certain departments need to be gotten rid of entirely, which appears to be happening right as we speak. widespread layoffs are being reported across multiple agencies, including the departments of education and energy, as well as the cfpb, the

consumer financial protection bureau. joining us now, former director of the consumer financial protection bureau, rohit chopra. okay, just basics here. what is the cfpb do? what was it installed for? >> well, it was created. after the financial. >> crisis to. >> make. >> sure that something. >> like that. >> could never happen again. when your bank. >> or financial. >> company cheats. >> you. >> it's the. cfpb that is. >> holding those. >> big. powerful companies accountable. >> and over the years. >> it's put back. >> billions of dollars in people's pockets. stopped illegal foreclosures, protected. military families, senior citizens and more. so this whole situation is very bizarre. if we care about lowering. costs in our. >> day to. >> day life. >> this little. >> agency is punching. way above its weight. class to really put

money. >> back in people's pocketbooks. >> why do the republicans hate it so much? i mean, they wanted to get rid of the cfpb for a while now. it's not just elon musk, not just donald trump. >> well, i think. >> this situation. >> is. >> a little bit bizarre. >> on one. >> hand. >> president trump campaigned on capping credit card interest rates because. >> it is true. >> people are being. >> absolutely gouged by the big credit card companies. and the cfpb is the one. >> that holds. >> those. >> companies accountable. president trump. also called. out jamie dimon and brian moynihan, the. ceos of jp morgan chase. >> and. >> bank of america. for improperly. >> debunking people. it's the. >> cfpb that. >> is making sure that banks are closing. >> fake accounts. >> and keeping open. >> real accounts. >> so i don't really understand. how this is meshing. we do. know

that there are a lot of. big tech companies. facebook. >> google. >> they want to. >> get into banking and payments. >> we know. >> that twitter or x has inked a deal to start turning itself into. >> a payments and. banking operation. >> and many. >> people are. >> wondering if that's the reason why, that they want to shut down this agency. >> that has done so much. >> senator warren, elizabeth warren created the cfpb. she's been a huge proponent of it. she's very vocal about it. i want to play her speaking to morning joe on tuesday, talking about the need for the for the agency. >> donald trump ran. >> for. >> office saying he would. >> lower prices. >> for american consumers. he was going to cut costs. he said he would do it on day one. he said right. >> after the. >> election that he was elected. on groceries, that he was going to bring down prices. instead of

doing that, he's turned around and he's actually cutting the parts of government that help bring down costs for american families. and the consumer financial protection bureau is the perfect example. >> the bureau hasn't been eliminated entirely yet. can it function with just a handful of employees? and do you expect that that eventually it's going to they're going to try to get rid of it altogether? >> well, i don't know. >> that's what we have to. see and what we have to. >> make sure. >> that the cfpb is still doing its. >> law enforcement work. >> i led the agency. >> for several years, and. >> we really got back. >> over $9 billion in refunds. >> and penalties. >> and there are a lot. >> of big. >> investigations against. >> very big companies. >> we saw. >> that our work. >> helped lower. >> the. >> costs on so many different junk fees that people were paying. >> we know. >> that we have injected competition into more of the.

markets where people. >> feel stuck. >> you know, it was just last month. we got $150. >> million around back. for people who use cash app, the popular. >> payments network. so i think this is pretty strange, and. >> i would. >> hope that it is not part of a broader effort. >> to defund the police. that oversee. >> big companies so that. >> they can run wild. break the law with impunity. and hike up the cost of. every day. >> expenses that we face. you know, katie, people paid over $100. >> billion. >> in credit card interest. i don't think that that should. >> be. >> another expense where people. >> are gouged even. >> further, and the. >> cfpb is the. >> one. >> who. >> can stop that. >> rohit chopra, thank you very much for joining us. appreciate your time. that's going to do it for me today. deadline. white house starts right now.