on his latest episode when you wake up tomorrow morning. but for now, we are all signing off from all of our colleagues across the networks of nbc news. thanks for staying up late. i will see. >> you again tomorrow. >> tonight on all. >> in a dictator without elections. zelensky better move fast or he's not going to have a country left. >> bipartisan backlash to donald trump's attack on an american ally. >> do you. >> agree with president. >> trump that he's a dictator? >> i would say. >> that. >> the president's. >> surrender is pathetic. >> and weak. >> tonight, the historic stakes of donald trump's support of vladimir putin. >> there were many people in munich saying, are the americans

now switching sides? >> plus senator elizabeth warren on the world's richest man in his takeover of american government, senator bernie sanders on his grassroots push to resist the trump administration. and my exclusive interview with lina khan, the former chair of the federal trade commission. when all in starts right now. good evening from new york. i'm ali velshi in for chris hayes. in the three years since russian troops invaded ukraine, more than a million people have been killed or injured. millions more have been displaced from their homes. donald trump has said that he would end the war as president. and this week, we now have a clear picture of what that means to him rewarding the aggressor and ending the international order that the free world has come to know and depend on. a world order that america largely built and has largely led since the end of world war two. it started with a phone call last week between trump and russian

president vladimir putin, which led to high level talks between american and russian delegations. yesterday. in saudi arabia, talks ostensibly geared toward ending the war in ukraine that did not include the ukrainians or their president, volodymyr zelensky, which understandably upset the nation that's been under siege and under american protection throughout putin's war. but when trump was asked about it yesterday, he lashed out at zelensky with a string of lies, including falsely blaming zelensky for the russian invasion of his country three years ago. >> well, we have a situation where we haven't had elections in ukraine, where we have martial law, essentially martial law in ukraine, where the leader in ukraine, i mean, i hate to say it, but he's down at 4% approval rating. but today i heard, oh, well, we weren't invited. well, you've been there for three years. you should have ended it three years. you should have never started it. you could have made a deal. you know, when

they want a seat at the table, you could say the people have to. wouldn't the people of ukraine have to say, like, you know, it's been a long time since we've had an election. that's not a russia thing. that's something coming from me and coming from many other countries also. >> no, actually forcing elections on ukraine in the middle of a war that russia started is actually a russia thing. trump's position is putin's position. and installing a puppet candidate to gain control of ukraine through a crooked election is a tried and true putin strategy. that's worth pointing out that zelenskyy's approval rating isn't 4%, it's 57%. according to a poll by the kyiv international institute of sociology. zelensky said trump is ingesting russian disinformation. quote unfortunately, president trump, with all due respect for him as the leader of a nation that we respect greatly, is living in this disinformation space, end quote. now, all of that is worrying enough. but trump made a bad situation worse today,

writing out a long message on his social media platform complaining that biden and europe failed to bring peace. in fact, he said, quote, zelensky probably wants to keep the gravy train going, end quote. and tonight, in front of an audience that includes the leaders of saudi arabia, trump repeated the line that shocked all of our allies. >> a dictator without elections. zelensky, better move fast or he's not going to have a country left. got to move, got to move fast. >> there is no clearer crasser way for trump to say it. america is no longer about protecting its allies. it's about doing deals with thugs who take land and lives to use as leverage. you know, the world tried appeasement for land grabs one time didn't really work out, and our allies remember that as european leaders start to wonder if trump is willing to throw 37 million ukrainians under the russian bus, who else might he be willing to toss overboard? and the way trump sent that signal to the world was so jarring, so filled with ridiculous lies, that even

republican senators spent today pushing back. >> do you agree with president. >> trump that zelensky is a dictator? >> i wouldn't say. >> that. >> but make no. >> mistake about it, that invasion was the responsibility of one human. >> being on. >> the face of this planet. it was vladimir putin. >> i think vladimir. putin started the war. >> i also believe. >> through bitter experience that vladimir putin is a gangster. he's a gangster with a black heart. >> they understand the message this is sending to the world. just listen to roger wicker, the republican chairman of the senate armed services committee. >> any sort of peace talks that might get a fair result would definitely need. to. we do have to have the ukrainians at the table and make sure that european interests are are considered and carefully weighed. >> do you think that putin can

be trusted in these negotiations? no. >> putin is a war criminal and should be in jail for the rest of his life if not executed. >> even trump allies recognize what this looks like, like he's trying to help a dictatorial adversary shake down an ally who is under attack, setting up peace negotiations without including the aggrieved party. that's what putin's wanted the whole time a chance to weaken, maybe even topple a sovereign neighbor. and don't forget the myriad war crimes that putin and his army have committed to get here. as one republican senator noted back when the war began. >> these russian. >> forces are. >> now targeting. >> civilian areas. they are firing with very powerful. >> munitions against. areas where, you know, children are and women are, and the elderly are just civilian populations. they're committing war crimes. and i think those need to be documented, by the way, because the people doing that are going to have. >> to. >> stand up to justice one day. there's going to be, whether it's a nuremberg type process or what have you, someone's going to have to answer for this down

the road. >> that's senator marco rubio, rarely missed an opportunity to call vladimir putin a war criminal, and russia a despotic country. now, rubio is trump's secretary of state, working to cut a deal with putin to end the war. russia's aims and methods are why more nations have sought membership in our nato alliance since the invasion of ukraine, seeking the protection that the us has offered its european friends for nearly 80 years, protection that trump is now abandoning in order to strike a deal with vladimir putin. i mentioned how this sort of thing mirrors the appeasement of adolf hitler when he absorbed austria and parts of czechoslovakia. the nazis argued that those lands were germanic anyway, in much the same way that putin has claimed that ukrainians should be part of a greater russian nation. european world leaders ultimately cut a deal with hitler. okay, take that land. but no more. britain's prime minister who negotiated that deal called it, quote, peace in our time, end quote. we all know how that turned out. hitler was

not appeased. that experience was why the us helped build and lead an international order after the war, an order that trump is actively undoing. just imagine that he strikes a deal with putin to end the war in ukraine. and then russia tries to go into poland or lithuania or latvia or estonia. those are actual nato countries to which we actually have an article five obligation to defend. do you think trump will come to their aid? do you think putin knows that? now think about all the other conflict areas around the world that this will influence from the middle east to the south china straits? what if china does decide to invade taiwan? does anyone believe trump will have the backs of our allies if there is nothing in it for him personally? those are the stakes to the world and global security and safety. and in one sense, it's like trump's gutting of the civil service right now here at home. the reason reason they can get away with it is because the civil service has been a background app that we don't have to think about. the international order

has worked much the same way, always running in the background. we only notice it when it's not working. and now the united states is deliberately breaking it. no one knows what this will look like because no one has seen this since 1938. tommy vietor has served as the national security spokesperson in the obama white house. he's the co-host of pod save america, the co-founder of crooked media, and the host of pod save the world. he joins me now. tommy, thank you for being with us tonight. i hate making hitler parallels. i would rather never have to make one in my life, except that this does mirror this idea that if you let people get away, if you give them a finger, they might take the hand. and our european allies, real countries, latvia, lithuania, poland, they really do fear the consequences of this. >> yeah they do. i mean, i think it's probably hard for a lot of americans alive in 2025 today to think about and understand how horrific. >> world war one and world war. >> two were. i mean, i think the

estimates are that between 50 and 85 million. >> people were. >> killed in world war two. so, as you mentioned in your. >> intro. >> the us worked to set up institutions like the un. and nato to keep the peace. and in the case of nato, specifically to combat soviet aggression and to try to keep the nato member states. >> from becoming. >> more nationalist. >> and military and militant. >> and fighting with each other. and it's been unbelievably successful. and what we saw last week between the putin call from trump and j.d. vance's speech in munich, was it looks like the trump administration is saying to. >> europe. >> you're on your own. we're walking away from. >> nato. >> and now. >> trump and. >> vladimir putin are going to go. >> have. >> a meeting in saudi arabia, of all places, and carve up the world like, like they did at yalta. >> let's talk about why such a big move. i mean, we know from trump's first impeachment, right, that this was an ally that was supposed to receive congressional funding. ukraine was and donald trump stood in the way of that to try and, you

know, make a deal to undermine joe biden. but why such a big departure? you could be a president of the united states saying, we don't want any more wars. we don't want this to happen. let's try and figure it out. why the turn against ukraine? the echoing of putin talking points about ukraine that we can that are provably false. >> it really is but it's got to be more than that. i mean, i saw matt gaetz tweet. >> from a couple. hours ago. >> where he said, does anyone else remember when zelensky campaigned in pennsylvania on behalf of democrats? so i guess there may be some sort of partizan angle to this. but then also, i mean, the trump administration reportedly put in front of zelensky some sort of agreement that would have forced the ukrainians to turn. over half of their. mineral rights in perpetuity and maybe other natural resources like fossil fuels. so there is a piece of like kind of gangster diplomacy to this. that is a very trumpian approach to the world. >> and again, untrue in many cases, because he claimed that

the united states has paid more than $200 billion more than the europeans have. untrue. in fact, european commitments to ukraine are higher. he claims that this has been a shakedown by by ukraine. in fact, most of the money, about 70% of the money that the us has committed to ukraine, lands here in america making munitions. in places like pennsylvania, we have a wartime economy without being at war. >> that's exactly right. i mean, a. >> lot of the money that was spent. >> there was appropriated and authorized by. >> congress. >> by the way. i mean. >> this wasn't sort of just. >> didn't just happen. >> i mean. >> the congress voted to give this money to ukraine, to give these weapons systems to ukraine. and as you said, it built up american businesses in the process. but yeah, i mean, trump. just sort. >> of. >> wants to walk away from everything that happened in the past, walk away from our ukrainian allies, walk away from europe. and, you know, he feels more comfortable hanging out with mbs in saudi arabia and vladimir putin. >> well, let's talk about this, because not only that, was it

approved by congress, it wasn't even close. the idea of stopping russian expansion and aggression in ukraine was almost unanimous in the united states congress, but for but for one standout, how does he i mean, there are republicans. we just played sound from some of them. they're really, really uncomfortable with this idea and what this could lead to, particularly in other cases like having peace negotiations about a dictator in saudi arabia. that's weird. but about whether china stays out of taiwan, this this has global implications. >> it has global implications. >> and also. >> i mean, i think it was the danish intelligence service put out a report a couple days ago where they said that if putin believes that nato is divided, he will. >> be able to. >> reconstitute his forces and invade a nato country within five years. and that if that happened, that triggers article five, which. >> you mentioned. >> earlier, which says that attack upon one nato ally is an attack upon all and forces every other nato member to respond. so

that would lead to a hot war. between the us and nato against russia. so there's enormous stakes there. >> what's notable, tommy, is the only time since the formation of nato that it has ever been invoked was in defense of the united states after the attack of 911, the only nato country that has had to call on on its on its fellow nato members to be defended was the united states. tommy, good to see you. thank you so much for being with us, tommy. all right. coming up, the disaster at d.o.j, senator elizabeth warren on the havoc wreaked by elon musk's cost cutting agency is next. >> light. it guides our every waking moment. what we do and how we do it. but the amount of light we need can change in an instant. and when it does, you can control it. three day blinds find the light for your life.

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is on five nights a week. >> now is the time. so we're going to do it. settle in. >> the rachel maddow show weeknights at nine on msnbc. >> today we found out that employees of the so-called department of government efficiency are now inside the pentagon looking for people to fire and budgets to slash. since the trump musk administration came to power nearly a month ago, doge has left an almost comical amount of incompetence in its wake. they claim to slash $8 billion in one contract. it was $8 million. they're falsely declaring that 150 year olds, or generally dead people, are getting social security checks because doge misread the data. but that's a lie that's been repeated by the president, as well as the lie that the us was sending $50 million worth of condoms to gaza, or hamas specifically, or the taliban, depending on who was peddling that particular lie at any given time. and thanks to doge, the administration keeps firing critical workers. first, the nuclear safety workers, when who they then tried to fire, they

couldn't find out how to figure out how to reach them. and then the people working on bird flu at the department of agriculture, who? agriculture, who the government is now desperately trying to rehire. this is a dangerous and damaging dismantling of the united states government. doge has now infiltrated at least 17 different government agencies and departments, including a key agency that has no other function than to defend ordinary americans from predatory financial firms. the consumer financial protection bureau was founded back in 2011, in the wake of the financial crisis, with the express purpose of protecting consumers. it was proposed and then established by a then little known harvard professor named elizabeth warren. she was prevented by republicans from leading the agency, which led pretty directly to her becoming a us senator. and the elizabeth warren, you know, today. in the last 14 years, the cfpb has recovered over $20 billion from consumers. but now doge champion elon musk tweeted, cfpb, r.i.p. i'm joined now by senator elizabeth warren, ranking member

of the banking committee, who is calling on the trump administration to, quote, remove members of elon musk's doge from the consumer financial protection bureau, end quote, citing the risk of musk, quote, enriching himself at the expense of american taxpayers through doj's illegal efforts to dismantle the cfpb. end quote. senator warren, good to see you. thank you for being with us. >> thank you. good to be with you. >> i don't know how many years has been that you and i have been talking about cfpb. i think since before it started. yes. i never understood then and i don't understand now. if you want to target the government for waste, fraud and inefficiency, why would you go after the place that actually has a record $20 billion or more being returned to consumers who would not have been able to get that money from from predatory companies? >> well, you obviously wouldn't because this is an agency that is the cop on the beat just to make sure people don't get cheated. and it has really delivered on that. think about it this way, ali. when we talk about those numbers, it has found more than $20 billion

where these big banks have cheated people. and the agency didn't just say, shame on you, don't do it again. it said, you give that money back to the people you cheated and watch them and made them do it. man, to me that is government efficiency. >> now there are a couple of things here. one is obviously you're invested in by your work in the senate and in your work through founding the cfpb in the cfpb. but there's a conflict of interest that you and adam schiff write about here. with elon musk having anything to do with the structuring or restructuring of cfpb. why? >> so here's the story. remember how elon musk bought twitter, turned it into x and hemorrhaged buckets of money? well, he announced, hey, he had another plan to make more money. and that is he would create something called x x money. and the idea was in the same way that x now gets all of your

social media information. you would give them all your financial information and make financial transactions on this site. now he can do that, he can launch a financial platform, but when he does, he's going to have a cop standing right over his shoulder just making sure that he follows the law, that he doesn't cheat people, he doesn't trick people, and he doesn't suck up all of their personal information to use it however he wants, or sell it wherever he wants. one cop on the beat would be looking over elon musk's shoulder, and you know where that cop is going to come from? it's from the cfpb. so this looks like a really plausible business plan. if you're a bank robber, how about if you get the chance to fire the cops before you waltz into the lobby of the bank? and elon musk appears to have decided he will sideline the financial cops before he

decides to launch his own personal platform. that is why elon musk should not be allowed anywhere near the cfpb. it is a clear conflict of interest, and senator schiff and i are after this right now. this is fundamentally wrong for him to be doing this. >> here's the problem with all of the dismantling is, in fact, it's the same thing with what donald trump said about ukraine today. when systems work in the background, like our international world order or our governmental systems like cfpb, people don't know that they work. they don't necessarily get it. so how do you how do you advance from a letter from you and adam schiff into creating enough of a stir that, that, that people fight back and say, you can't take these things away, that actually work. everybody wants government to be more efficient. there's no question about that. >> so, you know, you put your finger on it and that is you've got to create the stir. people have to remember why this agency works for them. that $21 billion

went back into their pockets. right now, more than 6.5 million people have filed complaints with the cfpb and gotten help from that agency that cfpb is very popular among democrats, republicans, independents, because they recognize having a cop on the beat keeps the playing field level, and that's what they want to see. last week we had jerome powell, the head of the fed, in for testimony before the banking committee. and i just asked him flat out, i said with the cfpb sidelined, who is out there? who's the one watching to make sure you don't get cheated on any of your financial products? and his answer was nobody. there's nobody there. so that means for anybody who's listening to this, if you have a credit card, a checking account, a savings account, you have a mortgage, you have a car loan, you have a student loan, you use venmo or

any of the other online platforms. just understand now, maybe you won't get cheated, but the cops have all been told leave the field. that's what elon musk has done. and i think that's pretty alarming. and all of us need to push back on this. we want our financial cops back on the beat. >> senator elizabeth warren, good to talk to you again. thank you for being with us tonight, senator elizabeth warren. all right. just ahead, as the trump administration shows its willingness to put profits over people, the former chair of the federal trade commission is here with a warning about big tech and corporations. that's ahead. >> hi, grandma. i played baseball today. >> oh that's great. >> what position did you play? >> first base. that's what my grandpa. >> used to play. >> when our hearing. >> wouldn't allow. >> us to use a regular phone. >> it made us feel isolated. >> it became difficult. >> to communicate with our friends and family. >> clear captions.

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light we need can change in an instant. and when it does, you can control it. three day blinds. find the light for your life. visit three day blinds.com to get started. >> from the very start of the trump presidency, as he was sworn in with all the big tech bosses sitting in the front row, it's been absolutely crystal clear why business people have supported donald trump. they will choose deregulation over everything, over democracy, over fairness, over being able to attract workers. business will choose deregulation over everything. people have been asking me, will the business community stand up to trump? zero chance. why would they? they got the deal they wanted and so did trump. as the wall street journal reports yesterday, trump spent the months before taking office hosting lavish dinners for health care executives, raking in hundreds of millions of dollars from them in return for influence. and remember, back in may, when trump asked oil

executives at a mar a lago at mar a lago for $1 billion donation while promising to slash policies on electric vehicles and wind energy. trump's approach to business leaders totally ignores the responsibility of the us government to regulate business and protect consumers. and we're witnessing in real time now the corrosive effect of unchecked corporate power and wealth. there are laws in place, most effectively, antitrust laws, that are meant to be a check on the consolidation of wealth and power. those laws were wielded to great effect by the federal trade commission in three and a half years, that lina khan chaired the agency. she sued amazon for being a monopoly and investigated microsoft for abusing its market power. she blocked the merger of grocery giants kroger's and albertsons. she stopped mergers at nvidia, lockheed martin and hca healthcare. she took action against companies like grubhub and lyft for misleading workers. she sued pharmacy benefit managers for artificially inflating the price of insulin. the aggressive antitrust

position made lina khan very unpopular on wall street, but it was some of the most robust consumer protection from the ftc in decades. and lina khan, the former chair of the federal trade commission, joins me now. thank you for being with us. >> great to be with you. >> i just want to underscore this point. in many cases, the things you were doing were laws that were on the books meant to protect americans that were simply not enforced in previous administrations. in some cases. >> that's right. the antitrust laws go all the way back to 1890, the sherman antitrust act. and then we had the clayton act and the ftc act in 1914. and these laws were really about wanting to make sure that we had an economy that was competitive, that was fair, where people could get a fair shake, but ultimately also about wanting to make sure that our democracy was being protected from unchecked concentrations of economic power and fundamentally from oligarchy. and so these are laws that have been around for decades, starting in the reagan administration. there was a real

pivot, a pretty radical shift away from enforcing the laws faithfully. and so we saw decades of unchecked consolidation, monopolization that has really harmed americans, has made them poorer, has allowed companies to charge people more while paying them less, squeezing out small businesses, reducing innovation and really hollowing out communities. and so it was a great honor to get to chair the federal trade commission and really be focused on reinvigorating all of the tools that congress gave us. >> let's just talk about competition. when businesses are able to get too big, it squeezes out the ability of new people to enter. so the silicon valley is a great example of that. a lot of these massive companies were started. they were little startups started in people's garages and things like that. but in fact, the unchecked power of silicon valley wealth means it's much harder for that to replicate itself. little, little, small competitors can't compete against the big players. >> that's right. i mean, i had the chance to go out to silicon

valley several times, met with founders and startups that want to be the next great big company, but all too often found that existing monopolization and the existing gatekeepers were making it extraordinarily difficult for them to fairly compete. and what that means is that if you have startups that are taking that risk and have the talent to introduce the next great idea, unless our markets are open and fair, they're never going to be able to succeed. and that's really just deeply antithetical to what has made america's economy so strong. >> so no one's going to have trouble understanding the fact that if they're monopolies, you probably pay more for a service. what i think is a little more abstract is how is the concentration of wealth, how does it undermine democracy? clearly, we're watching some of that happen right now. but how do you articulate that? what's the danger of having too much concentration of wealth as it relates to a healthy democracy? >> so the founders and those who really were formative and

passing the original antitrust laws were really concerned that if you allow unchecked concentrations of economic power, that that undermines people's liberties in a really fundamental way. and if what we care about in america is wanting to make sure people have freedom, that we're protecting them from the arbitrary exercise of power, that means we need to have checks and balances in our sphere of government. but it also means that we need checks and balances in our commercial sphere. because if you have a democracy in name, but are allowing people to be bullied and coerced and pushed around by monopolists, that really is going to undermine how people experience freedom in their day to day lives. there was a great quote where senator sherman said, you know, if we overthrew a monarch, we didn't do that just to be ruled by autocrats of trade. and so there was a real idea that protecting real liberty and democracy meant needing rules, not just in our sphere of government, but also

in how we structure the economy. >> obviously, under the biden administration, the ftc was very aggressive under your leadership, but it's not actually a completely partizan thing. you had some allies, some republican allies. there are still a number of republicans who think that america is better if businesses do face some degree of regulation. >> that's right. i've been really struck by the degree to which people on both sides of the aisle are extremely skeptical of monopolies, of unchecked corporate power. i had the chance in, in my job at the ftc to travel across the country, meet with farmers in iowa or pharmacists in kansas city, or gig drivers from minneapolis. and all of them were really struggling with the ways that corporations, when they're not checked by the rules, can abuse their power and really harm people. fundamentally, i would get letters from people saying, i'm a lifelong republican, but the

ftc rule to eliminate non-compete clauses is the best thing the government has done in my life. and so i think there is a real organic hunger from people who want to see their government fighting back against corporate lawbreaking. and that's what we did at the ftc. >> where are we now? because in all the noise about what's going on in washington and doj's, in fact, some of the rules and some of the determinations you made as chair of ftc are still in place, it hasn't been dismantled. i don't know whether to end that with a yet or not is where do you think we're going? >> well, look, it's too early to know. and of course, it's been extraordinarily alarming to see the dismantling of agencies like the cfpb, which have been such critical partners to the ftc. but you're right. i mean, look, there were lawsuits against big tech that were started in the first trump administration and then in the biden administration. we kind of picked up that baton and kept going. and so i think you're definitely going to see some areas where now that we're back

in the trump administration, we're going to see some of that activity continue as well. but i do get the sense that there is a real factional debate between the more populist wing and the more oligarchic wing, and we're going to have to see how things shake out. >> and this becomes very important right now, because, in fact, if you look at things like the edelman trust barometer, more americans actually trust businesses more than they trust government or media. but but i don't believe that businesses are going to come to our rescue in this particular instance. maybe i'm wrong. maybe i'm being you know, i'm exaggerating, but i think businesses get what they want when they when they say they don't want regulation. if the if the administration promises them we will not regulate you, they win. >> well, look at the ftc. we actually heard from a lot of small and independent businesses that also squeezed by the monopolists. and so i do think it's a fairly small band of incumbents and monopolists and dominant firms that want to make sure that the rules are rigged

so that others can't get ahead. and you absolutely need the laws enforced. and to have a cop on the beat to make sure we're not seeing predation and cheating. >> yeah, that's that's a that's a good point that you bring up. it's not business in general. america is made up of a whole lot of business people, including very small business people. there. we talk about oligarchy. i'm going to be talking to senator sanders about this in a couple of minutes. we talk about oligarchy. where's the line? where do you go from a competitive business environment to a not very competitive business environment to one that's dominated by a monopolist? and then how do you get into oligarchy from that? >> yeah, it's a great question. and an antitrust. there are all sorts of kind of technical ways to be measuring how competitive is a market or how monopolized is it. and, you know, there are a lot of different metrics. but at the core of it, what i, what i see it as is, at what point do companies become too big to care, right. because the whole idea of having a competitive market is that if a firm

increases its prices too much, people will have options and be able to go somewhere else. and it's that competition that disciplines a firm from being able to charge too much or degrade the quality or treat its customers badly. but once you're in a situation where a company can persistently mistreat its customers or persistently cheat them, that can be direct evidence of market power or monopoly power, because you wonder why competition is not disciplining them away so that they can keep getting away with such problematic behavior. >> we used to believe that, right? the competition. the free market regulates competition. it's not always true. thank you for joining us. >> thanks for having me. >> lina khan is the former chair of the federal trade commission. well, coming up, as thousands show up to support federal workers, senator bernie sanders joins me on his new effort to rally voters against what appears to be a democracy morphing into an oligarchy. that's next. >> here you go. >> is there any way.

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citizens of the country. >> we are all watching. >> and. >> waiting to see who is going to hold the line. >> don't miss. >> the weekend, saturday and sunday mornings at eight. >> on msnbc. >> we're going to start with breaking news on capitol hill. >> mounting questions over the future of tiktok in the us. >> reporting from. >> philadelphia. >> el paso. >> and the palisades, virginia. >> from msnbc world headquarters here in new york. >> and the great thing about. democracy is it's going to win. against the autocrats. >> the plutocrats, the. >> theocrats, the dictators. >> the despots, and the enemies of science all. >> over america. >> we are going to build up. massive herd immunity. >> to the. >> fascists in america. that's what we're going to do. >> today, hundreds of federal workers and others gathered outside the health and human services headquarters in washington, dc, to protest elon musk's cuts to federal science

research. it was just one part of a series of nationwide protests today in support of federal employees who have been targeted by donald trump and the oligarchs that he enables as they run roughshod trying to dismantle the entire government. and i think it's worth asking yet again, when americans went into the voting booth last november, did anyone actually vote for this? do the american people want the world's richest man to fire federal scientists who are doing cancer research? senator bernie sanders is an independent of vermont. this week, he's launching a national tour to fight oligarchy here in america. he's visiting swing districts represented by republican members of congress. senator, great to see you. thank you for being with us. we've been talking about consumers and protections for americans this whole show. you have been talking about the oligarchy and warning about the concentration of wealth and power long before it became stylish to do so. given everything that you've been talking about for decades, what advice do you have to the rest of us who have woken up to

this threat? i think the main political point is that we should not forget that in the house of representatives today, the republicans have a three vote majority, that's all. and if we can turn two republicans around to vote no, for example, against massive tax breaks for billionaires while they cut medicaid and education and vitally important programs for working people, we can make a huge dent in the trump agenda. so right now, what i am focusing on is getting out to districts around the country where republicans won by slim margins, inform the people there what's at stake, and urge them to have their members do the right thing and vote no on the so-called reconciliation bill. all right. so to anybody who's out there, who's watching, who might be a democrat, who might have voted for donald trump, might be a republican, might be a moderate, what's the message? because in broad strokes, when doge was first floated and it was vivek ramaswamy and it was elon musk, and they were going to find

waste, fraud and whatever it is in government, in broad strokes, that appeals to people because we'd all like to have lower taxes and not have any waste. what do you say to people like that? to say this isn't actually what you were promised? all right. this is what we say is. their waste and bureaucracy and fraud within the federal government. absolutely there is. should we do our best to get rid of it? absolutely. but number one, keep in mind what these guys really want to do when they go after social security, when they go after various federal programs. at the end of the day, ali, not tomorrow, but at the end of the day, what they want to make the case to the american people, the whole government stinks. social security, medicare, medicaid, all of these programs that help you. they're terrible. and the way forward is to privatize them. you don't need a veterans administration. we'll let the private sector and the hospitals take care of our veterans. that is their end game. but right now, what i

think we have got to make clear is that when you are throwing 1000 workers out of the veterans administration, scientists out of the nih, you are harming the well-being of the american people. and as you've indicated, you have the richest guy in the world elected by nobody who is doing that. so that, i think, is what we have got to be focusing on. do you think because you're targeting, you're saying we only have to turn three districts? these are the places that are up for special election right now are pretty safe republican districts. you are talking about telling people not to change necessarily their political ideology, but to understand the importance of structure in your government that is there to work for you. ali, there are very few people in this country who think that at a time of massive income and wealth inequality, you know, when three people or more wealth than the bottom half of american society, that billionaires need a huge tax break. nobody

believes that. and at the same time, in order to pay for that tax break, what trump and the republican leadership are talking about are horrific cuts to medicaid, education, housing and programs that working class people in this country desperately need. the overwhelming majority of the american people do not support that agenda. and our job is to educate, to organize, to put a special emphasis on those swing districts and force republicans to do the right thing and vote no on that proposal. you just mentioned medicaid. donald trump said last night he doesn't support any cuts to medicaid. and then today he tweets out that he supports the house republican budget, which actually includes cuts to medicaid. at what point what are the things when massive cuts, massive cuts. at what point do people register? hey, this isn't an abstraction about big government. this is actually about my life. well, that is precisely what we have got to do. and when you talk about medicaid, people may say, middle

class people may say, well, you know, that's too bad. it doesn't impact me. that's just poor people. the truth is that medicaid not only provides health care to millions and millions of children, 40% of the community of the revenue for community health centers, which provide health care to 30 million people, including many people watching this program. guess what? you cut medicaid, you're going to make it very difficult for community health centers to do their job. you got a mother or dad who is in a nursing home. guess what? two out of three people in nursing homes get supported by medicaid at a time when our health care system today is in deep distress. it is a broken system. massive cuts to medicaid will cripple it. it will raise hospital bills. it will be a disaster for virtually all americans. what are you learning? because when you ran for president, you did get feedback from people who otherwise might have voted republican. you had a lot of

people who said, you know, you're out there. you're talking about real people issues. what are you getting in terms of feedback from people on this particular i know you've just launched, but you're obviously talking to people. i think people are really concerned about what's happening. they're concerned about the growth of oligarchy. you know, when trump gets inaugurated, you have the three wealthiest people in this country worth almost $1 trillion between them sitting behind them. people are very worried about the movement toward authoritarianism, where you have a president who says, you know, if you save the country, you don't have to worry about laws. and he will decide how he saves the country. you have a situation where trump is now redefining american foreign policy, making an alliance with, you know, putin. that is not what this country is supposed to be about. people are very concerned about that. senator, good to see you as always. thank you for joining us. senator bernie sanders, independent of vermont. and that is all in on

this wednesday night. i'm ali velshi in for chris hayes. thanks for being with us. you can always catch me on saturday and sunday mornings at 10 a.m. eastern. the rachel maddow show starts right now. good evening rachel. >> great show tonight ali. i love that conversation with senator sanders, the conversation with lina khan i was looking forward to all day did not disappoint. great bookings. great great show. great job my friend. >> thank you my friend. you have a great show. >> i will do thanks to you at home as well for joining us this hour. really happy to have you here. let's do something different. want some inspiration? i know this is like not typically the way that we start things, but i don't know, complain. go ahead. said send me your complaints. governor j.b. pritzker is the governor of illinois. he gave his state of the state speech today. and i'm going to show you some of it. i'm gonna show you about three minutes of it. and i know this is a little bit of a weird thing to put at the top of a national newscast, but