dude, i really need a new phone. check out my new samsung galaxy s25 ultra. it's got galaxy ai. imagine this thing running on our superfast xfinity mobile network. and i also heard that it can do multiple things with a single command. —with google gemini. let me try it. add recipes with overripe bananas to my “dessert ideas” note. that's what you chose to ask it? i had other things planned. ask how to get up to one thousand dollars off the new samsung galaxy s25 ultra with xfinity mobile. and their sensations. to get started today at sitter city. >> thank you so much for letting us into your homes. we are so grateful to beat with ari melber starts right now. hi, ari. >> hi, nicole. >> thanks so much. >> welcome to the beat, everyone. i'm ari melber. and let me tell you off top, chris hayes is on the beat. tonight we have a new discussion about. the cycles of trust and distrust against elites and.

>> now. >> experts in our society. so he is really the perfect person for the conversation we're going to have that's new tonight. chris hayes, of course, you know him from 8 p.m, but you can get him at. 6 p.m. >> eastern tonight. >> we are going all in on the beat, and we'll update you on the vote on the controversial fbi pick. the senate approving that today for the trump administration. but we begin with the ongoing efforts to purge the federal government in all sorts of ways that are clearly counter to what congress and sometimes federal laws and rules state. indeed, the trump administration admits sometimes that it is going to push as far as it can. the courts have the final say to change a lot of how we think of the federal government and its tradition of having a career or nonpartisan civil service corps. today, though, it's reaching a different place. the united states military and the pentagon. president trump says he will cut the pentagon's

sweeping 800 plus billion dollar budget, and that they have targets of around 50 billion from defense in each of the following five years. four of those, of course, they have governance over in this presidential term. u.s. officials are warning, however, that how you do it matters that the new defense secretary has other agenda items that are quite different than just spending cuts, but trying to take more control or potentially political control of aspects of the military, like the generals corps that are supposed to be independent. and remember, when you think about what's going on here, the idea of cutting the military budget has long been something that liberals and the liberal wing of the democratic party has tried to do more than other wings of the democratic or republican party. and i've told you, we're going to watch out for what's happening out here. there may be times where the trump administration is proposing things that the way they're doing it, and in the context of everything else they're doing are very

controversial. and yet some of the ingredients may actually reflect other policy goals. the real question is, are you trying to cut defense spending because you've actually done the work and found that it's bloated, or found that it reflects a kind of aggressive footprint, that today's world or this administration might not want to project that much force at all times around the world. a less expansionist view of foreign power and military power, which, again, is not just something that trump believes in or is on the far right. or again, is that a smoke screen and a claim that when tested, you find out these are just indiscriminate cuts? as the fda chief said in their resignation, or that the cuts are a distraction for other agendas? that's what we all have to watch out for as we report out the story. trump has also fired anyone that he thinks can help with patrolling, waste, fraud and abuse. if he's worried that they would ever check his power. and now we're seeing the ousting of officials who try to

stop foreign countries from interfering in us elections and protect from cyber attacks. so again, that's not just a random budget cut. it seems to feed into donald trump's political and long term grievances about how those attacks, including from russia, some of which helped him, how they're seen inside the us. and there's an agency that many americans have beef with. plenty of people have complaints about their taxes and the irs, but it is the modern republican party that has suggested that somehow you should just maybe eliminate it, which doesn't really solve the problem of governing. it just is kind of a convenient line of attack. and this is happening now. trump ousting about 7000 people here in the lead up to tax season, the busiest months going into april for the irs. and all of this that i'm telling you about has happened here in the first month. we are marking one month since president trump was sworn in for this second term, one of the only presidents to ever have a term separated

by, after a loss, a different term, and then coming back into office. he has governed differently than in the first term, far more executive actions, far less of a pretense of working with congress. over 100 orders, many of them paused in the courts. i have a legal guest later in the hour about why donald trump has settled on a strategy that involves so much losing. there is a strategy to it, and it could matter. so we're going to get into that later. but one month in, we have a very special guest to lead the show. so michael steele is here. michael, you may know and i think the audience knows sometimes i go long, sometimes you get a long lead. other times that happens. other times you have a special guest. you say, michael steele is here. i got a bunch of different stuff that's happening right now that i want to get to. so rather than go too long, i want to bring you in here one month in, i was careful to say, and i think it's true and fair to say, that part of the this trump crusade overlaps

with things that are not all bad ideas out of bounds. there's been a rich, long debate about the pentagon and whether it is too bloated. there have been other examples, and yet all of it is being delivered through the battering ram and the trolling and elon musk case. the outright lying. he was caught lying in a major way about these so-called cuts this week. and so it taints things that otherwise might have been a chance to sit down with bernie sanders and aoc and say, hey, you guys have had bills for a decade about where we could trim the pentagon. why don't we do this with congress in a serious way? so let's start there again, me being trying to be as open minded as possible. what about that tension? >> i appreciate. >> your open mindedness. >> and. >> it's an important feature. >> to have us. i not. >> that way because. >> i know. >> what this. >> is about. >> this is about the. >> emasculation of. >> our government. this is about

a. >> power grab. >> and a. redistribution of income. >> to meet. >> a particular end, which. is furnishing the dollars of making. >> those available. >> for the. >> $8 trillion tax. >> cut that. >> expires this year from 2017. >> and then additional cuts. >> that this president. >> wants to make in other programs. >> and to. use those dollars. >> for things. >> that are. >> not clearly defined. >> but you are right, ari, in your initial assessment, that if you were serious. >> donald trump. >> about the efficiencies and the fraud and waste, that would include the contracts that elon musk has, that would include the contracts that others that are a part of your administration or business dealings that they may have would come under that same level of scrutiny. >> yeah. and i'll let you finish. but it would include people like chuck grassley, who

spent decades working with the inspector general, not ousting them because they're a check on donald trump and elon musk and those shenanigans. we don't see those people at the table. >> no, we do not. >> and that goes to. the most. >> important point, if you are serious about these things, then what you do is you on the first week or so, you sit down with republican leadership and democratic leadership, and you say during the transition, our team identified these areas we want to begin to look at. we want to begin a precision sort of effort of streamlining some departments. yes, there are departments that have, you know, employment positions that are open that have not been filled, but the budget item is still there. those are cost savings that could come back to the to the taxpayers, if you will. but by not filling those positions, you just don't leave that line item sitting there in the

budget. then there are other positions that can be consolidated, other programs that can be consolidated. having done such an endeavor. and when i was in office as lieutenant governor working with bob ehrlich, we made such initial efforts in state government, as governors do around the country. there is a process, ari, that you are very familiar with that can. sure telegraph to the country your intent and people will know you're serious, right. >> and why are we doing it rather than, oh, we're going to cut indiscriminately. we're going to funnel money back to musk's crypto, musk's companies, donald trump's crypto, which has not been transparent, and then ultimately donors through that transfer of wealth. right. that that i mentioned multiple topics. there's other big news that i want to turn you to tonight. someone you know, someone you've dealt with in your past role at the rnc. of course, republican, longtime republican senator and former leader mitch mcconnell

announcing he will retire. he's not going to go for another term. he's 83. mcconnell, the longest serving senate majority leader in history. if you go back and check, he was tactically skilled in the senate, also proved to be a partizan brawler who many people view as debasing an institution that used to have more cooperation and comity. even in hardball politics, he clashed with obama, and sometimes he claimed to clash with trump. >> our top political priority over the next two years should be to deny president obama a second term. my party does really good with white people, and i'm proud of that. our view is this give the people a voice in filling this vacancy. there's no question, none, that president trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day. this will be my last term as

republican leader of the senate. i will depart with great hope for the endurance, the endurance of the senate as an institution. >> michael, you know this man. at one point, you worked alongside him. what is his legacy as he makes this announcement today? >> oh, it's ari, it's in my view, it's mixed. on a good day. remember his counsel when i ran for the u.s. senate in 2006, the sitting lieutenant governor of maryland and his insights in, in political strategy and fundraising was invaluable. and clearly, one of the, you know, architects of a lot of what the senate did before and how the senate functioned under the

traditions of the order, if you will, but also an architect of what we have now in the senate. when you stop and think about it and you, you know, history will will not deny this fact that that man right there had the singular opportunity to end the political career of donald trump, and he chose not to he chose not to convict on the evidence. from january 7th, january 6th and left in place what we now face. so when he speaks about leaving the senate and he worries as he mentions about the endurance of that body, senator, why you laid the stones to the, you know, the stepping stones to where we are. and that's that's going to be the mixed part of his legacy. look, i, i tell democrats all the time and talk about the fact

that this man knew how to use the rules. why haven't you learned how to use the rules? right? you know, don't hate the you know, don't hate the player, baby. i mean, he's playing the game the way it's set up. and so when you have even from a minority position, you think about what he was able to do as a minority leader. and what. >> we just saw. and to your point in the in that that montage, one of the clips we saw was him speaking about being in the opposition. and you're talking about the challenge to democrats, the opposition right now. which brings us to my next question. elizabeth warren stepping out here not only against the president, but against musk. i want to show what she's doing brand new and get your view of it. we're going to do that. will just fit in a 92nd break. michaels on the 92nd break. michaels on the other side. but st. jude has gotten us through it. st. jude is hope for every child diagnosed with cancer because the research is being shared all over the world.

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could help you raise your fico score instantly or save on car insurance. they make life better. how about you? >> i'm into cheese. >> download the. >> app. >> if you're a. bank robber, how about if you get. >> the chance? >> 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. >> elizabeth warren, picking up the fight against musk and speaking about the consumer watchdog group, which her work talk about expertise as a

lawyer, as a law professor, as an obama adviser, and ultimately as a senator. her work helped create that group. michael, you hear all this talk about what what should the parties do with the anger out there? this is one of the few things in the government that protects the people against the bankers. your view of this issue and what warren is trying to do right now. >> i think senator warren is absolutely correct. the fact that you've allowed elon musk to run amok over federal agencies and to control the impacting onl agency having his hand in the deconstruction of our department of defense or the deconstruction of our department of education, all of it, he should be nowhere near any of it, because a he's not qualified to assess those organizations and institutions. b he is conflicted out of most

of those engagements. and i think she's right in noting and calling this up and making it real for us to understand exactly what this impact is going to be. this is the guy who cfpb was designed to look at his his holdings and what he's doing, how he's running his businesses. now. he's the one calling the shots. one of the thing, which i find ironic, the trump folks are sending out these emails. right. and my friend of mine got one saying no income tax. trump wants to end the income tax. this might be president trump's biggest knockout punch. instead of taxing our citizens to enrich foreign nations, we should be taxing foreign nations to enrich our citizens. do these idiots not understand what what that means? so where do you get your revenue from? how do you raise the revenue? how much do states now have to raise their income tax to cover? and how do you fund the department of defense and whatever departments elon

musk decides are left over to function? where do they get their money from? i don't know, but, you know, this is the world we live in, ari. but at the end of it. >> it is the world. yeah. >> they they wanted you to send in $25 or $50, of course. >> well, of course. >> maybe you can. maybe you can fund it that way i get a little fundraising, you know, for the federal government. >> i gotta tell you, michael, it's taxing my brain to make sense of why billionaires need so many subsidies. but again, we take it as it comes. i want to thank you, michael steele. remind everyone you can catch our friend on the weekend. every weekend, 8 p.m. 8 a.m. eastern on this nbc coming up, we have our report on that big vote confirming trump's fbi pick today and a legal breakdown on what this strategy is. but next up, chris hayes on money, power, respect and the new trust

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politics, which of course have been in overdrive for several campaigns. politics turns on big issues right now, from abortion rights to insurrections against democracy. no one is minimizing that. but there's also a broader distrust of elites and institutions. it's something you can feel when people are angrily skeptical of basically anything they hear from doctors or scientists or government experts, sometimes any experts. and there are examples that may lean to the right doctor. fauci went from a longtime, nationally respected expert to a right wing boogeyman needing security. ultimately, remember getting a pardon to thwart any revenge prosecutions, which would be a product of how much he's been attacked on the right. so much of that is tied to maga politics. but the revolt against

health insurance companies and government experts tied to say the health insurance status quo has proven much broader. independents and some liberals even making excuses for vigilante violence related to that cause, and surveys of the public show huge distrust of all kinds of elites across the spectrum, a kind of cratering towards institutions and their perceived merit or valid authority. take the supreme court within our lives. when this century began, many americans most trusted it, even when it made controversial calls in cases that divided our nation. >> the stunning announcement from. the us. >> supreme court. granting an emergency request from the bush lawyers. >> this may well be. >> the single. >> most historic decision of the rehnquist court. >> both these men believe they should be the next president of united states, based on the law and on the politics. >> i think. >> there is a general expectation that the court will act very quickly. >> the us supreme court has just released its ruling. >> the recounts. >> would. >> not continue. >> it's an all out victory.

>> for the bush team. >> now, my point here wouldn't be whether that was the best ruling, but that people largely accepted it even if they disagreed. the court had some deference, and that began slumping a decade later. american trusts declining in scotus. it dropped further. in our current era, the court is at its lowest levels ever. whether you measure by trust or its favorable views. and some of that may follow this specific recent court. sure, gutting roe v wade making up new precedents to shield donald trump. but when you widen out, this is the same drop we see across most major institutions, people turning against them. and that's from public to private. by the way, this isn't just a government thing. there are many americans who have long celebrated business and our type of capitalism, and they once said they trusted business in general. then came that financial crisis driven by business and wall street's products and schemes. >> the country's. >> second biggest subprime mortgage. >> lender was teetering. >> on the brink of bankruptcy.

>> today. >> he has no. >> idea how. >> bad it is out there. >> he has. no idea. he has no idea. >> a record number. >> of home. >> foreclosures got. >> bailed out now, thanks to. >> filter. >> we got sold out. >> no wall street prosecutions? no. >> no wall street bankers went to jail after something that i think we can all agree, you know, sort of turned this country upside down. >> problem, crisis and no accountability. now, many experts did miss the warning signs or they were actually part of the problem profiting before and during the crash. which of course, you know, the credentials that trust in business that i showed you continue to slump and it's fall. it's basically seen to fall further since then. in other words, the markets rebounded. but public trust did not. and while today we hear the right attacking the whole federal government as we know it, remember if you look at this through a broad prism, it was the republicans iraq war that

revealed government falsehoods sold to the nation, priming some of the same distrust of not only a single policy. do you go to that war, but undercutting any belief that meritocracy would deliver the best and the brightest in washington to run things? >> saddam hussein and his regime are concealing their efforts to produce more weapons of mass destruction. >> no more. >> war. >> not in. >> afghanistan. >> not in iraq. >> no blood for oil. >> those weapons of mass destruction got to be somewhere. no. nope. no weapons over there. >> the president. had used the same information. congress had used. >> the same information. secretary rumsfeld, condoleezza. >> rice, all of us were using. the same information. >> had we known he. >> didn't have weapons. of mass

destruction, president bush. >> would have gone. >> ahead anyway. >> no, he would. >> not have gone ahead. >> we lived through that. a lot of people died for that. people from here, people over there. and so you can understand people saying, if those are your experts, i don't want them. and if those are your experts across the board, wall street government, the press that seems to either kind of go along or be late to all of that, then they don't want it. this is history, but explains a lot right now. and there are people who diagnosed this mounting problem this fall of the elites sometimes deserved the rising distrust. and of course, the problem that leaves if the replacement for those elites and institutions is even potentially worse, or just leaves a void. msnbc's chris hayes documented all of this in his reporting in a 2012 book, twilight of the elites america after meritocracy, which is what we drew on for tonight's retrospective. hayes presciently noting a decade ago. we do not

trust our institutions because they have shown themselves to be untrustworthy, with a drumbeat of institutional failure driving the skepticism. that book hit the new york times best seller list. but being correct in book form does not always get the traction of a viral video, let alone today's emotional podcast. and here we are, beginning a newly emboldened trump era with open mockery of merit or credentials for some of the most powerful jobs in the world, and a political movement that seems almost excited and gleeful by the end of elites of a certain kind, the destruction of expertise and perhaps even factual authority as we know it. we want to reflect on these lessons because they apply right now. and full disclosure, chris hayes had no part in the brainstorming or preparation for doing this segment now, other than writing the original book. hayes joins us. the msnbc host

is author of twilight of the elites and his latest, the siren's call. welcome. >> that was great. >> and my. >> favorite was the. >> production detail. >> of getting the 2012 me in the. >> you would. >> appreciate that. >> in the video. >> and. >> your family can look up and be like, we remember dad like that guy, you got this right. you saw some of this coming. does it apply now? >> oh. >> i think it's one of the central questions of the time is, is this fundamental breakdown in trust. >> and one. >> one way. >> to think. >> about it, i think now is america is running an experiment in running a low trust democracy. and that's a dangerous and difficult thing to do. trust is kind of the glue that holds democratic self-governance together. >> we have to. >> trust each other at a certain amount. there's a certain. >> degree that you. >> have to trust institutions and the leadership in them. and we've seen this country become a. >> low trust country.

>> we've seen politics in. >> a. >> really interesting way polarize around trust. i mean, one of the things i. >> think about a lot. >> is in. >> that book, i posit that the central axis of conflict are what i. >> call. >> institutionalists against what. >> i call. >> insurrectionists in in 2012. and we've seen this kind of trump building, this kind of insurrectionist, low trust coalition. right. rfk jr come on board, tulsi gabbard, come on board. crypto people, come on board. what all these people share in common is this kind of real dark view of whether any of the they capital. t-h-e are lying to you, they're all lying to you. and the only solution for that is this kind of absolute power channel through donald trump and maybe elon musk. >> in the book you write elite failure and the distrust it has spawned is the most powerful, least understood aspect of politics and society, its structures and constrains the very process by which we gather facts, form opinions, and execute self-governance. and so

what you diagnosed and that has now been weaponized is how it's not just, oh, no one gets held accountable after the financial crisis. it's that if you can undercut people's understanding of even what happened, why and who to blame. and if it's all those those other people's fault, then you've weaponized and benefited from what otherwise would have been a bad event for your side or your your mistake. >> jd vance. >> did this all the. >> time in the campaign trail where somehow he turned. he would. turn the iraq war or, you know, free trade. >> deals that were largely. >> pushed by. >> the political right, even if the. >> democratic party. >> went along with them. you know, bill clinton signed nafta, but more democrats voted against it than republicans who voted for it. the iraq war was overwhelmingly voted into voted authorization by republicans. democrats voted against it. george w bush was the president. >> but vance. did this very. >> clever thing where anytime there'd be some argument about trade or international relations or. >> it'd be like, oh, that's. >> all this nonsense.

>> that you remember. >> they told us. about that iraq war. >> they told us that about free trade deals, like. >> and he sort of. >> managed to pull off this. jujitsu i remember. during the walls debate, but also when he was on the trail where he was like the great. >> beacon of skepticism towards. >> all these elite failures. it was like, well, i lived through that. and let me tell you, the republican party was. was not the. >> beacon of elite skepticism. >> yeah. and the pandemic is something that traumatized everyone. and many people don't want to talk about. the right found a political narrative that worked better for them after they lost an election over it. let's show what happened against doctor fauci. >> and. >> yes. >> doctor anthony fauci. >> should be tried for crimes. against humanity. >> it is the right thing to do that they be executed. i'm not a wimp, i. >> will volunteer. >> i think it should be public. i will pull the lever. i will. >> say that. i have a. >> bloodlust. >> but i don't want people. >> to do work i wouldn't do. >> someone needs to grab. >> that. >> little elf and. >> chuck him across the potomac.

>> the hunted become the hunters. >> so. >> and you heard. >> natalie at the top. >> the whole. >> fauci family is going to be. >> welcome to the investigations. >> the entire family. >> president biden took that seriously and made the rare step of pardoning fauci and others. how does that line of attack fit into your book's thesis? >> i mean, one of the things i try to spend some time with is actually distinguishing between elites and experts, because i think they get sort of conflated. and one of the. >> reasons that. >> distinction is important is because one of. >> the tricks that reactionary politics pulls and has pulled. >> in this moment is to take what. >> we say anti-elite. >> sentiment and direct it towards experts. >> so fauci, you know, at some level, he's an elite. >> he's a doctor. >> he's a public health guy, but he's not like, he's not elon musk. >> he's making a government. >> salary for. >> his entire life. he stays as a public servant his. >> entire life. he's not on corporate boards. >> he's not running defense contracting. he's not running. >> wall street, right? >> he becomes the vector of the

rage. >> what's happening. >> right now with with the war on the administrative state. >> who. >> are the enemies? >> right. >> the ones that are purging. >> its civil servants. >> yeah. >> it's people that work at usaid. people who are the. grant supervisors. >> of the national institutes. >> of health. and so what they've done, and i write about this in. >> the book, is this. >> very effective. >> swapping out. >> of who's the elites? elon musk is. >> the richest man in the world. >> he's not the elite. he's with you, the common people, the elites are those people. the civil servant. >> who makes. >> $85,000 a year. >> in their 12th year at. >> the va. that's that's who you have to go after. >> so in your time studying this then and now, watching it unfold, what have you learned about when these crises happen and what is the way back? >> you have to hold powerful people to account, right? that's one way back. but it's also the case that there is a toxic cycle of distrust. >> and sort. >> of nihilism that is partly produced by. >> our current attention markets. >> that will. >> ground everyone.

>> to dust. >> unless it's reversed. and sometimes. >> i see people on the political left feeding into this idea. they're all corrupt, they're all crooked, it's all right. and that conception is the best friend that. authoritarianism has. if the primary thing you're doing is sort of expanding the gap of distrust, you're you're not engaging in a project that can build something dignified and egalitarian out of it. yeah. because at the end of the rainbow or at the end of the journey or the thing that you actually want to build, which is a flourishing, equitable society in which we respect each other as equals, that is going to depend on a lot of trust. the question of how you build that is one that i'm really. taken up with. >> now. >> last question, and you have to answer honestly if someone's just going to read one of these two. >> oh. >> you're on your own. >> that is brutal. >> yeah. >> i honestly think my current

book, the siren's call, is what i would recommend. it's the thing that i'm i think it's the work that i've done over my life that i'm probably most proud of. >> this is how we have to go out. you know, i keep it 100. chris. >> yeah. >> my answer. twilight. twilight. yeah. and i can say i actually have read both books and the new one is a good read, but if you're asking, i'm going to go. >> twilight. are you being honest? >> when we come back? the update on the fbi i told you about and musk takes the stage at cpac. musk takes the stage at cpac. stay with us. travel can make you smell kinda funky. but aluminum-free secret whole body deodorant gives me 72 hour whole body freshness. for long layovers. surprise gate changes. and heavy luggage. and it's totally middle-seat approved. secret. no sweat. (man) got one more antoine. (vo) with usps ground advantage, it's like you're with us every step of the way. ♪

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one of the most controversial and least experienced nominees for the fbi was confirmed today narrowly, the senate confirming kash patel in a nail biter 51 to 49 vote. that is because republican senators susan collins and murkowski broke with the party, voting no. but in a pattern we've seen, not in a way that endangered the actual trump cabinet member. here, with some of what we heard. >> kash patel. has shown that his loyalty. >> lies not. >> with the rule of. >> law, but with donald trump. >> mr. patel is a. dangerous nomination that will. >> make our country less safe. >> we're talking here about. a

nominee who has an enemies list. >> he is a yes man. >> for president trump. >> if your. >> plan is to destroy the rule of law and turn the department of justice into a political weapon that rewards loyalty and punishes dissent, then kash patel is the perfect person to lead the fbi. >> people ask what democrats are doing these days. that's some of what we're hearing. putting up a fight to the very end, trying to put pressure on this vote, which came down to one vote. now the fbi is here. it works alongside the doj, where a trump prosecutor who has represented january 6th defendants says he wants to make inquiries into lawmakers free speech rights and whether they've said things that he thinks threaten elon musk. meanwhile, a judge did not block musk's efforts to get into certain federal agencies. so some courts see some of this as

lawful. they're trying to be fair and do it case by case. but as i've told you, we are seeing a string of court setbacks or outright losses for donald trump when it comes to trying to rewrite the citizenship clause of the constitution. a big loss 70 lawsuits now are trying to deal with various ripe targets in places that trump and his team seem to have overstepped. many executive orders are paused awaiting for the review. and trump is asking the supreme court to help him out of a jam where he got a lower court loss about staffing. now, what's happening here? i've told you, there's a strategy, and i want to quote from someone else who has been tracking similar signals. a veteran federal prosecutor who notes that trump is expecting these legal challenges and hopes they can change the long standing principles of constitutional law with a gop stacked supreme court. it actually legally makes sense if you want to change the law or move it in a different direction, he writes in a new piece. and so, to get into how

this works, we are joined by mr. cordray, a former federal prosecutor who now writes about law for political magazine. welcome. >> thanks for having me. >> you're welcome. great to have you. you're diagnosing something. we've been reporting on the program. trump is losing more often and more quickly than in the same first month of his first term. and every other modern administration that looks bad. but, you argue, could have a purpose because they also want to get past this stage and get help from above. explain. >> yeah. you know, i think actually. the effort to go to the supreme court for the case that you just mentioned, the special counsel, you know, head of the office of special counsel, it's very telling, right, because they want to get these cases to the supreme court as quickly as possible, thinking that they will win. but on almost all of these cases, certainly with the firings of things like the inspectors general, the heads of the independent agencies, the effort to segregate, impound, reallocate funds, delete

agencies, in the words of elon musk, all of these things are violations of statutory law, very clear violations of statutory law. i suspect that they know this. their defense is going to be that it's the laws are unconstitutional, that they're unconstitutional infringements on the president's authority, which is an extremely aggressive agenda for anyone, much less this president, to be pushing on the supreme court what he is proposing. >> yeah. take it. all together. let me slow you down. i'm going to slow you down. you're so smart. you're so fast. just on that stage, before we get to what i think you were going, which is his theories. this is different than not only most presidents, but as i emphasize, even in the first term, they had the more traditional view that losing all the time looks bad. they looked at it also for press and pr, there's all these headlines and discussions of losing. it reminds people of the limits on your power. so to use a sports analogy, we usually think of teams trying to win enough to get to the playoffs. this is a different strategy, right? they're trying to lose a

lot and then get the supreme court to bail them out. so now please explain to us how that would work on that case. you mentioned firing igs or other such clashes. >> well, the case that they're trying to take to the supreme court already, it's not even run through the preliminary stages below. so they're trying to expedite it extremely quickly. and i expect that they're going to attempt to do many of the same things with some of the other lower court decisions. you know, once they get to that position to move them out of the lower courts and the appellate courts, because, you know, not just trump, but musk and vance, they have been trying to discredit these courts. and i think that's because they know that they're going to lose most of these battles, at least at the trial court level. and, you know, in an effort to get this stuff to the supreme court and hope that they change the law radically in the presidency. >> because trial, because honest trial courts apply the law as it is, and only the supreme court can honestly change the law.

>> yeah, well, look, an honest, an honest trial court is going to say, well, you dismissed all these inspectors general, but there's a statute that says you have to give them 30 days notice and you have to explain it to congress. that's a very clear violation of the statute. the judges are not supposed to be in the business, necessarily, of holding that statutes are irrelevant or easily or just casually holding that they're unconstitutional. >> yeah. so final question. as we run out of time, you know, john roberts has talked a lot about independence over partizanship. clarence thomas used to issue rulings against the encroaching executive powers, seizing the line item veto and other things. what do you think is going to happen? how many of these folks are just going to go full maga on the court? >> well, look, i think trump has a pretty good chance to get something. maybe not everything he wants in the cases about the firings that may give him more discretion to fire people, including independent commissioners in the executive branch. i think he's going to have a harder time on the efforts to impound funds and to

delete agencies, as elon musk puts it. and i think for there, you can expect the three liberals to object. and i would think you'd be aiming for roberts and potentially barrett to join them, maybe even kavanaugh. and i think those are the major silos as we're looking at these cases going forward and the implications for the country. >> really interesting. ankush chaudhari, thank you as always. we'll be checking in with you this stuff, staying in the news. when we come back, the vibe when we come back, the vibe check at cpac. my life is full of questions... how do i clean an aioli stain? use tide. do i need to pretreat guacamole? not with tide. why do we even buy napkins? thankfully, tide's the answer to almost all of them. —do crabs have eyebrows? —except that one. for all of life's laundry questions... it's got to be tide. known for pursuing your passions. no one wants to be known for cancer, but a treatment can be. keytruda is known to treat cancer. fda-approved for 18 types of cancer, including certain early-stage

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our leaders in washington need to protect. >> our. >> competitive edge. >> the largest conservative gathering in the country is underway right now. cpac, the conservative political action committee gathering near washington. and in a sign of the times after an election where conservatives did very well, you can sort of see the vibes. there's elon musk doing his thing, like acting like with the chain political rock star he wants to be. he also brought a chainsaw for part of his entrance. that is his way of discussing slashing government spending. now when you get into the policies, there are more problems. musk, for example, making a false claim about the election. the biden administration was pushing to get as many illegals as possible and spend every dollar possible to get as many, because every one of them is a customer. >> every one. >> of them is a voter.

>> yeah. >> and so the. >> whole thing is a giant voter importation scam. a, quote, voter importation scam. end quote, coming from someone who happens to be from another country and involved in united states civics, which is fine. there's a legal way to do that. since he is broadcasting this out with huge power, he is now a type of government employee. and he's got x. let's make sure we deal with what he's broadcasting out here. the united states does not allow non-citizens to vote. there is extensive oversight and data on this, and it rarely ever happens as an attempted crime. indeed, you can imagine the logic. most people who are hiding out as non-citizens don't risk it all on a single vote in their local election, where you have to go deal with authorities. indeed, there was no evidence of any widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election, which was researched at the state and federal level repeatedly because donald trump lost and made that a big issue.

finally, when you look at what elon musk is alleging, there is a larger energy, which is the idea that his team is cracking down on immigration. and i told you before, you can decide for yourself whether that's a good or a bad thing or how to do it. but right now, remember, when you put the lies and the hype aside in the first month, the trump musk team, if you want to call it that, lags behind biden in overall deportations. so there's a lie and a lie and a lot of energy around it, designed to leave people with the vague sense that things are the vague sense that things are happening, ♪ unnecessary action hero! ♪ -missing punches? -unnecessary! -check reversals? -unnecessary! -time sheet corrections? -unnecessary! -unentered sick time? -unnecessary! -go! -unnecessary! -go! -unnecessary! -when you can take this phone, you'll be ready.

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if sparks are right for you at rodrigo sparks. >> that does it for us. the reidout with joy reid starts now. hi, joy. >> how you. >> doing, ari? thank you very. >> very much. and thank you all for joining us as well tonight. we do have a lot to get to in the next hour of the reidout, including kash patel getting the keys to the fbi director's office, where he can immed