the friday meeting and what people, some people call the chaos. is he able to give people a framework for what has been for a lot of americans disappointments over the last six weeks? >> i'm watching that. i'm also watching how he's going to define, as you've been talking about this evening, his economic accomplishments, because i think the tariffs that people are preparing for that are about to be put in place. that's pretty universal. i mean, the wall street journal, editorial board, democrats, republicans, economists, business people are saying they're bad. how is he going to paint that one? >> right. and paint it in a way that actually connects? this has been jen psaki and ari melber. we are signing off. but don't go anywhere because rachel picks up our special coverage of tonight's presidential address to congress right now. keep it here on msnbc.

>> good evening, and. >> welcome to msnbc's special coverage. >> of tonight's. >> address to. >> congress by president. >> donald trump. >> it is. >> sort of like. >> a state of the union. >> but not really. >> happy to have you here with us. i'm rachel maddow. i'm joined here in. >> the studio. >> by nicole. wallace and. >> lawrence o'donnell and chris hayes and symone sanders. townsend, good. >> to be with. >> all of you. >> in just a few minutes, we're going to. >> start seeing members of. >> congress and their guests entering the house chamber. >> and about a. >> half an hour. >> ish, the president himself. >> should start making his way from the white house. over to the u.s. capitol by limousine. >> then we. >> will see the whole rigmarole unfold down that. center aisle at the house chamber. >> the senators. >> will all. >> arrive at the. >> house side. they will enter along with the vice president, who, of course. >> is also. >> president of the senate. >> we'll see the diplomatic corps brought in, and we'll. >> all wonder, who. >> are all those people? >> i recognize some of them. the

samoa guy. >> oh yeah. then at least. >> some members of the. >> supreme court will. >> be there. >> there's always a little suspense as to. >> who has chosen. >> to attend from the court and who has not. sometimes, retired justice stephen breyer comes along. to like a. >> plus one. >> a spare that's always exciting. >> members of the military, joint chiefs of staff. >> will be there as well, though. president trump just inexplicably fired the. >> joint chiefs. >> chairman, so that will be difficult. the cabinet will then be. >> announced. >> and then finally the president will make his entrance, and we will see. republicans crowd in on. >> him on both. >> sides of. >> the aisle. and eventually he will wade through it all and up to the podium. >> one new addition this year, the president's top campaign donor. is going to be president, apparently, presumably not just in his capacity as the man who financed donald trump's return to the presidency. with by far the largest campaign donations in american history. presumably he's also there, not just in that capacity, but also in his capacity as the chainsaw wielding austerity czar.

>> who has been mysteriously empowered. >> by trump to carry out legally dubious firings of thousands of government employees and the attempted shutdown of whole government agencies. mr. musk has recently set his sights on social security, publicly calling it a ponzi scheme, describing it as riddled with waste and fraud, essentially calling social security a criminal enterprise and suggesting that it is his next target. no word on. whether the president's donor will will join him on the dais. maybe they'll just squeeze him in next to jd vance and mike johnson. third seat up there. we shall see. now, as i mentioned, this is technically not a state of the union address, even though it looks and acts exactly. >> like one. >> the speech a president gives in the first year of a presidential term is like a knockoff off brand state of the union. it's just a few weeks after the president has been sworn in. so they don't call it a state of the union. they just call it a joint address to congress. >> that said. >> sometimes it's the most

interesting one because it is a first year thing. and that makes this first year address to congress, at least, generally speaking, an opportunity for a new president to lay out his vision for his term. he's got the inaugural. >> and. >> then this. we don't know whether or not trump will follow that sort of historical stricture or not. a senior administration official tells nbc news that the theme for tonight's address is, quote, the renewal of the american dream. that said, donald trump will take to the rostrum tonight having just launched a full scale trade war on our closest trading partners and neighboring countries, sending u.s. financial markets off a cliff and raising prices on on food, cars and all sorts of consumer goods essentially instantly. chris hayes is going to have more on that in just a moment. we're going to be talking in depth about that with our colleague stephanie ruhle later on this hour. we're also going

to be joined shortly by nbc news correspondent jacob soboroff, who is going to be talking with some federal workers who are among those who are just indiscriminately fired by donald trump as part of this slash and burn assault on the federal government. jacob is going to be watching the speech tonight with these fired federal workers. he's going to be getting their response to what they hear from the president. that should be really interesting. meanwhile, the trump administration in just these first six weeks, has also jettisoned more than 80 years of american foreign policy, specifically the part that led to the whole leader of the free world nickname. trump takes the podium tonight, having just stopped u.s. military aid to our purported ally in ukraine as they continue to try to fight off russia's unprovoked invasion. trump has ordered an end to u.s. sanctions on russia. he has ordered u.s. cyber command to stand down its operations to protect us from russia. he has told the justice department to stop enforcing the law against unregistered foreign

agents. he has removed the homeland security and fbi units that counter foreign interference in u.s. politics and elections. he has even told russia it can reopen its embassy and consulates here, and has said he is looking forward to a summit soon with russia's dictator. the restoration of the american dream, the democratic response to trump's speech tonight will be delivered by senator elissa slotkin. she is a former cia officer. she won her senate seat in michigan last year, even as her state also voted for trump for president. senator slotkin will deliver her rebuttal to tonight's address from a town in michigan that voted both for her for senate and for trump for president. now, i got to tell you, we don't know exactly when that democratic response will be. it will be after trump speaks. but exactly when nobody knows. and i got to give you fair warning, warning of the six longest state of the union addresses in u.s.

history. donald trump is the person who delivered three of them, and they tend to just get longer. and longer. >> and yeah, so. >> settle in. it's going to be a night, but we will be with you here for the duration. and now, chris, over to you. i know you've been looking at the tariff situation imposed last night at midnight. what happened in the markets today, this sort of economic chasm we appear to be throwing ourselves into deliberately. yeah. >> gosh. why is sort of the question that hovers over all of this. and the thing about america is that it's a really, really big country, about 340 million. and for all of the chaos and the destruction that. >> rachel was. >> just going. >> through, the frontal attack on the democratic order that we've seen over the first. >> six. >> weeks, because the country is so big, so large, and really so affluent in relative terms. i don't think a lot of what donald trump has done. really has impacted most of those 340 million people, at least on the personal level. that can all

quickly change because the president just really and truly, inexplicably launched a. disastrous trade war on two of our closest neighbors, slapping 25% tariffs on imports from canada and mexico. now, who knows if he will follow through long term. for now. it's quite real. the markets certainly recognize this disaster, which is why they fell by huge amounts for the second day in a row. you see, wall street didn't actually believe donald trump. would intentionally load a gun and just shoot the u.s. economy in the foot. >> but i got to say. >> we all had plenty of warning this was coming. >> we're going to have 10 to 20% tariffs on foreign countries that have been ripping us off for years. we're going to put on from 50 to 200% tariffs, 150 or 200% tariff. i will impose whatever tariffs are required 100%, 200%, 1,000%.

>> okay. >> so you could say a lot of things about. >> the guy. >> you can't. >> say he didn't warn you. we're at. >> 25% for now. donald trump promised he would bring prices down on day one. he very clearly didn't. instead, he just made lots of products more expensive, from whiskey to car parts. so trump's allies have changed their messaging. >> yes. >> there's going to be. as the president said on the campaign trail, there may well be short term price movements, but in the long term, it's going to be completely different. >> oh. >> wait a second, did he really. >> run on short. >> term price movements? >> i was there, i covered the campaign. >> i don't think that was the slogan. of course, our allies, i mean literally and i mean this in a non metaphorical sense. our closest allies, the physical sense. right. the people we border, also our largest trading partners for the same reason, are now retaliating in this again, inexplicable budding trade war. mexican president

claudia sheinbaum says she will hit the us with retaliatory tariffs on sunday if trump hasn't backed down by then, which we'll see. canadian prime minister justin trudeau already put his into place. and i don't know if you saw this earlier today, but he came out and addressed americans in the terms we usually hear american presidents using when they talk. >> to the subjects. >> of a foreign dictatorship. >> we don't want this. we want to work with you as a friend and ally, and we don't want to see you hurt either. but your government has chosen to do this to you. >> back at home, we're already seeing headlines like this from the wall street journal. tariff war risks sinking world into new great depression. international chamber of commerce warns the idea being, as goes america's economy, so goes the world. and trade wars tend to kind of proliferate, emanate out, get worse. now, i got to say, i

think and certainly hope that a new great depression isn't that likely. the american economy is big and pretty sturdy, but a recession certainly seems plausible, not just here, but globally, because donald trump has created what looks to all the world like an intentional, sustained project. to tank the u.s. economy. if the americans, who have not yet seen the impacts of this destructive presidency firsthand, want a preview of what is coming, they should probably listen to some of the folks who have been fired by elon musk and his so-called efficiency project to get a sneak peek, my colleague, symone sanders townsend, is standing by with a guest for whom that is a very local issue. >> thanks so much, chris. >> joining us now is maryland. democratic congressman jamie raskin. >> who's guest tonight for the. >> speech, is one of the federal workers who was recently fired. congressman raskin, can. >> you just. >> tell us about your plan for watching. >> this speech? tell us about your guest. and let's just. >> be frank, we have heard from a lot of people. >> across the country. >> i've been talking to a lot of

democratic. >> lawmakers, and i know. democrats want the. >> story not to be them tonight. they want it to be the american people. >> but there are. >> folks out there that say, you all should be fighting. >> a. >> little harder. >> well. >> we're fighting hard. >> and a number of. >> us. have brought with us. >> to this. >> speech tonight. >> people who've been fired from their jobs for no. >> reason at all on a completely. >> arbitrary basis. >> my guest is. >> doctor lauren mcgee, who is a juvenile cancer. >> researcher. >> the leader. >> of a unit. >> in nih. >> who was fired in the so-called valentine's day. massacre by elon musk and his subordinates. >> and her unit has. >> actually been involved in some. >> pioneering medical. research and has saved lives. >> and she just got sacked. >> why? >> because she was on. >> probation and probation. >> sounds like something bad, but. >> it means she actually had. >> been promoted. >> to. >> a higher. >> position to being. >> the lead. >> biologist on. >> this team. >> but she got. >> fired by somebody she never met, she never. >> heard of. >> she has nothing but.

>> superior and excellent evaluations and all of her work. and now that medical research is going to be basically down. >> the. >> drain, unless. >> the college intern, the. >> person. >> who just got out of college. >> in her unit, is able. >> to take. over as the lead biologist. but we're hearing that story across the federal government now, food and drug safety inspectors. >> at the department of agriculture. >> at the food and drug administration, we're hearing it from people at the agency. for international development, where people. >> are literally. >> at the point of starvation in foreign countries, and we've got millions of tons of american food sitting on the ground because of. what doge has done. air traffic controllers, nuclear safety inspectors, you name it. so look, if. vladimir putin. >> himself had. >> set out to disarm and disable the u.s. government, he could not have come up with a better plan. >> than what donald trump and. >> elon musk are doing. >> i think my. >> colleague chris. >> hayes has a question for you, congressman. >> oh, i just i wanted to ask, congressman, do you worry in

bringing this guest that you're going to alienate the many americans who are pro juvenile cancer? >> yeah. >> well, you know. >> doctor mcghee. >> was showing. me pictures. >> with people whose. >> lives were saved. >> by the. >> kind of research that she's done. now, she happens to work on a. relatively rare form of cancer. but nih is in the forefront. of multiple sclerosis and cystic fibrosis, lung cancer, colon cancer, heart disease. and i hope they're working on malignant narcissistic personality disorder, too, because we know what a danger that is to the american people. >> congressman. >> maryland is home to one. >> of. >> the largest concentration of federal workers. >> in. >> the country. the federal government is also the largest employer in this country. your governor, wes moore, has talked about making resources available to people who have been fired. but one of your colleagues just today introduced legislation in the house. >> congresswoman mciver, to. >> get these. people their. >> jobs back. >> what can you tell us about

these efforts? and do you think the white house is really going to work with you all? because let's just be honest here, it does not seem like this is a white house who wants to do business with democrats, even if it helps the american people. >> well, they are. >> dismantling federal. >> agencies like. >> nih, like. >> noaa and the national weather. >> service, like. >> the consumer. >> financial protection. >> bureau, which. >> they have no. >> authority to take down. >> these were. >> created by congress. and if anybody is going. >> to take them down, congress will. but of course, they're not bringing. >> bills. >> to congress because they know they can never pass. there's no way that. >> they would be. >> able to get a majority in congress to take down the. consumer financial protection. >> bureau, which has. >> saved the american people. $31 billion. >> in bank overdraft. >> charges and in credit card late fees. they would never be able to take down noaa. >> with all of the critical. >> work it. >> does on. >> climate change and on seafood safety, and. >> on the weather. >> and predicting hurricanes and

so. >> on. >> they. >> can never do it that way. so they're doing it according to some monarchical game plan. >> that elon musk. >> has as part of his silicon valley theory, of how we're. >> in a moment of regime. >> change and. >> we're moving. >> from constitutional democracy to techno monarchy, and the american people need to understand these people are serious, so we have to be out fighting them every single day and every single way to turn it around. but the good news is. that with their terrible moves on the economy, with their stupid trade war, with the. >> collapsing stock market. >> millions and millions of americans are coming. over to the. >> side. >> of. >> democracy and freedom, and it is going to be the vast. >> majority of us. >> who defeat. >> elon musk and donald trump. >> congressman jamie raskin, thank you very much for your time. >> rachel. >> lawrence and nicole, let me ask you guys, just responding to congressman raskin there. i take your point, simone, at the very beginning saying a lot of people think you guys aren't fighting hard enough. and he instantly comes out and says, we are fighting hard. and let me give you our basically our message of

the night and what we're trying to get across here. but that that's the tension here is that americans, as the congressman was saying, i think, are sliding toward the democratic anti-trump position as the impact of what trump is doing is becoming more widespread. at the same time, democratic base voters just want more and more and more in terms of opposition from their elected officials. >> what's so interesting is whatever image we first put up when we show that room, this is a room full of republicans who were told today to stop meeting with their own constituents, because trumpism is right now, today, more toxic than it's ever been, more toxic than it was after january 6th. they didn't stop meeting with their constituents after january 6th. we're toxic than it was after the first impeachment. they didn't stop having town halls. after trump was first impeached for withholding congressionally approved military of congress. they didn't stop meeting with their constituents at any point in the first trump presidency. they were told today by the republican head of the campaign arm to stop having in-person

town halls because trumpism is today more toxic than it's been in nine years. and that's the dynamic in the room, the thing that i don't have an answer to, and i only have more questions to the questions that i ask. and here is why. you've got republicans who are willing to. lindsey graham described president zelensky as the, quote, best ally america has ever had. ten days ago, and threw him under the bus on friday. you don't have to do anything like this. you don't have to illegally fire workers. you could get the republican controlled legislature to pass any law you want. you could get them to pass a law that said, you know, trump is seven feet tall and weighs 180. they would do anything if they throw zelensky under the bus ten days after calling him the greatest ally we've ever had. why are they doing it like this? >> well, jamie. >> raskin answered that in a very important point when he. >> said, none of this. >> could pass. >> through the house. >> of representatives. couldn't even get a majority. >> vote in the house of

representatives, never mind the senate, where you. >> wouldn't even get to a. vote because you wouldn't. >> get the 60 votes. >> that would allow you. >> to get. >> to the actual vote. and that's why. >> we're seeing this. >> stuff done this way. and the preexisting belief that the courts might. tell us was actually true. was. >> that you. >> because you need legislation to do these. dramatic things like get rid of the department of education, which has. >> been a republican. >> talking point for. almost as long as there's. >> been department of education. >> everyone who, whether you like. >> the department. >> of education. >> or not, sat back comfortably knowing that. won't even. >> come to a vote in the. >> house or the senate. and so it. >> was. easy to. >> talk about. now we're on the verge of the department of. >> education being closed down. without a single vote, unless the courts intervene in a way that donald trump, in the end, decides to respect. >> which we don't. >> know. >> and says. >> no, you can't. >> do that, obviously. >> obviously.

>> that requires a vote of congress. >> and so. >> this the other thing we're seeing here is that the. >> strongest evidence. >> you could possibly ask for. >> that donald trump knows that his political. career as a. candidate is completely over. anyone who was ever considering going back to. >> the voters again for. reelection would not have done. >> one week of this stuff. >> even just on the education department. i was looking at this the latest polls today. it's the proportion of americans who say that they do not want the department of education to be eliminated is well over 60%, even in the polls that are most positive to donald trump. and so you don't do something like that because you think there will ever be any sort of vote on your performance ever again. you do it because you don't expect the democratic process to ever come for you again. >> yeah. and i think that there's two options here. right. which is we haven't had a lame duck inaugurated ever, really. in the last time it happened. we didn't have the, you know, term limits. it's either that or you

don't think elections are going to happen, but it's one of the two. either way, you don't think you're going to have to answer to voters. and so a lot of what you see, you think like why are they doing this? this makes no sense. >> this doesn't. >> help you with any constituency. i can't this is not legible politically. it makes sense if you think of it in those terms. >> it is intentional. it has been the plan. it was. project 2025 is not about putting anything, making anything work better. they don't believe that government should work for the people or that it should exist in the first place, so they want to get rid of it. they want to call it bureaucracy. they want to come after the bureaucrats. they're coming after the mailman, the people that. >> literally work. >> at a courthouse in nevada, that the federal courthouse that they fired today, they're coming after americans. and frankly, i think that's how democrats should be talking about it. >> yeah, the mailman, the meteorologist, the people who keep nuclear weapons from exploding when they're not supposed to. i mean, we can all do that at home as amateurs, right? when we come back, we're going to have a look at some of the demonstrations and protests we saw all over the country today, including at many state capitols, also in dc tonight. plus, jacob soboroff is going to be here, along with fired federal workers with whom he is

going to be watching the speech tonight. so we've got a lot to get to tonight. we're really glad you're here with us. we'll be right back. >> after a heart attack. >> do they have life insurance? >> no, but we have life insurance. >> john. >> i'm trying to find something we can afford. >> fortunately. >> in. >> only a few minutes. selectquote found john a $500,000 policy for only $29 a month and his wife, anne, a $500,000 policy for only $21 a month. go to. >> select quote.com now and get the. >> insurance your family needs. >> at a price you can afford. select quote. we shop, you save. >> thanks for calling. >> consumer cellular ranked number one in. network coverage and customer satisfaction. >> hi. my friend linda has you guys. it gets way. >> better coverage. >> than i do. >> sounds like linda has. >> you beat. >> not at bowling. >> you're breaking. >> up a little. >> are you really. >> ranked number. >> one. >> in coverage?

>> yep. and plans start at. >> just $20. oh, we could afford lessons for linda. >> you're embarrassing yourself. >> at least my. >> phone works. >> switch to the carrier. >> switch to the carrier. >> ranked number one ♪(voya)♪ there are some things that work better together. like your workplace benefits and retirement savings. voya helps you choose the right amounts without over or under investing. across all your benefits and savings options. so you can feel confident in your financial choices. they really know how to put two and two together. voya, well planned, well invested, well protected. i was scared when i was told age vrelated macular d, degeneration could jeopardize my vision. it was hard, but taking preservision was easy. preservision has the exact clinically proven areds 2 formula recommended by the nei. i'm taking control like millions of others. if you have heart failure or chronic kidney disease,

farxiga can help you keep living life, because there are places you'd like to be. (♪♪) serious side effects include increased ketones in blood or urine and bacterial infection between the anus and genitals, both which may be fatal, severe allergic reactions, dehydration, urinary tract or genital yeast infections, and low blood sugar. stop taking and tell your doctor right away if you have nausea, vomiting, stomach pain, tiredness, rash, swelling, trouble breathing or swallowing. tell your doctor about lightheadedness, weakness, fever, pain, tenderness, redness or swelling between the anus and genitals. ask your doctor about farxiga today. ♪ far-xi-ga ♪ (♪♪) guest of honor: everyone's here for me! shingles doesn't care. but shingrix protects! only shingrix is proven over 90% effective. shingrix is a vaccine used to prevent shingles in adults 50 years and older. shingrix doesn't protect everyone and isn't for those with severe allergic reactions to its ingredients or to a previous dose. tell your healthcare provider if you're pregnant or breastfeeding. increased risk of guillain-barré syndrome

was observed after getting shingrix. fainting can happen so take precautions. most common side effects are pain, redness, and swelling where injected, muscle pain, tiredness, headache, shivering, fever, and upset stomach. ask your doctor about shingrix today. yeah, it is weird that we still call these things phones. headache, shivering, fever, well, yeah. they're more like mini computers. precisely, next slide. xfinity mobile customers are connected to wifi 90% of the time. that's why our network has powerboost with wifi speeds up to a gig where you need it most. so, this whole meeting could have been remote? oh, that is my ex-husband who i don't speak to. hey! no, i'm good to talk! xfinity internet customers, cut your mobile bill in half for your first year with xfinity mobile. plus, ask how to get the new samsung galaxy s25+ on us.

>> you want. >> to. >> look like. >> this is what democracy. looks like. this is what democracy looks like. >> that was the capital city of albany, new york today, march 4th. part of the march 4th for democracy demonstrations that happened all over the country. there were protests and demonstrations planned in all 50 states. this has turned out to be another one of those days of nationwide protests. lots of the protests today were at statehouses and state capitol buildings, and also in major cities, all ahead of the president's address to congress. tonight, we saw protesters gathered today in pittsburgh, pennsylvania, and in annapolis, maryland, and hartford, connecticut, and in saint paul,

minnesota in saint paul. you saw there another entry in the very popular pet protest movement, dogs against doge. it's only because of that movement that we don't call that fake government agency doggy. in raleigh, north carolina, they had a protest picnic. people brought blankets and sat on the lawn in front of the statehouse, which is a nice concept. more protests in salem, oregon today. and in phoenix, arizona today. salt lake city, utah. punta gorda, florida saw protests today. there was a sizable peaceful protest outside the headquarters of the fox news channel in midtown manhattan this afternoon. our msnbc headquarters is right near that, and i have seen my share of protests at fox news over the years. i have never seen one this size. today at fox headquarters, it was a mix of people rallying against trump and people also rallying specifically in support of ukraine. people protested in washington, d.c. today,

including on the steps of the lincoln memorial and also down the street outside the office of the office of personnel management, where people were rallying to, quote, evict doge from. opm. opm is, of course, the office in the white house that has been used by the president's top campaign donor as a sort of base of operations and a proving ground for trump's mass, indiscriminate firings of government workers and his attempts to shut down by fiat whole agencies created and funded by law. joining us now from washington is our own jacob soboroff, who tonight is going to be watching the president's speech with four of the people who have been fired from their jobs working for the u.s. government. jacob, this is a very interesting concept that you are pursuing tonight. tell us about it. tell us about the folks you're going to be watching with. >> rachel. good to see you. and i'm so glad. >> to. >> be here in washington, d.c, because. >> it is the. >> beating heart of the united states. civil service. and with tens of thousands of. >> people being fired. >> from their jobs.

>> unfortunately. >> it was not very hard to find people from all across united states government who wanted to come here to talk to us tonight, to watch the speech with us tonight. and in fact, i'm far more people wanted to join us and could fit into this small studio here at the msnbc studios in washington, d.c. i want to introduce you to them, and we'll hear a little bit from them ahead of the speech, and then we'll talk to them as well. after counter clockwise from bottom right, we have the man who was fired from the us digital service there all, by the way, in a remarkably good mood after having been fired from the federal government. i'm so grateful for. >> them to be here. >> alex taylor was fired from the u.s. geological survey. jesus murillo was fired from hud, and. >> catherine. steele was. >> fired from the u.s. forest service. so, catherine, why don't we just start with you? you were a recreational technician. >> in the. >> george washington and jefferson national forest here in the d.c. area. and you were. >> telling me about the work you. >> were doing. you were literally, literally going up to people collecting fees from people that were recreating in the national forest. you were servicing trash cans, you were dealing with maintenance issues,

quite simply, maybe first and foremost. and i'm so sorry, i should say again to all of you for the circumstances that we're meeting in, who's going to do your important job now? >> exactly. >> i think. >> we don't know, unfortunately. and i think the reality is that. >> we're the. >> forest service is. >> now looking. >> at closing. >> recreation areas. >> because we just. >> don't have the. >> staffing to. >> provide those. >> essential services anymore. >> you told us that your performance review was incredibly positive, but when you were fired, you were told it was because of poor performance. do you think they actually have any idea of who they're firing? >> no, i don't think they have any clue who we are or the essential work that we do for people to recreate. >> in public lands. >> nigella, let me let me ask you. >> you were a. >> project leader and an i senior advisor working inside the government at the us digital service. >> which was the precursor. >> to doge. but most recently you were detailed to work on. >> on immigration issues. one of the. >> things you were doing was using tech to reduce the backlog of people that were waiting within the immigration system. it's a huge problem. it's part of the reason that we heard from president trump all the time that he wanted to institute a

deportation plan, because there were so many people here with their status that hadn't been decided. you wanted to share data between agencies to make this a priority. this is a priority for them, too. why would they get rid of you? >> i don't know, i think some of these indiscriminate hirings, you're seeing a little bit of the callousness and misunderstanding of the work we actually do, the automations that we put in place were saving. and these are really conservative estimates, $6.5 million with a small and mighty team, because i had to go find and procure the funds of $1.5 million max. >> and so these are. >> returns of 300% plus. so it's really unclear why the department of government so-called efficiency would try and get rid of a group that is moving forward, efficient practices and really seeing the savings of their work. >> and you were. >> a supporter of doge initially. i get the sense you weren't any longer. >> i think tech implementation is a bipartisan issue, and it's a bipartisan priority to see our government work more efficiently

for people. and so if that was their mission, which they touted it to be in the beginning, that's something that i was on board for. it was the mission of the united states digital service at the time, but so far that has not been what they are doing. they are firing key members who have been working there for decades, and the work is really falling apart. >> jesus, let me ask you, you were a presidential management fellow that was a organization created to bring the best, literally bring the best and the brightest into the united states. federal government was created under jimmy carter in 1977. it has been a bipartisan program held. >> up. >> by presidents of both parties for almost 50 years now. you told me. >> at hud your task. >> and duty was literally to learn how to make the. federal government more efficient and effective. >> you were. >> facilitating millions of dollars of grants and earmarks to literally to localities to work with local stakeholders. who are those people going to work with now? >> you know, i don't really know. and i think hud is dealing with that effect right now where, you know, our team was already small, it was tiny. it

was very lean. we were literally called the lean mean team. it was two people handling 4000 congressional inquiries. we were tasked with helping these local grantees that have no experience. >> with federal government. >> and without us there, a lot of people are going. >> to have to take out. >> additional loans, mortgages on the funds that they were supposed to be using. >> you came to the government from harvard university. i'm sure you could have got a different gig, probably a higher paying gig. i think all of you told me that you probably could have made more money elsewhere. will you stay in the federal government? you're going to have to look outside the government. >> i'm, you know, keeping all opportunities open right now. but i was my whole passion has been public service. >> that's what. >> i love to do. and that's what we want to do, especially as pmfs. and i think right now it's. >> a major slap. >> in the face to be told that we're not being productive members of this society, and all we want to do is serve the american public. >> and let's get to our geologist here tonight, alex taylor, you were fired from the us geological survey. you were telling me that one of trump's executive orders is directed at growing the domestic critical. minerals supply and industry here, which your work was directly supporting at the us

geological survey. how do you square that circle? >> i really. >> can't i. >> think it speaks to the fact that. >> they weren't paying attention. >> to who they were firing. i conducted scientific research. >> on sourcing. >> unconventional deposits of critical minerals. >> in the united states, which. >> the administration has indicated through multiple executive orders is a high priority. >> for them. >> but now. >> my research. >> is left unfinished. >> what are the long term implications for research at usgs if they're firing people like you? >> i think. >> targeting early career researchers. is devastating for the agency. just because the workforce tends to. >> skew older already. >> and if we lose our junior. >> staff. >> the institutional knowledge is at risk of not being passed down to up and coming geologists and. >> other scientists. >> so i. >> don't think it's going to. >> be good for our. >> research capabilities. >> i'm really, again, really sorry for what happened to you all, and i'm really super grateful to be able to watch the speech with you guys tonight and to talk about it with you and with our viewers afterward. thank you. and, nicole, one of

the things that i think is important to underscore here is that those four faces you just looked at, the people that were fired in the name of efficiency, each of them said they had been working to make the government more efficient in their jobs up until the day that they were fired. >> i mean, jacob, my question, because they all worked on the specific mission that doge is supposed to be carrying out. do they have any theories as to why doge wants access to everyone's personal data and information? >> any theories? guys, you guys hear nicole's question there? everybody is bewildered. nicole and i, i mean, i think that. that's sort of the theme is that it's hard to understand why you would fire someone collecting funds in the forest from people, somebody making the immigration system more efficient, working on critical minerals that the president said that he wanted, working at housing and urban development to get money to localities and make sure the money is spent efficiently and effectively. it's just sitting here talking to these guys, getting to know them. i don't have an answer either. >> wow, jacob, thank you so

much. we are really, really glad that you are with those folks and be watching to them tonight. the thing i am most interested in for the entire night of everything that's going to happen in this coverage, is their reaction to what they're going to hear tonight from the president. thank you so much. it's great to meet all of those. very, very impressive folks. >> thank you rachel. >> all right. part of watching a speech like this entails watching the reaction from the house chamber, which is always something. right? there's always like applause and half the side applauding and the other half not. and maybe there's somebody booing. up next, we will bring you a field guide as to what we are expecting to see from democrats tonight. democrats who may wish to register their disagreement with the president's remarks in the unlikely event that he says something with which they disagree. we are expecting colorful dress. we are expecting some elon musk stickers. we got a list of stuff we're going to be watching out for. we'll tell you what that is. and more. stay you what that is. and more. stay with us. (man) got one more antoine.

(vo) with usps ground advantage, it's like you're with us every step of the way. ♪ (man) cooool. ♪ (man) right on time! (vo) stay in the know. from your dock... to their door. anymore. i have sling, >> okay, warning. >> i only let sling deliver the news. i need to stay informed. thank you very much. nice one. >> nope. >> sling gives us all the news. >> we want. >> in a quick and reliable. >> manner. >> and at a. >> wonderful price. >> this critical time. >> calls for. >> the critical. >> news coverage. >> that sling provides. >> okay. >> see you tomorrow.

>> see you tomorrow. >> home. it's where we do the things we love with the people we love. celebrating, sharing—living. so why should aging mean we have to leave that in the past? what if we lived tomorrow in the same place as we did yesterday? what if we stayed home instead? with help, we can. home instead. for a better what's next. i'm thinking of updating my kitchen... —yeah? —yes! ...this year, we are finally updating our kitchen... ...doing subway tile in an ivory, or eggshell... —cream?... —maybe bone?... don't get me started on quartz. a big big island... you ever heard of a waterfall counter?... for everyone who talks about doing that thing, and, over there. but never does that thing... a sweet little breakfast nook. chase has financial guidance. let's see how you can start saving to make this happen. —really? —really? really. at home or in-person. you could also check out a chase money skills workshop. that's guidance from chase. make more of what's yours. with fast signs.

see the visual possibility in your business. with signs and graphics, you can save anything. transforming your space begins at our place. fast signs make your statement. if you have bladder leaks when you laugh or cough- like we did- there's a treatment that can help: bulkamid. and the relief can last for years. we're so glad we got bulkamid. visit findrealrelief.com to find a physician near you.

prostate health. get super beta prostate. as the trump administration forges ahead during these critical first 100 days. rachel maddow is on five nights a week. >> more than ever. this is not a time to pretend this isn't happening. >> the rachel maddow show weeknights at nine on msnbc. president trump's first 100 days. watch. >> i'm going to be here five days a week again. >> read and listen. >> staying up. >> half the night reading executive orders. >> for this defining time in the second trump presidency. stay

with msnbc. >> imagine if donald trump had actually campaigned this past year. imagine if he had actually run for office by telling the american people that not even halfway through his first 100 days, he hoped to by then have fired more than 4000 wildland firefighters. park rangers, first responders, trail crews and maintenance crews from the national parks and the forest service. vote for me. i'll make it so. the national parks are filthy and broken down and can't be open to visitors. and i'll do it fast. i mean, imagine the campaign rallies, right? i plan to indiscriminately fire the engineers and maintenance crews who are responsible for maintaining the flow of electricity for the national grid in california's central valley and the pacific northwest. vote for me. we'll make america great again by firing the highly specialized technicians at the weapons grade

plutonium site in south carolina. we will fire the highly trained specialists there who are specifically responsible for making sure there isn't an accidental nuclear chain reaction at that site. vote for me. i'll fire those people without ever taking a minute to understand what they do before they're locked out of their email, and have to hand in their passes. that is not how the campaign went, but that is how the first six weeks of donald trump being back in office have gone. a number of congressional democrats, including senate democrat, senate democratic leader chuck schumer, are reportedly bringing government workers who have been fired by trump as their guests to tonight's speech. that means when the president delivers his speech tonight, he will have to defend the decision to indiscriminately fire thousands of government workers with some of those very government workers he fired, staring him right back in the face. also tonight, we expect a little sartorial defiance. the democratic women's caucus has asked their members to wear pink. we are told tonight that many members of the

congressional black caucus will be wearing black to the speech. marcy kaptur of ohio, co-chair of the ukrainian caucus. she was spotted today on capitol hill in the signature yellow and blue of the ukrainian flag. some democratic members of congress are also expected to wear a sticker like this that says, elon is stealing social security. still, another group of democrats plans to skip the speech altogether. washington senator patty murray is one of the highest ranking democrats in the united states senate. she says she will not attend the speech tonight. neither will ron wyden. instead, he is going to host a town hall for his constituents in oregon. democratic congresswoman alexandria ocasio-cortez announced earlier today that she also will not attend tonight's speech. she says she instead will be chatting with her constituents on blue sky. senator chris murphy has also said he will not attend. instead, he will participate in an online rally. ahead of the speech hosted by move on. senator murphy said he decided not to attend the speech tonight

because, quote, when trump does it, it is not a serious event. mark. >> joining us now. >> is democratic senator chris murphy. >> he just left his online rally to join us. >> senator murphy, take us through this decision. >> i know. >> it's not a light, and i assume it was not a light or easy or. >> quick decision. >> to. >> make to. >> decide not to attend. >> this speech tonight. well. >> listen, i honor everybody's decision to attend, and i think it's right that many people are there, you know, exercising their ability to protest. and listen, i'm up for saving the country, but i'm also engaged i. >> self-care. >> and it's just hard to sit through what ends up not being an actual serious analysis of the problems facing the country, but what ends up being a maga rally. he's not speaking to the nation, he's speaking to his base. i think the president has an obligation to deliver a serious speech, and if he fulfills that obligation, then i think. >> democrats and. >> republicans should be there. but i don't think that he is going to do that tonight. i also

think this is a really exceptional moment. this is a moment where we are at risk of losing our democracy to the billionaire takeover of our government, and i don't know that we have six months. i think our democracy could be gone if we don't rally the public in a matter of months. so tonight, yes, i'm going to be talking to tens of thousands of people all across the country, trying to help them understand why this is the moment to mobilize. this is the moment to protest. this is the moment to call your member of congress to show up to town halls. don't wait until this fall. don't wait until next election. you've got to be out there on the streets making your voice heard right now. >> the people of connecticut. >> and 49. other states will be. >> very soon. >> if. >> not already feeling the effect of the trump tariffs. >> what do you expect. >> connecticut to face. >> as a result. >> of these trump tariffs? >> well. >> i mean, we've already seen prices go up for families that are already having a hard time meeting their budget and who,

frankly, voted for donald trump because he promised to take on the cost of living. he promised to fight inflation. they've seen none of that fight happen. they've seen the price of groceries go up, the price of gas go up. and now with these tariffs, the price of everything is going to go up. the price of cars, the price of consumer goods. life will become very unaffordable. and you know, we've got to talk to trump voters who thought that they were getting a president who was going to be laser like, focused on the economy, who instead is laser like, focused on the economy for only a handful of people, the economy of billionaires. this whole effort is not about cost cutting. it's about targeting the parts of the federal government that keep money out of the pockets of billionaires trying to rig the government so that the billionaires do better. the tariffs. i don't even know what the reason of the tariffs are. maybe they help the corporations and the billionaires just pad their profits by passing along the tariff and a little bit extra, but they don't help anybody that's normal out there. so you know we've got to be

engaged in a conversation not just with the base, not just with democrats, but with a lot of trump voters who are going to be shaking their heads after these tariffs go into effect and wonder what happened to a president who criticized joe biden for not caring about inflation and who's actually going to drive costs up by more than any democratic president drove them up in the last quarter century. >> so you. >> are confronting voters, as all democrats. >> are, who are. dissatisfied with the. >> democratic elected official response in washington. to what donald. >> trump has. >> done so far. >> many of us understand the. >> powers that you. >> don't have. >> in. >> the minority in the united states senate. >> but i think most people. >> out there think that you have. >> the ability to introduce bills. >> and bring. >> bills to a vote. >> and all sorts of powers. >> that you. >> you. >> don't actually have. when you confront that question, how much of it becomes in your answer, an actual. >> bit of a lesson. >> in just what kind of powers. >> you don't. >> have in the minority, in the house and. >> in the senate. and then what.

>> do you offer. to voters as what. >> elected, elected. >> democrats can do in their day to day. >> jobs now? >> yeah. >> so it is true that the voters elected republicans to control everything the house, the senate, the white house. that means democrats cannot pass legislation. and though we can slow things up in the senate, we can't grind the senate to a halt if they want to pass a billionaire tax cut funded by devastating cuts to medicaid, the health insurance program, for 24% of americans. they can do that. we can protest. but if republicans all vote in lockstep, they can do that. so we do need to make them own the disaster that they are going to rot on this country. but listen, democrats can choose to fight every day. and there is a school of thought that some democrats are putting out there for consumption, that democrats should do nothing, or that we should wait and reserve our power and fight every fourth day. i think democrats have to flood the zone just like republicans are flooding the zone. democrats also have to be engaged in mobilization. it's not enough to just sign letters

of protest and send them to the trump administration. we have to be mobilizing the american public, and then we have to be, as i said earlier, talking to everybody. it is not good enough to just talk to democrats. we have got to be building a bigger tent as a party. we've got to be consciously reaching out to trump voters to bring them in. so this is a moment where democrats have to act with urgency, have to fight every day and have to take risks and chances and that, you know, argument that debate is still a little bit of a live one inside the party, but it's one that those of us who believe that this is a red alert moment have to win. >> connecticut senator. >> chris murphy, thank you very much. >> for joining us. >> rachel. thank you. >> you know, when he says he thinks, you know, within six months it's over. we're not we are at risk of not having a democracy within six months. he's talking about i mean, he said there that, you know, he disagrees with anybody who sort of counseling patients and saying, oh, let let this play out and see how it goes. there's an act of urgency there. how

much of a is that a minority view among democratic electeds and among the sort of graybeards in democratic politics right now? >> it's always been. >> the traditional view. >> it's certainly the 20th century view. yeah, that's the way it used to. >> be done. when the other side is hurting themselves. you were. >> supposed to stay as quiet as you. could so that all the focus is on the other side hurting themselves. that obviously isn't the environment we live in now, the moment. >> where. >> it's going to be very real. >> and there won't. >> be a single. >> democrat who's holding. >> back in. >> any way, is when the. >> reconciliation bills come. >> to. >> the floor of the united states senate, where the democrats are. >> all empowered to offer. amendments to those bills. those reconciliation. >> bills will be the first pieces of legislation that specify with the word medicaid in the. >> bill. >> hundreds of millions of dollars of billions of dollars of cuts to medicaid, medicare, probably social. >> security. >> all of. >> those things. they will be specified in writing in the. >> bill. >> which they're not specified in the budget resolution they

already. voted for. >> so that's when you will see chris. >> murphy, others going out on the senate floor with. >> an. >> amendment to protect medicaid, which the republicans. all will. >> have to vote against. and that. >> is the moment where from that point forward. >> the voter. will have this very. sharp distinction in the agendas of these two parties. you know, one of these parties is out there trying to save your health insurance. >> the other party is voting. right there in that roll call vote. >> to take. >> it away. >> and that's what they're really. >> waiting for as. >> the. >> moment where. >> it's not going to be protest, it's not going. >> to. >> be outdoors, it's not. >> going. >> to be in the street. it's going to be right there in the. >> governing chamber. that's the one that they're really waiting for. as the one that they expect to be. >> the most powerful. >> jen psaki has joined us here and michael steele and stephanie ruhle, good to have everybody here. we're obviously looking at the chamber filling up here. this is how this happens in the house chamber, which is the larger of these big ornate congressional floors that they've got. the senate has to come over to the house chamber. and so we saw that happen. along

with vice president jd vance. we've seen members of the cabinet here, lots and lots of trump family members. there's a couple of democratic senator cory booker and tammy baldwin from wisconsin. we saw jd vance and the house speaker, mike johnson, there in animated conversation, looking like they were trying very hard to make sure that that microphone was not picking up what they were describing. jen, as you're watching these images, as we get closer to the top of the hour with the speeches due to start, what are you expecting to see tonight from republicans and from democrats? >> well, let me start with democrats, because as lawrence was having his excellent interview with senator murphy, as someone from connecticut, i was watching intently, but i was also watching who was coming in. and the democrats clearly made this decision to show up for the moment to this speech tonight. they could have made a different decision, not showing up, deciding they were going to do an alternative event. some people are doing that. but if you look at who came into the chamber, i mean, senator welch, senator warren dingell, jasmine crockett, these are not exactly conservative democrats, and

they're showing up, i think, because in part, they're bringing people who tell stories like federal workers who have been fired, other people who have been impacted by trump's policies. that, to me, represents a shift over the last couple of months of the messaging of democrats, because, yes, they've been saying to lawrence's point, democracy is at risk, but they have never they didn't really effectively make the connection to how that was impacting people's lives. and what i'm seeing here, and we'll see if they can do it, is an effort to do exactly that with the guests they're bringing and how they're talking about it. the other thing i'm watching is i was thinking this morning, just about three years ago, almost exactly to date, was when joe biden gave his speech six days after russia invaded ukraine. we rewrote the entire speech in those days, because every speech like this is nicole knows well is about a moment in time, and you got to make that decision. that speech got a standing ovation at many moments when joe biden talked about defending ukraine, standing up against invasion of a sovereign country that needs to support them. tonight, we'll see what trump does. but over the last

couple of days, he's flipped sides and we'll see what he does tonight. but are those republicans going to clap and applaud when he says, you know, we should pull back assistance from ukraine. we should pull back our cyber efforts on russia. that that tells you a lot. and i know people say politically they don't care. i think we've seen over the last couple of days that people care. >> michael steele, one of the things that we noticed as we were watching the camera sort of pan around the room, we saw elon musk in the first lady's box. he's wearing a suit and not a baseball hat, which is which is a big, a big move. we also saw some right wing podcasters in there along the lines. i mean, i think there is a lot of interest in terms of how democrats are going to respond. you see democratic women there wearing pink. that's obviously going to create quite the tableau that's going to be very visible. but i also feel like it's pretty, pretty hard to predict how republicans are going to react along the some of the lines that

jen was talking about, but just in general here. >> oh, i don't think. >> it's hard to. >> figure out how. >> they react. >> at all. >> i think it's very predictable how they're going to react, rachel. they're going. >> to think they're just going to crowd surf him. >> they're going to crowd. they're going to applaud the, you know, deconstruction of the federal government. they're going. to applaud the smack down on zelensky. they're going to. applaud the. >> embrace of putin. >> so i think whether it's foreign or domestic policy, there's no curiosity. left in what republicans are going to say or how they're going to respond to donald trump. now, again, as some of your sources and others at this table may say to you privately how they think about these matters, that's not what you're going to see tonight publicly. and i think it really does go to the heart of what lawrence laid out. reconciliation is when it's game on, when it gets real, because then you've got to put your name next to a vote. and so when you're when that your name is up

on that board voting no to social security, no to healthcare, no to all these things that are impacting real people. that's when it becomes very real. and that's when the tension within the republican party starts to grow. >> but some of the prelude politically to that may be tonight when they all, as you know, crowdsurf up on their chairs screaming tariffs. >> yeah, exactly. some people. >> are thinking. >> why is. >> i was trying to be calm for. >> the avocados $13. here's what i remember being like. yeah i love it stuff. i know that obviously the trump administration implemented these massive tariffs today. we've been talking about that tonight. those don't seem like the kind of actions that trump's like, big money backers in the business world are going to support. what are you hearing from folks? >> they are unhappy and not just in. >> the last two days, but in. the last two weeks, right? if you think about people. >> in the. business community, even. >> those who didn't. >> back. donald trump. >> they actually like.

>> things in. >> the beginning of the administration, the idea that. the wealthiest cabinet in u.s. history could actually be good for the economy. we've heard this over and over. donald trump's guardrails will be the stock market. it's going to be business. but that hasn't been the case. >> in the last. >> 24 hours. the idea that he's going to impose these tariffs, this is what's puzzling. his cabinet knows better. his treasury secretary, scott bessant, is worth $500 million. you know why? >> because he's one of. >> the most successful. >> investors traders on wall street. >> he knows the impact of tariffs. he knows that cozying up to putin is. >> terrible for. >> global markets and world order. his commerce secretary, howard lutnick, stepped down as. >> ceo of cantor fitzgerald. >> this man is worth $2 billion. at 8 a.m. this morning, he was on television touting the. importance of american dominance and imposing tariffs on our closest allies, mexico. >> and canada. >> and by 4 p.m. >> after the markets.

>> tumbled and. >> every big wall street investor and ceo was on the phone with this white. >> house saying, what. >> in the. g.d. are you doing? howard lutnick was back on television saying, oh, maybe we worked out a deal with mexico and canada, and you can go outside the cabinet and where the business community is really scratching their heads. they liked the. >> idea of elon musk. >> i mean, if you step away and you say the most successful. >> businessman in modern. >> history coming in to clean up the government, the idea of it, but think about the last two weeks. >> not just. >> firing tens of thousands of people, but when you pull funding from public universities and medical systems in some states, those are the biggest employers. >> that's why. >> republican senator katie britt in alabama is begging. don't take. >> that nih funding away. >> when you pull. >> that funding. >> away, you're going to. cripple those regional economies. so you've got big business backers of donald. >> trump. >> not the ones going to mar-a-lago paying. $5 million for a one on one meeting or $1

million for a candlelit dinner. i'm talking about the ceos of fortune 500 companies who have tariff war rooms 24 seven, and now they've got foreign policy experts that they're spending millions of dollars on figuring, what the heck are we doing? so their biggest takeaway was the guardrails were supposed to be these big business guys who might not help the little guy, but they're definitely going to help the big guy. the question is, who are. >> they helping now? >> and there were some guardrails last administration this time, not so much. >> so what are they going to do about it? >> okay, well that's the thing. yeah. nothing. and you know why? because donald trump bites back right. so we've all been saying where's. >> the business? >> why do we bother having masters of the universe if they're all chicken little? >> because they're. >> going to say, and i'm not defending. >> it, but they're. >> going to say that the people. >> they have to answer to are their. >> customers, their employees and their shareholders. and we're watching this president vengefully. >> come after. >> people and listen, you could do the full mark zuckerberg. >> and say, thank. >> you, sir. may i have another let's be more masculine or jeff

bezos, who's saying maybe i can get a piece of the space world, because remember, we all talk about jeff bezos being the amazon guy. jeff bezos is actual moonshot. is blue origin his space business that needs government contracts, right? elon musk, what is his actual dream? it's not to cut government spending. it's to go to mars and to use. >> government dollars. >> to do so. so all of these people, some of the bad actors are cozying up for their own reasons, and some of the quote unquote, good actors are saying, i just got to run my business. >> and. >> i don't know how to play ball with this president. and it's fair to say that people, big and small know this. >> administration. >> if you cross them, could come. >> for you. so all this dissatisfaction and i'm. >> not. >> defending it. we spend all of this time, we spend all of this ink, we spend all of this reporting resources. there's like whole sectors of the news based economy that are like, what do people in business think? but all it is, is like psychology as to their dissatisfaction. none of it has consequences. none of them are going to do anything about these

things that are going to hurt their businesses, that are going to hurt. >> their country. they're hugely frustrated. >> donald trump has done the unthinkable right, despite. >> promising tax cuts, getting rid of every possible regulation out there. he's actually killed animal spirits, right? people dumped on the former ftc chair, lina khan, joe biden's ftc chair, saying she stood in the way of business getting done. and they thought when donald trump wins, it's going to be a mergers and acquisitions bonanza. it hasn't been because businesses are crippled. they're sitting there not knowing whether. to turn right or left, because who knows what the president is going to do. >> you know where where countries don't have good economies, what countries don't have good economies, autocratic countries? >> i mean. >> i. >> asked this question, actually, steph and i did some this reporting together. you know, it in their padded rooms where you have to leave your phone outside. and there are a lot of former intelligence and national security officials who go work at the highest levels of the fanciest sort of financial and investment firms, who is studying the economy that orban

ushered in, who's studying the oligarchs in russia. and we never really got very far in understanding who and why. and it's possible, watching this, that nobody was, that they were in more denial than anybody else. i think what's amazing and i think what, like the little shards of hope, are that sean hannity can't hide from his own listeners, his daughter have pediatric cancer and is desperate for nih to not stop researching cures to pediatric cancer, which isn't a big pharma profit play, right? the sean hannity listener who called in to his show with a daughter who was given a fatal diagnosis of brain cancer, was pleading with sean hannity to beg donald trump to not shut down nih pediatric cancer research for republicans can't hide from their voters for ever, for their own voters. they live in towns all across the country, and the truth will get out. i don't think anyone should hold their breath and wait for anyone in business to save us.

because of all the people that knew better, they knew better. i remember coming to explain. they all know better. they know that autocracies don't have thriving economies. no one is coming to save anyone. but. but what trump has done in six weeks is so bad that sean hannity is vote. listeners are calling and asking him to help. >> it's worse than they thought it would be, right? even eight weeks ago, they thought, he's transactional. i go, i go down to mar a lago. >> i buy. >> into the trump meme coin. i, you know, i, i book a big. event at one of his resorts. i can get what i want the now siding with russia and now and not ukraine is what has them spinning of that wasn't on their bingo card. well it should have been. this is a lot more than, than playing footsie in helsinki. >> in terms of the sort of autocratic drift that we're well into right now. one of the things that other countries that have been through this warn about is the personalization of power. that power becomes not the rule of law, but rather the

whim of the ruler. and one of the things that's happened in this first six weeks is that they've really cultivated not only that as the truth of what gets done, but that everybody should know it. they've made it clear they're not embarrassed about that reporting today that for $5 million, you can have a one on one dinner with donald trump. they're not embarrassed about the reporting that, you know, if you make a phone call to somebody, you can talk to elon musk. elon musk can get your cancer research cut reversed. they want it to be known that this is the personalization of power. it's a monarchical type system, and that they want to know that you better cater to them personally and your your physical proximity to the leader will determine whether or not you're served by this government. it's for them. it's a feature. it's not a bug. yeah. and that's there's nothing worse for business unless you think that the personalization of power will be directed in your will, be directed toward your ends. >> and the reality of it. is to. >> that point that personalization is also

transactional. so there is the 500 million, the $5 million play, the million dollar play. and you think that you somehow are getting closer to the principle here. trump but you're really not, because at any point. he'll turn, he'll turn. and that's that's how he keeps them off kilter. that's how he keeps them guessing and wanting to come back for another transaction. >> the other piece that is very similar to autocratic societies is the suppression of all information and the ability of any information to get out through a free press. and i mean, one of the things that i don't think has been talked about enough about the friday meeting is that tasks the russian media outlet somehow got in. we don't know how they got in. mistakes happen. they were in there. and marjorie taylor, greene's boyfriend, asked a question to zelensky about why he wasn't wearing a suit. that is not how the white house pool and media covering the white house. and i can tell you, sometimes these people drive you crazy. nicole can attest this too. that's not how it's supposed to work. and that is

exactly how it works with lavrov, the foreign minister of russia, with putin. they have a bevy of people who are told by the kremlin what to report, and that is a model for them. >> do you remember in the first trump term, we had donald trump sort of inexplicably brought lavrov and the russian ambassador into the oval office? one of the intelligence concerns about that meeting is that they also brought with them somebody from tass. they brought with them into the oval office. >> the photo. >> that's how we got the photo. >> we got the photo from russian state media, which somehow, whenever donald trump is president, manages to get the keys to the white house. the idea that the spectacle of them berating vladimir zelensky the way that vance and trump did was a sort of a made for tv moment. wasn't the length of it, the length of it? it was made for russian tv, kremlin directed state russian media was there, and the white house said they didn't know how. as soon as that thing was over. and if that's

not going to put a sort of shiver down your spine as to who's actually calling the shots at the top of the u.s. government, i just i don't know what will. >> well, if you're wondering why people in the administration who know better aren't pushing back, i learned in the last few days that someone in this administration, in the last week in a. private meeting, just voiced maybe we shouldn't be so hard on zelensky. that person is now completely iced out. they're iced out of the inner circle, and everyone else in this administration who fought tooth and nail to get those cabinet and other positions. we all watched the transition where they were battling their way down at mar a lago. none of them. >> are going. >> to push back against the president, because they don't want to be that odd man out. >> and that that speaks. >> to the marco rubio dilemma. because marco, who i've. known for a long, long time and know firmly where he stands, particularly on foreign policy issues like this, it's now the arbiter, the guy who's got to do the execution against ukraine

and zelensky. >> and he's already had to do it with foreign aid. >> exactly. and trump gets a double pleasure out of that, knowing that someone who was once his adversary is now doing his bidding. and ostensibly having his fingerprints a little bit further removed from it, in his view. so if for him, trump is always looking for the win. he's always looking how he can position the tape, the chess pieces on the board so that they move the way he wants them to move. and if he doesn't want his fingerprints, they don't have to be. marco rubio will do it. >> it's one word. >> i don't think it's chess. i think it's dominance. but dominance. >> but this isn't. chess about dominance, though. >> well, chess is also about thinking ahead. i'm not sure that the whole tariff thing is about thinking ahead. >> but in marco. >> rubio's example, he doesn't just have donald. trump over his shoulder, he has steve witkoff. yes. and that's the name. might people might not know. that is who donald trump has appointed as the special envoy. and this is a long. time friend of donald trump. for over 40 years, a massive real estate. investor

who just a year ago sold a $600 million property to the qataris. he's people call him the shadow secretary of state. >> he had a 3.5 hour, one on one meeting with vladimir putin. >> yes. correct. >> and if you're a person from the us government who's sitting down with vladimir putin for 3.5 hours and then coming back to the united states and saying, well, i don't actually think putin and russia have to give up anything. i think they'll get anything they want from this government. i mean, who owns who? i mean, it really is. i mean, anyway, we shall see. joining us now, somebody who has sat through many of these addresses in person, but not one quite like this former democratic senator from missouri, claire mccaskill. claire, i know you've been talking to some of your former colleagues. you got a little bit of color about what's going on tonight in washington. what have you been able to find out? >> yeah. what's interesting, rachel, in talking to my friends that are united states senators on the democratic side, you know, i remember bush's address in 2007, and i remember us not being excited about george bush,

but there was never even a consideration of whether or not we would go. and then, of course, donald trump in 2017, there might have been a few people who quietly skipped out, but there never was an argument about whether or not to even show up. the disgust with this president and what he has done and how he has done it is so intense among democratic senators that there is actually disagreements among them as to whether or not they should even be in the same room with him. so it is a completely different atmosphere. we will see if it's still the stand up, sit down, and democrats trying to decide whether to stand up or not. i predict they won't. i predict there will be no applause on the democratic side at all. >> claire, in terms of the democratic decision making here, we lawrence had an interview with senator chris murphy just a few moments ago where he said that he thinks that if things keep going the way they are, that the countdown to us not

having a democracy anymore is a six month countdown, that what happens in the next six months will determine the form of government in the united states from here on out, and that democrats need to do everything all at once right now, pulling out all the stops. and i know that that's not the consensus view among among democrats. but senator murphy is being articulate about this, and he is pressing that case in social media and with protesters and on television news and everywhere that he can. i just wonder what your sense is as to whether or not that message resonates widely among the electeds. >> i think most people who are democratically elected in this country, in the democratic party, believe it is time to sound the alarm and get people motivated to get active, to reach out, to organize, to start the kind of grassroots movement. >> that. >> we've seen in this country several times over the last several decades. i think chris

is right about that. i also kind of agree with amy, who said on our network earlier today she believes the courts will hold. i think they will. now, the big question will come when the courts hold and say, no, you can't do away with the first amendment on college campuses or no, you can't willy nilly fire people for no reason and shut down social security offices without congress approving. when that all happens. the question is what will trump administration do? and that, i think, will dictate. whether or not we have real disorder or whether or not this is something we can overcome with a good, healthy election in the midterms. >> claire mccaskill, as you hear more from inside the chamber and from other folks who are close to the action tonight, please let us know. you have carte blanche to interrupt us at any time. >> thanks. >> we did. i mentioned moments ago you can see jd vance and house speaker mike johnson there. you'll see them over donald trump's left and right

shoulders over the course of his remarks tonight. we did see them speaking right at the beginning. and sort of mike johnson took took time to see the microphone. is that that kind of weird angle. he's bent the gooseneck of the microphone down. so the microphone is below the desk. we had folks in the control room sort of rewind and watch that closely. and their best interpretation of what jd vance said to mike johnson was, was something along the lines of, i think it's a good speech, but i don't know how you do it for 90 minutes. >> oh, boy. >> oh. >> if it is 90 minutes, that would make it the longest state of the union address in us history. as we mentioned earlier, of the sixth longest speeches of this kind, three of them were delivered by donald trump. and it's not like he's getting, like, more humble and succinct and less rambling as time goes on. so this could be this could be a long one. let's watch the announcement here.

>> the president. >> of the united states. >> who? >> president trump walking in with members of the escort committee, which is members of the legislative branch. we previously saw that the cabinet come in. there is some unusual seating. decisions. the fbi director, kash patel, seen sitting with at least one spouse of a supreme court justice, which arguably is an unkosher decision given the role of the fbi in our government. but there you have it. you see, republicans, mostly house members, some democrats as well, on the aisle there. republicans taking this moment to lay hands

on the president. vance, their vice president. vance, his wife. let's watch some of this. see if we can hear anything. anybody saying, oh. >> this. >> they back it up. >> thank you. >> thank you. thank you. >> thank you. >> you can. >> watch your. >> executive. thank you. >> thank you. thank god. >> thank you everybody. >> thank you. >> so. right now. >> right now. >> thank you. >> that's right. thank you.

>> thank you. >> yeah. >> i know. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> so. >> this this. >> donald trump approaches the dais. i will tell you that the white house has released some excerpts of the speech. from what we can see, it looks like trump is going to take a whole bunch of swings at his predecessor, joe biden. also, the trademark shout out to radical left lunatics. even with the full prepared remarks, even if we had those, they're only

they're only good for so much. this is a president who loves his adlibbing. so that means we're all going to find out together what he plans to say. perhaps he will surprise himself even. who knows? you see the president there speaking with retired supreme court justice anthony kennedy. i had said that if we were going to get a retired supreme court justice tonight, we were going to get stephen breyer. i was wrong, we got a different spare. >> it's so interesting. >> to see anthony. >> kennedy there. >> he gave. >> up a. >> supreme court seat so donald trump. >> could fill. >> it with. >> and people have wondered just how much. >> of a. >> connection is there. >> how much does. justice kennedy connect. >> to. donald trump? this is. >> pretty surprising to see that john roberts. >> is there tonight. elena kagan is there, brett kavanaugh, the aforementioned brett kavanaugh, amy coney barrett i did not see justice alito, justice thomas, justice sotomayor, justice jackson. tonight, behind the

president will be vice president jd vance and house speaker mike johnson. this will be donald trump's fifth address to congress. it will be the first time since 2018 that two republicans have been on that dais behind him. that is thanks to republicans very, very, very, very, very slender three vote majority in the house. otherwise, it would have been hakeem jeffries sitting there. but here he is, president trump at the podium. here we go with his presidential address to a joint session of congress.

>> thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you very much. >> thank you very much. >> it's a great honor. thank you very much. speaker johnson, vice president vance, the first lady of the united states.

>> members of. >> the united states congress, thank you very much. and to my fellow citizens, america is back. >> thank you. >> amen. >> six weeks. >> ago, i stood beneath the dome of this capitol and proclaimed the dawn of the golden age of america. from that moment on, it has been nothing but swift and

unrelenting action to usher in the greatest and most successful era in the history of our country. we have accomplished more in 43 days than most administrations accomplished in four years or eight years. and we are just getting started. >> thank you. >> i return to this chamber tonight to report that america's momentum is back. our spirit is back. our pride is back, our confidence is back. and the american dream is surging bigger and better than ever before. the

american dream is unstoppable. and our country is on the verge of a comeback, the likes of which the world has never witnessed and perhaps will never witness again. there's never been anything like it. the presidential election of november 5th was a mandate like has not been seen in many decades. we won all seven swing states, giving us an electoral college victory of 312 votes. we won the popular vote by big numbers and won counties in our country.

>> that you. usa. usa. usa. usa. usa. usa. usa usa, usa, usa, usa, usa, usa. >> and one counties in our country 2700 to 525. but a map that reads almost completely red for republican. >> now. >> for the first time in modern history, more americans believe that our country is headed in the right direction than the wrong direction. in fact, it's an astonishing record 27 point swing, the most ever.

>> likewise. >> small business optimism saw its single largest one month gain ever recorded, a 41 point jump. >> now. >> whether members are. >> directed to uphold and maintain decorum. >> in the house. >> and to cease any further disruptions. that's your warning. >> members are engaging in. >> willful and continuing breach. >> of decorum, and the. >> chair is prepared to direct. >> the. >> sergeant at arms. >> to restore order to the joint session.

mr. green, take your seat. take your seat, sir. take your seat. i'm finding that. >> members continue to engage. >> in willful and. >> concerted disruption of proper decorum. the chair now. directs the sergeant at arms to restore order. >> remove this gentleman from the chamber. >> i. >> great leadership.

>> members are. directed to uphold and maintain decorum. >> in the house. >> mr. president, you can continue. >> thank you. >> over the past six weeks, i have signed nearly 100 executive orders and taken more than 400 executive actions, a record to restore common sense, safety, optimism and wealth all across our wonderful land. the people elected me to do the job, and i'm doing it. in fact, it has been stated by many that the first month of our

presidency, it's our presidency, is the most successful in the history of our nation. by many. and what makes it even more impressive is that you know who number two is? george washington. how about that? how about that? i don't know about that list, but. but we'll take it. within hours of taking the oath of office, i declared a national emergency on our southern border. and i deployed the u.s. military and border patrol to repel the invasion of our country. and what a job they've done as a result. illegal border crossings last month were by far the lowest ever recorded ever.

they heard my words and they chose not to come. much easier that way. in comparison, under joe biden, the worst president in american history, there were hundreds of thousands of illegal crossings a month, and virtually all of them, including murderers, drug dealers, gang members and people from mental institutions and insane asylums were released into our country. who would want to do that? this is my fifth such speech to congress, and once again, i look at the democrats in front of me and i realize there is absolutely nothing i can say to make them happy or to make them stand or smile or applaud. nothing i can do. i could find a

cure to the most devastating disease, a disease that would wipe out entire nations or announce the answers to the greatest economy in history, or the stoppage of crime to the lowest levels ever recorded. and these people sitting right here will not clap, will not stand, and certainly will not cheer for these astronomical achievements. they won't do it no matter what. five. five times i've been up here. it's very sad and it just shouldn't be this way. so democrats sitting before me for just this one night, why not join us in celebrating so many

incredible wins for america, for the good of our nation? let's work together and let's truly make america great again. every day my administration is fighting to deliver the change america needs to bring a future that america deserves. and we're doing it. this is a time for big dreams and bold action. upon taking office, i imposed an immediate freeze on all federal hiring, a freeze on all new federal regulations, and a freeze on all foreign aid.

i terminated the ridiculous green new scam. i withdrew from the unfair paris climate accord, which was costing us trillions of dollars that other countries were not paying. i withdrew from the corrupt world health organization. and i also withdrew from the anti-american un human rights council. we ended all of biden's environmental restrictions that were making our country far less safe and totally unaffordable. and importantly, we ended the last administration's insane electric vehicle mandate, saving our auto workers and companies from economic destruction.

to unshackle our economy. i have directed that for every one new regulation, ten old regulations must be eliminated. just like i did in my very successful first term. and in that first term, we set records on ending unnecessary rules and regulations like no other president had done before. we ordered all federal workers to return to the office. they will either show up for work in person or be removed from their job.

and we have ended weaponized government where, as an example, a sitting president is allowed to viciously prosecute his political opponent like me. how did that work out? not too good. and i have stopped all government censorship and brought back free speech in america. it's back. and two days ago, i signed an order making english the official language of the united states of america. i

renamed the gulf of mexico the gulf of america. and likewise, i renamed for a great president, william mckinley. mount mckinley. again. beautiful. alaska. love, alaska. we've ended the tyranny of so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion policies all across the entire federal government and indeed the private sector and our military. and our country will be woke no longer. we believe

that whether you are a doctor, an accountant, a lawyer, or an air traffic controller, you should be hired and promoted based on skill and competence, not race or gender. very important. you should be hired based on merit. and the supreme court, in a brave and very powerful decision, has allowed us to do so. thank you. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> we have removed the poison of critical race theory from our public schools, and i signed an order making it the official policy of the united states government that there are only two genders, male and female.

i also signed an executive order to ban men from playing in women's sports. three years ago, payton mcnabb was an all star high school athlete, one of the best preparing for a future in college sports. but when her girls volleyball match was invaded by a male, he smashed the ball so hard in payton's face, causing traumatic brain injury, partially paralyzing her right side and ending her athletic career. it was a shot

like she's never seen before. she's never seen anything like it. payton is here tonight in the gallery and payton, from now on, schools will kick the men off the girls team or they will lose all federal funding. and if you really want to see numbers, just take a look at what happened in the women's boxing, weightlifting, track and field, swimming or cycling where a male recently finished a long distance race five hours and 14 minutes ahead of a woman for a new record by five hours. broke

the record by five hours. it's demeaning for women and it's very bad for our country. we're not going to put up with it any longer. % only a small fraction of the common sense revolution that is now because of us sweeping the entire world. common sense has become a common theme, and we will never go back. never, ever going to let that happen. among my very highest priorities is to rescue our economy and get dramatic and immediate relief to working families. as you know, we inherited from the last administration an economic

catastrophe and an inflation nightmare. their policies drove up, energy prices, pushed up grocery costs, and drove the necessities of life out of reach for millions and millions of americans. they've never had anything like it. we suffered the worst inflation in 48 years. but perhaps even in the history of our country, they are not sure. as president, i'm fighting every day to reverse this damage and make america affordable again. joe biden especially let the price of eggs get out of control. the egg price is out of control, and we're working hard to get it back down. secretary, do a good job on that. you

inherited a total mess from the previous administration. do a good job. a major focus of our fight to defeat inflation is rapidly reducing the cost of energy. the previous administration cut the number of new oil and gas leases by 95%, slowed pipeline construction to a halt, and closed more than 100 power plants. we are opening up many of those power plants right now. and frankly, we have never seen anything like it. that's why on my first day in office, i declared a national energy emergency. as you've heard me

say many times, we have more liquid gold under our feet than any nation on earth and by far. and now i fully authorized the most talented team ever assembled to go and get it. it's called drill, baby. drill. my administration is also working on a gigantic natural gas pipeline in alaska, among the largest in the world, where japan, south korea, and other nations want to be our partner with investments of trillions of dollars each. there has never been anything like that one. it will be truly spectacular. it's all set to go. the permitting has gotten. and later this week, i will also take historic action to dramatically expand production of critical minerals

and rare earths here in the usa. to further combat inflation, we will not only be reducing the cost of energy, but will be ending the flagrant waste of taxpayer dollars. and to that end, i have created the brand new department of government efficiency goes. perhaps you've heard of it. perhaps. which is headed by elon musk, who is in the gallery tonight.

thank you ellen. he's working very hard. he didn't need this. he didn't need this. thank you very much. we appreciate it. everybody here, even this side, appreciates it i believe. they just don't want to admit that. just listen to some of the appalling waste. we have already identified $22 billion from hhs to provide free housing and cars for illegal aliens, $45 million for diversity, equity and inclusion scholarships in burma, $40 million to improve the social and economic inclusion of sedentary migrants. nobody knows

what that is. $8 million to promote lgbtq plus in the african nation of lesotho, which nobody has ever heard of. $60 million for indigenous peoples and afro-colombian empowerment in central america. $60 million $8 million for making mice transgender. this is real. $32 million for a left wing propaganda operation in moldova. $10 million for male circumcision in mozambique. $20 million for the arab sesame street in the middle east. it's a program, $20 million for a program $1.9 billion to recently

created decarbonization of homes committee headed up. and we know she's involved. just at the last moment, the money was passed over by a woman named stacey abrams. have you ever heard of her? a $3.5 million consulting contract for lavish fish monitoring, $1.5 million for voter confidence in liberia, $14 million for social cohesion in mali, $59 million for illegal alien hotel rooms in new york city. he's a real estate developer. he's done very well. $250,000 to increase vegan local climate action innovation in zambia, $42 million for social and behavior change in uganda, $14 million for improving public

procurement in serbia. $47 million for improving learning outcomes in asia. asia is doing very well with learning. you know what we're doing? we should use it ourselves. a $101 million for die contracts at the department of education, the most ever paid. nothing even like it under the trump administration. all of these scams and there are far worse. but i didn't think it was appropriate to talk about them. they're so bad. many more have been found out and exposed and swiftly terminated by a group of very intelligent, mostly young people headed up by ellen, and we appreciate it. we found hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud.

and we've taken back the money and reduced our debt to fight inflation and other things taken back a lot of that money. we got it just in time. this is just the beginning. the government accountability office, a federal government office, has estimated annual fraud of over $500 billion in our nation, and we are working very hard to stop it. we're going to we're also identifying shocking levels of incompetence and probable fraud in the social security program for our seniors, and that our seniors and people that we love rely on. believe it or not, government databases list 4.7 million social security members from people aged 100 to 109 years old. all it lists 3.6

million people from ages 110 to 119. i don't know any of them. i know some people that are rather elderly, but not quite that elderly. 3.47 million people from ages 120 to 129, 3.9 million people from ages 130 to 139, 3.5 million people from ages 140 to 149, and money is being paid to many of them. and we're searching right now. in fact, pam, good luck. good luck. you're going to find it. but a lot of money is paid out to people because it just keeps getting paid and paid and nobody does. and it really hurts social

security and hurts our country. 1.3 million people from ages 150 to 159 and over 130,000 people, according to the social security databases, are age over 160 years old. we have a healthier country than i thought, bobby. including to finish 1039 people between the ages of 220 and 229, one person between the age of 240 and 249, and one person is listed at 360 years of age, more

than 100 years, more than 100 years older than our country. but we're going to find out where that money is going, and it's not going to be pretty. by slashing all of the fraud, waste and theft we can find. we will defeat inflation, bring down mortgage rates, lower car payments and grocery prices, protect our seniors, and put more money in the pockets of american families. and today, interest rates took a beautiful drop. big, beautiful drop. it's about time. and in the near future, i want to do what has not been done in 24 years. balance the federal budget. we're going to balance

it. with that goal in mind. we have developed in great detail what we are calling the gold card, which goes on sale very, very soon. for $5 million, we will allow the most successful job creating people from all over the world to buy a path to u.s. citizenship. it's like the green card, but better and more sophisticated, and these people will have to pay tax in our country. they won't have to pay tax from where they came, the money that they've made, you wouldn't want to do that. but they have to pay tax, create jobs. they'll also be taking people out of colleges and paying for them so that we can keep them in our country,

instead of having them be being forced out. number one at the top school as an example, being forced out and not being allowed to stay and create tremendous numbers of jobs and great success for a company out there. so while we take out the criminals, killers, traffickers and child predators who are allowed to enter our country under the open border policy of these people, the democrats, the biden administration, the open border, insane policies that you've allowed to destroy our country. we will now bring in brilliant, hardworking, job creating people. they're going to pay a lot of money, and we're going to reduce our debt with that money. americans have given us a mandate for bold and profound change. for nearly 100 years,

the federal bureaucracy has grown until it has crushed our freedoms, ballooned our deficits, and held back america's potential in every possible way. the nation founded by pioneers and risk takers, now drowns under millions and millions of pages of regulations and debt approvals that should take ten days to get. instead, take ten years, 15 years, and even 20 years before you reject it. meanwhile, we have hundreds of thousands of federal workers who have not been showing up to work. my administration will reclaim power from this unaccountable bureaucracy, and we will restore true democracy to america again.

and any federal bureaucrat who resists this change will be removed from office immediately. because we are draining the swamp. it's very simple. and the days of rule by unelected bureaucrats are over. and the next phase of our plan to deliver the greatest economy in history is for this congress to pass tax cuts for everybody. they're in there. they're waiting for you to vote. and i'm sure that the people on my right, i don't mean the republican right, but my right right here. i'm sure you're going to vote for those tax cuts, because otherwise i don't believe the people will ever vote you into office. so i'm

doing you a big favor by telling you that. but i know this group is going to be voting for the tax. >> thank you. >> it's a very, very big part of our plan. we had tremendous success in our first term with that, a very big part of our plan. we're seeking permanent income tax cuts all across the board and to get urgently needed relief to americans hit especially hard by inflation. i'm calling for no tax on tips, no tax on overtime and no tax on social security benefits for our great seniors. >> good job.

>> and i also want to make interest payments on car loans tax deductible, but only if the car is made in america. and by the way, we're going to have growth in the auto industry like nobody's ever seen. plants are opening up all over the place. deals i've never seen. that's a combination of the election win and tariffs. it's a beautiful word, isn't it. that along with our other policies, will allow our auto industry to absolutely boom. it's going to boom. spoke to the majors today. all three the top people. and they're so excited. in fact, already numerous car companies have announced that they will be building massive automobile plants in america, with honda just announcing a new plant in

indiana, one of the largest anywhere in the world. and this has taken place since our great victory on november 5th, a date which will hopefully go down as one of the most important in the history of our country. in addition, as part of our tax cuts, we want to cut taxes on domestic production and all manufacturing. and just as we did before, we will provide 100% expensing. it will be retroactive to january 20th, 2025. and it was one of the main reasons why our tax cuts were so successful in our first term, giving us the most successful economy in the history of our

country. first term, we had a great first term. if you don't make your product in america, however, under the trump administration, you will pay a tariff and in some cases a rather large one. other countries have used tariffs against us for decades, and now it's our turn to start using them against those other countries. on average, the european union, china, brazil, india, mexico and canada. have you heard of them? and countless other nations charge us tremendously higher tariffs than we charge them. it's very unfair. india charges us auto tariffs higher than 100%. china has average tariff on our products is twice what we charge them. and south korea's average tariff is four times higher. think of that four times higher.

and we give so much help militarily and in so many other ways to south korea. but that's what happens. this is happening by friend and foe. this system is not fair to the united states and never was. and so on april 2nd, i wanted to make it april 1st, but i didn't want to be accused of april fool's day. that's that's not just one day was cost us a lot of money, but we're going to do it in april. i'm a very superstitious person. april 2nd. reciprocal tariffs kick in and whatever they tariff us, other countries, we will tariff them. that's reciprocal back and forth. whatever they tax us, we will tax them. if they do non-monetary tariffs. to keep us out of their market, then we will do non-monetary

barriers to keep them out of our market. there's a lot of that too. they don't even allow us in their market. we will take in trillions and trillions of dollars that create jobs like we have never seen before. i did it with china and i did it with others, and the biden administration couldn't do anything about it because it was so much money. they couldn't do anything about it. we have been ripped off for decades by nearly every country on earth, and we will not let that happen any longer. much has been said over the last three months about mexico and canada, but we have very large deficits with both of them. but even more importantly, they have allowed fentanyl to come into our country at levels never seen before, killing hundreds of thousands of our citizens and many very young, beautiful

people destroying families. nobody has ever seen anything like it. they are, in effect, receiving subsidies of hundreds of billions of dollars. we pay subsidies to canada and to mexico of hundreds of billions of dollars. and the united states will not be doing that any longer. we're not going to do it any longer. thanks to our america first policies we're putting into place. we have had $1.7 trillion of new investment in america in just the past few weeks. the combination of the election and our economic policies that people have. softbank, one of the most brilliant anywhere in the world, announced a $200 billion investment. openai and oracle. larry ellison announced $500 billion investment, which they wouldn't have done if kamala had

won. apple announced $500 billion investment. tim cook called me. he said i cannot spend it fast enough. it's going to be much higher than that. i believe they'll be building their plants here instead of in china. and just yesterday, taiwan semiconductor, the biggest in the world, most powerful in the world, has a tremendous amount. 97% of the market announced a $165 billion investment to build the most powerful chips on earth right here in the usa. and we're not giving them any money. your chips act is a horrible, horrible thing. we give hundreds of billions of dollars and it doesn't mean a thing. they take our money and they don't spend it all that

meant to them. we're giving them no money. all that was important to them was they didn't want to pay the tariffs. so they came and they're building and many other companies are coming. we don't have to give them money. we just want to protect our businesses and our people, and they will come because they won't have to pay tariffs if they build in america. so it's very amazing. you should get rid of the chip act and whatever's left over. mr. speaker, you should use it to reduce debt or any other reason you want to. our new trade policy will also be great for the american farmer. i love the farmer. >> yeah. >> who will now be selling into our home market, the usa, because nobody is going to be able to compete with you because

there's goods that come in from other countries and companies. they're really, really in a bad position in so many different ways. they're uninspected. they may be very dirty and disgusting, and they come in and they pour in and they hurt our american farmers. the tariffs will go on agricultural products coming into america and our our farmers starting on april 2nd. it may be a little bit of an adjustment period. we had that before when i made the deal with china, $50 billion of purchases, and i said, just bear with me. and they did. they did probably have to bear with me again and this will be even better. that was great. the problem with it was that biden didn't enforce it. he didn't enforce it. $50 billion of purchases. and we were doing great. but biden did not enforce it. and it hurt our farmers. but our farmers are going to have a field day right now. so to our farmers have a

lot of fun. i love you, too. i love you too. we're all going to happen. and i have also imposed a 25% tariff on foreign aluminum, copper, lumber and steel. because if we don't have, as an example, steel and lots of other things, we don't have a military and frankly, we don't have we just won't have a country very long. here today is a proud american steelworker, fantastic person from decatur, alabama, jeff dennard has been working at the same steel plant for 27 years in a job that has allowed him to serve as the captain of his local volunteer fire department, raised seven children with his beautiful wife, nicole, and over the years provide a loving home for more than 40 foster children. so

great job! >> thank you jeff. >> thank you jeff. >> stories like jeff's remind us that tariffs are not just about protecting american jobs. they're about protecting the soul of our country. tariffs are about making america rich again and making america great again. and it's happening. and it will happen rather quickly. there'll be a little disturbance. but we're okay with that. it won't be much. no you're not. oh. and look and look where biden took us. very low. the lowest we've ever been. jeff, i want to thank you very much. and i also want to recognize another person who

has devoted herself to foster care community. she worked so hard on it, a very loving person. our magnificent first lady of the united states. melania's work has yielded incredible results, helping prepare our nation's future leaders as they enter the workforce. our first lady is joined by two impressive young women. very impressive. haley ferguson, who benefited from the first lady's fostering the future initiative and is poised to complete her education and become a teacher. and elliston berry, who became a victim of an illicit deepfake image produced by a peer. with elliston's help,

the senate just passed the take it down act, and this is so important. thank you very much, john. john thune, thank you. stand up. john. thank you john. thank you all very much. >> thank you. >> and thank you to john thune and the senate. great job to criminalize the publication of such images online as terrible, terrible thing. and once it passes the house, i look forward to signing that bill into law. thank you. and i'm going to use that bill for myself, too, if you don't mind, because nobody gets treated worse than i do online. nobody. that's great. thank you very much to the senate. thank you. but if we truly care about protecting

america's children, no step is more crucial than securing america's borders. over the past four years, 21 million people poured into the united states. many of them were murderers, human traffickers, gang members, and other criminals from the streets of dangerous cities all throughout the world because of joe biden's insane and very dangerous open border policies, they are now strongly embedded in our country. but we are getting them out and getting them out fast. and i want to thank tom homan and kristi. i want to thank you and paul of border patrol. i want to thank you. what a job they've all done. everybody border patrol, ice, all law enforcement in general is

incredible. we have to take care of our law enforcement. have to. last year. a brilliant 22 year old nursing student named laken riley, the best in her class, admired by everybody, went out for a jog on the campus of the university of georgia that morning. laken was viciously attacked, assaulted, beaten, brutalized and horrifically murdered. laken was stolen from us by a savage illegal alien gang member who was arrested while trespassing across biden's open southern border and then set loose into the united states under the heartless policies of that failed administration. it was indeed a failed administration. he had then been

arrested and released in a democrat run sanctuary city, a disaster before ending the life of this beautiful young angel with us this evening, our beloved mother allison and her sister lauren. last year, i told lincoln's grieving parents that we would ensure their daughter would not have died in vain. that's why the very first bill i signed into law as your 47th president mandates the detention of all dangerous criminal aliens who threaten public safety. it's

very strong, powerful act. it's called the laken riley act. so, allison and lauren, america will never, ever forget our beautiful laken hope riley. thank you very much. since taking office, my administration has launched the most sweeping border and immigration crackdown in american history. and we quickly achieved the lowest numbers of illegal border

crossers ever recorded. thank you. the media and our friends in the democrat party kept saying we needed new legislation. we must have legislation to secure the border. but it turned out that all we really needed was a new president. >> thank you. >> joe biden didn't just open

our borders, he flew illegal aliens over them to overwhelm our schools, hospitals and communities throughout the country. entire towns like aurora, colorado, and springfield, ohio, buckled under the weight of the migrant occupation and corruption like nobody has ever seen before. beautiful towns destroyed. now, just as i promised in my inaugural address, we are achieving the great liberation of america. but there is still is much work to be done here tonight. as a woman, i have gotten to know alexis nungaray from houston. wonderful woman last june. alexis is 12 year old daughter. her precious jocelyn walked to a nearby convenience store. she was kidnaped, tied

up, assaulted for two hours under a bridge and horrifically murdered, arrested and charged with this heinous crime are two illegal alien monsters from venezuela released into america by the last administration through their ridiculous open border. the death of this beautiful 12 year old girl and the agony of her mother and family touched our entire nation greatly. alexis, i promised that we would always remember your daughter, your magnificent daughter. and earlier tonight i signed an order keeping my word to you. one thing i have learned about jocelyn is that she loved animals so much. she loved nature. across galveston bay, from where jocelyn lived in houston, you will find a magnificent national wildlife refuge, a pristine, peaceful,

34,000 acre sanctuary for all of god's creatures on the edge of the gulf of america. alexis. moments ago, i formally renamed that refuge in loving memory of your beautiful daughter, jocelyn. so, mr. vice president, if you would. may i have the order? thank you very much. all three savages charged with jocelyn and

lincoln's murders were members of the venezuelan prison gang. the toughest gang, they say, in the world. known as tren de aragua. two weeks ago, i officially designated this gang, along with ms. 13 and the bloodthirsty mexican drug cartels, as foreign terrorist organizations. they are now officially in the same category as isis, and that's not good for them. countless thousands of these terrorists were welcomed into the u.s. by the biden administration, but now every last one will be rounded up and forcibly removed from our country. or if they are too dangerous, put in jails pending

trial in this country because we don't want them to come back ever with us. this evening is a warrior on the front lines of that battle. border patrol agent roberto ortiz, great guy. in january, roberto and another agent were patrolling by the rio grande near an area known as cartel island. doesn't sound too nice to me when heavily armed gunmen started shooting at them, roberto saw that his partner was totally exposed at great danger and he leapt into action,

returning fire and providing crucial seconds for his fellow agents to seek safety. just and just barely. i have some of the prints of that event and it was not good. agent ortiz, we salute you for your great courage and for your line of fire that you took and for the bravery that you showed. we honor you, and we will always honor you. thank you, roberto, very much. thank you. >> roberto. >> and i actually got to know him on my many calls to the border. he's a great, great gentleman. the territory to the immediate south of our border is now dominated entirely by

criminal cartels that murder, rape, torture and exercise total control. they have total control over a whole nation, posing a grave threat to our national security. the cartels are waging war on america. and it's time for america to wage war on the cartels, which we abhor. five nights ago, mexican authorities, because of our tariff policies being imposed on them. think of this handed over to us 29 of the biggest cartel leaders in their country. that has never happened before. they want to make us happy. first time ever. but we need mexico and canada to do much more than

they have done, and they have to stop the fentanyl and drugs pouring into the usa. they're going to stop it. i have sent congress a detailed funding request, laying out exactly how we will eliminate these threats to protect our homeland and complete the largest deportation operation in american history, larger even than current record holder, president dwight d eisenhower. a moderate man, but someone who believed very strongly in borders. americans expect congress to send me this funding without delay so i can sign it into law. so, mr. speaker, john thune, both of you, i hope you're going to be able to do that. mr. speaker. thank you, mr. leader. thank you. thank you very much. and let's get it to me. i'll sign it so fast you won't even believe it. >> thank.

>> and as we reclaim our sovereignty, we must also bring back law and order to our cities and towns. in recent years, our justice system has been turned upside down by radical left lunatics. many jurisdictions virtually ceased enforcing the law against dangerous repeat offenders while weaponizing law enforcement against political opponents like me, my administration has acted swiftly and decisively to restore fair, equal and impartial justice under the constitutional rule of law, starting at the fbi and the doj. pam. good luck, kash,

wherever you may be. good luck. good luck, pam bondi. good luck. so important to do a great job. kash. thank you. thank you kash. they've already started very strong. they're going to do a fantastic job. you're going to be very proud of them. we're also once again giving our police officers the support, protection and respect they so dearly deserve. they have to get it. they have such a hard, dangerous job, but we're going to make it less dangerous. the problem is the bad guys don't respect the law, but they're starting to respect it and they soon will respect it. this also includes our great fire departments throughout the country. our firemen and women are unbelievable people and we'll never forget them. and

besides that, they voted for me in record numbers, so i have no choice. one year ago this month, 31 year old new york police officer jonathan diller, unbelievably wonderful person and a great officer was gunned down at a traffic stop on long island. i went to his funeral. the vicious criminal charged with his murder had 21 prior arrests, and they were rough arrests. he was a real bad one. the thug in the seat next to him had 14 prior arrests and went by the name of killer. he was killer. he killed other people. they say. a lot of them. i attended officer diller's service, and when i met his wife and one year old son, ryan, it

was very inspirational, actually. his widow's name is stephanie and she is here tonight. stephanie. thank you very much, stephanie. thank you very much. stephanie. we're going to make sure that ryan knows his dad was a true hero, new york's finest. and we're going to get these cold blooded killers and repeat offenders off our streets. and we're going to do it fast. got to stop it. you get out. with 28 arrests, they push people into subway trains. they hit people over the head, back of the head with baseball bats. we got to get them out of here. i have already signed an executive order requiring a mandatory death penalty for anyone who

murders a police officer. and tonight, i'm asking congress to pass that policy into permanent law. i'm also asking for a new crime bill getting tough on repeat offenders while enhancing protections for america's police officers so they can do their jobs without fear of their lives being totally destroyed. they don't want to be killed. we're not going to let them be killed. joining us in the gallery tonight is a young man who truly loves our police. his name is d.o.j. daniel. he is 13 years old and he has always dreamed of becoming a police officer.

>> thank you. >> sir. >> but in 2018, d.o.j. was diagnosed with brain cancer. the doctors gave him five months at most to live. that was more than six years ago.

but since that time, d.o.j. and his dad have been on a quest to make his dream come true, and d.o.j. has been sworn in as an honorary law enforcement officer. actually, a number of times. peace. the police love him, the police departments love him. and tonight, d.o.j, we're going to do you the biggest honor of them all. i am asking our new secret service director, sean curran, to officially make you an agent of the united states secret service.

>> thank you. thank. >> thank you. d.o.j. d.o.j. doctors believe his cancer likely came from a chemical he was exposed to when he was younger. since 1975, rates of child cancer have increased by more than 40%. reversing this trend is one of the top priorities for our new presidential commission to make america wealthy again, chaired by our new secretary of health and human services, robert f kennedy jr.

>> wow. >> with the name kennedy, you would have thought everybody over here would have been cheering how quickly they forget. our goal is to get toxins out of our environment, poisons out of our food supply, and keep our children healthy and strong. as an example, not long ago. and you can't even believe these numbers. 1 in 10,000 children had autism, 1 in 10,000, and now it's 1 in 36. there's something wrong. 1 in 36. think of that. so we're going to find out what it is. and there's nobody better than bobby and all of the people that

are working with you. you have the best to figure out what is going on. okay, bobby. good luck. it's a very important job. thank you. >> thank you. thank you. >> my administration is also working to protect our children from toxic ideologies in our schools. a few years ago, january, littlejohn and her husband discovered that their daughter's school had secretly socially transitioned. their 13 year old little girl. teachers and administrators conspired to deceive january and her husband, while encouraging her daughter to use a new name and pronouns. they them pronoun actually all without telling january who is here tonight and is now a courageous advocate against this

form of child abuse. january. thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you very much. >> thank you. >> stories like this are why, shortly after taking office, i signed an executive order banning public schools from indoctrinating our children with transgender ideology. >> i. >> i also signed an order to cut off all taxpayer funding to any institution that engages in the sexual mutilation of our youth. and now i want congress to pass

a bill permanently banning and criminalizing sex changes on children, and forever ending the lie that any child is trapped in the wrong body. this is a big lie. and our message to every child in america is that you are perfect, exactly the way god made you. because we're getting wokeness out of our schools and out of our military, and it's already out and it's out of our society. we don't want it. wokeness is trouble. wokeness is bad. it's gone. it's gone. and we feel so much better for it, don't we?

don't we feel better? about our service members won't be activists and ideologues. they will be fighters and warriors. they will fight for our country. and, pete, congratulations, secretary of defense. congratulations. and he's not big into the woke movement, i can tell you. i know him well. i am pleased to report that in january, the u.s. army had its single best recruiting month in 15 years and that all armed services are having among the best recruiting results ever in the history of our services. what a difference. and, you know, it was just a few months

ago where the results were exactly the opposite. we couldn't recruit anywhere. we couldn't recruit. now we're having the best results, just about that we've ever had. what a tremendous turnaround. it's really a beautiful thing to see people love our country again. it's very simple. they love our country and they love being in our military again. so it's a great thing. and thank you very much. great job. >> thank you. >> we're joined tonight by a young man, jason hartley, who knows the weight of that call of duty. jason's father, grandfather and great grandfather all wore the uniform. jason tragically lost his dad, who was also a los angeles county sheriff's deputy, when he was just a boy. and now he wants to carry on the family legacy of service. jason is a

senior in high school, a six letter varsity athlete, a really good athlete. they say a brilliant student with a 4.46. that's good gpa, and his greatest dream is to attend the us military academy at west point. and jason, that's a very big deal getting in. that's a hard one to get into, but i'm pleased to inform you that your application has been accepted. you will soon be joining the corps of cadets.

>> oh, oh. >> thank you jason, you're going to be on the long gray line. jason, as commander in chief, my focus is on building the most powerful military of the future. as a first step, i'm asking congress to fund a state of the art golden dome missile defense shield to protect our homeland. all made in the usa. and ronald. reagan wanted to do it long ago,

but the technology just wasn't there. not even close. but now we have the technology. it's incredible actually. and other places that they have it. israel has it, other places have it. and the united states should have it too, right, tim. right. they should have it too. so i want to thank you, but it's a very, very important. this is a very dangerous world. we should have it. we want to be protected and we're going to protect our citizens like never before to boost our defense industrial base. we are also going to resurrect the american shipbuilding industry, including commercial, shipbuilding and military shipbuilding. and for that purpose, i am announcing tonight that we will create a new office of shipbuilding in the white house and offer special tax incentives to bring this industry home to america, where it belongs. we used to

make so many ships, we don't make them anymore very much, but we're going to make them very fast very soon. it will have a huge impact to further enhance our national security. my administration will be reclaiming the panama canal, and we've already started doing it. just today, a large american company announced they are buying both ports around the panama canal and lots of other things having to do with the panama canal and a couple of other canals. the panama canal was built by americans for americans, not for others, but others could use it. but it was built at tremendous cost of american blood and treasure. 38,000 workers died building the panama canal. they died of malaria. they died of snake bites and mosquitoes. not a nice

place to work. they paid them very highly to go there, knowing there was a 25% chance that they would die. the most expensive project also that was ever built in our country's history. if you bring it up to modern day costs, it was given away by the carter administration for $1. but that agreement has been violated very severely. we didn't give it to china, we gave it to panama, and we're taking it back. and we have marco rubio in charge. good luck. marco. now we know who to blame if anything goes wrong. now, marco has been amazing and he's going to do a great job. think of it. he got 100 votes. you know, he was

approved with actually 99, but the 100th was this gentleman. and i feel very certain. so let's assume he got 100 votes. and i'm either very, very happy about that or i'm very concerned about it. but he's already proven i mean, he's a great gentleman. he's respected by everybody. and we appreciate your voting for marco. he's going to do a fantastic job. thank you. >> thank you. >> he's doing a great job. >> great job. >> and i also have a message tonight for the incredible people of greenland. we strongly support your right to determine your own future. and if you choose, we welcome you into the united states of america. we need greenland for national security and even international security. and we're working with everybody involved to try and get it. but we need it really

for international world security. and i think we're going to get it one way or the other. we're going to get it. we will keep you safe. we will make you rich, and together we will take greenland to heights like you have never thought possible before. it's a very small population, but very, very large piece of land and very, very important for military security. america is once again standing strong against the forces of radical islamic terrorism. three and a half years ago, isis terrorists killed 13 american service members and countless others in the abbey gate bombing. during the disastrous and incompetent withdrawal from afghanistan. not that they were withdrawing. it was the way they withdrew. perhaps the most embarrassing moment in the history of our country. tonight, i am pleased to announce that we have just apprehended the top

terrorists responsible for that atrocity. and he is right now on his way here to face the swift sword of american justice. and i want to thank, especially the government of pakistan for helping arrest this monster. this was a very momentous day for those 13 families who i actually got to know very well, most of them whose children were murdered and the many people that were so badly, over 42 people so badly injured on that fateful day in afghanistan. what a horrible day. such

incompetence was shown that when putin saw what happened, i guess he said, well, maybe this is my chance. that's how bad it was. should have never happened. grossly incompetent people. i spoke to many of the parents and loved ones and they're all in our hearts tonight. just spoke to him on the phone. we had a big call. every one of them called and everybody was on the line, and they did nothing but cry with happiness. they were very happy. as happy as you can be under those circumstances. there, child, brother or sister? son or daughter was killed for no reason whatsoever in the middle east. we're bringing back our hostages from gaza. in my first term, we achieved one of the most groundbreaking peace agreements in generations the

abraham accords. and now we're going to build on that foundation to create a more peaceful and prosperous future for the entire region. a lot of things are happening in the middle east. people have been talking about that so much lately, with everything going on with ukraine and russia. but a lot of things are happening in the middle east, a rough neighborhood, actually. i'm also working tirelessly to end the savage conflict in ukraine. millions of ukrainians and russians have been needlessly killed or wounded in this horrific and brutal conflict, with no end in sight. the united states has sent hundreds of billions of dollars to support ukraine's defense, with no

security, with no anything. do you want to keep it going for another five years? yeah, yeah, you would say pocahontas says yes. 82,000 people are being killed every single week. more than that, the russian young people, the ukrainian young people, they're not americans. but i want it to stop. meanwhile, europe has sadly spent more money buying russian oil and gas than they have spent on defending ukraine by far. think of that. they've spent more buying russian oil and gas than

they have defending, and we've spent perhaps $350 billion, like taking candy from a baby. that's what happened. and they've spent $100 billion. what a difference that is. and we have an ocean separating us. and they don't. but we're getting along very well with them. and lots of good things are happening. biden has authorized more money in this fight than europe has spent by billions and billions of dollars. it's hard to believe that they wouldn't have stopped it and said at some point, come on, let's equalize. you got to be equal to us. but that didn't happen. earlier today, i received an important letter from president zelensky of ukraine. the letter reads, ukraine is ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible to bring lasting peace closer. nobody wants peace more than the ukrainians, he said. my

team and i stand ready to work. under president trump's strong leadership to get a peace that lasts. we do really value how much america has done to help ukraine maintain its sovereignty and independence. regarding the agreement on minerals and security, ukraine is ready to sign it at any time that is convenient for you. i appreciate that he sent this letter, just got it a little while ago. simultaneously, we've had serious discussions with russia and received strong signals that they are ready for peace. wouldn't that be beautiful? wouldn't that be beautiful? >> wouldn't that. >> be beautiful? it's time to

stop this madness. it's time to halt the killing. it's time to end this senseless war. if you want to end wars, you have to talk to both sides. nearly four years ago, amid rising tensions, a history teacher named mark fogel was detained in russia and sentenced to 14 years in a penal colony. rough stuff the previous administration barely lifted a finger to help him. they knew he was innocent, but they had no idea where to begin. but last summer, i promised his 95 year old mother morphine that we would bring her boy safely back home after 22 days in office. i did just that. and they are here tonight.

to mark and his great mom. we are delighted to have you safe and sound. and with us. as fate would have it, mark fogel was born in a small rural town in butler, pennsylvania. have you heard of it? where his mother has lived for the past 78 years? i just happened to go there last july 13th for a rally. that was not pleasant. and that is where

i met his beautiful mom right before i walked onto that stage. and i told her i would not forget what she said about her son, and i never did. did i? never forgot? less than ten minutes later, at that same rally, gunfire rang out and a sick and deranged assassin unloaded eight bullets from his sniper's perch into a crowd of many thousands of people. my life was saved by a fraction of an inch, but some were not so lucky. corey comparator was a firefighter, a veteran, a christian, a husband, a devoted father, and above all, a protector. when the sound of gunshots pierced the air, it was a horrible sound. corey knew instantly what it was and what to do. he threw himself on top

of his wife and daughters and shielded them from the bullets with his own body. corey was hit really hard. you know the story. from there. he sacrificed his life to save theirs. two others, very fine people were also seriously hit, but thankfully, with the help of two great country doctors, we thought they were gone and they were saved. so those doctors had great talent, were joined by corey's wife, helen, who was his high school sweetheart, and their two beloved daughters, alison and kaylee. thank you.

to helen, alison and kaylee. corey is looking down on his three beautiful ladies right now and he is cheering you on. he loves you. he is cheering you on. corey was taken from us much too soon, but his destiny was to leave us all with a shining example of the selfless devotion of a true american patriot. it was love like corey's that built our country and its love like corey's. that is going to make our country more majestic than ever before. i believe that my life was saved that day in butler for a very good reason. i was saved by god to make america

great again, i believe that. >> thank you. >> thank you. thank you. >> thank you very much. from the patriots of lexington and concord to the heroes of gettysburg and normandy, from the warriors who crossed the delaware, to the trailblazers who climbed the rockies, and from the legends who soared at kitty hawk, to the astronauts who touched the moon. americans have always been the people who defied all odds, transcended all dangers, made the most extraordinary sacrifices, and did whatever it took to defend our children, our country and our freedom. and as we have seen in this chamber tonight, that

same strength, faith, love and spirit is still alive and thriving in the hearts of the american people, despite the best efforts of those who would try to censor us, silence us, break us, destroy us. americans are today a proud, free, sovereign and independent nation that will always be free, and we will fight for it till death. we will never let anything happen to our beloved country because we are a country of doers, dreamers, fighters and survivors. our ancestors crossed a vast ocean, strode into the unknown wilderness, and carved their fortunes from the rock and soil of a perilous and very dangerous frontier. they chased our destiny across a boundless continent. they built the railroads, laid the highways, and graced the world with american marvels like the empire

state building, the mighty hoover dam, and the towering golden gate bridge. they lit the world with electricity, broke free of the force of gravity, fired up the engines of american industry, vanquished the communist fascists and marxists all over the world, and gave us countless modern wonders sculpted out of iron, glass, and steel, we stand on the shoulders of these pioneers who won and built the modern age. these workers, who poured their sweat into the skylines of our cities, these warriors who shed their blood on fields of battle and gave everything they had for our rights and for our freedom. now it is our time to take up the righteous cause of american liberty, and it is our turn to take america's destiny into our own hands and begin the most

thrilling days in the history of our country. this will be our greatest era. with god's help over the next four years, we are going to lead this nation even higher, and we are going to forge the freest, most advanced, most dynamic and most dominant civilization ever to exist on the face of this earth. we are going to create the highest quality of life, build the safest and wealthiest and healthiest and most vital communities anywhere in the world. we are going to conquer the vast frontiers of science, and we are going to lead humanity into space and plant the american flag on the planet mars, and even far beyond.

and through it all, we are going to rediscover the unstoppable power of the american spirit. and we are going to renew unlimited promise of the american dream. every single day. we will stand up and we will fight, fight, fight for the country our citizens believe in and for the country our people deserve. my fellow americans, get ready for an incredible future, because the golden age of america has only just begun. it

will be like nothing that has ever been seen before. thank you. god bless you and god bless america. >> that was the longest state of the union address in american history. donald trump, addressing congress for the fifth time in setting. like this. just looking to see if he's actually going to start speaking again. he started off on very contentious terms. congressman al green interrupting at the outset. and the president claims his historic mandate from his

victory in the 2024 election. congressman green repeatedly interjecting and then removed by the orders of the sergeant at arms, while republican members of congress jeered and made gestures toward him, celebrating him being ejected over the course of the president's remarks. see how many empty seats you can see behind him just there? that's because democrats, as a group, filed out quickly when he was done. but a number of democrats left well before he was done. in the middle of his remarks, they included jasmine crockett from texas. maxwell frost walked out, maxine dexter from maryland, andrea salinas from oregon, ayanna pressley, ilhan omar, pramila jayapal. we believe that's only a partial list. a number of democrats left during the remarks. the president in his, we believe, was adlibbing. we did not have prepared remarks from the president, which is unusual. white house is usually distributing prepared remarks. so we don't know what was

digression from those remarks and what was adlibbed. but the president did repeatedly seem to be outliving when he was remarking on the expected impact of the economic decisions he's already made six weeks in saying that the american people would have to bear with him, that there would be a little disturbance, that there would be an adjustment period. and again, he said, a little disturbance, essentially suggesting that the roiling that we saw in the markets is something that he knows he caused. but he hopes people will not mind. for the record, the worst inflation in this country was in 1980. for the record, the economy that he was left by president biden was not a catastrophe. it was literally the best economy in the world and was described by the economist magazine as the envy of the world. that was the economy that was left to donald trump by joe biden. for the record, social security is not paying benefits in large numbers

to 300 year old people or 250 year old people, or 200 year old people, or 150 year old people. in fact, the idea of social security is a bastion of massive fraud, and overpayment is completely false. for the record, u.s. auto company ceos are not psyched and delighted and so excited about president trump's economic policies, including his tariffs. take, for example, the ceo of ford, jim farley, who said that trump's tariff policies would, quote, blow a hole in the us auto industry. that, quote, we've never seen president flat out lied about us versus european spending to support what used to be our allies in ukraine. u.s. has committed about $125 billion to ukraine's defense. europe has committed about $259 billion. the president radically, radically misstating the

character and quantity of our relative support for what used to be our ally, now appears to be only europe's ally and no longer ours. for the record, joe biden did not close over 100 power plants. there were more utility sized power plants up and running in the united states when joe biden left office than when he achieved office. for the record, there is no ev mandate. for the record, oil and gas production in the united states hit all time records under president joe biden. for the record, even doge has never claimed that they have saved hundreds of billions of dollars in savings, the largest items they have claimed to achieve as savings in the us budget have been debunked and they've been taken down. but even they don't falsely claim hundreds of billions of dollars worth of savings. for the record, and this is disgusting. the president made a spectacle out

of praising a young man who serves thus far survived pediatric cancer, as if the president had something to do with that. this was in the midst of him praising doge. the doge cuts, among other things, have cut off funding for ongoing research into pediatric cancer. for the record, i will. note that donald trump did admit in his remarks today explicitly that elon musk is the head of doge. and while that comes as no surprise to anybody who's been following the facts of this matter, that will end up in court because that is directly contrary to what the administration has overtly sworn to a federal judge about the leadership of doge. i should also note, and this doesn't have to be for the record, i'll just note it for our own experience tonight that at that point in the speech, when the president talked about how we will no longer be ruled by unelected

bureaucrats, democrats in the chamber pointed and laughed at elon musk, unelected bureaucrat nicolle wallace. i'm sorry to dump a lot of fact checks there. and that's not even scratching the surface of the things that need to be fact checked there. that's literally what was off the top of my head. yeah. so there's more to say along those lines. >> know that. i mean, this was not not a, you know, 7000 people doing this. this was what you sort of caught from your own reporting in the trump administration. i mean, the, the, the facts were probably few and far between. but i think that that's the point, right? like those of us covering this, we come on the air to do our shows. and the point is there's so much. so let's just stick with d.o.j. i mean, i think that if there was a moment where your whole body could relax and you could celebrate someone, it was the 13 year old cancer survivor who would like to be a police officer. it was a genuinely beautiful moment. and the and the moment that probably was

most familiar to the state of the union addresses were both a part of. problem is, in the beauty of that child is the tragedy of the trump presidency, because he's we don't know how he survived pediatric cancer, but it is likely he benefited from some sort of cancer research. and it is a fact that trump has slashed cancer research. it's a fact by eliminating nih and by all the cuts, pediatric cancer trials are halted. and. >> you know. >> god willing, he won't need any more treatment. but if he does, i hope that nih wasn't responsible for anything that let him live this long. he also talked about wanting anyone who murdered a cop to receive the death penalty. but donald trump first action was to pardon all of the january 6th insurrectionists who assaulted and violently beat cops. >> who were convicted of it.

>> correct. so i think there is a shallowness and i think that that i mean, i know you and i know you probably could have gone on for another 30 minutes with the fact check, and it's vital and we have to do it. but i think this was a lesson in finding one thing that that you let yourself feel. and i let myself feel joy about d.o.j. and i hope he's alive for another, you know, 95 years. right? and i hope he lives and the life he wants to live. he wants to be a cop. he knows what he wants to do. and maybe when you have childhood cancer, that crystallizes for you. and i hope he has a long life as a law enforcement officer, but i hope he never has to defend the united states capitol against donald trump's supporters. and if he does, i hope he isn't one of the six who loses his life to suicide. and i hope he isn't one who has to testify against the people who carried out acts of seditious conspiracy and then live to see donald trump. pardon those people. >> lawrence, for about three minutes out from what we're expecting to be the democratic

response from senator elissa slotkin. let me get your initial response to what you just heard. >> well, let's remember. >> it's hard to do this in the. >> trump era that if any. >> previous president had stood up there and. >> said, we need. >> greenland. >> the two. >> people behind him. >> the vice president and the speaker, would. have quickly. conferred and rushed that. >> president to. >> the hospital, ended the speech right. >> there. >> right there with. >> with an overt burst of. >> madness by the president at the microphone. that would have to be an. >> intervention. >> but not now. what's interesting about the lies tonight is one of his favorites, wasn't there? >> and that. >> is after really. >> intense 48 hours of coverage of tariffs. he did. not tell the american people the lie. tonight that foreign countries pay the tariffs. cnbc and other outlets have been really educating the. >> voters intensely, you know, over the last couple. >> of days. >> about who pays the tariffs. we had prime minister trudeau.

say to the american. >> people today. >> your government. >> chose to do this to you. and so the mystery. >> or the question. >> of who pays the tariffs is over. and people and. >> people now know it. he didn't try to get away with that one. and the tariffs. >> was the. >> shortest section. >> of the speech. >> it is the news. >> of the day and. >> the world. and donald trump. >> was afraid. >> to talk about his. >> did tell a lie. >> about it. >> can you indulge me. >> on this one? you got one minute and 10s. >> oh, gosh. >> okay. this has to do with doge doge's report card. elon musk would say, is treasury rates going down? and donald trump tonight said rates went down today. they didn't go down because doge is reducing the deficit. rates went down today because of tariffs. right. because the stock market tanked. right. you know what people do. they rush to buy treasuries. and when you buy treasuries the price goes up and the yield goes down. so yes, doge got their

wish. the doge report card. when ten year treasury yields go down. we're winning. doge didn't reduce the deficit and the stock market lost. fact check. >> all right. we are getting ready to go to michigan, where freshman senator elissa slotkin is set to give the democratic response. now, no matter who you are associated with in politics, how you lean left or right or whatever, you should always say a prayer for the person who is giving the other party's response to the state of the union, because it is a really hard thing to do. elissa slotkin is a very talented democratic politician. she's speaking in michigan tonight from a town that voted for her, but also for trump for president. >> i'm honored to have the opportunity. >> to speak tonight. >> it's late, so i promise to be a lot shorter than what you just watched. i won't take it. personally if you've never heard of me. i'm the new. >> senator from the great state. >> of michigan. >> where i grew up. i've been in public. service my entire life because i happen to be in new york city on nine over 11, when

the twin towers. came down before the smoke. >> cleared. >> i knew i. >> wanted to make a life in national security. i was recruited by the cia and did three. tours in iraq alongside the military. in between, i worked at the white house under president bush and president obama. two very different leaders. >> who both believed that america. >> is exceptional. you can find. >> that same. >> sense of patriotism. here in wyandotte. >> michigan. >> where i'm speaking from tonight. it's a working class town. just south of detroit. president trump and i both. >> won. >> here in november. it might not seem like it, but plenty of places like this still exist across the. united states. places where. people believe that if you. >> work hard. >> and play by the rules. >> you should do. >> well. >> and your kids should do better. >> it reminds me of how i grew up. my dad. >> was. >> a lifelong republican, my mom a lifelong democrat. but it was never. >> a. >> big deal because we. >> had shared values that were bigger. >> than any one party. we just went through. >> another fraught.

>> election season. americans made it clear that prices are too high, and. >> that the. >> government needs to. >> be. >> more responsive to their needs. >> america wants change, but. >> there's. >> a responsible. >> way to make change. >> and a reckless way. >> and we can. make that. >> change without. >> forgetting who we are as a country and as a democracy. so that's what i'm going to lay out tonight, because whether you're from wyandotte. >> or. >> wichita, most americans share three. core beliefs that the middle class is the engine of our country, that strong national security protects us from harm, and that our democracy, no matter how messy, is unparalleled. >> and worth. >> fighting for. let's start with the economy. >> michigan literally invented. >> the middle class, the. revolutionary idea that you could. >> work at. >> an. auto plant. >> at. >> a ford, the car. you were building. that's the american dream. and in order to expand and protect the middle class, we have to. >> do a few. >> basic things. we need to bring down the price of things. we spend the most money on

groceries, housing, health care. we need to make more things in america with good paying union jobs and bring our supply chains back home from places like china. we need to give american businesses the certainty they need to invest and. create the jobs. >> of the future. >> and we need a tax system that's. >> fair for. >> people who don't. >> happen to make $1 billion. look, the president talked a big game on the economy, but it's always important to read the fine print. so do his plans actually help americans get ahead? not even close. president trump is trying. >> to. >> deliver an unprecedented giveaway to his billionaire friends. he's on the hunt to find trillions of dollars to pass along to the wealthiest in america. and to do that, he's going to make you pay in every part of your life. grocery and home. >> prices are going. >> up, not down. and he hasn't laid out a. credible plan to deal. >> with either of those. >> his tariffs on allies like. canada will. raise prices on

energy, lumber and cars and start a trade. >> war that will hurt. >> manufacturing and farmers. your premiums and prescriptions will cost more because the math on his proposals. doesn't work without going. after your health care. meanwhile, for those keeping score, the national debt is going up, not down. and if he's not careful, he could walk us right into a recession. and one more thing. in order to pay for his plan, he could very well come after your retirement. the social security, medicare. and va benefits you worked your whole life to earn. the president claims he won't, but elon musk just called social security the biggest ponzi scheme of all time. while we're on the subject of elon musk, is there anyone in america who is comfortable with him and his gang of 20 year olds using their own computer servers to poke through your tax returns, your health information, and your bank accounts? no oversight, no protections against cyber attack, no guardrails on what

they do. >> with your private data. >> we need. >> a more efficient government. >> you want to cut waste? i'll help you do it. but change doesn't need to be chaotic or make us less safe. the mindless firing of people who work to protect. >> our nuclear. >> weapons, keep our planes from crashing, and. conduct the. >> research that finds the cure. >> for cancer. only to. >> rehire them two days later. >> no ceo in america. >> could do that without being summarily fired. >> okay, so we've talked about economic security. how about national security? let's start with the border. as someone who spent my whole. career protecting our homeland, every country deserves. >> to. know who. >> and what is coming across its border, period. democrats and republicans should all be for that. but securing the border without actually fixing our broken immigration system is dealing with the symptom and not the disease. america is a nation of immigrants. we need a functional system keyed to the needs of our economy that allows

vetted people to come and work here legally. so i look forward to the president's plan on that, because here's the thing today's world is deeply interconnected migration, cyber threats, ai, environmental destruction, terrorism. nation cannot face these issues alone. we need friends in all. corners and our safety depends on it. president trump loves to say peace through strength. that's actually a line he stole from ronald reagan. but let me tell you, after the spectacle that just took place in the oval office. >> last. >> week, reagan must. >> be rolling. >> in his grave. we all want an end to the. >> war in ukraine. but reagan. >> understood that true strength required. >> america to combine our military and economic. >> might with. moral clarity. and that scene in the oval office wasn't just a bad episode of reality tv. it summed up trump's. >> whole approach to. >> the. >> world. he believes. >> in cozying up to dictators. >> like vladimir. >> putin and kicking our friends

like the canadians in the teeth. he sees american. >> leadership as merely a series of real. >> estate transactions. as a cold war kid, i'm thankful. >> it was reagan and not trump. >> in office in the 1980s, trump would have. >> lost us. the cold war. >> donald trump's actions suggest that in his heart, he doesn't believe we're. >> an exceptional nation. he clearly doesn't think we should lead. the world. >> look, america. >> is. >> not perfect, but. >> i stand with the majority of americans. >> who believe. >> we are still. >> exceptional, unparalleled, and i would rather have american leadership. >> over chinese or russian leadership any day of. the week. >> because for generations, america has offered something better our. security and our prosperity. yes. >> but our. >> democracy. >> our very system. >> of government, has been the aspiration of the world. and right now it's at risk. it's at risk when the president. >> decides you can pick and choose what rules you want to follow. when he ignores court orders and the constitution.

>> itself. >> or when. elected leaders stand by. >> and just let it happen. but it's. >> also at risk when the president pits americans. >> against each other, when he. >> demonizes those who. >> are different and tells certain people they shouldn't be included. because america is. not just a patch of land. >> between two oceans. we are more than that. >> generations have. >> fought and died to secure the fundamental. >> rights that define us. those rights and the. >> fight for them make us who we are. >> we're a nation of. >> strivers, risk takers, innovators, and we are never satisfied. that is america's superpower. >> and look, i've. >> lived and worked in many countries. >> i've seen democracies flicker out. >> i've seen what. life is like when a government is rigged. you can't open a business without paying off a corrupt official. you can't criticize the guys in charge. >> without getting a knock. >> at the door in the middle of the night. so as much as we. >> need to make. >> our government more

responsive to our lives. >> today, i. >> don't for one moment fool yourself that democracy isn't precious and worth saving. but how do we actually do that? >> i know a lot. >> of you have been asking that question. first, don't tune out. >> it's easy to be exhausted, but america. >> needs you now more than ever. if previous generations had not fought for this democracy, where would we be today? second, hold your elected officials, including. >> me, accountable. >> watch how they're voting. go to town halls and demand they take action. that's as american as apple pie. third, organize. pick just one issue you're passionate about. >> and engage. >> and doomscrolling doesn't count. >> join a. >> group that cares about your issue and act. and if you can't find one, start one. >> some of the. >> most important movements in our history have. >> come. >> from the bottom up. >> in closing, we. >> all know. that our. country is going through something. >> right now. >> we're not sure what.

>> the next. >> day is going to hold, let alone the next decade. >> but this. >> isn't the first time we've experienced significant and tumultuous change as a country. i'm a student of history, and we've gone through periods of political instability before, and ultimately we've chosen to keep changing this country for the better. but every single time, we've only gotten through those moments because of two things engaged citizens and principled leaders, engaged citizens who do a little bit more than they're used to doing to fight for the things that they care about, and principled leaders who are ready to receive the ball and do something about it. so thank you tonight for caring about your country just by watching you qualify as engaged citizens. and i promise that i, and my fellow democrats will do everything in our power to be the principal leaders that you deserve. good night everyone. >> elissa slotkin, the freshman senator from michigan, with the democratic response tonight.

responses from the opposite party on the night of state of the union addresses are very difficult. that was one of the better ones that i have seen. look, she said, as a former cia officer, i've lived and worked in many countries. i've seen democracies flicker out. i've seen what life is like when a government is rigged. you can't open a business without paying off a corrupt official. you can't criticize the guy in charge without getting a knock on the door in the middle of the night. so as much as we need to make our government more responsive to our lives today, don't for one moment fool yourself that democracy isn't precious and worth saving. and then she ticks through a three part list of things people watching right now should do in order to stand up for their country very, very effectively communicated speech. i thought, jen. >> yeah, look, it's the worst assignment in politics. i think you avoid the call and then you always have to say yes, that's sort of what it is when you're doing that speech. that was about as good as it gets. i think in this moment i wrote down a couple of other things she said that i think could be good lines for democrats. i mean, americans made it clear

prices are too high. that stuck out to me. and i wrote it down because that was something nobody wanted to admit leading up to the november election. and it was like not acknowledging what people were experiencing. and that's a lesson coming out of november. do his plans actually help people get ahead? that is pretty direct and straightforward. that's a good framing way to look at the question. i also think it's just to say something about elissa slotkin. there's often this question of do do democrats need to find a celebrity, somebody who is outside of politics, somebody who has 6 million tiktok followers? she's a mom from michigan. i doubt she's on tiktok. she's just a pretty normal person who happens to be really smart and got elected to the senate. that's the kind of messaging that i think works. the other thing i would just say about the speech, because i think it flows into what she had to say, is, i think the speech i think democrats need to look at the speech. the volume is the point, as nicole was saying, right. volume and chaos and figuring out the whack a mole is the point. if i am them, i am looking at the social security sections of that speech.

>> trump's speech. >> as of the trump speech. sorry to go back to the trump speech, and i am figuring out how to put that. that's not really a time for television ads, but put that out, respond on that, focus on the thing. you can oppose everything, he said. but you have to pick something. a thousand flowers cannot bloom, and the social security piece, especially given the former social security administrator, said this week that that program, they may not be able to make payments. they may not may not make payments in the next 30 to 90 days. that's what he said. martin o'malley. so there's a lot of backdrop here if i'm them that i pick. but i feel like overall tonight it's an opportunity for democrats to try out some material and see what works on the economy. >> yeah. michael, what did you think? >> it's always time for television. ads. if i if i'm the opposite party, there's so much of trump's speech that i would be canning for commercials that run tomorrow. i'd have my guys and gals working right now on the social security speech piece. on the ukraine piece, there's just nuggets you pull

out because the. the trip is the narrative. and i want you to trip over my narrative because we've been tripping over yours. right. it's because you've been laying out as president. you've been saying all this stuff tonight. we heard the president. i just wrote this down. this was a tale of american empire, because at the end of the day, he wants to run it all. he wants to rule it all. he wants to control it all. so it's a tale of american empire. what slotkin did was beautiful because it was a tale of a working american family community and not getting lost in empire, but actually doing what we've always done from the very beginning. and that's creating with our hands and our minds and engaging the country. so those two narratives, you stand them up. i can tell you, sitting in this chair tonight, who would win that argument? >> are you telling me we're not going to get greenland one way or another? >> i'm sorry. >> you're telling. >> me as much as we want to

deliver it to you right here, are you. >> not going. >> to mention drill, baby? drill the. line that you. >> you are. >> you saddled us as a people. >> with. >> that national energy emergency that we're not in. >> yeah. >> well, i. >> shrinking shrinking in my chair on that one. but, you know, again even the use of drill baby drill misses the mark. we are past that because we are leading already from what we're drilling. we are leading in production in the world. so, you know, we did it all right. but the fact that you're still talking about it tells me, at least you don't know what we've done. >> yeah. chris, just. >> this point about the sort of the problem of focus, which has been the problem that everyone's dealing with. we're all dealing with it every day. the democrats, that social security, i mean, what a tale that was. he's talking about social security in identical terms to the way he talked about voting in the run up to january 6th. it's the exact same. >> story, it's exact quote we're going to we're also identifying

shocking levels of incompetence and probable fraud in the social security program for our seniors, and that our seniors and people that we love rely on. believe it or not, believe it or not, government databases list 4.7 million social security. and then he starts going into this list of all 50. and it's like the dead voters in pennsylvania. it sounds exactly like the same. >> dead voters in pennsylvania. it's the same thing. >> yes. >> and the logic applies in the same way. what did that lead up to him. >> doing come. >> january 6th? right. and it was it was laying the groundwork for an assault on the institutions of democracy. he's not spending 4 or 5 minutes of a speech listing in a pretty painful way all of this supposed fraud, which is obviously nonsense, to not do anything with it. yeah, they're coming for it. he was telling you the two big takeaways. the headlines were trade war coming, social security. they're coming, they are coming, they are coming, they are coming. like yelling out, omar's coming, they are

coming. >> two big lists. i mean, whenever you're giving a speech, right? i'm terrible at giving speeches. but the one thing that i know about giving a speech is don't have a list of numbers. >> oh my god. >> like, it's really hard. it's really painful to do. >> i was. >> mad at. >> his staff on his behalf for him, putting him in that situation. >> because you're just reading numbers, and it sounded great when you saw them on the page, but nobody else can see them. >> is for point. >> and so he's reading all these numbers, but he did it twice. yeah, he did it on social security, exactly as you were saying. and the other place he did it was on usaid talking about what he has already illegally stopped altogether. >> right. so it's like exactly. so why is. >> he listing it? why is he listing it? he's listing it the same way that he listed it for usaid to justify getting rid of it. they are justifying getting rid of social security by calling it a criminal enterprise. >> but the usaid list. >> was perfect. >> for his culture warriors because he picked program after program that he deems, and he didn't call it woke. they're woke. he found he found programs that he thought had extreme

titles in foreign countries and saying, we're cutting them. yeah, but. >> even if. >> they cut them legally or illegally, that's not enough money to balance the budget. just like if elon musk. >> less than one half of 1%. >> of the. >> budget federal worker, that's 3 million workers, the same number of workers we had in the federal government in 1980. so when he says we ballooned the government, not when it comes to our federal workers. that's 5% of our budget. again, chump change. >> i'd just like to say, i think the old testament has something to say about whether circumcision is woke. i just want to say, for the. >> record, like. >> this idea of like, well, how ridiculous. >> is this? well, that's. >> actually, i think, >> pretty. >> i got. >> a. >> long tradition. >> there wasn't circumcision. it was circumcision in burma. that was his issue. >> the, the, the issue. i mean, if you're going to talk about like, being mad at his staff, like, i don't know if we're allowed to do that, but like to let him get to that part of the speech without telling him how to pronounce uganda. >> yeah. >> you know what i mean. like he's speaking into a microphone. they know what's coming. they know he doesn't know how to say

the word. and then he gets up there and he's, like, sounding his way through it like he's hooked on phonics. i mean, he's the president of the united states, and it's just humiliating to him. if he was capable of it. >> people will think, cut. >> that program. >> it's so much money. it's not. it's chump change. and if he really wanted to go after the deficit, it's social security, medicare, medicaid, which he's potentially cutting. >> the other thing here is just generally like in terms of the focus of the speech, one of the things that's emerging in early polling here, just as a sort of barometer, is that people he won this election because people were frustrated with the economy. it's like that is where the marginal voter was. this was a very culture war speech. this was a very desantis speech. desantis, like, lost that primary for a reason. there's a reason he's the governor of florida, and not like he doesn't have higher office. and what people want is like, what are you doing about the economy? and that was relatively limited. there was a lot of the culture. >> war. explicitly blaming joe biden for the price of eggs is probably not going to cut it for

that much longer. joining us now is one of the democrats who actually walked out of the speech tonight, florida democratic congressman maxwell frost. we saw him leave the house chamber. he took off his jacket. you could see the t shirt he was wearing over his dress shirt. it says, no kings live here. congressman frost, really appreciate you making time to be with us tonight. thank you. >> of course. thanks for having me on. >> tell us about the decision to wear that shirt and to walk out at the moment. you did. >> i think it's. >> important for people to see that their leaders understand that this is not a. >> normal moment. we're in the middle. of a billionaire administrative. >> takeover and coup of our. >> country. >> where they want to cut medicaid, cut. >> social security. >> cut medicare, cut all the things that we fought for. and earned in. >> order to. >> give tax breaks to billionaires and corporations. >> it's not a new. >> story for this country, but it is the most overt i think, it's ever been. and so i, in. >> the spirit of. >> being a member of congressional black caucus, but also coming from organizing,

decided to do. >> a walkout. >> with a group of. >> members wearing a. >> message that not only, you know, the press could see, but that the president could see. he calls himself a king. but we're a country of no kings, especially when these kings want to do nothing for the people and take all the money and give it to themselves. that's exactly what donald trump wants to do. >> well, let me let me ask about that. the specificity of the message there. i mean, one of the issues that i think the country is sort of having a hard time calibrating, like getting a sense of like how how big is this? how different is this from previous political confrontations we've had between people with different ideas about the way the government should run or what should we should be doing with our money? i think one of the things that people just can't grasp is that the king idea, right? the king idea is not just the unitary presidency, right? it's not just about consolidating power over the executive branch. the idea of a king, which is what you had on your back of your shirt, is that you've got a unitary power, that the congress is decorative or beside the point, or could be

abolished, and nothing would happen that the courts are decorative. the courts are there to essentially ratify what the ruler wants to do, and that the rule of law is really just the rule of the ruler. and the law can be dressed up to occasion, whatever it is he wants. is that the scale of threat to this country that you think we are literally up against, or is this a hyperbolic charge? >> it's not hyperbolic at all, and this shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. it is all in project 2025. donald trump is the president, but he is also the speaker of the house. effectively, he has an entire republican congress that is allowing him to do whatever he wants. none of them utter a peep against what he's saying unless they're town halls are stormed and either they're running out or they say, maybe i disapprove a little bit, but donald trump has complete control over the republicans in congress. and so what the founders set out to do is have a congress and have a presidency that were co-equal branches of government checks on one another, checks and

balances. but we don't have that right now. we have one person who runs. >> the. >> congress because he runs the entire majority. >> one of the things that we saw in the democratic response from senator slotkin was interesting choice. i'm not sure i've ever seen anything like this before. and you talk about your organizing background. she sort of raised the alarm a little bit along the lines that you were talking about tonight and then said, as a cia officer, which is her past, that she's seen democracies flicker out in other parts of the world. and then she gave americans a list of things they can do to try to hold on to our democracy, talking about contacting their member of congress, joining groups that are working to try to hold on to our democracy, she said pointedly. if there isn't a group that you feel like is in your area or among people who you know is doing the work that you think ought to be ought to be done, you need to found that group. you need to start that yourself. very pointed organizing message from a member of congress who is not thought of as a real radical. i wonder if that if i get your reaction

to that, and if you had anything to add in terms of what you think people within the sound of your voice ought to be doing right now, given the dire prospects that you see for the country. >> i had a town hall. >> about a week and a half ago when we put out the link, within four hours of one email, we had over 600 rsvp. and at this standing room only town hall, there was the message was clear from everybody, two things they wanted to learn about how serious and dire the situation is, and two, they want it to be put to work. and as someone who comes from organizing background, march for our lives and other organizations, it is a gold mine. when the people contact you and say, what can i do? you know, i, i come from, you know, i come from going to people and knocking on their doors and begging them to volunteer, begging them to get involved. and now the people are saying, put us to work. we want to fight for our democracy, for our country, for medicare, for medicaid, for programs that help and that working people have earned. and so i think it is important to make sure people

know that the united states, our democracy can break. we can lose it if we don't defend it. and fascism and authoritarians, they gain power when there is no opposition. that's part of the reason i've told people you have to make the decision. are we the minority or are we the opposition? because i do believe in authoritarian can take hold when it's just a minority. but when there's a strong opposition, we can fight it back and we can come back stronger than ever. and so i agree with giving people something to do. but first off, you got to explain to people how serious the situation is. >> congressman maxwell frost, one of a number of democrats who did not make it through the speech tonight, left in the middle of the president's remarks. congressman, i really appreciate you joining us tonight and being with us. it's always a pleasure to have you. >> thanks for having me on. >> all right. i should mention i gave you a list a little bit earlier on about the democrats who we know did walk out during the speech, other than the initial confrontation that

happened basically, right, as president trump started speaking and that was congressman al green, and they sort of performatively summoned the sergeant at arms to escort him out. very dramatic moment there. a number of other democrats walked out during the speech. they included maxwell frost, who we just spoke with. also, ayanna pressley, jasmine crockett, maxine dexter from maryland, andrea salinas from oregon, ilhan omar, pramila jayapal, excuse me, melanie stansbury from new mexico, jamie raskin from maryland, who we spoke with earlier this evening, zoe lofgren from california, who is a member of the january 6th investigation. also, at least two democratic u.s. senators left the room, senator chris van hollen and senator bernie sanders. one of the things that we have all been most looking forward to hearing tonight and checking in on is the reaction to the president's speech tonight from the four fired federal workers, four very impressive people who jacob soboroff is with tonight in

washington. he watched the speech with them. we told him that we'd come back to him after the speech and after the democratic response, to get the reaction of those four federal workers to what they heard tonight. really looking forward to hearing this. we're going to have that right on the other side of this break. stay with side of this break. stay with us. ♪(voya)♪ there are some things that work better together. like your workplace benefits and retirement savings. presentation looks great. thanks! thanks! voya provides tools that help you make the right investment and benefit choices so you can reach today's financial goals. that one! and look forward, to a more confident future. that is one dynamic duo. voya, well planned, well invested, well protected.

>> i told you i don't need these anymore, i have sling. >> okay. >> morning. >> i only left sling. deliver the news. i need to stay informed. thank you very much. nice one. >> nope. sling gives us all the news we want in a quick. >> and. >> reliable manner. >> and at a wonderful price. >> this critical time. >> calls for the critical. >> news coverage. >> that sling provides. >> that sling provides. >> okay, see you tomorrow. -what've you got there, larry? -time machine. you gonna go back and see how the pyramids were built or something? nope. ellen and i want to go on vacation, so i'm going to go back to last week and buy a winning lottery ticket. -can i come? -only room for one. how am i getting home? sittin' on my lap like last time, ronald. fine, but i'm bringing this. [ whirring ] alright. or...you could try one of these savings options. the right money moves aren't as far-fetched as you think. there it is. see? told you it was going to all work out. thanks, future me. technology.

>> and innovation. >> are a. >> part of everything we do. from helping us attract. >> new customers. >> to facilitating deliveries. >> through websites and apps. >> i'm really excited about what artificial intelligence can do for small businesses like ours. this game changing technology can make us smarter and more efficient. advancing open source ai will make our economy and. >> main street stronger. our leaders. >> in washington. >> need to protect our competitive edge. >> sadly. >> windshield chips. >> can turn into windshield cracks. >> but at. >> least you can. >> go to safelite and schedule a. >> fix in minutes. sweet safelite. >> can come to you. >> for free, and our highly trained techs can. >> replace your. >> windshield right at your home. >> they flight safe. >> flight don't wait. go to safe >> flight don't wait. go to safe when our numbers guy, frank, goes on vacation the deals on the most affordable german-engineered car brand in america

get even better. he's coming back! hop in during volkswagen deal days. the deals are in while frank is out.

invisible on the skin. it works like a dream. why didn't someone think of this sooner? >> tariffs are about making america rich again and making america great again. and it's happening. and it will happen rather quickly. there will be a little disturbance but we're okay with that. it won't be much. no, you're not all. and look. and look where biden took us. very low. the lowest we've ever been. >> his tariffs on allies like canada will raise prices on energy, lumber and cars and start a trade war that will hurt

manufacturing and farmers. your premiums and prescriptions will cost more because the math on his proposals doesn't work without going after your health care. meanwhile, for those keeping score, the national debt is going up, not down. and if he's not careful, he could walk us right into a recession. >> welcome back to our msnbc special coverage of the president's speech to congress tonight, the sort of not state of the union and the democratic response from senator elissa slotkin. over to you. >> let's check back in with our. own jacob soboroff, who has been speaking with four fired federal workers in washington, d.c. jacob, i'm guessing tonight those workers had a different experience watching the president than they have in previous speeches. >> yeah, they sure did. steph. and i have to say, it was really an extraordinary experience to spend time with these four really remarkable individuals. for people that weren't watching earlier in the broadcast, i want to reintroduce them to you all very briefly, starting here in the lower right hand part of

your screen. it's acuna, who was fired from the u.s. digital service, which was the precursor to doge. >> to her. >> left is. alex taylor, who was fired from the u.s. geological survey. behind alex is. jesus murillo, fired from hud, and. >> katherine steele. >> was fired from the u.s. forest service. i want to ask a broad question first. it might sound cheeky, but i really do mean it. sincerely. does anybody feel like they understand better why they were fired after watching the speech tonight? nobody. no. okay. jesus, let me start with you here. you. i said before you were a presidential management fellow. this is a very elite program within the federal government to bring in the best and the brightest. the entire program has been terminated after 48 years under democratic and republican presidents. when president trump said about the federal. >> bureaucracy. >> my administration will reclaim. >> power from. >> this unaccountable bureaucracy. it bugged you in a particular way. how come? >> well. >> i think. for myself. >> being a presidential management fellow, this is a 100%, you know, merit based program. people coming in are.

>> you know, taking jobs that have lesser pay. >> they want to serve the american public and for you to, you know, blanket statements saying the entire bureaucracy is untamed and, you know, doesn't have any tethering to anything. i mean. >> look at us. we're everyday. >> average americans that just want to serve the american public, and we're not allowed to do that. >> and you said a large portion of your time was actually responding to congressional inquiries about whether or not the money was being spent appropriately in the case of the housing and urban development department? >> absolutely. we were responding to over 4000 inquiries. and keep in mind, these are people we're working with, with congressional staffers saying, hey, how can we support you? hey, how can we offer assistance to make sure your grantees, the people on the ground, are getting the funding that they need? >> and just to reiterate, so what you're saying is the trump administration canceled the presidential management fellows program. he talked about dei, but this was a merit based program. >> when we're in the application process, we're not allowed to give any identifying information. it is 100% merit based. all right, catherine. >> let's. >> talk about the. >> u.s. forest service. correct me if i'm wrong, but the only

time we heard anything about public lands was when president trump renamed a national wildlife refuge in texas to honor the victim of a killing by an undocumented immigrant. we didn't hear anything about federal lands otherwise, did we? >> no. despite the fact. >> that over. >> 350 protests and rallies took place at national parks and national forest offices this past saturday, and thousands of people attended to speak out for our public lands and for the people who serve them. i'm shocked that nothing came of that. and in addition, an executive order was signed that same day on saturday that opened up our public lands to unsustainable timber harvesting. >> i don't think it's an exaggeration to say that it didn't seem like wild lands. the land management agencies were even on the radar of the president in the speech at all. >> no, i would absolutely agree with that. >> let's talk about you were at the us digital service, the precursor to doge, but one of

your main focuses was on making the immigration system, including the enforcement system, more efficient. and the president touted all these accomplishments that he said were accomplishments about immigration, but deportations, closing the border. the part that i watched you react to most strongly was when he said, the media and our friends in the democrat party keep saying we need new legislation, we must have legislation to secure the border. but it turned out that all we really needed was a new president. what bugged you so much about that? >> i think the demonization of immigrants in the speech today was as disappointing as it was frightening. and the thing that bothered me is it's a multifaceted approach that we need to attack the immigration problem. and it's been an issue over multiple presidents. >> which you yourself have been working on in terms of efficiency. >> definitely part. >> of it. >> are legislative fixes, but the other part are really process and tech improvements. and by getting rid of the subject matter experts that do this work for decades and the people who have the tech capabilities, and then more

importantly, the trust that you build between agencies to actually align and prioritize this work is really, really difficult to see. you can gut something in five minutes, but to get the apparatus back up and running, that might take five years. so it was really disappointing to see some of those comments. >> for a very brief moment. and rachel referenced this earlier. you worked for doge because the us digital service became doge. and when the president said that he has saved, i want to make sure i get this right. hundreds of billions of dollars. your reaction was you just you shook your head. >> yeah. >> i think as we've seen before, a lot of those savings that they have touted have been slowly removed as people see some of that discrepancy in the numbers. and i think it's really important for people to go back, keep checking the website and hold those accountable for the things that they are and aren't doing. >> all right. and let's go to alex taylor, who's our geologist again in the group. we heard president trump talk about something. you work worked excuse me directly on which was

critical earth minerals. he said that he was, quote, expanding critical minerals and rare earths. but he fired you. that's what you were working on? >> yeah, i, i supported. >> active research projects on. >> identifying sources of critical. minerals in the us domestically. it bothers me that he's more interested in engaging in neocolonialism to get minerals from other countries, rather than supporting the scientists and the researchers who. are aiding the minerals industry here in america. >> you're talking about greenland. >> and ukraine. >> you also were particularly seemed annoyed by the statement that he made about thousands of federal workers not showing up to the office, because the work that you do and your colleagues do at the u.s. geological survey is not done in the office. it's largely done in the field. >> for many people. >> yes. >> the usgs. >> is the most prestigious earth. >> science research institution in the world, and we've been at the office this whole time. we do work in. >> laboratories at. >> the office, but lots of people are in the field every

day. we monitor the nation's waterways. we monitor earthquakes, volcanoes and other hazards. >> we study ecosystems. >> so our office is our nation's lands. >> it's it really is a profound honor to have spent this time with you guys. and again, i just want to say, for me personally and on behalf, on behalf of, i'm sure, many people that are watching, really sorry about the situation that you guys are in and really wishing you guys all the best. thank you guys very much. steph, back over to you. >> jacob, thank you so much. what an impressive group of people. and just juxtapose that with the way both the president and elon musk talk in such derogatory terms about just the general federal government workforce. >> also, just like what just what an impressive group of people, right? i mean, from any all the different places that i've ever worked in my life, like having a group of four colleagues that was that impressive and credentialed and articulate. >> it would be. >> it would be, it would be. >> almost like working here.

>> can i. >> just. >> point out all. >> four of those people. >> with their expertise. >> could make more money in the private sector and have chosen not to? >> yeah. well, they and they've just been insulted and told that their low productivity. it's just it's insane. >> i mean, i live in the dc area. everybody thinks that every federal worker is in the dc area. 80% of federal workers are outside of the dc area. and this is, i think, something people in the country are learning that these are your postal workers. these are the people who are working at fbi offices who are keeping your community safe. they're the faa workers who are making sure you can fly safely on the airlines. they're people who are working at the va. it is not a bunch of i love government bureaucrats, but it's not a bunch of government bureaucrats. it is a bunch of people working in communities. and i think people are hopefully learning that. but that's an important part of this to understand. >> i should mention that joining us now is msnbc senior contributing editor and the founding director of the race card project, michelle norris. michelle, i just got to get your reaction to both what you've seen tonight in terms of these speeches, but also what you've

been hearing in terms of your reporting. >> well, just what you were saying about the workers. you know, when you see elon musk with that big blinged out red chainsaw, you know, it's not just that they are firing people, that they're doing it in such an ignominious manner. they're doing it with glee. yeah. you know, and it just it is just wrong in the way that they're doing this. i was struck by a couple of things. i do believe that we're going to see them go after social security. you know, they asked the bank robber, why did you go to the bank? well, because that's where the money is. yeah. and in order for them to get to these numbers, they're probably going to look at social security. and that's an opportunity for the democrats to message to people. and you know, is your mom okay? is your family okay? i spent a good time texting with people who work with farmers because i decided to focus on one thing. they work with farmers in minnesota, illinois and iowa, and they were very upset, you know, by this and the tariffs, the farmers are going to get hit very hard in this. they got hit last time in the trade war with china. they barely recovered

last time. we're talking about big numbers hundreds of millions of dollars. some of the people who were involved in direct to consumer farming, organic farming will probably do okay, but commodity farmers are going to get hit really hard. the usaid program, they grow sorghum, they grow barley, they grow wheat, they grow. and that's those secondary markets are very important to them. and not just through the food for peace program, but also just selling. you know, a third of the corn grown in illinois goes to mexico. and mexico will likely look for other sources. they'll look to south america. pork and soybean go to china. so this is going to have a direct impact. and what i'm hearing from people is a level of disrespect. you know, you said it on truth social. he said it tonight. this is going to be great for the farmers. go and have fun. first of all farmers. >> have fun. he literally. if you've. >> ever spent any time on a farm, there are great pride in what they do. but it's not fun. and i just want to say one thing about the pride, because that's one of the things that i know in the time that i have personally

spent on farms, for the farmers who are involved in the usaid program, it is a source of income for them, but it is also a source of pride and dignity. when you travel throughout the midwest in places like kansas and illinois, you've seen this. when you've been out on the campaign trail, they will have signs on the side of the farms that say, we feed the world. that is how they see themselves. and he does not understand that. he doesn't respect that aspect of their work. and i don't think and one of the things i heard today from from someone i was talking to in minnesota, said that they don't think that he respects them as entrepreneurs, as businessmen. and that's essentially what farmers are. they're businessmen, and he's messing with their money. >> so his uniquely trumpian stupidity. >> about farming, because. he knows the. >> farmers are going. >> to suffer very quickly. >> on retaliatory tariffs. >> he said to them, you. >> can just sell your products. >> in the united states. >> no competition. >> all of donald trump's. >> lifetime and before the. united states of america has produced. >> more food than. >> it can eat. >> if we eat. all day, we

cannot. >> eat. >> that food. and the farmer knows the grain farmers, especially commodity farmers. >> as you put it. >> know that they need those foreign markets. which donald trump is now cutting off to them. and that buffoon of a president thinks they can just sell it. to us. >> i literally. laughed at that. >> tomatoes and avocados. you know, in. >> minnesota, right? i laughed that line because i was like, buddy, do. >> you know how much soy you're talking about? he does. he does. >> so much soy. >> he has no idea. >> there's also i mean, it's the usaid cuts. it's the tariffs. in between are the programs like the usda programs that have been cut, these supposedly wasteful government programs and contracts that elon musk and his team of interns are cutting. in new england, where i live most of the time. i mean, what we're seeing is small to medium scale farmers who have done projects that they signed up with usda to do that are improvement projects for their land and for farming techniques that are something

the u.s. government wants to invest in in order to make the most out of our farming capability and our ag capability. and they've done those things, whether it's fencing or soil amendments or something with their dairy herds, they've they've done these things. they are out. these are small farmers, you know, family farms that are out tens of thousands of dollars or in some cases six figures. and that money has been cut off. they've they've spent it. and because they were told they'd be reimbursed and now they're not. and these places are not going to make it to june. they're not going to make it to a harvest season. with the way that this stuff has been done. and there is no fixing it. there isn't undoing these these programmatic savings, which they did with their, you know, blinged out chinese chainsaw with all the glee and the and all of the, the insult along with the injury. >> you know, conspicuously missing from the trump's speech tonight was the promise not to touch social security, medicare or medicaid. >> he has done that in

interviews whenever challenged. >> he's a really good point. >> very specifically didn't. >> do. >> it tonight. and the last. >> person to give that speech, which was joe biden, a year ago. >> in what was. >> the last state of. >> the union address i've ever seen, especially because. >> of the quick ad libs. those ad libs were about that subject. the republicans in the audience got very upset when joe biden said they wanted to cut social. >> security, medicare and medicaid. that's when they started. >> yelling at him, and that's when he. >> made them. >> promise right there. >> live in the room. >> that they. >> wouldn't do it. he made. >> the deal with them not to do it. that didn't. >> come up. and what donald trump probably doesn't know about. >> social security. >> is the only way you. >> can. >> cut social security. there's only one way. you have to take money away from recipients. there is no other use of social security money. >> medicare. >> you can cut hospital reimbursement rates. medicaid, you can cut hospital reimbursement rates. >> social security. >> it's money you take away from individuals. >> well, the last two hour speech given by a president

about social security was elon musk four days ago to joe rogan when he called it a ponzi scheme. >> you know, one thing i will say, if you're watching this right now, you would be well advised to go to the social security site and print out your earnings. >> because everybody has their own essentially account at social security. you can access it through the website. >> and how. >> long is that website going to last? >> well, that's why i say do it now. >> our special coverage of this big night continues in just a moment. do stay with us here on msnbc. >> you know. no, no, that. >> is. >> against the. >> hoa bylaws. >> bylaws, bylaws. we're showing we're consumer cellular gets great coverage. >> you're making everything orange. >> i know right. >> we use. >> the same towers as big. >> wireless. >> so. you get. >> the same coverage. difference is our plan starts at just $20. >> no. >> that. >> can't be true. >> but it is. >> wow. >> i hope you're using primer. >> do we use.

>> a primer for unlimited. >> a primer for unlimited. >> talk and text with. rel ♪(voya)♪ there are some things that work better together. like your workplace benefits and retirement savings. voya helps you choose the right amounts without over or under investing. across all your benefits and savings options. so you can feel confident in your financial choices. they really know how to put two and two together. voya, well planned, well invested, well protected. well, i'm a local company in chattanooga, tennessee that gets to save lives all around the world through tiktok. i didn't have the millions of dollars to put towards marketing, and that was the hardest thing. when i posted on tiktok that went from maybe a few hundred people knowing about my product to millions. (♪♪) we were able to make over $300,000 in less than two days. it saved my business and it saved lives. path. it's the.

>> freedom to choose it. >> the freedom is the roar of. >> one man's. engine and the silence of another's. >> so choose, but choose wisely. >> choose what makes. >> you happy. my friends, my family, my work make me happy. this jeep makes me happy even this jeep makes me happy even when my name is born. since starting the farmer's dog, bogart has lost so much weight. and he has so much more energy. he's like a puppy again. ♪ (banjo playing) ♪ c,mon bo! this is a before picture of bogart. such a big boy. pre-portioned packs makes it really easy to keep him lean and healthy. and look at him now. he's like a show dog. [silence] bogue, can you give daddy a break here?

he's having a hard enough time. (vo) with usps ground advantage, it's like you're with us every step of the way.here? ♪ (man) right on time! (vo) stay in the know. from your dock... to their door. ♪♪ with fastsigns, create factory grade visual solutions to perfect your process. ♪♪ fastsigns. make your statement™. you think those phone guys will ever figure out how to keep 5g home internet from slowing down ♪♪ during peak hours? their customers have to share a wireless signal with everyone in their area. oooh. you know, it's kinda like when you bring a really big cake for your birthday, and then there's only a little, tiny sliver left for the birthday girl. aw. well, wish her a happy birthday. happy birthday... -it's... ...to her. -no, it's me. have your cake and eat it, too. don't settle for t-mobile or verizon 5g home internet. get super fast xfinity internet you don't have to share. forty's going to be my year.