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The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell - Season 2025 Episode 194
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00:00Well, it's day three of the government shutdown and the stalemate shows no sign of breaking.
00:04Mike Johnson says the House will not return to session at all next week.
00:09John Thune adjourned the Senate for the weekend after failing to pass a government funding bill
00:13for the fourth time. And Donald Trump seems to be missing in action. Donald Trump, who has not
00:19been seen in public since Tuesday, the day you will recall of his bizarre and unnerving speech
00:26to military leaders, might just be in what House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries calls
00:31the presidential witness protection program. Throughout this week, Donald Trump has been
00:38missing in action. He remains in the presidential witness protection program. House Republicans
00:46are on vacation all across the country and the world, and Senate Republicans continue to vote
00:56on the same partisan Republican spending bill that's dead on arrival because it guts the
01:06health care of the American people.
01:09Now, it's not just Democrats blaming Donald Trump and Republicans. Donald Trump's dictator
01:14schtick, his I alone can fix it act, has one problem. He said that he alone would fix it.
01:23And that's why Trump is polling in the worst, the worst in the shutdown fight. 47% blame Trump and
01:31Republicans for the shutdown. 30% believe Democrats are to blame. Today, Trump chickened out again,
01:39caving on his plan to cut $187 million from New York's counterterrorism programs, posting on social
01:46media, quote, I am pleased to advise that I reversed the cuts made to homeland security and counterterrorism
01:52for New York City and state. It was my honor to do so. Thank you for your attention to this matter,
02:00President DJT. He failed to mention the cuts he made. The New York Times reports the frantic efforts
02:08to undo the rolling cuts made to homeland security grant programs with the last $100 million slashed
02:15over the weekend underscored the chaos unfolding as the Trump administration moves to punish political
02:20adversaries by stopping the flow of billions of dollars in federal funds that had already been
02:25allocated nationwide. Trump is using the shutdown to go after his perceived enemies in blue states like
02:31New York, where he's withholding $18 billion in infrastructure funding. But those cuts have
02:38consequences for the vulnerable Republicans in those blue states. That sent vulnerable New York
02:44Republican Mike Lawler scrambling to let New Yorkers know he does not share Trump's desire to make their
02:49lives worse. Congressman Lawler strongly opposes these harmful cuts, which undermine, amongst other things,
02:56our counterterrorism efforts on our critical infrastructure projects in New York.
03:00He has fought to secure investments in infrastructure that drive economic growth
03:04and improve the quality of life for all New Yorkers, end quote. And while some Republicans are
03:09scrambling to show just how serious this shutdown is, the Trump White House is posting racist memes
03:15to push baseless claims that what Democrats want is to give those who enter the country illegally
03:21free health care. Which is not only not true, it's also against federal law. What Democrats are
03:29demanding is an extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies, which most people understand is
03:35keeping the cost of their health insurance premiums down and saving them money. The Wall Street Journal
03:40reports President Trump has projected unwavering confidence that he is winning the messaging war
03:46over the government shutdown. But behind the scenes, his team is increasingly concerned that the issue at the
03:53center of the debate will create political vulnerabilities for Republicans. Advisors are worried that the GOP will
04:01take the blame for allowing health care subsidies to expire, raising costs for millions of Americans ahead of next
04:08year's midterm elections, according to administration officials. Inside the White House, aides are discussing
04:14proposals to extend the enhanced subsidies for the Affordable Care Act health insurance plans, the official said.
04:20Trump hasn't yet decided whether he will endorse such a proposal, according to officials. The Wall Street
04:26Journal reports that White House officials, quote, think they have the upper hand. For now, they've amplified
04:32a Republican talking point that Democrats want to give health care to people in the country illegally.
04:38Unauthorized immigrants aren't eligible for ACA benefits, and they aren't allowed to enroll in Medicaid
04:44under federal law. But some federal dollars do go toward emergency Medicaid coverage for migrants
04:51without legal status. Ending the subsidies would result in higher premiums for more than 20 million
04:57people. Of the 75 congressional districts, where at least 10 percent of the population is enrolled in
05:04the Affordable Care Act, 62 are in red-leaning Florida, Georgia, and Texas, according to Kaiser Family
05:12Foundation, a health care policy think tank. More than half of the 62 districts in those states
05:17are represented by Republicans. End quote. I don't know how many of America's 340 million people have
05:25followed the sombrero meme war that's been waged by Trump and Vance for their perennially online
05:32fanboys, but I'm pretty sure it's less than the number of people who cannot afford to pay more money
05:37for the health insurance they already have, especially in a moment when inflation is up
05:42and the job market is worsening. The shutdown provided a respite for Trump from the bad economic
05:47news. The Bureau of Labor Statistics did not release the September jobs report that was scheduled for
05:52this morning, so we're stuck using a secondary private sector report from ADP, the payroll company,
05:59which shows a weakening employment situation in America. Private sector businesses lost 32,000 jobs
06:06in September. The July jobs report, you'll recall, was so bad that Donald Trump fired the Bureau of
06:12Labor Statistics commissioner. That, of course, didn't help him in August, which had dismal job
06:16growth. And just this week, Trump had to withdraw his nominee for the man to be the new BLS commissioner
06:22because he was too unqualified even for Republicans to vote for him. Think about how bad of a nominee you
06:30have to be to have Republican senators who confirmed such luminaries as Pete Hegseth and RFK Jr. to reject
06:37this person. So that's the state of the shutdown tonight in normal terms. But these are not normal
06:44times. Here's how Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez sees what's happening in Washington
06:50right now. She told my colleague Chris Hayes what this so-called shutdown fight is really about.
06:56I think there's two things that are happening at once. And this is something that's very important
07:01for people to understand. One, there absolutely is an unprecedented abuse of power, destruction of
07:09norms, erosion of our government and our democracy in order to prop up an authoritarian style of
07:18governance. That is happening. However, they are weaker than they look. And it is important that
07:25we remember that because what they rely on is the impression of power, the perception of inevitability
07:35in us giving up in advance to say, oh, what's going to happen if I stand up, et cetera. Nothing's going to
07:42happen. They rely on that perception of inevitability and power so that people comply in advance and acquiesce in
07:52advance and give up in advance. And at the end of the day, Donald Trump is at record levels of
07:59unpopularity in his tenure. The Republican House is at record levels of unpopularity. They are underwater
08:08across the board and they know it. And that is causing them to double down.
08:13Joining us now is Timothy Snyder, chair in modern European history and a professor of global affairs
08:19in public policy at the University of Toronto. He's the author of the New York Times bestsellers
08:24on freedom and on tyranny. Professor Snyder, it's good to have you here. I think there's some real key
08:30takeaways to what Alexandria Ocasio said. They're weaker than they look and they're record levels of
08:36unpopularity and that they rely on the perception of inevitability and power so that people comply
08:44in advance and acquiesce in advance and give up in advance, in her words, which are very similar to
08:50your own words. Yeah, no, I think I think what the congresswoman said is very wise. It describes the
08:58past. It describes what too many people have done already vis-a-vis Trump. It describes the present
09:05where we have a lot of people who are looking forward to the opportunity to compromising and
09:11that it could describe the future. But I think the reason why the congresswoman's words are so urgent
09:16is that we have reached an impasse with the crazy speech that Hegseth and Trump gave to the
09:22assembled generals and admirals, with the government shutdown, with the presence of ICE, with the
09:27worsening job numbers, with economic news about to get much worse. We're now at a moment where I think
09:33the message from American citizens has to be clear and public. We have to be outspoken now to break the
09:41spell. You know, and she continued by talking about that this time is different. I mean, half of those
09:46things you just mentioned happened this week. That crazy Trump speech about the enemy within,
09:53the headset stuff where he was calling the generals and the admirals fatties and talking about women
09:58can't. That was this very week. The declaration of war on drug cartels so that we keep on bombing
10:05these boats off the coast of Venezuela, again, was this week. I think people are realizing this time
10:12is different. This has nothing to do with the normalcy of a government shutdown. We've had them
10:16many times before. They're actually fairly normal events and they come to an end. Something very
10:20different is happening right now. Yeah, I think something different is happening and it has to do
10:27with the desperation of these people. They're pushing ahead in authoritarianism where they can,
10:35where it's easy for them, and they're pushing ahead where no one fights back. But the crucial part,
10:41symbolically and practically, is that we do some more fighting back, not just to slow this down,
10:46but to break the sense of inevitability that the congresswoman spoke about, to create new facts on
10:51the ground, to put them on the back foot, to make them realize that doing things which are both
10:57unlawful and unpopular isn't going to work out for them. I want to examine something else that she said.
11:05They're weaker than they look. Steve Schmidt, the political strategist, said something this week.
11:11He said, you know, you can shake the tree and the animals at the bottom will fall out,
11:15but then you get to the bottom of the tree and there's going to be some animal in there that's
11:18going to say, you've gone too far. You're going to stop. The implication is we are the animal.
11:23We, the American public, at some point have the agency and ability and strength and probably
11:30numerical strength to say, no more. I think that's right. And if it's happening,
11:37it has to be the American people. Like the ones that are at the top of the tree are the oligarchs
11:41who went along. The tree didn't have to be shaken. They jumped off on their own. But as you get down
11:45the tree, you get more and more people, more and more leaves, more and more needles. And it's at
11:50that base of the tree where it has to stop, right? And people can act by way of all kinds of measures.
11:58They can protest. They can communicate with one another. They can talk to strangers about how
12:02outrageous this is. We all have the power to create the sense that this is not normal. We all have
12:08the power to create the sense that this can't be stopped. And this is no longer about right and
12:13left. It's about up and down. It's about topsy-turtle, about whether a republic is going down or whether
12:19it can still be propped up. That's what this is about at this point. AOC talked about holding two
12:24truths at once. Yes, we are horrified at the anti-democratic abuses of power. And also,
12:30America is still America. You wrote about this on September 29th in the Boston Globe when you said,
12:35I'm writing this from Dnipro, Ukraine, during an air raid alert. I had scholarly work to do here
12:40amid the missiles and drones. I mentioned this to help us keep perspective. Ukraine is being
12:45invaded by Russia. No one is invading America. The current threat is that we invade ourselves.
12:51And whether that happens depends on whether we choose to see the overall logic, call things what
12:57they are, talk to one another, and get on with the work of defending democracy, decency, and humane
13:02values. The question, of course, is whether civil courage can be channeled into effective
13:07democratic resistance. That last sentence is the thing I want the answer to. Can civil courage,
13:13which I believe exists out there and is contagious, can civil courage be channeled
13:18into effective democratic resistance?
13:23Well, the history of the United States shows that it can. The history of the women's suffrage
13:28movement shows that it can. The history of the civil rights movement shows that it can. But it only works
13:34if there are new alliances, new friendships, if risks are taken, and if some courage is shown.
13:41It's very important for people to remember that this is not, you don't have to solve this all by
13:46yourself. What you have to do is your part. So if you're in the armed forces, you have to make
13:52difficult decisions about what is a lawful and an unlawful order. If you're in Congress, you have
13:58to do the things that you can do to stop this horrible deal from going through. If you're not
14:04in Congress, you can't expect Congress to do all the work for you. You have to protest. You have to
14:08talk to people. But if everybody does something, it is, as you say, contagious. And then the mood changes.
14:14And the mood can change very quickly.
14:18The sense of inevitability. People lose hope. You've studied history. You've studied all of the times in
14:26history where this has happened. An authoritarian has come in, and they have presented their sense of
14:31inevitability. And it becomes a myth. Do you have any sense of inevitability here? Do you have any sense
14:38that this is going to unfold a certain way? Or do you still believe that it can be stopped?
14:44It can be stopped. That's the right way of putting it. There are plenty of people who are
14:50courageous. There are plenty of resources on the other side. There are plenty of opportunities
14:55to protest. It can be stopped. But it won't be stopped on its own. That's the important thing.
15:02There's no institution. There's no constitution. There's no history. There's nothing that can stop it
15:06on its own. It can be stopped. But only if people choose creatively and cooperatively to stop it.
15:13If they name the moment and they take individual responsibility for what they can do about this
15:18moment, yes, it can be stopped. We can get through to the other side and things can get better. But
15:23only if each of us does our part. That's the crucial thing.
15:27Professor, always good to see you. Thank you for a hopeful message tonight. Professor Timothy Snyder
15:31is the chair in modern European history and professor of global affairs and public policy
15:36at the University of Toronto. And a programming note, House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries
15:41will be my guest tomorrow on Velshi right at 10 a.m. Eastern here on MSNBC. I hope you'll join us for
15:47that conversation. Coming up with poll after poll this week confirming that most voters are correctly
15:52blaming Donald Trump and Republicans for the current shutdown. The usually camera obsessed president
15:57has been noticeably nowhere to be found, including delaying a trip to one of the two states
16:02arguably most highly affected by the shutdown. One of them is Virginia. We'll discuss that next
16:08with the Democratic Speaker of the Virginia State House.
16:13Today, the White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt responded to House Democratic leader
16:18Hakeem Jeffries, who, as we mentioned earlier, said Donald Trump is essentially living in a
16:22presidential witness protection program.
16:26Hakeem Jeffries has said that President Trump is in the presidential witness protection program
16:31since the shutdown has begun. What's the White House's reaction to that?
16:35That's just more ridiculous fodder from Hakeem Jeffries. As you all know, because you're here
16:40every day, the president is literally working around the clock right now. He literally works 24-7.
16:45Anyone who works in this place or covers this place, as you all do, knows that to be true.
16:51Sometimes a lie is just ridiculous on its face.
16:55Nobody. Not even Trump's biggest fans believes that he works 24-7. He was literally on the golf
17:03course both days this past weekend. So we're down to 24-5 at best. And we've seen his social
17:10media addiction. So it's not 24 by any stretch. Trump has been curiously camera shy since the
17:17shutdown started. He left it to J.D. Vance to publicly defend the racist AI videos that he's been
17:23posting in hiding. Trump was supposed to visit the nation's largest naval base today in Norfolk,
17:28Virginia, and speak to the thousands of sailors stationed there. It's a pretty bold itinerary.
17:33Go and talk to a huge audience of people who work for the United States government while you've
17:37allowed that government to be shut down indefinitely. Surprise, that event has now reportedly been moved
17:43to Sunday. The official reason given for the date change is rough seas, because the president wanted
17:49to arrive at the naval base on a U.S. aircraft carrier. Could be. Could also be another case of
17:56taco. Trump always chickens out. Instead of facing the 60,000 military and 25,000 civilian personnel
18:05stationed on the Norfolk naval base, many of whom will be working without pay until the government
18:10reopens, Trump's back at the White House tonight doing nothing to solve the shutdown. Instead,
18:17he is once again posting on social media. But Virginia voters don't have to wait until 2026 like
18:24many people do to make their voices heard. Early voting is already underway for the election in 31
18:29days with the governor's race at the top of the ticket. Nearly half a million of those Virginia voters
18:35are federal employees or military personnel. The former Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger said this today
18:42about Trump's upcoming visit on Sunday. Quote, Donald Trump needs to answer directly to Virginians
18:47about why he's actively cutting Virginia jobs and hurting the Virginia economy. The Trump administration
18:53has taken a sledgehammer approach to governing that has hurt Virginia's workers, businesses and economy.
19:01Virginians deserve a governor who will work aggressively to put the Commonwealth's economy first,
19:05lower costs and create good paying jobs, not stay silent as Donald Trump destroys Virginia jobs.
19:14Donald Trump has not campaigned for the Republican nominee for Virginia governor,
19:17Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earl Sears. And a new poll today from the Washington Post shows
19:22Democrat Abigail Spanberger with a 12 point lead in the race against Earl Sears, 55 to 43.
19:30Joining us now is John Scott, the Democratic Speaker of the Virginia House of Delicates.
19:34Speaker Scott, good to see you. Thank you for being with us this evening.
19:38Thank you for having me. It's amazing what's going on right now.
19:41It is amazing what's going on. So the number doesn't really tell it. When I said half a million
19:44of those Virginia workers are federal workers, that's that's not even a little bit of the point
19:48because so many people in northern Virginia work in D.C. So stuff that they do is dependent on
19:54those workers in D.C. So now you're up to probably far more than a million people.
19:59And those people, if they're not getting paid or perhaps getting furloughed at some point,
20:05are not spending. So other businesses suffer. And you already got hit by the first wave of cuts
20:10during Doge. Yeah, it's amazing what Trump is doing to Virginia's economy. And right now,
20:17Winston Earl Sears has doubled down and endorsed his actions that he's taking against Virginia families.
20:23When you talk about these, this government shutdown, I know folks right here in my community,
20:29I can look out my window and see a aircraft carrier that's being worked on right now. I'm in a Navy
20:34community. I'm a Navy veteran. And I talked to so many veterans who've been impacted by the shutdown
20:39and by the Doge cuts. It has been literally ripping families apart, taking mortgage payments away,
20:47making it impossible for people to be able to pay for their groceries. Inflation is up. Trump said that
20:52he would lower inflation on day one. I guess that's the same thing he's doing by working
20:57around the clock. He has not done a good job of lowering costs, ripping health care away from
21:02folks here in Virginia, not wanting to renew those subsidy help, that premium subsidy help for people
21:10who need to afford health care, but taking that money away and giving it to billionaires. So we know
21:15that it's impacting our families. We see it here in Virginia. We're feeling it. For the first time
21:19since 2008, we've had nine, I mean, eight straight months of job declines, job growth decline in
21:26Virginia. And I think Trump is devastating our economy. And to be clear, Virginia is a high growth
21:32place, right? This is a place where jobs have been going. People have been coming in. This is not the
21:38kind of place that you want to see, nevermind a slowdown. But as you said, job declines, a reverse.
21:45In 2025, in the modern world, in America, the richest country in the world, you're seeing job
21:49declines in Virginia.
21:52Yeah, we were the number one state to do business on until recently. And the young and Trump machine
21:58has really slowed Virginia's economy down to a grinding, halting, slow pace and taking people
22:07away from the job force and from the workforce and really hurting families and hurting everything
22:13we're talking about. And at the same time, Republicans are not addressing it. They won't stand up to Trump
22:17here in Virginia. And as a result of that, Trump's policies are hurting Virginians. And that's why, you
22:24know, he knows he it would be a slap in the face to those hardworking veterans and civilian support for
22:30them that he would come here on the 250th anniversary of the Navy to come in here and and celebrate with
22:36folks who he's literally not paying, not helping them pay their bills, not helping them make their
22:41mortgage payments. And these folks are hardworking folks. They're very proud folks. This is a Navy
22:47region, a Navy town, and they don't take kindly to folks coming in and damaging our economy in a way.
22:52And I think Virginia voters are going to send a very strong message to Mr. Trump this next November
22:57in 30 and 31 days or so. Yeah. And the turnout will be interesting because I think that this is
23:02the moment, as I was just talking to Professor Tim Snyder about, this is the moment to prove your
23:07agency and to prove your voice and to say none of this is inevitable. None of this has to happen.
23:13Speaker Scott, good to see you. Thank you for joining us tonight.
23:15Thank you for having me. The Virginia Democratic House Speaker, Don Scott.
23:19All right. Coming up, what were America's adversaries thinking this week when they saw the
23:23commander in chief and his defense secretary giving rambling, incoherent and often asinine speeches
23:30in front of hundreds of America's top military commanders? We're going to talk about that next
23:36with Congressman Adam Smith, the top ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee.
23:43The verdict is in on the shocking, even for Trump, speech to 800 top military commanders earlier this
23:50week. The headline from the Atlantic, the commander in chief is not OK. Tom Nichols writes in 1973,
23:56an Air Force nuclear missile officer named Harold Herring asked a simple question during a training
24:02session. How can I know that an order I received to launch my missiles came from a sane president?
24:10The question cost him his career. Military members are trained to execute orders, not to question them.
24:16But today, both the man who can order the use of nuclear arms and the man who would likely verify
24:21such an order gave graceful, disgraceful and unnerving performances in Quantico.
24:28How many officers left the room asking themselves Major Herring's question? The man who would verify
24:35that order is this man, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who now calls himself the Secretary of War.
24:42He focused his speech on woke culture in the military, people having beards and fat generals.
24:49So the domestic verdict is in, but there is another audience. America's adversaries and enemies
24:55were also watching those speeches. What did they make of that absurd public presentation by our
25:01commander in chief? It's crazy what's going on. That's the worst war that there's been since World
25:07War Two. The number of soldiers that are being killed there is just crazy. From five to seven thousand
25:13soldiers die a week. Think of that. So I think we'll get that done. But that's turned out to be the
25:19toughest one. I'm so disappointed in President Putin. I thought I thought he would get this thing over
25:24with. He should have had that war done in a week. And I said to him, you know, you don't look good.
25:32You're four years fighting a war that should have taken a week. Are you a paper tiger?
25:36Russia invaded Ukraine? He should have had that war done in a week. Is Trump disappointed that
25:53Russia didn't succeed in taking Kiev in three days like Putin hoped? Is Trump disappointed in the
26:00remarkable resistance that Ukraine has put up to an invasion by a tyrant? By the way, not one general in
26:06that room thought that Russia, Ukraine would be easy to solve. And by the way, there were barely
26:13any mentions of China, a country relentlessly working to dethrone America as the most powerful
26:18nation in the world during that entire rambling 71 minute speech. Instead, Donald Trump was focused
26:25on using American troops to fight American citizens. Last month, I signed an executive order
26:31to provide training for a quick reaction force that can help quell civil disturbances. This is going to
26:39be a big thing for the people in this room because it's the enemy from within. And we have to handle it
26:46before it gets out of control. It won't get out of control. Once once you get involved at all,
26:51they all joke. They say, oh, this is not good. They don't joke about this not being good.
26:59The enemy from within. Joining us now is the Democratic Congressman Adam Smith of Washington
27:04State. He's the top ranking Democrat of the Armed Services Committee. He's just returned from a trip
27:09to China as part of a congressional delegation. I want to talk to you about that in a moment,
27:14Congressman, but the enemy, the enemy from within the idea that America, American city should be used
27:21as a training ground for the military in all of history since Rome. There's an understanding that
27:27the military is not used against the civilian population in a democratic society. Yeah. I mean,
27:33there's two big things about this. First, both of these speeches were rambling and incoherent.
27:38If you had asked, I don't know, a college sophomore in a foreign relations class
27:43to give a speech and say, tell us a national security policy for the U.S. Both the president
27:49and the secretary of defense would have gotten Fs. I mean, it was just rambling and incoherent where
27:53they were going. Nobody knew. And this was on display, as you say, for the entire world to see.
27:59And what they saw was two leaders had no idea what they were talking about in the first place.
28:04And second, what national defense strategy was laid out there? How did it explain the challenges
28:10we face from China and Russia and Iran and North Korea and what we're going to do about it? It
28:15didn't. It was just sort of a set of petty grievances. So it definitely made us look weak
28:22to the entire world. And it's deeply concerning about the leadership of both of these people over
28:27our national security apparatus. And one of the number two, like you said, they seem most focused
28:32on using the U.S. military to settle their own political and petty grievances domestically,
28:39which is troubling on a whole series of levels. Look, I mean, to do this big a display on such a
28:44large stage and have it be such an utter clown show, it weakens this country.
28:51I mean, we're carrying on about it. I was carrying on about generals being too fat and stuff like that.
28:55Meanwhile, on September 3rd, China had this military parade. Narendra Modi, who's not an ally of China's,
29:02was there. Vladimir Putin was there. You know, Xi Jinping put on a 12,000 soldiers were there,
29:10soldiers were there goose stepping. You could see China as adversary, ally or something in between,
29:15but they looked a whole lot like a world power. Meanwhile, we're blowing up boats in the Caribbean
29:20Sea. Right. Blowing up boats. And as you said, talking about facial hair. Yeah. I mean, I don't
29:25know. I joked with somebody earlier today that if you did a parody of the patent speech at the start of
29:32that movie, you couldn't do it much funnier than Secretary Hagsath did. It was just completely
29:40ridiculous. But if you're an adversary in the world right now, if you're Russia or you're Xi Jinping
29:45and you're trying to demonstrate that you're an organized and stable power, A, you're winning over
29:49countries that might want to do business with the United States, might want to have closer alliances
29:53with the United States, but the other superpower seems a little bit more organized and stable
29:57at the moment and B, fantastic for our adversaries that America's not, can't keep its eye on us
30:04because it's keeping its eye on its own people. It has an enemy within. Well, forget the clown show
30:11aspect of it for a moment and the incoherent speeches. The policy that these two people have
30:16implemented has weakened us across the country. We are alienating every partner and ally that we have
30:20in the world through the tariff policy, through Trump's petty insults from time to time,
30:25through his attacks on NATO. That was our greatest strength, was their system of partnerships and
30:30allies. China itself has expressed envy about the partners and allies. Trump is weakening them
30:35every second of every day. You know, he has, as you outlined there, sided with Putin repeatedly in
30:42this war, undermined our ally Ukraine. So the policies that they're implementing, aside from the rather
30:49odd words that they use, are weakening us as well and certainly giving aid and comfort to our adversaries.
30:57And at the same time, as you said, for countries that are kind of trying to figure out which way to go,
31:01who are you going to back? Yeah. You're going to back the countries that seem to have a coherent plan?
31:06Or are you going to back the countries that seem to be focused on the personal grievances of Donald Trump?
31:12Congressman, it's good to see you, as always. I think I've got a special treat this weekend. I think
31:16I'm going to see you again this weekend on Velshi. So I always look forward to that. Congressman Adam
31:20Smith, thank you for being with us. All right, coming up, a new Pew Research poll shows that 53%
31:26of Americans say Donald Trump's policies are making the economy worse. My next guest, former senator and
31:31current Senate candidate Sherrod Brown, is out talking every day to Ohio voters. Did they vote for
31:36tariffs based on Trump's whims? How about a bailout for Trump's MAGA buddy in Argentina? I'll ask him next.
31:45The Trump tariffs, which are completely haphazard and based primarily on the king's whims,
31:51are causing across the board price increases for American consumers and uncertainty for American
31:56businesses. Trump is mad that Brazil successfully prosecuted and sentenced the former right-wing
32:01leader for attempting to overturn an election that he lost. So Trump slapped a 50% tariff on Brazil,
32:09which means you have to pay more for coffee and fruit juice and other products that we import from
32:14that country and any country that finds itself on the so-called tariff shelf.
32:20I said, check the tariff shelf. No, sir, the tariffs haven't started in that sector yet. I said,
32:26yes, they have. Yeah, that's your money on Trump's imagined tariff shelf. You're paying for Trump's
32:34big mad at Brazil. And now it seems there's a bailout shelf that's next to the tariff shelf.
32:39American taxpayer money is paying to help prop up Trump's MAGA buddy in Argentina, Newsweek
32:44reports. President Donald Trump's offer to prop up Argentina's economy and the political future
32:50of the embattled president, Javier Millet, has drawn the ire of farmers and lawmakers who consider this
32:57an ill-judged use of American resources. Amid this and Millet's declining prospects in the upcoming
33:04midterm election, President Trump said he would help his counterpart secure all of the things that you
33:10need to make Argentina great again. He actually said that. Perhaps he'll sell more hats as a result.
33:19No surprise, American taxpayers are not excited to pay to help the Mar-a-Lago visiting authoritarian
33:25who wants to make Argentina great again. Here's the reaction from the American soybean farmers.
33:30U.S. soybean farmers have been clear for months. The administration needs to secure a trade deal
33:35with China. China is the world's largest soybean customer and typically our top export market.
33:41The U.S. has made zero sales to China in this new crop marketing year due to 20%
33:48retaliatory tariffs imposed by China in response to U.S. tariffs. This has allowed other exporters,
33:54Brazil and now Argentina, to capture our market at the direct expense of U.S. farmers.
34:02The frustration is overwhelming. U.S. soybean prices are falling. Harvest is underway. Farmers
34:07read headlines not about securing a trade agreement with China, but that the U.S. government is extending
34:1220 billion dollars in economic support to Argentina while that country drops its soybean export taxes
34:22to sell 20 shiploads of Argentine soybeans to China in just two days. U.S. farmers cannot wait and hope
34:30any longer. The American Soybean Association is calling on President Trump and his negotiating team
34:35to prioritize securing an immediate deal on soybeans with China. The farm economy is suffering while our
34:42competitors supplant the United States in the biggest soybean import market in the world, end quote.
34:48You know where this is going, by the way, because it happened in 2018. It's a Trump bailout Band-Aid
34:54for Trump-inflicted tariff pain. The Wall Street Journal reports that President Trump is considering providing
35:0010 billion dollars or more in aid to U.S. farmers as the agriculture sector warns of economic fallout
35:07from his far-reaching tariffs, according to people familiar with the discussions. Trump did this in
35:12his last term. He sent 23 billion dollars in aid to farmers to bail them out of bad Trump policies.
35:19It wasn't Trump's money, by the way. It was our money. American farmers don't want our welfare. American
35:26families don't want to pay for Trump's grievance campaigns against other countries in the grocery
35:31line. Joining me now is the former Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, who is again running
35:37for the United States Senator. Senator Brown, good to see you. You know the fullness of this story.
35:43If you're an American farmer, let's just take a soybean farmer in Ohio, just as an example. Your market is
35:48collapsing. The price of your soybeans is collapsing. Your soybeans are not actually being sold because
35:53they're developed to be sold to a particular market. You're paying more for your own goods.
35:57You're paying more for your own equipment. And your cost of everything else that you spend on is
36:02going up because we've got inflation. Yeah, exactly right. I mean, you painted the picture exactly
36:07right. I grew up working at a family farm in Richland County, sort of north central part of the state.
36:13We grew beans, soybeans. We grew oats and wheat. We harvested corn, hay, and we bailed hay. And
36:23farmers, you know, it's never an easy business. Nothing is really predictable. You can't predict
36:28the weather. You can't predict the price. But they don't want this. They want markets open. As you said
36:34at the beginning, China used to buy, last year, $12 billion worth of soybeans. Since the tariffs,
36:43it's now $0 of soybeans. At the same time, farmers are paying more for hay balers and paying more
36:50for combines and tractors and school clothes for their kids because of these tariffs. And farmers
36:58are getting hit back and forth. And now our taxpayer dollars, including farmers' taxpayer dollars,
37:03are going to Argentina for $20 billion, $20 billion worth. And it makes no sense. Trump says he's going
37:10to make them whole. They don't want that. They want free markets. And you're seeing all this,
37:16yet John Husted, that I'm running against, is doing nothing to deal with these prices. And
37:22people see, people can't afford any of this, more money going out than coming in. People just want,
37:28they want some predictability in their lives. They want the Senate and the House, like John Husted,
37:34who cast the tie-breaking vote, the deciding vote on all these losses, all 490,000 Ohioans losing
37:41health insurance, all these things. They want a government on their side. Their government's done
37:45nothing about bringing prices down. They've made it worse. And the thing about Ohio is you could,
37:50all the stories that are occurring in America, uh, farming, manufacturing, they all happen in
37:55Ohio. Rural hospitals happen in Ohio. And the cuts, uh, to Medicare, uh, Medicare subsidies or
38:00Obamacare subsidies are happening in Ohio. Like you can't escape it. If you live in Ohio,
38:05there's nowhere you can be or look where you're not getting hit by some of the damage
38:10of both Doge and now this, this budget. Yeah, we're, we're one of the biggest industrial
38:15production states. Uh, we're one of the biggest, uh, soybean producer states. And John Husted is
38:22more looking out for his corporate friends in a special interest in doing the bidding of those
38:28in Washington, instead of looking out for Ohio farmers and Ohio consumers. That's why I asked
38:32people to come to SherrodBrown.com and chip in 10 or $15. They spent $200 million last election.
38:39They'll do it again. I need people's help because they're not looking out for Ohioans. They're simply
38:44not on the side. Husted and others are simply not on the side of Ohio farmers and Ohio consumers.
38:49How do you convey the urgency of it? Because some of these things that the Trump administration does
38:53are reversible and fixable and you can, you can, you can fix it later. But for instance,
38:57in 2018, when this, this soybean problem started because Trump put those tariffs on,
39:03China turned to Brazil and created an entire industry in Brazil because Brazil was not selling
39:08most of its soybeans to China, but China created an avenue for that. Now he's doing it with Argentina.
39:13In other words, once you start these markets where other people can send their ships full
39:17of soybeans, you may never get that market back. Well, I have hope because Ohioans are fighting
39:25back. Americans are fighting back. People are speaking out against these policies of John Husted and
39:32others. People are going online and contributing to people like me at SherrodBrown.com and elsewhere.
39:38That's making a difference. But we know what we need to do to unspool this. It's not going to be
39:43immediate. It's going to be hard. We know the damage that's done. And we know Americans last year didn't
39:48vote for cuts, didn't vote for closing rural hospitals. They didn't vote for throwing 490,000
39:55people taking away their insurance. They didn't vote for higher premiums for everybody else, not just those
40:01who are on Medicaid. I mean, everybody. They didn't vote for this kind of chaos. So people are going to
40:07welcome these changes. But there's a lot of damage done. I don't pretend to think we can we can fix it
40:12all. We can fix a lot of it because people, you know, people that that don't like what's happening
40:18in Washington are standing up everywhere. Connie and I hear it at the grocery store. We hear walking
40:23down the street. We hear it at church where people want to fight back. They don't always know what to
40:28do, but they want to fight back. They're speaking out against this. And I think we're going to see
40:32change soon and we're going to see it longer term. Senator, good to see you again. Thank you,
40:36as always, for joining us. Sharon Brown is a former Democratic Senator. He's a current
40:39Democratic Senate candidate in Ohio. We'll be right back.
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