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All in with Chris Hayes - Season 14 - Episode 11
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00:00One year in, the world wakes up to the threat of Donald Trump.
00:04This is an incredibly grave moment for the United Kingdom, Europe and our world.
00:11When the rules no longer protect you, you must protect yourself.
00:15From the planetary alarm over Trump's imperial aspirations.
00:20Let me put this in words you might understand.
00:24Mr. President, f*** off.
00:27To the military on American streets, now a reality in Trump's America.
00:33They're going to make mistakes sometimes.
00:35ICE is going to be too rough with somebody.
00:37Economic warfare declared on enemies and allies alike.
00:41Ramping corruption and the rule of law under siege.
00:44Trump is weaponizing government. It's terrible.
00:48Tonight, where we stand after Donald Trump's first year.
00:52When All In starts right now.
00:59Good evening from New York. I'm Chris Hayes.
01:01It has been one year since Donald Trump took office and it has been, I think you'd agree, brutal in
01:07almost all ways.
01:09Masked, armed federal immigration officers looking like they're in the middle of a war zone in camouflage and long guns
01:16are subjecting the residents of Minneapolis to a violent and lawless occupation.
01:20While the president muses about sending in American soldiers and has his Department of Justice almost by the day go
01:27after local elected leaders.
01:30The economy is deteriorating from unemployment to inflation to the tariffs Donald Trump has levied unilaterally.
01:36Hundreds of billions, maybe trillions of dollars in taxes on the American people.
01:40Also leaving America even more isolated.
01:43The Dow Jones dropped almost 900 points today alone.
01:47Just in the past month, Donald Trump has seized and captured the president of Venezuela, brought him to the U
01:53.S. to stand trial and announced we are taking their oil and selling it and then putting the proceeds in
01:59a private offshore bank account in Qatar that Trump controls.
02:04He's also threatened to bomb Iran as well as numerous other countries.
02:07In fact, our closest allies in Europe are preparing for a possible war with us.
02:13Because Trump wants somebody to give him Greenland and a Nobel Peace Prize.
02:18That obsession and its consequences were on full display today in Davos, Switzerland, as the annual meeting of world leaders
02:25became an emergency summit.
02:26I mean, frantic almost to deal with an American president who is, not to put too fine a point on
02:33it, acting like an evil madman.
02:36And they've tried all sorts of strategies up until today, and they're still trying to coddle Trump like a toddler,
02:43to flatter him.
02:45Now they're facing an ominous fact that has been staring us Americans in the face for a year.
02:50The United States is a nuclear-armed superpower run by a would-be tyrant.
02:55And they are now talking about him like an enemy.
02:59We need more stability in this world.
03:02But we do prefer respect to...
03:05We do prefer science to plutonium.
03:08And we do prefer rule of law to brutality.
03:11The fact is, Trump only respects force and strength and unity.
03:18And that's exactly what Europe should demonstrate right now.
03:22I would like to confirm that they are an ally, but then they have to behave like an ally.
03:28You live in a time of monsters.
03:30And it's up to him to decide if he wants to be a monster, yes or no.
03:34Let me put this in words you might understand.
03:38Mr. President, f*** off.
03:42Things are so dire, the Prime Minister of Canada, our steadfast ally to the North, our neighbor,
03:48gave one of the best, most clear-eyed, sober, urgent speeches that I've heard a politician deliver in a very,
03:54very long time.
03:55And certainly not the usual kind of speech that we hear at places like Davos.
04:01Great powers have begun using economic integration as weapons.
04:05Tariffs as leverage, financial infrastructure as coercion, supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited.
04:12But when we only negotiate bilaterally with a hegemon, we negotiate from weakness.
04:18We accept what's offered.
04:20We compete with each other to be the most accommodating.
04:24This is not sovereignty.
04:26It's the performance of sovereignty while accepting subordination.
04:30The powerful have their power.
04:33But we have something, too.
04:35The capacity to stop pretending, to name reality, to build our strength at home, and to act together.
04:43The thesis of Carney's speech is that the old order has been destroyed, that it lies in ruins, that this
04:49isn't just a transition, but a disruption.
04:51And it wasn't just world leaders.
04:53Visitors in Davos could see a glow in those snow-capped mountains after the sun set this evening,
04:58after a group of 10 local residents hiked up the mountain with 450 torches to spell out one message that
05:06shone down across the valley.
05:08Donald Trump is set to speak at Davos tomorrow, but while the rest of the world is describing him as
05:12the biggest threat to peace and stability in the world,
05:14he was exactly where you would expect him to be, at a White House podium for a very, very long
05:20hour and 44 minutes.
05:22And I've watched, like, you know, six-year-olds play baseball.
05:27A very long hour and 44 minutes boasting about his year of accomplishments.
05:32I should have gotten the Nobel Prize for each war, but I don't say that.
05:36I say millions and millions of people.
05:38And don't let anyone tell you that Norway doesn't control the shots, OK?
05:43It's in Norway.
05:45Norway controls the shots.
05:46And, by the way, I did more for NATO than any other person alive or dead.
05:50Officially reinstated, Columbus Day.
05:53I like the name Columbus Day.
05:55The Italian people are very happy about it.
05:57Remember, when you go to the voting booths, I reinstated Columbus Day.
06:01I said to my mother, Mom, she would be there, always there for me.
06:06She said, Son, you could be a professional baseball player.
06:09I said, thanks, Mom.
06:11We have a perfect system right now.
06:12We're making a fortune.
06:14We've never been stronger.
06:15Do you feel like God is proud of the effort that you've put in?
06:18I do, actually.
06:19I think God is very proud of the job I've done.
06:21And that includes for religion.
06:24By the way, we saved you from some of those vile stuff he did.
06:28More racism heaped on Somali-Americans and Somalians.
06:31But he did that for two hours.
06:34While the rest of the world described the United States as a rogue state, bent on domination.
06:40In fact, the White House staff conveniently typed up and printed out Trump for Trump on
06:45a big stack of paper sheets to read from that listed his supposed accomplishments with bullet
06:51points like number 243, stripped notorious crackhead and grifter Hunter Biden of his taxpayer-funded
06:58Secret Service detail.
07:01245, signed an executive order to end the use of paper straws.
07:05How can people not be celebrating the treats?
07:07How can he not have a 65% approval rating?
07:11All this comes days after Trump announced he was forming a board of peace to basically
07:16supplant the United Nations.
07:18A board run by him where he plans on charging member states a billion dollars to have a permanent
07:24seat on the board.
07:25Trump has already invited heads of state like Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and Benjamin Netanyahu
07:31to join, and strong-arm leaders from nations like Hungary and Belarus.
07:36Over the weekend, Trump also received a text from the Prime Minister of Norway.
07:40You saw him talking about the Norwegians before he's obsessed with them.
07:42He's convinced that the Norwegian president controls the Nobel Peace Prize.
07:46And he got a text that was honestly kind of flattering and supplicant, like all of these messages
07:52tend to be, desperately seeking to ease tensions with the U.S. over its positions on Greenland,
07:59Gaza, and Ukraine.
08:01Trump responded by text saying, in part, quote,
08:04Dear Jonas, considering your country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having
08:08stopped eight wars plus, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of peace, although
08:13it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the
08:16United States of America.
08:17Going on to insist on taking Denmark, taking Greenland.
08:23Now, this is an obvious point, and it's been made a ton, but it's worth reiterating today
08:28on this one-year anniversary.
08:31Us Americans electing Donald Trump is not just our problem for us.
08:37We have made it the world's problem because we have made ourselves the center of the global
08:42order.
08:43And the post-World War II global order has been predicated basically on U.S.
08:48hegemony.
08:50And to be real clear-eyed about this, and there's a lot of gauzy nostalgia here, that
08:55hegemony, that power that we have, has been abused egregiously in many circumstances, in
09:00awful, bloody, and unforgivable ways from Vietnam to Iraq and beyond.
09:05But that hegemony was also the ordering principle, along with a set of international multilateral
09:09institutions, that were constructed, built on the big lesson of World War II, which is
09:16that autocratic regimes, expansionist empires, and fascists will create world war.
09:23And so we ended up in the system in which the world's oldest, most stable democracy, one
09:28of the victors of that war, was at the center to prevent that.
09:32And the best way to understand that structure, that post-war liberal order, is not as some
09:38liberal order, but really as a world war avoidance machine.
09:43The world war avoidance machine with the U.S. at the center has been running for 80 years
09:47now.
09:48And it's done a lot of bad things, but it has succeeded in that singular goal.
09:53And what we are dealing with today is what happens when the winners of World War II, one
10:00of them, realize the order they built is crumbling, and that the global hegemon is sounding and
10:07maybe acting now like an access power.
10:10Maybe we're the bad guys.
10:14And these allies are getting a daunting awareness that Americans in the anti-Trump camp have had
10:19from day one.
10:20Something that's been clear from the first day that he was sworn in, when he unilaterally
10:25pardoned all the January 6th insurrectionists who had stormed the Capitol on his behalf, including
10:29the ones that beat the cops on the head and the ones convicted of seditious conspiracy.
10:33These allies are becoming aware that the most powerful person in the world is a danger and
10:39threat to it and making the world order unstable.
10:43And that means we're all in a lot of trouble.
10:47Senator Chris Van Hollen is a Democrat of Maryland.
10:49He serves on the Foreign Relations Committee.
10:51He also attended a protest against ICE in his home state today.
10:54We're going to talk about that as well.
10:56And he joins me now.
10:58Senator, just your assessment of where we are on the crisis scale as the president heads
11:04towards Davos and world leaders are attempting to deal with what sounds like a threat of using
11:12military force to forcibly steal a piece of land from an ostensible ally and destroy 80 years
11:21of what had been constructed after World War Two.
11:26Yeah, Chris, this is a five alarm fire.
11:30This lawless president has sowed conflict and division here at home.
11:35We're seeing that across our country, but he's also doing that everywhere around the world.
11:41And European leaders should take seriously this threat, this threat to our democracies, to the rule
11:49of law. After all, the president came out with their new national security strategy.
11:54And if you boil it down, what it says is might makes right.
11:58And what Donald Trump says is the only limit to his exercise of power is his own mind or his
12:04own
12:05morality. That should scare the hell out of everybody, not just the United States, but around
12:11the world.
12:11Do you have advice for European leaders? I mean, you know, one of the things I've heard,
12:17you know, how do you deal with him? I think one of the things we've observed in everything from
12:21interacting with law firms and universities to what's happening politically is that he'll
12:25only kind of back down when forced to. He only responds to strength. He doesn't really respond very
12:30well to weakness or supplication or flattery. Maybe temporarily he does. Do you have a message
12:36for the folks in Europe and at Davos right now in our world capitals trying to head off what could
12:42be
12:42a cataclysmic development?
12:47Absolutely. Trying to appease a bully like Donald Trump, and that's what he is, only feeds the
12:54appetite of the bully. This is a person who wants to intimidate all of us, wants us to shut up
13:02and go
13:03away. We all need to not just speak up, but we need to stand up and act. And I would
13:08say to European
13:09leaders who were coming to the president, kind of had on hand as supplicants, that that was the wrong
13:16way to go. All it did was feed his ego and his appetite for power. Only if they stand up,
13:23and I mean
13:24not just in words, Chris, but I mean they need to take actions that impose punishment and penalties on
13:31Trump and the cronies in his administration. There are many options that they have, but I will tell you
13:39appeasement does not work.
13:42One model for standing up to Trump we've seen from citizens of this country and residents of this
13:48country who've stood up to ICE in cities around the country, and particularly right now in Minneapolis
13:51and St. Paul and the state of Minnesota. I know you were at an ICE protest today. You're about to
13:58have a
13:58vote come before you on what's called a minibus, a spending bill for the Department of Homeland Security,
14:05among other things. It would be $1.2 trillion is the total top line funding number. Some of that
14:10would be for DHS, Pentagon, domestic agencies. Some Democrats have said they've negotiated some
14:16good things in there, a limit to how much of the budget of DHS can go to detention, which would
14:21hopefully limit the amount of people they can detain. Others like Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut say
14:25it doesn't go far enough. Are you planning on voting for this piece of legislation?
14:31Chris, I'm planning on voting. No, I will not vote for this legislation. And I will say one of the
14:38things
14:38that gives me great hope, even amidst all of this division and chaos sown by Donald Trump, are the
14:46patriots in places like Minneapolis who are standing up, blowing whistles to protect their neighbors,
14:53blowing whistles on the illegal tactics of ICE. And I was just at a rally in Hagerstown, Maryland
15:00today. Hundreds of people coming out because ICE has signaled that they might use a facility in
15:07Hagerstown for their purposes. And people were coming out to say no. So I looked at the proposal
15:14that's been put before us. It does not begin to rain in ICE sufficiently. It does not adequately
15:21protect our constitutional rights. I will be voting no. You know, sometimes there's I think
15:27the Boston Globe ran a kind of satirical front page when Trump was elected, sort of projecting what
15:32things would look like in a year. And it was like trade wars and mass deportation. So it's back in
15:362016. Sometimes people will invoke that and they'll invoke the kind of genre of like stories that feel
15:42like they're from a dystopian future, but are actual newspaper stories. And in that category,
15:46I have to read you this today from Canada's Globe and Mail, because between the Mark Carney
15:49speech and this, it really brought me up short. The Canadian Armed Forces have modeled a hypothetical
15:55U.S. military invasion of Canada and the country's potential response. The military envisions
16:00unconventional warfare in which small groups of irregular military or armed civilians would resort
16:04to ambushes, tactics used by the Afghan Mujahideen in their hit and run attacks on Russian soldiers
16:09during the 1979-1989 Soviet-Afghan war. This is not makeup. This is not satirical. This is real war
16:16gaming that our neighbors in the North are doing. Did you ever in your life think you would read that
16:21in the newspaper? Never, never. And this is what Trump has sowed. So he says, you know, he wants to
16:32go
16:32to Greenland to protect it from Russia and China. The reality is that we don't need permission from
16:41Greenland and others just to go for NATO purposes. They've already given us their okay. Denmark has
16:48said, do what you need to do to protect NATO. This is a land grab, pure and simple, just like
16:54the
16:55efforts in Venezuela were about land and minerals and oil, not trying to stop drugs from coming into
17:03the country, Chris. And look, we remember when Donald Trump was talking about Canada as the 51st state.
17:10We may get back to that. I mean, this is what this man believes. And it is a threat to
17:16the world.
17:18And I never imagined that we would be seeing our neighbor, Canada, actually having to begin to
17:24prepare military actions because of an action by the United States of America. Senator Chris Van
17:31Holland of Maryland, thank you so much for your time tonight. Good to be with you. Coming up, the latest
17:38outrages from Trump's occupation in Minnesota. The state's attorney, General Keith Ellison, served with
17:43a subpoena today. Joins me next. The federal occupation in Minneapolis has shown no signs of slowing
17:50as we see near daily blatant violations of the most sacrosanct basic constitutional rights that we all
17:57enjoy. One of the latest and most shocking is the detention of Chung Lee Dow. He is a 56-year
18:03-old U.S.
18:04citizen with no known criminal record who was just grabbed from his home on Sunday. ICE agents hold
18:11him outside to face freezing temperatures in nothing but shorts, his grandson's blanket, and Crocs. Dow spoke to
18:18Reuters about the moment federal agents broke down his front door with no warrant and entered his home
18:25guns drawn. They said, OK, let's open the door, see what they want. And then Sunday just like guns
18:31pointed at us. I thought, whoa. And then they said, and then they go, you come out here. I go,
18:40OK. And then I will, I came out there with my hand up and then just put my hand on
18:47my back. So I did. And then
18:49Sunday just handcuffed me. They didn't ask for my ID or anything until after they handcuffed me and then they
19:00asked me, do I have my ID? I go, yeah, it's in the room. And then my daughter-in-law,
19:06she tried to get my ID, but they
19:08didn't want to see it no more. Yeah, they just took me out there with no clothes on and they
19:15just covered with my
19:17grandson's bank, blankets. Yeah, they just took me out there. Yesterday was, I don't feel like it's free now.
19:27Dow says he was returned later that day without explanation or apology. Keith Ellison is a Minnesota
19:34attorney general whose office just received a subpoena from Donald Trump's Department of Justice,
19:38and he joins me now. I want to start with the subpoena and then ask you about some of the
19:45things
19:46we're seeing because that news just broke. It was reported on Friday night that they would be sending
19:51subpoenas out, I think, to Governor Walz, Mayor Frey and yourself. I believe you have received the
19:55subpoena. What can you tell us and what's your response?
20:00We're going to look it over and we'll respond according to law. I can tell you, though,
20:06they're announcing investigations from all of us. And you mentioned three of us here in Minnesota.
20:11Actually, they're actually messing with the brand new mayor of St. Paul and the Canopy County attorney.
20:18But they're not investigating the person who ended the life of Renee Good. There's no investigation on that
20:26at all. And so it's a little bit ironic as we're doing the work that we're elected to do by
20:33our
20:33constituents, standing up for our states, insisting upon the dignity and the rights of the members of
20:40Minnesota. They have not done anything close to what they should do when it comes to investigating a
20:47homicide. And again, I make no conclusion as to how the case should end up. But they have
20:55overtly and very deliberately stated we're not investigating anything. No one in the federal
21:01side is investigating the death of Renee Good. Now, explain that. In fact, we should say there's
21:07reporting that indicates that the FBI, at least an FBI agent or two, had looked into it, concluded
21:12there should be investigation opened. Typically, there would be one, particularly in the Civil Rights
21:17Division or other parts of the federal government. Some of the Civil Rights Division lawyers,
21:21the DOJ have resigned in protest to the fact that that was shut down. Todd Blanche has said definitively
21:26there will be no investigation. So it seems pretty clear that they have actively shut down an
21:31investigation while actively attempted to create one, possibly against Renee Good's widow and against
21:37you, yourself and several other Minnesota elected leaders. And are still denying state investigators
21:43access to the file. So if you're not going to do an investigation and you won't allow other
21:50authorities to do an investigation, sounds like you're trying to do a cover up.
21:57The case of Mr. Dow, I think, is illustrative because it is we caught on camera. He's a U.S.
22:05citizen. He's his ethnicity is he's Hmong from Vietnam. Of course, notoriously, that's a group that
22:11had fought on the U.S. side in Vietnam and had been granted refugee status. The vast and
22:15overwhelming majority among folks who live in Minnesota are legal. They were they were brought
22:20here as a kind of recompense for their stalwart allyship in that war. His son said that ICE
22:29agents stopped him while he was driving to work before they went to detain his father.
22:33He was driving a car he borrowed from his cousin's boyfriend. Court records show the boyfriend
22:37shares the first name, the first name of another Asian man who has been convicted of a sex offense.
22:43Chris Dow said the two people are not the same. And regardless of whether it was a case of mistaken
22:48identity, is it your understanding that it's constitutionally permissible to knock down someone's
22:52door and grab them with zero probable cause or judicial warrant? It looks like an outrage and an
23:02offense not only against that Minnesota resident and citizen, but against our constitution. And the sad
23:10thing is, is that it is a particularly heinous and ugly example of what's going on. But Chris is
23:17happening all over our city and our state all the time. I could pull out numerous other examples
23:24examples that are as ugly as that, some not quite as ugly, some perhaps more ugly. But this is what
23:31our federal government in these United States is putting our state under for no discernible reason.
23:38And that's why we're suing them. And that's why we're going to be in court with them in only a
23:42few days
23:42to be able to bring this to the attention of a court to hopefully bring Operation Metro Surge
23:48to a stop or at least put guardrails around it so that it's not as abusive as it has been
23:55over the
23:55last several weeks. Do you know when that court case will be heard by a judge?
24:01Yes, it'll be January 23rd, January 23rd. So, you know, that is the date that we're looking forward to.
24:11The court has already issued a ruling that is in favor of the rights of protesters and the press.
24:19And I just want to say to the free independent media of America, they are attacking YouTube.
24:24But this one is more focused on a broader, just blanket violation of the rights of Minnesotans
24:32and the irrational, arbitrary behavior of the Department of Homeland Security.
24:39One of the most striking things I've noticed in this story is obviously it was, you know,
24:45five and a half years ago that George Floyd was murdered in the 20 cities and in Minneapolis
24:51specifically. And there's been a lot of work done to repair the aftermath of that, particularly with
24:57the community, particularly with the police department. I know I've talked to people about
25:00this. I know that you have been part of that work.
25:03Sure. And it's been interesting to listen to local law enforcement about how they're dealing
25:08with this federal surge. And today, the chief of police of Brooklyn Park, which is a municipality
25:13right in that area, came forward to talk about his own officers facing this this kind of abuse.
25:20Take a listen to what he had to say. Sure. What we're hearing is they're being stopped in traffic
25:27stops or on the street with no cause and being forced to demand paperwork to determine if they are
25:35here legally. As this went on over the past two weeks, we started hearing from our police officers
25:42the same complaints as they fell victim to this while off duty. Every one of these individuals
25:49is a person of color who has had this happen to them. If it is happening to our officers,
25:55it pains me to think how many of our community members are falling victim to this every day.
26:02It has to stop. How important do you think it is for an officer like that to speak out the
26:09way that
26:09he did today? Well, you know, we're so proud of so many members of law enforcement who you're
26:15absolutely right, Chris. You know, since George Floyd, we've done a lot of work. And I'm not here to
26:20declare that everything's perfect. But there's a lot of officers and a lot of citizens who have worked
26:25really hard to build a workable trust based relationship. And, you know, many of these,
26:32you know, the chief is, I know him, he's a friend of mine. And he, I was always proud of
26:38him. But I am
26:39even more so because he's speaking up with truth and dignity. But he's not the only one. Chief Brian O
26:45'Hara
26:45is doing the same thing in Minneapolis. Other police leaders are speaking up and saying,
26:51don't treat our people this way. We've worked hard to build relationships.
26:55And so, again, it's it's one thing Trump has done is he's brought us together and made us all
27:01appreciate each other a little bit more. This particular chief knows that we have officers
27:07who are some are Somali, some are white, some are black. They're all they're all kinds. And but they
27:14all are united in trying to protect the rights of Minnesotans. And with to see Trump ordering this
27:21surge, this dramatic escalation of more than 3000 ICE and Border Patrol agents all on a fairly,
27:29all on our state, when we're not even one of the highest immigration states in the country,
27:34just is appalls everyone. Police chief, ordinary citizen, everybody.
27:41Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, thank you for your time tonight.
27:44You bet. Thank you.
27:46Still ahead, as Donald Trump prepares to address the world in Switzerland, the American public
27:49has turned pretty decisively against his economic policies. That's next.
27:57Donald Trump is headed to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where he's scheduled to speak
28:02tomorrow after essentially declaring economic war on the entire world. And as he prepares to face the
28:08European allies, he consistently disparages and insults. An overwhelming majority Americans say
28:13they do not trust his economic policies. A recent AP poll found that just 37% of Americans approve of
28:20how he's handling the economy, while 62% disapprove. Steve Ellison, CNBC senior economics reporter,
28:26my favorite person to talk about this with at the table, joins me now. Good to have you here.
28:30Yeah, our data is very similar at CNBC. We do not. We show a lot of disapproval on the overall.
28:35What's really interesting about the second term with the president is his economic approval is
28:40running below his overall approval. That was the opposite in the first term.
28:45Yep. Big, crazy day today, geopolitically, and then in the markets, which I think are related.
28:50Dow dropped, you know, a ton. Bond markets went crazy. Yields went up. What happened today?
28:55Well, you know, this was the sell America trade that we had another time in April,
28:59Liberation Day, when those tariffs came on. So bond yields fell, which means people sold bonds,
29:05U.S. bonds. Stocks fell, which means they sold U.S. stocks. The dollar also fell. So all three key
29:10components, what rose, what gold went up. And I think there were two components to that, Chris.
29:14I think the first component is that immediately the market is factoring in the economic effects
29:20of tariffs and they tend not to be good. Pardon me. The other thing is, I think, a longer term
29:26idea,
29:26which is we thought tariffs were a 2025 story. Well, we woke up in January to find out we're still
29:33going to be living with new and uncertain tariffs as to and they can come and they can go as
29:39quickly as
29:40as the president can write a tweet. Unless the Supreme Court steps in, which is a possibility.
29:45No, no, no. It doesn't even matter because he's telling us. Right. It doesn't matter. I'm going
29:49to find another way to do it. So it's a good point. It's not like they're going away now that
29:53you may
29:53go into a space where Congress may have to choose to continue them. I think he gets 150 days under
30:00one
30:01of the different proposals. But what we learned today is they're not going away. And of course,
30:07there is a dramatic potential impact here of the severance of the massive U.S.-European trade
30:14relationship, which, by the way, there was an agreement there, which was not great. It was
30:18worse than the old agreement. But they struck an actual agreement.
30:21They had a deal. They had a deal. And now the deal looks like it's up in the air.
30:25So stepping back for a second, you know, the the the markets reacted in a pretty panicked
30:34fashion to Liberation Day. And then what happened was step back. A bunch of things happened. One is that
30:40I do think one of the few things that can exercise restraint on him is our markets,
30:45particularly stock markets, because he looks at them. So when they sell off, it does do something
30:48to him. And he did step back from the the maximalist position. We still have a very high
30:54tariff rate. It still has real economic consequences. Scott Besson's message today to people was kind of
30:59like, don't worry, the Greenland thing is just like that. And my big thing is, like, I just feel like
31:05the markets aren't pricing the tail risk enough. I think they're altogether too sanguine about all
31:12this. I mean, I wake up in the morning and I look at the market and there's something that's been
31:18going
31:18on, Chris, that maybe explains the top of the segment, which was the polling numbers and the
31:24dissonance we get with the high GDP numbers. Yeah, there's this massive boom going on in AI. And I think
31:31if you remove that from what's happening in the economy, the economy looks a lot shakier in that
31:35regard. And I think that people aren't feeling that increase in AI in that boom, because that's a
31:41wealthy people are benefiting from that and average people are not. And we're not seeing I think one of the
31:47things we're not able to see in the data, but I'm hearing anecdotally, is this very hurtful impact of
31:56tariffs when it comes to small businesses. And that is something that if you look at the data from ADP,
32:02small
32:03businesses since Liberation Day have shed a quarter of a million jobs. Wow. In the seven months before
32:09that, they gained a quarter million jobs. So that might be telling us what's going on. Well, and that
32:14story of two economies, I think the K-shaped economy, right? Like the sort of top 10, top 20%
32:21most affluent consumers. Now, top 10 make up 50% of consumer spending, right? The stock market, 17%
32:28S&P growth the last year, but people don't feel it. I mean, to me, the crazy thing here is
32:34that's kind of the point of AI. Like as he goes to Davos, right? And he's like looking at these
32:38polling numbers and they're talking about a GDP now estimate of maybe 5% in the first quarter,
32:42which would be like blow the doors off numbers, right? It's like if the ADI bet works for the
32:48investors in it, it's going to be bad for the labor market because that's the whole source of the value.
32:54And if it doesn't work, then everything's going to crumble. But either way-
32:58And the little guy will take it on the scene also.
32:59Exactly. Exactly. So it's like either way, it's hard to see the like working man coming out ahead.
33:04I think that's right. I'm a little bit more upbeat about the possibilities of technology over
33:11the longer term. I think that happens. And I think we shouldn't necessarily be afraid of it,
33:16but I would think that the government should be spending a lot more time thinking about the
33:21potential fallout of AI on the labor force than maybe taking over Greenland.
33:27In terms of things that are immediately threats in front of us, I think AI, I think you raised a
33:33lot of interesting questions. I think there are ways in which other people get retrained,
33:37go back to work, find other jobs that don't exist. We've always been a little bit-
33:41We've seen that with stuff, sure.
33:43Thinking about the apocalypse from new technology, it often doesn't happen, but there is displacement.
33:47Right. People will be displaced and will be hurt,
33:49and it's something we need to be thinking hard about. I just think you can see in his head right
33:53now a genuine of like, why doesn't everyone love this? And partly that's his narcissism,
33:59I think. But part of it, I think, is we might have a first quarter again where like the headline
34:03numbers look great and people hate as much as they ever had. And that's kind of the full story
34:08of the economy and the politics of the economy at this moment. Yeah. It is a dissonance that we pick
34:13up every poll we do, which is, and by the way, it was also true in the Biden administration,
34:18but I think for different reasons. Different reasons. That was a lot more inflation.
34:22It was going the right way. Yes.
34:23When you look at, and the president keeps saying there's no inflation. Well,
34:26there's exactly as much inflation as there was in the last year of the Biden administration as there
34:30was. It's down a little bit under the president, but part of that, the big chunk of that increase
34:35is actually tariffs. Yeah.
34:36Employment is way down. And that's a big part. And one of the most important things I think we
34:41ought to think about is manufacturing employment is way down. And I think, I hate to come back to
34:46this tariff thing again and again. We've tariffed and taxed the inputs. And that has made it really
34:52hard for small manufacturers. Hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs. Steve Leesman,
34:55always great to have you here. Thank you. Thanks.
34:56Still to come as Donald Trump take a sledgehammer to the rule of law, the really remarkable,
35:00widespread, and very meaningful pushback that we've seen both from people, from lawyers,
35:04and from courts and judges across the country. That's next.
35:11Earlier today, as world leaders were gathered in Davos and Donald Trump continued to threaten
35:16our allies, local Switzerland residents hiked up a mountain with 450 torches to spell out this
35:22message, no kings. And that's because Donald Trump has spent the past year attempting to become a king,
35:27to destroy the constitutional order, and is not stopping. He sent thousands of federal agents to
35:32essentially occupy Minnesota's Twin Cities. He's attacking Americans' fundamental right to protest.
35:37He's prosecuting his political opponents. But even as the president actively tries to tear down the
35:42rule of law and the entire edifice of American constitutionalism, Americans are doing everything
35:47they can, every day, out on the streets, everywhere they are, to preserve it.
35:52Norm Eisen is on the front lines of this fight in the courts. He's co-founder and executive chair
35:56of the Democracy Defenders Fund, which just published Autocracy vs. Democracy in America,
36:01a first-year report, and he joins me now. Norm, I said to my wife, Kate, who you worked with
36:06and are
36:06friends with this morning, that your indefatigable optimism, even in the face of a tough environment,
36:15tends to cheer me. So I think I know the answer to this question. But how do you think we're
36:20doing a
36:21year in? Well, Chris, the death and devastation of Donald Trump's entirely predictable authoritarian
36:30surge has been vast. But we have met his flood the zone autocracy with rule of law shock and awe.
36:43That's been in the courts where the Democracy Defenders Fund and Action, which I co-founded,
36:50have 249 legal cases and matters, including many of the landmark guardrails against Donald Trump's
36:59wrongdoing. But it's also been in the streets with massive, lawful, peaceful mobilization,
37:07coalition, including the No Kings movement. And frankly, it's happening in and at the polls,
37:14Chris. Donald Trump and his policies are historically unpopular. And the pro-democracy coalition
37:23won or outperformed by double digits in 222 out of 229 races in Donald Trump's first year.
37:34So what he's done is very bad. But the pushback has been very, very substantial.
37:40And that gives me hope that that our country is up for this challenge.
37:45You know, one of the one of the places that's actually been surprising to me,
37:49because I think I tend to be a real a realist, even cynical about the courts and judges in particular,
37:54as kind of political actors have been the lower courts, not the Supreme Court, which I think has been
37:58exactly what I anticipated, unfortunately. But today, we got another just another example of
38:04this. I mean, district judges across the ideological spectrum appointed by Republicans and Democrats,
38:09some even pointed by Trump, speaking with sort of uncommon clarity about what they are seeing.
38:15Today, it's Judge David Novak, who's the chief judge of the Eastern District of Virginia,
38:20where Lindsey Halligan has been essentially illegally posing as the U.S. attorney there.
38:25She she does not comply with the law. The local district has found that she doesn't.
38:30And in talking about a response she filed saying why she should still be in the job,
38:35he writes, Ms. Halligan's response in which she joined by both attorney general,
38:38deputy attorney general contains a level of vitriol more appropriate for a cable news talk show
38:43and falls far beneath the level of advocacy expected from litigants in this court,
38:48particularly Department of Justice. Again, this is a Trump appointee.
38:51Ms. Halligan elected to simply ignore valid court orders. The court cannot tolerate such
38:56abstinence because doing so would undermine the very essence of the rule law. In short,
39:00the charade of Ms. Halligan masquerading as a U.S. attorney in this district in direct
39:04defines of binding court orders must come to an end. The AP reporting she is out of the job after
39:09that.
39:09What do you make of that? Well, Chris, as you know, the Democracy Defenders Fund,
39:16we launched this campaign against the phony Trump U.S. attorneys securing the first precedence with
39:22our wonderful litigating partners and knocking Alina Haba out of the job and then confirming that
39:30in the Third Circuit. We filed briefs here and an ethics complaint against Ms. Halligan kicking off
39:38the effort, of course, in the Letitia James and James Comey case where their lawyers, supported by
39:46DDF briefs, their lawyers got the cases thrown out because she's a phony crony appointee and now Judge
39:56Novak pouring on the rule of law. It's a good example. And there are so many hundreds of others of
40:05the way
40:06the rule of law together with popular protest and the polling results have been a pushback
40:13on authoritarianism. Final question for you, maybe on a slightly more sour note, is the Supreme Court.
40:19I mean, that is the place where they have acted, it seems, as supplicants, as compliant. We still
40:26don't have the tariff decision. What do you think? What are you thinking about the approach to that court
40:31this year in what will be a real fulcrum year for the future of this democracy?
40:37Well, the shadow docket, of course, has been abused. That's wrong. But even at the Supreme Court,
40:47and I really can't emphasize enough my exception to the use of the shadow docket, even there,
40:53we saw a strong decision on the use of the National Guard at our organization. We represent cities,
41:05including Los Angeles. Chris, one of the highlights of my entire year was when my wonderful client,
41:12the city attorney of Los Angeles, sent me the video footage of the National Guard leaving Los Angeles in the
41:21dead of night in connection with that decision. We're also litigating important ICE precedents there,
41:27where we have at times enjoined some of the worst misbehavior. Let's see what the Supreme Court does
41:33this year. TBD, but that was a bright spot. Fingers crossed. Norm Eisen. Thank you so much,
41:41Norm. Good to see you. We'll be right back. Thanks, Chris.
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