- 2 hours ago
The Last Word with Lawrence ODonnell - Season 13 - Episode 12
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00even for him. Those are the words of Donald Trump's niece, Mary Trump, in her social media
00:05reaction to Donald Trump's latest proof that he is unfit to serve as president of the United
00:12States. Mary Trump was reacting to Donald Trump's social media post of a message to the prime
00:18minister of Norway, in which Donald Trump, in what appears to be more evidence of cognitive decline,
00:25possibly cognitive collapse, says that because the country of Norway did not give him the Nobel
00:35Peace Prize, even though the country of Norway has nothing to do with choosing Nobel Prize winners,
00:41Donald Trump is now even more eager to take Greenland away from Denmark, which Donald Trump
00:48might not know is actually a different country from Norway. Those are two different countries.
00:57Donald Trump's stone cold ignorance has been a defining characteristic of his entire public
01:01life. And so it is possible Donald Trump has never known that Norway and Denmark are two separate
01:08countries. Donald Trump might think that Denmark is the capital of Norway or the other way around,
01:12or maybe he once knew they were separate countries, but now his 79-year-old increasingly shattered brain
01:19can no longer hold on to facts like that. The Greenland thing is and always has been a Trump
01:28diversionary tactic. Trump is no more serious about it now than he was the first time he mentioned it
01:35over six years ago. Six years from now, Donald Trump will have done nothing. Donald Trump is
01:42never going to do anything in Greenland. He's not going to buy the place. He's not going to invade
01:48the place. He's not, but he is going to talk about Greenland every day that he can because the American
01:54news media cannot resist saturation coverage of such a simple issue. And every bit of coverage of
02:02Greenland is not coverage of the Epstein files, as we will be covering tonight. More than 99% of the
02:10Epstein files, Donald Trump is now illegally hiding. We will be covering that story tonight.
02:16And every news mention of Greenland is not coverage of what Donald Trump's invasion forces
02:21did not change in Venezuela, where the regime that was in power before Donald Trump's invasion remains
02:28in power tonight. And every moment of coverage of Greenland is not coverage of Donald Trump's invasion
02:35invasion forces in Minneapolis and other parts of the country that did not vote for Donald Trump.
02:41Donald Trump's treasury secretary, who is by far the most incompetent treasury secretary in history,
02:46once again, faced Sunday morning questions yesterday that he just could not answer.
02:56If the United States were to take Greenland by force, how would that be different than Russia's
03:02annexation of Crimea? Look, I believe that the Europeans will understand that this is best for
03:08Greenland, best for Europe and best for the United States. That man is going to spend the rest of his
03:14life claiming that he saved us from Donald Trump's worst impulses. Marco Rubio will do the same thing.
03:22Most Trump cabinet members will be claiming that for the rest of their lives. His secretary of labor
03:30won't claim she did that because there is very little evidence that she's ever spoken to Donald Trump.
03:35And no one would know she actually is the secretary of labor. If Ruben Murdoch owned New York Post
03:42wasn't reporting on her under the headline, Inspector General Probe uncovers labor secretary
03:47Lori Chavez de Rameur's office booze stash and strip club visit with subordinates.
03:55The Post, citing five sources, reports, quote, the investigation has also confirmed that
04:02rumors the secretary pursued an inappropriate relationship with an underling were discussed
04:08internally months ago and dismissed by her chief of staff, Ji-hun Han, who was put on leave Monday
04:15along with his deputy, Rebecca Wright, three of the sources affirmed. The secretary of labor has denied
04:21wrongdoing through an attorney and the labor department declined to comment. Such is life
04:27in the Trump cabinet. Donald Trump is the most difficult client the Supreme Court has ever had. And yes,
04:35I mean client, not litigant, because the Trump Supreme Court justices seem to treat him as their legal
04:42client rather than a litigant appearing before them seeking their impartial judgment. Surely Samuel Alito
04:50and Clarence Thomas, along with at least a couple of the Trump appointees, may have spent the last
04:55months struggling to hold together a majority to rule in favor of the unconstitutional Trump tariffs.
05:03This would require the Trump-controlled Supreme Court to ignore the Constitution, but they've done
05:09that for him before. That's not hard for them. They basically functioned as his criminal defense
05:14lawyers in creating a criminal immunity for Donald Trump that no previous president ever had.
05:22There is not a single justice on the Supreme Court who knows as much about international trade
05:28and the Constitution as any member of the Court of international trade, which is a special federal
05:35court whose jurisdiction is exclusively international trade cases. That's all they do. They are not
05:43generalists like the Supreme Court. And the Court of International Trade ruled unanimously, unanimously,
05:50that Donald Trump's tariffs are unconstitutional. The Court of International Trade, in their unanimous
05:58ruling, which included two Trump-appointed judges, said that it is unconstitutional for Donald Trump,
06:06quote, to impose any tariff rate he wants on any country at any time for virtually any reason.
06:12And that is exactly what Donald Trump has been doing. And that is exactly what the Court of
06:17International Trade said is unconstitutional. The Court of International Trade said that Donald
06:22Trump's tariffs, quote, sound the death knell of the Constitution. The Court of International
06:29Trade has never written a more dramatic opinion than they did in the case striking down Donald Trump's
06:38tariffs, which is now being considered by the United States Supreme Court after Donald Trump appealed
06:44the ruling of the Court of International Trade to the United States Supreme Court. And if you are a
06:52Trump Supreme Court justice sitting there for months trying to help Donald Trump with his
06:58unconstitutional tariffs, the one thing you wanted him to do while you were considering his tariff appeal
07:05is not impose any more crazy tariffs. The one thing Samuel Alito and others needed from Donald Trump is to
07:12just stop threatening crazier and crazier tariffs. And if you're Donald Trump's Solicitor General who
07:19argued the case for Donald Trump to the Supreme Court, you were surely hoping that Donald Trump would
07:25just stay silent on tariffs until the Supreme Court ruled. But in fact, Donald Trump has continued to
07:34threaten crazy tariffs while the Supreme Court is considering his appeal. And this weekend,
07:41Donald Trump did it again. And he did it as crazily as ever. On Saturday, Donald Trump said,
07:49quote, starting on February 1st, 2026, all of the above mentioned countries, Denmark, Norway, Sweden,
07:56France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Finland will be charged a 10% tariff on any and all
08:03goods sent to the United States of America on June 1st, 2026. The tariff will be increased to 25%.
08:10This tariff will be due and payable until such time as a deal is reached for the complete and total
08:18purchase of Greenland. Imagine those Republican Supreme Court clerks desperately trying to twist the
08:27Constitution into the grotesque shape they would have to create to accept the Trump tariffs. And then
08:35Donald Trump ruins your weekend with that social media post that is the governing equivalent of full
08:42blown dementia, an irretrievably lost mind. When you work for Donald Trump, as the most pathetic Treasury
08:50Secretary does, and as some Supreme Court justices appear to do, he will humiliate you.
08:57It is impossible to work for Donald Trump as a supporter in Congress, like the Speaker of the House
09:03and every Republican in the House and Senate on most issues without Donald Trump humiliating you
09:08repeatedly. And members of your family will be saying what Donald Trump's niece says about him.
09:16This is too stupid even for him. Scott Besson's ritualistic Sunday morning humiliations found a new low
09:26even for him this weekend when Kristen Welker asked him about Donald Trump's utterly insane
09:35criminal investigation of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.
09:42Axios reported that you were not happy about DOJ's investigation, that you told President Trump as
09:48much. Axios writes, quote, a perturbed Treasury Secretary Scott Besson told President Trump late
09:54Sunday that the federal investigation into the Federal Reserve Chair made a mess and could be bad
09:59for financial markets. That's according to two sources familiar with the call. Is that accurate?
10:03Well, you know what, Kristen? I'm not going to discuss my conversations with the president,
10:09but if I said that, I was wrong.
10:14Oh, if I said that, I was wrong. And there the Treasury Secretary wins the prize for the most pathetic
10:23reply ever publicly delivered by an already fully humiliated Trump cabinet member. If I said that,
10:33I was wrong. Scott Besson and his husband, John Freeman, have two children. How do they explain
10:45that to their kids? How do the kids explain it to themselves? Imagine watching your father do that
10:54on TV. What are the words that could possibly explain that to you about your father? What is the lesson
11:02your father is teaching you there? What is the lesson Scott Besson is teaching us all about the Trump
11:10cabinet and the Trump Congress and the Trump Supreme Court? Ann Applebaum's latest piece in the Atlantic
11:20is titled, Trump's Letter to Norway Should Be the Last Straw. For Scott Besson and the Trump
11:28Quizlings and the Trump cabinet and the Trump Congress. There is no last straw.
11:37Leading off our discussion tonight is Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island. He's a member of the
11:42Senate Judiciary Committee, the Finance Committee and the Budget Committee. He's also the top Democrat in the
11:47Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Senator, thank you very much for joining us tonight.
11:51And I'm hoping that the next time the Treasury Secretary appears before you at the Senate Finance
11:58Committee, you can find a way to get him to say, if I said that, I was wrong. Because that
12:07is apparently
12:07in his list of possible answers now. Yeah, I think rule one for being a Trump cabinet secretary is you
12:16have
12:16to be willing to crawl on command. Yeah, and do so publicly in a way that we've absolutely never seen
12:24before. I mean, there's never been, prior to Trump world, there's never been a cabinet official with a
12:30moment like that on any Sunday morning show, any television anywhere. If I said that, I was wrong. That
12:36is a whole new level. Well, a considerable number of Trump's cabinet appointees are flagrantly
12:44unqualified for the position. I mean, they are incompetence in the room. And so when you know
12:53that you can't do the job, when you know that you get the security package, people calling you Mr.
13:01Secretary, the big office, all of the perks of the office, only because Trump put you there, not because
13:08you merit the job at all. You start off with a position of obsequiousness. And then his mad demand
13:19for flattery just makes it even worse. So before you even get to engaging with the man, you are already
13:28sort of on your knees and halfway to full crawl. The so-called criminal investigation of the Fed
13:37chair. I think there's a zero chance of there ever being any charges filed in any way. But what else
13:44is
13:44at stake in this kind of attack on a Fed chair? Well, it's a problem on both sides of the
13:54attack.
13:57Essentially, everybody who has looked at this considers that this is not a legitimate law enforcement
14:04investigation, but rather is political pressure. It's using the Department of Justice to bring political
14:09pressure against the Fed chair to try to get him to do what the president wants. And the reason
14:15everybody thinks that is because it's a real danger when the president can pull the chain of the Fed chair
14:23and get him to do whatever the president wants. Independence of the Fed has been a core principle
14:30of our economic success for decades now. And it's been one that's been protected through multiple
14:38presidential administrations. So when people see somebody doing this, the first thing they look
14:43at is, oh, my God, there goes the independence of the Fed, because that really matters. Then you go
14:49back to the other side of the exchange, and that's DOJ. And unfortunately, as somebody who used to work
14:55at DOJ, it's just like relentless disgracefulness coming out of the Department of Justice as they've been
15:03turned into the political hack tool of the Trump White House. And you see it over and
15:09over and over and over and over again.
15:14As we go forward, in terms of the Fed chair, he has until the spring, and then Donald Trump is
15:20going to have his own
15:20nominee. There will be a confirmation hearing at the Senate Finance Committee for Donald Trump's next Fed chair.
15:27What does the current situation provoke in terms of that confirmation process?
15:34Well, that's what was so stupid about this out of the Trump White House and out of the DOJ,
15:42is that the guy only had five months left. Just shut up and you're rid of him in May if
15:48you've got a problem
15:49with him. But by putting this seemingly fake investigation forward and painting yourself
15:57as someone who wants to destroy the independence of the Fed, you've just created an enormous risk for
16:05whoever you next want to appoint. There are a lot of Republican senators already making noise about
16:13their concern about this. And I think it's going to put whoever the next nominee is under a real
16:20microscope to make sure that they, in fact, will defend the independence of the Fed. Now,
16:26they may be like the rest of the Trump cabinet and just lie to get their position. But, you know,
16:32if you want to be a real Fed chair, it's kind of a grown-up position. And lying your way
16:37into it
16:37is not a great thing for your career. Senator, we have to squeeze in a commercial break here.
16:43When we come back, we want to go to another legal matter with you, using your experience
16:46as a former federal prosecutor, because a federal judge ordered ICE to stop arresting people engaging
16:52in peaceful protests. The judge also ordered ICE to stop using pepper spray against people engaging
16:58in peaceful protests. And Bruce Springsteen stopped his Saturday night concert in New Jersey to
17:04raise his voice against what he called Gestapo in Minnesota. We'll listen to what Bruce Springsteen
17:11had to say when we come back with Senator Whitehouse.
17:17On Saturday night in New Jersey, before dedicating his song, The Promised Land, to Rene Good,
17:23Bruce Springsteen said this.
17:27Right now, we are living through incredibly critical times.
17:31The United States, the ideals and the values for which it stood for the past 250 years,
17:38is being tested as it has never been in modern times.
17:43You know, those values and those ideals have never been as endangered as they are right now.
17:54So as we gather tonight, in this beautiful display of love and care and thoughtfulness and community,
18:04if you believe in democracy, in liberty, if you believe that truth still matters,
18:13and that it's worth speaking out, and that it's worth fighting for, if you believe in the power of the
18:21law and that no one stands above it,
18:26if you believe in the power of the law and Mirrorstorm.
18:27And we stand against heavily armed, masked federal troops evading an American city.
18:36And using Gestapo tactics against our fellow citizens.
18:42If you believe you don't deserve to be murdered for exercising your American right to protest.
18:53I send a message to this president, and as the mayor of that city has said,
19:00I should get the b**** out of Minneapolis.
19:09Late Friday night, a federal judge in Minnesota issued an order forbidding federal agents in
19:14Minnesota from A, retaliating against persons who are engaging in peaceful and unobtrusive
19:21protest activity. B, arresting or detaining persons who are engaging in peaceful and unobstructive
19:27protest activity. C, using pepper spray or similar non-lethal munitions and crowd dispersal tools
19:33against persons who are engaging in peaceful and unobstructive protest activity. D, stopping or
19:41detaining drivers and passengers in vehicles where there is no reasonable, articulable suspicion
19:48that they are forcibly obstructing or interfering with covered federal agents. Senator Sheldon
19:55Whitehouse is back with us. Senator, that federal judge's ruling and order really could change the
20:02situation in Minnesota. Yeah, it could. And I suspect if you look at the continued violent,
20:08incompetent, and unprofessional behavior of ICE out there, that that order might very well be
20:14expanded. Coming fresh across the news now is the story of the mayor of St. Paul's family friend
20:22at home, and the agents burst into his home with weapons drawn. They drag him out into the Minnesota
20:30cold. They don't even pay the guy the courtesy of letting him put clothes on. He's wearing boxer shorts
20:36and crocs. There's a five-year-old child crying on the sofa, terrified at this incursion by the pistol-drawn
20:47agents. And they had nothing on the guy. They hauled him out to the car. They drove him around for
20:53an hour.
20:54They fingerprinted him. And then they dropped him back off. Oops. You know, there's a point where all of law
21:01enforcement should be embarrassed by the conduct of these people. And I think that with the judge
21:07having already realized how much conduct is so bad out there, I mean, you drive to the market in
21:14suburban Minneapolis, and you're accosted at a corner by ICE agents who might very well pull you over
21:21for no reason whatsoever. That's why that last element was put into the order by the judge.
21:28But over and over and over again, right up to the tragedy of the shooting of Renee Goode,
21:35this is just deeply unprofessional law enforcement behavior. I will tell you that law enforcement
21:40people in Rhode Island are appalled by what they are seeing. It makes the whole profession look bad.
21:45And thank God that this judge is standing up and saying, hey, enough, enough here.
21:51And this general protection that the judge is offering is especially crucial in a situation where
21:58even with the case you just described, it is extremely difficult for a bunch of reasons,
22:05legal hurdles that are stuck in there, for that person to sue the federal government for what just
22:12happened to him. It's so difficult for an individual to take on the federal government after one of these
22:18instances, as compared to local police, which are, they're also difficult to sue, but much easier,
22:24many fewer hurdles than trying to get a federal agent in court.
22:29Yeah. U.S. Code Section 1983 gives a pretty broad remedy, including even potential attorney's fees
22:36when somebody has their civil constitutional rights taken away from them, deprived by state,
22:44county or municipal law enforcement. But for the feds, it's a different rules called the Bivens rule.
22:51And this Supreme Court has done a very good job of whittling the Bivens rule down to essentially zero
22:57so that you're virtually unaccountable except through the Tort Claims Act, which is a very, very narrow
23:06set of rights and very little, like no punitive damages, no attorney's fees, no very limited scope of damages.
23:20So you guess somebody like that, they're humiliated, they're disgraced, their family home has been invaded,
23:27they're terrified, but there's no physical harm to them. And so where do you go? You just have to live
23:34with it. And unfortunately, there's ordinarily, there would be consequences up the chain of command.
23:41Somebody at the top would say, OK, this agent's behavior was unacceptable. There'd be discipline.
23:48If really necessary, the DOJ Civil Rights Division would come in. But all of that has been stopped under
23:54Trump. And in fact, the first response you get when this goes up the chain to the top of Homeland
24:00Security is the Secretary of Homeland Security falsely taking a side in the matter that has not yet been
24:08investigated. So from the very get go, the first thing they do is cheat, essentially.
24:16Let's listen to what Trump administration officials said this weekend about the investigation or the
24:22non-investigation of the killing of Renee Goode.
24:28We are following the exact same investigative and review process that we always have under ICE and
24:34under the Department of Homeland Security and within the administration, the exact same policy
24:38that the Biden administration used. So his actions are being reviewed. We haven't changed any of that.
24:43We investigate when it's appropriate to investigate. And that is not the case here. It wasn't the case
24:48when it happened. And it's not the case today. Senator, that sounds like no investigation.
24:55Yeah. And it also sounds like a complete hogwash. I mean, the fact of the matter is that when there
25:01is a fatal shooting by a federal agent, it is virtually standard practice, virtually uniform practice
25:08for the Civil Rights Division to go and take a look at that, in addition to the internal investigation
25:13by the department that employed the shooter. So two investigations, really. And in this case,
25:20at the top of the department investigation is somebody who's already predetermined the outcome
25:25of the investigation before she knew what on earth was going on. And the Civil Rights Division
25:30apparently has been told that there's nothing here to investigate, so don't investigate it.
25:34That isn't the way it has customarily worked in all of my experience. It is that it was essentially
25:40automatic for the Civil Rights Division to do a review. And if they had to open a more formal
25:44investigation and consider bringing charges, then they'd go on to that. But effectively,
25:50Kristi Noem, from the very get-go, saying that there's nothing to look at here when she doesn't
25:55know that to be the case. And Todd Blanche, the other guy you just showed, saying there's nothing to
26:00see here before the Civil Rights Division can do the proper investigation. This is the fix is in.
26:06And it just, you know, the United States government should not behave this way.
26:11Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, thank you very much for joining us tonight.
26:16Coming up, Epstein survivors are now asking a federal judge to expedite the release of the
26:21Epstein files now that the Trump Justice Department is in violation of the law that was written
26:26by our next guest. Congressman Ro Khanna of the House Oversight Committee will join us next.
26:34Donald Trump's Justice Department has now been in violation of federal law for a full month. The
26:39law requires the full release of the Epstein files under the Epstein Files Transparency Act by
26:46December 19th of last year. In a letter to federal judge Richard Berman, Jeffrey Epstein's
26:53survivor, Haley Robson, has joined Republican Congressman Thomas Massey and our next guest,
26:59Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna requesting a special master be appointed to force the Trump
27:04Justice Department to comply with the Epstein Transparency Act and release the millions of
27:11unreleased Epstein files. We ask the court to help ensure that the law is followed as written,
27:18that disclosures are complete and not improperly withheld or over redacted with respect to those
27:24who are not survivors and that continued delays or discretionary noncompliance do not further
27:30re-traumatize us. Oversight would protect the integrity of the process while preserving the
27:35court's authority and ensuring fairness to all parties. We understand the seriousness of requesting
27:41judicial intervention and oversight. We do not make this request lightly. We make it because
27:45survivors have waited decades for truth to be acknowledged and for accountability to follow.
27:50We were promised transparency. We were promised action. We are still waiting. In a separate filing,
27:58Jeffrey Epstein's survivor, Lisa Phillips, wrote this in support of a special master being appointed.
28:04The Department of Justice's conduct regarding the Epstein files constitute willful violations
28:09of the act and undermine survivors' trust in the integrity of the process and in the government's
28:16publicly announced commitments to transparency and accountability. The Department of Justice has
28:21not taken actions to fully comply with the act and will likely not do so without proper court
28:28supervision, without independent oversight supervised by this court. Survivors, including me, remain at risk
28:34of continued delay, obfuscation, and further trauma caused by uncertainty and broken assurances.
28:42Tomorrow is Jeffrey Epstein's birthday, and today a giant 12-foot replica of the birthday letter that
28:50Donald Trump wrote to Jeffrey Epstein for his 50th birthday appeared on the National Mall. An
28:57accompanying note says, happy birthday. The secret handshake invites you to celebrate the birthday of
29:04Donald Trump's closest friend, Jeffrey Epstein, with a larger-than-life tribute to their intimate
29:11correspondents. Visitors to the National Mall are asked to sign the birthday card with their own
29:16message to the Trump administration. Joining us now is Democratic Congressman Rue Conner of California.
29:21He's a member of the House Oversight Committee. And Congressman Rue Conner, I guess we should have seen this
29:27coming. Donald Trump fought the law that you were trying to pass in every way that he possibly could.
29:34Republicans fought it until they got overwhelmed by you and Thomas Massey with the discharge petition.
29:41And then Republicans realized they just couldn't couldn't beat it. So they went along with it, voted for it.
29:47But in the end, Donald Trump, who controls the Justice Department, was just going to violate the law,
29:54just release less than one percent of the Epstein files and simply not comply with the law.
30:01Lawrence, not only is he violating the law, the Department of Justice had the audacity
30:07to brief Judge Engelmeyer and say that the judge has no authority to enforce the law.
30:13In their brief, they say, the judge, you can't do anything if we're violating the law. It was almost
30:19insulting the court. And that's why I think we saw these enormously courageous
30:24survivors, Haley Robson and Lisa Phillips, right to the court saying, this is causing us trauma.
30:31This is not a political football. We have suffered for decades. Please court,
30:36do something so that the law is enforced. And just to remind your viewers, Lawrence,
30:42you introduced the nation to these survivors because you had Bradley Edwards on the program
30:46with me. And he's the one who introduced me to these survivors who then had the courage to stand
30:52in the steps of the Capitol two times. And even after the law has passed, they still are having to
30:57put themselves out there. It's shameful. What are the next steps?
31:03Well, we, Thomas Massey and our lawyer tomorrow replies at the request of Judge Engelmeyer making
31:11the case again for the special master and asking the judge if he's not going to go as far as
31:17a special
31:17master, which we think would solve the issue, to at least order the release of some of the key
31:22documents. The survivor's statements to the FBI, the 302 statements where they implicate other rich and
31:28powerful men who raped them. None of those statements have come out. We want the judge to order the
31:34release of that. We want the judge to order the release of the prosecution memo, which details the
31:39other co-conspirators. And I am confident that Judge Engelmeyer will do something reasonable and thoughtful.
31:47So Donald Trump obviously is talking about Greenland every day. He invades Venezuela. He's
31:57going to run the clock as long as he can to the point where now some Republican members of the
32:02House who voted for the discharge petition to to pass your bill are now saying they don't care about
32:09it. That seems to be Donald Trump's game is to play this out long enough with enough diversionary
32:14tactics, enough diversionary attention to Greenland that he can get people to just stop caring.
32:21You're right, but it's not working. And I think this is why he's getting
32:25angered when that young man confronted him in Michigan on the factory floor and said you're
32:30protecting pedophiles. You saw the president lose it. And that's it. He knows this has gotten into
32:35the popular culture. When you have a on the mall, the birthday letter blown up, Donald Trump knows that
32:42his own base isn't buying this. His own base is upset at Pam Bondi. And that is why he's so
32:49afraid.
32:49This is the one thing that has really hurt him with his own voters.
32:54Carson Ro Khanna, thank you very much for joining us tonight.
32:58Thank you, Lawrence.
33:00Coming up today, the New York Times issued its verdict on the Trump economy, and it reads like
33:06a real campaign opportunity for Democrats, including Sherrod Brown,
33:11who is running for Senate in Ohio and will join us next.
33:18The New York Times today published their year one evaluation of the Trump economy saying,
33:26Donald Trump campaigned in 2024 on promises to end inflation, bring back manufacturing jobs and
33:32deliver an economic boom. A year after he returned to the White House, he has yet to deliver on those
33:37pledges. As a candidate, Mr. Trump promised his tariffs would discourage imports and encourage companies
33:43to shift production back to the United States, shrinking the trade deficit. In his first months
33:49back in office, the opposite occurred. The trade deficit exploded as companies rushed to import goods
33:55to get ahead of tariffs. Imports dropped off sharply once Mr. Trump's trade policies took effect,
34:03narrowing the deficit significantly late in the year. But imports could pick up again once companies
34:10sell through their inventories. And there has been little evidence of companies moving production
34:16back to the United States in a major way. Joining us now is former Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown of
34:22Ohio, who is running for United States Senate again in Ohio this year. Senator, thank you very much for
34:28joining us tonight. Donald Trump promised to bring manufacturing jobs back right away. Manufacturing
34:34jobs declined this year. Are voters understanding the Trump effect on this economy?
34:42Well, I know voters. I do a lot of roundtables around the state. I've mentioned that to Lawrence
34:47for years. It's where I listen to people and learn things. And people don't really understand what's
34:52going on. They understand that the system's rigged worse than it has been before. They understand
34:57corporations are making more money and kind of CEOs are doing stock backs. They understand they're
35:02working harder, and they understand more money's going out the door than coming back. And they
35:07didn't vote for that. They didn't vote for running Venezuela. They didn't vote for this absurd going
35:15after Greenland and disrupting our allies and all of that. They voted for a president in a Senate,
35:22in a House. And John Husted was the determining vote on the cuts to Medicaid. Nine times he voted,
35:31it had behest of his insurance company friends, for higher insurance premiums. So that's not what
35:37they voted for. That's not what they're saying. People are really unhappy that there is not out of
35:42Washington a focus on what matters to their lives. And it couldn't be more clear in our politics that
35:49affordability is the number one issue out there on voters' minds. And Republicans in the House and
35:56the Senate voted to increase the cost of health insurance for people who are recipients of health
36:05insurance under the Affordable Care Act. And that impacts everyone else's health insurance costs
36:11throughout the system. That's where they begin on affordability this year.
36:17Yeah, I was one of the roundtables I did. There was a gentleman there who is self-employed. He has
36:22his own exterminating company. And when his premiums, this was a month or two ago, his premiums he thought
36:29were about to double, he was likely going to go without insurance, which, as you say, Lawrence affects
36:33other people's insurance rates. So, you know, John Husted had nine chances to fix that. He didn't.
36:40And so did other senators in Washington. And the reason is always, as this show is pointed out so
36:46well, Lawrence, that special interest insurance companies, Wall Street, drug companies, oil
36:52companies, they run the show and they run the show even more than they did. And, you know, I know
36:56when
36:56I'm running this year that they will come in with huge numbers of dollars. That's why I asked people
37:01to come to SherrodBrown.com and, you know, give us 10 or 15 or 20 bucks, because that's how I
37:08beat them,
37:08with small contributions. The day I announced back in August, 30,000 Ohioans went online and
37:14contributed to my campaign. And that's the kind of effort we have. And that will beat these special
37:20interest groups that elect people like John Husted to do their bidding. And that's really the story of
37:25Washington. Now a rigged system is getting worse on health insurance costs, on all kind of drug
37:31company, on drug costs, on the inability for people, the young people to buy a house,
37:38all those things that matter. The people want Congress to focus on that, not on Venezuela,
37:43not starting a war and in running Venezuela, not starting a war in the Middle East. They want to
37:49focus domestically on making their lives better. So enough Republicans in the House joined the
37:55Democrats to actually pass a three-year extension of subsidies for Obamacare. It's the United States
38:02Senate. It's Republicans in the Senate that have been blocking it.
38:06Well, the Republicans in the Senate, including both from Ohio, don't come back much. They don't,
38:13they don't sit down with people in Toledo. They don't sit down with a carpenter in Youngstown. They
38:18don't sit down with a McDonald's worker in Mansfield, where I grew up. They don't sit down with an
38:23orderly in a hospital in Zanesville or Dayton and listen to what's going on in their lives. If they
38:28did, they wouldn't be, they wouldn't be so much fronting. Maybe they still would for their special
38:33interest friends because they want the campaign money. But they really would understand what's
38:38people's, where people are focused not on, not on this foreign policy in Greenland and Venezuela.
38:45Former Senator Sherrod Brown, thank you very much for joining us.
38:48Thank you, Lawrence. Always a pleasure to be on your show. Thanks.
38:51Thank you. We'll be right back.
Comments