Latest / NO FILTER / The Last Word With Lawrence O_Donnell - May 27 _ Audio Only(M4A_128K)

Transcript

The Last Word With Lawrence O_Donnell - May 27 _ Audio Only(M4A_128K) · NO FILTER

0:00
Speaker 1: And once again, Donald Trump backed down. It should come
0:05
Speaker 1: as no surprise to faithful viewers of this program that
0:08
Speaker 1: the most cowardly president in American history backed down again.
0:13
Speaker 1: The stupidest president in American history backed down again. The
0:17
Speaker 1: only convicted felon to serve as president of the United
0:20
Speaker 1: States backed down again. The president who got caught publicly
0:27
Speaker 1: lying over thirty five thousand times in his first term
0:31
Speaker 1: backed down again. And in backing down again, Donald Trump
0:36
Speaker 1: once again became a loser, in this case, a loser
0:43
Speaker 1: in a contest that he started, a contest that didn't
0:46
Speaker 1: have to happen were it not for the rank ignorance
0:50
Speaker 1: of Donald Trump. Donald Trump has already lost his trade war,
0:54
Speaker 1: and he is relentlessly stupid enough to continue to draw
0:59
Speaker 1: lines in the sand of his trade war that get
1:03
Speaker 1: blown away by his own foul, intemperate breath. And in
1:10
Speaker 1: Donald Trump's war against the greatest university in the world,
1:13
Speaker 1: donald Trump is going to lose. The history of Donald
1:17
Speaker 1: Trump's war against Harvard will not be written during Donald
1:20
Speaker 1: Trump's presidency, and in Harvard's history, donald Trump's war is
1:25
Speaker 1: a speck. Donald Trump's last year in the presidency will
1:32
Speaker 1: be Harvard's three hundred ninety third year, Donald Trump's presidency
1:39
Speaker 1: will be the equivalent of roughly one percent of the
1:43
Speaker 1: years Harvard University has already been with us as America's
1:48
Speaker 1: oldest university, founded in sixteen thirty six, long before anyone
1:53
Speaker 1: ever dreamed of a country called the United States of America.
1:56
Speaker 1: Long after Donald Trump is gone, the war old class
2:00
Speaker 1: historians at Harvard University and elsewhere will be defining Donald
2:05
Speaker 1: Trump's presidency as the most corrupt American presidency in history.
2:12
Speaker 1: The Trump presidency will be recorded in history as a
2:16
Speaker 1: failure because nothing Donald Trump does in the presidency will
2:19
Speaker 1: live after him. The policies are all reversible and will
2:23
Speaker 1: be reversed, and many of them will be reversed in
2:27
Speaker 1: the courts during the Trump presidency. And then there are
2:31
Speaker 1: the Trump policies that are reversed by Donald Trump himself.
2:37
Speaker 1: Flip flop used to be the worst thing a politician
2:40
Speaker 1: could be associated with in a headline other than a
2:43
Speaker 1: sex scandal or bribery. Then came Donald Trump, who flipflops
2:47
Speaker 1: more than any politician in American history. No American politician
2:52
Speaker 1: has ever reversed himself more frequently than Donald Trump, or
2:55
Speaker 1: more quickly than Donald Trump, or more fully predictably than
3:01
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, the weak willed Donald Trump, the foolish Donald Trump,
3:06
Speaker 1: and Donald Trump's predictable reversing of himself has now created
3:11
Speaker 1: a new phrase with the acronym taco, as in Trump
3:17
Speaker 1: always chickens out. And that's what the usually conservative British
3:23
Speaker 1: newspaper The Financial Times now says about Donald Trump, Trump
3:28
Speaker 1: always chickens out. The New York Times reports that the
3:32
Speaker 1: phrase is now sweeping through Wall Street. Trump always chickens
3:38
Speaker 1: out quote has been adopted by some to describe the
3:43
Speaker 1: pattern in which markets tumble after mister Trump makes tariff threats,
3:47
Speaker 1: only to rebound just as sharply when he relents and
3:51
Speaker 1: gives countries more time to negotiate deals. The market dropped
3:56
Speaker 1: on Friday when mister Trump threatened to ratchet up tariffs
3:59
Speaker 1: to fifty percent on goods from the European Union, a
4:03
Speaker 1: move that could have done severe economic damage to Europe
4:07
Speaker 1: and the United States, but at the time some analysts,
4:10
Speaker 1: like Salomon Fiedler of Behrenberg, a German bank, said it
4:14
Speaker 1: wouldn't last.
4:15
Speaker 2: Wild threats by Trump are not unusual. He wrote in
4:18
Speaker 2: a note that Day.
4:20
Speaker 1: Given the damage the US would do to itself with
4:23
Speaker 1: this tariff, he will probably not follow through. These retreats
4:27
Speaker 1: are so frequent that investors should rationally expect them, Paul
4:31
Speaker 1: Dunovan of UBS Wealth Management wrote, echoing me.
4:36
Speaker 2: By the way, as.
4:37
Speaker 1: Stocks in Europe jumped Monday morning and as US markets,
4:42
Speaker 1: which were closed on Monday for Memorial Day, joined the
4:44
Speaker 1: rally on Tuesday, Chris Bouchamp of IG Group summed it
4:48
Speaker 1: up with taco trade triumphs once again. So I guess
4:53
Speaker 1: one place I could be making more money is as
4:56
Speaker 1: a UBS Wealth Management analyst. Because long before Paul Donovan
5:01
Speaker 1: of UBS wrote, these retreats are so frequent investors should
5:06
Speaker 1: rationally expect them, I said exactly that, essentially that on
5:09
Speaker 1: this program weeks ago, I told Wall Street, where obviously
5:14
Speaker 1: no one was listening. But Donald Trump will not carry
5:17
Speaker 1: out any of his tariff threats from that point forward,
5:20
Speaker 1: and there is no reason to sell any stock when
5:23
Speaker 1: Donald Trump threatens a tariff, as he did last week,
5:26
Speaker 1: threatening a new fifty percent tariff on everything from Europe,
5:30
Speaker 1: a tariff that would be completely.
5:32
Speaker 2: Illegal and ruled illegal in federal courts.
5:34
Speaker 1: But the stock market panicked again about that fifty percent
5:38
Speaker 1: tariff on European goods, and then Donald Trump completely flip
5:43
Speaker 1: flopped over the holiday week and weekend, seeing where the
5:46
Speaker 1: world markets were going over this, he reversed himself so
5:49
Speaker 1: he wouldn't have another stock market crash on his hands
5:52
Speaker 1: that he would be blamed for, and of course the
5:54
Speaker 1: stock market came back up. Donald Trump is too stupid
5:59
Speaker 1: to stop threatening new tariffs, and he is too cowardly
6:02
Speaker 1: to actually carry out those threatened tariffs against a Wall
6:06
Speaker 1: Street reaction that would involve a crashing stock market.
6:09
Speaker 2: And so the American stock market.
6:11
Speaker 1: Should now build all of that into its reaction to
6:15
Speaker 1: Trump tariff threats. The European Union knows the tariff threats
6:20
Speaker 1: are nonsensical, and that's why they have given Donald Trump
6:23
Speaker 1: exactly nothing in negotiations. And after giving Donald Trump exactly
6:28
Speaker 1: nothing in negotiations, Donald Trump immediately announced that he was
6:33
Speaker 1: delaying his fifty percent tariffs on all goods coming from
6:37
Speaker 1: Europe until July ninth. That's the new lie July ninth.
6:44
Speaker 1: And I can promise the stock market right now that
6:47
Speaker 1: on July ninth nothing will happen. Donald Trump will not
6:51
Speaker 1: impose a fifty percent tariff on all goods coming from
6:54
Speaker 1: Europe on July ninth or ever, and instead of letting
7:00
Speaker 1: the issue fade away and pretending that he's actually achieved
7:03
Speaker 1: something with his trade war, Donald Trump will foolishly remain
7:09
Speaker 1: in the threat and retreat cycle for who knows how long.
7:15
Speaker 1: July ninth is, four hundred and eighty two days before
7:20
Speaker 1: the next congressional election. House Republicans and Senate Republicans will
7:26
Speaker 1: continue to be sickened every time Donald Trump threatens a
7:31
Speaker 1: new tariff as the election approaches and the stock market
7:34
Speaker 1: crashes once again, And you should expect that even Donald
7:38
Speaker 1: Trump will understand that he has to shut up about
7:42
Speaker 1: crazy tariffs a year from now, in the middle of
7:46
Speaker 1: the summer before the.
7:47
Speaker 2: Next congressional election.
7:48
Speaker 1: And so eventually Donald Trump will shut up about his
7:54
Speaker 1: crazy and illegal tariffs and just pretend that he's achieved
7:57
Speaker 1: something with his failed trade war. And every one of
8:01
Speaker 1: Donald Trump's fake tariff threats from now through July ninth
8:06
Speaker 1: and beyond should be taken for what it is politically,
8:10
Speaker 1: a gift to the Democrats running against the tariff supporting
8:15
Speaker 1: House and Senate Republicans, and the Trump tariff clowns who
8:20
Speaker 1: work for Donald Trump will continue to give the Democrats
8:23
Speaker 1: the gift of talking about skyrocketing prices that would be
8:29
Speaker 1: absolutely intolerable, as if.
8:31
Speaker 2: They're a joke.
8:33
Speaker 1: Today, the most publicly idiotic economic advisor to a president
8:37
Speaker 1: in history went on CNBC where he admitted that Donald
8:42
Speaker 1: Trump could push the price of an iPhone up to
8:46
Speaker 1: three five hundred dollars and no one should dare complain
8:50
Speaker 1: about it.
8:52
Speaker 3: Everybody is trying to make it seem like it's a catastrophe.
8:55
Speaker 2: If there's a tidy, little terrified them right now, a
8:59
Speaker 2: tiny little tariff.
9:01
Speaker 1: That disgraced buffoon who has never made it above the
9:05
Speaker 1: rank of associate professor of economics and has never had
9:08
Speaker 1: tenure in an economics faculty thinks that triple the cost
9:12
Speaker 1: of an iPhone.
9:14
Speaker 2: That is just a.
9:16
Speaker 1: Tiny little tariff. Of course, he doesn't actually think that,
9:21
Speaker 1: but he's willing to smile his way through any lie
9:24
Speaker 1: that he needs to tell on any day on TV
9:28
Speaker 1: about the Trump illegal and crazy tariffs. And while he's
9:33
Speaker 1: telling those lies and smiling about them, he even as
9:39
Speaker 1: an economic advisor Donald Trump, doesn't have the slightest idea.
9:43
Speaker 1: When Donald Trump is going to flip flop next on
9:47
Speaker 1: his own tariffs. He could be on TV defending a
9:50
Speaker 1: tariff that Donald Trump has revoked while he's speaking, and
9:54
Speaker 1: he'll keep smiling because that's his job. The clownish smile
9:58
Speaker 1: on TV lying about the Trump tariffs. On Friday, just
10:03
Speaker 1: for the heck of it, Donald Trump, in a childish tweet,
10:07
Speaker 1: threatened to raise the price of a thousand dollars iPhone
10:11
Speaker 1: by two hundred and fifty dollars, saying, without the slightest
10:15
Speaker 1: grip on reality, I expect their iPhones that will be
10:19
Speaker 1: sold in the United States of America will be manufactured
10:22
Speaker 1: and built in the United States, not India or anyplace else.
10:25
Speaker 1: If that is not the case, a tariff of at
10:27
Speaker 1: least twenty five percent must be paid by Apple to
10:31
Speaker 1: the United States.
10:33
Speaker 2: Okay, that is not the case.
10:36
Speaker 1: None of the iPhones are made in the United States now,
10:39
Speaker 1: so that tariff should be applied right now. And of
10:42
Speaker 1: course none of them have a twenty five percent tariff.
10:46
Speaker 1: No iPhone has a twenty five percent tariff on it now,
10:50
Speaker 1: and none of them are scheduled to be made in
10:52
Speaker 1: the United States, and so that is a fake threat.
10:57
Speaker 1: And some in the stock market actually fell for it up.
11:00
Speaker 1: Applestock dropped three percent that day, but only three percent,
11:04
Speaker 1: So that tells you that almost everyone on Wall Street
11:08
Speaker 1: knew that that is a childish lying threat by Donald Trump.
11:13
Speaker 1: We're now three months away from the traditional September introduction
11:17
Speaker 1: of the new iPhones, which is also the traditional beginning
11:20
Speaker 1: of the Christmas shopping season in America, and even a
11:24
Speaker 1: politician as stupid as Donald Trump is not going to
11:28
Speaker 1: raise the price of iPhones twenty five percent going into
11:33
Speaker 1: the Christmas shopping season. Two hundred and fifty dollars price
11:37
Speaker 1: increase on iPhones by Donald Trump himself is not going
11:42
Speaker 1: to happen. Donald Trump is going to continue issuing those
11:46
Speaker 1: kinds of threats because he's trying to pretend that he
11:50
Speaker 1: hasn't already lost his trade war. The casualties in Donald
11:55
Speaker 1: Trump's trade war so far are all in the United States.
12:00
Speaker 1: Donald Trump's foolishly high, illegal thirty percent tariff that is
12:04
Speaker 1: being still being imposed on all goods from China. After
12:08
Speaker 1: Donald Trump reduced that tariff from the utterly insane and
12:13
Speaker 1: obviously insane level of one hundred and forty five percent,
12:17
Speaker 1: those tariffs are still at thirty percent doing damage to
12:19
Speaker 1: American businesses and could kill some businesses and will definitely
12:24
Speaker 1: kill American jobs. And after Americans lose those jobs, Donald
12:28
Speaker 1: Trump and Republicans are making sure that after they've been
12:31
Speaker 1: forced into unemployment by Donald Trump's tariffs, they will not
12:34
Speaker 1: be able to get healthcare in this country because they
12:36
Speaker 1: will not be able to enroll in Medicaid and receive
12:40
Speaker 1: healthcare coverage.
12:41
Speaker 2: That is the too pronged attack.
12:43
Speaker 1: On American workers currently underway in this country, the already
12:47
Speaker 1: job killing Trump tariffs and the healthcare stealing Trump Republican
12:53
Speaker 1: budget bill that passed the House of Representatives and might
12:56
Speaker 1: or might not pass the Republican Senate. The New York
13:00
Speaker 1: Times is reporting on a Vermont small business called Bevo,
13:04
Speaker 1: owned by Karina Hammil and Robbie Ringer that sells personal
13:09
Speaker 1: water containers people use for drinking containers. The Times reports
13:14
Speaker 1: the duties, which is to say, tariffs on Bevo's bottles
13:18
Speaker 1: are higher than thirty percent because of the material they're
13:22
Speaker 1: made from and how they are classified by trade officials.
13:26
Speaker 1: BiVO bottles that are not insulated or subject to tariffs
13:30
Speaker 1: that add up to forty seven percent, and the rate
13:33
Speaker 1: for insulated bottles is thirty seven percent. Mister Trump has
13:36
Speaker 1: frequently said foreign businesses that hip products to the United
13:39
Speaker 1: States pay the tariffs, but in reality, importers like Beivo
13:44
Speaker 1: pay the duties to the federal government when the goods
13:48
Speaker 1: arrive at a US port. It's still a massive impact
13:52
Speaker 1: to the cash and it still requires reworking a whole
13:55
Speaker 1: new strategy, mister Ringer said. When he was in China,
13:58
Speaker 1: mister Ringer asked to see be Ebo's products in the warehouse,
14:01
Speaker 1: which is something he has done before to check manufacturing quality,
14:05
Speaker 1: but this time he had to clamor over pallets in
14:07
Speaker 1: the aisles to see the bottles. The warehouse was crammed
14:11
Speaker 1: full of goods that customers had delayed shipping to avoid
14:15
Speaker 1: paying the one hundred forty five percent tariffs. On May twelfth,
14:19
Speaker 1: when mister Trump reduced tariffs on China for ninety days,
14:22
Speaker 1: Miss hammil and mister Ringer concluded they could now afford
14:25
Speaker 1: to pay the tariffs on a small shipment seven six
14:29
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty four of the thirty thousand bottles they
14:31
Speaker 1: had promised to buy. They will pay twenty four thousand,
14:36
Speaker 1: four hundred and thirty six dollars in duties on the
14:40
Speaker 1: shipment compared with and estimated three thousand, six hundred and
14:44
Speaker 1: forty five at the rates that existed before mister Trump
14:47
Speaker 1: took office.
14:49
Speaker 2: So that's who pays the tariffs.
14:52
Speaker 1: Corina hammil and Robbie Ringer in Vermont paying twenty four thousand,
14:59
Speaker 1: four one hundred and thirty six dollars in Trump tariffs
15:03
Speaker 1: to the Treasury of the United.
15:06
Speaker 2: States, just like taxes, just like a sales tax.
15:10
Speaker 1: That is what Donald Trump's smiling economist calls a tiny
15:14
Speaker 1: little tariff. That's a tiny little tariff that could kill
15:18
Speaker 1: businesses small and large all over the United States. Donald
15:21
Speaker 1: Trump is a loser who is going to continue to lose,
15:26
Speaker 1: and he is going to continue to hurt Americans while
15:31
Speaker 1: he's losing. Leading off for Discussions and Night is Robert Reich,
15:35
Speaker 1: who served as Secretary of Labor under President Clinton. He's
15:38
Speaker 1: a professor of public policy at UC Berkeley and co
15:42
Speaker 1: founder of Inequality Media. Thank you very much for joining
15:45
Speaker 1: us tonight, Professor Reisch. I want to begin at that
15:49
Speaker 1: juncture of these two policies, the Trump tariffs, seeing what
15:54
Speaker 1: they're doing to that business in Vermont, seeing what they're
15:57
Speaker 1: doing to truck drivers in Californlfornia at the Port of
16:01
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, whose work hours have collapsed, whose ability to
16:06
Speaker 1: earn income have collapsed. Intersecting with a Republican budget bill
16:11
Speaker 1: that is going to take healthcare away from people, impose
16:16
Speaker 1: a work requirement. So if you're not working and you
16:19
Speaker 1: don't have an income, you can't get Medicaid coverage anymore,
16:23
Speaker 1: and you can't work because Donald Trump's tariffs have thrown
16:27
Speaker 1: you out of work. This is a vicious intersection that's
16:31
Speaker 1: being constructed by these two policies.
16:35
Speaker 4: And remember Lawrence, he was elected because many Americans, particularly
16:40
Speaker 4: working class Americans, felt that prices were too high, the
16:44
Speaker 4: economy was not working for them. Now it's going to
16:47
Speaker 4: be a major magic show for him and for his
16:52
Speaker 4: Republican acolytes in the House and Senates to try to
16:56
Speaker 4: sell both the tariffs and all. So this extraordinary budget,
17:03
Speaker 4: if it gets through the Senate, in terms of it
17:06
Speaker 4: robbing essentially from the poor and working class, Medicaid veterans, administration,
17:13
Speaker 4: all kinds of nutrition assistants in order to provide the wealthy,
17:18
Speaker 4: the super wealthy a great, big fat tax cut, another
17:22
Speaker 4: big tax cut such as like the first one he
17:25
Speaker 4: delivered that generates a debt for the United States, a
17:29
Speaker 4: four point eight more trillion dollars of debt. And now
17:34
Speaker 4: this is going to be an interesting experiment because it
17:39
Speaker 4: is possible, given the con man that Donald Trump is,
17:43
Speaker 4: it is certainly possible that he can sell working class
17:47
Speaker 4: Americans on the notion that they are not paying all
17:51
Speaker 4: this more for this product or that product or everything
17:56
Speaker 4: else coming from around the world. And this budget, though
18:00
Speaker 4: it gives a major major tax break to the rich,
18:03
Speaker 4: is actually good for them. But I'm not sure it's
18:10
Speaker 4: going to be very hard to sell these things. And
18:13
Speaker 4: if the Democrats are smart enough and bold enough, and
18:17
Speaker 4: clear enough and loud enough, they ought to be able
18:20
Speaker 4: to show and demonstrate to the working Americans that they
18:26
Speaker 4: are being shafted twice over by Donald Trump.
18:33
Speaker 1: Robert Rich, thank you very much for starting off our
18:35
Speaker 1: coverage tonight.
18:37
Speaker 3: Thanks Lawrence, thank you, and.
18:40
Speaker 1: Coming out donald Trump's illegal war on America's oldest and
18:43
Speaker 1: most distinguished university, Carnsman Jamie Raskin, a graduate of Harvard
18:47
Speaker 1: College and Harvard Law.
18:48
Speaker 2: School, joins us next.
18:57
Speaker 1: No president in history has violated more contracts than Donald Trump.
19:00
Speaker 1: He already had that distinction before he became president of
19:04
Speaker 1: the United States. That's why Donald Trump was sued so
19:06
Speaker 1: often for violating contracts in business and refusing to pay
19:10
Speaker 1: creditors in violation of those contracts. Then this year, as president,
19:14
Speaker 1: Donald Trump decided to violate every trade agreement that the
19:18
Speaker 1: United States has in the world. During Donald Trump's first presidency,
19:23
Speaker 1: the Trump administration negotiated a new version of the North
19:25
Speaker 1: American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico, and the
19:29
Speaker 1: first country of those three to violate that contract was
19:32
Speaker 1: the United States of America. This year, when Donald Trump
19:35
Speaker 1: violated the contract that he co wrote with Canada and
19:39
Speaker 1: Mexico and then signed. Donald Trump's signature was a pledge
19:43
Speaker 1: to live by the trade contract that he negotiated with
19:46
Speaker 1: Mexico and Canada, and he couldn't do it. He violated it.
19:51
Speaker 1: This year, Donald Trump is violating countless contracts that companies
19:55
Speaker 1: have with the United States government. A contract is binding
19:58
Speaker 1: on both sides, but Donald Trump doesn't believe that. Donald
20:02
Speaker 1: Trump just violates them. And now Donald Trump wants to
20:05
Speaker 1: violate contracts with Harvard University for work that the government
20:08
Speaker 1: of the United States asked Harvard University to do. The
20:13
Speaker 1: government has been asking Harvard University to conduct important research
20:18
Speaker 1: work for the government since President Franklin delna And Roosevelt
20:21
Speaker 1: and listed the president of Harvard University at the time,
20:24
Speaker 1: James B. Conat, to oversee the invention and development of
20:28
Speaker 1: an atomic bomb during World War II designed to win
20:33
Speaker 1: World War Two. Harvard's president ConA, a world class chemist,
20:38
Speaker 1: did not go to President Roosevelt, a graduate of Harvard College,
20:41
Speaker 1: and ask him for research money for an atomic bomb.
20:45
Speaker 1: President Roosevelt asked Harvard to do that. That project spread
20:49
Speaker 1: to Columbia University and other universities around the country with
20:52
Speaker 1: secret funding at the time from the government. And after
20:56
Speaker 1: World War II, the government consistently saw value in asking
20:59
Speaker 1: our world class research universities to try to improve our
21:03
Speaker 1: lives through medical research and other scientific research. And that's
21:08
Speaker 1: why you're able to get an MRI today to solve
21:11
Speaker 1: medical mysteries in your body that could not be solved
21:15
Speaker 1: without Harvard's contribution to the invention of MRIs. Donald Trump
21:21
Speaker 1: now wants to take over Harvard University because Donald Trump
21:25
Speaker 1: has declared himself to be America's most sensitive person about antisemitism.
21:31
Speaker 1: Donald Trump is claiming that he is more opposed and
21:35
Speaker 1: more sensitive to antisemitism than the Jewish president of Harvard University,
21:41
Speaker 1: Alan Garber. Most of the presidents of Harvard in the
21:44
Speaker 1: twenty first century have been Jewish, while no American president
21:48
Speaker 1: has been Jewish. You would think that Donald Trump, according
21:51
Speaker 1: to his perverse formulations about anti Semitism, should be trying
21:56
Speaker 1: to investigate antisemitism in the United States House of Representatives,
22:00
Speaker 1: where they have never had a Jewish speaker of the House,
22:02
Speaker 1: not one. And you would think, according to Donald Trump's
22:06
Speaker 1: perverse formulations about anti semitism, that he should be investigating
22:11
Speaker 1: anti semitism on the Republican side of the United States
22:14
Speaker 1: Senate because they have never had a Jewish majority leader
22:17
Speaker 1: Republican Jewish majority leader. Only the Democrats have had a
22:22
Speaker 1: Jewish majority leader. So, according to Trump's perverse formulation, only
22:26
Speaker 1: the Democrats should be able to investigate the apparently intense
22:31
Speaker 1: antisemitism of the Republicans in the Senate. And that is
22:35
Speaker 1: how stupid Donald Trump's thinking is. But that is not
22:39
Speaker 1: where he has chosen to apply it. Donald Trump has
22:43
Speaker 1: chosen to claim the mantle of America's greatest antisemitism investigator
22:48
Speaker 1: and prosecutor by going after the domain of the Jewish
22:52
Speaker 1: president of Harvard University. Today, in an interview with NPR,
22:56
Speaker 1: Harvard University President Alan Garber said this Donald Trump's intention
23:01
Speaker 1: to violate every research contract the federal government has with
23:06
Speaker 1: Harvard University.
23:09
Speaker 5: Why cut off research funding? Sure, it hurts Harvard, but
23:13
Speaker 5: it hurts the country because, after all, the research funding
23:18
Speaker 5: is not a gift. The research funding is given to
23:23
Speaker 5: universities and other research institutions to carry out work at
23:29
Speaker 5: the research work that the federal government designates his high
23:33
Speaker 5: priority work. It is work that they want done. They
23:36
Speaker 5: are paying to have that work conducted. Shutting off that
23:41
Speaker 5: work does not help the country, even as it punishes Harvard.
23:45
Speaker 5: And it is hard to see the link between that
23:48
Speaker 5: and say anti semitism.
23:52
Speaker 1: Political is reporting that Donald Trump now wants to examine
23:55
Speaker 1: all social media postings by every foreign student that all
23:59
Speaker 1: of America's call and universities before granting them student fees.
24:02
Speaker 1: Is so, if you're a foreign student applying for student
24:05
Speaker 1: fees or in the United States, you better not have
24:07
Speaker 1: any social media postings calling the American people scum.
24:13
Speaker 2: And you better not have.
24:14
Speaker 1: Any social media postings calling America's judges monsters, or Donald
24:19
Speaker 1: Trump won't let you into this country. You better not
24:22
Speaker 1: have any social media postings calling the United States Congress
24:27
Speaker 1: scum or calling the President of the United States scum.
24:31
Speaker 1: In other words, if you're a foreign student, don't think
24:34
Speaker 1: you can dare to say in social media postings what
24:37
Speaker 1: Donald Trump said yesterday, calling the American people scum if
24:42
Speaker 1: they didn't vote for him, calling every Democratic member of
24:46
Speaker 1: the House, representatives in the Senate, and President Biden scum.
24:50
Speaker 1: Donald Trump did that yesterday. Calling federal judges monsters who
24:55
Speaker 1: are on the side of murderers. Donald Trump did that yesterday.
25:00
Speaker 1: The same federal judges who provide over the swearing inn
25:02
Speaker 1: ceremonies at our citizenship ceremonies for new citizens in this country.
25:08
Speaker 1: Donald Trump called those judges monsters. If you're a foreign
25:12
Speaker 1: student and you call a judge appointed by Donald Trump
25:15
Speaker 1: a monster, you will never get into this country. If
25:19
Speaker 1: you are a foreign student and you call Donald Trump's
25:21
Speaker 1: scum or Republican voters scum, you will never get into
25:24
Speaker 1: this country. If you're a foreign student, you are applying
25:27
Speaker 1: to a country where the president can call you scum,
25:31
Speaker 1: can call anyone's gum can call judges scum, can call
25:34
Speaker 1: judges monsters, and then claim moral superiority over the principled
25:40
Speaker 1: and scholarly and now heroic president of Harvard University Alan Garber.
25:49
Speaker 1: Joining our discussion now is Democratic Carnsman Jamie Raskin of Maryland.
25:53
Speaker 1: He's the ranking member of the Heuth Judiciary Committee, and
25:55
Speaker 1: he's a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School,
25:58
Speaker 1: former an editor of the Harvard Law Review at the
26:01
Speaker 1: Harvard Law School. Carson Raskin from a constitutional standpoint, I
26:06
Speaker 1: know you're a constitutional law professor. What do you see
26:10
Speaker 1: in this attack on Harvard? And by the way, I
26:13
Speaker 1: invite you to take note of it from any perspective
26:17
Speaker 1: you bring to it.
26:19
Speaker 6: Well, it's pure speech retaliation. The president essentially tried to
26:25
Speaker 6: take over Harvard's curriculum, take over its hiring practices for faculty,
26:31
Speaker 6: and take over student missions. And when that was too
26:35
Speaker 6: much for Harvard and President Garber said no, then they
26:38
Speaker 6: decided to unleash this second wave of sanctions against Harvard
26:43
Speaker 6: by trying to eliminate all of these contracts that the
26:48
Speaker 6: federal government had entered into with Harvard in order to
26:51
Speaker 6: get the value of those contracts. But all of it
26:55
Speaker 6: is speech discrimination and speech punishment. So it's just a
26:59
Speaker 6: naked to sault on the First Amendment and on academic freedom,
27:02
Speaker 6: which is protected by the Constitution.
27:07
Speaker 1: As we go forward, Harvard's obviously litigating all of this.
27:12
Speaker 1: The federal government said that Harvard did not respond to
27:16
Speaker 1: its demands for information. Harvard said, we did respond to
27:20
Speaker 1: their demands for information, and now they're asking for things
27:23
Speaker 1: that are far beyond the scope of what they should
27:24
Speaker 1: be allowed to ask for. What are you looking for
27:27
Speaker 1: in the way this will unfold in court?
27:31
Speaker 6: Well, the curious thing is that the administration is essentially
27:36
Speaker 6: accusing Harvard of things that could be very easily litigated
27:40
Speaker 6: and adjudicated through Title six and the Department of Education's
27:45
Speaker 6: Office of Civil Rights, except that the Trump administration has
27:49
Speaker 6: been busily dismantling the Office of Civil Rights.
27:52
Speaker 2: They're trying not they're trying to defund it. They're trying
27:55
Speaker 2: to disable.
27:56
Speaker 6: It as much as possible, but then to usurp its
27:59
Speaker 6: function for rhetorical purposes against this or that disfavored institution.
28:05
Speaker 6: If anti Semitism is really the problem motivating Donald Trump,
28:11
Speaker 6: he should start with his own administration specifically ed Martin,
28:15
Speaker 6: the guy he wanted to be the US attorney for
28:17
Speaker 6: the District of Columbia, who was forced to withdraw because
28:20
Speaker 6: it turned out that he had concealed the fact that
28:22
Speaker 6: he'd appeared one hundred and fifty different times on Russian
28:26
Speaker 6: state propaganda networks, but also because he had been actively
28:31
Speaker 6: embracing a neo Nazi Hitler impersonator who draws a Hitler
28:36
Speaker 6: mustache on himself and had described him not only as
28:39
Speaker 6: a good friend, but as a great man and a
28:42
Speaker 6: great leader. So his consolation prize when they didn't want
28:45
Speaker 6: to go through an actual confirmation hearing in the Senate
28:49
Speaker 6: was he was just named to be the US pardon Attorney.
28:54
Speaker 6: And I think his first act of pardon came out
28:57
Speaker 6: over the weekend when they pardoned a the sheriff in
29:01
Speaker 6: Virginia who was selling deputy sheriff ships to a bunch
29:07
Speaker 6: of rich people who didn't want to be stopped by
29:09
Speaker 6: the police and wanted to be able to lord their
29:11
Speaker 6: deputy sheriff position over other people in the community. So
29:15
Speaker 6: we're gonna have to keep very close track of what
29:17
Speaker 6: he's doing. But if Trump really cares about anti Semitism,
29:21
Speaker 6: start by purging the anti Semites and neo Nazi embracers
29:27
Speaker 6: in your own administration.
29:30
Speaker 1: We're going to have to be very patient, I think
29:32
Speaker 1: for that to happen. Carsman Jamie Raskin, thank you very
29:35
Speaker 1: much for joining us tonight.
29:37
Speaker 2: You bet, thank you, Lawrence, thank you. Coming out.
29:39
Speaker 1: Donald Trump says, Vladimir Putin is quote playing with fire.
29:43
Speaker 1: In response, Vladimir Putin threatened World War three. That's next
29:48
Speaker 1: with Professor Timothy Snyder.
29:57
Speaker 2: Playing with fire.
29:58
Speaker 1: Donald Trump finally used the title of my second book,
30:01
Speaker 1: playing with Fire, in a tweet, but unfortunately for my
30:04
Speaker 1: book sales, the tweet was about Vladimir Putin. After tweeting
30:08
Speaker 1: this weekend that Vlatimir Putin, who Donald Trump previously called
30:11
Speaker 1: a genius quote has gone absolutely crazy end quote today,
30:17
Speaker 1: Donald Trump said this. What Vlatimir Putin doesn't realize is
30:20
Speaker 1: that if it weren't for me, lots of really bad
30:24
Speaker 1: things would.
30:24
Speaker 2: Have already happened to Russia.
30:26
Speaker 1: And I mean really bad. He's playing with fire. So
30:28
Speaker 1: there's Donald Trump, in effect confessing to being Vladimir Putin's protector.
30:32
Speaker 1: Vladimir Putin, like everyone else in the world, did not
30:36
Speaker 1: react like someone who is in any way afraid of
30:38
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, or in any way respects Donald Trump or
30:41
Speaker 1: believes his threats. Vladimir Putin sent out a spokesperson to say,
30:46
Speaker 1: I only know of one really bad thing, World War IIE.
30:50
Speaker 1: I hope Trump understands this. So there's Vladimir Putin trumping
30:55
Speaker 1: the Trump claim that he's playing with fire by delivering
30:59
Speaker 1: a World War III threat directly to Donald Trump. Ukrainian
31:04
Speaker 1: President Vlodo Manzelenski said this yesterday over nine hundred attack
31:08
Speaker 1: drones launched against Ukraine in just three days, along with
31:12
Speaker 1: ballistic and cruise missiles. There is no military logic in this,
31:16
Speaker 1: but it is a clear political choice of Russia, the
31:19
Speaker 1: choice to keep waging war.
31:21
Speaker 2: The Wall Street Journal is reporting.
31:23
Speaker 1: On Monday, German Chancellor Friedrich Mertz said the US, Germany,
31:27
Speaker 1: France and the UK would no longer impose range restrictions
31:31
Speaker 1: on Ukraine's use of weapons supplied by Western allies, meaning
31:35
Speaker 1: it could target military positions deeper into Russia. In response,
31:39
Speaker 1: a Putin spokesperson said, if such decisions are made, they
31:43
Speaker 1: will absolutely go against our aspirations to reach a political
31:49
Speaker 1: settlement and the efforts being made within the framework of
31:52
Speaker 1: the settlement. This is a rather dangerous decision joining us now,
31:57
Speaker 1: he's Timothy Snyder, who is the author of the New
31:59
Speaker 1: York Times bestsellers On Freedom and on Tyranny. Professor Schneider,
32:05
Speaker 1: that last reply by Russia claiming to suddenly hide behind
32:11
Speaker 1: a peace process, that it is actually boycotting and no
32:15
Speaker 1: one should be talking about increasing the range of weapons
32:18
Speaker 1: from Ukraine while we're in the middle of this peace discussion.
32:23
Speaker 1: What is it that we're seeing unfold here now?
32:27
Speaker 7: Well, as you say, there is no meaningful peace process,
32:31
Speaker 7: the Russians sent second and third tiered people to Istanbul.
32:35
Speaker 7: They've made absolutely zero sign that they're interested in peace.
32:39
Speaker 7: On the contrary, they continue to do what they've been
32:41
Speaker 7: doing for three in a quarter years, which is kill
32:44
Speaker 7: Ukrainian civilians, carry out a war of aggression, carry out
32:47
Speaker 7: war crimes. I think the main thing to understand here
32:51
Speaker 7: is that what the Russians are doing is essentially plain Trump.
32:58
Speaker 7: Trump has given them thing after things that they want,
33:01
Speaker 7: and every time there's the lightest signal that there might
33:04
Speaker 7: possibly be a variation in Trump's pro Russian position, they
33:07
Speaker 7: just remind him who's the.
33:08
Speaker 1: Boss, And how does Trump get the message that they're
33:14
Speaker 1: the boss just by Vilman Putin defying him.
33:19
Speaker 2: Well.
33:19
Speaker 7: Notice that Trump speaks directly to Putin and Putin replies
33:24
Speaker 7: by way of a spokesperson, as though Trump doesn't even
33:27
Speaker 7: have the rank to speak directly to Putin. Notice that
33:31
Speaker 7: Trump for months and months has been behaving as though
33:34
Speaker 7: there's some kind of peace process, and the Russians not
33:36
Speaker 7: only disregard this, they escalate the war against civilians. And
33:41
Speaker 7: for those of us are paying attention to, Russian media
33:43
Speaker 7: laugh at him daily about all of this. They think
33:47
Speaker 7: of Trump as their guy. When Trump tweets or whatever
33:51
Speaker 7: it's called on his own social media thing, when Trump
33:54
Speaker 7: tweets that he's been Russia's protector thus far, he's basically confessing,
33:58
Speaker 7: as you say, He's saying, I am your guy. I've
34:00
Speaker 7: been protecting you thus far, and the Russians have zero
34:03
Speaker 7: reason to think that he'll ever do anything else. I mean, Trump,
34:07
Speaker 7: You know, this administration talks a big heart, tough game
34:09
Speaker 7: when it comes to like foreign graduate students, as you've
34:12
Speaker 7: been discussing, but they do not seem to have the
34:14
Speaker 7: gumption to rally the most basic policy towards Russia, which
34:18
Speaker 7: would be primary and secondary sanctions and weapons liveries to Ukraine.
34:23
Speaker 7: It's as simple as that. If you want the war
34:24
Speaker 7: to end, you have to change the structures.
34:28
Speaker 1: What might happen as a result of this elimination of
34:34
Speaker 1: a range limit on the use of European weapons in Ukraine?
34:41
Speaker 7: I mean, it's just so. The strange thing about this
34:43
Speaker 7: war is that the aggressor, Russia, has been able to
34:46
Speaker 7: set a lot of the rules of engagement, which to
34:48
Speaker 7: my knowledge is unprecedented in the history of warfare. Just
34:52
Speaker 7: to be clear, there have never been any range limitations
34:55
Speaker 7: on Russian missiles. They've been attacking every square centimeter of
34:58
Speaker 7: Ukraine since the war started, from launch facilities and using
35:03
Speaker 7: aircraft launched from all over Russia. There's never many limits
35:06
Speaker 7: on them. So why exactly were there supposed to be
35:09
Speaker 7: limits on Ukraine? It never really made any sense. So
35:13
Speaker 7: I don't expect any consequences of this, excepted puts the
35:16
Speaker 7: Ukrainians in a somewhat better position to defend themselves. Look,
35:20
Speaker 7: the Russians know this, they know they've put us in
35:22
Speaker 7: a position which is abnormal. They know that it's very
35:24
Speaker 7: weird that the Americans set these limitations on themselves or
35:27
Speaker 7: that the Germans did. I think what we're seeing as
35:30
Speaker 7: a healthy sign.
35:32
Speaker 1: Professor Timothy Schneider, thank you very much for joining our discussions.
35:35
Speaker 2: SI, thank you and coming up.
35:39
Speaker 1: He polls terrible, people hate him. That's how one Republican
35:44
Speaker 1: insider described Elon Musk and why Elon Musk has been
35:49
Speaker 1: forced out of a public role in the Trump White House.
35:52
Speaker 1: But voters in Wisconsin also played a key role in
35:56
Speaker 1: what is being described as the decline and fall of
35:59
Speaker 1: Elon Musk. That's next, He's finished, done, gone. He polls terrible.
36:10
Speaker 1: People hate him. That is what Elon Musk's adventures in
36:14
Speaker 1: politics have cost him, According to a Republican operative speaking
36:18
Speaker 1: to Politico, giving them that quote in an article titled
36:22
Speaker 1: why has Elon Musk disappeared from the Spotlight? An answer
36:25
Speaker 1: to that question was sitting right in front of me today,
36:28
Speaker 1: when stuck in traffic behind a Tesla wearing this sticker
36:32
Speaker 1: vintage Tesla pre Madness. Addition, the owner of that car
36:38
Speaker 1: made Elon Musk rich enough to become the biggest political
36:43
Speaker 1: financial contributor in history. After becoming the richest person in
36:47
Speaker 1: the world on Tesla sales, Elon Musk used the money
36:52
Speaker 1: that he made from America's environmentally conscious liberals to then
36:56
Speaker 1: try to destroy everything that those Tesla drivers. Environmentally conscious
37:02
Speaker 1: liberals are now turning against Tesla. CNBC reports Tesla sales
37:06
Speaker 1: are down forty nine percent in Europe in the month
37:09
Speaker 1: of April, even though electric car sales rose thirty four
37:13
Speaker 1: percent in Europe at the same time. And now Elon
37:17
Speaker 1: Musk is claiming to be pulling back from politics now
37:20
Speaker 1: that he has committed what stock analysts called brand sabotage
37:25
Speaker 1: against his own electric car company, and that people who
37:28
Speaker 1: really drove Elon Musk into public political retreat are the
37:32
Speaker 1: voters of Wisconsin. That Republican operative told Politico he's finished, done, gone.
37:38
Speaker 1: He pulls terrible people hate him. He'd go to Wisconsin
37:41
Speaker 1: thinking he can buy people's votes, where the cheese hat
37:44
Speaker 1: act like a nine year old. It doesn't work. It's
37:46
Speaker 1: offensive to people. Elon Musk turned a Wisconsin election that
37:51
Speaker 1: was too close to call into a ten point win
37:54
Speaker 1: by the Democrat. It was an election for state Supreme
37:57
Speaker 1: Court justice, which Elon Musk turned into the most expensive
38:01
Speaker 1: judicial election in American history by pouring twenty five million
38:05
Speaker 1: dollars into the campaign to try to defeat the candidate
38:08
Speaker 1: backed by the Democratic Party. Since then, Donald Trump has
38:12
Speaker 1: publicly retreated from Elon musk political reports. In February and March,
38:16
Speaker 1: Trump posted about the Tesla CEO an average of roughly
38:19
Speaker 1: four times per week.
38:21
Speaker 2: Since the beginning of April.
38:22
Speaker 1: The President hasn't mentioned Musk once on truth Social In
38:27
Speaker 1: an article titled the Decline and Fall of Elon Musk,
38:29
Speaker 1: The Atlantic reports the result of Elon Musk's public madness,
38:34
Speaker 1: as that sticker calls it, Musk's networth fell, his company's
38:39
Speaker 1: tanked in value, and he became an object of frequent
38:43
Speaker 1: gossip and ridicule. No one in the Democratic Party did
38:46
Speaker 1: more to fuel the decline and fall of Elon Musk
38:50
Speaker 1: than our next guest, Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wickler.
38:55
Speaker 1: He will join us after this break. Tonight's last word
39:05
Speaker 1: goes to the person who defeated Elon Musk. Joining us
39:07
Speaker 1: now is Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wickler.
39:12
Speaker 2: Ben, you're seeing the decline and fall of Elon Musk.
39:14
Speaker 1: As they reported in the Atlantic, it all started with
39:17
Speaker 1: you in Wisconsin, with Wisconsin voters and that judicial election.
39:24
Speaker 3: Susan Crawford defeated Brad Schimmel, but she also defeated the
39:28
Speaker 3: richest men in the world because she and her campaign,
39:32
Speaker 3: the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, are allies and one point
39:35
Speaker 3: three million voters in Wisconsin, which, to put it in perspective,
39:39
Speaker 3: is not just the most voters that have ever voted
39:42
Speaker 3: in a Supreme Court election for any candidate in Wisconsin.
39:44
Speaker 3: It's more voters than any Republican candidate for governor has
39:48
Speaker 3: ever earned in a November election. All those voters turned
39:51
Speaker 3: out to defeat Brad Schimmel and Elon Musk and asterisk
39:56
Speaker 3: Donald Trump as well, and they sent an absolutely clear message,
40:00
Speaker 3: which is that you cannot buy American democracy, which was
40:03
Speaker 3: Elon Musk's entire goal. He was looming over the country.
40:07
Speaker 3: He was trying to not only buy the Supreme Court race,
40:10
Speaker 3: but to show every Republican candidate that they had to
40:13
Speaker 3: embrace everything Donald Trump stood for or he would come
40:16
Speaker 3: and get them. But if they did everything Trump wanted,
40:18
Speaker 3: then he would bankroll their victory. He wanted to send
40:21
Speaker 3: that message, but instead what he showed is that that
40:24
Speaker 3: way lies ruin and devastation, and the rest of the
40:27
Speaker 3: Republican Party had better learn that fast, or they're going
40:30
Speaker 3: to have the exact same outcome that Brad Showell has,
40:32
Speaker 3: whether or not Elon Musk is there in his cheese,
40:35
Speaker 3: had trying to spread million dollar novelty checks and debase
40:38
Speaker 3: American democracy.
40:41
Speaker 1: Did you think Washington Republicans on election night the next day,
40:45
Speaker 1: when you saw that total and you saw a race
40:47
Speaker 1: that was too close to call became a runaway partially
40:51
Speaker 1: because of Elon Musk, were you surprised that Washington Republicans
40:55
Speaker 1: turned their backs on Musk apparently as quickly as they
40:58
Speaker 1: did after that.
41:00
Speaker 3: Well, here's the thing that struck me. Elon Musk had
41:03
Speaker 3: been saying, starting in November, after Trump's victory, that he
41:06
Speaker 3: would go after Republicans who didn't fall in line with Trump,
41:10
Speaker 3: that he would bankroll primary challenges against Democrats who got
41:13
Speaker 3: in Trump's way. He was Trump's enforcer, he was the
41:16
Speaker 3: muscle his political money would sweep away in the opposition,
41:20
Speaker 3: and Republicans were falling in line even as Elon Musk
41:23
Speaker 3: did things that were hideously remain hideously unpopular, shutting down
41:27
Speaker 3: social Security offices, shutting down cancer research, going after things
41:30
Speaker 3: that are supposed to be sacred in American politics. All
41:33
Speaker 3: these Republicans didn't make a peep at least on the record.
41:37
Speaker 3: The second it became clear that Elon Musk had the
41:39
Speaker 3: Midas touch in the cautionary tale sense of destroying everything
41:43
Speaker 3: he touches and making it toxic and inedible, all the
41:46
Speaker 3: food that he wanted to eat. As soon as that
41:48
Speaker 3: became clear, I think a lot of Republicans realized that
41:51
Speaker 3: they needed to back away. And they're cracking up over this.
41:54
Speaker 3: Medicare cut exactly in the way that Elon Musk and
41:57
Speaker 3: Donald Trump hoped they wouldn't triumph for democracy against oligarchy,
42:02
Speaker 3: and it's the beginning of the Blue Wave of twenty
42:04
Speaker 3: twenty six.
42:06
Speaker 1: According to these articles about Musk, now, your message from
42:10
Speaker 1: Wisconsin was very clearly delivered and effective with Republicans in Washington.
42:14
Speaker 1: Ben Wikler, thank you very much for joining us tonight.
42:17
Speaker 3: Thanks so much for having me