MS NOW Highlights - May 4

[0:00] Hi there, everyone. It's 4 o'clock in New York. At this very moment, Donald Trump's political [0:04] career is spoiling faster than a box of Trump steaks left out in the sun. [0:08] A brand new poll shows record levels of disapproval for the job that Donald Trump [0:14] is doing as president, with key parts of his political coalition now completely turning on [0:20] him. A poll from The Washington Post, ABC News, and Ipso shows that just 37% of voters [0:27] approve of the job that Donald Trump is doing as president. 62% of them disapprove. [0:32] Washington Post adds this, quote, his ratings among Republican-leaning independents have reached [0:39] a new low of 56%. His approval rating stands at 25% among independents overall. One former Trump ally [0:48] turned critic, the former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, puts it like this, quote, [0:53] MAGA is dead. Watch. Today, we're in a time where many Americans are realizing MAGA is dead. [1:04] And do you want to know who took the actions to kill MAGA? It was the creator and the founder himself, [1:10] Donald Trump. When we campaigned on lowering inflation and reducing gas prices and caring [1:16] about domestic issues that matter to Americans, the White House front door became a revolving door [1:23] to foreign leaders, not to Americans, and not to industry leaders and those involved in working [1:32] on the domestic solutions that Americans needed. [1:38] So the issues Marjorie Taylor Greene is talking about there, inflation and the cost of everything, [1:44] that has become Donald Trump's biggest political albatross right now. 23% of Americans approve of [1:51] Donald Trump's handling of the cost of living. In that Washington Post, ABC News, Ipsos poll, [1:56] a whopping 76% disapprove. Pollster and publisher of The Bulwark, Sarah Longwell, told me in this [2:03] week's episode of The Best People that voters right now do not like what they're seeing, and they know [2:08] exactly who's to blame for it. Watch. [2:12] Number one, everybody thinks the state of the country is bad, which is why right track, wrong track is so low. [2:16] These guys reinforce that with their everything's terrible. And then they immediately go to how [2:20] expensive things are and how the war in Iran is raising them, how tariffs are raising them. And [2:25] this is one of the reasons that Trump's numbers are starting to fall. And where the objective [2:29] reality kicks in is that people know that the tariffs are Trump's. People know that the Iran war [2:34] is Trump's. They don't think it's Congress. They don't think it's somebody else. They know Trump is [2:38] doing it, that he made the call to do it, and that it is raising their prices. And that is what they are mad [2:43] about. Meanwhile, there is brand new reporting on how big parts of Trump's coalition, the parts that [2:51] provided the money and the volunteers and the support for Donald Trump to win the Republican nomination [2:57] three times and prevail in the general election twice, are also souring on the job Donald Trump [3:02] is doing as president. Look at this headline in The Wall Street Journal. The anti-abortion movement is [3:08] turning on Trump. From that reporting, quote, abortions are up in the years after the overturning of Roe [3:14] and the anti-abortion lobby has a new locus for blame. Trump is the problem, they say. [3:20] The president is the problem. That's Marjorie Dannenfelser. She's the influential president [3:25] of the Susan B. Anthony pro-life America. Big source of their frustration is the fact that the Trump [3:31] administration is allowing abortion pills to be shipped by mail. But they're not the only special [3:38] interest or activist group that is mad at Donald Trump right now. Politico reports this, quote, [3:43] leaders in RFK Jr.'s Make America Healthy Again movement are outraged over Donald Trump's surgeon [3:49] general nominee switch since Trump announced Thursday that Nicole Sapphire, a radiologist and [3:55] former Fox News medical contributor, will replace Casey Means, a close ally of the health secretary, [4:02] as Donald Trump's pick for the nation's top doctor. They've rushed to social media to share why [4:07] they believe Trump's decision is short-sighted. Growing signs of discontent in Donald Trump's [4:14] political base turning on him bigly is where we start today. Democratic pollster and political [4:19] analyst Cornell Belters back with us. Also joining us, political analyst, former Senator Claire McCaskill's [4:25] back and back with me at the table for the hour, senior political analyst, contributing host on [4:30] Pod Save America, the host of the podcast Runaway Country, Alex Wagner's here. Cornell, I'll let you jump in [4:36] on the polling. Sarah Longwell's theory of the case is that there is a Bush line that George W. Bush left [4:44] office at 32 percent, and it's sort of a point at which you are basically absent any and all political [4:52] juice. Donald Trump is at 32 percent in some polls. I think ABC has him at 33. There are a couple of very [4:59] reputable polls that have met 33. This 37 is the lowest number he's registered in the ABC Washpo poll. [5:08] Yeah, no, and that number and all the polling, I'm saying it's closer to 33 than 37. And look, [5:15] Nicole, you've got to go back to George W.A., you know, Daddy Bush, decades to see polling numbers [5:24] that have collapsed like this, right? On every measure, the president is underwater. And on the [5:30] things, the broader brand pillars of the Republican Party having to do with the economy and even [5:38] immigration, the president's now underwater. And particularly underwater, you talked a little [5:43] bit about this with independent voters, even with independent voters who lean Republican. You know, [5:49] he's completely collapsed into the 30s with independent voters. Now, why does this matter? [5:56] This matter because of elections. And if you look at way independent voters are breaking, [6:02] like, you know, you had the governor, New Jersey's governor, Nicky Sherrill, on your podcast [6:08] recently, and I think she's fantastic. But she won independent voters by double digits by 13 points. [6:16] Spanberger won independent voters in Virginia by 19 points. Everyone on this broadcast know it's [6:22] really hard to be competitive, especially in these swing districts, if you're losing Republican, [6:27] I mean, independence by double digits. The other interesting number really quickly, [6:31] Nicole, I thought was fascinating in that Washington Post data, was he's now underwater on the economy. [6:40] Majority of non-college white voters are now disapproving of his job on the economy. Why, [6:45] again, is that important? He carried those voters by better than 30 points in the last election. [6:50] So if they're turning on him, it becomes really problematic. The whole coalition begins to collapse. [6:57] You know, I have this theory, and this may put me in the minority, but I think some of the talk [7:03] on the MAGA side about rigging the election is in some ways the psychological bulwark against [7:11] the size of the losses, because you can gerrymander it into the shape of a, you know, [7:17] your favorite zoo animal. You can make a map look like a giraffe, and you still can't, you know what I [7:21] mean, like you, there is no gerrymander if you're Trump MAGA, and you're losing non-college-educated [7:28] white voters by 20, 30 points. [7:30] Or independent voters by 15 or 20 points. One last quick thing on this, Nicole, is you opened [7:38] with Marjorie Teller-Green saying a MAGA is dead. I got a feeling that all of us are going to be [7:43] talking about the rebirth of MAGA in the next two years, led by Marjorie Teller-Green. [7:49] Yeah, I mean, I sort of have this image that Marjorie Teller-Green and Tucker are helping to kill [7:54] it, right, so that they can be like the ones with the things on it. But, but we'll, it's just, [8:00] as you said, I feel like we will all reconvene to cover that many news cycles. Claire McCaskill, [8:04] I feel like you're the foremost expert on the importance of what's happening in these poll [8:10] numbers. Just tell me how you read these and what your warnings are for Republicans. [8:16] Well, all you have to do, Peter Baker had a great tweet today where he went back and did the history [8:21] of presidential approvals and losses in midterms. And presidents that had a 51% disapproval, [8:30] 51% approval still lost 30, 40 seats. Bush, who was about where Trump is now, I think you'll painfully [8:38] remember he lost 30 in the midterm when his numbers were so low. But what Sarah said is really important. [8:46] And one of the things that happens with voters, especially voters who are not dialed in to politics [8:53] 24-7 like we are, they get their information about, well, whose fault is it? Whose fault is it? [9:02] And it's not clear always whose fault it is. Is it state government? Is it local government? Is it [9:08] federal government? Is it Republicans? Is it the Democrats? On this, it's very obvious. Gas prices [9:14] are Trump's. And there's nothing bigger than gas prices ever. With those independent voters, [9:22] with those white, non-college educated, with the areas of the electorate that Trump has to win, [9:29] even if he just wins it by a small margin. You can't get away from it. And what's really [9:34] interesting about the gas prices is nobody's trying to lie about it. I mean, they're basically saying [9:40] we're just going to have to suffer for a while. It's worth it to go after Iran. Well, it's not to [9:45] the folks that are driving those big pickups in Missouri. It's not worth it to them. They don't [9:50] even understand why we're really there. They don't even get what the deal is. And so they're pulling [9:56] up and they're spending over 100 bucks to fill their tank. And they do not understand why we had [10:02] to go to war with Iran. So she's absolutely right. Trump owns proudly the tariffs. He's the only one [10:09] in tariffs. It's his favorite word. And the war in Iran, he owns them. He's going to own them all the [10:15] way to November. And by the way, the presidential nominee for the Republican Party who tries to carry [10:20] the MAGA flag, they're going to own them. The other problem they have is new. It's all become [10:27] as, you know, I've said this for years now, like it makes my brain hurt. Covering Trump has made me [10:33] dumber. You now have the MAGA coalition saying the same thing, right? So you've got Joe Rogan and Tim [10:40] Dillon echoing that message. Here's a right-wing MAGA-adjacent podcaster. I don't even know if [10:48] that if he'll own that title, but that's how I view him. This is Tim Dillon. [10:52] This is not a good show. That's the biggest problem here for DT. This is not a good show. [11:04] And he knows it. He knows this is not a good show. Trump is well aware of why he is the president. [11:13] He knows this country better than most people, maybe anyone. And it's not a nice thing. This [11:20] is the opposite of great TV. It isn't exciting. It's not nearly as engaging as it needs to be. [11:36] So what you have is a bunch of people that are checking out, which he doesn't like. They're [11:43] tuning out. They're turning it off. And so when they turn it off, you got to remember, [11:49] they go out into the world, the gas prices are high. The food prices are high. Why? [11:56] This is a war. But they're not watching his show anymore. [12:02] So I don't know Tim Dillon, and I don't want to give him too much credit, but I don't want to [12:06] take any credit away from him either. It is one of the more astute articulations of what's going on. [12:12] So it's not a good show. And when they turn it off, the bad show, you got to remember they go out [12:17] to the world. The gas prices are high. The food prices are high. Why? This effing war. [12:23] Well, on day 65 of Donald Trump's illegal war, Donald Trump threatened another war crime, [12:29] this time telling a Fox reporter in a telephone interview that Iran will be, quote, [12:35] blown off the face of the earth if Iran attacks the United States Navy ships in the region. [12:42] Donald Trump's war became fully illegal last week. And Donald Trump seems to know that. [12:53] What they call a military operation. You know, they don't like the word war. [12:57] And they call it a military operation because that way you don't have a war. You don't have [13:03] legal problems. Legal problems. That was day 62 of Donald Trump's war. And he had a legal problem. [13:13] By the time Donald Trump said that, even Donald Trump seemed to know that the War Powers Act [13:20] passed in 1973 made Donald Trump's war illegal last week. The War Powers Act says that the president [13:28] can launch military operations for a maximum of 60 days, quote, unless the Congress has declared war [13:38] or has enacted a specific authorization for such use of the United States Armed Forces. [13:47] And today, on the 65th day of Donald Trump's illegal war, he chose this childish language to continue [13:55] his violation of the War Powers Act. [14:01] Our country's booming now, despite the fact that we're in a, I call it a mini war. [14:07] A mini war. On Friday, Donald Trump described his defiance of the War Powers Act [14:13] without ever specifically mentioning the War Powers Act. [14:20] But you ever hear a situation where we're knocking the hell out of somebody and we have a Congress, [14:25] please, you've only got three days left. We spent 19 years in Vietnam. We spent 12 years in Iraq. [14:32] We spent seven years in another place, two years in another one, seven years in another one. [14:37] We had another one for 14 years. And we're in there for six weeks. [14:45] What's taking so long? [14:49] Congress learned its lesson with Vietnam. [14:52] The war that Donald Trump refused to participate in when offered a chance by his local draft board, [14:58] whereupon he presented a letter from a doctor saying that Donald Trump's feet just couldn't take a day [15:06] in army boots anywhere in the world. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution passed the House [15:14] Representatives and the Senate in 1964. The vote was unanimous in the House and only two senators [15:21] voted no. Both bodies voted on the same day. They literally did not know what they were voting for. [15:29] They thought they did. They thought they knew why they were voting and what they were voting for. [15:35] They voted for the president to use military force against what the resolution called, [15:42] quote, the communist regime in Vietnam, end quote, because President Lyndon Johnson told Congress [15:49] that North Vietnamese forces, as the resolution put it, quote, deliberately and repeatedly attacked [15:56] United States naval vessels lawfully present in international waters. History would prove that [16:04] that was a wild exaggeration of a very minor incident in the Gulf of Tonkin. But the Congress [16:12] immediately passed that resolution saying, quote, the Congress approves and supports the determination [16:19] of the president as commander in chief to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack [16:27] against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression. It was a one page [16:33] resolution. And the final sentence said, quote, this resolution shall expire when the president shall [16:43] determine that the peace and security of the area is reasonably assured. In other words, there was no [16:52] expiration date. And the resolution put no limit on what the president could do. And so President Lyndon Johnson [17:04] took a minor military engagement at sea and turned it into America's biggest war since World War II. Four years later, [17:18] in the deadliest year of the Vietnam War in 1968 for American forces, the United States Army had 500,000 soldiers [17:26] in Vietnam. Republican President Richard Nixon won the presidential election that year and continued Lyndon Johnson's war in [17:34] Vietnam without limit and expanded that war across borders into other neighboring countries. Members of Congress [17:41] came to regret their vote for the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. And during the Nixon presidency, began doing everything they [17:49] possibly could to cut off funding for what had become Richard Nixon's war. The concept of the illegal war in American politics [17:59] was born in Vietnam. Prosecutors of the illegal war concept held that the reporting of the Gulf of Tonkin [18:09] incident in the first place by the president was false in describing a minor encounter at sea as an act of war. [18:19] Therefore, the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, as passed, was based on a fraud and that the Gulf of Tonkin resolution [18:26] could not have reasonably been taken as an authorization for an unlimited forever war. By 1973, Congress was no longer content to reduce [18:38] funding for the Vietnam War. They wanted to prevent the next Vietnam by writing into American law an unambiguous 60 day limit on the [18:50] kind of war making that President Lyndon Johnson created. After years of Lyndon Johnson's war, which had become Richard Nixon's war, [18:59] members of Congress were insisting that what the president was doing without a declaration of war was illegal. [19:09] Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon never pretended that it wasn't a war. They never called it a little detour, as Donald Trump did recently. [19:18] They never called it an excursion, as Donald Trump has called it. And they never pretended that it was just a military operation. [19:27] And they never claimed that it would be over next week. President Johnson and President Nixon did not spend every week of their war in [19:38] Vietnam claiming that it would end tomorrow or the next day or the next week. And they never said, we could leave right now. [19:47] We could leave right now, right now. If we left right now, it would take them 20 years, 25 years to rebuild the place. [19:55] No American president acting as commander in chief in wartime has ever said that he could end that war right now because every previous president serving as commander in chief knew that it was his moral and legal responsibility and constitutional responsibility to end that war on the first day possible and not extend it one day beyond what was absolutely necessary. [20:23] Not risk one more life. Quote, it would take them 20, 20 years, 25 years to rebuild that place. [20:37] The complete, complete rebuilding of the first place on planet Earth to be hit by an atomic bomb took 10 years. Hiroshima was rebuilt in 10 years. [20:52] Nagasaki was rebuilt in 10 years after being hit by the second atomic bomb used in war, which was the last nuclear weapon used in war. [21:02] Larger Japanese cities like Tokyo had been bombed so thoroughly before the United States had a working atomic bomb that there weren't enough structures left in Tokyo to use it as a target for an atomic bomb. [21:20] But Tokyo was rebuilt in 10 years. And Japan led that effort, that rebuilding effort across the country without a huge stream of oil revenue that Iran could have after Donald Trump's war. [21:39] So no, it won't take 20 years or 25 years to rebuild what Donald Trump has done to Iran. On day 62 of Donald Trump's war, he did this. He posted an AI image of himself with no caption to explain such a perverse choice of imagery for a president of the United States or for any adult, but certainly for a president of the United States who is now a wartime president. [22:14] No president has ever taken war less seriously. And America does not approve. [22:21] New polling continues to show Donald Trump to be waging the most unpopular war in American history on its 65th day. 65 days after the Gulf of Tonkin resolution in 1964, President Johnson had the overwhelming support of Congress in the Vietnam War and very strong majority support among voters for the Vietnam War. [22:43] Donald Trump is the first president in history to wage a war that a majority of Americans have opposed from day one. [22:50] The New York Times reports, quote, the Middle East truce faltered on Monday as the United Arab Emirates said it had been attacked by Iran, while the U.S. military said that it had destroyed six Iranian military boats and that Iran had fired on American ships in the Strait of Hormuz. [23:13] And today, Donald Trump, who has spent every day of his war trying to oversimplify his war, finally seems to be learning. It's tricky out there. [23:44] We have a war right now. We have a war right now. And went to like, what, six weeks? They said, what's taking so long? We were in Vietnam 19 years. We were in Iraq for many years, 10 years, 12 years. [24:01] We were in Iraq for many years. We were in Iraq for many years. We were in Iraq for many years. We were in all these different wars. Korea, seven years. I won't even mention World War II. That's a big baby. [24:08] But you had the wrong person up here. You'll be in World War III. As sure as you're sitting there, you have the wrong person up there. It's nasty and tricky. It's tricky out there. [24:18] It's tricky out there. It's tricky out there. It was three months ago tonight when the president posted online a video depicting former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama as if they were apes. [24:38] President Trump did later take it down. He refused to apologize for it and still hasn't to this day. That was three months ago. [24:46] It was five months ago when Donald Trump confirmed something that he had previously long denied. [24:53] Back in his first term, President Trump had told a group of senators at the White House that he thought it was terrible that immigrants to America were from s-hole countries. [25:04] And according to reporting at the time, he named some predominantly black countries and he said they were s-hole countries. [25:10] And couldn't we instead have immigrants from predominantly white countries? [25:14] He mentioned Norway, since countries with white populations are apparently good and countries with black populations are swear words. [25:24] So Donald Trump said that in his first term. And when it was reported that he had said that, he denied it. [25:30] He said he had never, ever used that language. But then just a few months ago, he started bragging proudly, weirdly, at a speech in Pennsylvania. [25:37] He started bragging that, yes, actually, despite all those earlier denials, of course, he had used that term. [25:43] And moreover, he still believes it. Predominantly black countries are s-hole countries. [25:48] This administration, I think it's clear from just the repeated daily news cycle. [25:57] I think this administration is bad at everything they set their mind to. [26:02] They're terrible in the courts to the point where, like, their performance in court jeopardizes the law licenses of everybody who speaks for them. [26:10] They're terrible in the court of public opinion, which you can see in the polls, which is going to have a big political impact on them the next time people get a chance to vote for them en masse. [26:21] They're terrible, really terrible at all the technocratic, practical stuff a government is supposed to do, including, like, basic stuff like the weather. [26:29] They're terrible at war, terrible at diplomacy. [26:31] They're even terrible at hiding the ball in terms of how much this president does whatever Vladimir Putin wants, even when it makes no sense for us. [26:38] They're just not great. They're bad at basically everything they try to do. [26:46] But on the issue of race, on the treatment of African-Americans specifically, even being terrible at what they're doing has still proven to be disastrous for our country. [27:00] And it is, in part, the posturing and the messaging and the racist vibes from the White House and the president. [27:08] That is stuff that validates and excites the worst bigots in the country, and that is consequential. [27:15] But it's more than that, too. [27:17] We are now about 16 months into what has been, from day one, a concerted and intense targeting of Black Americans, specifically by this president and by this administration. [27:30] On his first full day in office, he proclaims war on diversity efforts, not only in government, but in any institution in the country over which he can exert leverage, everything from schools and universities to law firms to private businesses of every stripe. [27:46] He then immediately started firing some of the highest profile Black public officials in the whole U.S. government, seemingly regardless of any other thing about them. [27:56] I mean, right away, we get the firing of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Charles C.Q. Brown. [28:02] We get the firing of the Librarian of Congress, Carla Hayden. [28:06] And then it's Gwynn Wilcox from the National Labor Relations Board. [28:09] And then it's Robert Primus, the chair of the Surface Transportation Board. [28:12] And then it's Alvin Brown from the NTSB. [28:14] And then it's Peggy Carr, the head of the National Center for Education Statistics. [28:18] And then it's Willie Phillips from FERC, from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. [28:21] And then it's Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. [28:24] And on and on and on. [28:26] When Trump and his top political donor, Elon Musk, then started just lopping off huge swaths of the federal government to disastrous practical effect, [28:36] the largest and most egregious cuts targeted federal agencies that employed a disproportionate number of Black employees. [28:45] Reporter Erica Green wrote about this a few months ago for The Times, noting that [28:49] nothing had moved backwards in the federal government for Black Americans this quickly or this far in over 100 years. [28:56] Since Woodrow Wilson came in in 1912 and resegregated the federal workforce. [29:01] Quote, Black employees were fired or demoted to lower level jobs, relegated to separate and inferior lunchrooms and other facilities and accused of making white women feel unsafe. [29:12] Those who remained were humiliated. [29:13] A Black worker in the Postal Service was surrounded by screens so white workers would not have to look at him. [29:19] Another employee had a cage built around him to separate him from his white counterparts. [29:24] A clerk in the Treasury Secretary's office was assigned to rewrite all correspondence to address Black employees by their first names. [29:36] The way Trump addressed the Librarian of Congress, Carla Hayden, by her first name when he crowed publicly about firing her for no reason. [29:45] In the year of our Lord, 2025 and now 2026, this president and this administration is not just inheriting that history from the Wilson administration, it's furthering it in its own ways. [30:03] Since 1965, there has been an executive order in effect. [30:07] It was signed by Lyndon Johnson, 1965. [30:10] Since 1965, all federal contractors have been banned by executive order from discriminating on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or national origin. [30:22] Donald Trump rescinded that 1965 rule on his first full day in office. [30:28] Less than a month later, Trump announced another rule change. [30:31] They rescinded Clause 52.222-21 of the Federal Acquisition Regulation, which doesn't sound like much, but I'll tell you what the title of that is. [30:41] It's prohibition of segregated facilities. [30:46] That's what Trump rescinded less than one month into being back in the White House. [30:50] That section reads, quote, [30:53] The contractor agrees that it does not and will not maintain or provide for its employees any segregated facilities at any of its establishments, [31:01] and that it does not and will not permit its employees to perform their services at any location under its control where segregated facilities are maintained. [31:09] That anti-segregation clause has been in government contracts for decades. [31:15] Donald Trump overtly reached out to rescind it, which means bluntly that the federal government no longer explicitly prohibits contractors from having segregated restaurants, waiting rooms and drinking fountains. [31:31] Make America great again, right? [31:34] Recently fired and sidelined employees in the Department of Housing and Urban Development have started sounding the alarm that the Trump administration is no longer, [31:46] just bluntly no longer enforcing a federal law known as the Fair Housing Act. [31:51] Fair Housing Act, another pillar of the civil rights movements and its achievements. [31:58] Fair Housing Act dates to 1968. [32:00] It says you can't refuse to rent to someone or refuse to sell a house to someone on account of their race or their color or religion or national origin or any other factor against which we're supposed to be protected from discrimination. [32:13] According to current and former employees of the Department of Housing and Urban Development under Donald Trump, [32:18] they have dropped, they have dropped enforcement of the Federal Housing Act. [32:23] In Trump's first year back in office, Black unemployment spiked in this country from 6.2% all the way up to 7.5%, making it the highest of all racial groups. [32:38] Under Joe Biden, Black unemployment had been at a record low of 4.8%, spiking now under Donald Trump. [32:50] The Trump administration, generally speaking, is bad at its work. [32:53] It is bad at what it sets its mind to in all sorts of ways. [32:56] But Black Americans, African Americans have been targeted by this administration in a concerted way that has nevertheless been devastating, [33:07] even though the Trump administration isn't good at anything they set their mind to. [33:11] And that was all before the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court, including all of Trump's appointees, [33:16] voted to effectively end the Voting Rights Act a few days ago. [33:20] As soon as the court said they would take up that case, people started mapping the worst-case scenario for what Trump and the Republicans would do, [33:28] particularly in the South, if the court gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the crowning achievement of the Civil Rights Movement. [33:39] And the before and after looks like the snapback after the end of Reconstruction, after the Civil War. [33:47] I mean, look at the state of Louisiana there. [33:49] A third of the population of Louisiana is Black. [33:52] Yeah, Louisiana's Republican governor canceled congressional elections that are already underway in that state [34:00] to rush through new maps that will presumably make sure that even though one-third of the population of that state is Black, [34:07] there will be no Black representation in Congress for Louisiana at all. [34:12] South Carolina, a quarter of the population is Black. [34:15] They have one majority-minority district represented by an African-American Democrat, Jim Clyburn. [34:20] They are going to try to get rid of that one Black district. [34:23] So that South Carolina is all white, all Republican in representation, while a quarter of the people who live in that state are Black. [34:33] In Tennessee, one in six residents is Black. [34:36] Republicans now want to make sure all nine congressional seats in Tennessee are white, all nine of them. [34:43] They want it to be nine to nothing, white and Republican, when one in six people in that state is Black. [34:49] In her dissent from the majority ruling, Justice Elena Kagan said it will likely cause the largest reduction to minority representation since the end of Reconstruction. [35:02] She probably didn't need to use the word likely there. [35:07] The war on Black Americans that is being waged by this president and this Republican Party is one of the only things they have put their mind to in this past year [35:14] that they've actually done pretty well at, a comprehensive attack on Black public officials and Black public power, [35:22] a comprehensive attack on Black public officials in the federal government, Black employees in the federal government, Black representatives in Congress, [35:30] and now all around the country where everywhere Republicans are in charge, [35:35] they are scrambling to make sure that Black public officials can no longer hold office. [35:40] We're going to talk tonight about the pushback against that and the strategies to make them pay for it, [35:47] both in Louisiana, which is ground zero here, and around the country. [35:50] We're going to talk tonight about some surprising pushback from churches and the clergy. [35:54] We're going to talk tonight about a blistering takedown of Trump and the administration in federal court in Washington in a most unexpected case. [36:04] But big picture here, we are in the middle of something really radical in this country, [36:08] not just to get rid of our constitutional republic, to replace our form of government with something else, [36:17] but to get rid of the multiracial democracy that our constitution is supposed to protect. [36:22] It is a war on Black America. [36:25] The fight to save it is looking like it's going to be the fight of all of our lives. [36:28] We've got breaking news. [36:30] The United Arab Emirates says it intercepted three cruise missiles from Iran today in the first attack since the ceasefire went into effect. [36:38] A fourth missile fell into the sea. [36:40] The missile attacks come just hours after the president launched what he called Project Freedom. [36:46] It's a plan for the U.S. to guide stranded ships through the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has effectively closed. [36:52] So far, two U.S. flagged merchant vessels have passed through the strait, according to U.S. Central Command. [36:58] And CENTCOM says the operation will involve 15,000 service members, guided missile destroyers, [37:03] and more than 100 land and sea-based aircraft. [37:06] Joining us now, MSNOW contributor Inzamam Rashid, who's in Dubai. [37:10] Retired U.S. Army General James Spider-Marx. [37:14] And Peter Baker is back with me. [37:16] Inzamam, what can you tell us about these Iranian attacks and the U.S. Navy operation? [37:21] Well, Chris, today the UAE has come under attack from Iran, and Iran is escalating this conflict, [37:30] flexing their military muscle to remind the Gulf nations, to remind the U.S. that they still have military capabilities to cause damage and to cause destruction. [37:41] And that's exactly what they've done today. [37:43] Of course, on the water, we've seen conflict. [37:47] We've seen volatile conflict take place in the Strait of Hormuz. [37:50] But specifically related to the UAE, we've seen two UAE oil tankers have been targeted and struck by Iranian fire. [37:59] Both of them have been damaged, one of them where the engine room was struck. [38:05] They're both just off the coast of the UAE, and one was carrying the national oil to another country. [38:14] And then we've seen, as you mentioned, four cruise missiles coming towards the UAE, [38:19] three of them intercepted by the Ministry of Defence here, one of them falling into the sea. [38:24] And then the latest news we're receiving is in Fajera, which is one of the northern emirates of the United Arab Emirates, has been attacked today. [38:33] The Fajera petroleum industrial zone there has been targeted. [38:38] So an energy facility was struck by an Iranian drone causing an advanced fire. [38:44] And the authorities there say that three people have been injured as a result. [38:50] So, look, I think what Project Freedom has essentially done has threatened to bring the U.S. and Iran back into war. [38:59] And that's exactly what we've seen play out today. [39:02] The U.S. Navy blockade remains in the Strait of Hormuz. [39:05] That was making Iran very unhappy. [39:08] We've heard the rhetoric from President Trump ramping up that military action could take place. [39:13] And now this Project Freedom started today, trying to essentially get U.S. Navy vessels to escort oil tankers and other ships through the Strait of Hormuz, [39:24] has sent Iran over the edge and effectively made them now cause fire and attack into the UAE. [39:32] And I think what we will see now is a potential retaliation, maybe directly from the UAE in the coming days, but maybe as well from the U.S. and Israel, [39:43] because we were supposed to be in this ceasefire, remember, Chris. [39:47] That tonight kind of feels like it's been broken because of these attacks. [39:51] So, Peter, before all of this happened, before those missiles made their way to the UAE, [39:58] here's how Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent described this operation. [40:04] This is an international humanitarian operation. [40:07] We are opening the Strait. [40:09] The Iranians do not have control of the Strait. [40:12] The U.S., we are just firing if fired upon. [40:15] We are not the provocateurs here. [40:17] But if the Iranians want to escalate here, we are willing to escalate. [40:21] The White House had been under a lot of pressure, as you know, to get things moving in the Strait. [40:25] Is Project Freedom a sign that the president understands that Republicans are getting crushed [40:30] by this standoff in the Strait of Hormuz and needs to do something? [40:35] Or how do you see it? [40:37] Yeah, no, I think that's right. [40:38] I mean, look, he has to look like he is doing something about this. [40:41] It is absolutely, you know, a debilitating situation where they can't control the Strait of Hormuz, [40:48] which was open before this war began. [40:50] Now, what I think he's trying to do, of course, is also get leverage in any negotiations that [40:54] might or might not take place in the coming days. [40:57] If he can take away some of that, you know, Trump card, he used that expression, that Iran [41:03] has over the Strait, it gives the president a little bit more negotiating room. [41:08] But, you know, the fact of the matter is it's not clear that these shipping companies are [41:11] going to feel really comfortable about this. [41:13] That doesn't mean just because the U.S. Navy is there guiding them, they don't know what [41:16] that means. [41:16] They're not sure if that is, you know, necessarily safe. [41:19] They have insurance concerns. [41:21] It's not going to provide the kind of open, you know, waterways that is necessary to get [41:27] the amount of oil out that we're normally used to seeing getting out of there. [41:30] So, Spider, does this operation put U.S. troops, even those commercial ships in danger? [41:36] I mean, is there a way for the U.S. to operate this project freedom in such a way or the way [41:43] it is being done to guarantee anybody's safety? [41:48] Well, you know, Chris, risk is always attended to military operations. [41:52] When you have soldiers and we have this type of a presence, there's going to be an increased risk. [41:57] Just the mere deployment puts units at risk and puts those sailors and those members of those [42:07] organizations at risk. [42:09] Look, there are several ways that this can be conducted. [42:12] If you go back in history, you look at the late 80s. [42:14] We conducted, U.S. Navy conducted an operation called Ernest Will, where we re-flagged Kuwaiti [42:20] vessels under U.S. flagging and got them through the Straits of Hormuz. [42:24] The Iranians resisted. [42:26] They mined the Straits. [42:28] In fact, one of our destroyers was hit back then. [42:31] And then we went about and conducted another operation and we sunk the Iranian Navy into [42:36] the bottom of the Gulf. [42:37] That was the late 80s. [42:39] So, there could be a re-flagging operation that would take place. [42:42] But I think we have to have a very measured expectation in terms of how this is going to turn out. [42:47] First, it will be done extremely professionally. [42:50] The United States Navy knows how to do this. [42:52] It could be the positioning of destroyers at different locations through the Straits. [42:59] Or, in other words, you then pass a vehicle off to another destroyer, one of those vessels. [43:04] And those vessels provide you three-dimensional protection, not only from space and air, [43:09] but also subsurface and obviously surface as the tankers then pass through. [43:14] Or, you can line up the tankers and then put a string of Navy vessels on both sides and say, [43:21] okay, we're just going to physically escort you through until you depart. [43:26] Also, I would anticipate that this could be an opening of two-way traffic, both in and out. [43:32] We'll have to see how that works relative to the rules of engagement of the blockade, [43:37] as they've been described so far. [43:39] But all of this, the naval term is all about queue routes, establishing queue routes. [43:44] And that is a safe passage through restricted areas. [43:47] And in this particular case, that very specific naval challenge is mining in the Straits. [43:53] I guess to Peter's point about whether or not folks who want, whose ships are sitting there [43:59] waiting to move through the strait are willing to risk it, you have what we saw today, right? [44:04] Four missiles fired from Iran, three of them intercepted by the UAE. [44:08] One of them apparently fell into the sea. [44:10] But does it look to you like if we're not now, we are headed back to where we were before the ceasefire? [44:16] And that makes the possibility of the success of an operation like this less. [44:22] Yeah, really good point. [44:24] Look, there are essentially multiple layers to this. [44:27] Strategically, what you're describing is the potential for this thing re-escalating back to an epic fury type of an engagement. [44:35] High volume, lots of velocity of targeting what we saw over the course of the first seven weeks. [44:40] Or what you could see is in support of this safe passage, which is what's trying to be achieved here, freedom of navigation is the objective here. [44:51] But what you could see is the accidents that occur as Iranian vessels that are going to try to interrupt that, those what we call mosquito boats, [45:00] those fast boats that are moving in and have the ability to engage with some missile capability as well as mining capability. [45:08] If the United States Navy can identify those, they should be able to. [45:12] Then you could have the escalation with a tactical engagement, then has the unintended consequences of what happens in a very specific area over a very finite period of time. [45:23] What we're concerned about is does this now escalate back into an epic fury type of an engagement? [45:30] And I'm not saying when that the application of force on this regime, any additional application of force on this regime is going to change their behavior. [45:37] Look, it's all about, as we've discussed, it's all about Iran not having a nuke, not having proxies that can threaten the region and beyond and not having missile capabilities for the regional threats as well as global. [45:50] Those are the red lines. [45:51] Everything else, I think, is unnecessary at this point. [45:54] Peter, I'm out of time, but I want to ask you quickly, given, and we talked about this earlier in the program, the political vice that Republicans find themselves in as a result of the skyrocketing prices that happen as a result of what's happening in the Middle East, is diplomacy off the table? [46:10] What's the next step? [46:12] No, I don't think diplomacy is off the table. [46:14] With Donald Trump, he's always looking for a deal. [46:17] And the military at this point is a possible leverage point for that deal if he can get there. [46:22] I think the trouble is finding a deal that both sides can live with. [46:25] The trick for the challenge for the president is that Iran doesn't think it's lost this war. [46:30] Iran thinks it can wait him out. [46:31] Iran is looking at the same numbers that we're talking about, looking at the same economic pain points that we're discussing. [46:37] And they think that they can either wait him out or at least drive a better deal than they would have before, because they understand that he's under pressure. [46:46] And the trick for President Trump is making clear that that's not going to change his demands, his bottom line. [46:53] And we don't know what his bottom line really is. [46:55] So how do you have a deal in which he can tell the American people he got what he needed out of it, and Iran can accept it as well in terms of its future, [47:03] in terms of the nuclear program, in terms of the Strait of Hormuz, in terms of all these different factors. [47:09] It's hard to see what that deal looks like right now.