Obsessed: Trump’s vanity projects backfire as DEM ENERGY surges in new races

[0:00] We begin the hour with Donald Trump's priority crisis. [0:03] Trump pushing the Supreme Court to green light a ballroom that's been paused. [0:09] Justices were being asked to basically stop the order on this. [0:13] The move comes a week after a federal court ruled the construction project is illegal. [0:18] And that is because Trump didn't get Congress to approve it. [0:22] A Congress that, of course, he has a lot of sway over with Republicans. [0:26] Meanwhile, records reviewed by The Post reveal the administration wants to spend another 900 M. [0:30] But Trump's request to the high court is part of that whole thing you've heard about, the misuse, many critics say, of a so-called shadow docket, [0:39] where basically they lose in the normal courts where there's plenty of conservative and Republican-appointed judges, [0:45] but they go too far and lose, and then they try to sneak it into the shadow docket. [0:50] We have prices rising. We have a war going much longer than Trump ever promised. [0:54] We have Americans worried about spending. [0:55] And we have the labor statistics finding inflation has basically wiped out any wage gains Americans were experiencing. [1:05] So most politicians with power, and the president obviously has that, would want to use that power to deal with any of that. [1:12] And yet here is an estimate, just an estimate, but pretty striking from the New York Times' Maggie Hayward. [1:17] Let's take this in full. I want people to see this headline. [1:20] 70% of Trump's brain, she says, 70% of his brain is on monuments and vanity projects. [1:30] That is an interesting account from a New York Times reporter who had that big author, has had a lot of scoops. [1:36] She has no reason to inflate the numbers. [1:37] She's a reporter telling you that's basically where his priorities are. [1:41] And here's a snapshot of how that's looked. [1:45] We're going to build the greatest ballroom anywhere in the world. [1:48] There'll be nothing like it. [1:49] It will have windows that are thicker than any ballroom I've ever built. [1:52] This is the east wing section. [1:54] But the ballroom is, as you see, it's going up. [1:57] It's ahead of schedule. [1:58] We're building the most beautiful ballroom anywhere in the world, right at the White House. [2:03] Right at the White House. [2:05] It's going to be completed very soon. [2:07] I was in the Great Hall of China recently, four weeks ago when I was in China. [2:13] They have a very large ballroom, beautiful ballroom. [2:16] We don't have that. [2:17] That's the priority set. [2:20] I want to bring in our panel. [2:22] Well, we begin, of course, as mentioned, with the expert in whose hour we reside, MSNOW's [2:29] Michael Steele, also, of course, former RNC chair. [2:33] Sawyer Hackett's a Democratic strategist with experience on the 2020 Castro campaign. [2:37] And Lenny McAllister has written for many conservative outlets, also ran for Congress as a Republican [2:42] back in 2016. [2:42] He's the author of a Venn diagram of one, an American story. [2:46] Michael, kick us off. [2:48] What do you see here in these priorities? [2:51] I see a developer doing what a developer does. [2:54] He's prioritizing his projects. [2:56] He's giving glowing reports on the progress of those projects. [3:01] He's proud of the sound of hammers and nails and scaffolding going up. [3:08] He's excited to the point of ecstasy when he looks out onto the White House lawn and he sees [3:16] the, you know, the carnage that is wrought when you tear up the soil and you begin to [3:23] put stakes in the ground. [3:25] Meanwhile, families are struggling to pay their bills. [3:29] Moms are concerned about how they're going to get their kids in clothing to go back to [3:34] school and what the lunch menu looks like for the first week of classes this week. [3:40] You know, dads and others are out there trying to figure out, OK, what does how do we get [3:47] these aspects of the family focused on the things we need to be focused on? [3:52] Everybody is focused on the economy and their personal journey. [3:59] Donald Trump is focused on what a developer is focused on. [4:02] Republicans, Ari, and you know this, you've heard it many, many times over many years, [4:08] always used to brag and bray about, you know, what we need is a businessman in the White House. [4:14] What we need is a businessman. [4:16] Well, folks, this is what it looks like when you put a businessman in the White House. [4:19] He does his business because if his business isn't your business, right? [4:25] Guess what? [4:26] It's his business. [4:28] And that's what we're seeing play out right now. [4:30] No one should be shocked any longer. [4:32] Can we stop feigning the surprise in the media? [4:36] Can we stop acting like this is now this is normal? [4:39] It isn't normal. [4:40] It is never normal to have a president give so little about the American people. [4:48] Yeah, you make it clear, which is why people listen to you. [4:52] I mean, I hear you on that. [4:53] Sawyer, what's your response? [4:57] Yeah, I mean, I think this is the perfect kind of encapsulation of how [5:00] prissy and megalomaniacal this man can be. [5:02] And, you know, frankly, I this may be an unpopular opinion. [5:06] But at this point in Donald Trump's presidency, this is exactly what I want him to be spending [5:11] his time on rather than, you know, spending his time on destroying the economy or prosecuting [5:16] his enemies or trying to steal an election. [5:18] I would rather Donald Trump be focused on these kind of vanity projects that are kind of [5:22] vainglorious and just all about himself. [5:24] But but really, it's not just that he's focused on these vanity projects. [5:27] It's that he's focused on them while everything else is crumbling around him. [5:30] And a lot of that is the economy. [5:32] But I think it's also just this kind of like ambient dread about a whole bunch of things [5:36] that Americans didn't have to worry about before, whether that's, you know, salmonella [5:40] or measles or, you know, cyclosporiasis or whatever it may be. [5:45] Americans are just dealing with these crisis after crisis in terms of incompetence from [5:50] government at the same time that they're seeing their president focused on, you know, a reflecting [5:55] pool, a ballroom, putting his name on the Kennedy Center. [5:58] It's just a pathetic kind of encapsulation of who this man is. [6:01] And I think it's ultimately going to be the downfall of Republicans in November. [6:04] Lenny, I quoted The Times Habermann. [6:08] Here's more of what she said on a pod about this. [6:12] I don't really think it's disputable that he is spending a huge amount of energy, mental [6:17] and otherwise, on these renovation projects, beautification projects around Washington and [6:23] then monuments to self for which there is no precedent in U.S. history of a sitting president [6:29] devising such endeavors in their own name. [6:34] In fact, there is the opposite. [6:36] There are presidents who have rejected monuments being built to them. [6:42] Lenny? [6:44] Well, it's bigger than even that. [6:47] The bottom line is we have a president that's more focused on him having power than empowering [6:52] the American people. [6:54] And when you have a leader, whether it's a president, a governor, a mayor, that's more focused on consolidating [7:00] power for the few and not empowering people overall, you get this type of focus on projects, [7:08] on certain pieces of legislation, on certain legacy endeavors that are more about the individual [7:14] or the movement than they are about the people they're supposed to represent. [7:17] This is not a surprise because, let's just be clear, the MAGA movement has been focused on consolidating power [7:24] since 2015-2016. [7:27] Moving forward, we're going to see the same exact thing for the next two years, and it's [7:31] going to be incumbent upon voters in 2026 and 2028 to focus on leaders that are actually [7:37] trying to re-empower the American people, regardless of what constituency they're serving, [7:42] versus just trying to consolidate power for the few. [7:47] Yeah, when you look at sort of what you mentioned, the other side, Michael, we have some new [7:51] remarks here on a discussion with Stacey Evans, with Kamala Harris. [7:55] Take a listen. [7:58] Stacey, I'll tell you, I think we've got to be ruthless. [8:03] And by that, I don't mean the way they are. [8:06] It's not cruel. [8:08] But we have to be uncompromising. [8:11] And we have to understand that we're going to have to toughen up a bit around really being [8:21] focused on results and not sitting around waiting for Republicans to have an epiphany. [8:30] Because, you know, people's rent can't wait for that. [8:34] People's health care and affordability can't wait for that. [8:37] Being able to afford child care can't wait for that. [8:42] Michael? [8:42] Yeah, so this is, we've moved from when they go low, we go high, to we need to be ruthless. [8:52] And I agree with the former vice president. [8:56] Democrats need to show, because in that ruthlessness, it's not about cruelty, and it's not about [9:01] pettiness, and it's not about just going after your political enemies because they're [9:07] your political enemies. [9:09] It's fighting for something. [9:11] It's fighting for someone. [9:13] It is making very clear the bright lines that you as a party or you as a candidate are prepared [9:21] to commit to. [9:23] And it is something that, you know, both Lenny and I know and knew from days gone by in our [9:30] work inside the Republican Party. [9:32] His great book that's out now talks a lot about that experience and what that looks like. [9:38] So even for Republicans, they moved off of, you know, a level of engagement that was sort of [9:49] sort of New England nice Republicanism to what we see now. [9:55] Democrats find themselves in a very similar position going into this next part of our century [10:02] in which they will be and can be the dominant party for democracy until the other party gets [10:09] its head out of its behind and understands that the way America survives is not through MAGA. [10:15] It is not through Donald Trump. [10:17] It is not through the iteration of some authoritarian dream. [10:23] I had another thought on that one. [10:25] I'll spare you. [10:27] But the reality is where the country wants to go. [10:32] And that's what the first what Kamala Harris is talking about. [10:37] Are the Democrats prepared to fight for where the country wants to go, where the country needs [10:41] to go? [10:42] Are they prepared to be, you know, ruthless, you know, with a good ruthlessness, if you will, [10:51] to make sure that that happens? [10:53] You know, it's funny, Michael, and you're such a perfect person to talk about this with because [10:58] Trump has scrambled the normal divisions for all the reasons I think our informed viewers know. [11:05] And so you have a constituency in this country that wants what we might call opposition to Trump. [11:11] Well, I'm not saying that's fully hard left on every answer, but opposition to this, that's [11:17] the governing they want. [11:18] But the style, the tenacity, the leadership they want is still tough Republican, not on [11:26] the other hand, you know, Democratic college professor or what have you, fill in the unfair [11:32] characterization you want. [11:33] And so I'm reminded of, you know, Liz Cheney, when she decided to be the opposite, she literally [11:37] went from Republican leadership to be in the opposition. [11:39] And all these people in that pro-democracy movement said that. [11:44] Why don't we have more of that? [11:45] And you're here as our colleague. [11:47] But I know people, you don't have to say it, I'll say it. [11:49] I know people who go, oh, you know, that Michael Steele, I like the way he lays out the reports [11:53] on democracy and talks about what the stakes are. [11:56] Of course, you spent a good chunk of your life in the pre-Trump Republican Party. [11:59] But I want to say it.