'Survival': Senate GOP gives in to Trump yet again

[0:00] After hours and hours of talking and voting, Senate Republicans once again fell in line [0:05] behind President Donald Trump. They passed a $70 billion immigration bill that's now headed to the [0:12] House of Representatives. Politico reports it includes about $38 billion for ICE, more than [0:17] $26 billion for Customs and Border Protection, and about $5 billion that Secretary Mark Wayne [0:23] Mullen will get to decide how to use. There were votes to include language that would block Trump's [0:29] so-called anti-weaponization fund, and a handful of Republicans did support the measure, but not [0:34] enough to make it a reality. And so far, Republicans have shown no indication they'll try to block [0:39] Trump's immunity from the IRS. The nightcap is still here. Like most of you, we are also all [0:44] monitoring the nine seconds left in the NBA final game. We will have an update. We'll bring it to [0:50] you as we need. Tolu, we're going to start with you. Look, we've heard Donald Trump say that the [0:54] government doesn't have money for all these things people need, child care. The government can't be [0:57] paying for that. He literally, the government cut aid to money, to NPR, to PBS, to USAID, [1:05] cut SNAP benefits, right? All of these things that we don't have money for yet, we are spending [1:10] billions and billions of dollars on a war in Iran, as well as immigration. How could that be a smart [1:20] political play with voters right now when people are really struggling all over this country? [1:24] We've seen over the past decade, whenever Donald Trump is in trouble, he runs to immigration. [1:31] He talks about the wall. He talks about people coming across the border. This is what he's doing [1:35] now. And he thinks that it's a strong political move. It's something that has worked for him when [1:40] it comes to his base. And they are still animated by the idea of kicking people out of the country. [1:45] But when you're talking about the broad segment of the American public, they are focused on gas prices. [1:52] They are saying that building a bunch of detention centers and trying to kick a bunch of grandmas out [1:56] of the country, separating families, is not going to make prices go lower. It's not going to deal with [2:00] the issues that is facing them as a family or as a member of their community. And so we've already [2:07] seen last year with the big, beautiful bill, the billions of dollars that were sent to immigration [2:12] enforcement. And then we saw what happened in Minnesota. They took a lot of that money and started [2:15] going after people who did not have criminal records, people who were part of their local communities, [2:20] and they started arresting and killing American citizens. And more of this money is going towards [2:26] that operation that we have seen is not well-trained. We've seen is violating people's rights. [2:33] Courts have said over and over again that they're using this money. They're using these funds. They're [2:37] using the support they get from the president to violate the rights of American citizens and immigrants. [2:41] And that looks like what is going to continue to happen as all of this money goes towards more [2:46] detention centers, towards more beefed up operations to increase deportations. There's no sign that this [2:54] is politically popular. We've started to see uprisings against it in various cities. And as we get to [2:59] November, it's likely to, we're likely to see a bigger pushback against this when voters go. [3:03] I mean, this discretionary $5 billion for Secretary Mark Wayne Mullen sounds odd to me as an American [3:11] citizen. Look, Jason, look, the anti-weaponization fund, or the slush fund, as a number of folks have [3:19] called it, was a real point of contention, not just on Capitol Hill, but I think it was a point [3:23] of contention on Capitol Hill because of the things that TOLU just laid out. The American people, [3:28] when they were being asked at the gas station by our MSNOW colleagues, they didn't like it. [3:33] But there are now 50 Senate Republicans who are on record choosing not to block the fund. Is that [3:39] an opportunity for Democrats? Where are the ads? I mean, it could be, but I, look, there is a level [3:44] of corruption that you're dealing with with this administration now that I think most voters have [3:49] just sort of bought into. The Democrats sort of assume, all right, these guys are all corrupt. [3:53] We still have to beat them. And Republicans have said, we accept the corruption because we've been [3:57] convinced that Hunter Biden was just as corrupt, right? So I don't think this is so much an [4:01] opportunity for Democrats as it is a reminder of who you're dealing with. You are dealing with an [4:07] opposition that can't be negotiated with, can't be worked out, people who can't be reasoned with. [4:12] They're basically saying it's okay to give into this thug fund to pay the people who tried to kill us [4:17] five years ago. And I think the lesson should be for Democrats in the Senate, for Democrats in the [4:23] House to recognize, I shouldn't try and work with these people. Anyone who wants to pay someone who [4:27] tried to kill us several years ago is not a friend of mine, is not somebody who can be negotiated with. [4:31] So I don't know that ads matter because I think at this point, people have pretty much decided how [4:35] they want to vote. But I do think as far as the negotiations go within the House, within the [4:40] Senate, within senators saying, well, maybe if we work with them on this, no, there is no compromising [4:43] with these people. And anyone who can vote to pay off somebody who wanted to kill them isn't [4:47] somebody who can be negotiated with. I mean, the former consultant in me says ads do matter [4:52] somewhere. I am wondering, John, your thoughts about Jason's thoughts about the corruption [4:57] angle and how Democrats can link it. And I will note that today in court filings, the [5:02] Department of Justice, they did repeat Todd Blanche's claim, the acting attorney general, [5:06] that the slush fund is not moving forward, but they still will not commit to it in writing. [5:10] So they said it in court. They didn't commit to it in writing. The president himself said [5:14] he liked the fund and thought it was a good thing. And he has to ask the lawyers. [5:17] Thoughts? Well, I think the fund is not going to happen. And I think Republican senators were not [5:23] willing to vote to prohibit it because they are accepting the word from the administration [5:29] that they've backed off. Is that smart? Well, I think that's survival for them because they know [5:36] that President Trump, almost to a person, can take them out if he wants to take them out. [5:42] But I think these things are related to one another. And I think part of it's political and part of [5:47] it's Trump specific. The jet fuel behind Donald Trump's movement is the anxiety felt by a minority [5:57] of white Americans who are afraid that their country is slipping away and it's going to become [6:04] a majority-minority country that they do not have primacy in. And so that is what gives power to the [6:11] Trump movement. That's why people like Stephen Miller are using Trump to further their vision [6:19] of a purified America. Trump has interest in that not as much as they do. Like, Trump is interested [6:27] in himself. And he's not immensely motivated by anything beyond himself. So, yeah, Miller's doing [6:36] his thing. They've seen that it's not ads made a difference. Reality made a difference. When people [6:41] saw what it meant to try to do mass deportations on the scale that they were even imagining, the public [6:48] doesn't like it. I mean, this is why Trump is unpopular is because all of the things that he's [6:53] been pursuing are not popular. He's going to keep pursuing the ones that put money in his pocket [7:00] and that continue to allow him to glorify himself. You know, the Iran war, he had this idea based on [7:08] Venezuela that he can look tough and dominant and in a quick strike do what other Americans have not [7:14] done. It's not strategy. He doesn't think things through. He doesn't have smart people working for [7:21] him who think things through. And so this is why the U.S. government is a mess. And you have the people [7:29] within the Republican Party who do know better are afraid. And so this is why we get to this place. [7:36] We will hear from the voters very soon all across this country this November. And maybe they will [7:40] tell us how they feel about the corruption and the grift and the fact that St. Hormuz is still [7:46] closed. Gas prices are up. Can we talk about Bill Pulte? Good old Pulte. This is Trump's new acting [7:52] director of national intelligence. Now, Tolu, the president is insisting that this appointment is [7:57] temporary, probably because he cannot actually get confirmed. Mr. Pulte has no intelligence [8:03] experience, zero foreign policy experience, no background in the industry. He can stay in this [8:11] acting role, though, past the midterms. Yesterday, the president did suggest very strongly in interviews [8:19] that Pulte could also look into the country's elections. The last director of national intelligence, [8:24] Tulsi Gabbard, was on the ground in Fulton County when the government seized ballots from the 2020 [8:31] election in Fulton County. We still don't know what she was doing there. How much damage could Bill [8:35] Pulte do? He could do quite a lot of damage. He's not being put in there to organize the 18 [8:40] offices within the intelligence community. He's been put in there to knock heads and to do what [8:47] Donald Trump wants him to do. When he was the leader of the housing administration in the Trump, [8:53] the FHFA for the Trump administration, he spent a lot of time trying to pursue Trump's political [8:59] enemies over alleged housing misdeeds and went after- James, Adam Schiff, Lisa Cook. Right. And [9:06] all that stuff was made up. Very much so. Literally, these were internet fallacies. [9:11] That does not matter to Donald Trump. He wants people who are going to go after his political [9:15] enemies, the people that he felt are standing in his way or felt helped give him a number of [9:21] political challenges when he was out of office and he was facing all of these charges, including [9:26] Tish James in New York, and he ended up being convicted in the New York case. The president [9:30] wants people who are going to go after his political enemies. And if you are the head of [9:35] intelligence, you have a lot of tools to go after people's private information, to use the various [9:43] tools of the American government to go after the president's political enemies. That's why he's [9:47] being chosen. That's why he's being put in there. It doesn't matter if he's only going to be put in [9:51] there for a short period of time. There's a lot of damage that you can do over the course of months [9:55] that he's going to have in this role. And that's what he's being asked to do. I will be surprised [9:59] if he spends months in this role. Because this is, this may be, of all of the disgraceful [10:05] appointments that Donald Trump has made, this may be the most disgraceful. And I think there are [10:09] enough Republican senators, some of whom are saying it out loud even, because this is so bad.