Summary

In this detailed breakdown of recent developments under the second Trump administration, key issues emerge: economic instability, rising global tensions, and constitutional overreach. Trump’s abrupt proposal to lower China tariffs from 145% to 80% is causing massive uncertainty for businesses, consumers, and global markets. Experts highlight the real-world impacts—price hikes, layoffs, and strained supply chains—while criticizing the administration’s chaotic communication.

Meanwhile, billionaire Bill Gates publicly rebukes Trump and Elon Musk for cutting global health funding, citing deadly consequences for vulnerable communities. The administration is also facing backlash for suggesting the suspension of habeas corpus, a constitutional right, under the false narrative of an immigration “invasion.”

Adding to the controversy, Newark’s mayor was arrested during a peaceful oversight visit to an ICE facility, sparking national outrage over federal overreach. Globally, Trump’s efforts to broker peace in Ukraine appear stalled, while Putin and Xi strengthen ties—signaling a major geopolitical shift.

This full transcript unpacks the disconnect between political theater and policy reality, revealing how the administration’s rhetoric is colliding with growing economic and constitutional concerns.

Full Transcripts

Like a B-movie thriller, there are twists and turns today in the melodrama that is Donald Trump’s handling of the U. S. economy. As our colleague Stephanie Ruele said this morning, quote, ‘Trump appears backed into a corner,’ end quote. Ahead of talks with China, Trump has now floated lowering the tariff rate to 80 percent. He posted on Truth Social, quote, ’80 percent tariff on China seems right up to Scott B.’ Of course, it’s not really just up to Scott B. U. S. Treasury Secretary Scott Besant. The final decision is up to Donald T. Besson is set to meet with Chinese officials tomorrow. As the New York Times reports, an 80% tariff would be a big drop from the current 145% that Trump imposed on Chinese imports in recent months.

00:00:48

But that higher level would still shut off most trade between the countries. While it differs from company to company, some executives have said that tariffs above 50% are generally enough to freeze exports to the U. S. Companies that are not able to find an alternative source of supply for their products outside China are facing the prospect of bankruptcy and layoffs as the summer grinds on. And even 25 percent tariffs could be crippling. All of that, layoffs, bankruptcy, the prospect of empty shelves. That is what people here in the real world are worried about. As Donald Trump posts about lowering tariffs from 145 to 80, quote, ‘up to’ Scott B. Whatever happens next with tariffs and with our trade war with China, the flippant way in which Trump and his team talk about tariffs-things that affect millions of people, the indifference to the disruption and the economic anxiety their policies and their utterances are causing, that is a movie we’ve seen before.

00:01:55

Think of the firing of more than a quarter of a million federal workers or the gutting of U.S. health agencies and research institutions or the total dismantling of foreign aid without any regard for the consequences for some of the world’s most vulnerable people, including children. In a brand-new interview, billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates is speaking out about that, telling the FT this, quote, The picture of the world’s richest man killing the world’s poorest children is not a pretty one. The FT reports this, quote, Gates said Musk had canceled grants to a hospital in Gaza province, Mozambique, that prevents women transmitting HIV to their babies in the mistaken belief that the U . S. was supplying condoms to Hamas in Gaza in the Middle East.

00:02:44

Quote, I’d love for him to go in and meet the children that have now been infected with HIV because he cut that money. Bill Gates announced plans to step up, where Trump and Musk have pulled away, with plans to spend more than $200 billion on global health in the next 20 years. Gates also expanded on his comments in an interview with Stephen Colbert last night. Watch. I’ve been out in the field with the people who work for USCID and seen, you know, the brilliant work they do and how important that is.

00:03:22

Put in the wood chipper. And so we lost a lot of capacity there. Now we can get it back. Eventually, Congress is the one who will have the final word on this. And even I, I’m not even sure the administration understands, you know, what’s going on in the field, because we do have for the first time in 25 years, we have more children dying instead of it going down; it’s now going up. And unless we reverse pretty quickly-over a million additional deaths and you, you, you lay some of this at the feet of Doge and of course Elon Musk. And I hope I’m getting this even closer: you said the picture of the world’s richest man being involved in the death of the world’s poorest is not a pretty one.

00:04:06

That’s right; well said, well said. Widespread damage to the U.S. Brand being done by Donald Trump and his administration is where we start today. With me at the table, NPR financial correspondent Maria Aspin is here, along with the host of Politics Nation right here on MSNBC, President of the National Action Network, the Reverend Al Sharpton. Also joining us, the president of Media Matters for America, Angelo Carasone is here. Let’s unpack the tariffs first. Is 80 percent a good idea? And 80 percent tariff for China. Well, is it going to stay at 80 percent? I mean, I think as you pointed out, the challenge for businesses and consumers and investors is it’s 80 percent today. It was one hundred and forty-five percent a few days ago. There’s just no certainty.

00:05:08

And 80 percent is a huge amount still. But there is, there is also just the question of like Is this the final answer? What is the change going to be? As you pointed out, businesses can’t make decisions. They can’t hire. They can’t invest in anything if they don’t know what sort of economic conditions they’re going to be working with. And meanwhile, this is already hitting consumers. My colleagues at NPR have done some reporting about what sorts of prices consumers are seeing. And they’ve asked people to send in receipts from showing the impact of tariffs. My colleague Emily Fang talked to one woman who had ordered a wheelchair. That had to come from China in early March, by the time it arrived, the price was double. It was $6,000.

00:05:53

That is real impact from these tariffs. For whom is 80% not, I mean, for whom does 80% work out? Well, tariffs are kind of a regressive tax, right? Like tariffs are a tax that are going to most impact the lowest income consumers. So it bears believing that the wealthier consumers who are less price sensitive will be less affected by whatever the tariffs are. And the same would go on the retail side. The larger retailers could absorb some of those costs where small business owners are going to have a harder time, could competing when pricing their their inventory. Yes, but we are also seeing some of the biggest businesses in the country pulling or cutting their financial guidance, including for instance Barbie maker Mattel saying ‘we are going to pass on’ or ‘we will have to pass on these costs to consumers.’ And about that Donald Trump says, ‘no one needs 30 dolls.

00:06:54

You can do with two. No one buys thirty dollars.’ This feels like if our politics hadn’t been totally turned upside down. This is sort of the political tone deafness that George H.W. Bush was damaged irreparably for not recognizing sort of the scanner at the grocery store. I mean, there are in the course of the history of presidential politics and the coverage of presidential politics. This is along the lines of tone deafness and a league of its own. Not only is it tone deaf, the implicit statement that you get from him saying no one needs 30 dollars is he’s again implying like working class people just splurge and spend money uh irresponsibly nobody has 30 dollars so where do you even get that picture in your head and then to uh to play games with uh one minute 145 uh tariff now we’re down to 80 and I might go back to 90.

00:07:58

You’re playing with small businesses, you’re playing with people that need to shop and buy things. And this is not some back and forth that you may do on a building negotiation when you were a developer. This is real life people suffering. We’re seeing people now having to go up on flowers just for Mother’s Day Sunday. But he doesn’t live in that world. He lives in this world that very few people, other than his billionaire friends, live in. And the pain and suffering that it causes people on the ground is something oblivious to him and seemingly unconcerned about; to say we’re going to leave it up to his negotiator. And, you know, like, you know, like we’re playing some kind of pass off a football game. We’re talking about people’s survival, people’s lives, people’s jobs.

00:08:49

And President Trump clearly doesn’t get that. Many of them were supporters of him, which are farmers. We’re talking about people in red states. They’re going to feel this the most. He is oblivious to that and unconcerned. Angela, you introduced this great term about narrative dominance. I don’t know how this is going to play out, but I do see this as a sliding doors moment for Donald Trump. Where the brand that he rode to the White House of a successful businessman, he’s taken this sort of fork in the road, wrapping both arms around being America’s first oligarch, selling his crypto stuff to the very same people he wants to do without $30 and sort of make do with two, sneering at the idea of strollers costing more, telling my colleague Kristen Welker, quote, why would you ask about that?

00:09:45

Where do you see this economic cliff that he’s about to take the country off of maybe intersecting with what has so far been a pretty firm grip on the narrative? Yeah, I mean, you know, you you sort of mentioned this before in the last couple weeks in your show. And you’re right that at some point the reality will hit his supporters and his audiences. We’re not there yet. Uh, if you just look at what’s happening in the right-wing media, in the places adjacent to the right-wing media, they are still framing this as a positive thing, as a part of his masterful negotiations, that this is positional bargaining, and to the extent that these things come out-so for example, with this discussion about 80 one of the when they do talk about it, what they actually do is they blame big corporations.

00:10:32

They say Walmart leaked this in order to weaken Donald Trump’s position at the negotiating table because they’re in cahoots with China. These other big companies leaked this. So the same playbook that was used about the deep state, his first term, is now being used to sort of prop up Trump’s sort of actions. Instead of it being the deep state, now it’s all of these other companies. So Trump is just this embattled leader that’s fighting all these bad forces. So when they do confront it in these moments. They blame somebody else. They blame new targets. And I think that, to me, is the real question. We are at this moment. One of the benefits that they have is an ecosystem that can spin up these narratives and reinforce them amongst their supporters and then the wider populace.

00:11:15

Authoritarianism is theater, and what Trump is doing is a lot of theater, right? You know, the U. K. deal, all this stuff, this conditional bargaining, it’s all theater. But the question is, are people going to be able to connect the harms that they’re experiencing? And people are no doubt going to connect harms to Trump’s policies. And right now, if the status quo remains, people are basically his supporters in the ecosystem that he built power on, that he organized power on, that has propped him up. It is still very firmly saying there’s a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. You know, Sean Hannity is hailing this as Trump’s manifest destiny. So I just think I don’t want to be the naysayer. Because I think there’s a real pathway here.

00:11:53

There are real opportunities. But what you point to is this reality that is simply an opportunity. That cliff is an opportunity for Democrats and others to connect the harms to Trump’s policies. But right now, someone has to be building and preparing that connective tissue. And otherwise, he will continue to maintain the dominant narrative. Top Trump adviser Stephen Miller saying the administration is, quote, looking at suspending a key part of the Constitution, the right. To habeas corpus. President Trump has talked about potentially suspending habeas corpus to take care of the illegal immigration problem. When could we see that happen, do you think? Well, the Constitution is clear, and that, of course, is the supreme law of the land, that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus can be suspended in a time of invasion.

00:12:41

So I would say that’s an option we’re actively looking at. Look, a lot of it depends on whether the courts do the right thing or not. Habeas corpus is one of the most important and basic rights we are entitled to. It is the mechanism that protects people against unlawful imprisonment. And it is enshrined in the Constitution, which says that it can only be suspended in cases of, quote, invasion in the interest of public safety. Trump has tried to argue there’s a, quote, invasion as justification for his mass deportation campaign. But a judge in Texas has already debunked that claim, finding the White House has, quote, failed to prove any invasion. Trump, in a cabinet meeting last week, appeared to reference habeas corpus when musing about how he can expand his presidential power despite court orders.

00:13:30

We’re facing an unprecedented situation where there’s a lot of abuses of nationwide injunctions, sort of seemingly designed to curtail your power, specifically when it comes to deporting these illegal, violent aliens that came in under the previous administration. Have you spoken to your team about ways to mitigate this and continue to deliver for the American people on that? Yeah, well, there are ways to mitigate it, and there’s some very strong ways. There’s one way that’s been used by three very highly respected presidents, but we hope we don’t have to go there. And these comments come amid attacks on other constitutional rights. Trump trying to ban birthright citizenship and making comments about serving a possible third term, something that the Constitution says is not possible, by the way.

00:14:13

So joining me now is Jelani Cobb, dean of the Graduate School of Journalism for Columbia University and a writer for The New Yorker, and Julian Zelizer, history professor at Princeton and author of The Long View on Substack. Julian, how serious is this moment? Is this moment is the threat to our constitutional rights? It’s a very serious threat. The Constitution is the framework for our government. And we have an administration that is testing its strength every given day. And here you hear Stephen Miller saying out loud what we know is coming, based on an invasion that people don’t see happening. And so this is a test for the country, I think. I think many judges are stepping up and trying to stop it, but they have limited power of enforcement.

00:15:02

Do you take what Miller says seriously? I think we have to take what he says very seriously. We’ve seen his influence on policy in the White House and throughout two administrations now. And I should just say that when Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, it was in the midst of the Civil War when twice Robert E. Lee’s forces, the Confederates, literally did invade the North in an attempt to encircle Washington, D. C., and bring an end to the war, a favorable end for the Confederacy. And so when we’re talking about a conflict in which 700,000 plus Americans lost their lives. We know what an invasion is. That’s the definition of an invasion. We’re talking about a conflict over immigration policy that does not qualify as an immigration, as an invasion.

00:15:56

Well, one of the things that’s actually so confusing for people in this moment, I think, is that this administration wants people to believe that they have done unprecedented things on the border. Crossings are down. They have secured the US-Mexico border like never seen before. But also, you need to believe that we are being invaded to such an unprecedented extent. That it would mean exercising these kinds of strange wartime powers but I mean I think that’s true but it’s also consistent with what we’ve seen like the the tendency to be on both sides of a question uh even when we go back to 2016 and the original kind of re-emergence of Law & Order and saying The rhetoric was that people had to be saved by the complete, save from the marauding gangs of criminals who were roaming the streets of American cities, as opposed to pointing out the fact that crime was considerably down over those years.

00:16:51

And so it really doesn’t matter. We’re not talking about statistical reality or objective reality. We’re talking about rhetorical reality, which can be anything that people need at any given moment. As a history professor. What are you seeing in this moment in terms of rhetorical reality? Are there points in time that you look back to that are very? Instructive about what we’re seeing now Not really. I mean, the Lincoln moment is very instructive in terms of the conditions we’ve seen this happen. Even that was controversial at the time. It remains controversial with a president who is revered within the canon of American history. So we should see the bar is very high for doing this. But we haven’t actually had, I don’t think, a president strain the legal system to the extent we’re seeing President Trump do that.

00:17:42

And so I don’t like using unprecedented too much, but I feel like we’re in that, and I think Jelani has it exactly right. He uses rhetoric to justify what he wants to do, even when the empirical facts on the ground don’t match it. We saw that with the election in 2020, and this is the new rigged election. It’s the invasion. And even as courts say it’s not happening, He says it does, but it’s really an excuse to do this. But it’s dangerous. The point is, without due process, without the system, everyone becomes vulnerable. Well, I’ll have you both stay with me. We’re turning now to breaking news from New Jersey. The mayor of Newark, Ras Baraka, arrested while on a trip to an ICE detention facility. The video of that chaotic moment is dramatic. Take a look.

00:18:34

Go! Go! Go!

00:19:50

Video showing a tense scuffle with masked federal agents. Three members of Congress were there as well, including 80-year-old Bonnie Coleman. She’s the woman in the center right there. Congressman Rob Menendez called in during the last hour to describe this scene. Over 20 armed ICE agents, over 20. And there’s video, so it’s clear to see there’s a mayor of the largest city in New Jersey, three members of Congress, over 20. 20 armed agents and additional ICE officials there. And then that is when they arrested Mayor Baraka. Lonnie, I need to get your reaction to this and what signal you think they’re sending. So first, there’s a couple of things I’ll say. I’ve known Mayor Baraka for more than 35 years. We went to Howard University together. And frankly, he’s one of my oldest friends.

00:20:44

I will try to refrain from this. It’s difficult to see a friend of mine in a position like that. I’ll try to refrain and speak about this from as distant a perspective as I can give and say that, you know, this is reminiscent. We just saw a judge being arrested. You know, under these circumstances. And can you imagine, you know, what the outcry would be if we saw a Democratic president arresting the mayor of a largely Republican city over a policy dispute? And for that matter, the city of Newark has maintained that the ICE detention center that’s being operated there is being operated illegally. So it’s not that there was no basis for the mayor to be there. He was there under the official warrant of his responsibilities as mayor of that city.

00:21:35

Kind of characteristic of the overreach we’ve seen consistently. We’ve seen it in multiple arenas. We’ve seen it with the law firms. We’ve seen it with what this administration is doing at higher education, including the university I teach at, Columbia University. We’ve seen it in every arena that we can imagine. And now we’re seeing it enacted against elected officials, people who have been put into office by Democratic will of the public themselves. What kind of signal do you think, I mean, you know the mayor well, that they’re sending not just to him as an individual, a person who had the right to be there to protest, but also specifically the community of Newark that he serves here?

00:22:15

I mean, the point is that meant to say that there are no checks on the authorities, on the administration’s authority, and that anyone, if the mayor isn’t safe, then no one is safe. And I think that is meant to convey that message. Also, I would commend the mayor and those congressional reps for going there and making the point that the facility was not being operated, according to them, in accord with what the legal requirements are. And I think that’s important that we maintain those kinds of standards. What do you think he’s thinking right now? What’s he going through? You know, he’s a tremendously, you know, he’s a tremendous amount of fortitude and he’s a tremendously principled person as long as I’ve known him.

00:22:59

And I think that, you know, for him, he would, you know, gladly, happily sacrifice his freedom to make sure that a point is made about the fundamental importance of democracy. So often, Julian, I am asked by voters, people who I’m talking to in the course of my reporting and travels about, well, when will the media let us know that the line has really been crossed this time, that we’re in truly strange territory? How do you advise people on that? How do you how do you talk to people without sounding hyperbolic about what we’re seeing? But also addressing the reality of what’s in front of us. It’s not hyperbolic. I mean, this is not even about the arrest of an individual. It’s about the arrest of a mayor. I think that is the point. This is an exercise in presidential power that goes well beyond what we usually have and what we expect.

00:24:00

We actually now have the mayor of Newark, New Jersey, Roz Brackett, who just was released in the last hour, waiting to talk to us. Thank you both so much. Mayor, it is it is great to see you. I know you have had quite a day. First, let me just ask you how you’re doing right now. I’m OK, a little tired, but doing pretty good. Thank you. Thank God. Thank God for that. I know you’re back with your family. I know you have been charged with trespassing, which just seems completely insane. We’ve seen the video. We just spoke with Congressman Bonnie Watson Coleman, who was there with you today. And she said you were on public property at the time of your arrest. She also said that you left the premises when officers asked you to.

00:24:42

Were you told at all why you were charged with trespassing? No, they they charged me, I guess, based on the charges they can find. We was actually allowed on the property in the first place. You know, nothing happened for a long, long time, you know, for at least over an hour. And then, you know, after they finally told us to leave and I told them I was leaving, they came outside the gate and arrested me. So it looked like it was targeted. It certainly looked like that from watching. And I know there’s lots of questions. I’m sure you have. We all have. Have you heard? Are those charges still pending? Have they been dropped? Have you been given any indication of that? No, they haven’t been dropped.

00:25:27

I can’t completely talk about the particulars of the case, they said, but it has to appear in court again. So they haven’t dropped the charges. I’ve been charged with a class C misdemeanor, a federal trespass. That is where you let me ask you. I mean, just you were you were detained for a couple of hours today. I mean, where were you? Where were you detained after you were arrested? I was in a Homeland Security kind of barracks cell that they have there. I was being held there. And the guys from Homeland Security were very gracious, very respectful, treated me with respect and integrity. So I have nothing but respect for those guys. But, you know, it was still uncomfortable and, you know, humiliating situation for me. Absolutely.

00:26:17

I mean, you had, again, I’ll just restate this, every right to be there. The delegation had every right to visit this facility. I know you’ve been trying to call attention to this facility and wanting the delegation to gain access to it, which they have every right to do. Tell us about why and what concerns you might have that you want people to be aware of. Well, our concern is with GEO, the group that’s getting $63 million on this contract annually. They came into the city. They have a CO from 20 years ago. The city’s laws say you need to have a new CO, updated CO. They refuse to do that. So we’re in dispute about that in court. They wouldn’t allow the federal inspector.

00:26:59

They wouldn’t allow, excuse me, the health inspectors, the UCC inspectors, or the fire inspectors into the building, which is why we began coming down there regularly. I was just down there this morning. Actually, we go down there for, like, 15 minutes, try to get entry. They say no. We give them a citation. We’re in the process of being in court. We’re in court now. You know, they are violating, really, just doing what they want to do, really, without respecting our authority or the laws of the city or the state. And the reality is we’re in a dispute. Like, they have one point of view, we have another point of view. But disputes are settled in court. ICE doesn’t settle our disputes, neither does the President of the United States, nor does the U.

00:27:37

S. Attorney. Disputes are settled in a court of law, which is what we were doing. Taking a leave from the President of the United States, they feel like they can just violate any court and do whatever they want. You know, you had a harrowing day, an absurd day today. I think a day that’s really outraged a lot of people, including myself. Have you thought about taking any legal action in light of what took place today and what happened to you? Well, I mean, we’re going through this process now. And obviously, I will confer with my lawyers to figure out what’s the best pathway forward on this. I think they completely violated my rights. I’m the mayor of the city. I have the right to go anywhere in this city, particularly in places where I think our laws are being violated.

00:28:22

I went up in a driveway with our health care inspectors and our fire inspectors early on, and we’ve been doing that for the last couple of days. They’ve been ignoring us. And actually, the congresspeople who have oversight on this went onto the property and tried to get inside, and they made them wait over an hour, and they never got in. Never. They mentioned that. And one of the things that the congresswoman I spoke with alluded to is that she thinks they were tipped off, that perhaps they were tipped off to you coming. I don’t know. Of course, this all needs to be looked into. But the nature of your arrest with masked members of ICE just felt, and we’ve all seen the video, I mean, incredibly suspect just watching it.

00:29:08

It was terrible. They obviously targeted me. I wasn’t the only one out there. They came directly to me and tried to arrest me. No one else. Me. And so I honestly believe I was targeted there. And it’s interesting to see all these people making these comments on social media from the government about why I was there. I didn’t come down here to protest. I came down here for a press conference with the Congress people. I knew I wasn’t going to get in the building with them. I was waiting for them to return from outside of the building to participate in a press conference with them. I was already there earlier that morning. I didn’t need to. If I wanted to protest, I could have protested that morning.

00:29:59

I don’t know if you’ve seen Alina Haba’s comments, and I can ask our team if they have them. We can perhaps play them. But to your point, the administration has been out there lying about what the members of Congress were there for and what you were there for. Have you seen any of what they’ve said publicly? It sounds like you have. I have. I’ve seen it. The members of Congress didn’t come down here to protest. They came down here to get a tour of the building. They made them wait over an hour. I was waiting outside for them to return so I could be a part of a press conference that they were having after it to talk to us about what they actually saw in the building.

00:30:37

Unfortunately, none of that got to take place because the gentleman you see in this photo, the video had escalated, completely escalated this situation to a point where it didn’t need to be. Mayor Barack, I know you’ve had quite a long day. Before I let you go, do you have any plans to go back to this ICE facility or perhaps ask the governor or senators to go back tomorrow or the next day? Well, I think all of these elected officials of good conscience should go down there. I think all of our congressional delegation should be there. I think the senators, U.S. Senators, should be at this place, considering what happened to our congresspeople, that they need to be there. I think state officials need to be there as well.

00:31:17

Our governor and other state officials need to be at this site. This is disturbing, what they think they have the ability to do, and what they actually did today was terrible. Mayor, Yep, No, go ahead, continue. I just was going to just thank you and just really appreciate you taking the time tonight. Thank you so much, Newark, New Jersey, Mayor Ras Baraka. Appreciate you. Thank you for having me. Russian President Vladimir Putin putting on a major show of strength in Moscow today, hosting his annual Victory Day parade in Red Square. The event marks the 80th anniversary of the Soviet and Allied victory over Nazi Germany. It puts thousands of Russian soldiers, tanks, intercontinental ballistic missiles, and even combat drones on display.

00:32:02

Putin was joined by more than 20 world leaders, most notably China’s President Xi, who was the guest of honor. NBC’s Keir Simmons was at the parade today. He joins us live from Moscow. What did you see while you were there, Keir? What should we know? The message is uncompromising from President Putin and from President Xi. You showed the pictures there of President Xi describing his relationship with President Putin as a friendship of steel. Unmoved is a one way of describing the way that they want the world to see them-amazingly, some people might think they say that they are a beacon of stability in an unstable world. But it’s also, of course, just before China begins tariff talks with the U. S.

00:32:51

And while these negotiations, frankly, are stalling over peace in Ukraine; Russia still, Chris, not agreeing to a 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine, despite four meetings by President Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, with President Putin that lasted hours. We watched. This display now, as you say, to mark 80 years since Russia’s victory in the Second World War, losing 26 million people. But it was a very much a modern a modern signal to about. how President Putin feels about his strength. He’s clearly indicated that he believes that Russia can keep going. President Zelensky is saying that he will call a coalition of the willing tomorrow. So, frankly, I think the optics suggest that despite President Trump saying that he would be able to quickly get a ceasefire over Ukraine, frankly, the opposite is happening. Hmm.

00:33:53

Keir Simmons, thank you for that. Let’s bring in Mark Polymeropoulos, a former CIA officer and MSNBC national security and intelligence analyst. So uncompromising friendship of steel. What do you make of what we just heard from Keir, Mark? Well, it’s really interesting, Chris, because if you remember in the Biden administration, U. S. policy was to isolate Putin, to make sure that he was an international pariah. And in these Victory Day celebrations, world leaders were not coming. President Xi was not there. Uh, things are a little bit different now, uh, you have uh, the Trump administration, certainly with a tilt towards Moscow, the idea of rapprochement, the idea of, you know, better economic uh relationship, diplomatic relationship if the war in Ukraine can come to an end and I think, you know, Putin took advantage of that.

00:34:40

I don’t think you would have seen this attendance uh at the Victory Day celebrations under the Biden administration and right now, Putin thinks he’s, he’s flying high, you know. All eyes really should, in my view, be on, frankly, what President Trump is going to do. Is it action versus rhetoric? He’s expressed frustration about Russian intransigence. We haven’t seen the stick being used. So, really, in the next several days, we’re going to see some really important policy decisions made by the Trump administration. We’re getting a little signal potentially. Ukrainian President Zelensky was dismissing today Putin’s event as a parade of fear. He had a telephone call with President Trump yesterday where the two talked about a potential ceasefire. And after the call, Donald Trump posted this to social media, quote, The U .

00:35:25

S. calls for, ideally, a 30-day unconditional ceasefire. Hopefully, an acceptable ceasefire will be observed and both countries will be held accountable for respecting the sanctity of these direct negotiations. If the ceasefire is not respected, the U . S. and its partners will impose further sanctions. First of all, do you believe the threat of sanctions is real and will it sway Vladimir Putin? So certainly there’s been a tonal shift. And I think all of us or many of us are so kind of desperate for some good news on Ukraine. Every time the United States says something that is perhaps optimistic that we will support Ukraine, everyone gets kind of exercised about this. So that true social post is certainly perhaps something to note. But again, it’s tones versus action.

00:36:16

And what we need to see is if President Trump will put sanctions. You know, Senator Lindsey Graham has a very robust sanctions package ready to go. He says it’s veto-proof that would put secondary sanctions on Russia. That would be significant. And of course, the real item, which I think that a lot of us would hope for, would be that the U. S. would resume kind of offensive weapons shipments to Ukraine. Am I a skeptic? Sure. But I’d like to be proven wrong in the days ahead. We’re going to see if President Trump is ever going to get tough on Putin. I sure hope he does, but I think it’s fair to remain skeptical. Mark Palomaropoulos, always good to see you. Thank you. Good evening. Once again, I am Stephanie Ruhle.

00:36:56

And what a day we are having. You are here for the nightcap. And it is day 110 of the second Trump administration. And this morning, the President said he would be open to cutting the 145 percent tariff on China down to 80 percent, which is a huge change from just two days earlier when he said he would not lower them ahead of any talks this weekend with Chinese officials. It has been a very long week, starting with an AI-generated image of the President as Pope. He called for 100% tariffs on movies produced in foreign lands. Canada’s Prime Minister making it abundantly clear Canada is not for sale. And the President’s reply, never say never. There was the announcement of a trade deal with the UK that was more of a concept than an actual deal.

00:37:42

Meanwhile, Republicans push forward with their mega budget bill that includes huge tax cuts. There is just one glaring problem. They cannot quite figure out how to pay for any of it. And let us not forget the president calling to reopen Alcatraz. All that happened. In the last six days. With that, let’s bring in our nightcap. It is an excellent one. Pablo Torres, who has had a very busy week, ESPN analyst and host of the Meadowlark Media’s Pablo Torres Finds Out podcast. Ron Insana, CNBC senior analyst. Mary Harris, host and managing editor of Slate’s daily news podcast, What’s Next. And Jelani Cobb, staff writer for The New Yorker. And he has a very hard job, dean of the Columbia Journalism School, an important and hard job. Ron, you know I’m turning to you first.

00:38:24

Treasury Secretary Scott Mnuchin meeting with Chinese officials this weekend to talk about tariffs. Before negotiations even got underway, the president is now saying they could drop down to 80%. To me, it does sound like Donald Trump is looking for a soft landing, a graceful exit. But maybe China is, too. A week ago, they said they weren’t going to meet until tariffs went down. So something’s happening. Yeah, I’ll give them. But kind of partial agreement on that. I mean, 80 percent tariff is still above the level. Of course, of course, of course. And he’s undercutting his own bargaining position with his Treasury Secretary, who’s now in Switzerland talking to his Chinese counterpart by already offering a concession before the talks even start. Something that’s been going on with President Trump with respect to Ukraine and Russia and other places.

00:39:10

I don’t understand that there might be an opening here. China’s economy is contracting, although what’s interesting is Chinese exports surged to other parts of the country as they fell. Other parts of the world. Pardon me. While they fell 21% to the United States. Can you just stay on that? Explain that to us. They are selling more to the rest of the world, including East Asian countries and those that are looking to forge tighter relationships with China in the absence of a reliable U. S. partner. And less is coming here. Our ports are empty of Chinese ships in some instances in Seattle, Long Beach, Los Angeles. I talked to someone who’s operating the port of Savannah. They expect shipments to be down 40% within a week.

00:39:50

And so we are going to pay the price for this in some way or another. Even if they cut a deal, it’s going to affect the U. S. economy as much as it does the Chinese. And I just said there’s a geopolitical equivalent of that to the same part of it with foreign aid. And so just as people are looking for more reliable partners, you know, the U. S., like the ideas that the U. S. engages in foreign aid out of some sort of, you know, silly benevolence or a kind of bleeding heart sensibility, when in fact it is to broker influence and to create alliances around the world. When that goes away, you leave an opening for other entities, i. e., China, to step in. Soft power.

00:40:30

In other words, what I think about all of the time, just the idea that actually when you were in a crisis somewhere else in another part of the world, you thought to yourself, ‘Where are the Americans? Where’s that flag? Where’s the signal that our products that we were also buying and selling were the best in class?’ And also, these are the people who had a strategy, who had a plan. And so when it comes to all of this stuff, Steph, I mean, I think about the lag, right? Currently, we’re living in an abstract zone in which all things are possible. Is it three weeks? How long do we have until this is no longer abstract? This is specific and pressing. And it’s about three weeks, actually.

00:41:05

And I think the conversation is going to get quite real out of the realm of academics and into the realm of guess what? You’re going to feel this every day. We’re in the Wile E. Coyote moment, right? Where we’ve run off the cliff and we just haven’t looked down yet. Like, we see the fact that all of this stuff is not coming into the United States. And we know what that means, right? We know what that means. I talked to this guy who’s a logistics expert on the show this week. And he’s basically like, I know what this means. He’s like, everything that’s being said right now is BS. Because, you know, we all look around, we see Target. It’s full right now.

00:41:38

In three to five weeks, it’s going to look really different and this guy had no doubt about it hold on that’s Target okay, Target that has an enormous amount of money that can front load their inventory that has a sophisticated supply chain, right; something like 70 percent of businesses in the United States are small businesses they can’t get cute the supply chain they can’t front load anything so Target or Walmart or Amazon they actually have a cushion. Right, there’s an element here where they can actually win because they have power. But small and medium-sized businesses. Have a chance to go to Mar-a-Lago or call the President or negotiate. They are sitting here panicked. Well, and Trump was asked about small businesses, and he totally blew it off, right?

00:42:18

He’s like, ‘Why are people always asking about the small businesses?’ I thought we all cared about the small businesses. This has been like a reliable trope of every politician. I was in front of 100 C-level executives yesterday, and I preempted my own speech because I didn’t want to come in fully negative out of the gate without getting some audience interaction. And so, I asked these C-level executives in a particular part of the country; I said, ‘Are suspending hiring plans and capital expenditures because of the uncertainty that we have right now.’ Almost every hand went up in the room, and there were 120 executives in the room. And so, these were not small companies. Right. So it’s happening at every level of our economy.

00:42:55

The level of uncertainty is so high right now that businesses are literally frozen in place, and consumers will be in three weeks when stuff starts to. Here’s the thing. The president is fantastic at controlling a narrative, and he has his control of a lot of the media. Right. You still hear… Yeah. I mean, just this week, Josh Hawley was saying that Joe Biden cut off energy production. And I’m thinking, do people actually believe that? But in certain parts of the country, you might believe it. But it doesn’t matter what Trump’s narrative is. At some point, this thing is coming to roost, right? In the last week, whether it’s Warren Buffett, Ken Griffin, Jamie Dimon, take your pick. Yes, one by one, they are coming.

00:43:32

Even Jamie Dimon, who tried to thread the needle and say, guess what? China, there are some unfair trade practices. There is something to do on the tariff front. Joe Biden didn’t shy away from tariffs. But the way they have done it, so big, so aggressive across the board. So you’ve now got business leaders saying, ‘Hold on.’ This isn’t working. I am sure lawmakers from almost every state are urging the White House to take a step back. So the president is somewhat backed into a corner here and has to find even a remotely elegant exit, which is most likely why he called the UK this week. Well, their prime minister was home watching a soccer game saying, ‘Tomorrow, tomorrow, we’re going to announce a deal.’ And they put on a show and they announced somewhat of a deal, but it was really a presentation of an idea, not a deal.

00:44:17

Right. That’s how they operate. And so the other thing is that, and typically and ideally, you have a theory that explains what the practice will be. Here, he gets a notion. And then a group of people around him rush and kind of have a rearguard activity to try to turn this notion into an actual theory. You’re doing Annie Hall. He has a notion. We’re going to turn it into a concept and we’re going to turn it into an idea. We’re going to do this deal with the UK. Everybody likes Rolls Royces. And what happens the next day? Stellantis, GM, and Ford say, ‘Hold on a minute.’ Now you’re giving the UK a better deal than we get. It hasn’t been vetted yet. Well, he said that was the purpose.

00:44:55

Like he said, you know, there should be higher tariffs on the more popular cars, which is like, what’s happening? We should also move beyond the academic analysis of like, how is his rhetorical strategy playing out? The guy is lying. He is lying. And he doesn’t have a plan. And when he’s cornered into anything resembling a coherent question, he doesn’t know how to answer it. And the rhetorical strategy that I actually do want to highlight here is him saying repeatedly, his administration, his cabinet saying repeatedly, people voted for this. He is saying preemptively that you guys wanted this. And guess what? It’s going to be hard, but we’re delivering on what you asked for. And that is the strategy. Something so important, though, on the lying front.

00:45:36

I called a huge Wall Street investor today who knows Scott Besson well, well, well. And I said, Scott Besson in over his head. And he said, no, he goes, Scott. deeply understands all of this. And he said the predicament that Scott finds himself in is that he has to defend the indefensible. And that’s what it is. That’s the definition of the Trump administration. That’s in the job description. But Ron, these people who are now calling out the illogic of this, they’re not left, they’re not woke. These are hardcore money people, Stefan, you know. And the only out that I I think they have, that you pointed out from the very beginning, is how do we manipulate the market before it hurts us? People who have access to such early information, inside information? That way we can mitigate our own personal trouble.