Morning Joe - Morning Joe 2/19/25

Episode Date: February 19, 2025

Trump blames Ukraine for Russia's invasion

What we're about to do here is a neighborly act. We're like a group of householders living in the same locality who decide to express their community interests by entering into a formal association for their mutual self-protection. All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin. And therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words

Ish bin Ein Berliner. I've spoken of the shining city all my political life. In my mind, it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and teaming with people of all kinds, living in harmony and peace.

It's more important for them than it is for us. We have an ocean in between, and they don't. Today, I heard, oh, well, we weren't invited. Well, you've been there for three years. You should have ended it three years. You should have never started it. You could have made a deal. All right.

Donald Trump yesterday altering the cooperative world order that has been championed by presidents of both parties for more than 75 years. We're going to have much more on the significance of those comments. It comes as new intelligence suggests that Russian President Vladimir Putin is not actually interested in a peace deal. We'll dig into that new reporting. We're going to also go through the fire-ready aim approach from Elon Musk's Doge team, which is now scrambling to rehire government employees the Trump administration fired as

the bird flu outbreak worsens. And we'll bring you the latest on the plane crash in Toronto as we're getting a new look at the moment. Things went horribly wrong for that Delta jet. Good morning and welcome to Morning Show. It is Wednesday, February 19th. With us we have the co-host of the fourth hour and contributing writer at the Atlantic, Jonathan Lemire, U.S. special correspondent for BBC News and host of The Rest is Politics podcast, Cady K. is with

us, staff writer at The Atlantic, Frank Foer is here, and I call this the Zbig Brzezinski row to my right here, columnist and associate editor for The Washington Post, David Ignatius and U.S. national editor for The Financial Times, Ed Luce, both great friends of my dad. So, Joe, what a morning and what a great panel we have for the news that we are dealing with today. Well, especially Przezinski-Rowe there. He would have said, I made both of those young men. I made both of them. He had the greatest respect for David.

And we all can't, especially after reading excerpts from Ed's upcoming book on Dr. Brzezinski. We can't help but look back and think about a man who spent his entire life trying to push back against the aggression of the Soviet Union, against the enslavement of Eastern Europe, the enslavement of his homeland, the enslavement of 100 million Eastern Europeans that the United States, every president from Harry Truman through George H.W. Bush worked in an unbroken line to actually liberate Eastern Europe because it was the right thing to do and also because it was good for the United States of America. Freedom is proven to be good for the United States of America, for our leadership role in

the world, for our economy, which is again by far the strongest in the world and the envy of the world. Free markets, free people, that leads to good things, not just for the rest of the world, but for America. Yesterday, what happened, last night what happened at a press conference, absolutely, absolutely turning years of history. Ronald Reagan standing at the wall saying, Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. John Kennedy saying a torch has been passed to a new generation. Harry Truman declaring that America would fight against Russian aggression, against

Soviet aggression everywhere. It does far more than just change an analytical construct. It changes the very meaning of America itself. And it's not just former Republicans. It's not just former Cold War warriors like myself. It's not just conservatives who believe that. Independents, Democrats believe that as well, as does the Wall Street Journal editorial page, which is the voice of conservatism and has been for a very

long time. And its latest editorial, titled The Rapid Rehab of Vladimir Putin, the Wall Street Journal editorial board writes in part this, global politics can be an ugly business, but the looming rehabilitation of Vladimir Putin is especially hard to take. Mr. Trump said last week after a phone call with Mr. Putin that he's convinced the Russian dictator wants peace. He didn't say what kind of peace Mr. Putin has in mind, though.

If history is a guide, it won't be what most Americans understand by the word. Mr. Putin has been mind, though, if history is a guide, it won't be what most Americans understand by the word. Mr. Putin has been charged with war crimes by an international court, and the U.S. sanctioned his foreign minister in 2022 as one of the architects of Russia's war against Ukraine. We realize that the ruthless men who rule much of the world can't be ignored, but usually those men aren't rewarded with a visit to the U.S. as Mr. Trump hinted last week before they made any compromises.

Visits with Soviet leaders during the Cold War at least had some preparation to assume the U.S. would somehow get something from diplomacy. Any peace Mr. Putin strikes has to be made with all of its legacy of destruction and mind. And I just want to go through really quickly just in case there are people who forgot already. And we assume that there are some people who forgot already exactly what Putin and invading Russians have done. This is what the Wall Street Journal editorial page says, the Kremlin overlord in 2022 started the biggest land war in Europe since Hitler and his quote special military operation has killed or

maimed hundreds of thousands of Russians and Ukrainians. His missiles have targeted apartment houses and train stations. His forces have tried to freeze Ukrainian civilians into surrender by crippling electric power plants. His troops have kidnapped hundreds of Ukrainian-born children from their parents to new homes in Russia. They have tortured and executed Ukrainian troops in violation of every rule of international warfare. Again, the Wall Street Journal says, in violation of every rule of international warfare. Russian hit squads have also been dispatched to assassinate enemies of

his rule at home and abroad. No one should forget the death of Alexei Navalny, the brave opposition leader who was poisoned abroad and then arrested upon his return and then killed in prison, it goes on and on. And that's the Wall Street Journal editorial page, Mika. Rupert Murdoch, of course, owns the Wall Street Journal. The New York Post also condemning what Donald Trump said yesterday, trying to blame Vladimir Putin's ruthless invasion, the largest land invasion in Europe since Adolf Hitler, trying to blame that on actually the victims of that invasion. We'll get to the New York Post in just a moment.

We want to get to Richard Engel, who has a tight window. But here's what the Wall Street Journal editorial board was reacting to. President Trump blaming Ukraine for Russia's invasion nearly three years ago. He made the comments yesterday after reporters pressed him on Ukrainian officials not being involved in the diplomatic talks between the U.S. and Russia in Saudi Arabia. I hear that, you know, they're upset about not having a seat. Well, they've had a seat for three years, and a long time before that.

This could have been settled very easily. Just a half-baked negotiator could have settled this years ago without, I think, without the loss of much land, very little land, without the loss of any lives, and without the loss of cities that are just laying on their sides, you have those magnificent golden domes that are shattered, will never be replaced. You can't replace them. Thousand-year-old domes that are so beautiful, you can't replace that. The whole civilization has changed because of what's so...

When they're worried about not being seated, you mean somebody that should have gone in and made a deal a long time ago. And I think I have the power to end this war. And I think it's going very well. But today I heard, oh, well, we weren't invited. Well, you've been there for three years. You should have ended it three years. You should have never started it. You could have made a deal. I could have made a deal for Ukraine that would have given them almost all of the land, everything, almost all of the land, and no people would have been killed and no city would have been demolished and not one dome would have been knocked down. But they chose not to do it that way.

Well, we have a situation where we haven't had elections in Ukraine, where we have martial law, essentially martial law in Ukraine, where the leader in Ukraine, I mean, I hate to say it, but he's down at 4% approval rating. And, yeah, I would say that, you know, when they want a seat at the table, you could say the people have to... Wouldn't the people of Ukraine have to say, like, you know, it's been a long time since we've had an election?

That's not a Russia thing. That's something coming from me and coming from many other countries also. That actually is a Russia thing. That actually is a Russia thing. You're talking about democratic elections in Ukraine, but suggesting that somehow Russia is, I mean, there's so many things wrong with that. I know you've got a fact check on it. I will say, first of all, the idea that they could have just given away a little land of Vladimir Putin, wrong. He wanted

to Kiev. He wanted to be in Kiev in three days. He wanted Odessa. He wanted to rebuild the old Russian Empire by seizing the capital, Kiev, and Odessa. So the idea that that is so factually inaccurate, there's not a single military historian, there's not a single person who's covered this war, that would actually say that's accurate. But there's so many other things in those statements that are just flat wrong factually. Yes. A quick fact check on that last comment. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's public approval rating has dropped since the early

days of the war, but he still has support from 52% of Ukrainians, according to a poll last month. Let's bring in NBC News chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel, live from the front lines near Harkiv, Ukraine. Richard, you've been speaking with Ukrainian soldiers. How are they feeling about these negotiations? So Ukrainian soldiers are watching this very closely or as close as they can in front line positions.

They don't always have internet, but they do have cell phone connections generally. And they've been watching this with a lot of concern. They are worried that decisions about Ukraine are being made without Ukrainians' input. They worry that Presidents Trump and Putin are in the process of chopping up this country. Currently, Russia controls about 20% of Ukraine's territory in the East, where I am right now, also in the South.

And they are deeply concerned watching this process, while considering the fact that President Trump has already spoken with Vladimir Putin, the fact that he started these negotiations by talking to the Russian side, excluding President Zelensky, and then, as you said last night, blaming the entire war on Ukraine instead of on the Russians, who actually invaded.

Soldiers here are watching this and thinking they're on the chopping block. They're about to be divided and have territories ceded to Russia. As you know, there's an old expression in negotiations. If you're not at the table, you're on the table. And people here feel very much that Ukraine is on the table right now. And President Zelensky commented just a short while ago

about those comments from President Trump, saying that he's responsible for this war. If he'd only done some sort of deal early on, it never would have happened if he had ceded territory. And he said that President Trump is in a disinformation bubble, parroting, it sounds like, Russian disinformation, taking Russia's take on the war. And he said that he wants U.S. officials, particularly Trump's envoy, to come here more and learn more truth about the facts on the ground.

And Trump's envoy, former General Kellogg, has just arrived in Ukraine, and the Ukrainians are eager to take him out to places like this to try and rewrite the narrative that President Trump is describing right now. NBC's Richard Engel, thank you so much. We greatly appreciate it. Yeah, Ukrainian soldiers hearing this, understanding that

their land has been invaded, their children kidnapped, their mothers shot and killed at point-blank range, apartment buildings attacked. David Ignatius, you know, it's always been an article of faith for Republicans and for conservatives that you don't bow down to Russian leaders. The consequence is absolutely terrible. It's debatable, but you know, Republicans accused FDR of giving up Eastern Europe at Yalta. They attacked John F. Kennedy after the Bay of Pigs. You can go to Jimmy Carter negotiating Salt 2 with the Russians when they invaded Afghanistan. You can actually go to George W. Bush again, once again, trying to make nice with Russians, with Vladimir Putin saying, I looked into his eyes and I saw his soul. Vladimir Putin responded in 2007 with a

fire and brimstone speech basically predicting everything he was going to do. Then he invaded the country of Georgia, Barack Obama talking about a reset and whispering to Medvedev, hey, I can do more with you after the election. And after the election, what happened? Ukraine invaded. Crimea invaded by Putin. A commercial airliner shot down. We can go on and on. And then, of course, 2022, the largest landmass invasion of Europe since Adolf Hitler. It is... please tell me how you're right now sifting through all of this wreckage of American U.S. foreign policy that has kept the world free for 80 years. So Joe, yesterday was in many ways a shameful day for the United States. As you just said, standing up to Russian aggression for many decades has been at the center of

American foreign policy and at the center of our identity as a country. Yesterday, two big things happened. First, the United States in the meeting in Saudi Arabia, normalized a regime headed by somebody who's been designated as a war criminal. And all of the crimes of this war, the killing, the just brutal assault on Ukraine, illegal brutal assault, was in effect washed away watching Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, kind of smirking and sitting there, same look that I remember for years and years, completely unaffected by this war. We'll see what comes out of those talks in Riyadh.

But then to have that followed by President Trump in Florida with this shocking comment that the war was really the fault of the victim. The war was really the fault of Ukraine. You never should have started it. I can't believe that the President of the United States would have said something as factually wrong and insulting as that. There's a way in which for Trump it's about him. If only I'd been there this never would have happened and so it must be your fault because I could have stopped this. So as I said yesterday was a

day that was shocking. There still is a pathway toward negotiations. Rubio, Mike Waltz, his national security advisor, are sensible people. There are plans for how to provide the essential security guarantees that Ukraine needs to become a real country protected from Russia's attacks. So I don't want to say that that's impossible, but it's going to be much harder after what happened yesterday. Well, and of course, we talked about Mike Walz, we talked about Marco Rubio. Those have been two Cold War warriors, in effect. They have been tough. Republicans in the United States Senate, Republicans in the House, we've talked about it all the

time. People like Chairman McCaul and so many others who have gone to Ukraine, who understand that this is a Russian invasion that has to be repelled, understand that if you acquiesce to Vladimir Putin invading Russia, Poland is next. It really is. Poland's next. Other countries in Eastern Europe are next if he gets away with this. You know, he got away with invading Georgia. He got away with invading Ukraine, Crimea. I mean, he got the message that he could get away with this if he gets away with invading Ukraine and ends up being basically held harmless for all of the horrific things that Russia has done to the Ukrainian people since 2022, then make no mistake about it, Poland is next.

Yeah. Yes. And Marco Rubio, Secretary of State Rubio knows that, Mike Waltz knows that. Republicans in the Senate who are looking at these controversial nominations and about to just swoosh them through with complete eyes closed to all the controversial and dangerous aspects to some of them. They know this as well. And Kadikay, the people of Ukraine, they know they have been fighting not just for their

identity, for their survival, for their land, for their home, for their families, but for the safety of the world. Yeah. And they have been doing this incredibly valiantly with very little cost to the United States or to anyone else. It is not American bodies, soldiers who have been dying in Ukraine. It is not European soldiers who have been dying in Ukraine. It is young Ukrainian men and women who have been dying there in order to protect the idea

of containing Russia inside Russia's walls and not letting it think that it can just take Poland or the Baltic states. The only good thing, Ed, potentially that could come out of this is that Europe will finally have to accept, because the Band-Aid has been ripped off. There is no more pretense that it has to be responsible for its own security. And there is a way in which Europe could actually finance a defensive line in Ukraine. They have the ability to do this, but there is so much disarray in Europe at the moment and so many weak leaders in Europe.

Do you think that Europe could step in? Clearly, I mean, you listen to Donald Trump. They should never have started this is his point of view on this. Will Europe be able to step in? I think it's less unlikely than it was a week ago before JD Vance spoke to European leaders in Munich and generated more WTF moments in more languages, I think, than any vice presidential address in history from his audience.

But Europe getting together and becoming an integrated pooled defense entity is a work of years. It's a project that will take five to 10 years. It doesn't answer the needs today of European security in the event that America essentially pulls the plug. I think NATO is, I think Article 5 of NATO is essentially dead. I mean, if I were a Baltic country or Poland

and was spending more than 3% of GDP, in fact, more than the US is spending on defense, I would say, well, so presumably that means Article 5 applies to us, that we have a full security guarantee from the United States. I don't think Donald Trump's answer would be the right answer. I think that everybody in Europe knows he is planning to agree a vivisection of Ukraine,

in which they take—the Americans take some critical minerals, the Russians keep what they've got, and it's just a short-term freeze of a conflict that Russia will, down the line, complete. I think that's what everybody in Europe knows, and therefore this is an existential moment for Europe. It should be stepping up. I'm just a bit skeptical it's going to do that quickly. So Frank, your latest piece is about Elon Musk and Doge. And yet there is, you've reported out of Ukraine, and the one parallel here is it's taking what's

normal and turning it upside down and shaking it and pouring it all out. What's happening here? I would say there's more than one parallel, because when I look at what's happening in Ukraine, it feels to me very much of a piece of what's happening here, that you have a Russian style system that is beginning to creep into the United States.

Elon Musk is an oligarch who has an incredible amount of political control, unchecked, untrammeled. We have people appearing at Mar-a-Lago paying enormous amounts of money in transactional relationships with the president United States to have dinner to beg for him to show them favors. You have the apparatus that the United States has installed to check Russian kleptocracy from infecting the Western world. That has been pulled back.

You have an American state that had been committed to neutrality, that it wouldn't it wouldn't benefit the friends of the president. It wouldn't punish his enemies. That is being torn apart as we speak in in very, very short order. And it feels to me like like Ed talked about Article 5, it feels like the United States has its own equivalent. We can't feel safe that the president isn't going to install a Russian-style system here. Joe?

Yeah. You know, NBC News has reported that United States intel agencies have determined that Vladimir Putin doesn't just want a sliver of Ukraine. He wants to go all the way to Kiev. But of course, Donald Trump has suggested in the past that he trusts Vladimir Putin more than he trusts his own US intelligence agencies, even the US intelligence agencies run by the people he put there. Our own Jonathan Lemire was in Helsinki in 2018 and actually asked Donald Trump the question,

do you believe your own US intelligence agencies about what they're telling you about Vladimir Putin. Watch this. Just now, President Putin denied having anything to do with the election interference in 2016. Every US intelligence agency has concluded that Russia did. My first question for you, sir, is who do you believe? My second question is is would you now with the whole world watching tell president Putin would you denounce what happened in 2016 and would you warn him to never do it again my people came to me Dan

Coats came to me and some others they said they think it's Russia I have president Putin he just said it's not Russia. I will say this, I don't see any reason why it would be. I have great confidence in my intelligence people, but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today. And Jonathan Lamire, you were, of course, there asking that question. Many people looked back at the 2018 Helsinki press conference in shame, calling it one of the low points, certainly for US foreign policy. The first Trump term, suddenly that is eclipsed and seems a bit quaint by 2025 standards.

Yeah. What Trump said yesterday, blaming Ukraine for that war, erroneously, of course. To David's point, as others have told me, Trump has sort of personalized this conflict. He has sided with Putin. He needs to make Zelensky the bad guy here, angry that Zelensky didn't take the U.S. offer that was pitched to him over the weekend about the U.S. taking about 50 percent of that nation's valuable minerals as a payment, if you will, for U.S. protection. Some Ukraine officials deem that extortion, likening it to what a mob boss would do.

And Trump, as we saw there in Helsinki in 2018, we still see it today, reflexively defers to Putin. And it was so telling, though Trump himself and Putin himself were not in Riyadh yesterday, though there's talk of the leaders having a summit before too long, how Ukraine did not have a place at the table and how U.S. officials were so, again, deferential to what the Russians were saying. Afterwards, when briefing reporters, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the National Security Advisor, made no mention of the war crimes that Russian soldiers have been accused of,

of how Vladimir Putin has been charged by the International Criminal Court, how the Russian bombardments of Ukraine continue to this day, instead talking about the economic opportunities that a U.S.-Russia ties, increasing ties would lead to, that if they repair relations, it could be beneficial to both nations, that there is no attempt to hold them accountable, and even lifting sanctions hinted at by Rubio and others. So it seems now here as Zelensky canceled a trip to the region, Ukraine obviously angry and alarmed at what they see here as developments from Washington.

Real concern that as negotiations do really begin in earnest, the United States, Donald Trump, once again, siding with Putin over anyone else. Well, and David Ignatius, let's just put a fine point on this, if we can. This is a war that has gone on too long. This is a war that Joe Biden's leaders told me in 2023. His generals told me in 2023 that there needed to be a peace deal, that the Ukrainians weren't going to get every Russian out of their land and Russia was not going to get to Kiev. So the fact that we would be talking with Russia, I think we all agree, and you've said

it from the very beginning, that is a good idea. Of course, Europe needs to be involved, Ukraine needs to be involved. They said, Marco Rubio said they would be involved as the process went forward. So let's just put that fine point on it, that you've actually been calling for these talks and the possibility of peace since before Donald Trump got sworn into office. The problem is, we have a Secretary of Defense who's given up one issue after another issue on the table before negotiations even started and then I had to backtrack. And now we have a commander in chief that went out last night. Basically, as the Wall Street Journal has reported, basically trying to whitewash a

horrific human rights record and an invasion of a sovereign European nation. So Joe, it is time for a peace in ending this terrible war, but it's crucial that it be a just peace that does not reward the aggressor and that it be a durable peace that lasts. If it lasts a year or two, it's just going to blow up in Donald Trump's face before he leaves office. I think that's one factor that he probably understands. I think it's important for all of us to realize that the assessment of Western intelligence is that Putin thinks he's winning. He has

not dropped his desire to take Kiev. He has not dropped his maximalist demands. He thinks that he can work with Trump to keep going on his project. But he continues to view the nation of Ukraine as an illusion. Yeah. This is not a real country. He's he's said over and over again, going back to 2007, 2008. And that's, I think, the most frightening part of all is that he's he's still on the march with this big army and there's no sign that the agreement that Trump contemplates is

going to reduce the pressure that he's going to put on all of Europe. When I was in Munich last weekend I heard over and over again from Europeans, Joe, a sense that they are menaced. It's not just Ukraine. They are menaced by this Russia that is so confident and now seems to have United States acquiescence to its move across Western Europe. Making a fool of the U.S. president, some would say. The Washington Post, David Ignatius, thank you so much for your insights this morning again. And still ahead on Morning Joe, a federal judge has denied an effort by 14 states to

stop Elon Musk from meddling with federal agencies. We'll explain why the case is not over yet, plus how the White House is trying to explain Musk's role in the administration. I've had new questions this morning about who exactly is leading his Department of Government efficiency. Also ahead is Doge really finding billions in government savings? We'll have a fact check. You're watching I'm happy to clarify. Elon Musk is a special government employee here at the White House, serving at the direction of the president of the United States, Donald Trump.

Elon Musk has been tasked with overseeing Doge on behalf of the president. I wanted somebody really smart to work with me in terms of the country, a very important aspect because, I mean, he doesn't talk talking about—he's actually a very good businessman. And when he talks about the executive orders—and this is probably true for all presidents—you write an executive order, and you think it's done. You send it out. It doesn't get done. It doesn't get implemented.

What he does is he takes it, and with his hundred geniuses—he's got some very brilliant young people working for him that dress much worse than him, actually. They dress in just t-shirts. You wouldn't know they have 180. Wait, wait. So, he's your tech support. No, no, he is. I actually am tech support.

But he's much more than that. I actually am tech support, though. But that's... Yes, it does. He's a leader. The White House trying to clarify the growing questions as to who exactly is leading the Department of Government Efficiency and Elon Musk's role at the agency specifically.

It comes as a federal judge has denied an effort by more than a dozen states to block Elon Musk and his Doge team from accessing federal data systems. In her decision, Judge Tanya Chutkin acknowledged Doge's, quote, unpredictable actions, causing considerable uncertainty and confusion. But she concluded the possibility that Doge could harm the states is not enough to halt its activities. Yesterday's ruling does not end the case.

The judge then ordered both sides to, quote, meet and confer about how to proceed. Meanwhile, the Trump administration says it has accidentally fired several Department of Agriculture employees who are working on the current bird flu epidemic. The USDA said yesterday they were, quote, swiftly rescinding the termination letters that had been sent out over the weekend. In the past month, according to the USDA, 23 million birds have been infected with the avian flu, leading to skyrocketing prices in eggs.

The average price of eggs last month in U.S. cities climbed to $4.95, more than double the low of $2.04 recorded in 2023. I'll tell you, in New York City, there, you can't find them. And if you do, they are $23.99, a lot higher than that. Joining us, co-founder of Axios, Mike Allen. But first, Ed and Frank, you both have new pieces on Doge and Elon Musk. What's your take on this, especially with, I mean, the nuclear and now the bird flu? They're pulling back these firings, proving the point that they're just hastily wiping

the table clean of people who perform functions that are pretty important to our country being safe. They are pulling back some of the firings. You know, nuclear safety experts, it turns out, are relatively important, as are epidemiologists and so on. But let's not lose sight of the fact that Elon Musk is closing agencies that regulate him. You look at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau,

set up after the 08 crisis to protect consumers from the kind of giant ripoffs that help lead to that meltdown. That's been shut. This is the agency that evaluates fintech platforms. And Musk wants X to become the WeChat of America. WeChat being China's sort of all-purpose payment system that serves as everything else, your booking system, your dating system, not just

your financial system. This is more than a conflict of interest. The English language doesn't, that's just not the scale of what we're seeing here. So he is proceeding and succeeding in getting rid of regulatory capacity that he says or believes holds back his business growth. And Frank, your piece is called The Hidden Costs of Musk's Washington Misadventure. Tell us about it. Well, let's just take Elon Musk at his word, which we shouldn't, actually, because I do

believe that he's trying to erect a system that is fundamentally corrupt. But let's just say that he was genuinely trying to make the government more efficient. We could all probably agree that the government should become more efficient. This is the craziest way to do it, because he's going in without any context, without any concern for who are the high performing employees and who are the low performing. He's just, it's a series of very random hammer blows in this desire to break. I mean, his view is that you need to break in order to essentially fix in the end, theoretically. But the problem is, is that in the course of breaking, you're creating all sorts of costs because a lot of the people who are going to be fired are going to sue the end, theoretically. But the problem is, is that in the course of breaking, you're creating all sorts of

costs because a lot of the people who are going to be fired are going to sue the government meritoriously. The government will have to defend itself against those lawsuits, so that's a set of costs. And in terms of destroying capacity, there's capacity that even if you are the most libertarian and randy and guy in the world, in the end, you're're gonna come to the conclusion that the government needs to have that capacity. And so you're gonna have to go out and replace these employees with contractors who are going to be much more expensive because you're going to need to pull them in at you

know in these hastily sorts of drawn sorts of ways. And as we've kind of established earlier in the show there is this you know corruption that's happening. You're not going gonna get the best contracting talent. You're gonna get the people who are the best connected to come in, and it's gonna cost us an insane amount of money in the end. Joe. Let's talk about the politics of this for a second.

This is the first act. This is the first scene of the first act of this presidency. And what you are going to see by just going in and randomly going across one agency after another is you're going to actually see people in red state America, people who voted for Donald Trump, people who need Medicaid services desperately, because that's the nursing homes that their parents are in, in Oklahoma, in Wisconsin, in Pennsylvania, in Georgia, in North Carolina, they're suddenly going to see these services taken away. They're farmers are going to have to deal with the chaos. You're going to have, oh, I don't know, institutions like my alma mater,

the University of Alabama, that is going to get savaged by these cuts. You're going to have people, Republicans, who have children. I heard a story last night. Republicans who have children whose lives were saved by vital NIH research. Having those research grants taken away. This is going to be the political equivalent of death by a thousand cuts if they don't do this in a more responsible way. And Mike Allen, this is the next scene. If we want to see what the next political scene is here, and I'm not saying this is what I want to happen. I'm just saying this is what's going to happen. Mike, you and I have been in Washington long enough to know this. It's one thing to go against Donald Trump's tax cuts for the rich in 2017, as Democrats

call them. And by the way, in so doing, they won the House and the Senate in 2018, made big gains in 2018 made big gains in 2018. It's one thing if you do that and say, they're gonna cut this, cut taxes for billionaires like Elon Musk and Donald Trump, and then there're gonna be all these cuts down the line. What the Trump administration

is providing Democrats right now, are those cuts. They're giving them the punchline to, oh, they're gonna cut billionaires tax cuts, but guess what they're gonna do? They're gonna take away medical research that saved your daughter or saved somebody in your family. They're going to take away and fire people in the FAA. So those plane crashes that you're seeing, you're gonna see more of them. And in

fact, the United States record of no plane crashes since 2009, we're gonna look back on that as the good old days. They're gonna see cuts in food safety, in water safety, in air safety. They're going to see cuts. As Mika said, when we're talking about fighting the bird flu or other possible pandemics, right now they're doing all... It's just like they're giving this to Democrats saying, here, take this punch line. This is what we're cutting tax cuts for billionaires for. And then they can go down this list

that we're seeing on the front page of the newspapers every day, Mike. It is political negligence and malfeasance. Plus, it's hurting people every day. Joe, as we sit here on day 30, and by the way, Mika, that means 1,400 more to go. Turn of the night. We have barely heard a peep from Republicans on the Hill about what's happening down the street. But this is starting to build.

So Axios is just up with a piece from our Hill squad, the growing GOP Doge revolt. And you have powerful Republicans, including Senator Susan Collins of Maine, saying, whoa, a couple things here. One, why is this being done so hastily that as Ed referred, they're having to go back and undo some of them.

Why are they trampling on our prerogatives? And this is where the fight is really going to come, right, is over these agencies that are trying to shut down or sidelines that Congress sees as its prerogative. Congressman Don Bacon, Republican of Nebraska, is saying measure once, measure once, cut twice. So some would say that's the point, the speed of it, the craziness of it. Axios has gone through Donald Trump's executive orders and policies and named the top six actions by the administration that your team says could have a lasting effect on the United States government as we know it. Talk to us about those.

Yeah, thank you, Mika. And by the way, measure twice and cut once. Exactly. That's correct. Mika, this is a domestic equivalent of what you were talking about in the first segment about the new world order. So here on day 30, Jim Van De Heye and I, for a behind-the-curtain column, went through day by day, executive order by executive order,

and looked at Trump's boundary-busting provocations. And what we're thinking about is, like, how can we sift out the noise? In the first term, everything seemed unprecedented. If everything is unprecedented, nothing is. So what really changed, what really matters? And as you look through them, a couple of them. One, we were just talking about taking prerogatives of Congress, things that are

clearly delegated to Congress. Secondly, empowering Musk and everything that he has done. How would Republicans like it if a Democrat was being given that kind of sway? Oh my gosh. Rewriting a constitutional amendment on birthright citizenship, firing IGs and watchdogs, the DOJ bullying, profiting off the presidency. These are all things that are going to last. These are things that, as Joe was talking about,

Congress is going to start fighting back against Congress and the courts. But I can tell you, I have lots of conversations inside Mar-a-Lago, inside the White House. They're ready for the fight. President Trump is personally ready for the fight. He thinks that the people are on his side. They said to me, not many Americans out there in most of America

mourning USAID and he's just fully willing to test what he can get out of the courts. Yeah, go ahead, Katty. That is true, maybe many Americans are not mourning USAID, although farmers who had contracts with USAID may start complaining about it. And I guess the question is, at what point does the haphazard way that these cuts are

being made start to impact individuals to a degree that members of Congress then hear complaints? I mean, I'm surprised it hasn't happened already, but will there be a moment where your senator from South Dakota has his phone ringing off the hook because their constituent's daughter who's in a cancer trial is no longer in that cancer trial because that's been shut or because they couldn't go to the national park that weekend because all of the parks are shut. Or has those done this in a way that actually the impact on regular citizens will be minimal?

I mean, I think that's the question is, is the impact going to be big, and therefore we get complaints from constituents, including Republicans, or is the impact going to be containable, and therefore they get away with it? Well, and to zoom in even more on that point, what happens when you hit the Trump base? What happens if you hit Republicans, if you hit farmers?

Now, what the White House says about this is not only do they think that they have the people on their side, and you have Elon Musk in the president's ear saying, radical reform, radical reform, the people voted for radical reform. And what the White House told us, Jim VanHuy and me, for this story on Trump's boundary busting is that people voted for us. We are now doing it. Letting bureaucrats, as they say, civil servants do it is the opposite of democracy. And they're just convinced that these are popular, and they're willing to take the fallout

you're talking about. Well, and I mean, a lot of people are losing their jobs at some point that filters through. But to everybody's point here, USAID, although it has tremendous value in our foreign policy, even our national security, our place in the world, I don't think it's something that people, hardworking Americans paycheck to paycheck, see the value in their lives. And I guess the big question is, when do people really feel what is happening here as President Trump works to sort of reshape? That's I think a kind of way of putting it, the federal government.

So as SpaceX moves in to try and take control of the federal aviation administration, for example, and Joe mentioned that at the beginning, and we do see more near misses and threats of air collisions. That's a very tangible effect of chaos at a safety regulator. We have it sort of parallel to this, but a measles outbreak in Texas. We're getting rid of epidemiological stuff at the CDC. Now, you know, measles is not a joke if you're not vaccinated against it. A lot of diseases are not a joke if you're not vaccinated against it.

So I think there are all kinds of things that the public isn't aware of, that they will come to value as they lose it. It's like good health. You only value it when you've lost it. I do think, though, that this idea that because the American public doesn't value USAID, it is not of value to America, is this sort of fallacy in this situation. It is of enormous value to the United States. And it's really pennies on the dollar. It's a minute amount. Ed Luce, Mike Allen, Frank Foer, thank you all very much. We're going to be reading all your new pieces for your respective publications that are

online right now. Thank you, guys. And coming up, we'll have the latest in the calls to remove New York City Mayor Eric Adams from office as Governor Kathy Hockel weighs her options. Reverend Al Sharpton spoke with Hockel yesterday about the issue. He'll join us straight ahead on Morning Joe. A few minutes before the top of the hour, Doge recently posted a list of the government contracts it has canceled on its website, itemizing what it says is $16 billion in savings

and what it calls a wall of receipts. Yet an investigation by the New York Times found almost half of those line item savings could be attributed to a single $8 billion contract for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency. Furthermore, according to the paper, it appears that the Doge list vastly overstated the actual intended value of that contract. A closer scrutiny of a federal database shows that a recent version of the contract was for $8 million and not $8 billion.

In addition, yeah, it's kind of a... So this is Dr. Evil stuff. Yeah. I think it was a typo. A million dollars. Yeah. A billion dollars. Yeah. A billion dollars. In addition, the Times notes that since $2.5 million had already been spent on the contract,

it's likely that canceling it saved $5.5 million at most. A spokeswoman. Okay, so instead of $8 billion, it saved $5.5 million. Okay, got it. Right. And a spokeswoman for Doge did not respond to the paper's request to explain their accounting. Joining us now, former Biden White House infrastructure coordinator and former Democratic Mayor of New Orleans, Mitch Landrieu.

He is co-chair of American Bridge, a democratic political organization. Also with us, the president of the National Action Network and host of MSNBC's Politics Nation, Reverend Al Sharpton. Also with us, MSNBC contributor, Mike Barticals here, Joe. He showed up. All right. This is exciting, man. We got everybody we need.

Let's start with Mitch. Hey, Mitch, so you understand, as Ross Pro would say, where the rubber hits the road, where we can talk sort of generally, theoretically about government cuts. We can talk generally, theoretically about waste, fraud, and abuse. And we all want to get rid of waste fraud and abuse. We've spent our lives, I know you have too, trying to find it and get rid of it. But then you talk about these random cuts where, you know, as somebody said, you measure once, you cut two, three, four times, and suddenly people are really, working Americans

are really feeling the impact of these cuts. Well, this is where you can find out whether somebody is just talking the talk or walking the walk. When I became mayor of New Orleans three weeks after the BP oil spill hit, we had been through Katrina Rita, Ike Gustaf, the national recession and the BP oil spill. My government was $100 million in the hole out of a $460 dollar budget. I had to cut 20% out of a budget in six months. I don't know anybody else in the country that's ever done that. But what I found is you better not cut stupid. You got to cut smart and you got to cut

thoughtful. The American public can understand this. Joe, you look like a pretty fit guy. You know, if I told you that you needed to lose 30% of your body weight and I did it by cutting off your leg, you bleed to death, essentially. So the last thing you want to do is put an unaccountable billionaire bureaucrat in charge where there's no transparency and have them just cut in a chaotic way that's going to affect the lives, the real lives of people. So if you're cutting firefighters in areas where there are fires, or if you're cutting food inspectors or you're cutting avian inspectors where there's a bird flu, or you're actually starting to cut things that really, really matter in people's lives,

people go, what the hell are you doing? I mean, damn it, that doesn't make any sense. And that's what's happening right now. And I think the American people are getting wind of the fact that they're not even telling the truth about what they're trying to do, much less doing it well. Well, you know, Mike, you gotta cut smart. And even when you cut smart, it's hard. It's really hard. You know, we had the 30, you got to cut smart. And even when you cut smart, it's hard. It's really hard.

You know, we had the 30th anniversary of the 94 Congress. We balance a budget four times in a row. And you know, Newt Gingrich's takeaway? It's really hard to do. Like, people stay up night and day and night and day and did it for three years to try to figure out. You had, you know, over 200 people working together, going through the details of it. day and night and day and did it for three years to try to figure out yet you know over 200 people working together going through the details of it on

subcommittees levels at committee levels like in conferences it was a night and day and night and day deal it wasn't sending one person in to try to figure out how to do it because that's just not going to work. Even when you do it right, you're going to make some mistakes, but you'll get things done. There's not even an attempt here to do this in a meaningful way, to do it, as Mitch said, you have to do it in a way where you cut smart instead of cutting dumb. Well, you know, Joe, I think what's going on, and we were talking about this off camera, is there's a lot of people who are viewing this

peripherally every day. People are busy. They have their own jobs, their own lives, getting the kids ready for school. But one of the things that's going on is they're confusing motion with achievement. So this flooding the zone, people think, oh boy, he's really working hard at it.

Trump is really working at it. But Mitch, what happens when inevitably the Medicare stuff doesn't show up for people? The Social Security checks are short, the cost of living index, and that is bound to happen it seems. Well, I think there's no question about it. Listen, waste, fraud and abuse is something that everybody ought to work on every day. Governments like your closet. You don't clean it out, it gets too much stuff in it, and it gets really hard to use.

But that's why you have inspectors generals. You remember one of the first thing Trump did, which I just found really curious. You're trying to downsize government so you create a new department. Then you're trying to get rid of waste, fraud, and abuse, and you get rid of the guys whose job it was to get rid of waste, fraud, and abuse. Then you start cutting with 23-year-olds who have never been there, and you find out that you're starting to hurt the people that you help. People might step back a second and say, look, who's driving the car?

I mean, who's really running this show? And doesn't really matter. Waste fraud and abuse government ought to be fast. It ought to be efficient. It ought to be effective. It's not as much as it should. We ought to keep our pedal to the metal. But Barack Obama did that.

Bill Clinton did it. A lot of people have done it, but you better be smart about it and don't cut stupid. So, Mr. Mayor, how do you, how do Democrats then communicate this? How do they? We know there's been a lot of self-evaluation in the party since election day. There's been a lot of concern the last few weeks about focusing on a message, who should be the right spokesperson for that message. If it's this, if indeed part of this is Musk and Doge and hey, he's cutting things that

impact your life and your neighbor's lives. What's the best way? How should Democrats try to break through the firehose of information and communicate it? Well, first of all, it's hard to do. The president's got the microphone. He's got the Supreme Court. He's got both with the Congress, but you've got to go out there and fight.

I think you have to go ask people, you know, what the hell? What's going on? What happened? Why did you decide to jump ship and go to the other side with somebody who obviously doesn't care very much about you? Essentially what people are saying is, look, I just feel like things are hard right now. I just feel like people are not concentrating on the things that are affecting me at my dinner table.

I got to pay the rent, got to pay the mortgage, the interest rates too high. I got to get the groceries down. But you know, you've noticed that Donald Trump has spent more time redoing the Kennedy Center Board than he has on bringing down cost. Like he hasn't signed one executive audit. He's waving that pen around like it's a magic wand. And if he's so powerful, I mean, why didn't he bring down the price of eggs? Why are the mortgage rates going down?

Why are gas prices going up? Why is the stock market going down? Every indicator for working men and women in this country has gotten worse since Donald Trump has been the president, but he's off giving away Russia, giving away Ukraine to Russia, is what he's spending his time on. They're taking over Panama, taking over, you know, other countries, you know, kind of ticking off Canada and Mexico are supposed to be our allies, telling our friends in Europe, who we're stood shoulder to shoulder with when they stormed the beaches of Normandy, put that fascism, that they can take a hike and he's not concentrating on the American people.

And that's where I think that we have to focus our attention.