Morning Joe - Morning Joe 3/21/25

Episode Date: March 21, 2025

Judge rips DOJ for 'woefully insufficient' response

You got a foul over to Garcia. You got a foul. Charles to Murray Parker on the attack. He throws it. Zachary, he'll put up a three. No good. Rebound, a scramble. Hunter has it. Hunter at the buzzer. It's good. But Cowboy up. McNeese has its first ever NCAA tournament victory. And I'm a scary of the court goes to start Sally. And the steal the 13th of the game that puts a capper on it. Jackson will just dribble it out and the Valley will run deep for at least one more game. Man, look at the two big upsets yesterday. As most top seats advance in the first official day of the NCAA men's tournament, Yale, they advance in sailing, okay? Yeah, you know, joke on Jimmy Fallon.

But Willie McNeese, Can these state like cowboy up? They held on at the end, but Clemson man, a furious comeback thought they might actually catch him. Yeah, McNeese is a good team. I actually have them in my sweet 16 in my bracket. I watched them play a couple times over the last few weeks and they they were up by 20-25 points over Clemson in that game. They're running away with it and credit to Clemson making it close there at the end.

But that really was the upset of the day. Drake, yeah, that was an upset over Missouri. But I put that in the category of mild upset of the 16 games on day one of the tournament. There were no buzzer beaters. It was kind of a drama free day. Lots of blowouts. One exciting thing, though, to point out, because the game was late last night, people might have gone to

bed is that Saint John's did win their game there to see that one by 30 points right Arkansas beats Kansas so now in the second round we do get that matchup between Rick Patino and John Calipari yeah, we're going to party like it's 1996 Joe. I let me or the 2, 7 Sith Lord don't start a ball series just get get get the Star Wars thing. Yeah, go in the Empire strikes back the the 2 Sith Lords of

college basketball square and straight up. Darth patina, a dark all party. Yeah, we've now got on to. And as we know that you only one said the Lord alive in the same that's true. What happened As joke, yes, the red lightsabers are coming out tomorrow. Now that will be great these these are 2 coaches they moved on to new programs last year to Arkansas and Saint John's you know Saint John's in particular scene is a potential national title contender Arkansas little more of a of an

upstart but as as joking like the national. The national reserves for hair gel will have to be tapped. Tino those 2 in that look I mean right now Canada is talking about not having oil ship down to the United States is this is a real crisis we get these 2 people make Pat Riley look like it is they they're they've committed to their book. Yeah, decades ago and they stayed with it, but hey more basketball today and we actually

have a soft soft place my heart for both of my job that only because my mom and dad both went to Kentucky so they're massive Kentucky fans and so. And the here to for Kentucky coaches square and off that's so cool, but all of New York City, I know you don't care all of New York City, I'm I think you're a man it there's just something special in the city when Saint John's is in there. Well the light fun morning banter yeah right here.

The judge in the alien enemies act case slamming the Department of Justice for its response to his demands for answers on the deportation flights, will go through his scathing ruling. Meanwhile, a major law firm is bending under the pressure of President Trump. We'll explain that deal. Plus, we'll go through the new reporting on the high-level Pentagon meeting that Elon Musk may attend. Along with Joe Willey and Jonathan Lemire and me, we have U.S. special correspondent

for BBC News and host of the Rest Is Politics podcast, Cady K. She's back from Europe. Oh, she's amazing. And she's angry. This time, it's personal. Watch out for Cady. The British invasion, the second British invasion, they're calling it. All right. I'm not Canadian. said they're the angry ones you said oh you

said the Canadians yeah no okay I thought the British were always looking for a chance and New York Times investigative reporter Michael Schmidt is here with us as well so new this morning speaking speaking of water I don't know what caddy did when she left for the U.S. but. London's Heathrow Airport will be closed. Fire at a nearby electricity substation knocked out its power. It happened yesterday at one of the world's busiest airports which handles about 13. 100 flights a day look at that you see the thick

smoke rising from the burning substation. As a result, thousands of flights were diverted and canceled. The airport is urging passengers not to go to the site until it reopens. While investigators try to figure out what caused the fire, passengers are now bracing for significant disruptions over the coming days. Right now, you're looking at live pictures of Heathrow Airport at this hour. Power has been restored to just some properties there. Firefighters on the scene say that the blaze is under control. Katty, as your attorney, I will tell you, you're not required to say anything right

now to anybody. My goodness. But I am curious, where were you when this happened? Well, this is like a game of Cluedo. Where were you with the fire at the airport? No, I'd actually managed to get out. I woke up this morning and saw this and thought, thank goodness I managed to get out last night because I flew out fine yesterday, but I would have clearly have been, I mean, this is, look

at these scenes. I would have been completely delayed if I had stayed. I clearly wasn't doing a good enough job of being a therapist around Europe trying to understand America. They wanted to get rid of me. Yeah, I guess not. We'll be watching this. Talk about Heathrow really quickly just for our viewers who don't know. It is a hub, not only for Europe, but also the world. Yeah, I mean, massive airport, second-busiest airport in the world, packed all year round, planes taking off. I mean, one thing is you stand at the board at Heathrow and you realize you could fly anywhere in the world from Heathrow.

Now, of course, other airports, there are other airports in southern England, but they're already at capacity. So people were, we're hearing stories of people who were in the air on the way to New York had to fly back again. People who had left New York City on the way to London, been in the air for three hours,

had to return to New York City. This is gonna have disruptions for travelers. And Heathrow is already warning, this is not a one-day event. This is gonna have knock-on effects for days. All right, we'll be watching this. Katty, thank you. To our other top story this morning,

a federal judge blasted Department of Justice lawyers yesterday for what he called a woefully insufficient response to his questions about deportation flights carried out using the Alien Enemies Act. Judge James Boesberg asked the DOJ earlier this week to give more details on the locations and the timings of the flights amid allegations that the department had defied his court order to pause them. In a three-page order, Judge Boasberg said the Trump administration, quote, again evaded its obligations to provide the information he has been requesting for days.

This, as the DOJ says cabinet secretaries are discussing, if they should invoke the state secrets privilege to avoid answering the questions altogether. NBC News reports the judge said he wanted a sworn declaration by a person with direct involvement in the cabinet level discussions regarding invocation of the state's secret privilege by this morning and to be notified of any decision on the issue by Tuesday. President Trump again targeted the judge on his social media platform while his deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller posted that a small handful of Marxist judges is trying to run the entire country.

This heated rhetoric has set off a slew of online threats as judges nationwide report they fear for their safety As the potential for violence against them appears to be rising. Let's bring it right now senior legal affairs reporter at politico Josh gurstein josh, of course this continues At the same time, uh, the trump administration appears to be slow walking information to this federal judge. You have people inside the Trump administration at the highest level is actually just attacking, verbally attacking him. A Marxist judge, I don't know what makes you Marxist for wanting to get basic facts about a case, but a Marxist judge, others also attacking him, threats now being made. Talk about the standoff between the Trump administration and not only this one federal judge but several judges who are doing what federal judges have done in the past, review the law and if they feel like an

injunction is required they actually issue injunctions. Well it's pretty extraordinary Joe and I would have to say in terms of this particular federal judge who's at the center of this fight, James Boesberg, he's actually the chief judge of the federal district court in Washington. I don't know if there are a lot of judges that I would consider to even plausibly be Marxist, but if you were to make a list, I don't think that Judge Boesberg would be on the list. You know, he's someone that Chief Justice John Roberts appointed to serve on the Foreign Intelligence

Surveillance Court. And Roberts just is not going to pick somebody that he considered to be sort of a left-wing wacko to serve on that court that handles very sensitive intelligence and civil liberties issues. So, it's really becoming quite a standoff. And it's not just that the Trump administration is refusing to give Boasberg the information he's asking for. The way in which they're refusing is sort of insolent,

I would say. They give him an affidavit from someone who is a regional deportation director for ICE when he's asking for sort of cabinet level discussion. So they seem to be sort of giving him the brush off and the cold shoulder. And I just don't think this is going to end very well. Josh, we've heard directly from the United States Attorney General in interviews again and again saying, oh, no, we're not going to violate court orders, but the flights will

continue. So where does this land? Does it move up? Do they actually go through the appeals process like everyone has for the history of time in this country, or they just keep violating these orders and say they're not? Well, they're already in the appeals process. I mean, they've already taken these issues to the D.C. Circuit, and we're expecting over the next few days to have arguments take place there, and then to have some sort of decision from the D.C. Circuit, you know,

either upholding or overturning Judge Boasberg's decision. But it's sort of up to Boasberg how he wants to drive the train in terms of, is he going to move towards contempt proceedings for the Trump administration and potentially for top officials of the administration that he could order into his courtroom to give testimony or potentially even lock them up. In that order yesterday, Boasberg took sort of the first step towards potential contempt proceedings.

He didn't use the word contempt, but he gave them a few days to show cause was the word that he used, why they had not violated his order. And we'll have to see if the administration just sort of keeps blowing him off, what kind of sanctions he's able to impose on administration officials. So, Michael, we've talked a lot in the last few days about this appears to be a test, the Trump administration pushing the boundaries of what they can get away with with the federal courts with the idea of could lead to more down the road. When you talk to people associated with the White House Counsel's Office, outside legal

allies in Trump world, how do they think this is going? We're seeing the frustration come through on social media, but to a larger point, is your sense is this is going to create sort of a template for future defiance of other court orders. I go back to how they handled some of these executive orders on the three law firms they've gone after. And a week ago Wednesday, a federal judge, Beryl Howell, ruled essentially and essentially said that the executive order against Perkins-Cooey was likely unconstitutional and she put a restraining order, temporary restraining order in effect.

So a pretty clear indication from the courts where they were on these executive orders. And by the way, in pretty, about as strong a language as you would expect a federal judge to say when she actually talked about how that executive order against a law firm would undermine sort of the basic precepts of American law. And using the word chilling to describe what this means for the legal profession it was a pretty it was pretty robust actually listen listens it listens to the entire thing It went on for a fair amount of time and it was clear as day where she was on the issue. Two days later, the administration filed nearly the same identical text against a different law firm.

So there was no thought within the White House that said, okay, this federal judge said, this is no good or this is a problem, maybe we should stay away from it, maybe we should take that into account. They took this nearly identical text and used it against another law firm, crippling another law firm. So the idea that what the courts say, it certainly doesn't seem to be playing into their decisions on how to proceed. Now, I'm sure what a formal White House counsel in a different administration would say, it

would say, look, if we had something knocked down so quickly and so clearly at the district court level, like we did that first executive order, we're not going to go back to the well and put the same one out there. But they went back and they did it. And as we'll get to here, they've had fair amount of success with that executive order in what they did. So they're not really deterred here.

And that's something you see in a range of their behavior is that normal deterrent within our system, whether that's... The constitutional system, yeah. Constitutional system, system we live in, you know, along with whatever the media doesn't say, just it doesn't apply in the same way here, and you have to sort of suspend that. So I've had conversations with you, Michael, all there, and Jonathan, you all all fair about what's going on here yesterday, Maggie Haberman on the front page front.

Front screen of an old guy. New York Times online that can say that actually explain what we talk about which is as Maggie said if you think this is just the administration throwing spaghetti the wall and seeing what sticks It's not and she went back to a 2023 interview. She a couple of colleagues had With Stephen Miller and he said this is exactly what we're going to do And so this is a test they are testing the boundaries of of of article two powers And they're going to keep pushing and if one federal judge doesn't give them what they want, they're going to try to go

to another federal judge, there will be appeals, and they hope they end up at the Supreme Court on tailored issues where they think they can win. So as you all have said, as Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Swan, other reporters have said, this is a... Don't think this is just like random chaos. This is a calculated effort. And at the same time, they're doing what Donald Trump has done to the press for years and what he told Lesley Stoll years ago.

I'm going to attack the press. So it undermines their credibility if they write something badly about me. They're now doing that about federal judges to have the attorney general and Stephen Miller and others make calling. This judge a Marxist yeah, it is it's a far more sophisticated approach this time around it still flood the zone which they did in 2017 as well and they know that some things are going to get knocked down some things are toss aways

and distractions but that but while they're doing that it's combined with much more clever efforts to achieve what they say is the number one goal of this administration is retribution. We are seeing it against these law firms, which we'll dive into in a moment. We're seeing it against media organizations. We're seeing it against political foes, where this time this administration is using its powers in a far more clever way like to suggest that a law firm can't do business with a federal government, which would basically bankrupt the law firm. So speak to this, Michael, just about this approach, which is, you know, in 2017 they obviously got things, some things done, but there was a sense of it was bumbling, it was

being made up as they went along, and when they were defeated by the courts, they weren't sure what to do. This time around, this has clearly been plotted for years, the four years in exile, and they are exacting their agenda. Yeah. And Trumpism has been refined in a way that is different than what we saw when he came in the first time. The first time, you know, at this point in the administration, he's surrounded by a fair amount of traditional Republicans.

There's a fair amount of adults in the room. And it's a lot of Trump trying to use blunt force in running up against his own inability to execute the limits of his aides and people like John Kelly telling him not, you know, you can't do that and throwing up roadblocks for him. That does not exist. And at the same time, there is a deep sense of retribution, not just amongst Trump, but amongst his aides. And they have had, as you were saying, this sort of standing start.

And they've had these four years to come up with moves that surprise me. The law firms move. I had always said this about Trump. I said I'd never seen Trump do a three-point turn. And the move on the law firms is not necessarily a three-point turn, but it's heading in that direction. It is a sophisticated move that has brought them to heel and has brought them, I think, far more success than they thought. And they have not had to use the criminal powers

of the Justice Department to do that. When I did reporting on this during the election about what Trump would do when he would return, the focus that we had on a lot of things was, well, how is he gonna use the Justice Department to prosecute his enemies? There were, what is he gonna do use the Justice Department to prosecute his enemies? You know, there was the repeal. You know, what is he going to do with the criminal powers of the department? And what he has shown in a short period of time is that those criminal powers, which

means that you have to go to the courts and there are there are harder, higher barriers to do there. There are other things that you can do that are just as effective and just just as crippling. And that has been surprising to me. So, Michael, let's talk a little bit more about your reporting this morning in the New York Times because it's so fascinating and it gets to the larger point you're just describing there, which is that Donald Trump is using these threats, these executive orders to extract concessions from private companies, from law firms, from news organizations.

He dropped his executive order against this major law firm. Can you talk a little bit about the back and forth, why he first issued the executive order against that firm and others, and why now he's dropping it? So two days after a federal judge says that one of these executive orders against another firm had been basically unconstitutional. Trump signs this late Friday against a law firm called Paul Weiss. Now, most people probably haven't heard of Paul Weiss,

but in the legal world, they're a really big deal. And something that distinguishes them is that they're made up of a lot of Democrats, a lot of Democratic donors. Chuck Schumer's brother is a partner there. A lot of former Obama administration officials work there. The person who prepared Kamala Harris for her debate is a law partner there. So a big D firm.

And there had been a widespread expectation that this firm would go to court to fight this executive order. Legal experts say there's not a lot of legal merit to what Trump did. There was a clear sign from the courts that they would knock it down. But this firm did something differently. And the head of it, a guy named Brad Carp, goes and meets directly with Donald Trump. Now, Brad Carp is someone who in 2023 helped hold fundraisers for Joe Biden. He goes and he meets with Trump in the Oval Office and they cut a deal. And the deal basically says that the firm will commit to represent Democrats and Republicans and people of any political persuasion, and they will give $40 million in pro bono legal

work to a range of causes that have been championed by Trump, including money to something that Trump last night on social media called the Presidential Task Force on Anti-Semitism. So this firm is not only agreeing to something that Trump wanted, but it's committing $40 million to these causes that mean something to Trump. Well, but also mean a lot to a lot of Americans. $40 million in pro bono work for anti-Semitism, to fight anti-Semitism. $40 million in pro bono work for veterans as well. So, tell me though also, there was an interesting twist at the end of

your story and that is that a law firm, a major law firm, and you said one of the few law firms that represented Donald Trump and people associated with Donald Trump actually stepped into the fray after Paul Weiss got attacked and said we will represent you against the president. And I'm wondering, did that get things moving towards a settlement after they had, after Donald Trump and his administration saw that the one huge law firm that had been on their side actually sided not only with Paul Weiss, but also the federal judge in Washington who said, this is a chilling thing to do to attorneys. So this law firm called Quinn Emmanuel is run by a guy named Bill Burke, who is the outside

legal ethics advisor for the Trump Organization. He helped Trump administration officials through their confirmation process. He agreed to help Paul Weiss sue the Trump administration if they were not able to reach a deal. And if that had happened, it would have been a big shift in this story because it would have been a sign from the law firms that they were willing to take on Trump. And it's not just any law. Which by the way, may be one of the reasons why we're looking at Paul Weiss settling. Also may be one of the reasons why the Trump administration wanted to settle, right? It would have brought them into contact and into conflict with big law in a way that would have allowed other firms to coalesce around this. The thing about the

law firms you have to remember is that this has been going on for over two weeks now and the law firms have been going back and forth about whether they're gonna file an amicus brief. They still haven't filed an amicus brief in this. They've gone back and forth about whether they're going to file an amicus brief. They still haven't filed an amicus brief in this. They've gone back and forth about whether they're going to put out a statement together. They still haven't done that. So big law itself has been quiet. And if Quinn Emanuel and Bill Burke had stepped in and had sued the administration, it would have changed that and it would have brought the law firms into direct conflict with Trump.

So he's in the best interest of everybody to settle this thing. Because you know, Caddy, it's just like federal judges. I was told back in 2017 when the Washington state federal judge was attacked by Donald Trump who had tweeted out the so-called judge, talked to a Federalist Society judge, a very conservative judge, who said an attack against one judge is seen as an attack against all judges. I think here what we're seeing in Michael's story is an attack against one law firm is seen as an attack against all law firms. Yeah, it's a little bit like the universities.

What's happening with Columbia and Penn right now, other universities are watching, and it's a bit to what Michael was saying. They don't have to use criminal law, there are other levers that they can use in order to have a chilling effect. But Josh, I was speaking with a former Democratic Congresswoman just last night who was saying, this is like a, she described it as a probing attack

to see what the opponent's defenses look like. And she made the point that it doesn't seem like there are any penalties for the administration doing what they're doing. And what they're doing, what Michael has just described, is not illegal. What they're doing with universities is not illegal. But it does have this chilling effect. Is there any risk, legal jeopardy, to the White House in what it's doing? Well, I mean, there's one thing here, which is there are nine very important people that

are watching this all play out. And a lot of these fights, if they are not settled, are going to end up at the Supreme Court. And people I've been talking to in the legal community think things like going after the big law firms, for example, along with the words that Trump and even officials like the attorney general have been using about the judge, James Broseberg, it's just not going to sit very well with, for example, Chief Justice John Roberts and perhaps even with other justices of the Supreme Court. Amy Coney Barrett has already shown

that she's going to attack somewhat independently of the Trump administration. Those two votes right there could be very, very important, not only for these attacks, but for other Trump policies that will be coming to the court in rapid fire succession over the course of the next few months. And so a lot of people that I talk to, judges, for example, say they think this is ultimately counterproductive. It's setting up sort of mood music and an atmosphere that is not going to be helpful for Trump in terms of his agenda at the Supreme Court or in finding the five votes that he

needs to make sure that his policies go forward. Senior legal affairs reporter at Politico, Josh Gerstein. Thank you very much for your reporting this morning. And New York Times investigative reporter Michael Schmidt. Thank you as well. Time now for a quick look at some of the other... Michael, that was... Lamir actually texted me your story last night.

Taking you behind the scenes here. And I will tell... No, I'm just saying, that's just one of those stories You're like, oh my god Is this this is really happening and then that like, you know, I you did that zero day movie Which is really great. This is a movie too I mean, yeah and again you kind of bury the lead at the very end that you actually saw a law firm that Had defended Donald Trump and it

was one of the few that actually got out there were like, wait a second. They were rolling up their sleeves saying, all right, democratic law firm, we may not agree with you on a lot of stuff, but we're going to go in shoulder to shoulder. That was high drama, man. I think the thing that is different and unusual about it for us is that because the Trump administration is using power differently and resolving issues differently, it's forcing us to cover things in ways that like we've never seen this before.

The resolution of Mayor Adams' criminal investigation, his criminal prosecution is a result we have never seen before. So we're having to learn on the fly how to do this. We have never seen anything like this where the President United States has directly attacked a law firm and then basically done a side deal with the head of that law firm to resolve it. It's just for us it's like it's all new because Trump is using power in new and unusual and audacious ways. Well you all are doing an extraordinary job covering it. All of you are. Jonathan Lemire, you are.

I think the media is doing a great job covering this and explaining exactly what's happening and why this time it's different. Still ahead on Morning Joe, we're digging into new reporting by the New York Times that the Pentagon is preparing to brief Elon Musk on the U.S. military's plan for any war that might break out with China. Now wait, why would that be? Doesn't he have a ton of business in China? To process that. What?

Steve Ratner is standing by with charts. He's taking a look at how the Trump administration's policies are beginning to take a toll on the U.S. economy. Morning Joe is back in 90 seconds. By the way, update you to last night, Jonathan Lemire on the Musk China story that was reported. The president last night denied it on social media. Yeah, we'll dive into this as the morning goes on, but

Trump did take to social media late last night saying that the New York Times reporting that Elon Musk is going to be briefed at the Pentagon about war plans with China. Some of the most sensitive documents in the United States government. He says that's incorrect, that that will happen. He says, quote, how ridiculous. He claims China will not even be mentioned or discussed. And he goes on to attack the media for his words, printing lies.

But we will say, we should note that story is impeccably sourced, that multiple officials saying that Musk is going to be at the Pentagon at some point today to talk about China, perhaps as part of something Doge related, that he needs to know what the war plans are with China so he doesn't potentially cut units or equipment that would be needed there, that he should look elsewhere for the Doge trims that part is unclear the president denying it altogether. Joining us now former Treasury official and Morning Joe Economic Analyst Steve Ratner and Steve you say there are early signs the Trump administration's policies are impacting the economy. Walk us through what's

happening starting with lower growth and higher prices. Yeah, Mika, the Federal Reserve had its quarterly meeting there so ago, and they issue four times a year revised economic forecasts. And so this is the Fed's view of what they think is gonna happen, and it's not ugly ugly, but it's not great either. So let's take a look at what they came out with.

So in terms of economic growth, they lower their forecast for economic growth for this year, next year, and the year after. And for this year, they lower their forecast from 2.1% to 1.7%. And if, in fact, it is 1.7%, that would be the lowest growth rate we've had since 2010, except for COVID.

So they're seeing a slowing of the economy, and they attribute a good amount of that to the commotion and so forth in Washington and some of Trump's early policies. And on inflation, they also went in what I'll call the wrong direction in the sense they raised their inflation forecast. Back in September, they thought inflation would be around 2%. Now they're up to about 2.7% for this year. And that would actually also be higher than last year. And so inflation would be going if this happens in the wrong direction.

And this is obviously not what we want to see happen. In an extreme case where growth really Slows or stops and inflation goes up. We call that stagflation I wouldn't say we're in stagflation yet, but obviously much slower growth higher inflation is not what we want to see really So Steve let's move to your second chart and talk about how the Fed is watching all this very closely Donald Trump has been tweeting or true socialing at the Fed, suggesting things they should or should not be doing. What are the projections now from the Federal Reserve

about where they might go in terms of rates? Yeah, one of the things Trump's been tweeting and with some regularity is that he wants interest rates lower rather than higher. Well, you really can't bring interest rates down when inflation is going up. That sort of runs against the economic policy tool book. On the other hand, you do have lower growth, which would tend to bring interest rates down. The Fed kind of split the baby in the sense that they called it an offset in that they did not change their

outlook for rates. They expect about two more 25 to one quarter of a point rate cuts in the course of this year. And that's this offsetting pull between lower growth but higher inflation has kind of kept them in the same place. But notably, their projections are still well above for rates are still well above where they were back at the September meeting. Now without getting too wonky, the Fed control short term interest rates, the kind of interest rates you get when you put money in a money market fund or a checking account.

It doesn't control longer-term interest rates. Those are controlled by the market largely or heavily based on expectations for inflation and growth. And so what's been happening since the inauguration is that the 10-year treasury has been coming down in rate, which is because of these growth concerns, the is that the 10-year treasury has been coming down in rate, which is because of these growth concerns, the feeling that the economy is weakening, which would then at some point cause inflation to come down, has brought the 10-year down. And the relevance of that for consumers is it brings mortgage interest rates down, because

these two rates are closely linked. So consumers are seeing some relief on mortgage interest rates. It is a bit for the wrong reasons in that it is because the market is perceiving less growth. So if Donald Trump wants to take credit for lower mortgage interest rates, it's because he's produced an economy that is now expected to grow slower than people were hoping and expecting. So Steve, the one word I keep hearing when it comes to the American economy at the moment is uncertainty.

I've just been in Europe. I was talking to some business people over there who were thinking, who were investors in infrastructure, and they said, we just can't make plans. We're trying to make three, five, 10-year plans. There's so much uncertainty. We don't know about the tariffs. And then I come back here to Washington,

and all the people I know who work for the federal government or have contracts with the government, they're saying, we just don't know how to plan. We don't know if we're gonna have a job next week. We don't know if we're going to have a job next week. We don't know if we're going to have a contract next week. What does that level of uncertainty, it seems to be almost across the board, do to the U.S. economy? Yeah, uncertainty plays a role in the economy.

The famous economist John Maynard Keynes called it animal spirits. What's the feeling in the economy? It goes below the numbers. And in his statement this week, Chairman Powell of the Federal Reserve did note uncertainty as one of the factors and why the Fed has become somewhat more pessimistic in its economic forecast. But there actually are uncertainty indexes that are calculated by various people. Here's one calculated by a group of professors at three very distinguished universities and they look at things like news coverage, they look at whether

tax provisions are expiring, that's a form of uncertainty and so forth and you can see the uncertainty index has gone off the charts, come down a little bit here but this is a level we've never seen and this obviously is interesting because we all know what's going on. You guys have been talking about it in Washington. And now you have a way of measuring that and showing that, in fact, it does, has created a huge amount of uncertainty. And similarly, within the small business community, there's a lot of uncertainty. And when business becomes uncertain, just like consumers, they tend to pull back, they

tend to spend less, they tend to delay plans for large investments, they want to see what's going to happen. And so all of the chaos in Washington is clearly, I think, playing into the real economy. So Steve, it's remarkable what a couple of months has made. We're talking about the United States domestically with the law and what's happening to courts. But you talked about animal spirits. I had said on the show a month or two ago that I was at an event at King's College in Cambridge where John Maynard Keynes obviously built his reputation. And of course, he's the one, as you said, talked about animal spirits.

And a roundtable discussion at King's was about animal spirits. And Europe was bemoaning the fact, people from Europe and, of course, people from Britain, bemoaning the fact that the United States had animal spirits, and it had completely evaporated in Europe. Well, Mika just showed me breaking news

from the Wall Street Journal, and a major reversal, Germany now, has approved $1.1 trillion spending plan for defense, not just because they don't feel like they can depend on the United States anymore, but also to kickstart the economy, a very un-German thing where they're actually not quite as obsessed with deficits right now, and they're going to kickstart their economy.

There were two stories yesterday, I think it was Wall Street Journal we just showed, said hold the obituary. Actually what I was hearing in Europe, what you were hearing in Europe, what everybody was hearing from economists and business people and bankers in Europe, actually has reversed. And now these animal spirits are awakening in Germany. And not only do they say, we're going to build militarily, but also economically, they're taking moves to jolt their economy. Talk about what a dramatic difference

just two months has made because, again, because of the Trump policies. It's true, Joe. Everything you said is true. And of course- Why, thank you. He's very kind. Well, if it weren't, I'd probably very gently

try to point that out. But maybe I would be too scared to do that too. But in any way, in any event, look, Germany was in really tough shape. The economy had stalled out. It was in and out of recession. Some of it is their fault. Some of it was because of the war with Ukraine, the loss of the natural gas supplies, the impact that had on the German economy.

Germans had a brutal time with China because Germany is a major exporter of cars and machine tools and things like that to China. And all that is now in jeopardy, obviously, with trade diminishing for several reasons, not just because of Trump. And Germany, as you know, has been unbelievably averse to debt since World War, since the Depression, and since they got in trouble. And so, and they had hyperinflation. And so they have something called a debt break. You'll be amused at this, Joe, because you like to talk about how our debt is over 100% and so on and so forth, which you and I totally

agree on. Germany had a debt limit of 0.45% of their GDP. It was called the debt break and you could not violate the debt break without major supermajority votes in the Bundestag and so forth. And so then along comes the defense problem and suddenly Germany wakes up about its economy. They also have crumbling infrastructure, terrible infrastructure problem there, which will surprise you, surprises me, because Germany is usually pretty good at that stuff. And they wake up and they decide they're going to spend

potentially a trillion dollars on defense and a whole bunch more money on infrastructure and simply suspend the debt break while they do all this. And that has created a lot of animal spirits. The German stock market is up in double digits this year. Our stock market is down in high single digits this year. So we're kind of going in opposite directions at the moment from the point of view of stock prices.

So, and they're gonna have a new chancellor. So Germany, yeah, Germany has woken up. They obviously have a lot of wood to chop. We'll see how they implement it. But it is good to see Europe. And look, unfortunately, it's for the odd reason that it's because they can't trust Trump anymore. And they realize they've gotta do this themselves.

And you know, there's such a short-sightedness, again, to what the United States is doing right now, because what we're doing is we're forcing their hands and to go in from being dependent on the United States to going it alone without the United States and yet people in middle Mary that's great that's great. But you're actually

just pushing Europe to get stronger economically as a competitor and then work with China, work with India, work with the East and become less economically reliant on us, on our goods, on our economy. And that hurts workers in middle America. It just doesn't make any sense. Morning, Joe. Economic analyst Steve Ratner, thank you very much as always for coming on this morning.

Thank you, Steve. And coming up, a leading medical expert will join us with the latest on the measles outbreak as Texas and New Mexico reward more than 300 cases. Plus, one of our next guests is asking if anything can stop the bird flu as he argues it might just be our next pandemic. We'll dig into that straight ahead on Morning Joe. Welcome back. While the current public health risk for the H5 bird flu remains low, multiple strains of the virus are still running uncontrolled through cattle herds and poultry flocks across the country. Here's what a duck farmer from Long Island says happened to his entire flock.

Corwin believes for his duck farm, a vaccine is the only way out of this crisis. So is the government's billion-dollar strategy enough? No. I know what our biosecurity is here. And I'm not saying it's perfect, but it's pretty darn good. This virus is so in the wildlife. It's so endemic without some type of viral protection.

We're not gonna get rid of this. Now, a new piece for New York Magazine's Intelligencer takes a look at what a response may look like if the bird flu virus mutates to infect humans and if the correct measures are in place in case another pandemic takes hold of the country. Joining us now, the author of that piece, Christopher Cox. He is a features editor at New York Magazine. Also with us, NBC News medical contributor Dr. Vin Gupta.

Christopher, I'll start with you with the piece here. What is happening right now the state of the bird flow with flocks and herds across the country and the chances of this transferring to humans probably not using the right terminology. But no that's right yeah you know it's and the virus is everywhere. One expert I spoke to said it was the country's a swirling pot of virus with every species thrown in the middle. So it's in wild birds, it's in poultry that we're raising on farms, and it's in cows.

That's the big change from a year ago. It jumped from birds, where it's been for decades, to cows for the first time. And those cows are, in turn, giving it over to the people who work on those farms. So it's jumping into people at a rate we've never really seen before. And so the question is, how long can that happen before you start having human-to-human transmission?

So what do we do? How do we stop it? How do we stop it? Well, I mean, it's mainly animals right now. The virus is not good at infecting people, and we're lucky, but it's not gonna be true forever. Wait, but you say it has infected people. It can infect people, but it's not very good at it. So it can get in your eye.

Strangely enough, there's a little receptor in your eye that is the same receptors on a cow's udder. And so by that coincidence, it can infect your eye, can infect a cow, but it can't really infect your lungs very easily. And so until that changes, we're safe or safe enough. There'll be some jumps to farm workers, but not you and me. I'm not going to cough on you and give you bird flu.

But the longer you let it sit in the cow population and just cook it. It's coming. Yeah. It could mutate. And when that mutation happens then it starts going people person to person and that's a pandemic as soon as it spreads rapidly.

And you know we'll get we have a friend that you and I know won't mention her name on the air, but I had bird flu. But 1015 years ago and almost died. I mean when it does jump to humans it can be deadly fast. Yeah, it can be really deadly serious. Dr. Gupta, just to keep this in perspective a little bit, there are 340 million people in the United States, CDC says there are 70 cases in humans. What are the risks though, as you watch this,

we hear about bird flu a lot, there are concerns that if it did make the jump to human beings on a wide scale, obviously, it would be a pandemic potentially. There are concerns that if it did make the jump to human beings on a wide scale, obviously it would be a pandemic potentially. What are your concerns as you see these headlines right now? Well, you know, Willie, about a year ago, the CDC recommended that anybody that came in to a hospital and had confirmed flu should then go for additional testing to say, is this actually bird flu? That was a recommendation. It wasn't broadly followed because it requires resources and things that are frankly hard to do sometimes. To answer your question directly, we don't know the full extent of how much bird flu

has actually spread amongst humans. To what degree has it been asymptomatic spread or say mild spread so that people don't even see care, much less get tested, including those that end up in the hospital. So I think we're underestimating spread. Two, outside of, say, California, that has a state of emergency when it comes to everything that Chris is saying, to testing dairy farms, to making sure that we have rigorous protocols in place to minimize even spread amongst animals. California is the leader there.

Outside of that, we have 49 other approaches here, which don't approach what California is doing. And as a result, this is running amok in animal populations. I'll say here in Washington state, 20 big cats died. And so when we think about cows first getting impacted by this, now we're seeing big cats getting impacted and dying. It is pretty cataclysmic what's happening amongst other mammalian species.

So Chris, let's talk about what would happen if it does take the leap to humans, and we are facing another pandemic. And I suppose this could apply to a different virus as well. Just assess, I know this is part of your piece as well, assess the readiness of this nation to handle another pandemic, you know, so soon after COVID, which became such a political response.

And I know there's been some concerns that we're not nearly as ready this time around. Yes, that's right. In fact, one of the experts I spoke to said that he thinks it's not gonna be bird flu, it's gonna be another coronavirus. But whatever it is that comes down the line, you know, we have to be prepared for it.

And in many ways, we are less prepared than we were after COVID. We learned lots during COVID. But whether it's the willingness of people to do social distancing, do the things that we might have to implement to respond to the virus in the first place, but most importantly, this country is not ready for a new vaccine

to be embraced by the whole population, but that's what you need if you have a novel virus circulating. Dr. Gupta, last time you and I spoke, it was actually not about PIRD flu. It was about the measles outbreak, and that was a couple of weeks ago. Can you give us an update on where we stand? The headlines are that there are over 300 cases in New Mexico and Texas. What are you hearing about the speed of the spread and how lethal this could potentially be, particularly for children?

Well, you know, Katty, I think it's the same concern here is that what we're seeing is some people are not even presenting to care in New Mexico and Texas until they're very, very sick. So one, the question here is, are we underestimating spread? Similar sort of idea with bird flu, are we underestimating spread? Similar sort of idea with bird flu, are we underestimating spread? Because people aren't presenting it to care, so that's one.

And two, I think we're now seeing the family, sadly, that lost their child to measles. We're seeing now a better understanding of how they were thinking about it. They gave an interview recently, and there is this concept, sadly, this motif here that amongst those that are not getting vaccinated, they somehow think that, and this is from our current health secretary in

this formal organization, the Child's Health Defense, that somehow the vaccine is causing this outbreak. So there's misconceptions that are deep. We're talking about treatments that they're pursuing. We're seeing people pursuing treatments, Katty, like vitamin A and others that are not treatments that are purely misconceptions and misinformation. So this is spreading. I think we don't understand the magnitude of spread and clearly what's happening with the HHS secretary spreading this information, being a leading protagonist here, is having impacts.

All right. We'll be following this for sure. NBC News medical contributor Dr. Vin Gupta, thank you. And features editor at New York Magazine, Christopher Cox, thank you as well, very much. Guys, thank you so much. All right, time now for a look at some of the other stories making headlines this morning. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has fired the country's domestic intelligence chief.

It's part of Netanyahu's efforts to purge rivals from the security establishment, particularly those who have questioned his approach to the war in Gaza. As we reported earlier this week, the firing of the intel head coincides with the agency's investigations into some of the prime minister's top aides. There could be a turning point in Sudan's long-running civil war. Military forces have recaptured the presidential palace in the battle-scarred capital. Civilians have been trapped in the middle of fierce clashes between Sudanese troops and a powerful group of paramilitary fighters.

It's seen as a major symbolic victory for Sudan's army, which lost most of the key city when the war broke out two years ago. And federal officials say new findings show Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge was at a high risk of collapsing if it was struck by a ship. But Maryland officials never conducted a review, something that could have prevented the disaster. The NTSB launched the investigation in the wake of last year's accident that killed six maintenance workers. According to the Washington Post, the board's calculations showed that the key bridge's risk level was almost 30 times higher

than national standards. Maryland Governor Wes Moore referred questions to the Transportation Authority.