Morning Joe - Morning Joe 3/6/25

Episode Date: March 6, 2025

Stock surge after Trump grants one-month tariff delay for U.S. automakers

We know that some officials here were miffed that Zelensky showed up last week without a suit for his meeting in the Oval Office, but Elon Musk never wears a suit. He did last night. So what is the dress code? Well, Elon Musk wore a suit last night. I'm sure you saw it. Was he spooked by Zelensky? Zelensky getting kicked out? No, I don't think so. I'm just pointing out that he did wear a suit last night and I think the president out that he did wear a suit last night. And I think the president liked that very much. And he looked great.

That's the White House press secretary pressed yesterday about what most see as an inconsistency when it comes to the White House dress code following criticism about what the Ukrainian president was wearing during his visit to the Oval Office last week. As for Elon Musk, he met with Republicans on Capitol Hill yesterday talking about how to codify his doge cuts into law. We'll dig into that.

Plus, we'll go through the escalating rhetoric coming out of China on Trump's trade war, suggesting the country is ready for any type of war. We'll have Defense Secretary Pete Heges's response to that comment. Also ahead, some Republicans are now defending the CHIPS Act after President Trump threatened the bipartisan legislation during his joint address. And we'll look at a major possible change

to American policy as the Trump administration is now talking to Hamas. Good morning. Welcome to Morning Joe. It is Thursday, March 6th. With Mika and me this morning, we have the co-host of our fourth hour, Jonathan Lemire. He's a contributing writer at the Atlantic covering the White House and national politics, U.S. special correspondent for BBC News and host of the Rest is Politics podcast, Cady

Kay, managing editor at the Bullwork, Sam Stein, and former Treasury official and Morning Joe economic analyst Steve Ratner. Back with charts and to discuss this back and forth on tariffs as President Trump has now paused tariffs on some cars coming into the United States from Canada and Mexico. That's one day after those tariffs went into effect. Here's what White House press secretary Caroline Levitt had to say yesterday. We spoke with the big three auto dealers. We are going to give a one month exemption

on any autos coming through USMCA. Reciprocal tariffs will still go into effect on April 2nd, but at the request of the companies associated with USMCA, the president is giving them an exemption for one month so they are not at an economic disadvantage. So the three companies that he spoke to are Stellantis, Ford and General Motors. They requested the call. They made the ask and the president is happy to do it. It's a one month exemption. So does he expect them to be able to shift production within a month? He told them

that he they should get on it, start investing, start moving, shift production here to the United States of America where they will pay no tariff. That's the ultimate goal. Meanwhile, the president is reportedly considering exemptions for some agricultural goods. Politico reports the administration is discussing waiving the 25 percent duty on some products, including Canadian potash, a key ingredient in fertilizer. Republican lawmakers began lobbying for exemptions for that as well before the tariffs went into effect Tuesday, arguing that supply shortages or price spikes will further drive up food

prices. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins told Bloomberg News, quote, everything is on the table. And that specific exemptions and carve-outs are still to be determined. The Wall Street Journal editorial board is reacting to these developments with a new piece entitled, The Trump Tariff Roller Coaster.

It reads, quote, welcome to the Trump Tariff thrill ride, where you never know what's going to happen. Mr. Trump originally justified the tariffs under an emergency law to combat the alleged threat of fentanyl. But he claimed Tuesday the tariffs are needed because we pay subsidies to Canada and Mexico of hundreds of billions of dollars and have very large deficits with both of them. That sounds like White House protectionist in chief Peter Navarro. He and his boss love tariffs for their own sake.

Meanwhile, the tariff barrage is causing economic uncertainty and slowing investment. A real thrill a minute. Steve Ratner, you know, well, you were the car czar under President Obama. slowing investment, a real thrill a minute. Steve Ratner, you know, well, you were the car czar under President Obama. So if you could talk about what the uncertainty means for these industries, even beyond the car industry. Business like all of us has to always confront and deal with uncertainty. Uncertainty is simply part of life, and part of being a good executive is you make choices,

you weigh the pros, the cons, the likelihoods, the unlikelihoods, and then you make a decision. When you introduce something like haphazard government policy on top of that, you're simply compounding the challenge for business to make the right decisions, to get cars to the right places, to make the right kind of cars, to charge the right prices for them, and so on and so forth. And so all of what the president's been doing where first you run 10 yards forward and then you go 2 yards back and then you go left and then you go right is simply introducing a level of uncertainty that's really hard for business.

The car industry is particularly complicated because what most people perhaps don't know is that they don't simply make a car in Mexico and bring it here. We make parts here sometimes that are sent to Mexico, they do some stuff to it, it's called a sub assembly, then it's sent back to the US, they do some more stuff to it, goes back to Mexico, then it goes into the car, and then the car comes here. And the same thing happens with Canada. And so because of NAFTA actually, which removed these tariff barriers, it allowed the car

companies to produce the parts of the cars in the places where it was most efficient to produce them, and assemble them in the places where it was most efficient to produce them. And now you put kind of a blockade in a road, and so you have to go around in a different road, and it just makes it more complicated. And obviously it makes it more expensive. The estimates are $7,000 to $10,000 per additional car, if and when all these tariffs go into effect.

But this also obviously demonstrates sort of log rolling and decision making moment you know on the fly in the Trump administration. Somebody calls up say okay you can have relief and then somebody else calls up and we'll give you relief and it's it is just the antithesis of what business wants from government which is ironic of course because this administration said they were going to come in and really help business and get the country quote moving again and all that sort of stuff. To that point, Jonathan, as we know covering this man as a politician now for almost a decade, it's often the last person he talked to on the phone with the CEO of a car company,

calls him up, flatters him a little bit and say, hey, this is really going to hit us. It's going to hurt American workers. It's going to raise prices for consumers. Can you give us a break? And then Trump says, all right, give these guys a break. How do you read this pause, a one month pause, and we can talk to Steve about what that means exactly after a month. Is this him watching the stock market? Is it him hearing from CEOs? Is it him worrying that, oh, maybe I jumped too far too fast? It's a little bit of all of that, Willie.

I'm told. So I spoke to some people in the Trump orbit yesterday within the West Wing, who they acknowledge that the stock market has rattled them somewhat. Some of many of these cable news networks have the little graphic in the corner there showing the declines on Wall Street over the last couple of days. It's been a pretty significant sell-off. And we know that this president in particular sort of almost judges the health of the economy by the stock market. He's very quick to take credit when it's doing well and he tries not to talk about it publicly when it's not doing well. But certainly there are some private anxieties and to your

point of a moment ago exactly right. He is susceptible to flattery, to lobbying efforts. There have been some big businesses and CEOs who are making their case to him as to why this is not necessarily a good idea. We also heard, Caddy, in the last couple of days, some Republicans willing to, shall we say tentatively, use their own voices to suggest that, well, maybe these tariffs aren't necessarily the best idea. We've had lawmakers, including some senators, ask for carve-outs, like, don't tariff these

products because that would be bad for my Constituents we heard Majority Leader Thune. Yeah this earlier this week say Expressed the hope that these tariffs are temporary sort of leaning into the idea that they're they're just a negotiating tactic and Trump can get A couple of wins and then take them off again But we also know that this is something he does believe in. And if he stubbornly sticks with them for a while, I'm curious, what do you think, Republicans you speak to, could there be a louder chorus of voices saying, you know, hey, we gotta reconsider this?

Yeah, and there was more tepid applause to that bit of the address to Congress on Tuesday night than to other bits of the address to Congress. So you can sense that Republicans don't love this. Of course, lots of them are free market economists. They come from that old school of economics. They don't want their own constituents to be hit by more inflation, Sam. What's it going to take to put it to you?

Because I'm hearing you need eight to ten Republican senators really to be able to do anything in terms of criticism, because they all need air cover. Right. They can't do it if there's only two or three of them. That's not enough. Collective action problem. And the question is, at what point do any of these policies, and the tariffs are one of them,

at what point do any of these policies hit consumers enough, voters enough, their voters enough, that they would have an interest in sticking their heads up above the parapet? I don't know. The stock market, obviously, stumbling is a problem for them. I think we saw some pushback on the idea that they would reverse the CHIPS Act, which is a huge domestic

manufacturing investment, which a number of them had signed on to and co-sponsored. And they want that money in their districts. But it's just these policies and this governance is structured in a way that makes it particularly difficult to put the genie back in the bottle. And by that, it's just the system is ripe for corruption, right? If Donald Trump can, on a whim, decide, you know what? We're going to have an exemption for this. Which is your first time around, right?

Yes, of course. Lots of exemptions. The farmers got bailed out, exemptions left and right. And really, it's like, well, if you've called Donald Trump on the right moment, or if you've managed to score the right hit on Fox and Friends and he happened to see you, or if you've donated to his political action committee,

yeah, you can get a carve out. But it's not just the tariffs, right? I mean, this is the same exact situation we're now seeing with Doge, in which Elon Musk goes to the Hill yesterday. Republicans complain about these cuts because they're affecting their home districts. And Elon says, well, you know what?

Call me, and we can reverse the cuts. So we have a system in which two individuals basically get to decide at a whim that the policies that they're implementing can get reversed for the people that they like. And it doesn't work holistically. So if you're a business that isn't in Trump's favor, if you're a Democratic congressman who doesn't have the LMS cell phone, you're out of luck.

That's what she was pointing out. And now China is responding to President Trump's tariffs with a warning. It is ready, it says, for any type of war with the United States. That message posted by the official ex-account of the Chinese embassy in the United States following President Trump's address to Congress on Tuesday, writing, quote, if war is what the US wants, be it a tariff war, a trade war, or any other type of war, we're ready

to fight till the end." China announced retaliatory tariffs of up to 15% on U.S. farm products beginning on March 10th, after Trump levied an additional 10% tariffs on Chinese imports earlier this week. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reacted to China's warning during an interview with Fox News yesterday. Well, we're prepared. Those who long for peace must prepare for war. That's why we're rebuilding our military. That's why we're reestablishing deterrence and the warrior ethos is because

we live in a dangerous world with powerful ascendant countries with very different ideologies. China also is increasing defense spending by more than 7%. So Steve Radner, we can put the war talk, the actual fighting talk to the side for just a second and focus on the trade piece of this, which is the retaliatory tariffs are also going to cripple American businesses. We heard from the Kentucky Bourbon Distillery Association yesterday as one example saying, we cannot afford as an industry to have these 25% tariffs coming back at us from Canada and from Mexico where we sell so much of what we do.

We're going to lose jobs. It's going to cost everyday hardworking Americans their livelihoods. So what do you think is the impact of those retaliatory tariffs, be it China, Canada, or Mexico in response to President Trump? It's quite significant, Willie. Look, it is something, you do have to acknowledge that we don't sell as much stuff to them as they sell to us. So there's more things we can put tariffs on, we can put tariffs on, than they can put

tariffs on. But that said, there's plenty of damage they can do to us. Agriculture is a good example. I'll show you some charts in a little bit about how much soybeans and corn we export versus how much we import. And last time around, the Chinese did punish us pretty severely in terms of our agricultural exports. There's also things besides tariffs that they can do, and Chinese have been doing, in terms

of restricting the ability of American companies to have been doing, in terms of restricting the ability of American companies to do business there, in terms of restricting other ways in which we make money off of China. There's plenty of things these countries can do. And what I've seen, what I've noticed, and what's been, I think, a little bit scary in a way, is that the Canadians, the Mexicans, and the Chinese are all basically saying, we're not going to take this lying down, and we're going to do whatever it takes to defend ourselves and our economies. And so this is bad.

And look, we all trade when it occurs in a free and fair way, which it mostly did, contrary to what Donald Trump thinks, is a positive for all sides. We get less expensive goods, they get jobs for their people, and it all works well. And to go down this rabbit hole of deglobalization where everybody pulls back is enormously costly to our economy, to everybody's economy. It's going to raise prices significantly, it's going to cost us jobs in the end and it's a bad state of affairs for the world. Yeah and Canada has said to your point that

they'll keep their tariffs in place as long as any US tariffs are in effect and President Trump threatening more retaliatory tariffs in the weeks ahead and Mika that just sort of adds up to this like this huge sense of real uncertainty and unease on the economy because of these tariffs, that bellicose rhetoric from China, and also the sense within Washington as to who even will be able to hang onto their jobs and the impact it will have on constituents, whether in red or blue states. Uncertainty all around, and you have to imagine, is that the plan?

Just chaos and uncertainty. The Department of Veterans Affairs plans to cut more than 80,000 jobs as part of the Trump administration scaling back of the federal workforce. In a memo sent out on Tuesday, the VA's chief of staff outlined an agency-wide reduction with a goal to quote resize and tailor the workforce to the mission. It also says the VA's objective is to return to its 2019 workforce numbers of just under 400,000 employees which means most of the additional staffing added under the Biden administration to supplement

veterans benefits under the PACT Act could be eliminated. The Trump administration has already fired more than 2,400 employees at the department. Of course, this impacting veterans. A federal civil service board is ordering the Department of Agriculture to rehire more than 5,000 workers laid off as part of the Trump Administration's efforts to slash the federal workforce. The Merit Systems Protection Board issued the order after the Office of Special Counsel found the agency acted illegally in firing probationary employees, who all received identical

termination letters informing them that they've been let go based on their performance. This day means fired employees must be reinstated for at least the next 45 days while an investigation continues. The ruling only affects the USDA, but other agencies have carried out similar mass firings of probationary employees, meaning the order could have a wider impact. Meanwhile, a federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from carrying out steep cuts to research funding at the National Institutes of Health.

The judge issued a nationwide preliminary injunction yesterday, arguing the funding cuts would cause irreparable harm and chaos. This comes after nearly 2,000 states filed lawsuits claiming the cuts were unlawful and would lead to layoffs and lab closures and could endanger patients. Sam, you've been digging into the brain drain from the federal government, depending on who's fired when. It does seem so sloppy, and almost from tariffs to these cuts, like self-sabotage, unless the plan is sort of to tank the economy and increase unemployment.

Well, it's definitely sabotage. to tank the economy and increase unemployment? Well, it's definitely sabotage. And do you read the setbacks that the administration has suffered? And people might say, well, that's good, right? Like some of these cuts are being reversed. These people are gonna get jobs. But the idea that this hasn't had a profound destabilizing impact is just not true.

So let's just take the NIH indirect costs cap. Yes, it's been put on hold by courts. But I've talked to people across multiple universities who are not hiring graduate assistants or faculty members in anticipation or just because they're being prudent, that though that cap might be reinstated. If you're looking, if you're in university and you say, oh my God, yeah, it's fine for now,

but in a month I may have to give up tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars in direct cost support from the government. I can't hire people right now. Look at the other hirings at the USA. Some grant money and awards have been put back online, but the people who are administering those awards can't get operational because they already fired people

who do the award and the grant work in the field. And even if they were to rehire people, there are other contractors that the opponent to do their work who are still fired. So all this is haphazard, messy, whatever adjective you want to apply to it, is a terribly inefficient way to run the government. And it begs the question,

why couldn't the administration have just come in, worked through the proper legal channels, even downsized agencies in legally permissible ways, restructured them, and avoided all this court mess? And the only answer that I have is that they wanted this. They wanted the chaos. Yeah, and we know that Donald Trump came in wanting a fight and wanted to be seen as a disruptor. And the message he took away from the first administration is if you don't

move fast, you get bogged down by the bureaucracy. And that's part of the reason, Willie, that we've seen this speed. But it has led to this legal chaos. And I guess it also leads the question a little bit like we were talking about tariffs. At what point does he start getting so much pushback from people around the country, Republicans around the country, elected members around the country, that this is disquieting? We've seen the thing about the town halls. Now some of that may have been people from outside their own districts. That might not help Democrats very much if they're busing people into these town halls,

as some Republicans have said. But it's certainly Republicans that I've spoken to have said, look, there are two areas where if you're cutting parks and if you're cutting anything to do with veterans, then there is real disquiet amongst their Republican constituents. I think Donald Trump's starting to realize that Elon Musk's popularity could be a problem for him going forward.

Unpopularity could be a problem for him going forward. Yeah, and the message is not subtle, is it? When you have Elon Musk in sunglasses holding a chainsaw proudly saying, I'm the guy who's hacking away at all these jobs on behalf of Donald Trump and now 80,000 at the VA. You can see that popping up in Democratic campaign ads, right? Yes, without question, without question. We'll talk more about all this, including another court challenge today to the USAID cuts as well. Still ahead this morning a live report from Tel Aviv as the U.S. holds unprecedented talks with Hamas breaking a long-held position of not negotiating with terrorists. Morning Jets coming back in 90 seconds.

Welcome back to some of the other stories making headlines this morning. South Korean fighter jets accidentally dropped bombs on a village during a training drill with U.S. forces. More than a dozen people were injured. South Korea's defense ministry said the incident was caused by a pilot inputting incorrect bombing coordinates. Several houses and a church were damaged. There is a new candidate in the crowded field for mayor of New York City.

Adrienne Adams, the city council speaker, entered the race with less than four months before the June primary, as the New York Times reports. She's hoping to position herself as a principled and scandal-free alternative to the incumbent Eric Adams and the presumptive favorite, former governor Andrew Cuomo. And for the second time in less than a week, a private spacecraft is about to land on the moon. The robotic lander was developed by a tech company based in Texas. It's about the size of a dishwasher and we'll spend a week looking for the possible presence of frozen water below the surface.

A separate Robotic Lander touched down on the lunar surface this past Sunday and turning to developments now out of the Middle East where US and Hamas officials have been holding direct talks in Qatar. White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt has confirmed reports the presidential envoy for hostage affairs met with Hamas officials

in recent weeks. This is the first time the US has engaged directly with Hamas since it was designated a terrorist organization in 1997. Levitt was asked about that shift in policy. If the U.S. has a long-standing policy that we do not negotiate with terrorists, then why is the U.S. now negotiating directly and for the first time ever with Hamas? Well, when it comes to the negotiations that you're referring to, first of all, the special

envoy who's engaged in those negotiations does have the authority to talk to anyone. Israel was consulted on this matter. And look, dialogue and talking to people around the world to do what's in the best interest of the American people is something that the president has proven is what he believes is good faith effort to do what's right for the American people. The press secretary did not get into details about what was discussed between the two parties, but a pair of sources tell Axios the meetings focused on the release of American hostages, as well as that long-term truce with Israel.

Meanwhile, President Trump is issuing what he says is the last warning to Hamas to release the remaining 59 hostages still being held in Gaza. In a post to Truth Social, the president wrote, release all of the hostages now or it is over for you. That comment came after Trump met with eight former hostages. According to the White House, the president listened to their stories and the group thanked him for his efforts in securing their release. For more now, let's bring in NBC News international correspondent, Matt Bradley,

live in Tel Aviv. So Matt, what more do we know about these conversations between the Trump administration and Hamas? Yeah, well, precious little Willie, as you've heard from the White House spokeslady not talking about the White House right now. Yeah Well, precious little Willie as you heard from the White House spokes lady, we

haven't actually heard anything really about the details and PR reported that these conversations may have started back in January, and it's possible they heard this from Hamas. It's possible that this might have even started under

the previous administration of Joe Biden, but this is a real big diplomatic bombshell, as you mentioned. The United States is enjoined to not speak with designated terrorists. That's been really the convention. But the fact is, as Caroline Levitt, the spokeswoman for the White House said, this is the hostage negotiator who is doing this speaking. So this is, I suppose this is allowed

under international law or under US law to be able to speak with designated terrorists. Now, whether or not this gets any gain, that's unclear. This is going to be focused on the of the 59 hostages who are still remaining in the Gaza Strip. About five of them are Americans. Only one American is still alive, Aiden Alexander. And so these are going to be focused on the Americans. This was something that actually been mentioned by the Biden administration before that they might consider speaking directly to Hamas in order to try to get those Americans out after they became frustrated with Israel's, you know, intractable position when it came

to peace negotiations or some sort of peace treaty. That treaty has now been in place since late January, just about a day before Trump took office and has freed quite a few hostages and quite a few Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. But, you know, this new embrace, diplomatic expansiveness that we're seeing from the administration kind of goes both ways as well. A right-wing member of the Israeli cabinet, Bezalel Smotrich, he's the finance minister and has been since 2022. He was, you know, essentially persona non grata in Washington, not in any official capacity, but people weren't speaking to him. He's a settler in a settlement in the West Bank

that is considered to be a settlement that is illegal under international law. He has been in Washington and he's been having meetings. So a lot of this now is changing. We're seeing this new administration taking a new initiative to speak to just about everybody and not just Hamas, but also lawmakers on the far right. So we're seeing a big change. And again, the question becomes whether or not this is actually going to affect any change on the ground.

We're at a critical moment for that because right now we saw the very end just on Saturday of the first phase of that treaty between Hamas and Israel that was pushed forward by the Trump administration even before Trump came to office. It was under the terms that the Biden administration had been negotiating for the better part of the past year. Now that first phase has reached an end. The Israelis have made clear that they don't want to negotiate onto a second phase. That would see a more permanent sort of treaty in the Gaza Strip.

And it would eventually see the full and final withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip. Instead, Hamas has said they want to see negotiations moving on to the second phase of the treaty. The Israelis have said that they want to see a seven week extension of the first part of that treaty, which saw weekly exchanges of hostages held in the Gaza Strip for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. So once again, we're reaching a critical impasse and a threat that we could see war renew in

the Gaza Strip. Willie? And that one American hostage still being held, Adon Alexander, a young man from New Jersey, still with Gaza, and hopefully he gets home soon. NBC's Matt Bradley live for us in Tel Aviv. Matt, thanks so much. We appreciate it. So, John, obviously this is, it's always a delicate time in this negotiation between

the two, but now a conversation between the Trump administration and Hamas. On the one hand, on the other hand, other hand the president United States posting on his social media account that Hamas better come to the table better stop what it's doing or it's over for you fair to ask what he means by that Exactly. Yeah a little bit of a carrot-and-stick approach it would seem here and and we also in the last day or so as part Of this we've heard from some of the the Gulf states with their own Suggestions about how to rebuild Gaza and the future of that enclave because they so oppose President Trump's suggestion that it be cleared out of the Palestinians who live there and then redeveloped.

Israel has backed that. Israel now opposes what the Gulf states are suggesting instead. But this is, I mean, we should take Trump, you know, this post yesterday came right after we met these families of the of the hostages of those who have been there was an emotional meeting, I am told. So it's hard to know exactly if there'll be follow through to what he said yesterday. But these are these are this is not the first time he's issued a stark warning to Hamas saying this conflict needs to end. These hostages need to be released.

Miko or there could be real punishment. And he said that Israel will get whatever it wants in terms of weaponry. We know the Biden administration briefly pause some of the heavy armaments that could change. Maybe even more arms would head to Israel to conduct to conduct the battle if indeed the war reignites. So something to watch there. And I know where you are right now, you know, nervous people watching in the region. Absolutely. And coming up, we're gonna debunk some of the claims

President Trump made during his joint address to Congress, from the economy to foreign policy. Plus, New York City's Democratic Mayor, Eric Adams, was on Capitol Hill to talk about immigration, but instead faced criticism from members of his own party. We'll dig into that straight ahead on Morning Joe. Welcome back. So I'm in Abu Dhabi for the Know Your Value and Forbes fourth annual 3050 summit just ahead of International Women's Day, which is on Saturday.

It's a global event that creates cross-generational alliances and cross-cultural alliances to provide guidance and insights to women in every stage of their lives and careers, while also offering diverse perspectives and rich cultural immersion. We have women from 46 countries here at this summit. Earlier today I interviewed Emmy award winning actress Cheryl Lee Ralph about her career and advocacy work and tomorrow Cheryl will receive the Know Your Value Award at a special ceremony at the Louvre Abu Dhabi. Now this year's 3050 summit falls during the holy month of Ramadan, where Muslims in the region and around the world observe a month of fasting, prayer, and reflection.

So, to honor and experience this important time of year, later tonight, we'll participate in Iftar, the meal enjoyed after breaking fast. The event will take place at the Abrahamic Family House, a complex dedicated to the pursuit of peaceful coexistence. We'll have a lot more for you tomorrow as we gear up for our award ceremony and town hall event. And later in today's show, we'll have a special report from NBC's Chloe Malas, who is here. She has report all about the summit. In the meantime, here's a little bit from my incredible conversation with Cheryl Lee Ralph

about the importance of women advocating for themselves and literally taking a seat in the front row. Too often women get comfortable sitting in the back seat. Right. You figure, oh, well, that's all right. Let them shine. Let them go. Right. You figure, oh, well, that's all right. Let them shine. Let them go. You better move yourself right up front.

I think in my life, what if Rosa Parks was very satisfied sitting in the back? Rosa Parks at one point said, you know what? I'm sick and tired of having less. Let me move myself to the front seat. And her moving herself literally to the front seat changed everything for generations of people, not just women. Move yourself to the front seat. There are three, four empty seats. What?

Now, here we go. Look how slow. Come on. Uh-huh. Okay. Bring some seats up. All right. A lot more on that. I head back to the news now. We're taking a closer look at President Trump's joint address to Congress.

Steve Ratner is back with more fact checks. There are a lot, Steve. First up, President Trump doubled down on one of his biggest campaign promises, which is making his 2017 tax cuts permanent. Watch. We're seeking permanent income tax cuts all across the board. And to get urgently needed relief to Americans hit especially hard by inflation, I'm calling for no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, and no tax on social security benefits for our great seniors. And I also want to make interest payments on car loans tax deductible, but only if the

car is made in America. Okay, okay, OK. So, Steve, you say that's impossible to do with the House Republicans' budget proposal. Yeah, look, Trump hands out tax cuts like they were Halloween candy, but then at some point you've got to deal with the reality of what that all adds up to. So let's take a look at the reality. The chickens are coming home to roost on that.

So he's talking about no tax on Social Security, no tax on overtime, no tax on tips, no tax on interest loans on cars made here. These are billions and billions of dollars of tax cuts. Simply extending his existing tax cuts, the ones that he passed in 2017 down here, would cost over $4 trillion. The House Budget Committee has only allocated $4.5 trillion for all the tax cuts. So you could do this, which he's completely committed to, but how the rest of this happens, including a full deduction of the state and local taxes, is impossible.

This is almost $8 trillion worth of tax cuts. So this is an empty promise. Can't happen, won't happen. And one of the things that drew, well let's say shock, surprise, some mockery from the address the other night was President Trump, given what you've laid out there, promising to balance the budget. Here's that moment from the address. And in the near future, I want to do what has not been done in 24 years, balance the federal budget.

We're going to balance that. Steve, how does he plan to do that? Well, first of all, in his first term, he planned not only to balance the budget, but to pay off all the national debt. That didn't work so well. He added a ton of national debt. But let's look at how it isn't going to work this time.

So we are looking in what we call a base case without anything else happening. We are looking at deficits a bit below $2 trillion, going all the way up to $3 trillion over the next 10 years. A total already, these dark green bars, of $20 trillion of additional debt. The budget plan that I just described would add another two and a half, roughly, trillion dollars of debt. So instead of balancing the budget and paying down the debt, he's creating more deficits, all these deficits, and adding 22 and a half trillion dollars to the debt.

All right. So President Trump addressed tariffs the other day and said they would be positive for the auto industry. Deals are being made. Never seen that. That's a combination of the election win and tariffs. It's a beautiful word, isn't it? That, along with our other policies, will allow our auto industry to absolutely boom.

It's gonna boom. Spoke to the majors today, all three, the top people, and they're so excited. Tariffs, he deems a beautiful word. At other times, he said it's his favorite word. And Steve, but we also know yesterday, he's already backed off some of the tariffs for the auto industry.

What do your charts say? Well, he may think it's a beautiful word. He may think the auto industry is going to boom. Neither the auto companies nor the auto industry is going to boom. Neither the auto companies nor the stock market see it that way. So here's a chart of stock prices for Ford and General Motors since the inauguration day compared to the overall market. The overall market we know has come down, still up here.

Ford and General Motors kind of went off a cliff after inauguration. Down 10% for General Motors, about 7.5% for Ford. And here's a quote from the Ford CEO before yesterday, tariffs will blow a hole in the industry that we have never seen. And so he said in his speech just now that he had spoken to all three automakers and they were happy. Well, a day later they called the White House and said, no, we're really not so happy. We need you to at least pause these tariffs and hopefully get rid of them.

So Trump also touched on how tariffs, a different set of tariffs, may affect America's farm workers. Let's listen to some of that. Our new trade policy will also be great for the American farmer. I love the farmer. Yeah! Who will now be selling into our home market, the USA, because nobody is going to be able to compete with you. He later said that farmers go have fun, but Steve, you say that they'll lose a huge market to actually sell their goods. Well, he may love the farmers. I'm not so sure they love him at the moment. Let's just go back to Trump won for a second, because he also put tariffs on, as you remember then,

and there were retaliatory tariffs. In 2018 and 19, the government collected a total of $50 billion from all the tariffs that we imposed on things coming into this country. We then gave back $24.5 billion to the farmers to compensate them for their loss to exports. So that did not go so well. Let's see why. We export a huge amount of soybeans, $7.7 billion, and even more of corn, $13.1 billion.

We export virtually none of it. So if we lose these exports, this stuff stays in the American market. Americans are already buying all the soybeans and corn they want to buy. So I don't really see how this is great for American farmers, how this sort of allows them to, quote, sell things at home

when we're already selling everything we can at home and sending the rest of it overseas as one of our major exports. So let's keep going with this. President Trump also the other night slammed USA to Ukraine during his address to Congress. We've spent perhaps 350 billion dollars like taking candy from a baby that's what happened and they've spent a hundred billion dollars. What a difference that is Before we get to your charts, we should note of course the next day the Trump administration paused in tailsharing with Ukraine and what's happened since Russia has only increased its bombardment of Ukrainian cities now Ukraine tries to defend itself with less

Information, but Steve turning back to what the president said the other night, talk to us there about your chart. This is one of the most weird and surprising ones, Jonathan. He's used those figures over and over and over again. He's been corrected by me and 100 other people over and over and over again. And he still keeps using it. So we'll try one more time.

Maybe he's watching. Maybe someone will finally get him to say what is actually true. He claims $350 billion spent by the U.S. and Ukraine. The real number, $120 billion, and as you say, paused. And just to make a mention, the reason this line isn't as continuous as this line is because of huge fights in the U.S. over aid to Ukraine. A lot of opposition.

Eventually, we did do it. Europe, $138 billion, more than us, not $100 billion, as he claimed. And by the way, Europe at the moment is putting together a massive amount of additional aid. And as you just alluded to, we are cutting back on what we are doing for the Ukrainians. And lastly, President Trump touted Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency during his address. Here's what Trump claimed. We found hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud.

All right, Steve, has Doge found anywhere near as much fraud as Trump claims? Well, it was kind of mind-numbing the other night to listen to Trump list those programs one by one by one that he's found and make fun of them and so forth. They were only in the millions of dollars. And when you actually add up everything Doge has claimed and also the Doge reality, you get a very different picture. So on February 17th, Doge claimed that they had found eight and a half billion, not hundreds of billions,

eight and a half billion dollars of savings. I'm not gonna go through this whole chart, but basically a bunch of that stuff just disappeared from their website, $2.7 billion here for example, and when you get down to the bottom, at the moment anyway, all Doge is claiming is $2.3 billion from contracts that have been terminated and another $2.5 billion that they say they're in the middle of doing.

And so $4.8 billion of total fraud, so-called fraud or contracts canceled, so forth, less than what they said at the beginning and obviously just like the tiniest little fraction of what Trump claims they have found. Just a great fact check. Point by point from Morning Joe economic analyst Steve Ratner. Steve, thanks so much as always. Still ahead this morning, Democratic congressman Robert Garcia of California will join the conversation on President Trump's tariffs and its impact

to Americans and the broader economy. Plus, NBC's Dr. Vin Gupta will give us the latest update on the growing measles outbreak with nine states now confirming at least one case. Also ahead, we'll dive into the future of so-called digital companionship, whatever that is, and why it's now shifting how people interact with artificial intelligence. Morgan Radford has that report for us when Morning Joe comes right back. Live look at the Capitol a few minutes before the top of the hour.

Congressional Republicans were reportedly caught off guard when President Trump attacked the Chips and Science Act during his joint address. Your Chips Act is a horrible, horrible thing. We give hundreds of billions of dollars and it doesn't mean a thing. They take our money and they don't spend it. You should get rid of the CHIP Act and whatever's left over, Mr. Speaker. You should use it to reduce debt or any other reason you want to. Well, members of the party instinctively stood up and clapped in the moment.

There's actually little momentum among GOP lawmakers to repeal the bipartisan legislation. NBC News reports, though Republicans were aware of Trump's opposition to the legislation, senior lawmakers were not given a heads up that Trump would make those demands during his joint address, and they have no plans to take up a repeal of the law anytime soon. The CHIPS Act passed with some more support from both parties and was signed into law by President Biden in 2022. It allocated billions of dollars in funding to boost production of semiconductors and CHIPS in the United States. It also increased funding for research and development. House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters yesterday he would wait to see how President Trump handles the legislation

when the White House reveals its budget proposal but some Republican senators that voted for the bill are speaking out. The Chips and Science Act, at least the chips portion, has mostly been implemented. It's been one of the greatest successes of our time. Generally speaking, I want to bring chip manufacturing here. But if he's got a different way to do it, I'm open mind. I don't think that's likely to happen. All right, joining us now, the host of way too early Ali Battali, White House correspondent for

Reuters, Jeff Mason, and MSNBC political analyst, Elise Jordan. So Ali, they seem a little caught off guard there. They were caught off guard there, especially because this is a bipartisan bill that was then later being built upon just in the last week or so, Trump announcing more investments into the production of semiconductors and chips. So, as I was talking yesterday, as I was talking yesterday with Congresswoman Haley Stevens, who is someone that backed this bill but then also was hoping to build upon it in bipartisan

fashion during this Congress, she said she spoke with Republican senators who were very flummoxed by this. And you can even see it from the conversations that they're having there on the Hill, the instinctive clapping, and then the, wait, what was that, as Republicans are, again, trying to orient themselves within Trump's Washington. But Jeff, again, this is something that the White House was building on,

the investment structure that the CHIPS Act actually created for them just a few years ago. And as we've already said, it was bipartisan. It's something that both sides have seen as a success. I think politically it's also kind of another example of all things that were Biden for Trump are bad. And he doesn't distinguish between things that were just Democratic efforts or just Biden White House efforts, but also something that had support from both sides of the aisle and that has this common goal of bringing chips manufacturing back to the United States,

which is an economically positive thing, regardless of who's in the White House. Sam, how much communication is there at the moment between the White House and Republican members on something like this? Who would have got a heads-up? How much pushback is there starting to be from members on the House when they're not happy with something the White House is announcing?

Right. So there is communication, right? They are in touch with Hill constantly, but that doesn't mean it's always constructive or always fruitful. In particular, over the past couple days and weeks, what we've seen is that Republicans feel like Doge and Elon Musk have just kind of gone off the rails a little bit, that they're making these indiscriminate cuts to programs and to personnel in ways that are affecting their constituents and their districts.

And so yesterday, Elon Musk's on the Hill, and he's getting an earful from both House and Senate Republicans, a respectful earful, I should say, about that they need more coordination, that they need to get a heads up when some cut is gonna happen. And Musk's response to them is, look, I don't buy the thousand. Like, I cannot, everyone can hit them out of the park. And here's my cell phone number

in case you want me to reverse a cut that I've made. Now, of course, that's the most idiotic way to do governance. You should probably have a better plan on the front end before reversing it on the back end. But that's what the system is. And I will just say, and I'll leave it here, the frustration is not just from Republicans

on the Hill towards Musk, it's from Trump allies off the Hill towards Musk, because they wanna actually reduce the government in a long-standing comprehensive and in a way that will stand the test of time. And they believe that Musk is doing this in a way that is actually going to fail because it will be beaten down by courts and then reversed when the next president, Democratic president

comes into office. Yeah. And you make the point of what's happening on the Hill. As Musk physically went there yesterday, billionaire Elon Musk meeting with Senate Republicans behind closed doors to discuss the sweeping cuts that his Doge team is making across government agencies. During that meeting, senators reportedly told Musk, not just the frustrations that you're talking about, Sam, but that his department's aggressive moves to shrink the federal workforce

will need a vote at some point on Capitol Hill, which everyone has been saying. Senators explained how Congress could codify those cuts by passing a rescission package, which is an obscure legislative tool. According to NBC News, multiple senators and Musk were surprised to learn there was a viable legislative pathway to making Doge's cuts permanent. Senator Lindsey Graham told reporters Musk was so happy when he heard the news, he pumped his fists and dance.

And you know, credit to my colleagues and friends in the Capitol Hill Press Corps who said, hey, Elon Musk, if you're giving out your phone number, you wanna give it to us too. I think a lot of us have questions about how this is actually being implemented here, Jeff. Also, just such an interesting example of government 101 that this top advisor now to President Trump

is learning that, oh, there's actually a legislative way to do this. There's a way to do this that's legal that might actually be permanent to achieve some of the goals that he's trying to achieve on behalf of the president, but has been doing so far in a way that is not landing well with Republicans or Democrats. Yeah, there's a legislative branch.

Yeah, what? Because it's power of the purse, right? And let's talk about the Democrats for a minute, because after James Carville's op-ed saying they should play possum, and then we saw them at the State of the Union, sort of State of the Union, with some dissent in a kind of a slightly weird way.

What's the current thinking, Jeff, amongst Democrats on what the strategy is? I know they're hoping that there's overreach. They're hoping that something happens with Medicaid that spooks voters. But is that a wishful thinking on behalf of the Democrats, given the polling around the Doge issues in the country still? Yeah.

I think just watching that address, which was not officially a State of the Union, and watching the response from the Democrats underscores the fact that they're not all on the same page and that there isn't really a strategy. There isn't a singular leader. There isn't a singular figurehead. You had some people wearing pink. You had others holding these little paddles. That was—

That was basically the split between the progressive caucus and the centrists. That's certainly part of it. And I think it's also just a sign of the fact that the party is in the wilderness. They had an opportunity that night to show a little bit of resistance. It's the first time really since President Trump's inauguration that they also had a spotlight. And it just didn't work.