Morning Joe - Morning Joe 5/11/23

Episode Date: May 11, 2023

Trump doubles down on lies and insults in town hall

It was the largest crowd I've ever spoken to. That was prior to the walk down to the Capitol building. I don't think, and I've spoken to hundreds of thousands of people. I've never spoken to a crowd as large as this. And that was because they thought the election was rigged. And they were there proud. They were there with love in their heart. That was an unbelievable and it was a beautiful day.

That's Donald Trump last night in his CNN town hall calling January 6th a beautiful day. The event, of course, last night, full of lies, misleading statements. We'll go through the biggest ones and also his comments about writer E. Jean Carroll that drew laughs and cheers from the crowd. Good morning. Welcome to Morning Joe. It is Thursday, May 11th. With us, we've got the host of Way Too Early, White House Bureau Chief of Politico, Jonathan Lemire, former White House Director of Communications to President Obama, Jen Palmieri, presidential historian John Meacham and congressional investigations reporter for The Washington Post, Jackie Alimany. Joe, we watched last night a rerun of what we saw in 2016 and what we saw throughout the Donald Trump's presidency.

He committed again last night the claim that the election was rigged in 2020. It was not, of course. He called January 6th a beautiful day. He said he was going to pardon the people who attacked police officers on that day. The list goes on and on and on. Would not commit to supporting Ukraine in its war with Russia. We'll get into some of it. But frankly, no surprises in what we saw or what he said last night. No surprises. And yet it was just it was a disgraceful performance. Yes. I'm constantly telling people not to catastrophize over Trump, that he's actually going to lose because he keeps drilling down deeper and deeper into his base. But it is it is I can't believe I'm going to use catastrophizing language here. But it was it was just it was disgraceful on every level.

It showed I wouldn't say it's dangerous for democracy because we passed that a long time ago, but it showed the corrosive effects of Trumpism over eight years. And I've got to say, the most shocking part was an audience who cheered on a president who tried to overturn American democracy, an audience that mocked and ridiculed a woman who a jury of her peers, Donald Trump's peers found had been sexually assaulted. Those Americans there last night turned that into a punchline. Laughed and dismissed. Cops getting the shit kicked out of them. On January the 6th, beaten up over and over again. Calling a cop, a thug who actually was trying to stop people from the house floor from being killed.

I could go, I just could go on and on, basically saying he would turn over Ukraine to Vladimir Putin. It was on John Mitchell on every front. You could go piece by piece by piece to talk about how breathtakingly dangerous what we saw was last night, this this virus of lies that's been loosened on the American people. But what we saw last night was it was a propagandist. And it was a propagandist spewing lies repeatedly over and over and over and over and over again. And an audience, an American audience, lapping it up. This isn't Putin's Russia.

This is Trump's slice of America. And what I saw last night, at least, was as chilling as anything I've seen on television since January the 6th. Yeah, what we're looking at is that his reality has become our reality, and he has largely invented the way he sees the world. It's dark. It's dystopian. It's divisive. We're all the way back to I alone can fix it. I alone can save the country from this abyss. And it doesn't take a huge amount of imagination to see what he thinks is the abyss. And I think we're always two weeks away from chaos, right? That's the nature of humankind, of history. This should not be surprising to people. What it must be, however, is a reminder that if you believe in American democracy, if you believe in a rule of law that protects you and your neighbor, not just because it's the right thing to do, but because of your neighbors protected, they're more likely to respect you.

If you believe in that, then this is the choice. It's very clear. You and I can go on and we can talk about Jefferson and Madison and and all of that. But it's very clear if you believe in a country of decency and opportunity, you have a choice. If you believe in a country that in which is animated by grievance, you have your choice. Yeah, you do. And I'm going to say again, I again is as horrific as last night was. I'm just going to say the same thing. I say every time he says something that that veers off the cliff and is so counter to American tradition, the American Constitution, American constitutional political norms, it will end up hurting him in the end. But Willie, listen, I do think and I'm not I'm not going to sit here tonight and point fingers at anybody. It was a tough assignment. I will say I hope reporters, journalists will look at what happened last night and see that as basically a preseason film about, you know, and study it to see what what needs to be avoided moving forward. There is, and we've said this before, said it before,

you can't get past the first question until the first question is answered, which is, is Joe Biden president? Is Joe Biden president? You say the election was rigged. 63 federal judges, Mr. President, 63 federal judges all said you were lying, all said there was there was no widespread election fraud. Sixty three. Your own Supreme

Court, Mr. President, said you were lying, that there was no widespread fraud. Even Alito and Thomas wrote that there weren't enough votes, even if you took all of Trump's arguments, to change the outcome of Pennsylvania, which was the case before them at the time. A state that he brought up last night, Arizona, Willie, we've talked about it. How many recounts did Republican officials in Arizona, Republican officials in Arizona make? They even sent out the cyber punks who were going to rig the election for Trump. And the cyber punks actually added to Biden's totals. Georgia, forgive me for being exhaustive. This is what everybody has to do. Georgia, Republican election officials repeatedly, repeatedly said that Donald Trump lost. The Trumpy governor of Georgia said it. The Trumpy secretary of state in Georgia said it. It was so bad he recorded a phone call while Trump was telling him to throw out just enough votes for him to win. You don't ever get past that to talk about regulations or energy policy. You can't in 2024 as this election heats up, it just you just don't get there.

And if you do ever get past that, then you've got to stay on January the 6th until that that's exhausted. And it didn't happen last night. But again, that's that serves as a notice to the rest of us moving forward about what we need to do in 2024, because we're on notice. We've had we've had eight years of notice and we cannot let him just spew lies nonstop in any interview or any town hall meeting. And the moderator, Caitlin Collins, did have some of that information and did push back on it. The problem was in that format, it was a rally. It wasn't a town hall. It was full of Trump supporters. They laughed at every insult he threw out there. They supported every lie he told. And he fed off that as he does turn to the audience as an ally against her. Within the first few minutes of his CNN town hall last night, Trump already was pushing that lie about the 2020

election. Why should Americans put you back in the White House? Because we did fantastically. We got 12 million more votes than we had in, as you know, in 2016. I actually say we did far better in that election. It was a rigged election and it's a shame that we had to go through it. It's very bad for our country. All over the world, they looked at it. It was not a rigged election. It was a rigged election, and it's a shame that we had to go through it. It's very bad for our country. All over the world, they looked at it. It was not a rigged election. It was not a stolen election. You and your supporters lost more than 60 court cases on the election. It's been nearly two and a half years. Can you publicly acknowledge that you did lose the 2020 election? Let me just go on. If you look at Truth of Vote, they found millions of votes on camera, on government cameras

where they were stuffing ballot boxes. Republican officials debunked those claims about fraudulent ballots. We want to give you a chance tonight. Who? Republican officials in Georgia and every single state. There is no your own election officials, Mr. President. So we wanted to take on the issue. But we have a big problem in this country. We have we wanted to give you a chance to acknowledge the elections that were horrible. A question to you is, will you pardon the January six rioters who were convicted of federal offenses? I am inclined to pardon many of them. I can say for every every single one because a couple of them probably they got out of control. What they've done to these people, they've persecuted these people. And yeah, my

answer is I am most likely if I get in, I will most likely I would say it will be a large portion of them. So again, John, Donald Trump said January 6th was a beautiful day. His words there, he said people were there with love in their hearts and then sort of conceded as an aside. Some of them got out of control, but said, I'm going to let the people out of jail who beat up cops. And we all saw it happen with our own eyes. It was lie after lie after lie.

Donald Trump has not changed. He was in this is who he was in 2016. This is who he was in 2020. Nothing has changed. And he lied and he ran roughshod last night. And you started to talk about it a moment ago, Willie. The deep flaw of that event last night was the crowd. It was Republican voters. There were Trump supporters. People who worked on Trump's previous campaign were spotted as audience members last night. We know that emails were sent out to Trump

Republican clubs to say, hey, come cheer on the former president of the United States at this town hall. And they did act like a rally. And it was what he called the moderator nasty. The crowd laughed and cheered. He called E.G. Carroll, who we spoke to yesterday, called her a whack job. The crowd laughed and cheered. And that was the normalizing of this that gave him a way out that gave him allies there in the audience. And that was the normalizing of this. That gave him a way out. That gave him allies there in the audience. And it again shows how he has just reshaped the Republican Party in his image, the complete dominance of the party. And he was given this opportunity last night to talk to them and show again that he's in charge. The counter, though, and Joe started to mention that

earlier, I heard from senior Biden people last night, basically said that was an hour long campaign ad for us. And the president's response afterward was a tweet saying, look, if you want four more years of, you know, to avoid that, you know, vote for me. You don't want to go back to that. So there it is again, this sort of dichotomy, where everything Trump is doing right now seems to further his hold on Republicans, but probably hurts him in the general election. But of course, if you're in the final two, you've inherently got a shot. Joe, of course he has a shot. We've been saying that from the beginning. But you always talk about politics being a game of addition and not subtraction. If you watch those 70 minutes last night, was there a single voter who said, you know what, I was thinking about voting for Joe

Biden or I'm an independent who's not in love with Joe Biden. But I like what I saw last night. I'm going to go vote for Donald Trump. And that's something we have. We've been talking about for years, something that I've never understood. I would say Donald Trump, if Donald Trump had dropped all of this garbage and talked about the economy, 2018, 2019, going into 2020, had done his best to handle COVID, he would have been reelected. He just would have. You look at the map, you best to handle COVID, he would have been reelected. He just would have. You look at the map, you look at the numbers, he could have been reelected, but he kept he kept, again, sort of boiling his support down. And it continues to happen. And Jonathan just brings up a great point. You have a guy, first of all, still lying about the election being rigged.

That's a minority view in America by a large swath of people. In fact, that ABC poll that was supposed to be horrible for Joe Biden, a majority of Americans said Trump should be arrested, should be arrested for what he tried to do in rigging the 2020 election. That's how much of a minority thing it is. Praising convicts, praising rioters who beat the hell out of cops and defecated in the people's house, the United States House of Representatives. He's praising these people. Yes, it's it's horrifying. It's horrifying. But it hurts him politically. Again, we can go down the list mocking and ridiculing a woman who was sexually abused by Donald Trump, sexually abused by Donald Trump, according to a jury of his peers.

That woman mocked and ridiculed. And this Republican audience of Republican club members and and people, these Trump loyalists, they're mocking and ridiculing a woman that a jury just found had been sexually abused. Sexually abused. That doesn't help Donald Trump. It crushes him in the Atlanta suburbs. That crushes him in the Philly suburbs. It crushes him in Wisconsin. It crushes him in the Detroit suburbs.

All the places he needs to gain. Last night, the Trump campaign loved what they saw because they're stupid. They really are. They're just colossally stupid if they think that was good for them in a general election. And the Biden White House, thrilled that he once again showed his colors. There's breaking news that just broke across Financial Times. Jeffrey Katzenberg, this morning, news breaking, said he will do whatever it takes. He will provide whatever money is needed from his fortune to make sure Donald Trump is not elected president of the United States.

Do you know how many people are waking up this morning saying that. Do you know how many people are waking up this morning saying that? Do you know how many people are waking up this morning saying, you know what, I need to get involved in 2024 and stop this fascist, stop this liar, stop this guy who elevates Vladimir Putin and trashes America and calls it the greatest threat to Western civilization. Now, there is there is this morning a lightning bolt going through the American electorate, and it's reminding everybody the stakes of a second Donald Trump presidency. So last night, bad for democracy, bad for for media. But even worse, Jackie, for Donald Trump. And, you know, about January the 6th, you know, the numbers, you know, the majority of Americans don't buy what Donald Trump was trying to sell

last night or on January the 6th. But but, E. Jean Carroll being mocked and ridiculed, a woman sexually abused, being mocked and ridiculed by that audience, a really horrific, horrific thing, and politically,

a horrific look for Donald Trump and his Republican Party. Yeah, Joe, I mean, I covered the rise of Trumpism in New Hampshire. I was living there in 2015 and 2016. And then last night was really felt like a regurgitation of those those two years, especially in New Hampshire voters and Republican Trump supporting voters who were loving what Trump was serving up to them. Got to give Caitlin Collins some credit for trying to hold Trump's feet to the fire. But as you've all noted, Trump is a spigot of misinformation.

And, you know, it's doing so and fact checking every single thing he said is a real challenge. But I mean, it should be noted that the Supreme Court was the most conservative it's been in 90 years, in part thanks to Trump. And they rejected the Trump campaign's appeals to challenge Biden's to challenge Trump, Trump's challenges to Biden's election victory. And I think that what's also been lost, really, in this conversation, there's been some criticisms from the right of the kinds of questions that were being asked to Trump. But these very basic questions about sexual assault, about believing in free and fair elections, about publicly claiming, publicly acknowledging that you fairly lost the 2020 election are pivotal and important to long-term democratic norms without,

you know, confidence in free and fair elections. That long-term Democratic development is threatened and imperiled and has global implications. So, you know, it's definitely a snapshot of what we're going to see going forward of what voter base voters want to see from the Republican nominee. And a pretty good, I think, case study for Democratic candidates for Joe Biden going forward in the next two years leading up to November 2024. Yeah, tough, unfair questions like, will you respect the outcome of the 2024 election? He would not commit to doing that either. So, Jen Palmieri, forgive me for triggering your PTSD, but you all ran against Donald Trump in 2016. What did you see last night? And if you were working on the Biden campaign, would you be heartened by what you saw? Not for the country, certainly, but for your chances to

be reelected? It's so boring, right? You'd be I think if you're the Biden campaign, you're thinking, OK, that that did show for everyone what's at stake here. But also it's scary because that showed for everybody what is at stake for democracy. And, you know, it did it did sort of show for me the cumulative impact of Trumpism over the last eight years that he's really been part of our politics. Like, remember, like the New Hampshire town hall. It's not just a thing with presidential politics. It's a storied place in American democracy. The idea that you have civil town halls where people who are undecided, right, not sure who they're going to support, come together to have a respectful conversation where they ask questions of candidates. You know, this is something that I'd say 2004 is probably the height of that with like with the CNN, MSNsmc other people doing town halls like that with presidential candidates they wanted to bring the new hampshire experience the civil uh good politics uh new

hampshire experience to television and trump just made a mockery of that right the crowd it was like caitlin collins was like having to serve as a truth translator at a Trump rally. So for the Biden campaign, you know, what does it go back to? We saw that all on stage. Finish the job, right? He talked about when he announced his reelection a couple weeks ago, he finished the job with a lot of policy initiatives, guns, things like paid leave, child care, climate. But, you know, he ran to defeat Trump and Trumpism is still here. And when he talks about finish the job now, we're going to, you know, have that the images that we saw last night in our heads. And as John pointed out, President Biden last night on Twitter saying simply something that will resonate with a lot of people.

Quote, Do you want four more years of that? After watching the town hall, Donald Trump also defended his comments from the 2005 Access Hollywood tape, where he's heard saying celebrities can do anything they want to a woman. You'll remember that tape. That was a key part of E. Jean Carroll's civil rape case against him. Of your star, you are. And I said, women let you. I didn't say you, and I said, women let you. I didn't say you, Grip.

I said women let. You know, you didn't use that word. But if you look, women let you. Now, they said, will you take that back? I said, look, for a million years, this is the way it's been. I want to be honest. This is the way it's been. I can take it back if you'd like to.

But if you're a famous person but if you're a famous person, if you're a star, and I'm not referring to myself. I'm saying people that are famous, people that are stars, people that are rich, people that are powerful, they tend to do pretty well in a lot of different ways, okay? And you

would like me to take that back? I can't take it back because it happens to be true. I said it's been true for one million years, approximately a million years, perhaps a little bit longer than that. So you stand by those comments? I don't want to lie. Mr. President, here's what she wants to say. A rich and famous person has no advantage over anyone else. Well, you do have an advantage. And I say, unfortunately, but that's the way it is. You said fortunately or unfortunately. Well, fortunately or unfortunately for her. Wow. So if you're keeping score at home, and I understand it might be hard to because of all the lies that were spewed last night.

Donald Trump just said that if you're a star like him, which he did say in the deposition, of course he was a star, and if you're wealthy and powerful, that you will do better in a number of ways. And his definition of doing better in a number of ways, going back to the Access Hollywood tape, is reaching out and sexually abusing women. His words, his words, it's just it's straightforward. So here we have again a night that is bad for democracy, a night that was bad for the media, a night that was bad for CNN, a night that was bad for, well, Donald Trump's campaign. Again, the winner last night from just that absolute monstrosity of a town hall meeting with an audience shipped in from, I mean, I thought we were supposed to have swing voters there. An audience shipped in from Republican clubs across the state of New Hampshire.

The only winner was Joe Biden. That's why Jeffrey Katzenberg, again, according to Breaking News, has said, I am now going to give whatever money I have to give to stop Donald Trump. And again, like I said, this is, last night was in a sense a political earthquake. I said

it was a lightning bolt. It was a political earthquake. And people are waking up this morning understanding once again the consequences of Donald Trump in the White House, a guy who has breached one political norm after another, one constitutional norm after another. And, you know, you look at this. And Jackie Alimany, let me go back to you. You have the most important part going back to Trump, what Willie brought up, that Trump's just hurting himself here by pushing away the very people he needs on board. He is now in a Republican party. He's running a Republican party and he's sending a message to women across America that if you're successful, I want to get his words right. They do well in a number of ways. And one of those

ways, he said, referring back to the the Access Hollywood tape, was the ability to just walk up and sexually abuse women. You have Donald Trump and a Republican party that require 10 year old girls who are raped to be chased out of their states. You have Donald Trump and a Republican party that's still lying about January 6th, still lying about a rigged election. And it's only going to hurt Donald Trump. It's only going to, again, in all of those suburbs, all of that madness that happened last night at the end of the day is only going to hurt Trump. But this is where we are. It doesn't make it any less damaging to democracy that that was allowed to go on TV last night. This is certainly not attracting any independent, swingy, college-educated women voters to the Republican Party, for those who either watched in real time last night or reading the headlines

this morning. And this goes exactly to what you and I discussed last week, Joe, and what is going to be a major central topic going into 2024, something that was covered extensively in the draft GOP autopsy report that my colleagues reported on, which said that Republicans not only need to learn to talk about issues like abortion in a more moderate and centrist way by supporting things like exceptions when it comes to abortion bans, but also in terms of tone. And that tone that you saw last night is the exact opposite of what people like Ronna McDaniel have been advising GOP candidates. They have been recommending to candidates to address the sensitive topics head on, to be compassionate, take a page from Joe Biden's notebook and and have a tone that is more inclusive and brings women into the fold,

or at least makes them feel like the Republican Party can be an ally to women. Yeah. And of course, speaking of women, I didn't even talk about mothers who are now afraid to send their children to school because of what happens all too often. And because of Donald Trump's Republican Party unwilling to do anything to protect our children in schools, churches, synagogues, country music festivals and shopping malls and grocery stores. You name it. Willie, I just have to ask. I just have to ask, what the hell? What the hell was it with that audience? What the hell? What what were they thinking? Putting that audience in there where it was? Those weren't

undecided voters. It was a pep rally for Donald Trump where they mocked and ridiculed the CNN anchor, where they mocked and ridiculed a woman who was sexually abused by the man on stage. They were applauding. What was with that audience? How did how was that audience selected? I don't know how they did, but you're right. It was advertised as Republicans and undecided voters in New Hampshire, which, as Jen said a minute ago, there is a tradition of town halls. I've done some of them with Hillary Clinton and with candidates on both sides of the aisle. And

you get good questions from smart, engaged voters that challenge the candidate up there. That's not what we got last night. There was no challenge. Caitlin Collins was alone on stage on her own network's town hall meeting. And John Meacham, as you watch that, you do wonder, let's say Ron DeSantis does get in the race a couple of weeks from now. Does he really have a shot against that, though, when that passionate Trump wing, the loudest and most vocal and strongest part of that base, is so enthralled with Donald Trump and cheers all the things we've been laying out here for the last 30 minutes, all of the abhorrent statements, all of the lies, all of the insults. It appears to be what that part of the Republican Party, which is most of it, if you look at the polling right now, wants and that Donald Trump will, in fact, be the nominee.

You know, I'm always wrong about this, but if you have the original, why would you watch a spinoff? You know, you can play the metaphor out. If you have real Coke, why would you want Coke Zero? So I don't see there's an elemental connection between Trump and that base. It is remarkable. It is deep. It's real. And it could be controlling. Right. It could be dispositive. When we talk about the independent voters who we one hopes would engage with this phenomena, see this and go running. Remember, the Access Hollywood vernacular was adjudicated twice in 16 and in 20. Almost everything we saw last night is for anyone paying the slightest bit of attention already part of the

Trump phenomenon. And 71 or whatever million people in 2020, after the COVID reaction, and let's remember, a million people died from that virus. 71 million people said, yeah, let's try this again. So I passionately believe that the argument has to be made for a constitutional order where there is give and take. That said, I'm not entirely sure that the right number of voters in the right states agree with that. And so I understand. And as we talk about the president's my friend, I help him when I what I can. I'm not entirely sure. I'm not entirely sold that President Biden's the big winner out of out of something like last night. I hope so. But, you know, we're talking about an elemental force here that the and what's so remarkable about America is that it took us this long to face this challenge at this level.

What it's going to require is all of us at each point in this unfolding story to remind ourselves that it's more important to defeat this force and this person in Donald Trump than almost anything else. And if we don't remind ourselves of that, then chaos awaits, more chaos. And what Donald Trump promised last night when that town hall was at a second Trump term would be just like the first one and maybe even a little bit worse. John Meacham, Jackie Alomany, thank you both. We appreciate it always. Still ahead on Morning Joe, much more from last night's town hall, including what the former president had to say about the war in Ukraine and whether he would support a federal abortion ban. Plus, embattled Republican Congressman George Santos pleads not guilty to new federal criminal charges. What House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is saying about that. Also ahead,

the ongoing debt ceiling fight, raising fears about a possible default. Donald Trump had something to say about that as well last night. Steve Ratner joins us to explain what it all could mean for the U.S. economy. You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be right back. Hopefully, we're in good shape on the debt ceiling. I can't imagine anybody ever even thinking of using the debt ceiling as a negotiating wedge. And I said, I remember to Senator Schumer and to Nancy Pelosi, would anybody ever use that to negotiate with? They said, absolutely not. That's a sacred element of our country. They can't use the debt ceiling to negotiate.

You once said that using the debt ceiling as a negotiating wedge just could not happen. You said that when you were in the Oval Office. That's why I was president. So why is it different now that you're out of office? Because now I'm not president. The U.S. defaulting would be massively consequential for everyone in this room, for all Americans. You don't know. It's psychological. It's really psychological more than anything else.

And it could be very bad. It could be maybe nothing. Maybe you have a bad week or a bad day. But look, you have to cut your costs. We're spending seven trillion dollars on much of it on nonsense. Seven trillion dollars on nonsense. We've got another question for the voter to get all of that money that was wasted. And frankly, the Senate should have never approved it. Get all that money that was wasted. And if they don't get rid of that, you'll have to default. Donald Trump at the town hall. And that first bite you heard was from 2019, where he said

the raising the debt limit was a sacred element of the country now says maybe we default. Former Treasury official and Morning Joe economic analyst Steve Ratner is over at the big Southwest wall with his world famous chart. Steve, good morning. It's good to see you. Let's before you dive into the charts, just your reaction to what Donald Trump said last night, that maybe it wouldn't be so bad if we defaulted for a little while. Well, let me just show you actually what happened when we almost defaulted. And I'm going to go back to 2011, which was the debt ceiling, the worst debt ceiling crisis we've had before the current one.

And I'll explain all these numbers in a second. But in that crisis, even though it was resolved, what happened? The U.S. lost its AAA credit rating from Standard & Poor's, has yet to get it back. We are one poor, we were 1.2 million jobs fewer over time than we would have had if we hadn't had the problem. The stock market tracks 17 percent in the course of all this. It's a little hard to say that this is sort of some big circus or joker or just an illusion. So you've got unprecedented market fears of a default happening right now. The markets don't seem to be confident that the White House and Kevin McCarthy and the Congress can work this out. Right. So as I said, this was the worst. This is a measure of insurance on the U.S. debt. You can actually buy insurance against the default,

just like your car, your house. I won't explain what all the numbers mean, but obviously higher is bad. And so 2011, as I said, was our worst previous case. It got to this index, got to about 85, had a smaller one in 2013. But look where we are here now. We were almost at 200. We are just under 180 at the moment. You can look at this as a kind of fear index, if you want, of what people believe in the markets could possibly happen in this crisis. Everyone I talk to, everyone who was involved in these past crises, say this is the worst one, the scariest one yet. So, Steve, as we move over to your second chart, let's talk about what Republicans are

hoping to extract from this negotiation over the debt ceiling, major cuts to discretionary spending. Sure. So let's just set a baseline for all of our viewers to explain discretionary spending very quickly. So here's our budget, six6.3 trillion. Most of it is made up of things that Congress does not appropriate on a yearly basis. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, things like that are all locked in. Then you have defense, which most people consider to be locked in. And so what we're fighting about, what the Republicans are aiming at, is this little 11% slice of the budget. And where that becomes important is because when you start cutting the amount they want to cut, you're only cutting from this,

which means that in order to achieve their number, they want to cut 40 percent, 7 percent of that. And so that includes all these different kinds of agencies, NASA, Commerce, International, Education, Energy, Labor, Justice State. All of them would have their budgets cut by 47 percent. And that's after inflation. So the actual cuts would be bigger. And just to put that in perspective with the president's proposal, the president has a relatively modest increase of 4 percent in his spending. And he has some offsetting deficit reduction measures,

which we'll talk about in a second. So 47% proposed cuts to discretionary spending from Republicans. And as you move to your third chart, it represents a philosophical difference where Joe Biden wants to find the money by raising taxes and Republicans want to do that by cutting spending. Exactly, Willie. So first you have the Republican cuts that we talked about that essentially are 4.8 trillion, of which virtually all 4.5 trillion is by cutting taxes. Ironically, the revenue raisers, most of the revenue raisers that they want is by taking away the IRS funding, which actually costs the government money because we make money on the IRS because of the audits and recovering money from taxpayers.

So President Biden, as I said, wants to increase spending modestly by two point six billion dollars over 10 years, a trillion dollars over 10 years. Excuse me. That should be a T. And but he wants to raise taxes mostly on business and wealthy Americans by five point three trillion dollars over the same period. So his deficit reduction is smaller than than the Republicans. But if you look at this very last chart here, what you'll see is that the Republican savings are in the early years. Biden catches up. And by the end, Biden actually reduces the deficit by slightly more than Trump when you get out to these out years. But look, we shouldn't kill ourselves. We do have a deficit problem. There is the problem. That is our growing deficit without without doing something. And both of them are trying to do

something. But as you alluded to, the something is very different. Steve, of course, if you cut 50% of 11% of the budget, those cuts would be absolutely catastrophic. What that would do, of course, it would make getting on a plane far more dangerous. Getting in a car with your family, going on vacations, far more dangerous. All the safe transportation, safety, getting on a train, far more dangerous. It would make the food that you feed your children at night far less safe. It would I mean, you could go down the list, even it's just it's those numbers are not possible. And as far as the IRS goes, it would make the IRS even less responsive to taxpayers who are being audited or need a refund. And the IRS is already operating on 1980s technology right now. So I bring that up. I

want you to, if you could, do a couple of things for me. First of all, add to tell tell Americans how else their lives would be made more difficult, more dangerous if you slashed 50 percent of that 11 percent of the budget, which is all the things that we think of as government outside of the Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the defense. And secondly, you and I both agree and we have agreed since the Obama administration and I have since 1995 when I first got to Washington that we've got a deficit problem. We got a debt problem. How do you raise the debt ceiling and also look at the debt in the long term and try to slow down the massive increase in debt? And let me just say, let me throw the first item on the table. Let's completely get rid of every Trump tax cut from 2017.

And let's go from there. Sure. Well, Joe, you alluded to some of the ways in which everyday Americans would be affected by this. But imagine the Agriculture Department, which inspects all your food and make sure it's healthy for you to eat. Imagine the Federal Drug Administration, which approves all your drugs and make sure they're safe to take. Imagine the fact that our transportation system that does so much to also keep us safe would be affected. And then you have things that you may feel are sort of less critical, but imagine all our national parks closed because the Interior Department doesn't have enough money to fund them. Our Energy Department, which is working so hard now in our transition to clean

energy, imagine how they would operate with so much less money. And you can just go on and on and on, labor enforcing workplace safety standards for our workers who are out there every day. The Justice Department prosecuting lots of criminals and wrongdoers every day that would have half of its budget eliminated. It's really almost impossible to imagine the EPA making sure that our environment, our drinking water, things like that are safe. Almost impossible to imagine how we operate with a government that's literally cut in half any more than any other business can operate if suddenly half of its workforce disappears. Yeah. Hey, Steve, one more quick question for you. And this is this beyond

the charts. Yesterday, of course, inflation slowed down. I think it's the 10th straight month that inflation slowed down. I think it was down to four point nine percent at an annual rate. Do you think the Fed's gotten on top of this? Do you think we're going to keep moving in that direction? Is inflation going to continue to be tamed? I you think we're going to keep moving in that direction? Is inflation going to continue to be tamed? I do think inflation is going to continue to be tamed, Joe. And the Fed did indicate that it was probably going to pause to see the effect of these very large increases on the economy so far. But unfortunately, we have a target of 2 percent, rightly or wrongly. Powell, chairman of the Federal Reserve, is insistent on it, which means we've got a long way to go still from roughly 5 percent to 2

percent. It is definitely going in the right direction. All the number each month's numbers in general have been slightly better than the one before. But we still have a long way to go on that. All right. Steve Ratner with his charge. Steve, thanks so much, as always. And Jonathan, tomorrow at the White House, another meeting, the second in just a matter of a few days between the president and leadership in the Congress. Got nowhere out of the first one on Tuesday. Any hope for something tomorrow? Well, there's been a little bit of hope from the developments from the staff meeting. So the principals, the president and the congressional leaders met on Tuesday. That was portrayed as a pretty contentious meeting. Very little got done. But staff met yesterday. They are again

today. There was some thought yesterday, some progress made, early steps, but like some good dialogue, at least to agree to what to talk about, which is an important first step, of course. But all eyes are trained to the White House again tomorrow, and particularly the Biden-McCarthy relationship, which is not particularly in a good place right now. And that was a source of a lot of friction on Tuesday. The president yesterday traveled to upstate New York, suburban New York, to a district that was won by a Republican last time around, but Biden himself had captured in 2020, really trying to put some pressure on those 18 districts, thinking that those moderate Republicans might be places where he could pick off some votes.

The White House considering another trip like that to another swing district in the days ahead. The president sounded some optimistic notes, thinking that this will get done. And White House aides I spoke to last night say, look, we're further along where the deadline is approaching. Of course, there's some anxiety coming in, but they still think the politics issue on their side. And they're still hopeful that they can get something done before that cliff approaches in just a couple of weeks. Yeah, the clock is ticking on that. Coming up next, Donald Trump's comment at the town hall last night where he suggests he would bring back his policy to separate migrant children from their parents if he's elected again. Morning Joe's coming right back. The penetration policy known as Title 42 is set to expire at 11.59 p.m. Eastern tonight. Migrant crossings have picked up ahead of that official deadline, with more than 11,000

caught crossing into the United States on Tuesday alone. Joining us now from El Paso, Texas, NBC News Homeland Security correspondent Julia Ainsley. Julia, good morning again. What does it look like today now with just hours to go before that deadline? Well, Willie, you're right. The numbers are rising and they are going to get higher. But right now, you wouldn't know it from where I'm standing. I'm here outside Sacred Heart Church in downtown El Paso, where usually we've seen hundreds of migrants camping out. In fact, there were more here yesterday when I was speaking to you. But you can see now

a lot of this sidewalk has been cleared. We understand that overnight, immigration authorities came through here and moved a lot of these migrants out. They had made sure that they were processed at facilities. A lot of them had come through and hadn't been processed or accounted for. But what happens after that is they start releasing them. So some of those migrants may be coming back here today. That was something that happened yesterday. A lot of the shelters were cleared out and then said those very same people were coming back to them after they'd been processed. But it's part of a strategy here to try to clear more space, get more people through the system before that expected surge. Because at 10.59 here tonight,

Title 42 will lift, meaning that anyone who crosses the border can claim asylum. Still, the rules are higher. They've raised the bar. If they pass through a country on their way here where they could have claimed asylum, like Mexico, and they didn't, they'd be deemed ineligible. They will be rapidly expedited for removal and deportation, but the processing will take longer. And that's what has Border Patrol concerned. I talked to the Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz yesterday, who said if the numbers get to 13,000 or 14,000, they're worried they won't have the detention space and the capacity to move migrants around to try to ease up that tension. In fact, we reported yesterday about a Border Patrol plan to start releasing migrants if they get pushed too far over capacity. They're already over capacity

now, but start releasing migrants without court dates and without alternatives to detention, which is a way of tracking migrants as they move around this country. On the other hand, they're also doing some measures to try to stop the numbers from getting too high. They've sent troops down to the border. They're actually putting families now on a detention program, a geolocating program that would tell them where the head of the household is as they move around the country, putting families who cross on a curfew. That's something we haven't heard of before.

I mentioned those troops they've out of the border. They're also trying to expand an app so that people can apply legally for appointments to come here and build processing centers in other countries so that people can apply where they live rather than making that dangerous journey to the border. It's all part of a comprehensive strategy to try to make it easier to apply for legal pathways where these migrants are from and keeping them from ending up here on the streets of El Paso and other border towns. All right. NBC's Julia Ainsley, thank you so much for your reporting. Greatly appreciate it. And let's bring right now former deputy cabinet secretary for the Biden administration,

Cristobal Alex. He's an MSNBC political analyst. Thank you so much for being with us. It's just seemed for quite some time that this White House hasn't gotten just how chaotic things have been at the southern border over the past several years. The humanitarian crisis at the southern border over the past several years. And now we're talking about 11,000 migrants crossing the border on a single day. You know, that's a danger, even with the United States big enough over time to absorb these migrants. And if you talk to business owners, they'll say, bring us migrants, bring us legal immigrants, we need more. That said, there's a possibility that tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of more migrants are going to make this dangerous journey in the coming months and years. How do we stop it? How do we raise legal immigration, cut the chaos at the southern border off and make this entire process more humanitarian?

Well, that's that's exactly the right question. And ultimately, only Congress can do that. We just saw images from my hometown of El Paso, which has really for a long time been the center of the immigrant debate, really the modern day Ellis Island. And we think about the United States. It is a country of immigrants. It's always been a country of immigrants. The Statue of Liberty's inscription, give me your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, that really means something. Those are our values there. But you're also right that we need to strike the correct balance here. My hometown, El Paso, that you just saw, under a lot of pressure, the border under a lot of pressure. We need to get them the right resources and support at this critical juncture. That being

said, it's about security, but it's also about humanity and empathy and understanding the images that you just saw there. These are families, many running for their very lives. And if they're not running for their very lives, they're running to improve their lives. Like my family, we're running to improve their lives when they settled in El Paso. So how we react in this moment will tell us a lot about who we are as a nation. Last night, I watched Donald Trump and it shocked me to hear him say this. But last night, he said he'd bring back his family separation policy. This is the actual policy of ripping babies from the arms of their mothers. One of the darkest chapters in our history. We can never go back to that.

So what the Biden administration is doing now is exactly right. Bringing order to this influx of migrants, improving due process and ways to come to the United States legally. But again, he cannot do that on his own. Congress really does have to act. So let's take a listen to that moment from the town hall last night. Another immigration policy you had was the zero tolerance immigration policy that separated families at the border. If you are reelected, are you ruling out instituting that? Well, when you have that policy, people don't come. If the family hears that they're going to be separated, they love their family. They don't come. So I know it sounds harsh,

but if you remember, remember they said I was building prisons for children. It turned out that it was Obama that was building prisons for the children. But would you re-implement that if you're re-elected? Is that what you're saying? We have to save our country, all right? So it sounds like that's a yes. No, no. When you say to a family that if you come, we're going to break you up, they don't come. And we can't afford to have any more. Look at New York City. Look what's happening.

They're living in Central Park in New York City. The city is being swamped. Los Angeles is being swamped. Iowa is being swamped. Our whole country is being destroyed. So there again, Jen Palmieri, Donald Trump making no secrets of what his second term would look like, a return to most of what we saw in the first. Yeah. And to evoke the separating children from their parents policy, you know, that that's that's not a policy that has a that there is that there is some positive or proactive purpose behind, right?

That is something that he knows is inflammatory. It's something where the policy is the cruelty is the point. But, Cristobal, when I did the show yesterday, Lemire asked me if I worked for—if I was in the White House, you know, what else would I be doing to try to make the case to the American people about what exactly is happening here? Because it's, you know, it's very complicated. And I know the administration has their mantra of they're doing everything they can to deter. They're doing everything they can to enforce. They're doing everything they can in terms of diplomatic efforts.

But explain why it is that the Congress, you know, for the last since the 80s, which is the last of the past comprehensive immigration reform, you know, you said before, ultimately, this has to get solved in Congress and why that why that isn't happening. Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, here's the thing. We haven't seen true comprehensive immigration reform or really any real reform since Reagan. Folks have tried it over time. The country has gotten more and more polarized. And quite frankly, Republicans just don't want to solve the problem at this point. So the administration, the White House, they're doing everything they can to address the situation

at the border. But what you're seeing right now is a lot of pent up demand to come to the United States after a pandemic, after years of Donald Trump, who had worked very aggressively to gut our agencies, to roll back our government. And now we're seeing a reaction to that. And I do think the next few days, maybe the next few weeks, the images we're going to see are going to be difficult to watch. But ultimately, the president will do everything that he can. And I've worked closely with him on this issue on the campaign and later in the White House. And I take him at his word.

I trust him. There'll be increased legal pathways to citizenship, improved due process. However, he can only do so much as the executive. Congress ultimately has to do it. And the only way that's going to work is if Republicans get serious and come to the table to do it. All right. Former White House Deputy Cabinet Secretary Chris Ball. Alex, thank you so much for being with us. We really appreciate it.