Morning Joe - Trump and his administration continue to blame Biden for economic issues nearly 2 years into second term

Episode Date: August 21, 2026

August 21, 2026 – 6am: Trump Admin. Continues to blame Biden for economic issues nearly 2 years into second term A military Junta is consolidating power in Iran: The Economist Cook Political Report: Texas & Iowa Senate races shift to ‘toss up’ The White House Freak-Out Over Natalie Harp: The Atlantic by Jonathan Lemire Bond yields resume rise despite Treasury Dept. efforts Man says he suffered brain injury after ICE confrontation: MS NOW’s David Noriega To listen to this show and other MS podcasts without ads, sign up for MS NOW Premium on Apple Podcasts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Just want to start by asking you what the Department of Agriculture is doing to bring beef prices down for Americans. Well, first of all, Jackie, it's so great to be on with you again. Thank you so much for having me. Listen, what we are facing in America today is the direct result of a war on cattle by the previous administration, frankly, a war on agriculture and a war on farming in general. When you've got a prior administration that is basically blaming cattle for their crazy climate, agenda. With the midterms approaching, how do you see this playing out? Is food affordability really becoming a test of whether the Trump administration can deliver on its economic promises? Under Joe Biden, the cost of food went up almost 25%. I mean, this is what we're battling against right now.

And remember, we did not get here in a day that we were left with a mess. Even though the debt is too high, even though we inherited this debt bomb for the Biden administration, we actually do have a plan to get the economy growing faster than the debt. And that's the most important thing. The issue that we've had under the Biden administration and what we're still kind of dealing with is that the debt was growing faster than American GDP. That's the problem. That's something that we're certainly fixing every single day in the Trump administration. But, you know, even though the media doesn't cover this, I'm glad you're asking this question, because Scott Besant is very much on top of it. He knows it's a problem, and he's got the

president's empowerment to do something about it. everything he just said is wrong. Again, these people keep borrowing from like Star Wars 8. Everything he's saying is wrong, Willie. I mean, we're 19 months into the second Trump administration, and they're still blaming Joe Biden. And I just, first of all, war on cows, really? You're going to blame a war on cows for the fact that tariff policies and all the

other horrific policies that are being put in place, continue to cause groceries, make grocery spike, continue to make renters. Willie, just on the last issue about debt and on deficits, I actually do know something about this. I don't know if I told you I was in Congress. We balanced a budget four years in a row. The only Congress that have done that in 100 years, let me just tell you, Donald Trump, in his first term, before Joe Biden was president.

before Joe Biden stepped into the Oval Office, he oversaw deficit spiking a record number, 317%. Deficence went up from the beginning of his term to the end of his term, 317%. That increased from Obama. In the second term, already in his first year, CBO is projecting it's going to at least be a 20, percent increase so far this year. During Biden's final year, deficits were actually going down. Now, once again, they're going up. So there are three things they cannot deny, Willie. Number one, under Donald Trump, term one and term two, we've had the largest deficits in the history of America. In fact, Donald Trump has accounted for one out of every $3 in our federal debt. Think about that.

He's President 45 and 47. Well, yeah. He has been responsible for one-third of our federal debt. The other 44 presidents will take the two-thirds. Secondly, we have the highest deficits ever. That's based on his choices. His choices for tax cuts for the rich, his choices for making the Pentagon, spending go up to record levels. His choice to start an unnecessary war that is costing us billions

and billions of dollars. And his choice to actually put out the biggest, most pork barrel budget of all time. This is on him. Not cows. It's on him. And the numbers show it clearly. And I think the American people are smart enough, Willie, to understand that. But yeah, they can count. They know it's been almost two years since Joe Biden was in power, 19 months. They know that the debt has gone up over the last five, of the last year or so a trillion dollars every five months. Think about that.

It was a trillion dollars less than March. It was a trillion dollars less than that in October. A trillion dollars every five months. And you touched exactly on the farmer question. Farmers are really upset, not about the Green New Deal, which, by the way, never passed. They're blaming the Green New Deal that did not become law. It's a theoretical concept from members of the Democratic Party.

Blaming that, tariffs farmers are upset about. And inflation that's obviously driving the price of their fertilizer through the roof, which may be in part while you're seeing races tighten up so much in the state of Iowa. We'll get to that in just a moment. But this dismissive approach we saw from so many members of the administration yesterday, including Treasury Secretary Scott Besson, he said, 40 trillion isn't some magic number. We can grow our way out of that and kind of waved it off. I wasn't worried about the jobs number. Once we end this war in Iran, prices come back down.

Everything's going to be fine. There's literally no concern about what's happening to Americans, to working Americans in their daily lives right now. The arrogance that we saw on display yesterday because it's not affecting them or their friends, all the prices and the trillions of dollars we're adding to the debt. They just don't really acknowledge it. And it is, the numbers are the numbers. Donald Trump's been president now in the second term for 19 months, pathetically blaming Joe Biden, who hasn't been here for that long, and adding every five months another trillion dollars to the debt. Well, and Willie, 40 trillion is not a theoretical number. It is a real number. And as I said yesterday, if you want to put perspective on how much that is, if you made a million dollars every day,

day, a million dollars every day, it would take what? Thousands and thousands of years. I did, what, 20, I think 20,000 years to get enough money to pay that debt off. It's just absolutely stagnant. I think it's actually even more than that. But bringing it, like back to where we are right now, American tax dollars. are actually being blown on paying interest on the debt. We are spending more money paying for Washington's debt that's been juiced by Donald Trump.

And truthfully, all presidents this century, but especially Donald Trump, I'll just say, again, when I left Congress in 2001, we had a $155 billion surplus. So all these people running and going, oh, it can't be done, it can't be done. That's what people said when I first ran. It can be done. But they have absolutely no will. They want to spend more on everything. They make no choices at all.

And it is the U.S. tax dollar that ends up being left with the bill, the interest payment. So we're paying more to service our debt than we are defending our country. And when you spend more, when any country spends more historically on debt service, Then on defending their country, well, that's the beginning of the end. Washington better get serious soon because Donald Trump and Scott Bessent and this administration and J.D. Vance, oh my God, they have no clue how much trouble we're in or if they do understand how much trouble we're in, they're just lying through their teeth. With us to talk about a lot today, we have happy Friday, by the way, everybody. We have co-host of our 8am hour staff writer at the Atlantic, Jonathan Lemire, MSNNAN, National Affairs Analyst, John Heilman.

He's a partner and chief political columnist at Pock. He's also so glad to have started his Friday morning off on such a chipper note. Also, MS now Senior Capitol Hill Reporter and host of way too early, Ali Vitale, and President of Merritt is to the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haas. He's the author of the Substack Home and Away. Richard, I want to go from one happy topic to another happy topic. I just saw this morning that the economist came out with a quite a bit of new reporting on a new crop of leaders that are filling leadership vacuum in Iran. And this is what the economist writes. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is consolidating power in Iran, battle-hardened and results-driven. They are focused. on security and repression. And they're turning the theocratic foundations of the Islamic Republic into a military dictatorship. So there you have it, Richard. We've been warning about this

for quite some time. You want regime change. You may get regime change. But believe it or not, the regime change that Donald Trump got is even more radical than the radicals that ran Iran for the first 47 years of their existence? Absolutely, Joe. And as if we needed it, it's another lesson that bad situations can get worse. And that's what we're seeing in Iran. And these people are not interested in at the moment

in negotiating, certainly not to end the war. My fear is over time, they're likely to be more interested than ever in acquiring nuclear weapons. So we haven't been talking about that a lot because we're focusing on the straight of our moves. But that issue, shall we say, has not gone away. So when history looks at this, I got to tell you, Joe, this is going to be a high on the

fiasco list of basically a self-generated situation that I think is going to plague the Middle East in the world for years or even decades to come. Jonathan Lemire, we've been talking now for two days about what Donald Trump is called Economic D-Day. They realized that military. might is not going to finish the job. In Iran, now it's about the economy. We heard again yesterday from Scott Besson, more of the chest thumping. This is going to be the greatest package of economic sanctions the world has ever seen without a whole lot of detail. So is it actually happening?

Unfortunately, these days we have to ask that question, number one. And number two, do we have any shape to it? What's it going to look like? Yeah, the White House, not exactly reliable narrators, well, about anything, but particularly on measures with Iran. And the answer They're still working on it, so we don't know just yet. But there are a lot of questions that have to be answered. One is, okay, maybe there'll be more sanctions against Iran, fine. But what about, as Trump threatened, against those who are still doing business with Iran? Is this the moment where he will finally step up and get tough with Russia, China, North Korea, more on them in a second?

You know, we will see. He has to this point been reluctant. Yes, a flurry of a trade war with China at the, you know, sometime last year. year, quickly a truce called. And as we have been documenting for a better part of a decade, President Trump has never really been tough with Vladimir Putin and Russia. So therefore, if he can't do those things, then Iran's going to continue to be able to limp on. And there's no doubt their economy is hurting. We should stipulate that. Iran's economy is hurting, but the hardliners in charge, especially now with this reporting about the Revolutionary Guard, consolidating power,

they don't care about your average citizen in Iran. They just want to maintain power. So that's piece one. But piece two to what Richard just said about the nuclear program, that is, I think, about to come to the forefront again, in part because Trump inadvertently has put it there in the last few days. Our friend Tom Nichols, who just wrote a very smart analysis for the Atlantic, noting that North Korea's regime has managed to survive and now, you know, gets flowers from President Trump, these love letters, he wants to have another summit. He's not willing to have military force against North Korea or even much the way of economic pressure to this point. Why? because they have nuclear weapons.

And Iran can see that. Iran got attacked because they don't, you know, in many ways. North Korea continues to survive because they do. And, guys, this would seem to be just more incentive for Tehran to try to race to deliver that sort of weapon because they think it's a way to ensure that the regime survives. Well, and of course, Willie, this article and the economist, you know, they're talking about the seven men who are now being put out there.

as leaders of the country, following up on what Jonathan said about how they don't care about how the economy is going. You know, the economist goes down the seven men who are now leading this country. One of them is responsible for brutally cracking down on any protests. Another one is responsible for keeping people off the streets to protest and using any repressive tactics that needs to be done. A third is the one responsible for cracking down on women's rights. You know, the one that led the charge in making sure that women kept their faces covered four years ago when that was going on.

So this is a regime that is focused on repressing their own people and pushing back and kicking the United States, as the economist says, out of the Middle East. Yeah, and someone along the way convinced President Trump that this was going to be like Venezuela somehow. Go in, knock out the top of the regime, and democracy will flourish. The people will rise up in the streets, obviously, obviously a much more complicated problem in Iran. And also yesterday on the economic side, you had Treacher's Secretary Besson saying, effectively, we're going to go after our allies now within, are you with us or are you against us? Posture.

We're going to talk. You do any business with Iran or you don't side with us. on these global economic sanctions, you're off the list. So President Trump has attacked South Korea for not helping us in Iran. He's going after allies. Our allies in the Gulf were being attacked by Iran. He's going after Oman and now saying, Scott Besson, if you're not with us on these economic sanctions, you're against us.

Let's talk a little politics here. The latest projections from the Cook Political Report now considered races in Texas and Iowa as toss-ups headed into the midterms in Texas. the race for the open U.S. Senate seat between Republican State Attorney General Ken Paxton and Democratic State Representative James Talleyico has proven competitive with recent polls showing Tala RICO holding a slight edge. In Iowa, while a Democrat has not won a presidential or U.S. Senate race since 2012, report says the political environment has become uniquely challenging for the GOP, creating a shifting dynamic in the race between Republican Congresswoman Ashley Hinson

and Democratic State Representative Josh Turrick. The governor's races in both states also have shifted in Texas. The race between three-term Republican incumbent Greg Abbott and Democratic State Representative Gina Hinoza has been moved from solid to likely Republican. In Iowa, recent polling shows Democratic State auditor Rob Sand with a slight edge over Republican businessman and farmer Zach Lahn, moving their governor's race from toss-up to leave. mean Democratic. All right. So John Howman, you know, Texas has been fools gold over the last several cycles, many cycles for Democrats. But you talk to Democrats right now in leadership

positions, people running the National Party saying they're looking at Talarico as really as a possible upset and at the very least forcing Republicans to pour resources into that massive state with so many media markets, diverting resources from other places where Democrats could make pickups. right willie i mean this has been clear from the moment that don't trump decided to endorse ken paxton it's like you knew that the we were going to get to a day sooner or later it turns out to be sooner uh that national republicans are going to have to put money into texas and that even at that moment it was clear that even if james tallerico didn't win texas the fact that republicans

grabs to spend money to push kem paxton to keep kempxton competitive and to push him across the finish line that that could end up winning other Senate races for Democrats because of the diversion of resources. You're looking at a state there where you have everybody says it's fools gold. The structural forces are what they are. You never want to like just think that the Democrats like you're going to put a Democrat as a clear favorite in Texas. Let's put it that way. But you have a situation here, as we've said a hundred times, a uniquely bad, disliked, corrupt Republican nominee against a maybe a. Maybe a. generational Democratic talent in James Tala rica, someone who is not better or work, someone

who does not look like a lot of the Democrats that have run in Texas over the past 20, 30 years. And it could be, this could be the year. Those Iowa races, though, which we can talk about, are just as compelling given the way that state has gone so hard read over the course of the last 20, 25 years to the possibility of a Democrat taking the statehouse and taking that Senate seat is another thing that has become increasingly clear from the data is within reach for Democrats. Again, these are going to be very close races, most likely. But boy, talk about a signal of what's happening on the national scene. You should look no further than Iowa. Yeah, John, I'm fascinated by Iowa too, because it's now a place where you're not just talking about a fascinating

governor's race, a fascinating Senate race that is now rated a toss-up, but then also some House seats that had previously been close in the last cycle. And now the House. campaign arm for Democrats is salivating on the chance of maybe potentially trying to make their majority in Iowa, which has only grown to be a more red state over the last 10 years. I think it's fascinating. And the thread that I see between the two of these states is the fact that for Democrats, it's a story of candidate recruitment in Gina Inahosa at the Gov level in Texas, certainly in James Talarico, for the reasons that you mentioned Heilman.

But then in Iowa, Josh Turrick, a Paralympian there, you saw that ad that he did with President Obama trying to pull on the heartstrings of 2008, certainly trying to remind Iowa voters of what they once saw in Democrats. And then, of course, Rob Sand, someone who has been over the last 10 years, someone who has really built a brand that is less about being a Democrat. He certainly doesn't lean in necessarily to loving the label, but he is also someone who, at the beginning of his rallies, he opens by welcoming Democrats, Republicans, and independents speaking to the realities on the ground in Iowa. And then I think the other place that's fascinating for me here, Lamere, is that in both Iowa and Texas over the last 10 years,

they have been true incubators for conservative ideology put into policy. Certainly that's true in Texas on abortion. It's true in Iowa on things like education. And as I talk to folks who are experts and operatives in these states, this is viewed as a potential moment of backlash to seeing conservative policy put into action in these places. And then, of course, the national atmospherics around Trump, around national Republicans,

all of it manifesting in these fascinating races that are going to tell us a lot in November. Yeah, I mean, Democrats hopeful about Texas, but I think most are understandable that it's, hey, it's been the White Whale for a long time. We'll see. I feel like there's more of a quiet confidence actually about Iowa, where they're starting to feel very bullish about both the governor's race and the Senate race there. And it certainly speaks to the growing national map and the opportunities that Democrats have. Meanwhile, what is the White House focused on? Well, they're focused on, you know, Trump vanity projects like the ballroom. And we may learn more about its future today. That's been right near the top of the president's agenda the last handful of

days in particular. And also the White House defending a staffer, a young staffer, a close aid to President Trump, Natalie Harp. And I wrote about that today about how they, White House inadvertently turn this into national news, where this is the Streisand effect, if you will. This is something Natalie Harp's presence as a close adoring aid of President Trump has been written about, New York Times, has written about her in the past. She features in Maggie and Jonathan Swan's book, makes a cameo there. But most Americans had no idea who she was,

even if the Beltway was starting to grow somewhat obsessed with her presence constantly at Trump's side. And then we had Senator Ossoff, of course, mentioned it in a throwaway line this weekend. You know, and that got some, you know, social media traction. We talked about it briefly on the show Monday,

but the story probably would have ended there until the White House lost its mind. As I detail in the piece, you know, Joe and Willie, that this was something that suddenly became party number one for this West Wing. It was a coordinated attack from the White House press office, really in ugly personal terms against a CNN reporter who simply asked President Trump a question about it in the Oval Office. We saw a coordination with a lot of MAGA influencer types and right-wing media figures all jumping out to sort of attack Ossoff, attack the reporter, defend Trump and

and harp, and then, you know, suddenly yesterday, First Lady Melania Trump makes her first appearance in more than a month appearing at the White House, you know, for an event that was added to the schedule. So this is something where I think it speaks to if the political judgment of this White House is just off right now. And Joe, they just don't seem to have a read on what the American people actually care about. And in this case, they've actually inadvertently blew up this controversy. Yeah, nothing about this has made sense. The White House's reaction. And by the way, I've spoken to Natalie Harp a good bit, as most people have, very polite and we have polite, kind conversations. I've been in the White House and I've talked to Donald Trump, the president, and seen her there never once assumed anything inappropriate was going on, which the suggestion coming from Republicans. that Assoff somehow suggested that with this throwaway line, I thought John Heilman was bizarre in this sense.

That it was a phrase and a speech that would have come and gone and nobody, it would have been forgotten. But the white, you talk about protesting too much, the White House actually blew this up into this massive story with, with a tweet that I just thought was so over the top and bringing in a reporter's children and all of this, again, for a throwaway phrase, which again, standing on its own, as even Jesse Waters said, pales so in comparison to everything Donald Trump says every day, that for the White House to freak out like that, to melt down like that. that they made this story, well, into something it would not have been, first of all, but secondly, and this is what I find so intriguing about it. You know, I always said that Donald Trump,

and you've said everybody, he's got this touch, political touch, whether you like it or not. He gets it. He knows how to play the press. He knows how to play the media better than anybody that's been in the White House since Ronald Reagan. Not a close second. And yet, this White House operation has been trumped. They were trumped by Assov. They have given John Ossoff a week of free press on a phrase that would have dissolved in the mist by the next morning. They have, they have, I can't, I don't even,

I can't even fathom how much money this guy has raised over the last week. I can't even fathom how much the Trump, House has elevated him so much so that I'm asking myself, are they doing this on purpose? Because this makes no sense to me. But they've been trumped by John Ossoff. Yeah, Joe, it's the only reason that I, that when I heard Lemire say that it was a throwaway line, I sort of, I sort of blanched a little of that just because I think it was a, it was a line that would have dissolved into the mist, saying traveling around with Natalie Hart, there's not even an insinuation in that phrase. I could come up with 20 phrases that would be, that would sort of not be explicit, but that would be more suggestive than that.

That is a very neutral phrase. And yet, let's give John Assoff credit, I think that his studies, I mean this kind of metaphorically, but his studies in Freudian psychology paid off here. I think that that was a line that was calculated to do what it did, or at least it was chum in the water, where it was sort of like, this could end up being a sore toe of the presidents that where he's going to react in exactly the way he reacted. So it was a pretty calculated gamut. I think, I don't think you could have ever calculated that it would work out quite so well for John Osseba as it did. And really, it is revealing because it wasn't just the White House. It wasn't just Donald Trump.

It shows a lot of the one of the downsides to Trump's mastery of the media. And I think, Joe, you would agree that part of the reason why he's been so master, is that he has this orchestrated Amen chorus that he's created in MAGA Media where they take their signals from the White House. If the president wants the right-wing echo chamber to echo and reverberate, they do that now as a reflex.

In this case, that's exactly what happened. So it wasn't just the president. It was Republicans on Capitol Hill. It was Republicans all over right-wing media. They all started echoing. They saw how upset he was. They took the signal that they always take. And that had the amplifying effect

that you're talking about. which made this into now a multiple-day story and has turned Natalie Harp into a household name when, as you said, if they had just not taken the bait, this would have evaporated into the mist. But that's what happens when you get an A-Main chorus. You know, sometimes that chorus by doing what it always does. If you get it wrong, they get it wrong, and it becomes a self-fulfilling exponential explosion. Yeah, and this really started out again. with, I mean, I remember reading going, what?

This inexplicable attack on the CNN reporter for asking a question about a guy who many people think could be the Democratic nominee one day and just say, well, what do you think about what he said? And suddenly the White House an hour later is talking about the reporter's children. It was such a crazed attack that it actually required CNN to then come out and defend her along with all of CNN's employees. defending her, which of course blew the story up even more. Again, going back to the fact, and it only took about 80 years for me to figure this out, but I tell people all the time

when they're about to like go crazy about something Donald Trump said. I said, do what you want to do. But do understand his political superpower is getting people to freak out and then overreact and then drive the news cycle for a week and get even strong. And that's exactly what happened here. Just a classic miscalculation inside the White House from a White House that's been doing that to everybody else for a decade now. Yeah, and that wild overreaction suddenly led people to say, why did this hit so close to the bone? I'll leave the Washington gossip element to other people. I will say the letters written by a young staffer to the married president would make Jane Austen blush, but that's a different matter. The real concern is that she for a year, according to our reporting at MS now, did not have a security clearance. It was literally at the right hand of the president everywhere he went, listening to classified information, looking at documents, didn't have a security clearance until the Secret Service finally forced it on her and got the president to intervene.

Still ahead this morning on morning, Joe, a man in Virginia is detailing a violent confrontation with ICE agents. We'll have a report on that encounter and the injuries the man says he suffered while he was detained. Plus, Treasury Secretary Scott Besson says he's got a plan to calm the bond market. We'll explain why that market is causing economics to be such a problem. As we go to break, a quick look at the traveler's forecast this morning from Accuweather's Bernie Rayno. Bernie, how's it looking out there? Willie, the weather improves along the East Coast today. You're accurate with the forecast.

lingering rain, though, in Boston, especially this morning. Clouds break in New York City, Philadelphia. Some gusty thunderstorms, though, from Green Bay towards Chicago. In the southeast, drenching thunderstorms, Charlotte, Atlanta, Tampa, Miami. That'll cause some travel delays that heat continues in Texas. Speaking of delays, your accuracy weather travel forecast, expect some delays all day in Atlanta this morning in Boston, this afternoon in Miami, to help you make the best decisions and be more in the know,

download the ACUweather app today. A spike in oil prices today that I don't really understand. You know, our announcement is for economic action. And I think that the economic action will mean that oil prices will come down sooner. I think the jobs numbers are quite noisy. And, again, Sarah, the other thing that's important, too, is like the jobs that we're seeing are going to Americans. after the deportations that we've seen during President Trump's administration and the closing of the border, that this unfettered migration, we don't need to produce as many jobs.

Listen, I know I took Econ 101 that, like the University of Alabama and sat in the back row in Red Sports Illustrated back when that's what poor students did. But even I understand why oil prices are fluctuating. And this guy was like the main guy for George Soros. He doesn't understand why oil is going up and down and up and down. He says we don't need jobs because we have a thuggish immigration policy. Don't really understand that. Front page of the New York Times, and here's the jump picture, talks about how Scott Bessent Treasury is engaging in really dramatic interventionist policies and really

reshaping the role of what the government does. You will remember, you know, people saying earlier in this term that it was bonds, bond rates going up that was the one thing that really spooked Donald Trump early on. It reminds me of reading Woodward's book on Bill Clinton's first year in office. and asking Alan Greenspan, you mean my GD presidency is going to be held hostage to bond traders, to which the late Alan Greenspan said, yes, sir. That's exactly what I mean.

Well, interest rates are climbing this morning, despite efforts by the Treasury Department, to calm the bond market and control the spike in borrowing cost. Secretary Besant says the U.S. government could now spend more than $4 billion on a program to boost bond crisis by reducing their supply. It's a fix. It's only worked temporarily as rates hit their highest levels this week since 2007, of course, a year right before the crash with us now, Chief Economic Reporter for the New York Times. Ben Castleman, Ben, thank you so much for being

with us. First of all, tell me, does the federal government, even our federal government, have any chance of overwhelming the bond markets by intervening so much so that in the end, the bond market doesn't end up swamping them anyway? Well, I mean, I think the answer to that is is in what's happened over the past week, right? We saw Scott Besson came out. He said, you know, we're going to try to calm the bond markets. It worked for a few hours and then bond yield started rising again. You know, we talk a lot about the Fed, right?

And the Fed, you know, is going to raise interest rates, it's going to lower interest rates. But the Fed controls short run interest rates. And it's the bond market that determines the interest rates that actually affect what your mortgage or the mortgage that your kids are hoping to get to buy a house. It determines that. It determines, you know, the borrowing costs for businesses when they're going out to try to build a factory or to buy a piece of equipment. It's really the thing that matters the most. And it's the thing that the government has sort of the least direct control over. At the end of the day, it's at the whims of the market.

And the market is sending a pretty clear message right now that it doesn't have a lot of faith. in the debt of the U.S. and concerns about kind of where this goes in the long run. I was just going to say, you know, so often this is driven by inflation here, the same week that we saw U.S. debt reach $40 trillion, about 125, 130 percent of our GDP. It's not just one thing. This time, it's not about inflation. It's also about debt. Talk about all these different factors going in. and the relative weakness of the economy, also the concern about AI investment that it may be inflated, we might have a bubble. Talk about all of those things going to this toxic brew that's causing rates to go up. Yeah, look, it's a lot of different things at once here, like you said.

It is inflation, concerns about inflation, concerns specifically about the Fed's commitment to fighting inflation and the new Fed chairman's commitment to it. It is about AI and these sort of massive debts that are being run up now by these AI companies that's kind of flooding the market with debt right now. There's some optimistic stories in this too, right? That if AI leads to faster growth, that tends to lead to higher long-term interest rates, but for positive reasons, right? That's a much better story. But then it's about the federal debt, right? And I mean, if you go back to even 2007 just before the global financial crisis, debt was about a third of GDP. It's now 100 percent, more than 100 percent of GDP.

And that creates doubts in the minds of investors about the sort of long run fiscal direction of the U.S. And of course, this feeds back on itself, right? Because when these rates go up, then it makes that debt more unsustainable. We're going to spend a trillion dollars this year on a. interest on the debt, that number is going to keep rising, even if interest rates stay relatively stable. And it doesn't now look like interest rates are going to stay stable. And so you start to get this feedback loop where we pay more towards interest on the debt. That makes the debt less sustainable. That leads to more concerns about long run direction of the economy, leads to higher

interest rates, and we kind of get into this real difficult position. Well, you started to address it just there, Ben, good morning. To people watching to everyday Americans, they hear these astronomical numbers, 40 trillion, 30 trillion, 20 as it's grown over these years ago. That sounds like a lot of money. I don't quite get it. I don't see how it's affecting my life. So in practical terms, can you talk about how an exploding debt? And that's what it is at this point, more than 100% of GDP, as you said, of $40 trillion affects now and could affect later people's everyday lives. Yeah, I mean, it does. It can feel sort of very esoteric, very distant from sort of the real world. I mean, so the most immediate thing is when you go to try to get a mortgage right now, it is more expensive because of these higher interest rates and those higher interest rates are directly tied or certainly are tied to that debt level. It's also that we're spending, again, a trillion dollars this year on interest. That's more than we spend on anything in the budget other than Social Security and Medicare. It's more than than we spend on defense. It's more than we spend on food stamps, right? It's more than we spend on any budget priority. And as more of our money has to go towards those interest payments, there's less available for kind of all the other things that we want to do. I mean, I think an important point to make here is that $40 trillion number on its own, as large as it is, is not inherently the problem. It is this debt in the context of the size of the economy and the sort of slower growth that we've experienced.

It is the fact that we are continuing to run large deficits, even when we're not in the middle of an economic crisis. You know, I don't think, I didn't hear many economists complaining about the big spending that the government did in the middle of the COVID crisis. The concern is now that we're in a comparatively stable economic moment, and we're still running huge deficits. We passed a large deficit-funded tax cut last year at a moment when most economists would say this is the time when we actually should be consolidating our fiscal picture and trying to shrink those deficits. You're exactly right. The two big problems right now as far as I'm concerned, somebody that's been obsessed on this my entire adult life. It's the trend line and you've got to look at the debt to GDP ratio. And both of those areas, we're in the wrong direction. Chief Economic Reporter for the New York Times, Ben Castleman, so great.

grateful for you being with us today and explaining this. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me on. All right. And Richard Haas, you know, we've been talking about this. You and I and also, of course, Steve Ratner have been talking about this now for about a decade, our concern about it. You've even, when you talk about the great risks to the United States and its security, you will talk about China, you'll talk about Russia. You talked about ISIS in the past. When that was a concern, you talked about al-Qaeda in the past, but you always talk. about America's fiscal insanity. You've always talked about that growing debt. And it's something that people can't focus, for some reason, just can't focus on as much as China or Al-Qaeda are

these, obviously these immediate challenges, national security challenges. But this debt, Richard, explain how historically debt has brought down great empires and how it could pose a great risk to us. Look, absolutely. And the reason I think, Joe, people don't focus on it is, you know, the urgent tends to take precedence over the important. So we've got the problems, du jour. And everybody runs around after that. It's the kids with the soccer ball. Debt, there's always a feeling, well, we'll get around to it when we have to. That's dead wrong. And what's going to happen is we'll only get around to it when we have a real crisis on our hands and the choices are going to be draconian and awful. But I think what you're seeing in the world is no confidence that we're going to tackle this.

And that's a function of two things. One is the Congress, which shows zero appetite from taking any difficult choices about either taxation or spending. And this administration isn't serious. It's let the debt get much bigger. The Secretary of the Treasury, I think, has to be careful because he's going to be. getting overly political. And all this intervention in the markets is a band-aid at best. He's got to deal with the root causes, and he seems unwilling to. And this, by the way, the blaming of the Biden presidency is preposterous. But in the short run, getting out what

Ben Castle was saying, debt will servicing, will crowd out all sorts of productive spending. We're wasting money dealing with the debt. And then sooner or later, there's going to be a reckoning. And then that's going to endanger the position of the dollar. It's going to endanger the solvency of the United States. And we're going to have to then do draconian things to curtail spending. What's that going to mean for defense? What is that going to mean for our economy? So this is a crisis that's in the making.

And the longer we postpone it, let's just be blunt here. The worse it's going to get. So we are really playing dangerously with. our own future. The only question I don't have an answer to, Joe, is when there's going to be the day of reckoning, whether it's in a week, a month, a year, or a couple of years, but it really is a question of when and not if. Let's just be straight about this. Well, you would, you would hope and pray that we would actually have leadership in Washington, D.C., that would take this seriously. Again, we did it for four years in a row, a generation ago. Nobody's

taken it seriously since. And that day of reckoning, well, it's a lot. It's a lot of reckoning. Well, it's coming. The trust funds for Social Security, the trust funds for Medicare, they will run out of money at some point. And then Social Security benefits will be cut. Medicare benefits will be cut. Funding for hospitals will be cut or ability to defend this country will be gravely compromised. And that is around the corner if Washington politicians don't get serious about this soon. of the Council in Foreign Relations. Richard Haas, thanks so much for being with us. Greatly appreciated.

And coming up, we're going to bring you a new report on a man who says he received serious injuries after a violent clash with eyes. Willie. Plus, Democratic Congressman Roger Christenomorthy of Illinois will join us to discuss his recent trip to Ukraine, what he learned about the country's defense technology. Morning Joe's coming right back. A man in Virginia says he was hospitalized with a brain injury. and severe bruising on his face after a confrontation with ice agents.

First, we should warn you, the images are disturbing. These are pictures of Jose Mejia Hernandez showing what he looked like after he woke up in the hospital last week. Hernandez says he was walking to his job as a janitor when two men got out of an unmarked car and aggressively approached him. Says he began to run thinking they were going to jump him. They didn't know who they were. The last thing he remembers is being tased in the back, he says, before he lost consciousness. MS-Now reporter David Noriega has been following this story.

He spoke with Hernandez and his attorney about what happened. David, good morning. What did you learn? Good morning, Willie. Well, look, the bottom line is that exactly what happened during this arrest, during this incident is unclear, largely because ICE and DHS are not being forthcoming with the fact. But what we do know, what both parties agree on,

is that Mr. Mejia ran when these people approached him, What he told me is that this was a matter of instinct. He was walking to work early in the morning in the early morning hours. When he was approached by aggressively, by two people in an unmarked car that he didn't know, instinct took over. He ran. The next thing he remembers, he tells me, is feeling some kind of taser or stun gun type sensation to his back. After that, he says he lost consciousness and woke up in the hospital with those injuries that you saw on your screen there. Now, Willie, I've reviewed some of the medical records in his case.

I can tell you it's not just the bruising in the cuts that you can see to his face. He got seven stitches to his lip. And most importantly, he suffered a traumatic brain injury and a brain bleed, what's called the subarachnoid hemorrhage. Again, I saw this in the medical records. The reason this is important, really, is because both Mr. Mejia and his lawyer say that the extent and severity of the injuries that he sustained cannot really be accounted for by the one aspect of the incident that he remembers, which is being tased. it's possible. He fell to the ground and sustained some of the injuries that way, but there seems to be more going on there. Now, back to the point that I made earlier, Willie, part of the reason we don't know exactly what happened here, and I've been trying to find out in the, you know, week or so since I found out about this incident, is that DHS is not telling us what happened. All, I reached out to them, a number of other reporters reached out to them. They are not acknowledging even the use of the taser.

All they're saying is that Mr. Mejia fled and that they used, quote, unquote, necessary force to effectual. his arrest. Now, I talk to the lawyer who's representing Mr. Mejia and asked him what this reflects about ICE's tactics in the streets, the way that they're approaching people, the way that they're conducting arrests. Take a listen to what he told me. So what does it tell you about the tactics that ICE and other federal immigration authorities are using in the streets? They're getting more and more aggressive, more blaming. And every time that we talk about this, it's getting a little, it's getting a little worse. Every time that I get one of these cases,

it seems like whoever's doing this knows, understands, or perhaps feels that there will be no consequences to them. The only way that you do this to another human being and you are in law enforcement somehow is that if you feel that you have complete shield, complete immunity against anything that may happen to you. It's worth pointing out, Willie, of course, that in all of the, at this point, infamous, notorious instances in which ICE and Border Patrol agents have harmed people on the streets, including those in which they have shot and killed people in recent months, there hasn't been any kind of clear accountability for the agents involved, which is, of course, what that lawyer was referring to and how you get cases like this one. Now, that statement that I got from DHS, Willie, I just want to go back to it because it is, you know, I've been covering immigration for more than 10 years. And I was trying to think about whether this kind of

of thing used to happen before Trump's second term. The short answer is no. And if an arrest, if someone did get injured during an arrest like this prior to Trump 2.0, we normally would have gotten some kind of attempt by DHS to explain what happened, to explain what kind of force was used, to explain why it was justified. Really no such attempt here, simply the explanation that quote unquote necessary force was used. The DHS also claims that his, that he has assertion that he lost consciousness during the arrest is false, and that ICE agents attempted. to administer aid. Last thing I'm going to note about this case, Willie, it is extremely unusual that Mr. Mejia was released after this arrest. We're in a moment right now where ICE is

detaining absolutely everyone that they arrest for deportation. That includes sick people, pregnant people, elderly people, people with cancer. Nothing exempts you from being sent to a detention center in this moment. But Mr. Mejia was not detained. Why? I asked his lawyer that question, we can do nothing but speculate. But he says that the agents were worried that they had injured him so badly that if they kept him in custody, something worse potentially could have happened to him, including death, which of course would have counted as a death in custody for ICE and that that may have led to the decision to release him. Again, we don't know that for a fact. DHS did not answer my questions when I asked them why exactly he was released against what has

become agency policy in the last few months. And again, final point, just reiterating here, Willie, we are in a time where it's extremely difficult to get straight answers from DHS when this kind of thing happens. And this kind of thing is happening a lot more than it. used to. A couple of quick questions for you, David. Number one, body cameras. Where are the body cams? We were promised by Christy Knoem before she left after the deaths of Alex Pretti, the shooting deaths of Alex Pretti and Renee Good. Remember, that was one of the concessions. Republican senators bragged about getting from DHS where they're going to have body cams. Now, where are the body cameras? And number two, did Mr. Mejia Hernandez have a criminal record? Remember the pitch was,

we're going to get the worst of the worst out of this country. What about him? I'll start with the second first. He had one encounter with law enforcement in 2020 for an open container violation. So not nothing, but not what you would describe as a significant threat to American society. To answer your first question, yeah, as far as we know, there was no body camera footage here. It's possible that there was footage that will come out in litigation or, you know, the lawyer is working, of course, to get any kind of footage of the incident. But, of course, we haven't seen any such footage. and in fact we're told there was no such footage in some of the more severe recent incidents,

including those two quick back-to-back shootings that happened in Texas and Maine in recent weeks. Of course, we all expect these incidents to be documented, but they have not, generally speaking, been documented other than by passers-by ordinary citizens who take out their phones and record when this kind of thing is happening. There was no such person in this instance, Willie. An open container violation six years ago.

we will wait for more on this story. I know you'll be all over at MSN. Now reporter David Noriega. David, thanks so much. We appreciate it. Still had an aircraft carrier could be named after Donald Trump instead of the planned hero from the attack on Pearl Harbor. We'll go through that reporting next on Morning, Joe.