Morning Joe - ‘Walking hypocrite’: Claire McCaskill calls out Trump for mocking affordability as he gilds the WH

Episode Date: December 10, 2025

‘Walking hypocrite’: Claire McCaskill calls out Trump for mocking affordability as he gilds the WH 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.

Quick story here before we get you over to morning, Joe. Hundreds of thousands of children in Australia have lost access to social media today as a law banning accounts for users under the age of 16 takes effect. The ban which passed last year with broad bipartisan support requires platforms to identify and remove accounts for underage users or face fines up to the equivalent of over 32 million U.S. dollars. Australia's prime minister ironically took to social media to mark the occasion with a screen of the new updated terms policy pop up appearing on TikTok and a caption saying in part, quote, for kids, it means a safer start online for parents. It's one less thing to worry about.

We're proud Australia is the first country in the world to make it happen. And that was way too early for this Wednesday morning. Morning Joe starts right now. I do want to talk about the economy, sir, here at home. And I wonder what grade you would give A plus. A plus. A plus, plus, plus, plus, plus, plus. A plus. Okay. Well, that's one person who thinks the economy is going great. President Trump giving himself high marks for the state of the economy, despite affordability concerns from millions of Americans who are struggling. We'll tell you what little the president said about the issue last night

in his first rally in over five months. Plus, a Republican senator continues to question the Trump administration's methods to combat drug trafficking as Democrats push for release of the video of that deadly strike on survivors of a boat attack in the Caribbean. Also ahead, we'll go through the new and disturbing allegations about the Immigration Detention Center known as Alligator Alcatraz and others as well. We'll also dig into local election wins for Democrats and whether the victories are more evidence of the challenges Republicans could face

in next year's midterms. Good morning, and welcome to morning, Joe. It's Wednesday. Lemire, it's Wednesday. You can smile. No, I see okay? I love Wednesday. I feel like we've got to be here. It's Wednesday. It's Wednesday. Yeah, we got it. Thursday's hurt. But anyhow, with us.

It should be Friday. I know. It's exactly. With us, we have the co-host of our 9 a.m. Our staff writer at the Atlantic, Jonathan and Lamier, who was racing into the building this morning. Yeah, well, my car didn't come. I know, I had to validate. MS now political analyst, former U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill is here, and Politics Bureau Chief at Senior Political Calmness at Politico. Jonathan Martin is here as well. And Jonathan was

racing in thinking it was late, and I'm like, damn, I'm early. This is like, this is early. Yeah, I got it fine. Grab a cab, get to work. Let's get to our top story. President Trump's speech last night in Pennsylvania that was supposed to be about affordability. But instead, he mocked the term itself and over the course of 90 minutes delivered his usual campaign style rally. He made false claims about his administration, what they've achieved, the health of the U.S. economy, and once again suggested Americans should cut back on things like toys for their children. As David Sanger of the New York Times points out, the president consistently veered off message and focused on his favorite targets. attacking transgender Americans, repeatedly blaming former President Biden for inflation and illegal immigration, and roused the crowd by demanding that Representative Elon Omar,

the Minnesota Democrat, leave the country. When he did speak on the economy, here's what he said. But they have a new word, you know, they always have a hoax. The new word is affordability. So they look at the camera and they say, this election is all about affordability. Now, they never talk about it. And I can't say affordability hoax because I agree the prices were too high. So I can't go out a hoax because they'll misconstrue that. But they use the word affordability. And that's their only word.

They say, affordability. And everyone says, oh, that must mean Trump has high prices. No, our prices are coming down. We didn't have tariffs. You would have no steel wheel. We wouldn't have one steel mill anywhere in the United States. And that would be really bad for Scott, national security. We need. The one thing you need, you need steel. You know, you can give up certain products. You can give up pencils. Because under the China policy, you know, every child can get 37 pencils. They only need one or two. You know, they don't need that many.

But you always need, you always need steel. You don't need $37 for your daughter. Two or three is nice, but you don't need $37. After just 10 months, our border is secure. Our spirit is restored. Inflation is stopped. Wages are up. Prices are down.

Our nation is strong. America is respected again. And the United States is back. Just a fact check on that last bit, the inflation rate is higher than it was a year ago and has been rising since President Trump's tariffs took effect in April. Meanwhile, beef prices are at an all-time high, and his tariffs are to blame for increased costs on common grocery items like coffee and orange juice. Also continuing problems, Willie, as more and more people appear to be having trouble finding jobs, definitely having trouble buying homes. and affordability is a big issue, not to assume what his supporters think here, but I really wonder how that speech went over if your Trump supporter watching it on TV, the comment about pencils

and buying less. I don't know. I don't know. It seems like a little confusing, put it that way. He's saying that the economy is roaring and doing well, but at the same time he's preaching austerity, buy less for your children, buy less for your family this Christmas. And you don't have to take it from us. People at the rally, Trump supporters interviewed by MS Now, by NBC News, by the New York Times, said, prices are too high and they're disappointed by what they heard. Remember, Claire,

this was supposed to be a rally about affordability. Susie Wiles, who the president, for some reason, kept calling Susie Trump during the rally. We can talk about the contents of this bizarre speech, 90 minutes of it in a minute. But this was supposed to be to reframe the debate about affordability and acknowledgement that Americans are paying too much for their lives, that they need help from this administration. And he immediately goes on the stage with a banner that say lower prices behind him, which is not true. Inflation is where it was when Joe Biden left office and mocks the idea of affordability.

He says it's a democratic hoax and then no prices are not actually too high. You're doing well. That didn't sit well. If you listen to those exit interviews with people at the rally, they say, I like Donald Trump. I like a lot of what he stands for. But he is wrong that things are going well in this country in terms of our pocketbooks. Yeah. He can lie about a lot of stuff and his base will take it.

It's very hard for him to lie about how expensive everything is because people feel it. And, you know, I don't know. This speech, he's not well. He's not well. I mean, it is very, if you just talk. took his speech in isolation. And it wasn't Donald Trump. And it was out there and he gave it to a group of people at a rotary club or something.

People in the audience would be going, what? It's very bizarre to me that he cannot have any discipline when he does this. And I got an exercise for President Trump. I think it would be great for him the morning after Christmas to tell the American public what his grandchildren received for Christmas. He of gilded oval offices and ballrooms and gold dripping from everywhere, his excesses on a personal level, how dare him tell people how many dolls they can buy their children or how many pencils they can have?

This guy is a walking hypocrite when it comes to conspicuous consumption. Yeah, I mean, build the $300 million ballroom, but don't get an extra doll for your child. So, John, this is, as you know, better than anybody, his advisors, people are around him, have said to him, actually, Mr. President, the affordability question is very real. And that includes your supporters having trouble paying for their groceries. We need to get on the right side of this. And then he goes out and makes that speech mocking that very idea. Yeah, the West Wing since Election Day in early November has realized, hey, this is a real thing.

Like the voters, you know, the voters have registered their disapproval to our handling of prices. They've staged some events in the building. And now the president finally his first rally in many months. His first trip outside of Marlago in two plus months yesterday to Pennsylvania comes, and he went wildly off message yet again. And that mocking the very idea of an affordability crisis, as you noted, there were some interviews with people in the crowd afterwards where I just like, well, that's simply not my reality.

And now the White House is saying the President Trump, this is just going to be the first of many events. They think he's going to be on the road next year to, you know, to barnstorm for candidates for the midterms. We should also know that was a very small crowd last night, certainly by Trump standards, not even a thousand people apparently in the room. We have to see if, because right now last night, that message not going to help Republican candidates. Yes, a few of his diehard supporters will thrill to it.

Right. But that is not something that's going to bring in other voters, including bring back some of the voters who went Biden 20, Trump, 2024, who right now make clear they don't like the direction the country's going. And here's how some conservative media is reacting to that speech. Wall Street Journal columnist William Galston writes in a new piece titled, Trump isn't beating the high cost of living, writing inflation and the cost of living were the dominant issues in last year's presidential election, and they remain so. The affordability issue could

severely damage Republican prospects in the 2026 midterms, and it could sink the Trump presidency. But there's a problem. Mr. Trump isn't buying it. Newt Gingrich knows better. Any Republican who refuses to admit we have an affordability problem is not listening to the American people, the former House Speaker says. Tariffs on building. materials drive up the cost of home construction, as do mass deportations of hard to replace construction workers. Guest worker programs keyed to America's economic needs would make much more sense than the administration's blunderbuss immigration policy. So would a serious bipartisan attack on the causes of rising health care costs? Denying the fact of rising prices won't work

and hoping that things will get better, won't either. That is the Wall Street Journal. On the impact of the president's Trump's, President Trump's tariffs, the editors of the National Review have a piece titled, Trump bails out the farmers, he kneecapped with tariffs. Again, the National Review writes this. Farmers have indeed had a terrible year. Crop prices have been depressed by the largest harvest on record, and farm bankruptcies have increased by nearly 50% since last year. But Trump's tariffs have made farmers plight much worse, simultaneously driving crop prices down and input prices up. The proper solution to farmers' financial woes in 2025 is the same as it was in 2018. End the tariffs. Instead, the Trump administration has chosen to paint over the problem with a

$12 billion bailout, so much for the tariffs supposed a deficit reduction. This is command and control economics at its worst, something that congressional Republicans once recognized. Trump wants to have it both ways on agriculture, smacking farmers with one hand, while paying them off with the other. If only the government would let farmers buy whatever inputs they need and sell the crops to whomever they wish without inserting itself. That is the National Review. So Jonathan Martin, I put that together with what we just heard from the Wall Street Journal.

You can't square that with the message that the president delivered last night in the Poconos. No, and look, as John mentioned, Lemaire mentioned, you know, he hadn't done a rally since July. He basically hadn't traveled at all domestically except to his golf clubs. And, you know, he responds, Willie, by turning on his own staff, breaking the fourth wall as he actually does, and reading the stage directions out loud. He says, my chief of staff told me we had to start doing rallies again. We have to go back on the campaign trail. So he's grudgingly doing this.

They print up really well-produced signs. The advance looks lovely. lower, lower prices, bigger paychecks, and then he gets up there and does the usual Friars Club meets George Wallace routine for a couple of hours. And, you know, it's his usual schick. But as you guys, it's just not driving any kind of message that his party needs. Guys, he's not interested in driving a message that his party needs. He wants to stand up there and do and do his stand-up schick. It's just not helping the party. And I really wonder going forward, what can be done. They'll try to get him to do more rallies. He's never going to be on message. He's always

going to mock Democrats for coming up with this issue. He wants to break the fourth wall, as he often does, and say his staff made him do this. And I don't think that changes. And like, the idea that he's somehow going to go on a three-stop-a-day small business tour across the Midwest at 80 years old next year at Barnstorm about his record is just fantasy. It's not who he is. So I'll say this. The GOP has a choice to make. You either keep Trump on the sideline and give up the bully pulpit, which you desperately need to drive a message in the midterms, or you deploy like the most unreliable surrogate you have who's always going to veer off message. It's not a great choice. And Mika, not only did not stay on the message, he mocked the message. He veered off.

I don't think the average voter, right, the average voter who can't afford groceries isn't interested in Ilhan Omar's marital history. And he goes on a long rant about that. This is, we're talking about reaction. This is a quote at the end of the New York Times piece. You mentioned David Sanger from one voter who was there. Affordability is out of control. It's painful to go to the grocery store. I could stop eating, I suppose. This is Donna Benny, a tailor and seamstress. She added, I'm offended that he finds the affordability crisis a hoax. He's probably never paid an electricity bill. or shop for groceries in his life? So the word invalidating comes to mind here, and it's sort of the overall arc of Trump's America right now, if you're really cluing in. Invalidating, hypocrisy, and confusion on every level. On the economy, he calls it a hoax. He spends an entire evening in Pennsylvania kind of joking about it and telling people

to buy less. Meanwhile, his tariffs are part of what's tanking it, are. part of what's making people hurt. So that's confusing. That seems hypocritical. That is very invalidating. Then you have foreign policy, blowing up boats, potential war crimes, murdering survivors. Meanwhile, pardoning the former president of Honduras. That's hypocrisy or confusing at the very least. And then you have all along the edges here, all across America, these ice raids. And let's take a minute. to see what everyone gets to see. It's not just Democrats who are seeing it

because now you hear of Republicans who are really uncomfortable about what they're seeing because these are their neighbors. These are people in their communities. Families traumatized. Now we're hearing of citizenship ceremonies being interrupted, like taking the cruelty to a level of beyond imagination, inhumane.

They're about to become citizens and it gets yanked away and they are deported. We have that reporting coming up. We also have coming up report by Amnesty International about the conditions that alligator alcatraz that are tantamount to torture in the United States of America. And it's great that there was a hearing yesterday about U.S. citizens who were mistakenly brought into these raids. But what about the migrants, the illegal immigrants, the people who are here on American soil?

being treated like animals. That's what's happening right here. That right there is how you sum it all up. Meanwhile, there are some tea leaves on the Democratic side, albeit small and we don't know. We've learned not to get ahead of ourselves and prognosticate on terms of what might happen. But Democrat Eileen Higgins has won the closely watched Miami mayoral race. Higgins made history, becoming the first woman ever to lead the city. Her victory also marks the first time a Democrat has.

won the Miami mayoral race in nearly 30 years. Higgins campaigned as a Democrat despite the race technically being nonpartisan. She defeated Trump endorsed Emilio Gonzalez by nearly 20 points. Democrats also claimed to win last night in Georgia, where their candidate flipped a statehouse seat in a red-leaning district. Democrat Eric Gisler is projected to defeat Republican Matt Guest in the fourth in the special election in Georgia's house. District 121, according to unofficial results from the Secretary of State's office. Gistler's victory would be a major upset in a district President Trump won last year, last year, by 12 points. Gistler lost the race for the same district back in 2024 by 22 points.

Joining us now live from Miami, White House reporter for Axis, Mark Caputo. Mark, what are you hearing about these specific elections? I think when you put everything in context, it was a good night for Democrats, and it's one of those things, certainly in Florida, where Republicans said this is sort of a gut check time. Yes, it's true. All of these elections are sort of unique in their own way, but there's a general pattern, whether it's in Florida, whether it's in Georgia, or whether it was in Tennessee with a congressional race recently, is that when Republicans are winning in very strong Trump seats, they're not winning by as much. and when there are purple seats, Democrats are winning them. The city of Miami is an interesting sort of jurisdiction because even though people associate the city of Miami with Miami-Dade County more broadly, this is sort of a blue-performing

city in major elections, but in mayoral elections and local elections and odd-year elections, Republicans have dominated. That ended last night, and it ended majorly and in a big way that got a lot of people's attention. So Mark, Eileen Higgins, who will be the next mayor now of Miami, made as part of her campaign and central to her campaign these ICE raids, the immigration raid. She talked about it again last night in her victory speech and we're talking to the media afterward as well, calling them inhumane and a scourge in the community there in Miami-Dade. So how important were they to her victory? I think that is important to use the affordability word again. That was a major messaging

issue for Eileen Higgins. The city of Miami, Miami-Dade County, South Florida, Florida, very expensive place to live. It's not just tariffs. By the way, it's insurance, which is killing a lot of people. And in addition to that, they did a lot of messaging that was sort of anti-Trump in order to motivate their base. If you look at the turnout of last night, there was about 41% of the electorate was Democrat and about 34% was Republican. That's called a D-plus-7 electorate. She won by almost 19 points. So it means she didn't just win Democrats big. She might have won a lot of Republicans, and she did really well with independence.

So her message across the board was well received and very effective. Mark, I'm interested in who showed up down there to campaign. I saw Rahm Emanuel was there. Obviously, that's somebody who has his eye on something else and sees Florida as an electoral college-rich state and wants to put down roots there early. what can you tell us about who showed up? And frankly, I think, could you clarify whether or not the DNC getting involved really had an impact on this election? My sense is that it didn't. You are correct. When the DNC announced on November 20th that it was going all in on the Miami mayoral race, by then it was pretty clear that Eileen Higgins was going to win. Her own internal polling showed that Trump's net approval rating was negative 17 percent. points, which is pretty bad. And her internal polling showed she was going to win by about double

digits. Her Higgins campaign thought maybe she win by 9 or 10. Again, she won by 18. You know, more broadly, the problem that Democrats have in Florida is that for years, for decades, they have not done sort of the spade work that's necessary to keep the voter rolls alive, to conduct effective voter registration. They've also been hamstrung a bit by national forces that are beyond their control and by a party that drifts more leftward than the electorate itself. The other thing is Florida sort of imports Republican supervoters, older retirees who don't want to pay income taxes and taxes, and that is sort of an advantage for Republicans as well. I would caution Democrats looking at the Miami mayoral race into thinking, oh, this means

we're going to win Florida. That having been said, Congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar, who is the South Florida Congresswoman, one of the three, who represents the Miami area and the city of Miami. She's probably looking at a very difficult race. She has already started to change a lot of her messaging and has become more critical of Trump's immigration policies and proposals. And I expect you're going to see more of that as she fights to stay alive and avoid what happened to Emilio Gonzalez here in the city of Miami. Yeah. And Miko, I think these are local races. We shouldn't, you know, overread into them. But I think it's about momentum here. This is a string of wins now for Democrats in the last six weeks, two months or so.

And that's important just for the party to start feeling better about itself, for fundraising, for organizing, as it gears up for next year. That's where this merely matters. Yeah, and Florida's interesting because, I mean, a lot of, I mean, these small races might represent how people are feeling about what they see happening around them. Miami-Dade specifically is interesting. Donald Trump in 2016 lost it by 30 points, 30, picked up ground. in 2020 and then in 24. He won it by 12 points, which is an incredible swing. All right. White House reporter for Axis, Mark Caputo, thank you very much for being on this morning. We have a lot to get to. Still ahead, a morning, Joe. We're following new reporting about the Pentagon's handling of boat strike survivors, including how officials wade sending two men to a notorious prison

in El Salvador. Plus, we'll look at President Trump's latest defense for pardoning a convicted drug trafficker. And as we go to break, a look at the Travelers forecast this morning from Ackyweather's Bernie Raynow. I love this song, but I love Bernie. So what do I do here? Bernie, how's it looking? Miko, we're tracking a storm across the northeast this morning with snow going over to rain in Buffalo, Burlington, Albany. The Ackyweather exclusive forecast shows gusty winds and a couple of showers in Boston, New York City, in Philadelphia. Let's talk about great weather, though, from Texas toward the Carolinas, although there may be a shower in Miami.

Your Acreweather exclusive travel forecast, the wind and the rain can cause a minor delays in Boston in New York City this afternoon. To help you make the best decisions and be more in the know, make sure to download the acuether app today. Love the song, and I love the view. 10 men I love you when you sing in that song

and I got lump in my broke because you're going to sing the word from We can't go It's a terrible thing. We can't go around just shooting people who are unarmed

adrift in the ocean. It's a terrible thing. It's illegal and it's immoral. At first, were executing them and then two months later we're plucking them for the water and rescuing them but we weren't trying them we weren't saying who take us to your leader we weren't saying who's the drug king king pin that's doing this we didn't even lift any drugs out of the water we didn't test them for drugs and we let them go home we said okay well we killed all your all your boatmates

but you can go back to and it wouldn't Venezuela you go back to Colombia and Ecuador so this is an insane policy. It's inconsistent. It's not war, and it's not the way we've ever done this. Think about it. If we can blow up a boat in the ocean that is at war with us because of the drugs, what about when they get to Miami and they put it in a truck, and the truck's going from Miami to Orlando? Can you shoot a grenade launcher at the truck? No, we arrest people because sometimes we're wrong. I think if people were to see the images of people clinging to the wreckage, there would not be much sympathy for Secretary Hegesat. To order the killing of people who shipwrecked is clearly illegal according to military justice, according to our own military

laws. And, you know, I have members of my staff who are high ranking in the military, and they tell me this is done for the protection of our soldiers. If our pilots have to eject from a plane, we show that we don't shoot people. We don't shoot pilots that are descending by parachute. If we blow up a boat and there are survivors, we don't shoot those. people. We don't sidle up in a boat and take a nine-millimeter pistol out, put it to their head and shoot them. Nobody would do that. But just because the missiles come from a long distance doesn't make it any more right. But it's clearly against our laws of war. And even deeper than that, there is a question of, are unarmed people that are smugglers part of a war? This is a crazy

thing that we've never done before. And to make a crime into war is to stretch credulity to the point that I think a lot of common sense people don't buy it. Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky continuing to sound off yesterday against the administration's deadly strikes on boats, allegedly carrying drugs in the Caribbean and the Pacific. And as the senator alluded to, there is a revealing new look at how the Pentagon is scrambling to deal with survivors of its deadly campaign to strike alleged drug boats at sea instead of have the Coast Guard board them. According to the New York Times,

the Trump administration initially pitched the idea of sending them to prison in El Salvador before ultimately deciding to send any rescued survivors back to their home countries or to a third country. But that raises the question. If the men are narco-terrorists, why wouldn't the American government want them brought to the U.S. to face criminal charges?

According to the Times, the policy is meant to ensure survivors did not end up in the U.S. judicial system where court cases could force the administration to show evidence, justifying President Trump's military campaign in the region. The Times report continues, quote, Pentagon officials largely kept State Department counterparts in the dark about strike operations, then scramble to try and enlist diplomats to help deal with survivors whom military, officials referred to by specific terms that included distressed mariners. That phrase is usually used in a peacetime and a civilian context. And Willie, you just have to wonder, if you look at this reporting, then what was the intention when 40 to 45 minutes later after the first strike on September 2nd, the decision was made to, what's the word? Murder? Those two survivors. The idea is to vaporize the drug boats, show the video on TV, and say those are drug boats. We're fighting the drug runners that are coming into America, despite the fact we know now that those

boats, some of them were going to Suriname and then onto Europe, not up to America. The problem is when there are survivors, as you point out, what to do with them. You don't want to bring them into American courts because you'd have to present evidence. You might bump up against the law if you did that. They didn't want to send them to Seacot. They thought that was too extreme. Just get them back to their countries and let them deal with them. Right.

They're treating it like a video game. And so, Claire, it raises the question in these briefings. And there was another one yesterday. Chuck Schumer and others came out and said they didn't show us a second video. We're not satisfied with their explanation of what they're doing. We're not satisfied with the explanation of the broader policy. What are the goals in Venezuela? Are we really going in on land, as the president suggested again yesterday during that meandering speech?

when will, forget the public even, when will members of the Armed Services Committee get answers about this? Well, I think there is more, there is more activity than I've seen ever before among Republicans on the Armed Services Committee. They are not pounding the podium. They're not speaking out like they should, but this investigation is moving. It's not stalling. And here's the thing. if you have to believe that dealing drugs is an act of war, that's really where they are. Is dealing drugs an act of war? And if it is, then Rand Paul's right. Why aren't we blowing up these boats, make it more efficient?

Well, blow them off off the coast of Florida, blow them up off the coast of California. Why are we going all the way down to Venezuela to do it? It's way more expensive. Let's get efficient with this war. Obviously, I'm being sarcastic because this is not what we should. do. And they're keeping this story alive, right? They know they're keeping this story alive by hiding the evidence, the legal opinion, the video of the second strike, and it is total BS that this has something to do with protecting sources and methods. They showed the video of blowing up the boats.

I'm very interested in hearing what Roger Wicker has to say. The fact they're hiding, it tells you all you need to know that they think showing it is more damaging to them, than the story staying alive. And it is going to consume them. And I got to tell you, I want to indict Hegsseth. I want to indict Trump for this, what they're doing here. But really, the military leaders, the ones he had in the first term would not have done this. They wouldn't, where is Kane?

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Why isn't he? The military deserves better than this. They're being put in a terrible position. And the leaders of the military know it. And they are turning tail and bending and bending. need to a policy they know is not in America's best interest and actually smears the good reputation of the men and women who are serving and giving their lives for our country.

It's terrible. One drug trafficker who was in prison is ex-Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who had been serving a 45-year sentence in the U.S. after he was convicted last year on drug trafficking and weapons charges. He was released from a West Virginia prison. last week following President Trump's pardon. In a new interview with Politico, President Trump is once again defending that decision. I don't know him, and I know very little about him.

Other than people said it was like a Obama-Biden-type setup where he was set up. He was the president of the country. The country deals in drugs, like probably you could say that about every country. And because he was the president, they gave him like 45 years in prison. And there are many people fighting for Honduras, very good people that I know, and they think he was treated horribly, and they asked me to do it, and I said, I'll do it. Do you think that could send the wrong message to drug dealers? No, I don't think so. Look, I think, you know, when you weaponize government,

they've weaponized their government, just like they did over here. I'm one of the people that survived, but they weaponized the government. J. Mart, so much to say here on one hand is yet another example of President Trump saying, oh, I don't know him, I don't know him, you know, just sort of blanket using the party. power. We know through, there's never been a clear explanation as to why this pardon was issued, though, as Mika just pointed out, just the hypocrisy here, considering the alleged drug war against Venezuela. You know, there's been suggestions that they're, you know, crypto industry influence here. We know Roger Stone has pushed the case. And this is President Trump suggesting, as he did

with the president of Brazil, this is someone who's been unfairly targeted by the deep state, just like he was. So in his estimation, he's trying to draw that comparison. But in this interview with your colleague at Politico, J-Mart, I mean, it just, it is, this is one of those moments where he's not even really trying to defend what is seeming to most, including Republicans, indefensible. Yeah, and it's the same formula as to all these parties he gets asked about, which is basically, I don't know the person, but I was told that he was treated unfairly, and then there's usually some reference to the other party doing the guy dirty. And that's really the formula for all these. The truth is he just doesn't care that much about the merits of this stuff. If somebody, one of his allies is pushing it, he's liable to say yes. But that gets to the heart of why this is a liability for his party.

Trump's not going to be on the ballot again. But this is going to be, I think, more challenging as time goes on unless this gets rained in because it does create an optics problem. Look, you showed Rand Paul on Fox going on an extended rant about, the droning of these alleged drug runners in the Caribbean. You know, Bill Cassidy, who is on the ballot next year in Louisiana, responded to this pardoned guys the other day saying, what are we doing here? We're pardoning a drug running Colombian, I'm sorry, Colombian, Honduran leader.

While at the same time, we're taking a sort of heavy hand against these folks in the Caribbean on boats, it's bad optics. And I think you're going to hear more of that going forward, which is Trump may not care. He's just signing off on this thing, handing out pardons like their White House M&Ms. But his party does care because they're going to have to own this politically when they look at the American voter and say, what are you guys doing handing out pardons left and right like this? And I think it's a stand-in for Trump's disregard for his party standing. This is about Trump at this point.

I wrote this last week. It's free-range Trump. He's living his best life. He's having a blast. He gets to go and do his race. rallies again. You know, he could dip into Pennsylvania. Otherwise, he's playing a lot of golf and doing cool stuff like going to games. And that's pretty sweet for him. But guess what's not cool for? It's not for his party. Because they're the ones who are going to have to own this economy and are

going to have to own his misconduct and his running the White House. Like, you know, at a lot of ways, it's just he's moved on. And he's sort of doing what he wants to do politically. So I think that's the tension more than anything else is a president. leader of the party who has focused entirely on his wants, needs, and urges. It just doesn't care about the good of his party anymore. I don't know how that's reconciled. And I come back to what I said last week on this show, which is two words, filing deadlines. Does some of this change, guys, when the filing deadlines next year pass for primaries. And a lot of these lawmakers on the ballot realize that they don't have a primary challenge, or at least a stiff one, and they can speak out

more freely about a president who clearly doesn't give a damn about them and their fortunes going forward. And that's the point. That last line there, Jay Mart. I mean, I think the American people, I think the president is definitely undermining or undercutting in his own mind the intelligence of the American people. And that includes his MAGA base. I think that they can look at what's going on around them and go, gosh, things aren't getting

better. And in many cases, things are getting worse for us. We can't afford things that we used to be able to have all the time. It starts there. And then they can see Trump siding with Russia on Ukraine. And they can see that that's wrong. And they can see that he's blowing up boats with these poor people who have been hired or their families have been taken prisoner and kidnapped and they are threatened to move

these drugs across the ocean. That is, if they are drug runners, we don't even know. I think they can see. that something is wrong here. And it's all on Trump. You can't blame it on Biden. You can't, it just doesn't work anymore. It's, we're too far into this.

This is all Trump's, and his supporters get to feel it and see it. Politico's Jonathan Martin. Thank you very much. His latest piece is available to read online right now. Thanks, coming up, we'll talk to Richard Haas about President Trump's new national security strategy for the United States, including concerns it aligns with Russia's vision. Morning Joe, we'll be right back. It's 47 past the hour and that light can be blinding there as they continue to work on that ballroom.

The White House has, on Friday, quietly released President Trump's new national security strategy. The 33-page plan calls for shifting military resources from to the Western Hemisphere, expanding Coast Guard and Navy operations and authorizing a force against drug cartels. It takes a sharp tone toward Europe, accusing some governments of blocking peace efforts and saying stabilizing relations with Russia is essential to avoiding a wider conflict. a spokesman for the Kremlin characterized the new strategy document as, quote, largely consistent with our vision. Of course it is.

Joining us now, President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haas. He writes about this in a special edition of his home-and-away newsletter on Substack

entitled America Adrift. And Richard, tell us about this new, I dare say, I dare call it a strategic vision It just sounds like a really bad vision, like a really dumb vision and a destructive one for world peace.

Nika, over the last eight decades, 80 years since the end of World War II, the Cold War, the United States essentially had a fairly consistent farm power, supporting the rule of law, balance of power, working through allies involved in institutions, promoting democracy and human rights where we could. This is a massive, massive departure. Yeah. It is the most radical foreign policy vision put forward by any administration in 80 years. This is essentially the end of the post-World War II post-Cold War American foreign policy. As you say, a big emphasis on the Western Hemisphere above Europe, Middle East, Asia. Big emphasis on promoting commercial interests above all else. Deal making.

Russia gets treated with kid gloves. China, the same. Toughest treatment of Europe. treated like an Ivy League University, which is woke and needs to be attacked, really dismissive of Europe hostile about the European Union. No sense at the European Union, by the way, for all of its flaws, yeah, it overregulates, I get it. But it's the reason that you've had peace in Europe in part for the last eight decades, because it brought together Germany and France, which had fought wars and wars and again and again and again throughout history.

So there's no appreciation, I think, of what's been, what's been accomplished. It's a, let's be honest, it is a radical document. It is a radical departure. And it'd be one thing to do a radical departure if we failed over the last 80 years. But the last I checked, we've avoided great power war. We won the Cold War, ended peacefully on terms that were pretty good for us. Our economy's done okay, not perfectly, but okay. The average person lives longer, a lot more freedom in the world.

So we're basically junking, something that's worked pretty well. for something that is radically different. This memorializes the way Donald Trump feels about Europe, doesn't it? When he says Europe's in civilizational decline, he basically writes off Europe and says, your time has come and gone. I want to ask you more specifically about the Russia element of it. It's this age-old question why Donald Trump always seems to put his thumb on the scale in favor of Vladimir Putin. We heard explicitly from the Kremlin spokesperson said this is largely in line with our vision.

We hope now this sets the context for peace on our terms with Ukraine. President Zelensky said two days ago, we're not giving up any land as part of this deal. So where does this document, this national security strategy from the United States, leave the idea of peace or the end of this war? Well, essentially concerns about the rule of law, the idea that aggression should not succeed, seems to be thrown out the window. Any peace, no matter what it entails, is good enough. And there's a greater emphasis on rehabilitating Russia.

developing commercial ties with Russia than there is on preserving Ukraine or sending the lesson to China to North Korea and others that aggression doesn't pay. How do you explain that, Richard, truly, from an American president? The only thing I can say, Will you,

is that it's two things. One is it's consistent with the idea that the purpose of American foreign policy is to promote American business and all that really matters are commercial business interests, nothing else. And two, there's a lack of,

There's a lack of any concern for allies or democracy. And it's an administration and thrall of Russian authoritarianism. It's almost, if you look at Hungary, you look at Russia. You get a sense across the board, there's an admiration for these authoritarian systems. And what's sad is we're beginning to take on, I'm not saying we're identical, but we're beginning to take on some of those characteristics as we become a more top-heavy politically with, a government that's much more involved, say, in the economy. And there's been remarkable reporting by the Wall Street Journal and other places how members of the president's inner circle would benefit economically from deals with Russia were a ceasefire

to be struck. Richard, let's turn to the other one, the country that's not really mentioned here, China. You know, we heard for President Biden time and time again saying when he was in office that he thinks the next century will be this rivalry between the United States and China, but yet it is largely ignored here. Talk to us about, you know, and this comes with the AI deal. The president just struck this week that many critics say will be very beneficial to Beijing sacrificing our edge there, too. Essentially, Trump 1.0 in his first term, treated China quite toughly, basically questioned the orthodoxy about China to his credit. He brought China into the WTO. They didn't play by the

rules. Trump called him out on that. Good for him. That's what he did then. Now, though, this, you no longer seems to treat China as a geopolitical challenge. It's all about economics. You know, Lenin's old line that you can count on capitalists to sell the rope, if it would give them a profit. Well, we're selling China the rope. We're going to give them advanced chips so that they can, you know, essentially better compete. I do not get it. There's a short-termism here. And again, it's a commercial interest first.

China is the principal strategic competitor of the United States, not just economically, but strategically. So what we're doing, instead of supporting Japan against China, we're called the president. calling the Japanese prime minister say, cool it, don't rock the boat with U.S.-China economic relations. Don't you talk about what you might do to come to Taiwan's help if they're attacked? Again, it's an adversary first, alliance second approach to the world. It turns American foreign policy on its head. Happy holidays. Okay. Richard Haas. I mean, he's right. Thank you very much. We really appreciate it. Which I had a more positive note. No, this is the reality we are in right. now. His latest piece is available to read right now on Substact. Thank you, Richard.