The Dispatch Podcast - The Shock Factor | Interview: Joe Scarborough

Episode Date: February 24, 2025

MSNBC anchor Joe Scarborough joins Jamie Weinstein to discuss the first month of Donald Trump’s presidency and whether or not we should hit the panic button over the elected “king.” The Agenda: —Separating signal from the noise —The seven-year itch (to ghost) —Will SCOTUS stop President Trump? —Using the Justice Department —The future of the GOP The Dispatch Podcast is a production of The Dispatch, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a non-partisan, conservative perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including members-only newsletters, bonus podcast episodes, and regular livestreams—click here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Did you lock the front door? Check. Close the garage door? Yep. Installed window sensors, smoke sensors, and HD cameras with night vision? No. And you set up credit card transaction alerts, a secure VPN for a private connection,

and continuous monitoring for our personal info on the dark web? Uh, I'm looking into it. Stress less about security. Choose security solutions from TELUS for peace of mind at home and online. Visit tellus.com slash total security to learn more. Conditions apply. During the Volvo Fall Experience event, discover exceptional offers and thoughtful design

that leaves plenty of room for autumn adventures. And see for yourself how Volvo's legendary safety brings peace of mind to every crisp morning commute. This September, lease a 2026 XE90 plug-in hybrid from $599 bi-weekly at 3.99% during the Volvo Fall Experience event. Condition supply, visit your local Volvo retailer or go to explorevolvo.com. Welcome to the Dispatch podcast. I'm Jamie Weinstein. My guest today is the host of MSNBC's Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough. Joe has known Trump for a long time, obviously was friendly with Trump for many years and then was on the outs. I think he says on this podcast that didn't speak for seven years before Trump was reelected and they had a famous meeting at Mara Lago before his inauguration. But Joe knows Trump extremely well. So I try to get insight from him on where he thinks.

this administration is going and on other issues. So I think you're going to find this an interesting podcast. So without further ado, I give you Mr. Joe Scarborough. It's great to be here. Thank you for having me. Well, Joe, I'm excited to have you on because I think you're one of the probably few people, maybe in politics, who understand, I think, Donald Trump very well at all. So you're somewhat of an Oracle, but I think into him. I want to begin with this. We're about one month into the Trump administration. Has anything surprised you? I think so. I think the biggest surprise is the contrast with what happened in the first term. If you talk to people around Donald Trump in the first term and they tried to predict what was going to happen,

let's say a month down the road, let alone over the next 100 days or year, they would laugh and they would say, we don't know what's going to happen next month because he doesn't know what's going to happen next month. There really wasn't any roadmap. There wasn't really any game plan. And we are seeing a dramatic difference, even though he'll still tweet pictures of himself with a crown on his head. Or he will choose president. stay to say the most un-American thing ever by saying, I can break what laws I ever want to break if I want to save the country. Those things, those things are still out there. He'll still do unpredictable things because it's taken us a while to figure it out. But for him, the reaction,

right, the outrage, that's fuel for him and for his political base. But as far as part Policy goes, this time, you know what, believe people when they, you know, the first time. I mean, you know, everybody was talking about Project 2025. He was going, what? Project 20, I mean, there is no doubt. Project 2025 is providing a roadmap. And they're trying to execute it pretty ruthlessly. That said, you know, with Donald Trump, I'm always reminded of what I was told when I was young congressman, and I just delivered a barn burner of a speech in front of the Pensacola

Downtown Rotary Club. And I had the, I know it'll shock some people, but sometimes I get heated. And I had the Admiral, who was in charge of naval aviation training for the U.S. Come up to me, he said, son, got great respect for what you're trying to do. Hope you balance the budget. I hope you achieve all of these things. but you've got to learn how to separate the signal from the ground noise. And then he sits there, he goes, I tell all my young pilots that all the time.

And then he leans forward, he goes, and boy, almost to all of its ground noise. So I think it's important that we separate the signal from the ground noise in the case of Donald Trump, because, you know, the idea is to shock. The idea is to outrage. The idea, it's about the reaction. I mean, famously, somebody showed me a quote not so long ago, where famously, oh, my God, Roy Cohn, Roy Cone told Bill Sapphire one time a long time ago. He said basically that his superpower was making his enemies hate him so much that in their pursuit of him, they destroyed themselves. And that is a real window way to Donald Trump's soul.

Roy Cohn was telling Bill Sapphire, probably in the early 70s, that that was always what he did was. He would get people so angry they would get out of their game. I think there's a godfather quote, and there, too, about, you know, never, never, you know, let your enemies make you angry. And, of course, Roy Cohn probably, I would argue, is the most influential figure in understanding Donald Trump politically and how we operate. So, I mean, that is very interesting that he said that. Without a doubt. And he goes on to meet Trump in the mid-70s. But let's try to separate the signal from the noise here.

You went down famously or infamously, depending on who you're talking to. I texted you at the time saying, right move to Mar-a-Lago to meet with Donald Trump before the inauguration after a long period of probably not talking so often. Have you talked to him any time since, or was that your only discussion with him recently? No. No, we had not talked to him in seven years. And we thought, other than I did call him the morning after the assassination attempt, just to personally tell him, I'm glad he was okay.

But other than that, we'd not talk to him in seven, seven, eight years. And so we thought after the election, we had, you know, we had been saying that he had been talking like a fascist. And we were obviously outraged by so much of what he was doing. But we figured that it was, you know, that not talking for seven years hadn't really done anything for us. So we thought getting off the record with him and sitting and trying to figure out what was going on in his mind at that time would be helpful. And it's, you know, like we all have off the record conversations with everybody. I mean, I do with, you know, whether it's Macron or whether it's leaders in the Middle East

or whether it's senators and on both sides, we do it. And so had an off-the-record conversation. And we, I think we learned some things that, again, it's usually not what they want you to hear. It's what you pick up in the conversation, sort of, you know, the meaning behind. the words where you figure out what's coming. And so I think it's, I think it's provided as some insights. But again, again, though, I think this term is far different than the last term. And it will be interesting to see what happens after this first sort of shock phase finishes up, which I suspect will be, you know, probably the first three to six months.

It'll be fascinating to see what happens next. Have you had any conversations, follow-up conversations with him since? No, no, I haven't. I will say the one thing that I have done, though, is I've talked to people in the administration, like every other news organization. I mean, the one thing we wanted to do was we wanted to open a line of communications with the people that were working around him. And so that is something we have done. and it's, I think, again, much better to be talking than not talking, to try to, much better to try to understand what their mindset is than not. And like, for instance, with the federal spending

freeze, you know, and the court rulings and asking what their intention was. And again, even though they didn't say it openly and outwardly, it's very clear that everything they're doing is setting up, you ultimately a challenge before the Supreme Court for the impoundment control act, where they're going to try to stretch the boundaries of presidential power as much as possible. For those watching that don't know the whole background, that was some legislation in 1974 that Congress passed to push back against the abuses of the NICS administration, who would also just decide what congressional appropriations they would spend and white congressional appropriations they would not spend. So I think that's probably where the administration is going.

In fact, everything he seems to be doing seems to be trying to push the boundaries of his article two powers as much as possible. It will be fascinating to see, few things, be fascinating to see how the Supreme Court responds when it ultimately gets there, and then it'll be fascinating to see the response to the Supreme Court response. Because I think the Supreme Court will rule against the administration. If you look at the precedents, if you look at what people like William Rinquist, you know, what said, what people in the Reagan administration said about impoundment, say there's simply no rational basis in law or the Constitution for a president to decide what congressional appropriations he's going to spend, which ones he's not, because that's in effect what we conservatives wanted. We wanted a line item veto, you know?

We wanted the president to have the power that a lot of governors have. But the Supreme Court also ruled that was unconstitutional. So he doesn't have that power. And I don't think the Supreme Court's going to magically give it to him now. Well, I wanted to go into this in a little bit, but how far is he willing to go? You mentioned what would be interesting, not only how the Supreme Court rules, but how Donald Trump reacts to that ruling. Do you think that he is willing, he so far has said, no. I mean, he was at one of his many press outings in the Oval Office and said that, you know,

he'll appeal to courts and, you know, he'll go through the process. Some people around him suggest that he ignore lower court rulings and go forward. Do you think he'll ignore the courts? I don't think he will only because I don't think Republicans in Congress that will sit by quietly. There was a question last week. And by the way, there are very few issues that I would say that about. Yeah, I was going to say what gives you the confidence, confidence of the Republicans in Congress or the Senate after them not taking down any of his. Oh, my God.

The least qualified, yeah, some of the least qualified candidates ever to hold cabinet positions. Yeah. Well, I will say that actually when there was a question a couple weeks ago about a possible constitutional crisis of Donald Trump ignored rulings, you say. You saw numerous Republican senators, including John Kennedy of Louisiana, Lindsay Graham, and others saying, you follow the court. You follow what the court say. Mike Rounds said it. Tom Tillis said it. You go down the long list of it.

And there were no Republicans other than, unfortunately, Mike Lee, I saw a tweet that Mike Lee said, talking about a coup by judges. federal judges, which I'm sorry, but one of the craziest, most reckless things, I've heard him say when you consider that this happens every four years. You have, Joe Biden had presidential, you know, had presidential orders that were overturned, most famously, of course, on student loans. This just happened. So, but a lot of Republicans spoke out there. So I think that's one issue. I mean, you had a lot of Republicans speak out against Cash Patel and RFK, Bill Cassidy, a doctor initially. And then when it comes down to vote, it's outrageous. They don't. Why do you think that, you know, there's always murmurs Republicans or, you know,

off the record, there's a lot of Republicans angry at this. But then when it comes time to vote, when it comes time to stand up to certain issues, you often don't see enough Republicans stand up or any that will stop it. Right. I will say again, in very limited, very limited issues, they will do that. Of course, their justification for all of that was he's a president. Historically, you look, and the United States Senate almost always approves a president's nominee. So that was their justification to put people in that were grossly unqualified, that had radical views, who I believe are dangerous for America. But they could say, this is the way things work and advise and consent. But almost always the president gets the people in that he wants in. I think, again, the only two cases right now where I'd say Republicans would stand up and speak out would be if the president decided to go full Andrew Jackson and say, Mr. Roberts has his court,

his decision, let's see him enforce it. I don't think that would happen. I don't think it could happen only because I think the blowback from Republicans in the House and the Senate in that one instance would be dramatic. I think in the other instance, and I could be proven wrong here, just like I'd be in Reuven the first case, is Ukraine. I think what we're saying is starting to develop in Ukraine is the same thing that happened in the first term where Donald Trump would go to hell sinky, say the most humiliating, embarrassing, revolting things, saying that he trusted Vladimir Putin more than he tried. trusted, you know, his own Intel chiefs that he appointed. And then there was great blowback. And while he was saying all the things that he was saying favorably about Vladimir Putin from 2017 through 2021, you had Republicans in the Senate passed, the toughest sanctions against Russia

that had been passed. You had Mike Pence, his vice president. The same time he was playing sort of footsy with Vladimir Putin, you'd have Mike Pence and other members of administration saying, some very tough things, taking hard-line stances. And you're already starting to see that happen. General Kellogg has done that. You have Marco Rubio and others, a lot of cold warriors that are around him, who are quietly talking to Europeans saying this is all just part of negotiations. And certainly, you know, Tom Tillis went on the floor, spoke out, and you're going to have other Republicans, I think, speaking out against it. So I think there are one or two issues where Republicans may stand up and speak out.

I'm distressed, though, that they haven't spoken out against all of the things that he's been saying, whether you're talking about taking Greenland away from Denmark, taking the canal away from Panama, taking Gaza away from the Palestinians, or taking Canada away from Canada. It's pretty outrageous. It's outrageous what he did with USAID. I'm a small government conservative. But for Elon Musk to say the outrageous things, he said about what the United States does to promote soft power across the globe.

You look at PEPFAR, it saved over 25 million lives. George W. Bush's PEPFAR saved over 25 million lives across Africa. We could go down the laundry list of things that Republicans should be speaking up about. They just haven't spoken up about them. I do think Ukraine will be an exception to that. And if you take what they said last week when there's a suggestion, Donald Trump may not follow court rulings at the Supreme Court. It seems that there was some pushback there.

Well, I want to get back to Ukraine and some foreign policy in a little bit. But back to your meeting at Marlago and what you're witnessing now, what is his state of mind and has it changed since you, does it look like it has changed since you talked to him a month and a half ago? So, you know, the thing, I think the thing that I gleaned from Moralago, And I will say, again, when you meet with leaders, whether it's foreign leaders who are hostile to the United States or whether they're supposedly, you know, America's allies, you pick up a lot by what they're saying, what they're thinking and, but also just body language and a thousand different like cues, not only from them, but the people that are around them. And I think what I picked up from Donald Trump when we were there before was that, that he, you know, Maggie Haberman said that he, you know, Maggie Haberman said that he, He was a guy who always felt like he was fighting for his life every five minutes.

And the Donald Trump that a lot of people have seen since the election said he seems to have moved beyond that. And I think as far as his state of mind goes, I think two things can be true at once. I think, again, he can feel like, you know, he can exhale a little bit because they won. And the mindset of not only Donald Trump, but everybody that was close to him after the first election was, he got elected. He expected immediately for the world to throw their arms around him. And he was shocked when that didn't happen. He was shocked when there was no honeymoon.

I think he was shocked when immediately the questions started rising about Russia, legitimately. Some questions rising about Russia when you look at some of the things that happened during transition, and early on, whether it was with Michael Flynn or others. And so I think there was a feeling that he was never given sort of that honeymoon. I think they're feeling like probably feeling this time. that they're a little more in control of the situation. And this is just my reading of it. Nobody's told me this.

But I think they are so determined to never be back in that position again where they have to wonder what Rod Rosenstein's going to do, where they're going to have to wonder what Jeff Sessions is going to do, are they going to have to worry about what Bill Barr is going to do, where they're going to have to worry about what a Mueller investigation is going to do. they're never going to have to worry about their generals kind of quietly going behind his back as he always felt like Mattis did and other generals did to sort of slow things down with North Korea or China. I think their mindset is that they tried to throw us in prison.

They never gave me a break. Washington was after me from the second I got there. It's never going to happen again. That's their mindset. I would only say to that, this mandate that he got was a point in a half. And this idea that somehow we're living in Donald Trump's America and Elon Musk's America that somehow there's been this massive ideological shift or this massive cultural shift is just absolutely ridiculous. Because you look on election day, Donald Trump, Yeah. Donald Trump won Wisconsin. On that same day, the voters of Wisconsin sent a lesbian to the United States Senate. He won Michigan. And on that same day, in that same swing state, they sent a woman to the United States Senate. You can say the same thing. I mean, look at Ruben Gallego in Arizona, one of the more progressive members of the United States House. They sent him a Latino progressive to the United States. State Senate on the same day. They comfortably put Donald Trump in. They sent a Jewish woman to represent in Nevada, to represent them in Nevada the same day. They voted for Donald Trump.

But wouldn't Trump argue that that's not the, I mean, he pointed Scott Basin, a gay secretary of Treasury, that what he is fighting against is not women or gay people, but an ideology, DEI, that he wants excise and some gay people do as well and some women do as well, that he wouldn't see that as a rejection. of whatever he sees as his movement. Yeah, but what I'm saying is there's just this gross oversimplification about what this election meant. Yeah.

And that somehow America has changed in every way because Donald Trump won by one and a half points and because he won by less than a percentage point in Wisconsin, one and a half points in Michigan or Pennsylvania. And I'm just saying the election was very close. And again, you look at the people that were elected in those same states. It suggests, you know, there were voters that voted for Donald Trump and Tammy Baldwin that voted for Donald Trump and Ruben Gallego. And what I'm saying is America is not Donald Trump's America or Elon Musk's America.

It is still the United States of America, as Barack Obama said in 2004. And it's not a red America or a blue America. It's a plat America. So images of Elon Musk with a chainsaw, you know, bragging. about taking a chainsaw to the National Institutes of Health, taking a chainsaw to the FAA, taking a chainsaw to TSA, taking a chainsaw to the Department of Education, cutting grants for the University of Alabama, cutting grants for the University of Iowa, cutting grants for all of these other state schools. I mean, what I'm saying is this is a massive overreach. So,

So this calculation, hey, I'm never going to put myself in a position again where I'm sort of behind the political eight ball. I think they're making, I think they're making massive political mistakes. And right now, everybody may be shocked and stunned and deeply saddened by what they've seen over the first month. But there's a political gravity. You know, a 2008 Barack Obama won a massive landslide. And we heard that Democrats were going to be in charge. They had the majority of this ascendant, this ascendant majority. Two years later, the Tea Party took over.

2004, Coral Roves said that there was going to be a permanent Republican majority. Two years later, Nancy Pelosi was Speaker of the House. I mean, yeah, the American people self-correct pretty quickly, pretty rapidly. And I think with all the overreach that we're seeing right now, that's likely to happen two years from now. Not long ago, I saw someone go through a sudden loss, and it was a stark reminder of how quickly life can change and why protecting the people you love is so important. Knowing you can take steps to help protect your loved ones and give them that extra layer of security brings real peace of mind. The truth is the consequences of not having life insurance can be serious. That kind of financial strain on top of everything else is why life insurance indeed matters.

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obviously all the law positions with people that aren't Bill Barr and aren't Chris Ray. There is another side of the coin. And I wonder what insight you have into this and what you think is the revenge side. How much, you know, he was sitting there four months ago, staring at Jack Smith, as we said, now he's president, has a lot of levers of power as president, starts, you know, in the first week taking away security from Mike Pompeo and John Bolton and doing a few things like that, which, you know, are one thing that he could do easily. But then there has always been the question of, does he use the DOJ to go after some of his enemies? The January 6th House Committee, Liz Cheney, people like that, General Millie. Does he use the IRS to audit people? Do you think

that he is more interested in success or revenge or a combination? Well, you know, I said two things you'd be true at once. The one thing I, the one thing I had already expressed you earlier was that I'm glad you circled back to this. The one thing that he, again, he felt like he had escaped all of that. So, of course, he was much more positive about it. That's one side of the coin. The other side of the coin is that, that, you know, they could all say, and they've all said, I'm going to be too busy to seek retribution. But there's no doubt. He has lined things up, whether it's going after the media, whether it's going after January 6 prosecutors, whether it's going after, as you said, General Millie, whether it's going after John Bolton.

I will tell you, one of the things that distressed me as well was going after Brian Hook. Here's a guy who had been his envoy on Iran issues and had been a very low. loyal State Department worker for Donald Trump. He had his security taken away, and he's on the hit list as well. He's on Iran's hit list. I mean, we have Tom Cotton saying, you know, that there's still an imminent danger to the lives of General Millie, still an imminent danger, to Ambassador Bolton, still an imminent danger to Brian Hook, and he shouldn't take that security away. Obviously, that's, that is, that's deeply concerning. So, uh, yeah, you know, there, there was an effort during the transition to try to convince people that they

weren't going after retrib, you know, they weren't going to seek retribution. I will say during our meeting, uh, while there, there was nothing like, those words weren't spoken out loud. I, I did not get the sense that he had forgotten or he had forgiven for what, what had happened in the past. And, you know, I think that, I think the fact that, you know, the image of him with a mugshot that he always keeps handy. Now on his wall in the Oval Office. I think that is a constant reminder.

Right. Now on his wall in the Oval Office, I think that answers, I think that answers your question. But do you, I mean, do you think it's possible we see prosecute you? I mean, can you imagine Liz Cheney being prosecuted for, who knows what? I think, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, Listen, anything's possible. I mean, look what's happened over the past month. I think anything's possible.

I think what is probably more likely would be his allies in the House, the United States House of Representatives calling them up and forcing them to hire lawyers and testify in front of hearings at the House and kind of grind them down that way. being harassed. We already saw Ed Martin, who's the acting U.S. Attorney for Washington, is actually going after Chuck Schumer and members of Congress who are critical of Doge. That is so beyond the realm, so outside the borders, so outside of even what Richard Nixon would do. I think they're going to do that. I think there's going to be a lot of harassment. I think you're also going, you know, you're probably going to also, like I said, you'll see

the congressional investigations. And I think you'll also see the media continued to be harassed. Yeah, I was surprised when I woke up and didn't realize he was appointed that Ed Martin I had on my old podcast four or five years ago after he was fired from CNN. The idea that he would be in a position of power was a little bit. So let me ask you, was, Was he like at that time? Was he a traditional conservative? No. No, no.

I mean, when I had people on all over the ideological spectrum, so I brought people who were way out there. I will say that from what I remember, I had a sense that he was almost playing a game and he's playing super far right. He had just been fired from CNN for doing something, saying something on air. And I felt he would answer these questions very radically, but I also had Darren Beatty. on it. He was actually kind of, I think, malicious. You could get a sense that there was something dark there. With Ed, I almost found he saw this comical as a game. He was playing full MAGA,

but then the idea that you put him in charge of a, you know, a very important justice role seems I was shot by that. Surprised. I'm going to say, I'm very surprised and I can't be shocked anymore by the people I knew in the before times who were conservatives. conservatives who were allies while we were fighting to balance the budget, who were allies when we were pushing for welfare reform, who were allies when we were pushing to have a strong response to whether it was Russia or whether it was China, whether it was North Korea, whether it was Syria, whether it was Iran. I've just, I've been, I hate to continue to be surprised, but by all of these people that were, it's like these Reagan conservatives who've

completely thrown that aside. Again, and it's more like they're, you know, they're just playing a role right now. And I guarantee you, if for some reason, after Donald Trump leaves off, is it for some reason a mainstream Republican ever captures the nomination again, switch right back. It's pretty depressing. Well, I was going to ask you later on, do you think it's more, and I agree with you on that,

whoever leads the party kind of leads the movement. Do you think it's more likely if Donald Trump, in 2028, the nominee is someone more like J.D. Vance or more like Nikki Haley? I mean, it depends. I mean, it depends what happens in, you know,

what happens in, you know, 2025 elections, 26, 27, and then going into 28. I mean, again, remember George W. Bush in 2004, you know, they were talking about a permanent Republican majority. And the party, you know, the party got beat up. And then they lost with McCain. And by the time Romney lost, you know, they were ready for somebody like Donald Trump. So it depends on, on how they do, how they do.

But, but again, if it is a Nikki Haley type figure, if it is a sort of more of a main street Republican. And by the way, the Republican Party did this before in a less dramatic way. In 2010, the Tea Party won. And, you know, by 2014, people had had enough. and contributors had had had enough. And they said, hey, these people have gotten crazy. We want to win elections again.

And so they got serious about putting more Main Street Republicans on the ballot. And they had a massive 2014. So you never know where a party is going to go. Unfortunately, you know where these sort of hangar honors are going to go. And they'll suddenly remember all the things. things, you know, all the Edmund Burke quotes and all the Russell Kirk quotes and all the Ronald Reagan and Buckley quotes, again, if that Main Street Republican ever gets a nomination. Speaking of 2020, I somewhat dismissed this before the election. Now I'm not to sure.

You spoke about vulnerability. And Trump was in a vulnerable position. I don't think he ever wants to be in that position again where he could be in a courtroom. Right. You hear now Steve Bannon talking about it maybe just as a troll, but these things start as a troll and build into something. do you think there's any chance that Donald Trump will try to change the Constitution or argue that the first term was unfair to run again in 2028? I can't predict. Again, I can't predict what he's going to do next week. I do think that, again, you will have Republican senators pushing back.

But that's so far off. Again, I could have never predicted what was going to happen in the first month at the Trump administration. So it's very dangerous, trying to figure out what we can expect even through the middle of March. But, you know, there will be people that might be suggesting that. But, you know, it's kind of like Donald Trump deciding that he was going to get rid of birthright citizenship by signing a presidential order. Sometimes things don't happen quite that way. Elon Musk, you mentioned him earlier.

Can you give us any insight into his thing? Have you met him? Do you know him? I know, I believe your agent is also one of his friends. Right. Have you had a chance to ever have a conversation with him? And if so, is he different from Elon Musk that you talk to to the one that we're seeing now? I mean, I've spoken with him briefly and in the situation where I was actually at Ari's, Ari Emmanuel's wedding.

And Walter Isaacson wrote about this in his book, that Ari being Ari, put Larry David right next to Elon Musk. knowing what would happen. And Larry David immediately started yelling at him, how could you support Republicans? What are you doing supporting Republicans? And Musk was pretty quiet there. So I didn't say a whole lot, didn't say a whole lot through the dinner. But from people who know him, Auri and other people who know him,

I think their belief is, Elon Musk wants to do, and his bro, his bro friends in Silicon Valley believe that the federal government should be stripped down to, you know, its core, they should tear it down to the stubs of the house and rebuild it. That's not how Washington works. There are going to be a lot more surprises that come their way as they continue to use this sort of chainsaw approach. I think they're already starting to see that. They certainly saw it with the firing of people who were responsible for nuclear safety. They saw it when they accidentally fired people that were responsible for, you know,

trying to keep the bird flu in check. And I think they're going to find time and time again that you can't just sort of retorting rhetorically shoot first and then cut first and then ask questions later. So, I mean, they, they, they, I think, you know, you're talking about signal and ground noise. This is, it's a terrible thing what they're doing, uh, in my opinion. Um, there was a town hall meeting down in Georgia that Greg Blustein, with the Atlanta Journal constitution cover of a Republican who easily won his district. And he was just absolutely overwhelmed by, um, hostile, uh, voices in his town hall meeting. It reminded me a lot of when people went around holding town hall meetings while Barack Obama was trying to pass the Affordable Care Act, and people were saying, you know, you can't do this because I won't be able to keep my own doctor. But I think you're going to see a lot more of that. You have, you have Maga Senators, like a certain Maga Senator from the state of Alabama, who suddenly is concerned because, you know,

my alma mater is, you know, it's because of Richard Shelby and Alabama senators over the past 20 years, the University of Alabama has got a ton of federal funding, a ton of federal grants. Its engineering program has gotten really good. They've become a very competitive school. But now there are a lot of these programs that are being cut and a lot of funding is being cut without even, you know, without, again, much, much, much thought put into it. So, you know, that's, the University of Alabama is the state of Alabama's number one employer. And that's going to impact not only Katie Britt and other other representatives in that state, but you're going to see the same thing happening.

You know, the University of Iowa is having to make massive cuts because of NIH. funding cuts. And you're going to see that happening in a lot of red states and a lot of purple states and a lot of blue states. And so, you know, I know what they want to do. I know what they're trying to do. I think they're trying to send a message, but they're not going to find a trillion dollars. And they're not going to be able to pay for a fraction of the tax cut that they're trying to pass. And they're not going to do anything, anything that is going to that $36 trillion debt down because 90% of the budget is consumed by defense spending, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and interest on the debt.

By the time you get to the last 10, 12%, that they're going after right now, that small portion is a portion that most Americans consider to be what government actually does, which, you know, keep their food safe, keep the air clean, keep the water they drink safe, make sure that the skies or friendly, you know, for traveling. So it's, again, I think they're going about it all wrong. And the word that was used last night, this town hall meeting, I think it was a Republican who said it said he was, said, I'm all for cutting waste fraud and abuse, but I can't believe how sloppy this approach is. And it really is. It's just a sloppy approach. And I hope that, you know, after a month of doing it this way, somebody will will put on the brakes and try to

up and doing a more reasonable, rational way that actually makes sense. So you are making government more effective. You are making government more productive. You are making our streamlining government in smart ways instead of in sloppy ways. But it sounds like from the people you talk to it. I mean, seeing Elon at CPAC yesterday with the glasses on, it honestly didn't look. And the chainsaw. Yeah, entirely well.

I mean, it was a little strange. It's like, I forget who said it's someone that was like John Mullain. on the late night show before he went to rehab. Meanwhile, you know, while he's on stage, one of his, I guess, mothers of his children's tweeting at him

to contact her, you know, he's been trying to contact her to deal with a crisis for one of the children or something like that. This is the Elon that they know from building these great companies. We're not seeing a different Elon here. We're not seeing a, you know,

a mental break of any sort. Are you asking? Yeah, I'm saying from, I mean, you know people who know Elon more than I do. The Elon we're seeing, none of them are saying, this is a different guy, this is not a guy who's, who built those companies. Well, I mean, you know, Walter Isaacson, when I asked Walter a year ago or six months ago about Elon, he had said that, you know, there are five or six different Elines. One day you go there to interview Elon Musk and he's Elon Musk, the sort of Henry Ford of our generation, the same thing. Steve Jobs of our generation. The next day you go there, he's completely wired and angry and yelling.

The next day you get somebody else, the next day you get somebody else. So, you know, I think there's always been, there's always been several different sides of Elon. I don't know him and don't know him and haven't really spoken to people that know him really well that long, but it certainly does sing. I'll just say I'm concerned by the images that I'm saying and concerned by the imagery that I'm saying. He is, I mean, he's a, he's a guy that knows how to make rockets. He's a guy that knows how to make cars. I don't know that he's a guy that has proven himself to be very effective in building a social media company or facing outward

toward the public in a lot of different ways. And I got to believe that people in the White House, I have no information on this, but I've got to believe that somebody in the White House has to be concerned by that image of him, you know, with a chainsaw, holding it up in the air, bragging about taking a chainsaw to government

at the same time that you have NIH funding cuts that will literally risk the line. of Americans whose lives have been made better and whose lives have been saved by extraordinary medical advances and scientific advances of the NIH. Same thing with the FAA, the same thing with, you know, food and drugs. I mean, you could just go down the list of things. That's a, I think that is a terrible political image that may fire up, you know, the base, may fire up 25% of Americans.

But I think you have a lot more people who voted for Don. Trump for a lot of different reasons than to see, you know, see Elon Musk take a quote chainsaw to government. Let me close with this show because I know that you have another commitment soon after. You mentioned earlier this is the shock phase that you thought would last three to six months. What is after the shock phase? You know, after the three and six months, what do you expect to see after the shock phase is over? I don't know. I don't know.

Again, it's hard to predict what's going to have. happen next. I think we're, we're, we're all, I think we've all, we've all been overwhelmed, or most of us have been overwhelmed by what's happened over the past month, but I will say, the one thing that, that, I mean, I know and I, and I'm sure you know and everybody else, this is by design. Everything they're doing is by design to intimidate, to, to intimidate Democrats, to keep Democrats off balance, to keep their opponents off balance. And so that's the phase we're in right now. What happens when a lot of these court rulings come down and they're ruled against? What happens when they don't have is they don't get exactly what they want

out of a lot of these actions that clearly push the limits of the president's authority and clearly impedes on the authority of the United States Congress. What happens with this polling? What happens, you know, in swing states with polling and swing states in North Carolina, where Tom Tillis has to win in 26, in Maine, where Susan Collins has to win in 26, in Michigan, in all of these swing states where there are important Senate races that are coming up in 2026. We'll see not only how Donald Trump and the administration responds, we'll also see how those members, individual members of Congress response. So far, Republicans haven't spoken out enough.

I suspect if the numbers go the way they're probably going to go, I suspect that we will see more Republicans speaking out. By the way, those numbers that may move, and some polls are already suggesting that some of the numbers are moving the negatives are moving into the 50s and hardening pretty much, you know, they're not hardening when you talk, when you read the articles and see what the respondent said because of Elon Musk necessarily or because of Greenland or because of Canada, they're hardening because prices are still high. They're afraid inflation is going to continue to go up. The economy's still hot. Interest rates don't seem to be going down anytime soon. Housing is still too expensive in a lot of places. We have an economy that right now, I think, is resting on three bubbles. One is the fiscal bubble, a $36 trillion debt.

It's only going to get worse. If you look at the Republican spending plan and their tax cutting plan, you've got the crypto bubble, which is just outrageously inflated right now. And then you have the stock market bubble that you're starting to see some of the sort of air kind of go out of that. But when Warren Buffett moves all of his money to cash, there's a reason. He did it before the dot-com boom. He did it before 2008. He's done it again.

So I suspect that all the talk of tariffs and all the talk of trying to pressure Jay Powell to bring interest rates down, which would be just a nightmare for working America. because of the inflation that it would cause when the economy is already running too high. I think all of that combined probably may harden those numbers even more. You know, the thing, what we found was the things that concerned us the most, Mika and me and other people that were on my show the most, where you talk about democracy for Mika, it was women's choice, some of the violent rhetoric that was. used, some of the fascist-sounding rhetoric that was used out there, the things that bothered us

the most weren't necessarily the things that moved voters. What moved voters? I mean, James Carver was right. Ninety-two. It's the economy, stupid. Moved voters. One of our great frustrations in the 1990s going after Bill Clinton, thinking that, you know, Bill Clinton shouldn't have left office with a 60% plus approval rating. You know, it was Carver's. was right. It was the economy, stupid. If you've got a good, strong economy, then usually the American people will stay with you. And so I think that's the big question mark right now. With this economy that right now, I think, is floating on three different bubbles that can burst in any time. The big question is, where do voters go? And as voters, if voters move away from this

administration, what does that mean for Republicans in the Senate and the House? Will they be more willing to take stands against some of the more outrageous extreme policy positions. Joe Scarborough, thank you for joining the Dispatch podcast. All right. It's great talking to you. Thanks so much for happening. Calling all book lovers. The Toronto International Festival of Authors brings you a world of stories all in one place. Discover five days of readings, talks, workshops and more

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