Donald Trump fired the man who likely saved his life; U.S. may never fully recover from Trump's cuts

Tax Act knows filing your taxes can be complicated, and that's why we have live experts to help you with any questions. They can hold your hand through the process beginning to end.
Metaphorically, of course. I mean, they can't actually hold your hand in person.
I suppose you could hold your computer mouse while you chat with the expert about capital gains or whatever, which is sort of like holding hands. Sorry, point is, our tax experts can make filing easier.
Tax Act. Let's get them over with.
Subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts. New episodes of all your favorite MSNBC shows now ad-free.
Plus, ad-free listening to all of Rachel Maddow's original series, Ultra, Bagman, and Deja News. And all MSNBC original podcasts are available ad-free and with bonus content, including Why Is This Happening, Velshi Band Book Club, and more.
Subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts. So are you tired of all the winning yet? Are you enjoying all of the greatness?

May I introduce you to Takilau? Takilau is three teeny tiny islands in the middle of the Pacific

Ocean. That's our best approximation on our mapping software here at MSNBC HQ.
Takilau,

again, it's three islands. It's in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
About 1,500 people live there. One of the three islands that makes up Takulao is apparently known for its famous swimming pigs.
As for its economy, Takulao kind of doesn't register on any international scale of economic measures because Takulao doesn't really have much of an economy. It's basically subsistence, agriculture, and fishing, and, you know, enjoying the swimming pigs.
Donald Trump just imposed an across the board, no exceptions, 10% tariff on Takilau. Take that, Takilau bandits.
You will screw over the United States of America no longer. May I also introduce you to the Keeling Islands.
Keeling Islands are roughly halfway between Australia and Sri Lanka in the Indian Ocean, Keeling Islands is 27 islands, but 25 of them are uninhabited. Several of those uninhabited islands have a real plastic trash problem, but that is not because anybody lives there, but because plastic trash from other countries makes its way across the Indian Ocean and washes up there.
The two islands of the Keeling Islands that are inhabited out of the 27 islands there, those two inhabited islands have a total population of 593 people. Well, Donald Trump just declared trade war on the Keeling Islands.
All 593 Keeling Islanders will now be hit with an American government 10% tariff that will apply to, you know, anything they might ever want to export here to us. You know, make it here, Keeling Islands, if you're going to make it.
May I introduce you to Jan Mayen Island? It is a volcano, a volcanic island mostly covered in glaciers hundreds of miles from anything else in the Arctic Ocean. Jan Mayen, I think that's how you say it.
It does have an airstrip, but nobody lives there. Population zero humans, many polar bears.
That said, rest assured, we, the American people, are now protected from the predatory economic piracy of that uninhabited island. Thanks to our genius strongman ruler who has put the American government to work, Donald Trump has just slapped a 10 percent tariff on Yan Mayan Island just in case anyone ever moves up there and tries to screw us over with their Yan Mayan Island underpriced exports and stuff.
On the other end of the world, there's Heard, H-E-A-R-D, Heard Island and also McDonald Island. They're in Antarctica.
They are only reachable by boat, and it takes two weeks by sea to get there from Australia. Herd and what's the other one? McDonald Island.
Sorry. Herd and McDonald Island.
I know I don't have to apologize. I'm not offending anybody.
They're totally uninhabited. Both of them.
They're also active volcanoes. So even if you wanted to move there, even the penguins might caution you, right? They're active volcanoes, one on each island, on both Heard and McDonald Islands.
I will say those volcanoes and the penguins and seals who live there, they will never menace the American economy again, as they have in the past by flooding us with their cheap exports of what, like fresh air, cool breezes, a waft of eau de penguin. I don't know.
What do they send us? The uninhabited Antarctic volcanoes of Herd and McDonald Islands were just slapped by Donald Trump today with a steep 10% tariff. Are you tired of all the winning America? Can you just feel the practical economic benefits that MAGA leadership is bringing to us at last? Isn't it a relief? Agence France Press picked up on another one of these as well.
This is super genius. Quote, Britain's Falkland Islands, population 3,200 people and around 1 million penguins, got particular punishment from Trump's tariffs today.
Quote, the South Atlantic territory was walloped with tariffs of not 10 percent, but 41 percent on exports to the United States. 41 percent tariff on the Falkland Islands because, yeah.
Our president waited until late in the day to announce these genius tariffs today. He waited specifically until just after 4 p.m.
Eastern time because the financial markets close at 4 p.m. Eastern time, and he didn't want to see that reaction in real time.
After the markets close, there's no active trading on the American stock markets, right? But people trade in futures that indicate essentially what they think the markets are going to do when they open up tomorrow. This is the lead right now at CNBC.com

explaining how that's going. Quote, U.S.
stock futures cratered as President Donald Trump unveiled sweeping tariffs of at least 10 percent and even higher for some countries, raising the risks of a global trade war that hits the already sputtering U.S. economy.
Futures tied to the Dow Jones industrial average lost 1,069 points or 2.5 percent. S&P 500 futures dropped 3.6 percent.
NASDAQ 100 futures lost four and a half percent. Yeah.
Are you tired of all the winning? Did you vote for the rich guy because you thought he'd be good with money? CNBC quotes Art Hogan, chief market strategist at B. Riley Wealth Management, saying, quote, what was delivered was as haphazard as anything this administration has done to date.
And the level of complication on top of the ultimate level of the new tariffs is worse than had been feared and not yet priced into the market. At The New York Times, they described a broad range of economists, quote, revising their forecasts down for growth and up for inflation as a result of Mr.
Trump's announcement. Nancy Lazar, chief global economist at Piper Sandler, had previously expected a flat next quarter in terms of U.S.
economic growth. She now expects that U.S.
economic growth in the second quarter may be negative. It may fall one percent, quote, because you're going to be increasing prices more aggressively

and it's going to negatively impact the consumer space more than we had anticipated.

She said, quote, it's an immediate hit to the economy. And when she says it's going to negatively

impact the consumer space, the consumer space, that's where we all live. That's the negatively

impacted space, the place where regular humans live and have to spend money on stuff. We, in our office, contacted Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman just after Trump made his announcement today to ask his initial reaction.
He told us this, quote, Trump's tariff announcement was full on crazy. Not only is he imposing higher

tariffs than almost anyone expected, but he's justifying them with completely false claims about other countries' tariffs. I don't know where his numbers are coming from, but they have nothing to do with reality.
Krugman told us, quote, it's a really bad day for the U.S. economy.
Now, here's something interesting. I think a lot of what Trump is trying to do in his style of leadership, as it were, is trying to create not only the impression of success when it's not there, like him saying his first two months in office have been perfect, which is hilarious, But he's also trying to create an impression that he is omnipotent, that he has all the power.
He has powers that no other president has ever had. He has all the power and nobody else in the U.S.
government, nobody else in the United States of America has any power to do anything of their own, let alone any power to stop him. But to that point, it's worth getting specific about this.
The reason we are all spectators here, while Donald Trump purposefully craters the U.S. economy and threatens to throw the entire world into a pointless trade war-fueled recession, if not depression, which is what he's doing tonight.
The reason we're all spectators to that is because he has given himself, he says, the power to do this all by himself. When he was sworn in for the second term, he declared an economic emergency that would allow him to just burp out tariff proclamations on his own say so whenever he felt like it, with nobody else in the government having to be involved in it at all.
All because he said it's an emergency. Now, quick reminder here that when the previous president, Joe Biden, was leaving office, The Economist magazine decided to do a special report on the state of the U.S.
economy that was being left to the next president. This was The Economist cover for that special report.
It shows the U.S. economy as a bundle of bills posing as a rocket ship soaring into outer space.
The headline, quote, America's economy, the envy of the world. But then the new president took over.
Donald Trump got in and he immediately declared that this envy of the world economy was a complete disaster. It was an emergency, so much so that he needed effectively dictatorial powers to set new economic policies by fiat just on his own say so.
Whatever he feels like is policy, it's just in effect because he said it. And with those emergency powers, that's how he's been able to single-handedly do his best to destroy the U.S.
economy and potentially much of the industrialized world economies. There is a way, a legal way, a policy way to interrupt this dictatorship mid-catastrophe.
And I don't mean time traveling back to last

October to show voters tonight's headlines, although I do fantasize about doing something like that all the time. Now, the actual way to stop this dictatorship mid-catastrophe, the way to stop this part of Trump's one-man wrecking ball operation against the U.S.
economy is for Congress to do something very simple.

For Congress to simply declare with a simple majority vote that actually there isn't an emergency. Yes, Trump proclaimed an economic emergency.
That's how he gave himself these emergency powers. But Congress could simply just say, actually, no, there isn't an economic emergency.
So no, he no longer has these powers. He is no longer empowered to single-handedly drunk drive our country into this particular wall.
They could do that. And tonight, the United States Senate did.
They actually passed a bill like that about the supposed economic emergency we're in with regard to Canada. And they passed this resolution in the Senate that expressly says there is no economic emergency here.
They passed it, 51 to 48. All Democratic senators supported it.
And so did these four Republican senators, Rand Paul, Susan Collins, Mitch McConnell, and Lisa Murkowski.

Gave us a 51 to 48 vote. And that means it passes.
It only takes a simple majority to pass this kind of resolution in the Senate. And so this resolution, effectively taking away

some of Trump's emergency powers to set tariffs on his own say so, it has passed the Senate.

And that means it now goes to the House. And in the House, Democrats have been trying

I'm going to go. tariffs on his own say so, it has passed the Senate.
And that means it now goes to the House. And in the House, Democrats have been trying to bring up this exact same resolution since Trump started bludgeoning the economy with these tariff announcements.
The House, like the Senate, is controlled by Republicans. But just like the Senate, the House is probably likely to pass this resolution if it got a vote.
All the Democrats would vote for it, and enough Republicans in the House probably would join with Democrats to pass it. And if they did, with the Senate passing it and the House passing it, that would mean that the proverbial gun was taken out of Trump's hand and he could be stopped from shooting any more holes into the American economy and the global economy.
The problem is that the Republican Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, saw this coming and took a dramatic and bizarre step to prevent any possibility that the House of Representatives would ever have to vote on anything like this to take away Trump's powers. The rule is if somebody brings up this kind of resolution in the House, after a certain number of days, it's supposed to be mandatory that it actually gets a vote.
In order to avoid that mandatory vote, House Speaker Mike Johnson got Congress, got the House to proclaim that the whole rest of this year in Congress is one long day. The whole rest of this Congress only counts as one calendar day.
So that means multiple days will never elapse technically. And that means they will never be forced to take the vote in the House, which would pass.
And if it passed, that would save the American people and the American economy and the global economy from the tariff disaster that Trump is unilaterally imposing under emergency powers that allow him to act by fiat as if he is a dictator. So in other words, there is a cure to this disease.
There is a readily available, dramatically effective, proven legal antidote to this poison. And Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson grabbed it out of our hands and flushed it down the toilet to make sure we can never take it so Donald Trump can keep doing this to the economy.
Are you tired of all the winning? The vote tonight in the Senate to take away these emergency powers from Trump, with which he's doing all the tariff stuff, that vote in the Senate tonight does happen to be the largest and most significant rebuke to Trump that congressional Republicans have yet mustered in his second term in office. Theoretically, if people could pressure Mike Johnson into allowing a vote on this same resolution in the House, it would actually be a rebuke that meant something that maybe saved the economy.
But unless and until that happens, some Senate Republicans have shown a little strength here. But until anything happens in the House, it's Trump and House Republicans standing together to throw us all off the cliff.
Also, we can slap those Antarctic penguins with big tariffs in case they ever turn into humans and start making stuff that they might want to sell us. That'll show them.
And, you know, I don't I don't know if these actions by Trump and congressional Republicans are why Americans are sort of showing how they feel about Republicans in the way they are right now. But it does this stuff about the economy.
It does coincide with this big flurry of election results we've just had in the past week in which Democrats are doing very, very well and Republicans are doing very poorly. Republicans are at least losing huge amounts of ground, if not just losing altogether.
We're going to speak momentarily with Wisconsin Democratic Party chairman Ben Wickler after that stunning 10 point win last night by the Democratic backed candidate in the Wisconsin state Supreme Court race. She was up against a Trump endorsed ultra MAGA candidate.
He benefited not only from twenty five million dollars from Elon Musk, but also from a last minute blockbuster campaign event hosted by Musk in Wisconsin, in which he gave out million dollar checks and told Wisconsin voters that the fate of humanity rested on whether or not this MAGA candidate guy was going to win. Turns out none of that worked.
We probably should have seen the result coming when we saw the big, feisty, very fired up protests in Green Bay, Wisconsin, the day of Elon Musk's event there this weekend. People covered both sides of the street.
They made tons of noise. You see him with their they had a huge wraparound banner that says Wisconsin not for sale.
I mean, there was there was many signs that that protest there against Elon Musk as against Brad Schimmel, as against Musk and Trump's candidate for that Supreme Court seat.

And of course, as I mentioned, this was Green Bay, Wisconsin, so they're blunt.

Packer fans don't like Nazis.

After the results came in last night, one Republican Party county chair in Wisconsin told Politico.com, quote,

I'm honestly shocked. I thought we had it in the bag.
I thought Musk was going to be an asset for this race. Really? Have you looked around recently? Have you talked to any of your neighbors? So in Wisconsin, Susan Crawford won easily against Trump and Musk's candidate in that Supreme Court race.
But it wasn't just her. There was also a superintendent of schools race, statewide race in Wisconsin.
That went the same way with the Democratic-backed candidate beating the Republican-backed candidate pretty easily. In those two deep, deep red congressional districts in Florida that also had elections last night, we saw the Republican candidates win in both.
But Democrats cut way, way into their margins. Trump won in both of those districts by at least 30 points just in November.
But last night, Democratic candidates cut those margins at least in half. Democratic candidate Josh Weill ran in Florida's sixth district.
He said the issue that resonated the strongest with his with voters for his campaign was definitely Trump and Musk attacking Social Security, something that I think Democrats all over the country are taking note of. Aurora, Illinois is the second largest city in Illinois after Chicago.
They had their mayoral race last night. Now, the incumbent mayor in Aurora was a Republican backed mayor.
He was first elected in 2017. He was easily re-elected in 2021.
He expected to be re-elected again last night. But the Republican-backed mayor of Aurora, Illinois, was ousted last night, lost his seat to a challenger who was backed by Democrats.
last night's wins and surprisingly good showings for Democrats also follow I think some

undercovered election results from Louisiana this past weekend. The Republican governor in Louisiana and the Republican-led legislature there put four different constitutional amendments before voters in Louisiana this weekend, and they lost, all four of them lost, in Louisiana.
One independent Louisiana pollster interviewed by the Louisiana Illuminator explained that even in red state Louisiana, there was basically no keeping up with the organization and outrage on the Democratic side. Even with the Republican governor, the Republican legislature all lined up behind these constitutional amendments.
They couldn't get any traction starting early early on in the process, quote, Democrats and black voters showed up in far greater numbers than Republicans during the early voting period. The pollster said, quote, I have just never seen an early vote this strong for Democrats.
That follows, of course, other special elections earlier this year where we've seen Democrats pick up legislative seats in deep, deep red districts in places as far flung as Amish country in Pennsylvania and in the great state of Iowa. And, you know, it's in part probably some of these election results.
It's in part, I think, some of the polling about how outraged and disgusted the American people are with what Trump and Musk are doing in Washington. I think it's a significant part what people are seeing are seeing on street corners, out in front of Tesla dealerships, out in front of Social Security offices and VA offices with Americans protesting every single freaking day of the week now against what Trump and Musk are doing.
I mean, you put it all

together, we're really starting to see some wind in elected Democrats' sales with, of course, Democratic Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey galvanizing national support and national attention, rapturous attention from Democrats and critics of Trump and Musk with his record-setting 25-hour-plus filibuster against Trump that ended last night. We've now got Democratic Senator Ruben Gallego saying that he will personally block all Trump nominations to the VA in protest of Trump's deep cuts to VA personnel.
We've got Hawaii Senator Brian Schatz, of course, putting a hold against all Trump nominees to the State Department in protest of Trump's dismantling USAID. We've now, on top of that, got California Senator Adam Schiff putting a hold on Trump's nomination of Ed Martin to be U.S.
attorney in Washington, D.C. Ed Martin, who was personally at January 6th and has been using the powers of the U.S.
Attorney's Office in D.C. as its interim chief, exactly the way you think it might be used by someone who was at January 6th for Trump's attempt to violently overthrow the U.S.
government and install himself in power for life. Today at Tufts University in Massachusetts, students walked out in support of the Tufts University grad student who was snatched off the street by masked federal agents this past week and flown to an immigration prison in Louisiana despite a judge's order that she not be moved out of state.
Yesterday in Tennessee, did you see this footage? Look at this. This is an 80-year-old woman who was arrested at the state legislature in protest.
She refused to leave. She was there in protest of Republican policies, targeting even elementary school kids for arrest and deportation.
She told state troopers in Tennessee that she did not mind being arrested, but she was not going to help them do it. They were going to have to carry her out.
The troopers picked her up out of her chair and carried her out of the state capitol, 80 years old, and then put her in the patrol car and took her off to jail bodily. Today in Washington, outside the Supreme Court, a raucous, loud, rollicking protest with a good sense of humor.

While the Supreme Court heard yet another Republican abortion ban case, one of the things they did here at this protest is they made fake magazine covers, which you can see here. It's a fake people magazine cover there that says Brett Kavanaugh, sexist man alive.
a fake scientific American, unscientific American cover featuring Samuel Aliko instead of Alito. The FDA, who needs it when we've got Joe Rogan? Also a mock-up of Time magazine, Turn Back Time magazine.
John Roberts, the man who presided over the death of the Constitution. And that was outside the Supreme Court today.
Also in Washington today, a rally outside the Capitol, a rally in protest opposing federal cuts to HIV funding. Trump this week just absolutely decimating the FDA and the CDC, cutting core government funding for everything from HIV to Alzheimer's, to bird flu, to IVF, to measles, to everything in between.
We are going to see hundreds of protests all across the country this weekend, Saturday, April 5th, what is likely to be the largest yet day of protest against this administration in these 70-some days since they've been in office. Tonight here on this show, we've got former FDA Commissioner David Kessler here in person.
We've got Wisconsin Democratic Party Chairman Ben Wickler here. So much to get to tonight.
So much winning. Stay with us.
subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts. New episodes of all your favorite MSNBC shows now ad-free.
Plus ad-free listening to all of Rachel Maddow's original series, Ultra, Bagman, and Deja News. And all MSNBC original podcasts are available ad-free and with bonus content, including Why Is This Happening, Velshi Band Book Club, and more.
Subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts. Stay up to date on the biggest issues of the day with the MSNBC Daily Newsletter.
Each morning, you'll get analysis by experts you trust, video highlights from your favorite shows. I do think it's worth being very clear-eyed, very realistic about what's going on here.

previews of our podcasts and documentaries plus written perspectives from the newsmakers themselves all sent directly to your inbox each morning get the best of msnbc all in one place sign up for

msnbc daily at msnbc.com. The first 100 days.
Bills are passed, executive orders are signed, and presidencies are defined. And for Donald Trump's first 100 days, Rachel Maddow is on MSNBC five nights a week.
Now is the time, so we're going to do it. Providing her unique insight and analysis during this critical time.
How do we strategically align ourselves to this moment of information, this moment of transition in our country? The Rachel Maddow Show, weeknights at 9 p.m. Eastern on MSNBC.
Look, you can start to lame duck this on April 1st. Start to go lame duck.
Then we win the Virginia governor's race. Lame duck more.
We have to take this like you do cleaning the house or whatever, one chunk at a time. And America's first chunk of cleaning is Wisconsin Supreme Court, April 1st.
You can start to lame duck this thing on April 1st. Take it one chunk at a time.
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz paid a neighborly visit a couple of weeks ago to Eau Claire, Wisconsin. He told people to not look four years down the road to the next presidential election.
He said, look just ahead. Look to the race for Wisconsin Supreme Court April 1st.
Start to lame duck this thing now. And of course, last night, Wisconsin went to the polls and they elected the Democratic backed candidate to the state Supreme Court.
And they elected her by a lot. Susan Crawford beat the conservative candidate by 10 points, which tells you a little something about the political temperature right now in a swing state where Trump actually won in November.
After the results came in last night, Wisconsin's Democratic Party chair Ben Wickler said this. He said, Wisconsin Supreme Court election demonstrates Musk and Trump have gone too far and any politician allied with them could swiftly face the end of their career.
He said, quote, in a moment of national darkness, Wisconsin voters lit a candle. Let the lesson of Wisconsin's election ring out across the country.
Hope is not lost. Democracy can yet survive.
And the voice of the American people will not be silenced. Joining us now is Ben Wickler, chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, who hasn't slept in weeks.
Mr. Wickler, thank you so much for being here and congratulations on a victory I know you fought really hard for last night.
Thank you, Rachel. And thanks to Susan Crawford, who never wavered in the face of the richest person in the world coming after her with things that have never been thrown at any judicial candidate anywhere ever and held firm to her belief in integrity and democracy and the rule of law and freedom in what this country is supposed to stand for.
And voters responded at a level we've never seen in our state. I just want to share a fact that I crunched today.
Susan Crawford running for Supreme Court in an April election in Wisconsin. These are normally low turnout races.
Most people don't tune into at all. She got more votes than any Republican running for governor of Wisconsin has ever earned this spring.
Wow. That's almost hard to get your head around.
Ben, let me ask you about the money part of this. I mean, in politics, like when you take political science classes, sometimes you use money as a substitute for all other available metrics in terms of figuring out what kind of elections you should expect or look forward to.
What are the lessons from this race where Susan Crawford was up against essentially infinite money, more money than had ever been shoveled into a judicial race by any single donor ever, More money overall in any judicial race ever in the history of this country. And more money as a possibility of a donor with zero ceiling on what he could have spent.
I mean, most people facing an electoral sort of horizon like that would think that they had no chance. What did you learn in Wisconsin about what it is to run against a bottomless checkbook? Well, Susan Crawford, I think, just delivered a masterclass because when Elon Musk started going after her, instead of shrinking back or trying to find some way to convince him to withdraw from the race or tone it down, she went straight after him.
She started saying on the campaign trail, I never thought growing up as a little girl in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, that I'd be up against the richest man in the world. And people would erupt in applause.
Her fundraising on ActBlue, it raised more money every day than it used to cost to run an entire Supreme Court race in the state of Wisconsin. So we were outspent.
Susan Crawford and the Democratic Party, we were outspent by Elon Musk and the forces of the far right. There were other far right billionaires that got in, too.
But we weren't out-communicated or out-organized because literally hundreds of thousands of people wound up chipping in. And thousands of people made phone calls, knocked on doors, got involved, spread the word.
We've tracked millions and millions of conversations that happened between volunteers and supporters of Susan Crawford and Wisconsin voters.

And all of that addedford and Wisconsin voters.

And all of that added up not just to a hairline victory.

It was a landslide.

This is a state where elections routinely come down to less than one percentage point.

You know, Elon Musk came to Wisconsin and he put on a cheesehead and he tried to bribe Wisconsin voters.

And the message of fury that that ignited, you know, the only real response is to say that Wisconsin's not for sale. And you can't just come in to Wisconsin and think that you can take the cheese head and give an affront to our voters.
But this same kind of fight is possible everywhere. No matter what you put on your head, people can fight back against the oligarchy.
There's still enough democracy left that no matter where you are, it is possible to organize, to get together, to support people who actually have conviction and values and believe in something bigger than themselves. Because what Elon Musk doesn't get is that people in politics don't have to just be out for themselves.
They don't have to be trying to attempt to loot the federal government. Trump doesn't get this either.
There's something bigger at the heart of what it means to be an American and what it means to be a patriot in this country that is about a belief in the United States of America. And I think in this race, we saw in Wisconsin, in this one purple state, the kind of energy that comes out when people realize that by acting together, they can overcome the richest, most powerful people in the world in service of a country that works for everyone.
A resounding, resounding result last night and very well articulated by the chairman of the Wisconsin State Democratic Party, Ben Wickler, here tonight. Ben, congratulations again and thanks for joining us tonight.
And I'm amazed you didn't even mess up your hair. That was beautifully done.
Thank you, Rachel. All right.
More news ahead with us here tonight. Stay with us.
Try Angel Soft for your tushy. It's made by angels.
Soft and strong, budget friendly. The choice is simple.
Pick up a pack today. Angel Soft.
Soft and strong, simple. It's President Trump's first 100 days, and MSNBC's Alex Wagner will be covering it all from the front lines.
What issue matters to you the most? Join her as she travels the country to talk to the people at the center of the president's policies and promises. Do you think now that he's pardoned everybody, he can count on this group of people again? Search for Trumpland with Alex Wagner wherever you're listening and follow.
Subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts to listen ad free. Hey, everyone, it's Chris Hayes.
This week on my podcast, Why Is This Happening? Author and YouTuber John Green on his book Everything is Tuberculosis, the history and persistence Deadliest Infection. I think of the story of human health as like this long staircase that we're walking up.
You know, you start out with Hippocrates telling people, like, don't even bother treating this. It's totally impossible.
And then eventually in 1882, Robert Koch figures out it's infectious. And then we develop chest x-rays and better diagnostics.
And then we develop really

good antibiotics. And now people are able to be cured of tuberculosis.
And we're walking up and up and up the staircase. And I want to be clear, like, we didn't take like two or three steps down the staircase.
We fell down the staircase. That's what's happening right now.
That's this week on Why Is This Happening. Search for Why Is This this happening wherever you're listening right now and follow.

Last week, President Trump attended a Women's History Month event.

I know you thought that wasn't allowed anymore,

but there was Donald Trump hosting

a Women's History event at the White House.

At this event, he displayed his well-known knack

for speaking about women in a totally normal

and non-creepy way.

He said, quote,

we're going to have tremendous, tremendous goodies in the bag for women, too. The women between the fertilization and all of the other things that we're talking about.
It's going to be it's going to be great. Fertilization.
I'm still very proud of it. I don't care.
I'll be known as the fertilization president. And that's OK.
That's not bad. That's not bad.
I've been called much worse. Actually, I like it, right? I like it.
Thank you.

I'll be known as the fertilization president.

We think he's referring to IVF treatments, which he promised as a candidate would be free if he got elected after other Republicans were supporting banning IVF. Anyway, well, how's that going? Headline CDC's IVF team gutted, even as Trump calls himself the fertilization president.
Quote, a team that tracked how well in vitro fertilization worked across the U.S. was abruptly cut Tuesday as part of the sweeping layoffs at the Department of Health and Human Services.
One team member telling NBC News, quote, it's surprising to me. President Trump said he was the fertility president.
How does cutting this program support that? The Trump administration has given out zero information on the 10,000 people it fired yesterday from federal health organizations.

And so we're only now starting to piece together the scale of the carnage as these 10,000 fired government workers start to speak up and talk to the press or post to social media about what has happened inside their agencies and what jobs they were fired from. I mean, this is just a sampling.
At the FDA, quote, offices focused on food, drug and medical device policy were hit with deep staff reductions. At the CDC, fired employees included those studying injuries, asthma, lead poisoning, smoking and radiation damage, as well as those that assess that assess the health effects of extreme heat and wildfires.
HIV prevention was a big target, including teams leading HIV surveillance and research and a group of health researchers who were working on preventing transmission of HIV from mother to child. The AP says, quote, scores of government employees who help administer the early childhood program Head Start have been put on leave.
Preschool operators say they have received no communication from the office of Head Start and don't know who to turn to. NBC News reports that several divisions at HHS focused on the safety of people who work in mining.
Those divisions were cut entirely. The whole office that administers LIHEAP, the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, that whole office is gone.
That services for seniors and disabled people. At least 40 percent of staff in those areas fired.
Wired magazine reports that the CDC's vessel sanitation program has been eliminated. It, quote, helps the cruise industry prevent public health issues, inspects cruises and provides information on outbreaks.
Let's definitely get rid of that. Also gone, the branch of our government that works to eliminate childhood lead poisoning.

Like I said, we are piecing this together from what we can discern from the firings,

oftentimes from what we hear from the people themselves who have been fired.

What we are piecing together appears to be a portrait of pretty total destruction of the most advanced scientific and health institutions in the entire world.

Former FDA Commissioner David Kessler joins us here next. Stay with us.
Dr. David Kessler has led prestigious medical schools.
He is known and beloved for his landmark work on HIV and AIDS, for taking on the tobacco industry. He was the longtime commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration.
During COVID here on this show in particular, you may remember he became a familiar, even reassuring voice during a very deeply scary time. Now, with what appears to be the wholesale gutting of the country's health infrastructure currently underway and as yet poorly understood, there's only one person I really wanted to talk to.
Joining us now is Dr. David Kessler, former FDA commissioner, former chief science officer for the Biden administration's COVID-19 response.
Dr. Kessler, it's really nice to have you here.
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
What's your reaction to what we know thus far of these cuts? I think they're endangering the lives of all Americans. You alluded to it.
Those nights during COVID that you had me on, I mean, there were some dark nights, deaths, what, three, four thousands. You even mentioned one of those nights, you were on the ledge, right? My job, I was able to walk you back a little.
Yeah. I was able to say we were able to say it's going to be OK.

The reason I was able to do that because we had people like Peter Marks, Julie Turney.

We had people who had expertise that allowed us to get through this, the right drugs, the right vaccines, the right doses, they were fired. We are less safe today because of these cuts that have happened the last several days.
I always thought that things were fixable, right? You could fix things. I am very concerned that if these cuts are not rescinded, these will have effect for decades.
You think that the way they have done these cuts, the people they've cut, the number of jobs they've cut, potentially have created a crisis in which we can't ever have these institutions back at strength. I think we're very close to that.
I don't even I wonder whether the president really even knows, you know, the extent of what has been done. Remember that night that he was taken by helicopter to Walter Reed? He was having difficulty breathing.
He had COVID. He was very sick.
Right. He was given two monoclonal antibodies.
Right. He referenced those as miracles.
They were cures. All of a sudden he got better.
I mean, he could have died, but for those drugs. Dr.
Peter Stein's office approved,

made available... He could have died, but for those drugs.

Dr. Peter Stein's office approved, made available those drugs to the president and to thousands of others.
Peter Stein was fired, was let go. I don't think the president knows that.
Someone needs to walk into the Oval Office and say, Mr. President, we just fired the person who may have saved her life.
From what you know of who part of the difficulty of covering this story is that it is hard to understand the scale of what's happened and to contextualize it to understand, A, because nothing like this has ever happened before, but also because there's been no announcement of what they have done other than this sort of problem from the HHS secretary, forgive me, where he's talking about the revolution has begun and all of this other nonspecific stuff. From what you know of who has been fired and what offices have been dismantled, does it say anything to you about there being a strategy at work? Is this the wish list of some right wing group that's always wanted to destroy U.S.
health infrastructure? I mean, is this is there any pattern here that you can discern to what they've done? It is devastating, but it is haphazard. It is thoughtless and it is chaotic.
I don't think they fully understand what they are done. Look, bad stuff is going to happen on their watch that they're going to have to deal with.
And they're not going to be equipped to do that. That's what's going to happen.
We have to be careful, though. This is not just about FDA or NIH or CDC.
You see what's going on in the universities. We have to be very careful.
I mean, the thing that has made, you know, America great, that it's made America competitive, there's a lot of things.

But the biomedical infrastructure, right, the advances, the reason we are able to live long and productive lives, right, are because of the investment, not because we're smarter today, but because of the investment we made 50, 75 years ago, and that's being destroyed. And it's across the board.
We have to rescind these cuts. Enough is enough.
When you think about the kinds of things that are going to cross, come over the transom to America's health officials now, the kinds of things that they're going to need to respond to that you say they will not have the people in place to respond to adequately. What categorically, what kind of things are those? What are the things they're not foreseeing that they're going to need these people they've just fired? Probably the two most knowledgeable people about bird flu.
Gone. People who look at the toxins that are in, you know, in our food.
those programs are gutted. The people who are going to just answer the phones, right, to make sure that the next emergency use of that drug, like the president got, they're not there to answer that, those calls anymore, to make that available to the average citizen, right? The president has to be informed of what the extent

of these cuts are. And I mean, we have maybe a week before this becomes beyond fixable.

David Kessler, former commissioner of the FDA, chief science officer for the Biden administration's

COVID-19 response and friend to this show in many ways. Sir, thank you.
Thank you. We'll be right back.
OK, I have to tell you something about which I'm sorry and also not sorry. I told you when Trump was sworn in that I would be here every night for the first hundred days.
It turns out that is not exactly true. There is one day of the first hundred days on which I am not going to be here.
I'm very sorry. But it's only one day, and that day is tomorrow.
And then I will be back on Friday. It is one day.
I'm sorry. If you must know, it's because I have a date, which is why I'm not sorry.
Susan and I have been together 26 years this week. And if I do not spend this one night having this one date to recognize and pay tribute to that fact, I'm not sure she's going to allow me to get to year 27.
So I am sorry. It is just a personal thing.
That is all. And it is just one night.
I swear the great Eamon Moheldin will be here in my stead tomorrow, but I will be back on Friday. I promise.
Also, you can catch me tonight on Late Night with Seth Meyers. Seth Meyers is a joy to hang out with.
He makes it very fun to be a guest. Also, while you're there, they take your picture so you feel like you're on a Jason Isbell album cover, even though you're just a cable news dork.
But for real, you can catch me on Seth Meyers tonight, starting at 1235 a.m. on the East Coast.
And then with many, many thanks to my friend Eamon for tomorrow, I will be back with you on Friday. Forgive me.
Please understand. All right.
That does it for me for now. As President Donald Trump returns to the White House, what will the first 100 days of the presidency bring? Follow along as his agenda takes shape with the new MSNBC newsletter,

Trump's First 100 Days.

Weekly updates send straight to your inbox and expert insight on the key issues and

figures defining this second term.

We're seeing a really radical effort to change the American system of government.

Sign up for Trump's First 100 Days at msnbc.com slash trump100.