Special coverage of Donald Trump's address to a joint session of Congress

The best cars for the money are Hondas. Save big with 0% financing.

The 25 Accord Civic Passport and Odyssey have been named the best cars for the money by U.S. News and World Report.

Save thousands with 0%, like the 24 Prologue with 0 APR.

To drive the best, ask anyone who owns a Honda and search your local Honda dealer.

See dealer for financing details. Financing on credit approval.
Offer ends 4-30-25. View U.S.
News Best Cars at cars.usnews.com. 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.
That was the longest State of the Union address in American history. Donald Trump addressing Congress for the fifth time in a setting like this.
Just looking to see if he's actually going to start speaking again. Started off on very contentious terms.
Congressman Al Green interrupting at the outset when the president claims a historic mandate.

From his victory in the 2024 election, Congressman Green repeatedly interjecting and then removed by the orders of the sergeant at arms

while Republican members of Congress jeered and made gestures toward him, celebrating him being ejected over the course of the president's remarks. See how many empty seats you can see behind him just there.
That's because Democrats as a group filed out quickly when he was done, but a number of Democrats left well before he was done, in the middle of his remarks. They included Jasmine Crockett from Texas, Maxwell Frost walked out, Maxine Dexter from Maryland, Andrea Salinas from Oregon, Ayanna Pressley, Ilhan Omar, Pramila Jayapal.
We believe that's only a partial list. A number of Democrats left during the remarks.
The president, in his, what we believe was ad-libbing. we did not have prepared remarks from the president, which is unusual.
White Houses usually distribute prepared remarks, so we don't know what was digression from those remarks and what was ad-libbed. But the president did repeatedly seem to be ad-libbing when he was remarking on the expected impact of the economic decisions he's already made six weeks in, saying that the American people would have to bear with him, that there would be a little disturbance, that there would be an adjustment period.
And again, he said a little disturbance, essentially suggesting that the roiling that we saw in the markets is something that he knows he caused, but he hopes people will not mind. For the record, the worst inflation in this country was in 1980.
For the record, the economy that he was left by President Biden was not a catastrophe. It was literally the best economy in the world.
It was described by The Economist magazine as the envy of the world.

That was the economy that was left to Donald Trump by Joe Biden. For the record, Social Security is not paying benefits in large numbers to 300-year-old people or 250-year-old people or 200-year-old people or 150-year-old people.
In fact, the idea of Social Security as a bastion of massive fraud and overpayment is completely false. For the record, U.S.
auto company CEOs are not psyched and delighted and so excited about President Trump's economic policies, including his tariffs. Take, for example, the CEO of Ford, Jim Farley, who said that Trump's tariff policies would, quote, blow a hole in the U.S.
auto industry that, quote, we've never seen. The president flat out lied about U.S.
versus European spending to support what used to be our allies in Ukraine. The U.S.
has committed about $125 billion to Ukraine's defense. Europe has committed about $259 billion.
The president radically, radically misstating the character and quantity of our relative support for what used to be our ally now appears to be only Europe's ally and no longer ours. For the record, Joe Biden did not close over 100 power plants.
There were more utility-sized power plants up and running in the United States when Joe Biden left office than when he achieved office. For the record, there is no EV mandate.
For the record, oil and gas production in the United States hit all-time records under President Joe Biden.

For the record, even Doge has never claimed that they have saved hundreds of billions of dollars in savings.

The largest items they have claimed to achieve as savings in the U.S. budget have been debunked and they've been taken down.

But even they don't falsely claim hundreds of billions of dollars worth of savings. For the record, and this is disgusting, the president made a spectacle out of praising a young man who thus far survived pediatric cancer as if the president had something to do with that.
This was in the midst of him praising Doge. Doge cuts, among other things, have cut off funding for ongoing research into pediatric cancer.
For the record, I will note that Donald Trump did admit in his remarks today explicitly that Elon Musk is the head of Doge. And while that comes as no surprise to anybody who's been following the facts of this matter, that will end up in court because that is directly contrary to what the administration has overtly sworn to a federal judge about the leadership of DOJ.
I should also note, and this doesn't have to be for the record, I'll just note it for our own experience tonight, that at that point in the speech, when the president talked about how we will no longer be ruled by unelected bureaucrats, Democrats in the chamber pointed and laughed at Elon Musk. Unelected bureaucrat.
Nicole Wallace, I'm sorry to dump a lot of fact checks there, And that's not even scratching the surface of the things that need to be fact checked there. That's literally what was off the top of my head.
Yeah. So there's more to say along those lines.
People should know that. I mean, this was not, you know, 7,000 people doing this.
This is what you sort of caught from your own reporting in the Trump administration. I mean, the facts are probably few and far between, but I think that that's the point, right? Like those of us covering this, we come on the air to do our shows.
And the point is there's so much. So let's just stick with DJ.
I mean, I think that if there was a moment where your whole body could relax and you could celebrate someone, it was the 13 year old cancer survivor who would like to be a police officer. It was a genuinely beautiful moment in the moment that probably was most familiar to the State of the Union addresses we were both a part of.
Problem is, in the beauty of that child is the tragedy of the Trump presidency. Because we don't know how he survived pediatric cancer, but it is likely he benefited from some sort of cancer research.
And it is a fact that Trump has slashed cancer research. It's a fact.
By eliminating NIH and by all the cuts, pediatric cancer trials are halted. And, you know, God willing, he won't need any more treatment.
But if he does, I hope that NIH wasn't responsible for anything that let him live this long. He also talked about wanting anyone who murdered a cop to receive the death penalty.
But Donald Trump's first action was to pardon all the January 6th insurrectionists who assaulted and violently beat cops. Who were convicted of it.
Correct. So I think there is a shallowness.
And I think that, I mean, I know you and I know you probably could have gone on for another 30 minutes with a fact check and it's vital and we have to do it. But I think this was a lesson in finding one thing that, that you let yourself feel.
And I let myself feel, um, joy about DJ. And I hope he's alive for another, you know, 95 years.
Right. And I hope he lives, um, and the life he wants to live.
He wants to be a cop. He knows what he wants to do.
And maybe when you have childhood cancer, that crystallizes for you. And I hope he has a long life as a law

enforcement officer. But I hope he never has to defend the United States Capitol against Donald

Trump supporters. And if he does, I hope he isn't one of the six who loses his life to suicide.

And I hope he isn't one who has to testify against the people who carried out acts of seditious conspiracy and then lived to see Donald Trump pardon those people. Lawrence, we're about three minutes out from what we're expecting to be the Democratic response from Senator Alyssa Slotkin.
Let me get your initial response to what you just heard. Well, let's remember, it's hard to do this in the Trump era, that if any previous president had stood up there and said, we need Greenland, the two people behind him, the vice president and the speaker would have quickly conferred and rushed that president to the hospital, ended the speech right there, right there with an overt burst of madness by the president at the microphone.
It would have to be an intervention, but not now. What's interesting about the lies tonight is one of his favorites wasn't there.
And that is after really intense 48 hours of coverage of tariffs. He did not tell the American people the lie tonight that foreign countries pay the tariffs.
CNBC and other outlets have been really educating the voters intensely, you know, over the last couple of days about who pays the tariffs. We had Prime Minister Trudeau say to the American people today, your government chose to do this to you.
And so the mystery or the question of who pays the tariffs is over. And people now know it.
He didn't try to get away with that one. And the tariffs was the shortest section of the speech.
It is the news of the day and the world. And Donald Trump was afraid to talk about his.
He did tell a lie about it. Can you indulge me on this one? You got one minute and 10 seconds.
starts doing it. Okay, this has to do with Doge.
Doge's report card, Elon Musk would say, is treasury rates going down. And Donald Trump tonight said rates went down today.
They didn't go down because Doge is reducing the deficit. Rates went down today because of tariffs.
Because the stock market tanked. Right.
You know what people do?

They rush to buy treasuries. And when you buy treasuries, the price goes up and the yield goes down.
So, yes, Doge got their wish. The Doge report card, when tenured treasury yields go down, we're winning.
Uh-uh. Doge didn't reduce the deficit and the stock market lost.
Fact check. All right.
We are getting ready to go to Michigan, where freshman Senator Alyssa Slotkin is set to give the Democratic response. Now, no matter who you are associated with in politics, how you lean left or right or whatever, you should always say a prayer for the person who is giving the other party's response to the state of the union, because it is a really hard thing to do.
Alyssa Slotkin is a very talented Democratic politician. She's speaking in Michigan tonight from a town that voted for her, but also for Trump's president.
The best cars for the money are Hondas. Save big with zero percent financing.
The 25 Accord Civic Passport and Odyssey have been named the best cars for the money by U.S. News and World Report.
Save thousands with 0%, like the 24 Prologue with zero APR. To drive the best, ask anyone who owns a Honda and search your local Honda dealer.
See dealer for financing details. Financing on credit approval.
Offer ends 4-30-25. View U.S.
News Best Cars at cars.usnews.com. 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.
Alyssa Slotkin, the freshman senator from Michigan with a Democratic response tonight. Responses from the opposite party on the night of State of the Union addresses are very difficult.
That was one of the better ones that I have seen. Look, she said, as a former CIA officer, I've lived and worked in many countries.
I've seen democracies flicker out. I've seen what life is like when a government's rigged.
You can't open a business without paying off a corrupt official. You can't criticize the guys in charge without getting a knock on the door in the middle of the night.
So as much as we need to make our government more responsive to our lives today, don't for one moment fool yourself that democracy isn't precious and worth saving. And then she ticks through a three-part list of things people watching right now should do in order to stand up for their country.
Very effectively communicated speech, I thought. Jen? Yeah, look, it's the worst assignment in politics.
I think you avoid the call and then you always have to say yes. That's sort of what it is when you're doing that speech.
That was about as good as it gets, I think, in this moment. I wrote down a couple of other things she said that I think could be good lines for Democrats.
I mean, Americans made it clear prices are too high. That stuck out to me and I wrote it down because that was something nobody wanted to admit leading up to the November election.
And it was like not acknowledging what people were experiencing. And that's a lesson coming out of November.
Do his plans actually help people get ahead? That is pretty direct and straightforward. That's a good framing way to look at the question.
I also think just to say something about Alyssa Slotkin, there's often this question of do Democrats need to find a celebrity, somebody who's outside of politics, somebody has 6 million TikTok followers? She's a mom from Michigan. I doubt she's on TikTok.
She's just a pretty normal person who happens to be really smart and got elected to the Senate. That's the kind of messaging that I think works.
The other thing I would just say about the speech, because I think it flows into what she had to say is I think the speech, I think Democrats need to look at the

speech. The volume is the point, as Nicole was saying, right? Volume and chaos and figuring out

the whack-a-mole is the point. If I am them, I am looking at the social security sections of that

speech. Trump's speech.
Of the Trump's speech. Sorry, to go back to the Trump's speech.
And I

am figuring out how to put that. It's not really a time for television ads, but put that out, respond on that, focus on the thing.
You can oppose everything he said, but you have to pick something. A thousand flowers cannot bloom.
And the Social Security piece, especially given the former Social Security administrator said this week that that program, they may not be able to make payments. They may not make payments in the next 30 to 90 days.
That's what he said. Martin O'Malley.
So there's a lot of backdrop here. If I'm them, that's what I pick.
But I feel like overall tonight, it's an opportunity for Democrats to try out some material and see what works on the economy. Yeah.
Michael, what did you think? It's always time for television ads. If I'm the opposite party, there's so much of Trump's speech that I would be canning for commercials that run tomorrow.
I'd have my guys and gals working right now on the Social Security speech or piece on the Ukraine piece. They're just nuggets you pull out because the trip is the narrative.

And I want you to trip over my narrative because we've been tripping over yours. Right.
Because you've been laying out as president, you've been saying all this stuff. Tonight we heard the president.
I just wrote this down. This was a tale of American empire.
Because at the end of the day, he wants to run it all. He wants to rule it all.
He wants to control it all. So it's a tale of American empire.
What Slotkin did was beautiful because it was a tale of a working American family, community, and not getting lost in empire, but actually doing what we've always done from the very beginning, and that's creating with our hands and our minds and engaging the country. So those two narratives, you stand them up.
I can tell you sitting in this chair tonight who would win that argument. Are you telling me we're not going to get Greenland one way or another? I'm sorry, Rachel, as much as we want to deliver it to you right here.
Are you not going to mention Drill Baby Joe, the you you you saddled us as a people with that energy emergency that we're not in? Yeah, well, I'm shrinking, shrinking in my chair on that one. But, you know, again, even the use of drill, baby, drill misses the mark.
We are past that because we are leading already for what we're drilling. We are leading in production in the world.
So, you know, we did it. All right.
But the fact that you're still talking about it tells me at least you don't know what we've done. Yeah.
Chris, just this point about the sort of the problem of focus, which has been the problem that everyone's dealing with. We're all dealing with it every day.
The Democrats, that Social Security. I mean, what a tell that was.
He's talking about Social Security in identical terms to the way he talked about voting in the run up to January 6th. It's the exact same story.
It's exact quote. We're going to we're also identifying shocking levels of incompetence and probable fraud in the Social Security program for our seniors and that our seniors and people that we love rely on.
Believe it or not, believe it or not, government databases list 4.7 million Social Security. And then he starts going into this list of all.
And it's like the dead voters in Pennsylvania. It's identical.
It's the dead voters in Pennsylvania. It's the same thing.
Yes. And the logic applies in the same way.
What did that lead up to him doing? January 6th. Right.
And it was it was laying the groundwork for an assault on the institutions of democracy. He's not spending four or five minutes of a speech listing in a pretty painful way all of this supposed fraud, which is obviously nonsense, to not do anything with it.
They're coming for it. He was telling you the two big takeaways, the headlines were trade war coming, social security, they're coming.
They are coming. They are coming.
They are coming. Like yelling out Omar's coming.
They are coming. Two big lists.
I mean, whenever you're giving a speech, right, I'm terrible at giving speeches, but the one thing that I know about giving a speech is don't have a list of numbers. They're really hard.
It's really painful to do. I was mad at his staff on his behalf for him putting him in that situation.
Because you're just reading numbers and it sounded great when you saw them on the things, but nobody else can see them. And so he's reading all these numbers, but he did it twice.
He did it on Social Security, exactly as you're saying. The other place he did it was on USAID, talking about what he has already illegally stopped altogether.
Right. So it's like, exactly.
So why is he listing it? Why is he listing it? He's listing it in the same way that he listed it for USAID to justify getting rid of it. They are justifying getting rid of Social Security by calling it a criminal enterprise.
But the USAID list was perfect for his culture warriors because he picked program after program that he deems, and he didn't call it woke there, woke. He found programs that he thought had extreme titles in foreign countries and saying, we're cutting them.
But even if they cut them legally or illegally, that's not enough money to balance the budget. Just like if Elon Musk fires every single federal worker, that's three million workers.
The same number of workers we had in the federal government in 1980. So when he says we ballooned the government, not when it comes to our federal workers, that's 5% of our budget.
Again, chump change. I just like to say, I think the Old Testament has something to say about whether circumcision is woke.
I just want to say for the record, this idea of like, well, how ridiculous is this? Well, that's actually pretty long tradition there. The issue wasn't circumcision.
It was circumcision in Burma. That was his issue.
The issue, I mean, if you're going to talk about like being mad at his staff, like, I don't know if we're allowed to do that. But like to let him get to that part of the speech without telling him how to pronounce Uganda.
You know what I mean? Like he's speaking into a microphone. They know it's coming.
They know he doesn't know how to say the word. And then he gets up there and he's like sounding his way through it like he's hooked on phonics.
I mean, he's the president of the United States and it's just humiliating to him if he was capable of. But people will think, cut that program.
It's so much money. It's not.
It's chump change. And if he really wanted to go after the deficit, it's Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, which he's potentially coming.
The other thing here is just generally like in terms of the focus of the speech, one of the things that's emerging in early polling here just as a sort of barometer is that people he won this election because people were frustrated with the economy. Like that is where the marginal voter was.
This was a very culture war speech. This was a very DeSantis speech.
DeSantis like lost that primary for a reason. There's a reason he's the governor of Florida and not like doesn't have higher office.
And what people want is like, what are you doing about the economy? And that was relatively limited. There was a lot of the culture.
Explicitly blaming Joe Biden for the price of eggs is probably not going to cut it for that much longer. Joining us now is one of the Democrats who actually walked out of the speech tonight, Florida Democratic Congressman Maxwell Frost.
We saw him leave the House chamber. He took off his jacket.
You could see the T-shirt he was wearing over his dress shirt. It says, no kings live here.
Congressman Frost, really appreciate you making time to be with us tonight. Thank you.
Of course. Thanks for having me on.
Tell us about the decision to wear that shirt and to walk out at the moment you did. I think it's important for people to see that their leaders understand that this is not a normal moment.
We're in the middle of a billionaire administrative takeover and coup of our country where they want to cut Medicaid, cut Social Security, cut Medicare, cut all the things that we fought for and earned in order to give tax breaks to billionaires and corporations. It's not a new story for this country, but it is the most overt I think it's ever been.
And so I, in the spirit of being a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, but also coming from organizing, decided to do a walkout with a group of members wearing a message that not only, you know,

the press could see, but that the president could see. He calls himself a king, but we're a country of no kings, especially when these kings want to do nothing for the people and take all the money and give it to themselves.
That's exactly what Donald Trump wants to do. Let me let me ask about that specificity of the message there.
I mean, one of the issues that I think the country is sort of having a hard time calibrating, like getting a sense of like, how, how big is this? How different

is this? How different is this from previous political confrontations we've had between people with different ideas about the way the government should run or what we should be doing with our money? I think one of the things that people just can't grasp is the king idea, right? The king idea is not just the unitary presidency, right? It's not just about

consolidating power over the executive branch. The idea of a king, which is what you had on your

back of your shirt, is that you've got a unitary power, that the Congress is decorative or beside

the point or could be abolished and nothing would happen, that the courts are decorative. The courts

are there to essentially ratify what the ruler wants to do and that the rule of law is really

I'll see you next time. could be abolished and nothing would happen, that the courts are decorative.
The courts are there to essentially ratify what the ruler wants to do and that the rule of law is really just the rule of the ruler and the law can be dressed up to occasion whatever it is he wants. Is that the scale of threat to this country that you think we are literally up against or is this a hyperbolic charge? It's not hyperbolic at all.
And this is shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. It is all in Project 2025.
Donald Trump is the president, but he is also the Speaker of the House effectively. He has an entire Republican Congress that is allowing him to do whatever he wants.
None of them utter a peep against what he's saying unless their town halls are stormed and either they're running out or they say, maybe I just prove a little bit. But Donald Trump has complete control over the Republicans in Congress.
And so what the founders set out to do is have a Congress and have a presidency that were co-equal branches of government, checks on one another, checks and balances. But we don't have that right now.
We have one person who runs the Congress because he runs the entire majority. One of the things that we saw in the Democratic response from Senator Slotkin was an interesting choice.
I'm not sure I've ever seen anything like this before. And you talk about your organizing background.
She sort of raised the alarm a little bit along the lines that you were talking about tonight and then said as a CIA officer, which is her past, that she's seen democracies flicker out in other parts of the world. And then she gave Americans a list of things they can do to try to hold on to our democracy, talking about contacting their member of Congress, joining groups that are working to try to hold on to our democracy.
She said pointedly, if there isn't a group that you feel like is in your area or among people who you know is doing the work that you think ought to be done, you need to found that group. You need to start that yourself.
Very pointed organizing message from a member of Congress who's not thought of as a real radical. I wonder if I get your reaction to that and if you add anything to add in terms of what you think people within the sound of your voice ought to be doing right now, given the dire prospects that you see for the country.
I had a town hall about a week and a half ago when we put out the link. Within four hours of one email, we had over 600 RSVPs.
And at this standing room only town hall, the message was clear from everybody. Two things.
They wanted to learn about how serious and dire the situation is. And two, they want it to be put to work.
And as someone who comes from organizing background, March for Our Lives and other organizations, it is a goldmine when the people contact you and say, what can I do? You know, I come from, you know, I come from going to people and knocking on their doors and begging them to volunteer,

begging them to get involved.

And now the people are saying,

put us to work.

We want to fight for our democracy,

for our country, for Medicare,

for Medicaid, for programs that help

and that working people have earned.

And so I think it is important

to make sure people know

that the United States,

our democracy can break.

We can lose it if we don't defend it.

And fascism and authoritarians

Thank you. know that the United States, our democracy can break.
We can lose it if we don't defend it. And fascism and authoritarians, they gain power when there is no opposition.
That's part of the reason I've told people you have to make the decision. Are we the minority or are we the opposition? Because I do believe an authoritarian can take hold when it's just the minority.
But when there's a strong opposition, we can fight it back and we can come back stronger than ever.

And so I agree with giving people something to do.

But first off, you've got to explain to people how serious the situation is.

Congressman Maxwell Frost, one of a number of Democrats who did not make it through the

speech tonight, left in the middle of the president's remarks.

Congressman, I really appreciate you joining us tonight and being with us. It's always a pleasure to have you.
Thanks for having me on. All right.
I should mention, I gave you a list a little bit earlier on about the Democrats who we know did walk out during the speech. Other than the initial confrontation that happened basically right as President Trump started speaking, and that was Congressman Al Green.
And they sort of performatively summoned the sergeant at arms to escort him out.

Very dramatic moment there.

A number of other Democrats walked out during the speech.

They include Maxwell Frost, who we just spoke with.

Also, Ayanna Pressley, Jasmine Crockett, Maxine Dexter from Maryland, Andrea Salinas from Oregon, Ilhan Omar, Pramila Jayapal, Melanie Stansbury from New Mexico, Jamie Raskin from Maryland, who we spoke with earlier this evening, Zoe Lofgren from California, who was a member of the January 6th investigation. Also, at least two Democratic U.S.
senators left the room, Senator Chris Van Hollen and Senator Bernie Sanders. One of the things that we have all been most looking forward to hearing tonight and checking in on is the reaction to the president's speech tonight from the four fired federal workers, four very impressive people, who Jacob Soboroff is with tonight in Washington.
He watched the speech with them. We told him that we'd come back to him after the speech and after the Democratic response to get the reaction of those four federal workers to what they heard tonight.

Really looking forward to hearing this. We're going to have that right on the other side of this break.
Stay with us.

As President Donald Trump returns to the White House, follow along as... We'll be right back.
I do think it's worth being very clear-eyed, very realistic about what's going on here. Directly to your inbox each morning.
Get the best of MSNBC all in one place. Sign up for MSNBC Daily at MSNBC.com.
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 of our 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 Happening wherever you're listening right now and follow. Tariffs are about making America rich again and making America great again.
And it's happening and it will happen rather quickly. There'll be a little disturbance, but we're

OK with that. It won't be much.
No, you're not. Oh.
And look and look where Biden took us very

low, the lowest we've ever been. His tariffs on allies like Canada will raise prices on energy, lumber and cars and start a trade war that will hurt manufacturing and farmers.
Your premiums and prescriptions will cost more because the math on his proposals doesn't work without going after your health care. Meanwhile, for those keeping score, the national debt is going up, not down.
And if he's not careful, he could walk us right into a recession. Welcome back to our MSNBC special coverage of the president's speech to Congress tonight, the sort of not state of the union and the Democratic response from Senator Alyssa Slotkin.
Steph Ruhle, over to you. Let's check back in with our own Jacob Soboroff, who has been speaking with four fired federal

workers in Washington, D.C.

Jacob, I'm guessing tonight those workers had a different experience watching the president

than they have in previous speeches.

Yeah, they sure did, Steph.

And I have to say, it was really an extraordinary experience to spend time with these four really

remarkable individuals. For people that weren't watching earlier in the broadcast, I want to reintroduce them to you all very briefly.
Starting here in the lower right hand part of your screen, it's Nigella Nakuna, who was fired from the U.S. Digital Service, which was the precursor to Doge.
To her left is Alex Taylor, who was fired from the U.S. Geological Survey.
Behind Alex is Jesus Murillo, fired from HUD. And Catherine Steele was fired from the U.S.
Forest Service. I want to ask a broad question first.
It might sound cheeky, but I really do mean it sincerely. Does anybody feel like they understand better why they were fired after watching the speech tonight? Nobody.
Yeah. OK, Jesus, let me start with you here.
I said before you were a presidential management fellow. This is a very elite program within the federal government to bring in the best and the brightest.
The entire program has been terminated after 48 years under Democratic and Republican presidents. When President Trump said about the federal bureaucracy, my administration will reclaim power from this unaccountable bureaucracy.
It bugged you in a particular way. How come? Well, I think for myself, being a presidential management fellow, this is a 100 percent merit-based program.
People coming in are taking jobs that have lesser pay. They want to serve the American public.
And for you to blanket statements saying the entire bureaucracy is untamed and doesn't have any tethering to anything, I mean, look at us. We're everyday average Americans that just want to serve the American public, and we're not allowed to do that.
And you said a large portion of your time was actually responding to congressional inquiries about whether or not the money was being spent appropriately in the case of the Housing and Urban Development Department. Absolutely.
We were responding to over 4,000 inquiries. And keep in mind, these are people, we're working with congressional staffers saying, hey, how can we support you? Hey, how can we offer assistance to make sure your grantees, the people on the ground are getting the funding that they need? And just to reiterate, so what you're saying is the Trump administration canceled the presidential management fellows program.
He talked about DEI, but this was a merit based program. When we're in the application process, we're not allowed to give any identifying information.
It is 100 percent merit-based. All right, Catherine, let's talk about the U.S.
Forest Service. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the only time we heard anything about public lands was when President Trump renamed a national wildlife refuge in Texas to honor the victim of a killing by an undocumented immigrant.
We didn't hear anything about federal lands otherwise, did we? No, despite the fact that over 350 protests and rallies took place at national parks and national force offices this past Saturday, and thousands of people attended to speak out for our public lands and for the people who serve them. I'm shocked that nothing came of that.
And in addition, an executive order was signed that same day on Saturday that opened up our public lands to unsustainable timber harvesting. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that it didn't seem like wild lands, the land management agencies were even on the radar of the president in this speech at all.
No, I would absolutely agree with that. Nigella, let's talk about, you are at the U.S.
Digital Service, the precursor to Doge, but one of your main focuses was on making the immigration system, including the enforcement system, more efficient. And the president touted all these accomplishments that he said were accomplishments about immigration, about deportations, closing the border.
The part that I watched you react to most strongly was when he said the media and our friends in the Democrat Party keep saying we need new legislation. We must have legislation to secure the border.
But it turned out that all we really needed was a new president. Yeah.
What bugged you so much about that? I think the demonization of immigrants in this speech today was as disappointing as it was frightening. And the thing that bothered me is it's a multifaceted approach that we need to attack the immigration problem.
And it's been an issue over multiple presidents. Which you yourself have been working on in terms of efficiency.
Definitely. Part of it are legislative fixes.
But the other part are really process and tech improvements. And by getting rid of the subject matter experts that do this work for decades and the people who have the tech capabilities, and then more importantly, the trust that you build between agencies to actually align and prioritize this work is really, really difficult to see.
You can gut something in five minutes, but to get the apparatus back up and running, that might take five years. So it was really disappointing to see some of those comments.
For a very brief moment, and Rachel referenced this earlier, you worked for Doge because the U.S. Digital Service became Doge.
And when the president said that he has saved, I want to make sure I get this right, hundreds of billions of dollars, Your reaction was you just shook your head.

Yeah, I think, as we've seen before, a lot of those savings that they have touted have been slowly removed as people see some of that discrepancy in the numbers. And I think it's really important for people to go back, keep checking the website and hold Doge accountable for the things that they are and aren't doing.
All right. And let's go to Alex Taylor, who's our geologist again in the group.
We heard President Trump talk about something you work worked, excuse me, directly on, which was critical earth minerals. He said that he was, quote, expanding critical minerals and rare earths.
But he fired you. That's what you were working on.
Yeah, I supported active research projects on identifying sources of critical minerals in the U.S. domestically.
It bothers me that he's more interested in engaging in neocolonialism to get minerals from other countries rather than supporting the scientists and the researchers who are aiding the minerals industry here in America. You're talking about Greenland and Ukraine.
You also were particularly seemed annoyed by the statement that he made about thousands of federal workers not showing up to the office because the work that you do and your colleagues do with the U.S. Geological Survey is not done in the office.
It's largely done in the field. For many people, yes.
The USGS is the most prestigious earth science research institution in the world. And we've been at the office this whole time.
We do work in laboratories at the office, but lots of people are in the field every day. We monitor the nation's waterways.
We monitor earthquakes, volcanoes, and other hazards. We study ecosystems.
So our office is our nation's lands. It really is a profound honor to have spent this time with you guys.
And again, I just want to say for me personally, on behalf of I'm sure so many people that are watching, really sorry about the situation that you guys are in and really wishing you guys all the best. Thank you guys very much.
Steph, back over to you. Jacob, thank you so much.
What an impressive group of people. And just juxtapose that with the way both the president and Elon Musk talk in such derogatory terms about just the general federal government workforce.
Also, just like what an just what an impressive group of people. I mean, from any all the different places I've ever worked in my life, like having a group of four colleagues that was that impressive and credentialed and articulate.
It would be almost like working here. Can we just point out all four of those people with their expertise could make more money in the private sector and have chosen not to? Yeah.
Well, and they've just been insulted and told that they're low productivity, right? It's just, it's insane. I live in the D.C.
area. Everybody thinks that every federal worker is in the D.C.
area. Eighty percent of federal workers are outside of the D.C.
area. And this is, I think, something people in the country are learning that these are your postal workers.
These are the people who are working at FBI offices who are keeping your community safe. They're the FAA workers who are making sure you can fly safely on the airlines.
There are people who are working at the VA. It is not a bunch of, I love government bureaucrats, but it's not a bunch of government bureaucrats.
It is a bunch of people working in communities. And I think people are hopefully learning that, but that's an important part of this to understand.
I should mention that joining us now is MSNBC senior contributing editor and the founding director of the Race Card Project, Michelle Norris. Michelle, I just got to get your reaction to both what you've seen tonight in terms of these speeches, but also what you've been hearing in terms of your reporting.
Well, just what you were saying about the workers, you know, when you see Elon Musk with that big blinged out red chainsaw, you know, it's not just that they are firing people, that they're doing it in such an ignominious manner. They're doing it with glee.
Yeah. You know, and it just it is just wrong in the way that they're doing this.
I was struck by a couple of things. I do believe that we're going to see them go after Social Security.
You know, they asked the bank robber, why did you go to the bank? Well, because that's where the money is. Yeah.
And in order for them to get to, they're probably going to look at Social Security. And that's an opportunity for the Democrats to message to people.
And, you know, is your mom OK? Is your family OK? I spent a good time texting with people who work with farmers because I decided to focus on one thing. They work with farmers in Minnesota, Illinois and Iowa, and they were very upset, you know, by this and the tariffs.
The farmers are going to get hit very hard on this. They got hit last time in the trade war with China.
They barely recovered last time. We're talking about big numbers, hundreds of millions of dollars.
Some of the people who are involved in direct-to-consumer farming, organic farming, will probably do okay. But commodity farmers are going to get hit really hard.
The USAID program, they grow sourdum, they grow barley, they grow wheat, they go in, that's those secondary markets are very important to them. And not just through the food for peace program, but also just selling, you know, a third of the corn grown in Illinois goes to Mexico and Mexico will likely look for other sources.
They'll look to South America. Pork and soybean go to China.
So this is going to have a direct impact. And what I'm hearing from people is a level of disrespect.
And he said it on Truth Social. He said it tonight.
This is going to be great for the farmers. Go and have fun.
First of all, farming is not fun. Have fun.
He literally used the press. Have fun.
If you've ever spent any time on a farm, they're great pride in what they do, but it's not fun. And I just want to say one thing about the pride, because that's one of the things that I know in the time that I have personally spent on farms.
For the farmers who are involved in the USAID program, it is a source of income for them, but it is also a source of pride and dignity. When you travel throughout the Midwest in places like Kansas and Illinois, you've seen this when you've been out on the campaign trail, they will have signs on the side of the farms that say, we feed the world.
That is how they see themselves. And he does not understand that he doesn't respect that aspect of their work.
And I don't think, and one of the things I heard today from someone I was talking to in Minnesota said that they don't think that he respects them as entrepreneurs, as businessmen. And that's essentially where farmers are.
They're businessmen. And he's messing with their money.
So his uniquely Trumpian stupidity about farming, because he knows the farmers are going to suffer very quickly on retaliatory tariffs. He said to them, you can just sell your products in the United States.
No competition. All of Donald Trump's lifetime and before the United States of America has produced more food than it can eat.

If we eat all day, we cannot eat that food.

And the farmer knows the grain farmers, especially commodity farmers, as you put it, know that they need those foreign markets, which Donald Trump is now cutting off to them.

And that buffoon of a president thinks they can just sell it to us. I literally laughed at that line.
Tomatoes and avocados. Yes.
You know, in. I laughed at that line because I was like, buddy, do you know how much soy you're talking about? He has no idea.
There's also I mean, it's the USAID cuts. It's the tariffs in between are

the programs like the USDA programs that have been cut. These supposedly wasteful government programs and contracts that Elon Musk and his team of interns are cutting in New England, where I live most of the time.
I mean, what we're seeing is small to medium scale farmers who have done projects that they signed up with USDA to do that are improvement projects for their land and for farming techniques that are something that U.S. government wants to invest in in order to make the most out of our farming capability and our ag capability.
And they've done those things, whether it's fencing or soil amendments or something with their dairy herds. They've done these things.
They're out. These are small farmers, you know, family farms that are out tens of thousands of dollars or in some cases, six figures.
And that money has been cut off. They've spent it.
And because they were told they'd be reimbursed and now they're not. And these places are not going to make it to June.
They're not going to make it to a harvest season with the way that this stuff has been done. And there and there there is no fixing it.
There isn't undoing these these programmatic savings, which they did with their, you know, blinged out Chinese chainsaw with all the glee and the and all of the the insult along with the injury. You know, conspicuously missing from the Trump speech tonight was a promise not to touch Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid.
He has done that in interviews whenever challenged. It's a really good point.
Very specifically didn't do it tonight. And the last person to give that speech, which was Joe Biden a year ago, in what was the best State of the Union address I've ever seen, especially because of the quick ad libs.
Those ad libs were about that subject. The Republicans in the audience got very upset when Joe Biden said they wanted to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
That's when they started yelling at him. And that's when he made them promise right there live in the room that they wouldn't do it.
He made the deal with them not to do it. That didn't come up.
And what Donald Trump probably doesn't know about Social Security is the only way you can cut Social Security. There's only one way you have to take money away from recipients.
There is no other use of Social Security money. Medicare, you can cut hospital reimbursement rates.
Medicaid, you can cut hospital reimbursement rates.

Social Security, it's money you take away from individuals.

Well, the last two-hour speech given by a president

about Social Security was Elon Musk four days ago

to Joe Rogan when he called it a Ponzi scheme.

You know, one thing I will say,

if you're watching this right now,

you would be well advised to go to the Social Security site and print out your earnings.

Because everybody has their own, essentially, account at Social Security.

You can access it through the website.

And how long is that website going to last?

Well, that's why I say do it now.

Our special coverage of this big night continues in just a moment.

So stay with us here on MSNBC. 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 trump 100.