Episode 2066: The Consumer Is In A Ton Of Trouble; CNBC Spin On The CPI Report; They Have Weaponized The Justice Department And The American People Should Not Stand For It
MSNBC's Morning Mika Brzezinksi and Steve Cortez join host Rachel Maddow to discuss the latest in the ongoing saga of the Trump administration s response to an FBI raid at Mar-a-lago.
00:09:03.400Frankly, and he wants to please Wall Street far more than he wants to protect American consumers
00:09:07.740and protect Main Street small businesses, which we know are being absolutely crushed by this inflation.
00:09:12.920Again, that data from a lineable of survey of over thirty five hundred small businesses in the United States.
00:09:18.680They self-report that one third of them, 34 percent, said they could not pay rent in the month of July.
00:09:24.180So tell them, by the way, that they're getting a break and that things are fine.
00:09:28.300When one third of small businesses can't pay rent in the month of July, they need help.
00:09:31.920Part of that help is the Federal Reserve finally doing its job.
00:09:35.860And the Fed has put itself through its dereliction of duty.
00:09:38.300It's put itself in a very difficult position.
00:09:40.240OK, and so, I mean, I do have a tiny bit of empathy for the Fed.
00:09:44.020But they, again, put themselves in this place where they must play the bad guy.
00:09:48.320But to answer your question, look, the markets this morning, which is where I really look rather than just economists and pundits.
00:09:54.700Let's look at what markets are actually pricing in regarding Fed policy.
00:09:57.720It flipped from a for sure thing of 75 basis points in the next meeting to now roughly a 50-50 bet, whether it's going to be 50 basis points or 75.
00:10:07.040But, you know, I don't want to get lost in the weeds.
00:10:09.200The point is the Fed is nowhere near where it needs to be.
00:10:12.860Rates need to be at least double at the short end where they are right now.
00:10:17.340And by the way, speaking of the stock market, you know, you talked about how the stock market is celebrating this morning because they think they're going to get an easier Fed.
00:11:10.760Because their input costs for food have absolutely soared.
00:11:14.200And because their consumer – it's a relatively expensive restaurant for a quick service place – their consumers are increasingly strapped.
00:11:20.660And by the way, that's not just a sweet green story.
00:11:23.760Now, that is a niche company that, again, serves in general a higher-end clientele.
00:11:28.120But we also got news this week from Tyson Foods, one of the biggest meat packaging companies in America.
00:11:33.680And they reported – and their stock has been hammered on this news – Tyson Foods said that consumers are increasingly trading down.
00:11:40.060They are buying cheaper and cheaper cuts of meat.
00:11:42.600So we see it on the macro level at the lower end of the price scale.
00:11:46.060We also see it on the micro level from a niche company like Sweet Green.
00:11:49.640The reality is the consumer is in a ton of trouble in this country.
00:11:56.340And a slight downtick in the rate of acceleration is no reason for anyone to celebrate or for anyone to assume that things are going to be fine.
00:12:06.320And to that point, if I can actually show them that third chart that they just had up, CPI, going back one year.
00:12:40.100By the way, Steve Cortez is such a classy guy and such a good guy.
00:12:45.160He's agreed earlier to break this up, bifurcate his hit, and he's going to come back with his major new column in Newsweek magazine about General Milley.
00:12:53.300We're going to get into – oh, no, no, no.
00:19:17.960President Trump putting out a powerhouse statement just in the last several minutes regarding the witch hunt that's been undertaken against him by the federal prosecutors.
00:19:27.120And by the way, I'm hearing, the information I'm hearing about, the premise for that warrant is so concocted, is so corrupt, is so decrepit,
00:19:35.820that once it comes out, it's going to shock the world, and only further, if it's even possible, because the couple strength will be full, strength in President Trump's position.
00:22:02.280And, and this is vital to remember that the DOJ and the FBI, they lied on the warrants.
00:22:10.300They lied when they went after General Michael Flynn.
00:22:13.180They lied when they went after Carter Page.
00:22:15.680They lied when they spied on President Trump's campaign and then President Trump's actual presidency, his administration.
00:22:21.580There's a long history, a modus operandi, as it's called in legal profession.
00:22:27.260There's a long history, an MO by the DOJ that has gone absolutely woke, absolutely liberal, and has been weaponized, weaponized, not by just feckless Joe Biden,
00:22:39.200but has been weaponized now for a long time, from Obama to George W. Bush, et cetera, et cetera.
00:22:45.480This, this DOJ and FBI have been trying to set up President Trump and those close to those who work for him for, you know, since 2015, for almost, for seven years now.
00:22:55.460And I, you know, I do not have, we don't have the full information yet on how this warrant was obtained.
00:23:03.360We do have some information on the magistrate judge, but we don't have full information on how this warrant was obtained.
00:23:08.720But based on everything President Trump has said, based on everything that I know, based on everything that has been public, and frankly, that is still to come out,
00:23:16.860President Trump and his legal team are in full and total cooperation and compliance with the DOJ on this NARA issue, okay, on this presidential record issue.
00:23:51.580As President Trump said in his first statement on Monday, when this raid by the DOJ, when this break it into President Trump's historic home, raid and break it, when that happened,
00:24:03.620President Trump said that this was unnecessary, unnecessary because President Trump and his council have been in total cooperation with the DOJ.
00:24:37.860And that's why you've got the American people coming out in droves and treating Mar-a-Lago now as a place for pilgrimage because it stands for freedom.
00:24:45.200It stands for not backing down to tyranny, to big government, to absolutely rampant, runaway, woke abuse of authority and weaponization of law enforcement.
00:25:39.580You've got Andrew Cuomo yesterday, who I think may be plotting a comeback or whatever he thinks is possible, coming out and saying we've got to get to the bottom of it.
00:25:47.760McCarthy coming out with a hot statement.
00:25:50.400And then McConnell on the Senate side coming out with a statement against us.
00:25:54.540You know, it was an interesting piece in Axios yesterday about this being effectively a field clearing exercise, Steve, that we discussed off camera.
00:26:01.540Every single Republican, you know, political figure, whatever, who's even giving a thought to potentially, which, by the way, would be a ludicrous thought, to challenging President Trump if and when, as we hope and expect, he runs for president.
00:26:15.560Every one of those people, from Pompeo to Pence to DeSantis, they've come out and backed President Trump on this.
00:26:23.880What this has proven once and for all is that the American people stand with President Trump, and President Trump is the only irrefutable figure fully, fully in leadership of the MAGA movement, the Republican Party, and America.
00:26:37.640But when we get to the bottom of this, when all the information does come out about how this was, what the predicate was for the warrant, how this was organized, how it was approved, note that they didn't go to a judge in Washington, D.C.
00:26:50.000The DOJ has a judge they usually go to for these, you know, for these kind of actions.
00:26:54.840They went to a local federal magistrate judge that on social media said Nancy thinks about President Trump.
00:27:14.060Why did they go to a magistrate, not a federal judge that had the case?
00:27:20.560Well, it really, between the tea leaves, the reason to go to a local magistrate and not the federal judge, and it's a federal magistrate, but a local Florida magistrate and not a judge up in D.C. or D.C. area is because they try to overrun some local yoke.
00:27:34.760Or maybe they did know about the judge's prior statements on social media, et cetera.
00:27:54.280And now you've got, you know, the DOJ trying to spin some nonsense about, oh, you know, this was, you know, there was breakdown in communication.
00:28:01.220There was no breakdown in communication.
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00:30:03.500If anything, I think the understated, I think I understated the case because it is about to get very ugly.
00:30:10.640Secondly, elected Republicans, who frequently remind us that they are the party of law and order, could have, one, adopted a posture of strategic silence, or two, given the FBI the benefit of the doubt while they conducted a court-sanctioned investigation.
00:30:27.100Instead, they gave us this sort of thing, end quote.
00:32:15.960You better start coming forward and letting people know your skirts are clean,
00:32:18.780because this is – the Republican Study Committee spent three hours with President Trump last night, Congressman Banks and his team, right?
00:32:28.640We'll get more on that in the afternoon show.
00:32:30.260They're walking through already the deep investigations that are going to take place, the framework, the analytical framework for this.
00:32:37.300We are coming for you, and we don't care if Joe Scarborough, a failed three-term congressman because of a problem with a staffer happening to die that he then had to go spend more quality time with his families, quote-unquote.
00:32:52.660We don't care if he's clutching his pearls, right?
00:32:55.780We're coming, and we're coming hard, okay?
00:33:12.580And President Trump's statements time and time again and his truth this morning that actually – I think I'd like to read, Steve, if we have just 10 seconds.
00:33:22.660From this morning before, having to go in and do this ludicrous, nonsense, civil case – by the way, civil case deposition in front of the tyrannical Tish James.
00:33:35.120The FBI and others from the federal government would not let anyone, including my lawyers, be anywhere near the areas that were rummaged and otherwise looked at during the raid, and I will add, break-in at Mar-a-Lago.
00:33:46.080Everyone was asked to leave the premises.
00:33:47.580They wanted to be left alone without any witnesses to see what they were doing, taking or hopefully not.
00:35:19.840Investigate, litigate, and incarcerate.
00:35:23.300You better make sure you should come forward now and get your skirts clear saying, hey, look, you know, I was just a good German, and, you know, doing what I was told.
00:35:30.420No, no, no, no, no, not going to be good enough.
00:35:35.640You know, with Gates and the people in Jordan over there at the House committees at Project Veritas or come to us, but you better start coming forward.
00:35:44.220We know there's a lot of decent people in the FBI, but your leadership and Chris Ray, a Chris Christie.
00:35:50.180If anybody sees Chris Christie ever come to an event, you should boo him nonstop.
00:35:55.940Chris Christie is one of the central problems here.
00:35:59.160His buddy, his lifetime lawyer, when he told President Trump, oh, this guy's even-handed.
00:36:04.100This was Christie out to get Trump from the beginning.
00:36:07.240That's how evil psychopath that guy is.
00:36:49.740If the DOJ did this without actually consulting with the illegitimate but supposed chief executive in his office, that is runaway, ludicrous law enforcement insanity, okay?
00:37:02.440The other option is that, what I believe, is that the White House is simply lying.
00:37:09.100They knew, and they wanted to target the person that they're most afraid of because President Donald J. Trump stands for American greatness, stands for American superiority, stands for America's broad shoulders, and he's never going to back down.
00:37:23.200And this is only going to make him, his movement, and this country in the end stronger because it is making that path back to the White House at the latest, Jan 20, 2025, even smoother.
00:37:34.860And if you're seeing what's happening this week, the coalescence, the coalescence behind President Trump of the whole movement is something we really haven't seen in a long time because there's no more Never Trumpers.
00:41:45.860What if they can't get a court to arrest him?
00:41:49.480You know, in these dictatorships in these third-world countries, what do they do?
00:41:53.400They imprison you or they kill you, one or the other.
00:41:57.200These guys will go to any length possible to stop him.
00:42:01.980Is that – are you – I've known you a long time.
00:42:05.800Are you being overwrought – when you said that the other day on Newsmax, you know, people's heads started blowing up and said Bernie's kind of lost it.
00:42:13.600Are you being overwrought in even suggesting that could be a possibility, sir?
00:42:26.200Look at history in these other countries.
00:42:28.240And then look at what's happening here in this country today.
00:42:31.560You have the weaponization of our entire criminal justice system targeting a former president of the United States over some inconsequential documents.
00:48:02.820Some of the stuff I've seen and reports I've read, what were all the backpacks for on the FBI agents?
00:48:09.260What were they taking into the compound?
00:48:11.540Where were the evidence bags that came out?
00:48:13.680Where's the inventory of the items removed, which they have to put together and they're supposed to provide to the target, the target of the search warrant?
00:48:23.700Also, the AG and the FBI mandates that the agents wear body cams.
00:49:41.520The only way it could possibly be saved, which I don't think is there, of enough agents and enough people that actually love it, what it used to be can come forward.
00:51:33.020You have relationships with many people that when they hear the name War Room, spit right on the floor.
00:51:38.240So you're kind of the connective tissue here.
00:51:40.340But give me your assessment of this raid, sir.
00:51:42.340This raid was completely unnecessary and likely unlawful.
00:51:48.460When you do a raid, you have to – that's a last resort when you're going in, especially a home raid, especially a home raid of a former president.
00:52:38.480They told them to put a bolt on the door.
00:52:40.800They were going back and forth and supposedly fully engaged according to what we know from Trump's lawyers.
00:52:45.800So just walk people then through what the steps would be before you would go thermonuclear with a home raid of a former president of these United States, sir.
00:52:56.020Well, you wouldn't unless there are dead bodies in Mar-a-Lago.
00:52:59.360So let's just put that out there right out front.
00:53:02.180But what you would do is you would have the General Counsel of the National Archives work with the office of former President Trump.
00:53:09.000He has staff that's provided by the federal government.