Subscribe to MSNOW Premium on Apple Podcasts for early access, ad-free listening, and bonus content to all of MSNOW's original podcasts, including the chart-topping series The Best People with Nicole Wallace, Why Is This Happening, Main Justice, and more. Plus, new episodes of all your favorite MSNOW shows ad-free, and ad-free listening to all of Rachel Maddow's original series, including Rachel Maddow Presents Burn Order. Subscribe to MSNOW Premium on Apple Podcasts. The last word with Lawrence O'Donnell starts right now. Hey, Lawrence. Hey, Jen. We have a huge Trump defeat to report on tonight in the House of Representatives. The tariff vote went against Donald Trump. Six Republicans joining the Democrats to vote against Donald Trump's tariffs in the House of Representatives tonight. That is a big one for Donald Trump. We're going to be covering that. Good. I'm looking forward to it. That's a very, very big one. It is. It's a big reversal and there are going to be more votes like this and it's starting to feel like the Epstein filed votes where there's six Republicans now, but that number is only going to increase as this continues, if it continues. And the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court might just rule them all unconstitutional and that's the end of that. But we'll see when that day comes. We will see. And they're all deciding what's good for them politically. The winds may be changing on that. They seem to be. They're beginning to figure it Some of them, anyway. We're going to get right to it. Thanks, Jen. Have a great show. Thank you. We have another Trump retreat, and I mean a complete retreat by Donald Trump. Tonight, there is not a single member of the National Guard illegally deployed by Donald Trump on the streets of America. Not one. Under the headline, National Guard troops were quietly withdrawn from some U.S. cities. The Washington Post reports, the Trump administration has withdrawn all federalized National Guard troops from U.S. cities after its repeated attempts to surge forces into Democratic-run states and counter-judicial roadblocks. They're all gone. The Trump retreat of National Guard troops is complete. the Constitution won and Donald Trump lost. And now Donald Trump is losing to Joe Biden in three polls that say Joe Biden did a better job as president than Donald Trump. And one of those polls includes the Rasmussen poll, which is always considered to be tilted in favor of Republicans. Rasmussen is Donald Trump's favorite poll. And now the Rasmussen pollster says, quote, if an election were held today between Trump and Biden, Biden would win. The First Amendment of the Constitution won when the Vice President of the United Auto Workers reported in a speech in Washington this week that the auto worker at the Ford plant, who called Donald Trump a pedophile protector, is happily back at his job and hasn't been disciplined in any way. T.J. Sabula, the 40-year-old autoworker, says he has no regrets for calling Donald Trump a pedophile protector. The Detroit News reports, quote, Trump responded by flashing his middle finger and twice-mouthing F.U. at Sabula. The president also mouthed the popular catchphrase from his days on reality television, You're fired. The United Auto Workers vice president, Laura Dickerson, said in her speech on Monday, quote, In that moment, we saw what the president really thinks about working people. As UAW members, we speak truth to power. We don't just protect rights. We exercise them. And the label pedophile protector took on new meaning yesterday for Donald Trump when someone he protected with a pardon was found guilty of multiple child sexual abuse charges. Andrew Paul Johnson is seen here on January 6th when he participated in the attack on the Capitol to try to overturn the presidential election for Donald Trump. He pleaded guilty to federal charges for his participation in the attack on the Capitol. And on his first day in office, Donald Trump pardoned Andrew Paul Johnson, who is now facing the possibility of life in prison in Florida for molesting an 11-year-old boy. Johnson used Donald Trump's pardon to try to keep the boy silent, saying that Donald Trump was going to give him $10 million. Donald Trump has publicly discussed compensating the people who committed crimes for him on January 6th, and Andrew Paul Johnson used that, saying that he would put the 11-year-old boy in his will after Donald Trump gave him $10 million. dollars. Though there's a pedophile who Donald Trump protected with a pardon, a pedophile who has proudly called himself an American terrorist. And he really is. And he is a proud recipient of a Donald Trump pardon. Today, it was Attorney General Pamela Bondi's turn to play her role in the pedophile protector scheme that Donald Trump's Justice Department has been running by violating the law that requires the release to Congress of all of the Epstein files with redactions only for any identifying information about the victims and survivors of Jeffrey Epstein's international sex trafficking and rape conspiracy. We've had exactly two attorneys general in the history of the United States convicted of crimes, both of them Republican attorneys general, both of them in service to the criminal Republican President Richard Nixon. Neither one of those attorneys general ever testified to Congress while blatantly and publicly violating the law, which is what Pamela Bondi did today. The law required the attorney general to hand over all of the Epstein files 54 days ago, and she still has not done that. And so she is breaking the law every day and was breaking the law every minute in that hearing room today. We've never seen an attorney general willing to do that publicly. And because her position is completely indefensible, she had her staff provide her with a three-ring binder with idiotic attacks that she could try to launch on every Democratic member of the House Judiciary Committee today instead of answering any of their questions. We've never seen this before the Trump cabinet began doing this just this year. This is not what Donald Trump's cabinet did in congressional testimony during the first Trump presidency. This is brand new. And this is the end of the congressional hearing as we knew it, involving cabinet members. What we saw today was not a hearing. It was not anything that the most honorable members of Congress in our history would recognize. It was Pamela Bondi, with the help of the worst writers in Washington, trying to turn a hearing into a roast. She did the lamest possible impression of Comedy Central roast master and chief Jeff Ross with the stupidest material ever provided to an attorney general of the United States to speak in public. And she was stupid enough to do it. She was literally laughed at when refusing to answer a question about the Epstein files. She tried to change the subject to the stock market, and she said the Dow is over $5,000. Those were her words. She apparently doesn't know what stock market numbers mean. And when people laughed at her for saying the Dow Jones Industrial Average is over $50,000, She double underlined her ignorance by saying, I don't know why you're laughing. Congressman Eric Swalwell presented clear and convincing proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Donald Trump's FBI director, Kashyap Patel, lied under oath and did it on video. Madam Attorney General, you acknowledged earlier to Mr. Johnson that President Trump was mentioned and the release countless times, you said, in the Epstein files. I just want to play a video, though, for you that I think speaks to the frustration that many of these victims have. A number of times Trump's name appears in the files, so it could at least be a thousand times. Is that right? The number is a total misleading factor. We have not released anyone's name in the Epstein file that has not been credible. Director, could it at least be a thousand times? We have released every piece of legally permissible information. You can characterize the numbers however you want it. You claim me my time, Director. It sounds like if you don't know the number, it could at least be a thousand times. It's not. It's not. Is it at least 500 times? No. Is it at least 100 times? No. Then what's the number? I don't know the number. We now know that the number is over a million times. Yes, a million. Donald Trump's name is in the Epstein files over a million times, according to Congressman Jamie Raskin, who has seen the so-called unredacted version of the files. And Kashyap Patel is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of lying under oath about that. And during every presidency in the history of the FBI, except the Trump presidency, the FBI director would be forced to immediately resign once he was proved to have lied under oath, and he would be prosecuted. The Trump administration is now a governmental crime spree from top to bottom with the masked agents Donald Trump has sent to Minneapolis literally murdering people, which we have all seen on video. And the attorney general feigned outrage today when she was accused by Congressman Ted Lieu of lying under oath. Congressman Liu said, I believe you just lied under oath. And Pamela Bondi said, don't you ever accuse me of a crime. Everyone in America has a First Amendment right to accuse Pamela Bondi of crimes. Everyone in America has a First Amendment right in their factories or anywhere else to call Pamela Bondi a pedophile protector. Everyone in America has every right to believe Pamela Bondi is doing everything she can to protect any and all possible pedophiles whose names appear in the Epstein files. Pamela Bondi refused to answer questions about why the names of men listed as co of Jeffrey Epstein in the Epstein files were redacted Republican Thomas Massey asked her how that happened and she simply refused to answer She insulted the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein who were in the hearing room today by refusing to even look at them when repeatedly asked to do so by Democratic members of the committee. Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal asked Pamela Bondi, the human being, to apologize to the survivors for having failed to redact their personal information, including their names, while she made sure that the co-conspirators' names were redacted. And that is when we saw that a human being didn't show up to testify to that hearing today, just a Trumpian robot whose handling of the Epstein files has earned her the suspicion of being a pedophile protector and her refusal to acknowledge the survivors in the room today in any way established her Trumpian level of heartless, soulless depravity. Nine-year-old victims, wow. Yes, nine years old. Nine-year-old victims, wow, were the words of a Wyoming grandmother reacting to what she just learned about the Epstein files. That Wyoming grandmother is a Republican and a recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Washington Coal Club. She is also the junior senator from Wyoming. The Hill reports that Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis now says, I see what the big deal is about the Epstein files. Nine-year-old victims, wow. Well, initially my reaction to all this was, I don't care. I don't know what the big deal is, but now I see what the big deal is, and it was worth investigating. And the members of Congress that have been pushing this were not wrong. Here's Congressman Jamie Raskin after his first look at what were supposed to be the unredacted Epstein files this week. When you read through these files and you read about 15-year-old girls, 14-year-old girls, 10-year-old girls, I saw mention of a 9-year-old girl today. I mean, this is just preposterous and scandalous. A nine-year-old girl. 14 wasn't good enough for Senator Cynthia Lummis. She knew that Jeffrey Epstein sought out and raped 14-year-olds, but she didn't see what the big deal was about that. The Epstein files that Donald Trump has been trying to hide for over a year revealed a nine-year-old victim. Howard Lutnick is the cabinet member who makes other Trump cabinet members feel better about themselves. Howard Lutnick is the cabinet member other Trump cabinet members can make fun of and look down on because no one bows lower at the feet of Donald Trump than the publicly pathetic Howard Lutnick, who has now revealed himself to be a pathological liar. Howard Lutnick's pathology as a public liar fills him with the same kind of energy and joy about lying that you see in Donald Trump and the same stupidity. In testimony to a subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee yesterday, Howard Lutnick said that he did what everybody did when the Epstein files came out. He searched for his name. I didn't. I didn't search for my name. Everybody didn't search for their names. But Howard Lutnick does think everybody searched for their names. Howard Lutnick searched for his name because he knew he would be in there. But last year, he knew he'd be in the Epstein files when he told an entirely Trumpian lie on video on October 1st of last year about his very first encounter with his next door neighbor, Jeffrey Epstein. So he gives me a tour in the living room, big living room. And then across from it is double doors. I assume it's the dining room. Yeah. And he opens the doors and there's a massage table in the middle of the room and candles all around and stuff. So I ask very insightful, cutting questions. I say to him, massage table in the middle of your house? How often do you have a massage? And he says, every day. And then he gets weirdly close to me. And he says, and the right kind of massage. Now my wife is standing here. So she looks at me and I look at her. And we say, I'm sorry, we have to go. And we left. and in the six or eight steps it takes to get from his house to my house my wife and i decided that i will never be in the room with that disgusting person ever again so i was never in the room with him socially for business or even philanthropy if that guy was there I wasn't going because he's gross. Laughing his way through that story about his first and only encounter with Jeffrey Epstein, which was, of course, a lie. Now the Epstein files show that Howard Lutnick was lying about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. Of course he was lying. Howard Letnick has not been accused of any criminal wrongdoing yet, but he has absolutely lied, pathologically lied, about his long relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, including going to Jeffrey Epstein's island. The New York Times reading of the Epstein file says that Howard Lutnick, quote, interacted with the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein regularly over at least 13 years. Why they live next door to one another on Manhattan's Upper East Side. They invested in the same privately held company together, dealt with one another on neighborhood and philanthropic issues and appear to have socialized in New York and the Caribbean. The records show Mr. Epstein at one point sought to meet with Mr. Lutnick's nanny. Mr. Lutnick's name appeared in more than 250 documents in the Epstein files released by the Justice Department, a review by the New York Times found. You led people to believe that you had cut off all contact with Jeffrey Epstein after the 2005 encounter you and your wife had in his apartment. But as I'm sure you know, the Epstein files show a very different record of interaction. Why did the Epstein files show you coordinating a meeting and planning a visit with Jeffrey Epstein on his private island in December 2012? Thank you for the question. I'm glad to be here to make it clear that I met Jeffrey Epstein when he moved, when I moved to a house next door to him in New York, right? And I met him then. Over the next 14 years, I met him two other times that I can recall, two times, and that is none for six years. So six years later, I met him and then a year and a half after that I met him and never again. Probably the total, and you've seen all of these documents, of these millions and millions of documents, there may be 10 emails connecting me with him, probably about 10 emails connecting me with him over a 14-year period. I did not have any relationship with him. I barely had anything to do with that person. Okay? Okay. But the question was, why did you plan to visit with Jeffrey Epstein on his private island in December 2012? And Howard Lutnick did not answer that question. The thing about pathological liars is that when they get caught in their lie, they don't then immediately switch to the truth. Did you in fact make the visit to Jeffrey Epstein's private island? I did have lunch with him as I was on a boat going across on a family vacation. My wife was with me, as were my four children and nannies. I had another couple with they were there as well with their children and we had lunch on the island that is true for an hour and we left with all of my children with my nannies and my wife all together we were on family vacation we were not apart to suggest there was anything untoward about that in 2012 I don't recall why we did it, but we did it. I don't recall why we did it. He has a very vivid memory of line-for-line dialogue of his encounter with Jeffrey Epstein that he was so proud of last year. And now he can't even recall why he turned his boat, had his captain turn his boat to Jeffrey Epstein's island. the complications of getting from that boat, that yacht, to the island, launches had to be used to get them to the Jeffrey Epstein dock. Can't remember any reason why he did all of that. Why did he bring his children to lunch with the man on his rape island, the man who Howard Lutnick said he found so gross? When you visited the private island, did you see anything inappropriate during that visit? The only thing I saw with my wife and my children and the other couple and their children was staff who worked for Mr. Epstein on that island. And you realize that this visit took place after he'd been convicted, right? I mean, you made a very big point of saying that you sensed that this was a bad person in 2005. And then, of course, in 2008, he was convicted of soliciting prostitution of a minor. And yet you went and had this trip and other interactions. So after Jeffrey Epstein was convicted of sex crimes Howard Lutnick decided to bring his children and their nannies to have lunch with Jeffrey Epstein on Epstein Island Howard Lutnick knew exactly what he was looking for in the Epstein files There was, look, I looked through the millions of documents for my name, just like everybody else. No, not like everybody else. Just the friends of Jeffrey Epstein. Like the lying Lutnik. There's also a reference to the fact that Epstein had expressed an interest in meeting your nanny. Do you know whether Jeffrey Epstein ever met with your nanny? No, I saw that. I had no idea what that was about. It had nothing to do with me. No interaction at all with him on that? No, as far as I know now. Would you, Mr. Secretary, be willing to ensure that the file is complete to share with this committee and the Congress your own records, any records you have that relate to Jeffrey Epstein? I will surely talk about that. I hadn't thought about that. I have nothing to hide. Absolutely nothing. Howard Lutnick does have something to hide, and he hid it in that testimony. He wouldn't even say why he went to the island. Howard Lutnick is not going to turn over any of his records relating to Jeffrey Epstein. He's going to hide those records. What questions do you have about Lutnick's ties to Epstein? And should he come before Congress and testify? No, he should just resign. I mean, there are three people in Great Britain that have resigned in politics. the ambassador from Great Britain to the United States. The prince lost his title for less than what we've seen Howard Lutnick lie about. Congressman Ro Khanna revealed the names of very wealthy men that were redacted in the Epstein files for no legal reason other than to protect them. One of those men, Congressman Ro Khanna named, is Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayah, who has a particularly horrific entry in the Epstein files and an email in which Jeffrey Epstein tells him, quote, I loved the torture video. Donald Trump was in business with Sultan Ahmed bin Salih in 2007 to build a hotel in Dubai, a project that has recently been revived by Donald Trump and his sons. Have they seen the torture video? An association with such a person would be impossible for anyone in the American government until Donald Trump came along and created what the dean of American conservative columnists, George Will, has called, quote, a sickening moral slum of an administration. That sickening moral slum was on display in the House Judiciary Committee today with an Attorney General preening with juvenile pride at the violations of law she has committed for the sickening moral slumlord, Donald Trump. Senator Mark Kelly will join us next. MSNOW. Delivered to your inbox. Sign up at MS.now. Yesterday, a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C. refused a request by Donald Trump's Justice Department to indict six members of Congress for saying publicly exactly what everyone in the American military has taught, that no one in the military should follow illegal orders. Yesterday, we saw the great lengths that Donald Trump and his administration will go to to abuse power in order to silence and intimidate anyone who disagrees with them. We learned through the media that federal prosecutors tried and failed to get an indictment of us from a grand jury. This is outrageous. They tried to have us charged and thrown into jail because we said something that they didn't like. Because we repeated what the law actually is. This happened here. This is straight from the authoritarian playbook from the very beginning of our nation. It is dependent on the willingness of patriotic Americans to fight for it. Senator Slocken and I, we did not ask for this. We're just the first through the breach. But you'll be damn sure that we are not going to back down. We've been in war zones for this country. We fought our country's enemies. This doesn't intimidate us. And we know that this is much bigger than the two of us. The most patriotic thing that any American can do right now is to continue exercising our rights, continue speaking truth to power, and not backing down. Sirius Dow is former astronaut, former Navy pilot, Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Senate Intelligence Committee. Senator, where were you when you got the news, you read this news that they tried to do this yesterday? What did you feel when you read that? Well, Lawrence, we had a little bit of a heads up. We heard something was going to happen that they might try to impanel a grand jury and try to indict us and send us to jail or prison. That's President and Pam Bondi and Jeanine Pirro's goal here. I was just pulling up in front of my place last night, and I was on the phone with my chief of staff when she got the word from our attorney that they tried to do this. But a handful, a couple dozen of U.S. citizens seem to understand the Constitution much better than anybody in this administration does and refuse to indict us. Yeah, that's what was standing between panel of Bondi and your indictment is just citizens reporting for jury duty. Yeah, this time we'll see if they, you know, keep pressing here. They've got a reputation. You know, this president doesn't like to lose, though he seems to have made a habit of it lately, especially as he uses his justice system as a weapon against people that he disagrees with. Hey, you know, Alyssa Slocken and I and the four House members, we said something the president didn't like. He started out with hanging us. He wanted us hanged. Then he said executed. Now we're in the prosecutorial phase of this. I also have a case with the Navy. They're trying to demote me and take away some of my pension after 25 years. But like we said in that press conference today, you know, this isn't about just the two of us. This is about 350 million Americans who this president will go after and try to silence if he doesn't like what comes out of their mouths. And this is wrong and it's un-American. So, you know, for that reason, you know, we're in it to the end. Every news network has shown the video where you all say this, where you all tell us all and members of the military that they should not follow illegal orders. Many of us with programs like this have repeated multiple times what you actually said. And so in the theory of what they were doing yesterday, you could prosecute every one of these networks and every one of us who's presented this news. yeah i suppose or all of my colleagues who have repeated it over and over again or maybe even pete hegseth the secretary of defense who in 2016 when donald trump was running for office and apparently 2016 pete hegseth didn't like well some of the stuff that donald trump was saying like killing the family members of terrorists meaning women and children you know that pete hegseth said exactly what we said, you know, in the video that members of the military are not going to follow and should not follow unlawful or illegal orders. You know, so that guy seemed to get it. And obviously people understand that members of the military are trained on this. This just means follow the law. But Donald Trump and people around him don't like when somebody presents something that, you know, that he doesn't agree with. He thinks he should be allowed to do and give whatever order he wants because he's a wannabe dictator. Senator, it seems that you have left a marker here for historians of just how far Donald Trump is willing to go in abusing the Constitution against anyone. Senator Mark Kelly, thank you very much for joining us tonight. Thank you for having me on, Lawrence. Thank you. Andrew Weissman will join us next. Start your day with the MS Now daily newsletter. Sharp insights from voices you trust. Stand out moments from your favorite shows. And fresh perspectives from experts shaping the news. Sign up at MS.now. Jardis now is Andrew Weissman, former FBI general counsel and an MSNOW legal analyst. And Andrew we are seeing two things that were inconceivable in your career in the Justice Department an attorney general going to a Judiciary Committee hearing and trying to turn it into a scene of Trumpian chaos filled with juvenile insults and at the same time ripping up the Constitution to charge six members of Congress with a crime for simply reciting the law. These things are remarkable, but it seems like this is where we are now. This is the new Trump Justice Department. Yes. And I think it even goes further than that. And it's hard to imagine. So one of the things I noticed in connection with her testimony today is that she seemed to pretty ostentatiously show notes that were handed to her by a staffer that indicated that the Department of Justice was monitoring what the members of Congress were looking at when they were allowed to see the at least partially unredacted Epstein files. And she had a list of what one of the members of Congress had actually looked at. So clearly sending a message to people that they have their eyes on them. And this is the same people who were upset that Jack Smith got a court order to look at near telephone records. So that's what they're saying. If you come see the Epstein files, we're going to look and monitor what you're doing. With connection with the interview you just had, I want to make sure people understand this is not just denigrating Senator McCain and his legacy. This is not just shouting in 2016, lock her up. This is actually pure authoritarianism. This is trying to go after, for a non-crime, your political adversaries. Not only did they not commit a crime, their activities are protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution. If this is I mean, for people who are thinking, oh, this is hyperbole, we're not where we are. This is straight out of an authoritarian playbook. But for the grand jurors, that is exactly where we are. Well, what about that grand jury? Is that the end of it? No, unfortunately, it is not. You are allowed to go to other grand juries and keep doing this. How do we know that? One, it's the law. And two, we know that this administration has done that. They did that with Letitia James. Quite notably, it did not work because the reports are that not just one, but two separate grand jurors had said, no, we're not going to indict her. So that is what it's come to. That tells you the kind of lackeys that we have in the Justice Department who are willing to violate their oaths of office. And here, just remember, it is people where there's not only no crime, it is First Amendment protected activity by people who served this country and put their lives on the line for us, who are now being, they try to indict these political adversaries for simply speaking the truth as is their constitutional right. And when the Democrats control the House of Representatives a year from now, they will have the power to subpoena testimony about this from inside the Justice Department. The next Democratic attorney general, possibly three years from now, will be able to go in and study everything that they have done in trying to bring this prosecution. And Jason Crow, one of the congressmen who they were trying to indict, has lawyers telling the Justice Department, we will come after you for what you've done. Yes, that is something that could happen in terms of if the midterms result in one or both of the houses switching, there will be those efforts. I would remind people that during the first Trump administration, there was enormous contempt for the powers of Congress and simply not responding to those subpoenas. And so I expect that will go on again, just to be clear, that itself is a separate crime. So if the presidency changes, there can be obviously a lot more that's done in that regard. But I think it's going to take that. And then we also have to worry about whether they will destroy documents or use signal or other means to make it very, very hard to follow the evidence here. But certainly, I think one of the lessons I have learned is you can't just say, oh, let's look bygones, be bygones and look forward. If there are serious crimes, you have to. You have to take actions to have a deterrent effect going forward. Andrew Weissman, thank you very much for joining us tonight. You're welcome. And coming up, breaking news tonight, the House of Representatives voted against Donald Trump's tariffs tonight with Republicans joining Democrats in a crushing vote for Donald Trump. That's next. Donald Trump threatened Republicans about voting against his tariffs tonight, but the Trump threat did not work. On this vote, the yeas are 219 and the nays are 211. The joint resolution is passed. Without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. It was a revolution in the House with six Republicans defying Donald Trump after Donald Trump threatened them with these words. Any Republican in the House or the Senate that votes against tariffs will seriously suffer the consequences come election time, and that includes primaries. Before Donald Trump became president, Republicans were the anti-tariff party. Republicans were the free trade party. But Donald Trump threatened them into a complete reversal on tariffs, every one of them, which are simply, and the tariffs, of course, are simply sales taxes paid by Americans and only by Americans, which is why Republicans used to oppose them. But tonight, Republicans have begun to find their way back to opposing sales taxes. Joining us now is Democratic Congressman Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania. He's the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee and a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, which has jurisdiction over tariffs. The president does not. Congressman Boyle, you got the Democrats plus six Republicans and Donald Trump lost a big one tonight. Yeah. And, you know, Lawrence, this is now, by my count, the fifth major vote in the House of Representatives that Donald Trump has lost over the last three months. In fact, in the minority, Democrats have passed more major pieces of legislation over the last few months than Republicans have, even though they are ostensibly in the majority. So it's just one more sign that Donald Trump's power grip on this House Republican caucus is slowly but surely slipping. What does it mean that a majority of the House now has come out against the Trump tariffs? It seems as though there's a majority, including Republicans, who understand these really are sales taxes on Americans. Yeah, you're exactly right. And of course, one other group that believes that as well, the American people, by a pretty overwhelming margin in all the polls that I've seen on this issue, literally more than two to one, the American people oppose these tariffs because they're the ones who are paying the price. They know that on average, according to the Yale Budget Lab, the average American household has paid one thousand seven hundred dollars more in the past year for the cost of goods, specifically because of Trump's tariffs. Let's not forget what the head of the Federal Reserve, a Republican appointed by Donald Trump, has said. The reason why we see interest rates higher than what they otherwise should be is because of the damage that tariffs have done. And they are entirely the fault of Donald Trump. And the Republicans who are moving on this are simply moving back to what their positions were before Donald Trump. Yeah, that's exactly right. Now, I mean, it really is interesting. The first half of the 20th century, the Republican Party is basically an isolationist and even pro-tariff party. But from the Eisenhower years on up until Donald Trump, it was a free trade party and very much an internationalist party. Donald Trump has returned us to the Republican Party of 100 years ago, which was deeply anti-immigrant and nativist, for tariffs and isolationist, all things that Donald Trump has brought the Republican Party to. What happened the first time in that story, 100 years ago? We had the Great Depression, we had World War II, and we saw a massive Democratic majority in the 1930s through the 1960s. This defiance of Donald Trump, it's exactly like the Epstein files vote defiance. Donald Trump was threatening every Republican not to vote for release of the Epstein files until it just became overwhelming and Donald Trump had to surrender. By the way, I talked about the five major votes now that have happened the last few months in the House in which Donald Trump has lost. The Epstein discharge petition was the first of those. What I think you and I talked about at the time is this could become a leading indicator that this was going to be repeated more and more. And sure enough, we have seen that happen. And I will also predict that over the next eight to nine months, we will see it more and more as we get closer to the November elections. Congressman Brendan Boyle, thank you very much for joining us tonight. Thank you. We'll be right back. Congressman Brendan Boyle gets tonight's last word. Plus new episodes of all your favorite MS Now shows ad-free. And ad-free listening to all of Rachel Maddow's original series, including Rachel Maddow Presents Burn Order. Subscribe to MS Now Premium on Apple Podcasts.
