Welcome to the press now. I am Kristin Lover at the end of the historical volatile week that included massive losses and gains on Wall Street, historic tariffs and rollbacks, panic and jubilation in the markets and growing concerns about the stability and reliability of the U.S. economy stocks finished the week on a positive note. The Dow rose by roughly 600 points since the president's so-called liberation day tariff announcement last week.
Markets are lower by about 5% across the board. It comes as the trade war between the U.S. and China escalated again with Beijing now ratcheting up tariffs on U.S. goods to 125% to levels it says make trade virtually unfeasible with the U.S.
It comes the day after the White House clarified that its tariffs on Chinese imports have gone up to 145%. There are also red flags about the state of the economy coming from the U.S. bond market and confidence in the U.S. dollar.
Today, consumers sentiment a closely watched indicator of economic health because of how much the economy is driven by consumer spending plummeted. It's currently lower than during the Great Recession and its second lowest level since the survey by the University of Michigan began more than 70 years ago. Consumers inflation expectations at their highest level since 1981. White House press secretary Caroline Levitt downplayed those numbers during today's White House press briefing urging American consumers to trust in Trump.
Why is American consumer profit so low? Look, I think there's a great optimism in this economy, great optimism for the American people. A lot of reason for people to feel optimistic. The president is, as I just said, trying to renegotiate the global trade agenda that has ripped off the American people for far too long.
As he said, this is going to be a period of transition. He wants consumers to trust in him and they should trust in him. Trust in President Trump. He knows what he's doing.
This is a proven economic formula. With us again today, as he has been throughout this volatile week as CNBC's senior economics reporter Steve Lee Smith, thank you so much for starting us off on this Friday. We really appreciate it. Let's take stock of where we stand in terms of this trade war with China.
Do you believe it's reached a breaking point and what are the implications? Yeah, I'm afraid that those freight cars you showed there at the top of the show are probably going to be empty going either way right now. I think that just think about it. If you had a $10 million shipment on the water on the way here, all of a sudden that's going to cost you $14 million in addition.
So those cars are empty right now, except for the few things that are exempt from the tariffs. You get them up to these levels. You get them up about 40% or 50%. You essentially cut off trade.
So that's where we're at right now. The only hope now for restoring this are negotiations between China and the United States. Well, let's talk about some new economic data that we got today, consumer confidence dropping by 11% since last month. Steve, why does this matter?
And what do you make of that? Well, it matters on two levels. The first level it matters on is when people, their sentiment is down, they're less likely to do things like buy, especially big ticket items, those are the things that are really important for the economy and economic growth. They get worried.
They might put off car purchases. They might put off buying a washing machine or a dishwasher or something like that. That's before there's even a price consideration. The idea of the things will be higher in price.
They're just not going to be in the mood to stretch out, not going to be in the mood to credit on in order to buy those things. So that has a real economic impact. The other thing you mentioned was the inflation expectations. And as you said, back to 1981 with the one year now, there's also a five year inflation expectations.
And I'm bringing this up because that's the one the Federal Reserve really cares about. And that you have to go back to 1991 to find a bigger one. And so the idea that people think inflation is going to be higher next year, it's a big deal, but not the biggest deal. The thing the Fed really cares about and they want to keep contained is what people think is going to happen five years from now because that can really influence what they do and that has spiked up in a kind of worrisome way.
Well, and of course we're watching what the Fed does so incredibly closely. We're also watching the bond market. We know that the President was watching that quite closely this past week, particularly when he decided to announce that pause on tariffs across the board, explains Steve why the bond market and what we saw there this week is so significant and what it could mean about the long term economic forecast. Okay.
So for that, I'm going to give you a little lesson in trade. Here's what happens. We buy their stuff. They send us TVs and things like that and we send them dollars.
Those dollars come back in among other ways into our treasury market and they buy our bonds. It helps finance our deficit. They might be Chinese and Japanese own a lot of mortgages. So these mortgages are packaged up in the security that they're sold in part.
They have about 15% of the mortgage market. So when they either get fewer dollars because we're buying less stuff or they just feel uncomfortable or lack confidence in the American market, they could stop buying some of those treasuries. And whether or not they're really doing it, there's concern that they might do it. And so you have bond yields rising up near 450.
What's unusual about this is when things get weird in the world, what do people do? They come scurrying to the safety of the United States. What do they do? They buy our dollar.
They buy our bonds. They buy our stocks because we're supposed to be the safest place in the world. The thing that has been concerning about the trade this week is that didn't happen. We call it in the business the flight to safety trade and there was not a flight to safety.
There was a bit of a running away from the safety of the United States. We don't know if this is a one time reaction or this part of a broader trend where the decline in trade, the concern honestly about the leadership in the United States and where they want to go and how they want to get there is causing a broader concern with the United States assets. One's thought to be the most risk-free in the world. And now there's been, I would say, quite a bit of risk introduced into it.
Well, there have been so many twists and turns this week. Steve Lee Smith, thank you so much for helping us understand it all with your great analysis and reporting. Great to see you. Thank you.
Thank you. As we're talking about this escalating trade war with China, I'm joined now by Nick Burns, who served as US ambassador to China during the Biden administration, ambassador Burns. Thank you so much for being here. We really appreciate it.
Let's start with this trade war between the United States and China. But at this very moment, do you think is the biggest takeaway as we watch these tensions continue to escalate? Kristen, I think this is one of the most significant crises between China and the United States in the last half century. The stakes are enormously high.
These are the two largest global economies. China is the third largest trade partner of the United States, $642 billion in US-China trade and goods and services last year alone. Stakes are high because if this trade war, at the levels that you just showed at the beginning of the program, 145% tariffs by the United States, 125% by China, that continues for a matter of months. It could decouple the two economies, meaning after 40 years of a high level of trade, the two countries will be pulled apart.
You'd be down to very, very low levels. That would be damaged to both of our economies, but also to the global economy. And then you'd have knock-on effects at interest rates and so on. And so this is truly serious.
And it's a game, a massive game of chicken between the two leaders in the two countries who's going to blink first. I think what has to happen is that the two countries have to talk at a very high level, preferably behind the scenes, not publicly because there's been very little communication between the Trump team and Xi Jinping's group in Beijing since President Biden left office, and that has to happen to sort this out. Well, and you do take me to my next question, Ambassador, because Trump officials just this morning saying that they're not in talks with China right now. And as you put this into context that everyone can understand, this is a historic crisis between these two countries.
President Trump saying yesterday he thinks that eventually he'll be able to work something out. How do you see that playing out? Is that realistic? Is that perspective realistic?
You know, I don't necessarily blame President Trump and the Trump administration for the absence of talks because the Chinese at times like this have sometimes just shut down communications. They did that to the Biden administration when I was ambassador in Beijing after their balloon crisis. You'll remember that. I think it's also important to remember that terrorists, a certain level of terrorists, not 145% make sense by the United States to be put on China.
Why? Because China is a massive violator of the international trade system. China does not respect and has not moved to protecting electoral property rights of American businesses. There's forced technology transfer by the government against American companies.
I spent a lot of time with American companies in China over the last three years. There's been a multitude of problems. And so, you know, President Trump put tariffs on China in his first term, President Biden sustained those tariffs and put additional tariffs, 100%, for instance, on Chinese EV. So no one's ever gone to this level of tariffs before.
And that is part of the problem because you're now at a level where trade could stop. And I think the other issue here is I think the Trump administration has miscalculated in not getting all the allies on our side of the table to pressure the Chinese together. So if you impose very harsh tariff ceilings on Japan, on South Korea, particularly on the European Union as well, you take away the natural partners of the United States who all have these similar problems with China. I think that's been a very significant and very unfortunate tactical mistake.
And, Ambassador, you talk about the risk that these two economies could decouple, could stop doing business together altogether. Would that raise the risk, present the risk of a potential military standoff as well? What would ultimately, what would the worst case scenario be? Well, that's hypothetically a worst case scenario.
I think it's unlikely that this is going to, this is trade conflict, which is quite severe, is going to spill over into other issues, military competition or Taiwan. Because that, the two governments obviously want to try to limit this. My own view, and you've heard President Trump, is that the United States would like eventually a trade agreement at some point with China, not a sustained trade war. I think that's very much in the interest of Chinese as well.
The Chinese economy has slowed down in recent years, they've seen capital flight, there's a demographic problem about the future, and of course, there's a property crisis. So Xi Jinping, I think, does not want to sustain a trade war for six to 12 months. That's why reason has to prevail. These two countries have to talk together quietly.
I hope that will happen. Alright, Ambassador Burns, thank you so much for helping us to understand part of this incredibly complex situation. We really appreciate it. And as we said, the White House is telling Americans to, quote, trust the process on tariffs, despite the volatility in the market.
Well, NBC News went back to Wall Street today, and asked Trump supporters about the president's tariff moves this week. They believe the president imposing widespread tariffs, and then rolling some of them back until later this summer was always part of the plan. Take a listen to some of what we heard. Is this the art of the deal, or is this Trump getting the yes?
Yeah, I think it's easy to say now in hindsight, but I do think it was part of the plan. He's not. He's not too good. Right?
He knows what he's doing. I think he's very strategic in a lot of what he does. I think he's got a plan bigger than what people see it as. I thought this was exactly what was supposed to happen.
Like the stock markets were going to crash, and then they're going to go up again. So that's that's kind of how I'm feeling about it. It's a good time to buy. So that's what I heard.
NBC News White House correspondent Vaughn Hillier joins me now. Vaughn, thanks so much for being here. Really appreciate it. Trump, of course, campaigned on a promise to lower prices on day one, not only if prices not come down, but the president is now warning of a transition cost.
Take me inside your conversations with your sources. Is there concern inside the West Wing about the volatility that we're seeing on Wall Street? A concern is to the extent of how prolonged this trade war may last, and a couple of weeks from now, exactly how high do prices go. We have, Kristen, right, time and again, I've been told that during the first trade war in 2018 and 2019, that Americans were warned that there would be higher price goods, that agricultural producers would take losses on what they produced and grow.
And in many ways, those were Americans' realities, yet when it came to the agricultural producers, the administration came in and backfilled their losses with $28 billion in relief payments. And when you're looking at the price of goods during the first trade war, during the first Trump administration, it's worth noting, right, the words that we use at the time when the Trump administration, for instance, escalated their trade war with China from 10% to 25%. We were using words like staggering and dramatic to describe that increase. We're now talking about seven-fold that tariff that was implemented during the first administration, so it pales in comparison to what American consumers could be expecting now.
Caroline Levitt, the press secretary here this afternoon, the word that she kept using was trust, trust the Trump administration and trust the Trump economic agenda. You know, President Trump, of course, delaying tariffs until the summer, the pressure now on the administration to hammer out bilateral trade agreements officials saying, yeah, we're talking to as many as 15 countries. Well, I know there were a number of questions about this in the briefing today, but are any of those deals close to getting done? Is there an expectation that many of them will get done within the 90 days?
Right. Well, we've got to go back to that first Trump administration. And the fact is that the USMCA trade agreement between the US Canada and Mexico took almost two years to nail down and so by all accounts, even the administration, has acknowledged that these are negotiations that are not going to happen necessarily overnight at the same time when you are looking at, you know, for China, for instance, you guys were just discussing whether Ambassador Burns is to who's going to be the first to place the phone call and actually initiate that dialogue, right? If you go back to the first Trump administration, it was Robert Lighthizer, Steve Mnuchin, Jared Kushner, who were the ones who were almost two years negotiating directly with China, and they got just a preliminary phase one trade agreement that was really focused on agricultural goods and missed a great deal of the manufacturing debate that went back and forth.
And those three individuals, they're not in this administration, so it's serious questions that this administration has yet to answer. Let's switch gears very quickly. Steve Whitcoff just meeting for more than four hours, according to Russian media with Russian officials, of course, with President Trump aiming to end the war between Russia and Ukraine. What can you tell us about the meeting?
Right. We are waiting for word from the American side and from Steve Whitcoff himself as to what that four and a half hour conversation was like before going into the meeting. The Kremlin had suggested that they did not anticipate any major breakthrough taking place. It was President Zelensky just earlier today who noted that this had been one month since an initial ceasefire agreement to not hit energy installations, who has agreed to and suggested that this shows that Russia is not serious about concluding this war here.
But it's a big question as to exactly what Steve Whitcoff, what his goal was going into this and whether he was able to exert any pressure from this White House, the president for his word in the social media post this morning called on Russia to ultimately come to an agreement. Steve Whitcoff, obviously, his close ally in being the messenger on his behalf. All right, von Hill, you're covering a lot of ground for us today. Thank you so much, my friend.
Good to see you. Welcome back. We are following several legal developments in the case of Kilmar Abrigo Garcia, the Maryland manned. The government concedes was mistakenly deported to El Salvador, a federal judge in Maryland held a hearing this afternoon, expressing her frustration with the government's lawyer, who could not provide any information about Mr.
Abrigo Garcia's current whereabouts. It follows a ruling by the Supreme Court late yesterday, warning the government to facilitate the return of Mr. Abrigo Garcia to the U.S. Do you know what I mean?
Now is NBC News Senior Homeland Security correspondent Julia Ainsley. Julia, there have been a lot of twists and turns in this case. Tell me what this latest development means. Well, really, it was the Justice Department defying yet another district court judge when it comes to giving information about the people that they sent to El Salvador on March 15th under the Alien Enemies Act.
They've come forward and said that this was a mistake that they made administrative error by sending them there. Today, after having the Supreme Court ruling saying they need to facilitate his removal, they still withheld a lot of information from this judgment. It went back to the district judge who originally ordered him return. They would not even answer, where is he now?
Now, it seems to reason he probably hasn't been moved outside of that jail in El Salvador, but there was a lot that they could not answer, including any steps that they took to return him, because as you know, Kristen, they were supposed to return him earlier this week before the Supreme Court stepped in. So there's going to be another hearing this coming week. Where does this all go from here? Well, we hope to get more information.
But if you look also at how the Justice Department responded to the judge here in DC on the overall class action case when it came to the other men who were sent there, there's been a lot of withholding of information. The judge is going to continue to argue that they really can't bring him back because of El Salvador. And it's going to come down to this word, effectuate. And that's because the Supreme Court said that the judge could order them to facilitate his removal, meaning perhaps ask El Salvador, but couldn't effectuate.
So there may be a line in terms of how much force they can use to remove him, but I think the big question will be, well, did you ask for him back yet? Yeah, well, a lot of pressing questions for the government over this, which we're going to continue to talk about. Let me shift gears, though. I do want to talk about another major case that you are tracking a big development just moments ago in the case of Muhammad Khalil.
He's, of course, the legal permanent resident who was part of that pro-Palestinian protest at Columbia University. What's the development there? Yeah, a green card holder just days away from becoming a father to, for his U.S. citizen wife who's about to have a baby, a judge in Louisiana immigration court just said that the government could move forward with his deportation.
He hasn't until April 23 to appeal that in a statement he briefly made. He said that he hoped that the government moved with as much haste on the cases of the other people who he's been detained with in Louisiana, and he blamed the government for moving him so far away from his family to detain him in Louisiana rather than near New York City where he was arrested on March 8 was really surprising here, Kristen, is that the judge in this case asked for evidence from the government about why they were deporting him. He didn't have enough with any pro-Palestinian movement or anything, perhaps violent that he had done during his time being an advocate and being an activist at Columbia. All they've sent him was a two-page memo assigned by Secretary of State Marco Rubio saying that they had the right to deport anyone who might be in conflict with the foreign policy interests of the United States.
And in this case, it looks like the judge said, okay, that's enough at least to move forward. Wow. All right. A lot of developments on this.
Rensley, thank you so much for being here. Really appreciate it with me now. As Simon Sandoval, Moshan Burke. He is a partner at Murray-Osoro immigration law firm and the lead attorney for Kilmar Abrego Garcia and his family, the first person who we were talking about.
Thank you so much for being here, Simon. I really appreciate it. Let's talk about this latest development in your client's case. What do you make of it?
What was your reaction today? Yeah. The government played the same game today that they did last Friday with the first hearing in this case where they sent in a lawyer who'd been, it almost seems deliberately shielded from any actual information. All right.
So the judge asked some really basic questions. Where is Kilmar under? Who's custody is he being held? What have you all done so far?
Right? Because the Supreme Court lifted the stay yesterday, early evening, almost 12 hours to get cracking on this. And the lawyer just said, I don't know. I don't know.
I don't know. So the judge was not happy with that. They provided daily status updates from an administration official, not just these sort of lawyers filing briefs saying we don't know what's going on. How optimistic are you that those updates will happen given the fact that the lawyer for the government today said, look, we can't provide this information.
What's to say they'll be able to provide it next week? Yeah. The judge hasn't kicked out the written order sort of setting forth a schedule. But what she said in court was that the first update is going to be due tomorrow, Saturday.
She specifically said there are no weekends on this case. And she's expecting a detailed statement from an administration official with personal knowledge describing the steps that have been done so far, which frankly I hope isn't nothing. It's got to be something at this point. And then the plan going forward.
And you know, I have to trust that they're going to act in good faith and actually provide that information. But if they don't, we'll be ready to go back in front of the judge and ask her to really bring the hammer down. I want to read you part of a statement from the Justice Department. This was yesterday after the Supreme Court's ruling, which you just referenced, as the Supreme Court correctly recognized it is the exclusive prerogative of the president to conduct foreign affairs.
This ruling once again illustrates that activist judges do not have the jurisdiction to seize control of the president's authority to conduct foreign policy, the Trump administration viewing the Supreme Court ruling as a victory for them. But it seems like you're viewing it just the opposite. Yeah, I mean, ultimately the Supreme Court ruled nine to zero unanimously that the United States government has to facilitate his return to the United States. That order is in effect as we speak.
There was, the Supreme Court wasn't sure what was meant by one verb effectuate. And so the district court last night clarified what she meant by that verb. And what she said is, take all reasonable steps available to the government. That's all we've ever been asking for.
Take reasonable steps, which would start with picking up the phone. I mean, I don't think that there's anyone in this country who doesn't believe it if we actually picked up the phone and asked. We could get him back here, you know, by tomorrow, it's a five hour flight. Are you concerned that the El Salvadorian government might not be able to find him or might for whatever reason resist moving quickly to release him if that call came in?
I see no reason why the Salvadorian government would fight the United States of America and you know, lose its most powerful relationship, $6 million contract that we're giving them to detain Kilmer O'Brigo and other people with him. Why are they going to ruin all that over one guy, a Maryland father, right? For that reason, I do expect that if we made a genuine good faith ask, they would say, yeah, you know, where do you need him? Of course, this is someone who is a father resides in Maryland with his family.
I know you've been in contact with his family. How is his wife? Has his family holding up? It's been really difficult for them.
The kids, I mean, especially his five-year-old son who's autistic and who witnessed the arrest and who was really, really traumatized by it, Jennifer's, you know, was very, very grateful to see the ruling of the Supreme Court last night. And then this morning, you know, the government was ordered to provide a detailed status update and they just didn't. So it's been a really rollercoaster of emotions for her. And just finally, what's next?
What are you watching for next? So the government has to provide detailed, factual status updates and we're going to get the chance to respond. And if we think that they're, you know, hiding facts are being too generalized, not getting details, we'll certainly bring that to the attention of the judge. But more to the point, if we think that their status updates show that they're not moving fast enough, we're also going to bring that to the attention of the judge.
All right. Well, we will continue to track this as well. We really appreciate it. Simon Sandoval, Motionburg.
Thank you for being here in person for that update. Coming up next, new details on yesterday's deadly helicopter crash in the Hudson River that killed a family of five and the pilot, we are live at the scene with an update on the investigation. Stay with us. You're watching with the press now.
Welcome back. We are learning new details today about the fatal helicopter crash in the Hudson River yesterday. Officials confirming the pilot as well as a family of five and executive for the technology firm Siemens, his wife and three children who were visiting from Spain were all killed. This was the scene overnight.
His first responders pulled the helicopter wreckage out of the river. You can see a crane pulling the main body of the aircraft out of the water during a briefing today, the head of the NTSB so the agency has yet to determine the preliminary cause of the crash. Joining me now is NBC news correspondent Stephen Ramos. Stephen, what more did we learn from that briefing today?
Yeah, Christian, we actually did learn quite a bit more about the victims involved here. All six of them. We now know all of their names. The 36 year old pilot, Sean Johnson, Augustine, Escobar, 49 years old, who's also an executive for Siemens, Spain, Mercy Camp Ruby Montal, his wife, 39 years old, and their three children.
Augustine, Jr., Mercedes, and Victor, ages 10, 8, and just four years old. All their bodies have been recovered from the water here at the Hudson. At this briefing, we also learned divers have been out over the past 24 hours trying to collect the different components from the helicopter. They're still trying to find the main rotor and the tail rotor as well.
They focused on getting that record so the NTSB can determine the cause. Now we did also hear from the Jersey city mayor who said he was aware of three working theories right now. One involving drones, one involving birds and mechanical failure. Now the NTSB did not say that they declined to speculate at all about a potential cause right now, saying it is just too early in this investigation.
And of course, these types of flights are very common. Is there concern there in the wake of this that this had happened again? Yeah. Of course, NBC News has talked to so many witnesses here in the past 24 hours.
So many people expressed a concern about air safety, just so many headlines with close calls and incidents and then crashes and just the one in Florida, but we've heard about it today. Something we've heard from the NTSB and also transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, as well as the Jersey city mayor, saying that these tours, these helicopter tours in particular need to have their regulations looked at and to see if something could be done about that to try to improve safety or review safety there, something we've heard from three different officials for three different agencies involved in this, something that could potentially happen as this investigation continues. Chris. It's just such a devastating story.
Steve Romo. Thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate it. And still ahead of struggling American industry.
Hoping for a sea change. We'll hear from Gulf Coast trimmers who are looking to President Trump's terrace to net some financial relief. Stay with us. You're watching the press.
Welcome back. While America's trading partners are certainly feeling the tariff whiplash this week, so are business owners big and small, especially folks like trimmers who are hoping the steep terrace would be a lifeline to their way of life. This report from Louisiana. In Venice, Louisiana, population 250, shrimping is a way of life.
We in Venice, Louisiana, where I grew up and where we stay all the time, where we fish out of it. They just mean God's country. But the industry that was passed down for generations to AC Cooper is drying up. We've been fighting this for a long time and we just want to bridge and breaking.
We know we're just about out of business. Shrimpers say cheap seafood imports are forcing them to slash their own prices to compete and they're hoping President Trump's deep tariffs could turn the tide. We are on a shrimping boat in Louisiana. And this came from a convenient store box just a couple miles away from where we are.
You can see even though we're on a shrimping boat in Louisiana, they bought their shrimp from India. In fact, over 90% of the shrimp consumed by Americans is imported from outside this country. The majority coming from Vietnam, Indonesia, India, and Ecuador, some of the same countries that were set to face stiff tariffs upwards of 46% for Vietnam. I would jump it up and down because it is maybe an opportunity, a breggio we've been looking for.
The life of a shrimper has always taken a physical toll. My bag's bad. My hands are bad. But now the life takes a mental toll too.
Now when they come out of the office and you look at these ladies coming out, they're ready to cry. The little bit of money they got in that pocket after a long trip. From 2021 to 2023, the shrimp industry's revenue roughly halved in the millions from 522 million to 268 million. It's why global tariffs are so popular across the industry.
We're not going to eliminate imported shrimp. What we have to do though is level the playing field. But in the minutes after President Trump reversed course and announced a 90-day roll back on the tariffs the shrimpers were hoping for, were traveled fast in the bayou. It's not no good.
It's not going to help us. It's not going to help us much. So hopefully, you don't hear about what we're screaming and what we all are. With spirits slightly dampened in just weeks till the start of the next shrimping season, troopers still hold out hope for the lifeline they've been asking for.
I'll weigh a light of the hanging in the ballot. If we don't get some change, we're going to lose the industry. There's been over a century. Marissa Para, NBC News, Venice, Louisiana.
What a powerful piece by Marissa Para. Thank you, Marissa, for that. We appreciate it. Join me now on set to discuss the tariffs further.
We Walter, publisher and editor-in-chief of the Cook Political Report. Simone Sanders, Townsend, former senior advisor to Vice President Harris and co-host of the weekend on MSNBC. And Danielle Platt, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and an NBC News contributor thanks to all of you for being here after a very busy week. Amy Walter, let me start with you.
Where are we at the end of this week because you had President Trump hitting the pause button on all of the tariffs with the exception of China and that trade war is escalating. That trade war is escalating. The markets don't seem particularly calm even after the pullback. And more important, I don't think voters are feeling incredibly anxious.
Now we saw the consumer confidence number come out today. That was taken obviously at a time before Liberation Day and then what do we call the pullback and non-liberation day, whatever that was, the 90-day pause. So there is already anxiety building. In fact, it's been building since February.
And to me, the question is whether voters are now going to say, okay, that was a little bit scary, but everything now is better and we're going to let this work its way out. Or if voters' perceptions of the president have now been permanently altered. And the thing that I'm really looking for is, I don't know if you tell me when the next NBC poll comes out, I'd be happy to know. But every time during the president's first term, his overall job approval rating was higher than his economic approval rating.
Economic approval rating was always higher. And now that's flipped, economic approval rating lower than his overall job approval rating. Let's see where this is, one, two months after this. I think it's a really good point a couple more months before we get the next poll.
Okay. Okay. Thank you. I'm going to let you know when we have a date.
Danny, let me pick up on one of the points that Amy is making, which is about the anxiety. Take us inside your conversations. Are the president's Republican allies getting jittery? Or do they believe what he's saying, which is, look, let's be calm, let's let the process work itself out.
Ultimately, he says he's going to return America to the golden age of the economy. I think that the biggest concern about Donald Trump among his allies and supporters is that phrase you just used, which is, let the process work out. They're worried there isn't a process. And when you look at the back story behind the decision making on the tariffs, the really, really voodoo mathematics that they engaged in that clearly were like, you know, guys sitting in an office under a huge amount of pressure with the president screaming in every five seconds, what is the number?
You know, that is, that is not giving them confidence. And you know, there's another question here, which is that a lot of these authorities come from Congress. And I think a lot of Republicans are thinking to themselves, huh, maybe we shouldn't have given these authorities over. I do think you're right, though, that they're going to give the president, you know, the communists would say the rope to hang himself.
Others would say time to play it out. And I think that's when consumers will also start to hear that see the cost of these tariffs. And the question is just how long will they give him both in terms of his allies and consumers? Simone, I want to put up what Massachusetts Democrat Jake Oshincloss told the Wall Street Journal.
He says, quote, they feel the chaos when they look at their 401ks, they feel the chaos when they talk to their employer, they feel the chaos when they go grocery shopping. Do you think the chaos is going to be the word for Democrats? Well, they seize on that word and the uncertainty, quite frankly, that Danny was just describing. I think it's more uncertainty than chaos, because, you know, folks can argue that there was a lot of chaos in the first up administration, and there were some people, I would even argue even some moderate Democrats will say, oh, but I like this one specific part.
I didn't like waking up to the crazy tweets, but the uncertainty and the real life impacts of what the policy is, I think, matters. You know, my husband runs a restaurant association in the DC areas. We ran a restaurant earlier this week. And the owner told us that, yeah, the pause on tariffs happened after I just paid for nearly $40,000 for his shipment of seafood in tariffs, and I'm like, you have $20,000, he said, well, I needed to get the shipment in.
So I had it this week, but they we cannot sustain this. So where you have big box retailers who are pulling in and stockpiling items, a lot of items before the tariffs hit. Now there's this pause, but there's a big stockpile restaurant owners, for example, can't do that. You know, they're like, you can hold the shrimp for maybe a week.
So I was really struck by the Gulf shrimp, are they shrimps, is that what they are? Shrimps are fascinating. I was struck by them because tariffs can be used in a very systemic way, like when Biden used tariffs on Chinese steel to boost up American steel, you could put tariffs on specific shrimpers outside of the United States to boost up American trippers. That though is not what's happening.
These tariffs are blanket. And that's why they were hurting folks. I want to shift gears a little bit. These tariffs are going to be the backdrop to some extent, at least for a little while, as we head closer to the midterms.
We're not that close. But we did again, Amy, some news this week, which is that Texas has embattled Attorney General Ken Paxton, throwing his hat into the ring to face off against Senator John Cornyn. John Cornyn trying to really flex his Trump Bonafide since they look, I'm a Trump supporter. What do you make of this face off that we're seeing?
What are the broader implications? Yeah, the broader implications are the sort of further magnification of the Republican Party in the Senate. Now, most of Trump's critics on the Republican side are gone, obviously with Mitt Romney and John McCain, et cetera. But there are still some who are there who came from a different era, the Bush era, which is John Cornyn, kind of came in during that era, traditionalist establishment, who's getting a serious challenge from a very popular politician within the state who is very closely aligned with Donald Trump.
What everybody's looking to see is whether Donald Trump decides that he's going to weigh in on Ken Paxton's behalf, or he maybe goes in for Cornyn, or stays out completely. But if if Paxton does win this primary, the other worry, and this is the case that many Republicans are going to try to make to Trump, is actually this can cost us a lot of money because Ken Paxton is much more vulnerable, because of all of his legal problems in a general election than John Cornyn would be. And remember, it's a midterm year, the last midterm election in Texas was Ted Cruz and that very, very close race was back to Warwick, which would be hundreds of, well, maybe $100 million race, tens of millions of dollars. What do you make of Ken Paxton taking on John Cornyn, someone who in a different era, would not necessarily have to defend his credentials, but now as Amy lays out, that's going to be the big question.
She's like, look, if you're a creep with legal trouble, right, they tried to impeach him, he was charged with corruption, that effort failed at the end of the day, but all of this hangs over him, like a black cloud. But if you're a creep, a democratic creep, I don't know, mayor of New York, or you're a Republican creep, then you think that the fastest way for you to get exoneration and for you to get some hands on some little cash is to actually stick yourself into a race like this. And I think this is going to be a really important test. Donald Trump is the undisputed head of the Republican Party now.
Is he going to run the party like a circus or like a political machine? Yeah, in about 30 seconds left, Simone. How confident are Democrats feeling about their chances of taking back either or both chambers? I mean, look, I think the House is really more realistic.
I talked to a lot of members of Congress in the House and the House majority packed and they feel like as long as we got our targets, we're hitting them, the Senate, look, it's still uphill battle, but there are some vulnerabilities. Kim Hacks, it must have nine lives, honey, he's like, all right, well, we'll watch the next one unfold. Thanks, you guys. Great conversation.
Amy Simone and Danielle appreciate it. Still a calm. It's a question Democrats have been asking themselves since Trump's election victory. Why did the party let President Biden keep running as long as he did?
We've gotten inside as a count of what happened and what it says about the future of the Democratic Party in the second Trump administration. Don't go anywhere. You're watching the press. Welcome back.
As Democrats look to figure out their future in the second Trump administration, they're still grappling with their past and why they came up short last November in his new book, Uncharted, how Trump beat Biden, Harris, and the odds in the wildest campaign in history. Author Chris Whipple goes behind the scenes with key players to tell the internal story of the campaigns. I recently spoke to him and started by asking him about that historic moment of the 2024 race, the decision for President Biden to end his run. You know, it was the wildest campaign in history, as you know, Chris, and we all live through it.
It was a wilder and stranger behind closed doors. And as the walls closed in on Joe Biden, it was just extraordinary. I mean, I write all about it in my book. And when it came down to that fateful weekend of July, 2021, Steve Rachete, one of his closest aides and Mike Donilon, came to see the president.
They told him that the polls were tough, but that there was a path still that he could still, you know, possibly win this thing if he wanted to be the nominee, but it would be brutal. The party leaders were against him, but they were ready to die on that hill with Joe Biden. And the extraordinary story, the mystery of the heart of the book is how his inner circle could have been lost, could have been in this fog of delusion and denial. They thought some of them that Joe Biden could run, he could win, and he could be Trump.
It is just extraordinary, particularly after that devastating debate performance that we all witnessed the moment of realization that not only was President Biden facing an uphill battle, but what many Democrats believed was going to be an impossible task of trying to be President Trump. You have new details about that. The fact that Ron Clay and his former chief of staff came back for debate prep, Chris, and was astonished by what he discovered. What can you tell us there?
Yeah. You know, you can't really read it anywhere else. Ron Clay told me, walk me through it day by day, hour by hour, that week at Camp David prior to that ill-fated debate. Ron Clay was shocked by Joe Biden's condition.
He was exhausted. He was out of it. He didn't understand the back and forth between the campaigns. He didn't really, he wasn't able to talk about his plans for a second term.
At one point, he wanders out of Aspen Lodge, the presidential cabin goes and collapses into a lounge chair and falls sound asleep. He was obsessed, you know, when he was alert, he was obsessed with foreign leaders. I claimed, joked, said half jokingly, I thought maybe he thought he was President of NATO instead of the U.S. So it was really extraordinary that they went ahead with this debate, sent him out on that stage to go toe to toe with a, you know, a steeper-aller like Donald Trump when he was in that condition.
But again, they believed what they wanted to believe instead of their lying eyes in effect. Well, to that point, one of the sources you talked to was Bill Daley, and just to remind our viewers, that's President Obama's former Chief of Staff. And he told you, Chris, that when he saw sides, the President had deteriorated, it was very clear to him but the campaign, and this sneaks to the point that you're making just didn't and quite frankly wouldn't see it the same way. Take us a little bit deeper.
Why do you think that was? They wouldn't accept it. And you know, even during the debate, they were watching some of them were watching us so called, you know, dial groups, focus groups who were controlling dials, turning them up or down, and they convinced themselves that because they were turning the dials down during the latter stage of the debate, when Trump was speaking, that somehow Biden had won the debate. I mean, they were, you know, part of this, part of this is hubris.
Part of this is a kind of article of faith that back in 2020, after Joe Biden finished fourth in Iowa and fifth in New Hampshire and pulled it out, that, you know, everybody else was wrong and they were right. So some of this was hubris, and some of it was the fact that in fairness, there were, you know, Biden was able to govern behind closed doors. He was able to, you know, he still was articulate masterful on Middle Eastern policy. And he negotiated that prisoner swap literally on the morning that he abdicated, what he couldn't do was campaign.
And, you know, I have this remarkable story about how a veteran campaign operative interviewed for a job in the 2024 campaign and was in the Oval with Biden and his aides and the conversation took a candid turn when they said, look, in 2020, we had COVID as an excuse, we could hide them in the basement. What do we do now? Wow. What a remarkable anecdote.
And just finally, you talk and report on the Trump campaign and their perspective of that moment when President Biden steps down, when then Vice President Kamala Harris takes the torch and becomes the nominee, what was going on inside the Trump campaign? Well, first of all, Donald Trump was furious that he said he now had to face Kamala Harris. He thought he had Biden exactly where he wanted him. He complained to Paul Manafort who, believe it or not, was working on his campaign.
He said, you know, what? Now I have to win it three times. In his view, he'd beaten Biden. He'd beaten the courts.
And now he had to beat Kamala Harris. Susie Wiles is a fascinating character. And I've gotten an hour. I've talked to her a number of times.
You know, she said they never doubted for a minute that they would win this one, that they would win the race. And she said in kind of a brutally candid moment, she said, we couldn't believe how bad she was referring to Kamala Harris. She was referring to the period right after the convention. I mean, I thought she did well through the convention, but then she sort of went radio silent for a little while.
They thought that that was because they were trying to hide her. The campaign was hiding her the same way they hid Joe Biden in 2020 in the basement. I think thanks to Chris Whipple for taking the time to talk to us. We will be back Monday with more Meet the Press Now.
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