Trump to Address Nation Amid Sinking Job Approval

21:15Amy Klobuchar:Well, I think Trump World thought they could outrun it because Trump has outrun scandals before. But the problem is when you see when you look over at the across the Atlantic at the UK and you see that two different, very powerful men have been called in for questioning. And then you see that different, you know, Norway, you know, all these different countries are seeing accountability. And you really see France opened a huge investigation. And I just don't know that this administration, which has people like Howard Lutnick, who said he hadn't had any, you know, to do anything to do with him. And then And CBS reported that they had signed an LLC together.

21:53Amy Klobuchar:I mean, when you see things like that, I'm just not sure that this administration can outrun it. And remember, there are, you know, at least at Todd Blanchett, there are at least a thousand victims. I mean, that is a lot of women.

22:05Ari Melber:Yeah. Molly Jungfass. Yeah. Well, and minors, to your point, allegedly in some cases and proven in others. Molly Jungfass, thank you very much. There are Supreme Court justices who just told Donald Trump he's powerless to do these tariffs alone. and they're expected to attend tonight. The Supreme Court struck down Donald Trump's tariff.

22:28Amy Klobuchar:Justices, you've done something truly historic.

22:31Ari Melber:You've made people go woohoo about tariffs. Woohoo. And the boycotts and rallies, we have more on that part of the story tonight. Plus, Klobuchar, Bashir, big Democratic power players on the big night next.

22:54Ari Melber:If politics like life is about timing, Donald Trump came up short. He heads into his biggest government speech of the year tonight, fresh off the Supreme Court, striking down his tariffs. That was the news riding into the weekend because he didn't have the authority. Trump, powerless to do permanent tariffs, long-term tariffs without Congress. It's a major loss for someone who, remember, ran on the economy above all that he would fix what he called the Biden-Harris economy and the high prices in 2024. One of the most outspoken Democrats on this issue, which now has, of course, the force of law and the Constitution, reiterated by the Supreme Court on their side, is Senator Klobuchar.

23:36Amy Klobuchar:These tariffs that he imposed were reckless, and they were against the law. That statute he used doesn't even mention the word tariff, and he has created the chaos now, the chaos before the chaos we're about to see.

23:51Ari Melber:Klobuchar also invoking her role in the chamber tonight to invite a brewery operator as her guest, who is one of the individuals who feels hurt by the way these tariffs actually affect Americans. She also recently launched her campaign for governor of Minnesota. And joining us now is Senator Klobuchar. Welcome. Hello, welcome. I got to get one question out of the way.

24:16Amy Klobuchar:OK, OK.

24:18Ari Melber:Did you invite this brewery operator because you might need a drink tonight?

24:22Amy Klobuchar:Well, we do have this dinner ahead of time, which is attended by a bunch of senators from left to right. So I think I'll have him sampling the beer there to see how that is. And he is an incredibly great person. He's got nine employees, small brewery on the North Dakota border, Moorhead, Minnesota, not too far from Canada. So he suffered from the lack of Canadian tourists coming in because of all the rhetoric from the Trump administration on the 51st date, but also, of course, these tariffs. And when you're a small business, you're like roadkill. You don't have the reserves that a big corporation would have.

24:58Amy Klobuchar:It also is not exactly on his bingo card that he was going to the State of the Union. So he's a fun guy, a little different than some of the guests. And I am really excited to have him meet some of the senators and be there today.

25:12Ari Melber:Yeah, I mean, it's a nice tradition and one that's sort of melding policy and the human side of all this. When you look at where tariffs landed, how much of this cost on the American people, both the small business owners you mentioned and consumers, how much of this cost from these Trump policies could have been avoided? And where do we go from here?

25:33Amy Klobuchar:Well, this is unbelievable to me. And I will say that as a member of the leadership, I'm going to be sitting right behind the Supreme Court. So it's going to be very unclear if when Trump looks down with vengeance, he's going to be looking at us or the Supreme Court. And I will say that I think that the cost of this and the courts acknowledge this, their opinion was mostly on the legality of this, the misuse of this statue, which Trump, I believe that his team knew from the very beginning. It doesn't even mention the word tariff. I was at the argument. It was pretty obvious to me, but they just kept doing it.

26:09Amy Klobuchar:So the cost mounted over time. Average American family last year, according to the Yale lab, spent about$1 ,700 they didn't need to spend on this. That's cost. I mentioned the small businesses. It's dried up markets of farmers. One of my soybean farmers called it a perfect storm of ugly between higher input costs for things like fertilizer and machinery. And then, of course, drying up their market to half of what it was. Yeah.

26:38Ari Melber:When you look at the nation that Trump addresses tonight, all the data we have, I already went through it earlier in the show, shows a disapproval or rejection, not just of his overall second term, but specific issues, economy and immigration, where we all go back to the end of the campaign, for whatever reason, he was higher on those issues, sort of in theory rather than in governance. Where does that leave your opposition party in looking at a nation that soured on Trump when he still has three years left?

27:12Amy Klobuchar:The American people have seen with their own eyes, they're not going to listen to his lies anymore. They know what the State of the Union is for them. And while we will hear the words out of his mouth, we will hear him boasting about himself. We'll see the rubber stamp Republicans on the other side standing for everything he says. out there in the galleries and out there in our home are gonna be Americans, some of them Republicans, some independents, but a lot of Democrats as well, who seen nothing but bad. They've seen their costs go up. They've seen the chaos of this. A recent national poll showed that 62 % of them see that he is using government to enrich himself.

27:53Amy Klobuchar:So while he is hawking products on Truth Social and on other media platforms, to enrich himself, to sell things. They are seeing their grocery costs go up. They're seeing housing, first-time homebuyers, homes out of reach. They're seeing what's happening with their healthcare costs, insurance, and he won't even extend the healthcare tax credits to help people, the majority of whom are in red states, with their affordable care tax plans. He won't do it. Cost keeps going up, chaos keeps going up, and corruption is up. The American people know it. And the guests that we all invited, whether it was Senator Schumer's guests of a victim of Epstein and the refusal of the Trump administration to release all those files and to take out the redactions, or whether it is a person who depends on healthcare and has seen their healthcare premiums double and triple, or my guy who is a brewer, a political.

28:55Amy Klobuchar:We are bringing guests that really do understand the State of the Union.

29:00Ari Melber:And finally, we're hearing reports that could go over 90 minutes, close to two hours. At what point does this constitutional exercise become its own version of a filibuster?

29:11Amy Klobuchar:We will see what he does. I am just, you know, my goal is to be ready to stay awake through the whole thing. I always do. My goal is to be there because, I mean, some of my friends have decided to not go, totally get that. But a number of us believe that, you know, if he's going to come to our house, to the Congress, then we got to be there. If he's going to go after my state, which he well could after he sent 3000 ICE agents to innocent citizens, Renee Good and Alex Preddy killed. if he's going to go after my state and explain why he, which I'd love him to do, dragged an elder Hmong man out of his home with nothing but his underwear on and threw him in a car and realized they had the wrong guy.

29:56Amy Klobuchar:I want to be there, as do the House members in my state. We want to be there, the Democrats, to stare him down and tell him we are here and you're in our House.

30:08Ari Melber:Well, as you know, Senator, that's something we've heard different approaches from within the party or on the Senate election liberals. And really interesting, especially given the role that your state and your citizens have played, your perspective on that tonight. And we'll be watching. Senator Klobuchar, thank you for joining us here going into the busy evening. Appreciate it. Absolutely. We're gearing up, of course, for the State of the Union. There's a string of losses. We turn to someone who was winning in a red state, even alongside Trump. The lessons he has for the entire Democratic Party and the opposition just mentioned.

30:39Ari Melber:Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, next.

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31:27Amy Klobuchar:Developed at USC's Longevity Institute, Prolon supports biological age reduction, metabolism, skin health, and fat loss when combined with proper exercise and nutrition. Get 15 % off plus a$40 bonus gift when you subscribe at prolonelife.com slash Pandora promo. Imagine relying on a dozen different software programs to run your business, none of which are connected. And each one more expensive and more complicated than the last. It can be pretty stressful. Now imagine Odoo. Odoo has all the programs you'll ever need and are all connected on one platform. Doesn't Odoo sound amazing? Let Odoo harmonize your business with simple, efficient software that can handle everything for a fraction of the price.

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32:20Ari Melber:You know what it is. If you're watching the news, you know what tonight is. President Trump gives the first State of the Union since returning to office officially. And so, big picture, why are we doing this tonight? Well, you probably know the answer, but I'll remind you officially the Constitution mandates that from time to time the President will present to Congress information on the State of the Union along with the measures they judge necessarily, expedient, and so on. This is one constitutional requirement President Trump has apparently no problem following. And maybe that's because the modern version of this requirement comes with a giant stage and a pretty mandated national TV audience.

33:02Ari Melber:As I mentioned earlier tonight, whether people watch it live in full or parts or clips or get the memes the next day on the internet, America sees the president in this format. It's one of the most recognizable formats and most channels, of course, also carry it live and interrupt it. Trump, though, comes to this stage in a weakened position, cracks in his coalition, concern about the economy, majorities against immigration. Democrats have been capitalizing on that in the few elections we had in the off year. But if you go on and look at the broader pattern, because there have been times and places where Trump clearly still can do well, a prominent Democrat who's seen success in Red Kentucky is Governor Andy Beshear.

33:44Ari Melber:He won a state attorney general's race, even in the same cycle when Trump had his shockwave 2016 election. Then two wins in the governor's race. He's pushed back on Trump policies from immigration to tariffs. He's also sued the administration using state powers to challenge the way they approach school funding and food assistance and housing. And yet he does it all with what you might call a version of Kentucky nice or at least Kentucky cash. Governor Beshear is known as a straightforward plain spoken leader, chair of the Democratic Governors Association. You can correct me if I've overstepped on any of that personality matrix.

34:26Ari Melber:Welcome. Thanks for having me. What an introduction. And who knew the president could follow any part of the Constitution? Right? Well, I want to give you the floor. We talked about this is one of those nights we will give the president the floor on this channel. I want to give you the floor tonight as I did to the senator. What is your party saying to the country tonight.

34:47Amy Klobuchar:Well, what the White House is saying we'll see tonight is a reset. But what I think we'll get is a rerun, despite the fact that the country desperately needs a reboot. I was in Davos watching the president on a world stage. And what did he do? He aired grievances and attacked people in the room. I watched parts of the National Prayer Breakfast where what did the president do? He aired his grievances and attacked some people in the room. Why should we expect anything less than that tonight. But I tell you what, he's going to say some things tonight that the American people say, oh, no, that's not what we're feeling.

35:24Amy Klobuchar:He's going to get up and say something like he won affordability when many Americans would say they're treading water or drowning. He'll get up and say he's going to run on health care. I say, bring it on because the big, ugly bill is already starting to devastate rural health care. We just lost another birthing center where now people are going to have to drive an hour and a half or more just to see a doctor. He's going to show tonight how out of touch he is with the American people. And I think you asked soon to be Governor Klobuchar about the length of the speech. If he goes two plus hours, he certainly doesn't know the American people.

36:01Ari Melber:Right. And that sort of fits into the presentation style that he has. You mentioned fact checking or rebutting his claim that he wanted affordability. I already showed earlier in the program the data that the public doesn't think that. That's in places red, blue and in between. But here he was on that point. I have to listen to the fake news talking about affordability. Affordability. Do you notice? What word have you not heard over the last two weeks? Affordability. Because I've won. I've won affordability. America is back. Our economy is roaring. and our country is respected again, respected like never, ever before.

36:48Ari Melber:Governor, your response?

36:50Amy Klobuchar:My response is if he doesn't want to listen to the news, listen to the American people. But the reason he won't do that is because they would say, stop taxing us. Tariffs are a tax on the American people. We or our businesses have paid 90 % of all those billions of dollars that he brags about. The reason things are getting more expensive is Donald Trump. The reason everything costs more from groceries to throughout our economy is Donald Trump. And now the Supreme Court has said not only did he raise prices, not only did he tax the American people, he did it unlawfully. And you know what?

37:26Ari Melber:He owes us all a check. When you look at the evolution in your state, have you seen any specific changes that are generalizable to Democrats. I mentioned that you came up in a year where he was surging, particularly in states like yours. And his appeal, as we know, has ebb and flowed. Has anything changed? Do people still believe the promises of this leader? And how do you think Democrats can address it?

37:54Amy Klobuchar:Oh, I think people are seeing the chaos and the harm that he's causing. I mean, I look at what the big, ugly bill is going to do in Kentucky. It threatens to close 35 rural hospitals, fire 20 ,000 healthcare workers. Each of those hospitals is the largest payroll in their community. So in that part of rural Kentucky, if the hospital closes, so does the restaurant, the coffee shop, the bank, the insurance company, you name it. What's already starting to hit and coming more is just a punch in the face of rural America. You want to see what that looks like? Talk to our soybean farmers. We have soybeans that are rotting in bins.

38:34Amy Klobuchar:In some places, They're burning them with markets that may be lost forever because of this president's tariff policy. You just look at the fact that I had two Republican state senators get up on the floor of the Senate about two weeks ago and say this president's immigration policies and tactics have gone too far. See, I think the American people aren't as partisan as we think. I just walked out of an interfaith dinner with people from all different faiths in a Christian church during Ramadan, all celebrating together.

39:07Ari Melber:I think the American people want to like their neighbor, not believe they're the enemy from within. You know, I didn't have Ramadan church observance in my bingo card tonight from you. I got one minute left. There was a big story in Washington and Democrats in the House concerned about the Trump DOJ still hiding Epstein documents. Do you view that as something that still needs more oversight or out in the country? Do you think people are more focused on other things heading into the midterms? How do you look at that from your vantage point?

39:38Amy Klobuchar:Well, at this point, I'm convinced this administration is intentionally hiding something. Why? Because they've done it over and over and over. Our Congress passed a law saying they must turn over these documents. And this president is not above that law. But at the same time, we cannot take our eye off the fact that the American people are struggling. We need to be working to create jobs with better wages to bring prices down and to fight to preserve rural and urban health care.

40:07Ari Melber:Yeah, no. And I kind of hear what you're what you're saying there, especially as the party's got to balance a lot. And we have a president who and we just saw the Supreme Court. We spent a year as a nation dealing with these these tariffs. Turns out they're illegal. And so there's a lot on the plate of how much do you respond and what else are you leading on? giving us some of your time on this busy night is appreciated, Governor. Bashir, thank you, sir. Thank you. Absolutely. We're going to fit in a break when we come back. Big State of the Union night. Rachel is just around the corner, and we are going to show you in the 10 minutes or so until you get Rachel and the team what Late Night is saying about Trump's troubles lately.

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42:18Ari Melber:One of Donald Trump's challenges in tonight's address are the way that his tariffs have been narrowed by the Supreme Court. And the fallout continues. This is a real world thing. The giant company FedEx formally demanding the U.S. government give a full refund of all of the tariffs it had to pay to other companies also filing lawsuits. This is not just another thing Trump can wish away with big talk. He has to deal with the economic pain and what are blue chip companies saying, hey, these were illegal tariffs. Pay us back. Now, Trump is pushing new temp tariffs today. They're temporary because he doesn't have the power to do the old version.

42:56Ari Melber:They're also expected to get into all kinds of court trouble, given that the Supreme Court just said his unilateral powers are limited here. Late night comics having fun with it. This was Donald Trump's most humiliating legal defeat yet. Somebody finally had the balls to say we're illegal. Trump doesn't give refunds. I mean, if he gives a refund, it's like when Rumpelstiltskin says his own name. He shrivels up, he disappears.

43:24Amy Klobuchar:Trump won after the majority justices, calling them fools and lapdogs for the rhinos and radical left Democrats who have been swayed by foreign interests. Yes, and Trump has been very clear, he will not be swayed by foreign interests. Only by foreign golden plane, foreign golden crown, and foreign golden FIFA peace prize.

43:46Ari Melber:The word is getting out. Not all that glitters is gold. Now, I told you Rachel is just minutes away on this big night. We have our full team coverage for the hours going into this thing. You can see there we're all going to be there together. Rachel takes over right after this break. Stay with us.

44:12Ari Melber:President Trump gives the State of the Union tonight. We are just about two hours away, but we have a lot of business to do together. We are going to share this moment in our history tonight. Rachel Maddow kicking things off in under a minute. And you can see we will all be there with her. And we'll hear from Pete Buttigieg, former Transportation Secretary, one time, of course, presidential candidate, California Governor Gavin Newsom, will also be here. And as we heard from some of the Democrats tonight, there is a rich discussion about how to face a president who tonight has shown weakness. We went through the polling and the numbers on that, who's reeling from the Supreme Court ruling against him, and a lot of energy around the country.

44:55Ari Melber:So our special coverage, as mentioned, features Rachel Maddow, Ali Velshi, Michael Steele, Simone Sanders, Nicole Wallace, Jen Psaki, Lawrence O'Donnell. I don't have time to name them all, but you will see them all if you stick with us starting now and through the next several hours right here on MS Now.

45:13Amy Klobuchar:Imagine relying on a dozen different software programs to run your business, none of which are connected. And each one more expensive and more complicated than the last. It can be pretty stressful. Now imagine Odoo. Odoo has all the programs you'll ever need and are all connected on one platform. Doesn't Odoo sound amazing? Let Odoo harmonize your business with simple, efficient software that can handle everything for a fraction of the price. Sign up today at odoo.com. That's O-D-O-O dot com.