The Weekend 5/9/26 | 🅼🆂🅽🅱️🅲 Breaking News Today May 9, 2026

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[00:00:00]Morning. It is Saturday, May 9th. Today, no cease to the fire. The Iran conflict continues despite what the White House is saying. A key negotiator for the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement [music] joins us at the table on the Trump administration's confusing and conflicting [music] messages. Then, out of touch. As many Americans cancel [music] their summer vacations because they just don't have the money, Trump continues to focus on his things [music] like the ballroom, the arc, and painting the reflecting ball.

[00:00:32]And Kash Patel is described as being in panic mode to save his job. That's according to sources who talked to MS Now. We have exclusive reporting on Patel ordering more than two dozen members of his team to take polygraph tests. So, grab your coffee, [music] settle in, and welcome to the weekend.

[00:00:58]Welcome to the weekend. I'm Eugene [music] Daniels along with Jackie Alemany and Laura Barron-Lopez in for Jonathan Capehart. We begin this hour with the state of confusion over President [music] Trump's war with Iran.

[00:01:10]"It appears, we'll see what happens." is the official word from President Trump as the US is still waiting for a response from Iran on the US proposal for a permanent end to the war, which was expected yesterday.

[00:01:23]That, of course, has not happened even as the pause in hostilities that the White House calls a cease-fire has been increasingly tested.

[00:01:31]Friday, Central Command said US military forces carried out air strikes hitting and disabling two Iranian-flagged oil tankers trying to break the American naval blockade. Meanwhile, the United Arab Emirates said Friday it intercepted drones and missiles launched by Iran. It came a day after the US said it intercepted attacks on three Navy ships in the Strait of Hormuz and retaliated against Iranian military facilities.

[00:01:58]The president told ABC News' Rachel Scott that the US response was, quote, "Just a love tap and not a sign the ceasefire was over."

[00:02:07]But, amid the impasse in negotiations over an end to the war, President Trump's patience running out. Our colleague Jonathan Lemire reports in The Atlantic, according to an outside advisor, President Trump is growing bored with his war in Iran and frustrated with Iran's intransigence.

[00:02:26]Bored. Just bored.

[00:02:28]>> He's been bored for some time.

[00:02:29]>> It's happening. It's been I I think the thing that's so interesting is whether it's bored or he's trying to move on, what he wants people to think is the same thing he wants them to think about their gas prices. Is that the reality on the ground is different than the one that they actually see. And you can't convince people of that. We talk about convincing people of take what's leaving their pockets, not being able to convince them of that. You also can't convince people a ceasefire where there's fire happening on land and sea is a ceasefire. Yeah, I mean, again, he the president's been bored for a while and he clearly wants to get out of this.

[00:03:03]I mean, more than a month ago a White House official was telling our Jake Trailor that he's bored and just wants to move on. But, the question is how is he going to move on?

[00:03:12]>> Right. And is he going to just say "We've won." And leave without actually getting any of the deliverables on the the enriched uranium or on an actual deal around, you know, Iran not having nuclear weapons? I mean, that is and I feel a little bit like a broken record, but that's something that my diplomatic sources have consistently said that they're fearful of that he is at this point so eager to get to a deal that he's going to agree to conditions that are not amenable to the regional allies.

[00:03:43]But, at this point he is over two months into the war. That's obviously far past the four to six-week deadline. And The The Post had some pretty interesting reporting this week that Iran still retains 75% of pre-war inventories of mobile launchers and 70% of pre-war miss stockpiles of missiles. And this all comes this news as Trump is waiting out this sort of detente in the Strait of Hormuz, hence the blockade that the US maintains, which again is not a ceasefire. It's potentially a cessation of hostilities at most.

[00:04:18]But as they're waiting for Iran to blink first, this Washington Post reporting indicates that they have at least three to four months of being able to withstand this blockade.

[00:04:27]>> Despite Trump saying their weapon stockpile is all gone. Joining us now to get into all of this from Dubai is MS now contributor Enzaman Rashid. Enzaman, thank you as always for coming to the weekend. Let's start there. What are you What are your Iranian sources telling you about whether or not they think this is a ceasefire? It's hard for I think a lot of Americans, including those around this table, to understand if there are missiles flying, how can we be in a ceasefire?

[00:04:56]Well, I think the proof is in the pudding, right? Because why have we not had an Iranian response yet to the US proposal that was given many days ago.

[00:05:05]Now, we were supposed to hear a response on Thursday, we didn't. We were then pretty confident we'd get a response yesterday. Marco Rubio said that he was expecting a response from the Iranians yesterday. We didn't get one. And so we're now we're in three days and Iran still hasn't replied to this US proposal to bring a conclusive ending to this conflict. And I think the fact that we have seen fighting in the Strait of Hormuz, we have seen attacks onto the coastline of Iran over the last couple of days, and we've seen obviously an Iranian retaliation not just to US warships in the Strait of Hormuz, but to the UAE particularly as well, then that's why we're not moving forward in this peace proposal, in these negotiations. And remember this latest proposal that the US has put forward, which essentially suggests that within 30 days, we will come to a conclusive ending of this conflict. In it, there is discussions around lifting the blockade gradually of the Strait of Hormuz. There will be discussions around how Iran's sanctions would be released and their assets unfrozen. There's also talk about how Iran would lift their blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, and critically, as well, about their nuclear program and and very specific details about their nuclear program, which they'd all get into if the two sides actually get around the table. And that first will only be done if this initial pre-proposal gets agreed. And right now, Iran is pretty much staying quiet. In fact, due to the the fighting that we've seen in the Strait of Hormuz, they said that Washington is vermin-like nocturnal scheming. That was from Iran's Foreign Ministry, and they warned against adventurism and roguish behavior. This was after a US jet fired on two oil tankers, which were heading towards an Iranian port in the Strait of Hormuz, and those two tankers were disabled as a result, as part of the US blockade inside that waterway. So, we're in a situation right now where all eyes are on Iran. The ball is seemingly in their court to come back with a response to this deal. But I think this military action that we've seen extensively over the last few days now just doesn't help us getting to some form of peace proposal. And and I just also must mention is that even if they do come back with a response, which won't be completely to agree apply with what the the US has said, this would just be the initial step to then getting to the table, to then having negotiations that any sort of peace agreement and deal is still very far off.

[00:07:49]Ismaeel Rashied all over the story in Dubai. Thank you so much for your reporting this morning.

[00:07:54]We are joined now by Alan Eyre, former senior US diplomat and distinguished diplomatic fellow at the Middle East Institute. He was a senior member of the Obama administration's negotiating team for the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. Alan, thank you so much for coming back to the table this morning. I want to stick with these social media posts that we're seeing from the Iranians. You had Abbas Araqchi, foreign minister, post on X earlier this week that the US is opting for a reckless military adventure over diplomacy. He said that every time a diplomatic solution is on the table, the US opts for a reckless military adventure. Is it a crude pressure tactic or the result of a spoiler once again duping POTUS into another quagmire?

[00:08:35]Whatever the cause is, outcome is the same. Iranians never bow to pressure.

[00:08:40]What [snorts] is your assessment of the state of play right now? And obviously we've talked a lot about and the president has said this time and time again that you know, what the Iranians say publicly needs to be verified, can't necessarily be trusted in full, but I I don't know. I mean, what Araqchi is saying makes a lot of sense to me and seems to square with the landscape. What do you make of it? Well, I mean, both sides are necessarily when they communicate with the media, they're not trying to impart information, they're trying to spin and influence the course of events. That's to be expected. But yeah, the reality is there's a very fragile ceasefire. Both sides are interested in flexing. Iran wants to show that it's still controlling traffic through the strait, and the US is trying to show that it's still trying to to blockade Iran's ports. So, against that backdrop the negotiations are still very anemic.

[00:09:32]Neither side is really interested in serious and sustained negotiations yet.

[00:09:37]The pain hasn't become so much so that they're saying, "Yeah, we really need to focus on negotiations." Alan, I have been stuck as these two kinetic on our calls this week on the idea of well, whether or not we're in a ceasefire. The president just last Friday in Florida was describing this as a war. Now, he's describing it as something a little bit different over the last week. Let's listen.

[00:10:02]We're in a I call it a mini war cuz that's all they are. We're in a little skirmish military. I call it a skirmish because Iran has no chance. I call it a skirmish because that's what it is. It's a skirmish and we're doing unbelievably well. After the strike, is the ceasefire with Iran still on?

[00:10:23]>> Yeah, it is. It's They trifled with us today. We blew them away. They trifled. I call that a trifle.

[00:10:32]He sounds like me trying to convince myself of something that is not fully true and that I that I want everyone else to believe and myself. Does that seem like the right way to you because we're clearly continuing to attack them.

[00:10:43]We're attacking them at land and sea now over the last couple of days and I don't know I don't know if a trifle is the word that I would use. Well, yeah. It's clear the US administration keeps trying to bludgeon reality with words hoping to align it with what it wants to be. It's a war, okay? Is the ceasefire still existing?

[00:11:02]To an extent. I mean, President Trump has a vested interest in saying the ceasefire is holding because he knows the markets will start spinning if he says this is a war. Plus, he's heading to China very shortly and he wants to at least have the patina of a solution in place before he goes to those important meetings. So, yes, it's a war. It's a ceasefire, but it's incredibly fragile and again, as I said, the key reality here is that neither side wants to play with each other yet in terms of negotiating in good faith. I want to double down on that last thing that the president said, which was he was talking about strikes on on American service [clears throat] members and describing them as a trifle when he was talking about the strikes that were taken by Iran against the US this week. Have you in your experience and your past [clears throat] work for the Obama administration, I mean, ever I mean, the fact that an American president is saying that and describing it in that way, do you think any other president could have described it that way and gotten away with it? No, and that's a great question that plays into a larger issue, which is President Trump and this keeps sabotaging whatever progress there is by these statements. He's not content to let diplomacy take its course. He issues these inflammatory statements. He says it's a trifle. Of course, it's not a trifle. When the UAE gets attacked by Iran, he says it's a nothing, more or less, which alienates the United Arab Emirates. So, if this administration could just have some message discipline and allow >> Oh, Alan.

[00:12:29]>> [laughter] >> I'm an eternal optimist. Do you know what it is? Then we might have a chance at a negotiated solution, but as it is, we just keep shooting ourselves in the foot.

[00:12:38]Alan, I want to ask you about some other news that the Wall Street Journal broke this week, that that restrictions to block Project Freedom in Strait of Hormuz coming from our regional allies. Saudi Arabia and Kuwait blocked the US military's use of their bases and airspace after senior American officials played down Iranian attacks on the Persian Gulf in reaction to the operation in the strait. This was according to Saudi officials. The Saudis and other Gulf states are also concerned that the US wouldn't protect them amid the escalation in fighting. [music] You know, at the beginning of the war, there was some reporting out there. I I I don't believe that MS independently verified it, but it came from the Washington Post and others that actually the Saudis had been encouraging, at least privately, of President Trump going to war with Iran.

[00:13:23]What is the subtext of this news though, that now Saudi Arabia and Kuwait are creating some boundaries.

[00:13:30]Well, again, I I think that what happened was they just weren't informed.

[00:13:34]I mean, normally an administration would coordinate with allies as part of a multilateral effort before engaging in such action. You know, you check all the bases. That wasn't done this time, right? So, it was done after the fact.

[00:13:47]This after these, you know, after for example, the UAE was receiving incoming.

[00:13:51]So, Saudi Arabia evidently said, "Yeah, this don't do it this way." And again, that's against the backdrop that Operation Freedom was just so conceptually flawed. Yes, destroyers can move in and out of the strait using all of of their weaponry and radar, but maritime traffic can't. And the Iran attacked the US destroyers with subsonic missiles. They didn't even use their good stuff. They're just trying to prove a point. They didn't use supersonic or hypersonic missiles. So, actually, Iran held back in attacking, but they wanted to prove a point, which is there's no maritime traffic going through the strait unless we say so.

[00:14:32]Ellen Air, thank you so much for your expertise. We [laughter] really appreciate it.

[00:14:36]And when we come [music] back, there's the economy that everyday Americans say they're living out, and then there's the stunning spin [music] that White House officials are putting on it. That's next. You're watching The Weekend.

[00:14:54]Your dog's paws are covered with bacteria you can't see.

[00:15:00]And there you can see.

[00:15:03]>> [snorts] >> April jobs numbers came in higher than expected with the economy adding 115,000 jobs. And while that number looks strong on paper, it leaves out the fact that a record number of men and women have left the labor force all together. If you exclude the pandemic, the share of men in the workforce is at its lowest point since 1948.

[00:15:30]And for the millions of Americans, the the economic story that they're living right now has much more to do with the price of filling up their gas tank.

[00:15:39]According to the University of Michigan, consumer sentiment has hit a record low, even lower than it was during the Great Recession in 2008.

[00:15:48]And as Americans struggle to afford basic expenses, listen to how White House economic advisor Kevin Hassett is describing the economy.

[00:15:56]The consumer is really, really firing on all cylinders, just like the corporate sector. You're seeing in the earnings reports, and they're doing that because they have so much more money in their pockets. Credit card spending is through the roof. They're spending more on gasoline, but they're spending more on everything else, too.

[00:16:13]Yep, you heard that correctly. A senior Trump official pointing to soaring credit card spending as evidence that the economy is thriving. As Pod Save America's Jon Favreau joked online, we must consider the possibility that Kevin Hassett is secretly working for the Democrats.

[00:16:29]>> [laughter] >> Joining us now is Congressman Joe Morelle of New York, a member of the House Appropriations Committee.

[00:16:34]Congressman, thanks for joining us this morning.

[00:16:37]What's your reaction to Kevin Hassett and his commentary on the state of the economy?

[00:16:43]Well, he is he is clearly one of two things. He's either completely uninformed about what's going on in America, or he simply knows that what he's telling is something that is a lie, because every single day Americans are dealing with this issue. I was putting gas in my car two days ago. A woman came up to me at the car behind me, and just went on for two minutes about how hard this was in Trump's America. And you hear it every day. So, I mean, it's clearly this is is kind of ridiculous thing that the president would say. Unfortunately, you now hear it from just about everybody who works in the White House or the administration is telling people what they're experiencing in real time doesn't exist and instead they should believe something that they know not to be true. It's absurd.

[00:17:31]That audience of one aspect of the Trump presidency and just being his allies always weld and operating. Um, has it they are spending more on gasoline. That is correct. Exxon CEO Darren Woods talked about that. He also talked about if we can expect it to go down quickly like the president has been saying.

[00:17:51]Listen to this Congressman.

[00:17:53]I think it's obvious to most that if you look at the unprecedented disruption in the world supply of oil and natural gas the market hasn't seen the full impact of that yet.

[00:18:06]Two things are true here.

[00:18:08]It is that the president of the United States does not actually have a lot of control over how high gas can be typically, right? That we're not a part of OPEC that sets got oil and all of that. However, when you go to war in Iran and they close the straight and the oil can't get through. That's 20% of the world's oil, then there is an impact.

[00:18:30]And when you're listening to the CEO of Exxon saying those prices aren't going down, meaning their prices aren't going to come down either. The American people are going to be dealing with this through the year at the very least it seems.

[00:18:45]Yeah, points out two things actually.

[00:18:46]The first is that you're right. The president has managed to disrupt the flow of oil around the world. There's a crude price that is a global price. This is a global market. So for all of his talk about increasing supply in the United States, it doesn't really have as much of an impact on the world's oil supply as he would like. But he's disrupted all that with the war. The second thing is I think businesses and even in the the petroleum industry are leery of doing anything in such a chaotic disruptive environment. I mean, the president changes his mind literally multiple times in the same hour on the same day about the same subject. So, if you're going to invest capital, if you're going to invest labor, if you're going to invest equipment, it'd be nice to know that what you started out with as some assumptions in the morning were still going to be valid at the end of the day, but they're not. So, I hear this from manufacturers, I hear from small businesses every single day that the president's chaos, his recklessness, is stopping even the ability for small and large businesses to grow in the United States. You see that reflected, I think, in the fact that we've lost nearly 90,000 manufacturing jobs in the United States since so-called liberation day.

[00:19:58]Uh clearly, what the president would like not to have happened. And so, in his mind, instead of adjusting, changing his direction, altering what he does, he just engages in this strange mindset where he just tells you that something's true when it clearly is not.

[00:20:16]Congresswoman, I know that you said that you're hearing from constituents about the price of oil. The president is saying that, you know, the cost of oil at $102 a barrel is a, quote, small price to pay for getting rid of a nuclear weapon in Iran. Do you think that the voters in New York, especially, you know, maybe outside of your district, voters in the swing districts in New York, are they actually going to vote against Republicans because of what's happening here?

[00:20:45]Well, I think the president thinks so, which is why he's going through such extraordinary efforts uh to make sure that the verdict of the American people isn't heard in November.

[00:20:55]That's why he and, frankly, his cronies on the Supreme Court have completely upended the electoral map in the last week because they know that if they were to listen to American voices and hear from the American people, that the verdict would be uh pretty bad for them.

[00:21:10]And so the president doesn't want to hear that. So what's he do? It's what he always does. He either changes the reality or changes the game and cheats.

[00:21:20]I would not have wanted to play baseball or checkers with him as a kid because in the middle of the game he would have changed the rules or wiped the board off or picked up his ball and gone home. But I think the American people are going to render a verdict in November and the president and the Republicans march lock, stock behind him are going to be shocked at what they're going to find because Americans are struggling right now at the kitchen table, they're struggling at work, they're struggling to pay for kids' child care, they're struggling to deal with aging parents and how they deal with them, how to deal with health care costs. I mean, it's a mess and the president is not a serious man.

[00:21:55]Congressman, you talked about changing the rules and changing the game.

[00:21:59]Republicans have also done that when it comes to mid-decade redistricting. This all started when President Trump told Texas lawmakers to find him five seats.

[00:22:08]They did that and set off this entire back and forth. The Virginia Supreme Court struck down a voter-backed redistricting plan that is both a blow to Democrats and kind of the process that we are operating within.

[00:22:22]When you as someone who is in New York, it's reported that you were involved in the kind of pushing the redistricting effort there. When you're looking at how Democrats and Republicans have been operating, that Republicans have been doing this over and over again, that even just this week you had Louisiana pause its primaries so that they could change the game and change the seats as you said.

[00:22:45]When you look at that, what tell what what should Democrats be doing next, especially in New York?

[00:22:52]Well, Jay, we're fighting back. We're a little limited in New York because we cannot do mid-decade redistricting under our state constitution. So I was asked by Leader Jeffries to go to Albany and meet with legislators and the governor earlier this week, which I did.

[00:23:07]I'm a former state legislator and I have a lot of relationships, so urged them to begin the process, which is a two-year process, to change the state constitution because we have to fight back. I mean, what's what's happening and it is astonishing, Eugene, you just mentioned it. In California, Virginia, Democrats changed district lines by asking their public whether they wanted that to happen. Two referendum which passed and of course in Virginia, apparently the courts in Virginia think it's too late to change lines, so they're willing to completely reject the will of the Virginia voters. But in southern states in the past week, state legislatures by fiat have changed district lines that will likely lead to the elimination of black representation throughout the South. And they just did it. Doesn't matter to them and to your point out, Louisiana's already in the middle of their voting. They've already had the primary, they're in their runoff stage and the governor unilaterally said, "No, we're going to follow the Supreme Court." Which by the way made the worst decision since the Taney Court came up with Dred Scott. I mean, this is the Roberts Court will go down in history as one of the most racist courts in American history and it is disgraceful that's being respected, but the will of voters of Virginia and in California being challenged by Republicans. It's it's really unbelievable. So New York and other states, we're going to have to fight back cuz there's no alternative at this point.

[00:24:33]Congressman, really quickly, we're out of time, but you mentioned that New York has to change its constitution. There are two ways to amend the constitution in New York to allow for something like this. Do you think that there you guys should amend the constitution and allow for mid-decade redistricting in New York? Yes, there's really one way. You have to pass a provision in two different legislatures. There it to be an intervening election, which is why we can't do it this year. We would need to wait for final passage and then a referendum by people in 2027. So, by the 2020 election, I think you'll see new lines in New York.

[00:25:07]New New York Congressman Tom Morello, who's going to be very busy, it sounds like. Thank you so much for coming to the weekend show.

[00:25:14]Coming up, how the Trump administration is again ramping up immigration efforts across the United States [music] and the new wave of ICE deployment reportedly coming to as many as 40 states. You're watching the weekend.

[00:25:34]>> [music]