BREAKING: A Truly Unhinged Trump Interview | Morning Shots LIVE

Added: 2026-05-04

[00:00:02]All right, I think we are live. Hi everybody. I am Andrew Edgar with The Bull Work. This is Bill Crystal with the Bull Work. We write the Morning Shots newsletter every weekday morning. Uh come coming to you free in your inbox.

[00:00:13]And on Tuesdays, we go live for Now this is interesting. It people were calling it Morning Chaser. I've noticed people have stopped saying that. Now people are starting to say Morning Shots live. I mean people like my my co-workers, my colleagues. So I'm actually not sure whether whether this is Morning Chaser anymore or whether this is just Morning Shots Live. Uh maybe maybe if you have a consumer preferences, you can tell us which we should use from now on. Anyway, it's Tuesday morning. We're here to talk uh and we are here to talk with some fresh uh real real hot off the presses content for you because Donald Trump, our president, who who you who whom you have probably heard of, um just wrapped up a long a rambling a very strange uh and rich interview uh on CNBC's Squawkbox this morning. They talked for a very long time. Uh Donald Trump these days uh he's become very kind of fragmented in his communication.

[00:01:00]Obviously he's always there on Truth Social. He's always um you know picking up the phone and calling random reporters for 90-second chitchats. Um but he has not done a lot of these real big sitdown interviews recently. You talked to Maria Barto Romo and Fox uh the other day. Um and then this is the kind of the other the other, you know, major one he's done recently. Like I said, rich text, so we're going to we're going to talk a lot about it. Um Bill, just just maybe right off the dome. Um, were was there anything in particular that stood out to you uh from from the president this morning? Maybe maybe as far as Iran is concerned or or anything else. Was there was there a major highlight moment for you or should we just should we just go through it?

[00:01:36]>> I guess I'd just like to register at the beginning of my complaint that he does these 8:30 a.m. interviews live. We put Morning Shots to bed around 9 and it gets proof read and uh you know layout stuff happens and you guys get it in your inbox around 9:30. So, uh, we we did, I think, put the topper in, uh, based on something he said, uh, on morning on his interview this morning at 8:30, but obviously can't write the whole thing based on an 8:30 interview or somebody when he's saying stuff at 8:45 and 9:00. So, a little annoying that he's doing 8:30 a.m. interviews.

[00:02:05]And I've You're our White House correspondent, Andrew. That's one of your titles. Uh, so you should you should weigh in there with Caroline and tell her, you know, look, 6 a.m.'s fine.

[00:02:13]I can we can write off at 6:30, 7:30, or 10 p.m. the night before. That would be our preference, frankly.

[00:02:18]>> Yes. Yes. I will start. Can you make that happen? Could you >> We'll start throwing my weight around at the White House. Look, I don't know. I mean, I think almost any given day, I totally agree with you. On Tuesdays, it's kind of nice because it gives something fresh.

[00:02:28]>> Tell him Tuesday. That's good. Tuesday's okay. That's right. So So, let's chew over. You you lead off. You you you looked at more closely what he said. Uh he went long, right? He was supposed to be his his his guy, his team, whatever he put it. My guys only gave me 20 minutes, but then he wanted to go longer, and he did go longer, I guess.

[00:02:43]>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this this happens when when when Trump builds up a head of steam sometimes with an interviewer that he likes. Uh, and obviously Joe Kernan over there at CNBC, very Trumpy guy, very sort of solicitous interviewer. Not a bad interviewer. Um, we got asked him some some interesting questions and and got some interesting answers. So, let's start going through them. Um, because obviously top of mind for everybody right now is uh the war in Iran, the ongoing war in Iran. We have this ceasefire that at first didn't really resemble resemble a ceasefire in any way. Now it has you know there was a very brief window in there where where both sides were actually honoring the ceasefire. The straight of hormuz was open for like 15 minutes uh on Friday into Saturday. Uh now we are back to you know the the the ceasefire having basically broken down in every respect except for the United States resuming its sort of aerial bombardment campaign.

[00:03:29]But but uh you know there are talks that are slated to happen that Iran has finally agreed to participate in that are going to be going forward uh in Islamabad uh just in in the next day or so uh in Pakistan and then the ceasefire will in theory expire if they can't if they can't uh come to an agreement. Um and so let's let's just hear Trump talking about that a little bit about what we should expect to see next in Iran. So to be clear, you're you're saying that you need uh a at least the prospects for a signed deal today and tomorrow or else you would resume uh bombing um Iran.

[00:04:05]>> Well, I expect to be bombing because I think that's a better attitude to go in with, but we're ready to go. I mean, the military is raring to go. They are absolutely incredible. You're not >> Yeah. So there you I mean, does that does that sound like a a strong hope that a that a peace uh deal is about to be struck in Islamabad in the next 48 hours? Bill, >> I I actually think it's more likely than not because I just think this is Trump's idea of the art of the deal. And you got to sound super tough to get yourself a quote good deal. He desperately wants to get out. He wouldn't mind perhaps one last spasm of bombing to look tough.

[00:04:41]Sort of like Nixon and you know the Christmas bombing of North Vietnam in 72 or something. But I I don't know that he has the stomach for really starting this up again and and dealing with Iran's countermeasures, which would be real.

[00:04:53]And I think also I really hated when he uses the military this way. The military is not people I know in the military in general. I don't talk to anyone about this particular like today whether they were of course they obey orders and of course they join because they believe they're they want to be good at fighting and there's a certain amount of relishing if there's a real conflict, but they're not raring to go to bomb a bunch of civilian targets. If if anything, I would imagine there's a lot of reluctance and there has been resistance. We know this in the Pentagon to the original list of targets HGTH wanted and so forth. But it just makes our military sound horrible that I think that they're kind of, you know, just trigger happy and you bloodthirsty guys who Trump's holding them back. It's quite the contrary in this case, I think.

[00:05:34]>> Yeah. Yeah. I don't think we have a clip of of this, but there was another moment in this interview was just very sort of strange uh uh to watch where you have uh Kern and the interviewer basically trying to kind of lead Trump toward talking about, you know, the the importance of the Iranian people and how much we love the Iranian people and how we how we got into this conflict uh to to help them out and and wouldn't he agree that if we were to, you know, really start bombing some of this, you know, mixeduse infrastructure, this civilian infrastructure that that the military also benefits from, um that that would be extremely damaging to the sort of prosperity and just everyday lives of the Iranian people. And and Trump didn't didn't give him an inch on that stuff. You know, he basically said, "Well, look, you know, we're going to have to we're going to have to hit these these energy uh uh production centers.

[00:06:18]We're going to have to hit these bridges, and you know, the the military uses them, too." So, uh so that was I mean, we we've talked so much about Iran. Um we're there's going to be developments one way or another in all this stuff in the next 48 hours. So, so probably it's better to just kind of keep powder dry here. It's just strange that like we're still doing this. We're still talking about this. Um the the one other thing that we will say about Iran is this is this next clip of the president, which is just him kind of complaining that people are complaining that it's not over yet. This this uh this conflict that he never solicited uh the you know the the will of Congress to get into in the first place that he just, you know, the first day he started the bombing, he himself was saying, "But you don't need to worry. We're going to be in, we're going to be out. It's going to be this little disruption, you know, little little military excursion." Um, and now now he has kind of moved on to to these comparisons of basically saying you think an 8week war is bad. Uh, what about World War I? That lasted quite a bit longer. So, let's listen to let's listen to Trump on this topic.

[00:07:13]>> Over and it will end. When it's over, you know, they want it to be over immediately. And I just looked at a little chart. World War I, four years and 3 months. World War II, 6 years.

[00:07:23]Korean War, 3 years. Vietnam, 19 years.

[00:07:27]Iraq, 8 years. I'm 5 months. Okay, five months I would have won Vietnam very quickly. I would have if I were president I would have won Iraq in the same amount of time that we won cuz essentially we've won here. Okay. I mean people can play games. The Democrats can say >> let's cut let's cut it there cuz cuz already such a such a rich text. I mean do you have a favorite moment in that bill? Because there's like six different things that that that we got to pull out.

[00:07:56]>> I mean they given some chart that that's the length of the war. or it's not incidentally, not to be pedantic, it's not the length of our involvement in the wars, you know, if you look at the numbers he has in World War I, right? He has four years and three months or something and World War II 6 years. I guess he's dating from September 39 or something. Um anyway, so uh so that's just one predanting point. Well, those were all wars were all authorized with the by Congress.

[00:08:19]Yeah.

[00:08:20]>> Yeah. With a slight exception of Vietnam, which was de facto, you might say, authorized by repeated appropriations for it. Here we had neither an authorization or an appropriation. It is kind of astonishing. Just you made this point just in passing a second ago, but I mean here we're we're six, seven in the seventh week and Republicans in Congress still have the position that ah nothing to authorize here, nothing to debate. We shouldn't have an actual discussion about whether this is wise to be doing or not. As he's talking about, I don't think he's going to if I had to bet, but still he's talking about reopening yet another pretty massive, I suppose, bombing campaign and a rather morally problematic one uh against the nation of Iran. Maybe that's something that Congress could discuss, but nope. the Republicans have no interest in it.

[00:09:00]>> Yeah. Yeah. And and I mean there's just so many little things when you hear him talk like like the the things that sort of flash by and you're like, "Wait, uh what was that?" Like like for instance the five months bit. He's like uh you know Korean War 3 years, Vietnam 19 years, Iraq 8 years. I'm five months.

[00:09:13]Okay, five months. What's five months?

[00:09:15]We've been we've been attacking uh Iran for eight weeks. So that is that is just sort of in passing somewhat strange. Uh maybe maybe there's some oblique way in which that makes sense. Or maybe he's just saying a number. Who knows? And then immediately from that into I would have won Vietnam very quickly. I would have if I were president I would have won Iraq in the same amount of time that we won because essentially we've won here. So basically he's saying you know if he had only been in charge for Iraq for Vietnam uh these would have been you know we would have won in in two or three days, eight weeks at the most. I mean it's just it's a struggle because like we we do this show, we pull out clips, you know, we have to zero in on specific moments but you listen to these interviews and it's like a 40minute barrage of that kind of thing, right?

[00:09:54]All right, so we're going to get to a few more moments, but just like the the genuine like insanity that's on display.

[00:09:59]I mean, is that is that too harsh, Bill?

[00:10:01]I mean, it really is astonishing listening to this guy try to string thoughts together.

[00:10:05]>> Yeah, it's kind of amazing to also say he would have won Vietnam easily or whatever a war that he of course avoided serving in, but um what everyone thinks of Vietnam and the debates that happened during Vietnam and gradual escalation versus a bigger attack. I mean, I don't believe anyone seriously thinks that was just a piece of cake. And I guess what is he? He probably has the kind of Curtis Lay position. He would have just bombed the Back to the Stone Age right away and then won. I don't know. That that's his general attitude. Big talk.

[00:10:31]But you know, when it comes to actually Well, I that's not even worth getting into. It's just ridiculous. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:10:36]A a lot of people have have kind of made a lot of hay over the years about about Donald Trump's, you know, draft dodging in Vietnam and sort of the the the cowardice on display and all of that and his gross comments about, you know, avoiding veneerial disease being his own personal Vietnam and all that stuff. But I don't think we've given enough time to to the fact that he really, you know, he deprived the world of of Donald Trump's presence in Vietnam that would have ended up winning that conflict very quickly. Um, you know, we could have we could have had a had a whole different turn to history. Um, and I think that's a shame that we didn't get that um um you know, the the the Trump in Vietnam that that that would have that would have uh won it won it for us real fast.

[00:11:10]Um, okay, that's enough about all that.

[00:11:12]Um, let's move on uh because this was not just a war interview and like I said, there's going to be god knows plenty of war stuff to talk about uh over the next few days. Um but uh but there are a number of other controversies uh that the president dipped into in this interview. And one of them which we've written about in uh in in recent days is the the weird boondoggle about the chair of the Federal Reserve, Jay. Powell, Jerome Powell, um, whose term is up next month, but who may not end up leaving right at the end of his term like he's supposed to because his wouldbe successor, Trump's nominee to succeed him as chair of the Fed, Kevin Worsh, uh, has has yet to be confirmed. And the reason that Wors has yet to be confirmed is because Trump has been trying to hustle Powell out faster uh, with all of these ludicrous authoritarian strongarm tactics like opening a criminal investigation into him and into the Fed.

[00:12:02]um which was which was all designed to get Powell to either resign or to you know be more pliant uh in in how he sets uh rates at the at the Fed the way Donald Trump wants him to. Um and instead you know we are now in a situation where by trying to hasten Powell's exit uh Trump may actually be prolonging his stay prolonging his tenure because until war is confirmed Powell will remain there. Um, and so we've gotten this weird dynamic in a lot of these interviews with proTrump reporters, people who are who are very much on his side, who are asking him questions, who are not even bothering to pretend that this criminal investigation into into Powell is some, you know, independent, just sort of follow the facts where they lead sort of thing.

[00:12:48]Even Trump's sort of friendly interviewers are acknowledging that this is a pretextual thing that Trump ordered in order to put pressure on Powell. And yet and yet they're sort of just asking now, Mr. President, wouldn't you agree that maybe the thing to do now is to drop this probe uh in order to actually accomplish the aim that you started it for in the first place, which is to get Powell out of there. And his response, I'll warn you, it's long and we're only going to play like a little chunk of it, but but we wanted to give you like a a decent chunk just to give you a sense.

[00:13:16]So this is this is Trump on that particular question. be possible for the banking committee to completely investigate all of your concerns about the cost overruns and the testimony uh of JPAL in front of Congress. If if you could take that offramp to get this moving and JPAL leaves, Kevin Walsh goes in, is that something you'd consider dropping for the DOJ probe to let the banking committee handle it? From the standpoint, Joe, from the standpoint that we have to find out why a small >> building cost close to 4 billion. It's not finished, by the way. They have a long way to go. They rip down the most beautiful ceilings. They'll never build them again. The most beautiful thick foot and a half thick walls of solid masonry. They're never going to be built again. They put up 6-in sheetrock walls.

[00:14:06]And they say, "Sir, we have no insulation. It's not in the budget." I mean, these walls, they had the best.

[00:14:11]That building was so beautiful. I would have fixed that building. I would have had it brand new, beautiful for $25 million. And they're going to spend close to $4 billion, maybe more than that. I don't know. It's not finished.

[00:14:22]In fact, I looked at it the other day.

[00:14:24]I'm I'm afraid Kevin will have to have an office next to me in the White House because that building's not going to be done. He's not going to be able to use that building for a long time. And >> that's about a fifth of that answer, by the way. He goes on and on and on and on and on. Our producer Matt clocked it at six minutes uh in in answering this question of why he does not actually want to want to sort of wash the DOJ's hands of this investigation and hand it over to the banking committee. Uh what what do you what do you make of it, Bill?

[00:14:49]>> I think we're saying just it's a criminal investigation. No one's accusing Jay Powell of taking any money, right? Right. I mean, this is not like unlike, if I might sort of say, Trump, the Trump family, the Lutnik family, the Wickoff family, and all these other people who are justly, in my view, accused or at least what we know that they're getting a lot of money off a lot of things, many of which are government related. Maybe the Fed did a good job, maybe they didn't do a good job of managing the re, you know, the fixing up of their old building. I have no idea.

[00:15:14]And if Congress wants to look at that, fine. But it's really insane that um that this is criminal investigation here. And I Joe Kernin is like speaking for common sense when he says, "Could you can't we just let this drop?" But oh no, he wants to keep it up. Trump doesn't like people who cross him. I mean, I think he's probably even if gets confirmed, I really wonder the whole thing, don't you think, has been so uh he's got it's become so he's made such a big deal of how he wants a compliant or plant I guess is the better yet word, Fed chairman. It's actually weirdly going to be a little harder for Worsh, I think, to do what Trump wants, which is always going to be to lower rates, especially if inflation is up. And incidentally, it's not like the Fed chairman can just snap his fingers and do it. There is an actual board that votes on these rate moves. And Powell could stay on the board, though not as chair. His term as his seat doesn't expire. And there are others on the board who are not necessarily dovish on rates. So Trump is making I guess he wants to have a whipping boy there maybe in the Fed, but he's making the actual job of the person who I suppose will eventually become Fed chairman. Maybe he won't be. I don't know. He's got his own conflicts of interest wars and his own business stuff. But anyway, uh whoever becomes the next chairman if if someone does. If it's not just pal Trump's making his life more difficult, not easier.

[00:16:28]>> Yeah. Yeah. I I have a theory about this and I'm I'm curious to get your take on it because because I did a a live with Katherine Rampel about a lot of this stuff a few days ago and we had a little bit of a disagreement about what what's actually going on in Trump's mind here because there you can make an argument and I think Katherine was kind of making this argument that all of this is just you know Trump not really believing you know what he's what he's saying. It's all just sort of like kayfabe in order to try to get Powell. Um and and it has been all along. I am kind of of the view after listening to a bunch of these interviews, he because he always does the same thing, right? It's always like somebody asks him, "What's going to happen with Powell? Is it possible you'll drop that probe?" And he could answer that question, you know, either way very quickly and move on. But he really does seem genuinely personally agrieved about a lot of the nitty-gritty details of this Fed building probe. Um, and and you know, he's he in in that sort of like weird developer way that Trump has where it activates the same part of his brain uh that that gets him so excited about his ballroom or about the Kennedy Center, about any of these things. Um, and and it genuinely I I I I genuinely think there's a way in which he's gotten high on his own supply here where he's like, "Yeah, I really I I don't like Powell because he wouldn't cut interest rates." Um, and and you know, I I hope Kevin Walsh gets in there and can cut interest rates for me pretty soon. But all that has to be set aside for the time being until we get to the bottom of this scandal at the Fed. And I think like that's a genuine thing on the part of the president. He seems actually mad and agrieved about it. I don't know what you what you make of all that.

[00:17:56]>> No, I think you could well be right. I haven't really thought about it that way. He certainly is obsessed with the construction stuff. I've always taken that to be more on the, you know, vanity and egoomaniacal side of things. the the Kennedy Center, especially the ballroom.

[00:18:08]There's a good piece in the Washington Post, was it over the weekend? Every he's mentioned the ballroom more often this year uh and brought it up. You almost always bringing it up himself in speeches and appearances and interruptions in his own speeches to point out there and discuss it when he's at the White House. He mentioned the ballroom more often than he's mentioned health insurance or a million other issues. you know, he he's obsessed with the ballroom and that's his but I've always taken that to be part of his, as I say, ego megalomania maniacal, you know, wanting to leave these things with his name on it behind and so forth. Um anyway, so I don't know if the Fed thing is his developer just, you know, he doesn't like the way they're doing it. I think he doesn't like Powell. He appointed Powell. He Powell did not accommodate him in 2020 and he probably blames Powell partly for, you know, the economy not being even stronger and therefore him not getting reelected. And so I think there's a pretty big personal grudge against Powell too.

[00:19:01]>> Yeah. Yeah. Do do you remember that speech that he gave I think last year at the United Nations where he went in and did like five minutes of shtick right off the top about you know relitigating old grievances that back when he was a developer. The UN had given the contract to somebody else to renovate their their building in New York rather than him.

[00:19:18]And you know they went with terraso floors instead of the the the beautiful marble he would have done. I mean like really just like chapter and verse through this stuff. There's something about the guy. I don't know. I I don't know exactly what to make of it, but uh but apparently, you know, Jerome Powell is is uh public architect enemy number one uh as well as the the interest rates uh boogeyman for for the president right now. Um that's enough about all that.

[00:19:39]Let's do one more clip here, one one last clip from this this Squawkbox interview before we go on uh to a few other things because it's about it's both newsy and again just just a real real insight into the the mind of this singular president uh and the way he approaches these things. This is about um the the the tariffs, the tariffs uh the the liberation day tariffs which the Supreme Court struck down uh uh a little while ago and specifically on the question of whether uh the tariff revenues that were collected all last year, you know, now that the Supreme Court has said those taxes were illegal, you weren't ever allowed to take in those billions and billions of dollars.

[00:20:13]The question being, do they have to give them back? Um and and Trump weighing in on this specific question. Uh let's play that real quick here. President on on that topic there's a whole number of very large companies including Apple and Amazon and others that have not sought uh reimbursements yet uh for the tariffs meaning they they haven't they haven't tried to collect refunds. Um and from what I understand part of the reason that they have waited is because there is a worry uh about frankly offending you. Uh do would you find it offensive for them to try to uh collect a refund?

[00:20:47]>> I think it's brilliant if they don't do that. I actually think if they don't do that, they they got to know me very well. I'm very honored by what you just said. If they don't do that, I'll remember them. I will tell you that because I'm looking to make this country strong. Supreme Court could have helped us. Now they have birthright citizenship. They'll probably rule against us. No country in the world has it. It's horrible for our country. And I just see it, you know, I see some of these Republicans that are nominated by me uh asking real bad questions. And looks like maybe we're going to lose that one, too. Look what happened with NIL. They destroyed college sports. The court system destroyed.

[00:21:27]>> So, there's kind of two halves to that one, right? I mean, which which one do you want to tackle first, Bill? We can do the the the tariff stuff or the the grabag of Supreme Court grievance there at the end.

[00:21:36]>> I think the tariff thing is revealing in this way. Trump is proud of the destruction of the rule of law and the turning and turning our nation as much as he's been able to uh into crony capitalism and depending on government favors and depending on favors from him and that you will you know he will turn government in a certain direction because you have courage favor with him.

[00:21:58]Obviously we've seen that in the in the payoffs basically in terms of the contributions and both to the direct payoffs to the family and the contributions to the ballroom and all this other stuff. So, uh, you know, it's it's nothing new, but I'd say other presidents might have concealed a little bit of that or been, you know, done that under the guise of a kind of rule of law thing. Trump's proud of it. That's great. Amazon and Apple are being smart if they're curring favor with me and I'm going to remember, right, they said. So, I am struck by the degree to which he does not try to pretend that he's has any belief in any kind of sort of impartial uh rule of law or kind of free market capitalism.

[00:22:34]>> Yeah. and and not only not only that they're currying favor with him and he will he will remember that and and you know bestow blessings on them later but the specific mechanism by which he's glad they're currying favor with him just to be clear the Supreme Court has said it was illegal for the government to collect this money the government had no right under the law to rake in these billions and billions of dollars from all of these companies and the idea that that the president would then turn around and make that a litmus test and say well are you with me are you going to let me keep that money or are against me and you're going to try to as you have every right to do under the law go back and get the money that you should never have had to pay me in the first place according to the according to the highest court in the land and the fact that >> and give that money back to the taxpayers it's not to him I mean right this isn't like a civil suit between Donald Trump and Amazon and he's grateful that Amazon's dropping the suit or something that would be kind of white one this is money they're supposed to get back because the taxpayers are supposed to get that money back so to speak not you know the government our government is supposed to have that money And uh uh anyway, >> yeah. No, it's uh it's it's really grotesque. And >> well, I mean, he's the companies are companies are supposed to get it back so they can Yeah. So they can >> Well, they are the taxpayer in this instance. I mean, they are the ones that are literally paying the tariffs >> and they presume we would pass it on to their consumers and so forth. Yeah.

[00:23:49]>> Yeah. Yeah. So, it's uh it's all a mess.

[00:23:50]Um uh but but we can we can leave that there. We don't have to get into the end, you know, the college sports stuff.

[00:23:55]The birth he is he is obviously incorrect that we are the only country that does birthright citizenship. Just not true. There are a bunch of others.

[00:24:01]Uh and we've done it for a long time.

[00:24:02]times worked out pretty well for us. Um, but but yeah, I mean, I don't know that you you you you kind of got a sense from that the end of that clip there. Most of the interviews like this, right? He gets asked a question and he goes pinballing off uh onto onto whatever other topics.

[00:24:15]They try to bring him back. Uh, he pinballs off a different direction. I mean, this is just the way that his his mind functions these days. Um, but we can leave it at that. That's enough of uh that's enough direct from the president for one day. Uh, unless Bill, is there anything else you want to you want to hit before we split?

[00:24:28]>> Just, you know, I thought that last thing is revealing. He there's always a little bit of a candyiness in his insanity and in this case he wants to attack the court. He wants to discredit the court as much as possible as these decisions that are negative to him in the case of terrorists have come down or will come down in the case of birthright citizenship. So the NIL thing is like literally insane in the sense that what does that have to do with anything and I don't did the US government never have a position on that? I'm not I don't know the Trump administr but uh it just sort of a if you have some if you don't think college football is what it used to be or college sports is what it used to be because the entire Michigan team the one this year is you know for are all transfers or whatever because of NIL uh you know blame the court. I mean he is kind of clever in a very weird way.

[00:25:08]Accumulate any grievance you can against any institution you want to delegitimize or or lessen the stature of. He's pretty I guess he's pretty good at that.

[00:25:17]>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, everybody should be good at something. Um I guess we'll leave it there. That's enough with the president. We got a couple more stories uh uh to hit, but before we hit those, uh we got to do a quick ad read. In fact, you you got a a tiny sneak preview of it of of me dressed different right at the top uh when we played one of those other clips. So, let's hit that real quick. We got an ad for you.

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[00:26:55]>> Wow, we're getting a little fancy with the visual elements uh for these now.

[00:26:58]That that 9 that 9:00 p.m. to 5 a.m.

[00:27:00]thing is true. By the way, I just just this last night I was I was up half the night with a with a a semi-ill child. So that's if if if you're wondering if if you've been sitting there wondering why I am lacking my ordinary sort of uh verve and and and ever effervescence. Um now you know um but uh but but but but I digress on that front. Um I should say because we said at the top and haven't said since I'm Andrew Edgar with the Bullwork. This is Bill Crystal with the Bull Work. We write the Morning Shots newsletter. Uh we're coming to you live on Tuesday uh to talk about Donald Trump's uh interview this morning on Squawkbox and a bunch of other stuff.

[00:27:29]This is strange, Bill, because we're 28 minutes into this uh and we have yet to talk about what under ordinary circumstances would have been, you know, the big news of the day right now, which is that Donald Trump had a cabinet secretary resign yesterday. But like the the fact that this is this is like a bee story even while it's happening has sort of epitomized uh the tenure of of outgoing labor secretary Lori Lori Chavez Durra who has been totally racked by scandal the entire time she has been in this job and yet has never really seemed to be able to break into the headlines about it. It's been sort of strange. But you wrote about this uh this morning in Morning Shots Bill. Can you just talk a little bit about what happened? You know what's what's what's what's underway here uh with in at the Department of Labor? She had all kinds of personal scandals and they finally forced her out. It sounds like uh her her departure was announced by the White House spokesman uh in a unceremoniously in a truth social post. Not they didn't let her at least even announce her own resignation. Um so they've now pushed out three cabinet secretaries in I guess about seven weeks. Uh um uh Christine Nome and and Pam Bondi and now uh the labor secretary. They happen all three to be women. I go on about that a little bit. kind of abusing that you know Hagath and uh Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Lutnik, all of whom have comparable, I'd say, either mis mismanagement of their agencies andor personal scandals. They they're they're still there. Maybe they'll go uh maybe not. Cash Patel is still there. FBI is not on the cabinet, but pretty important job. So maybe a little bit of gender issues there with Trump and his judgment of these different people, but um anyway, so it's Yeah, but you're right. It's well they look honestly they this when when you've lived with Christine Gnome and the level of scandal we had there and when you lived with uh Lutnik and Witoff and the Trump family you know the fact the the stuff that the labor secretary was doing actually reminded me a little bit more of oldtime scandals where you know she's using the staff to get her a drink from the hotel bar and there was some pretty bad stuff some sexual stuff with some security guard and kind of mis you know fairly bad misuse of her staff but it was a little it was it is penny anti stuff compared to what we're used to in the era of Trump, right?

[00:29:40]>> The the the stuff that we that we once upon a time would have said, "Oh man, she's uh she's gone. She can't survive this." And yet she has just kind of lived along all this time because there have always been bigger headlines on any given day. I remember I mean the the only piece of original reporting that I think I did about uh uh about the labor secretary for the for her entire tenure was very early on um you know when when we were still in the sort of um you know Trump's people are coming into all these agencies and everybody's kind of mad and and Doge is going on everybody's really unsettled and nobody knows if their job is safe and I just remember that that uh that she came in and and pretty promptly threw herself a sort of large birthday party at the labor department um which we had you know sort agrieved uh sort of labor department civil servants uh uh you know leaking to us pictures pictures of this party with you know with her face uh you know uh posted jauntily around the around the building and things like this. Um, so, so yeah, I mean, again, just she was one of these people where where she she could have come in and and sort of soothed things and instead she kind of came in and and got the got her her employees against her pretty quick and and ended up, you know, being in a lot of these scandals and it was sort of probably just a matter of time. Her husband also was sort of banned from labor department headquarters for also supposedly uh, you know, allegations of sexual harassment and all these sorts of things. So just a weird figure uh overall, but also sort of an interesting figure because she was uh supposedly it's been reported kind of one of Trump's strongest connections to actual organized labor um which has been you know a significant part of his coalition over the last few years. Um so uh so who knows who knows what will happen uh as a result of this but uh but so long to to Lorie Chavez Durmer who uh could not even manage to be front page news on the day of her firing. Whether that is good or bad for her uh I will leave to the reader to determine. But that's enough. I mean, do you have anything else on her or should we should we move on?

[00:31:30]>> No, no, no.

[00:31:31]>> All right. So long, Lori. Um, secretary, uh, Madam Secretary, um, thanks for thanks for your service. Uh, let's go on to one other thing here, which is this is and this is a little bit small ball unless you're us. Um, because we both live in Virginia, uh, but I guess not. I mean, it has has big national repercussions for the for the House of Representatives. Um, the the Virginia redistricting vote. Uh, it's it's arrived. It's today. Um, you you probably voted early, Bill. Uh I didn't cuz I uh uh was was you know I I I procrastinated. I got it off. I have to go vote today. Um but this is this is uh basically the first big swing by the new Democratic trifecta in Virginia. You know until pretty recently we had a Republican governor Glenn Yncan. Um and then last year Democrats uh swept uh the state in the November offy-ear elections for the first time in a long time. I actually don't know when the last time Democrats had a trifecta. Last time Republicans had a trifecta in Virginia was I think 2012 was when they when they won it. Um but this is the first time Democrats have had a trifecta in the state in a long long time. Um uh and you know it was a commanding win. Abigail Spamberger who who you know was elected governor. She won by 12 or 15 points. I can't remember now off the top of my head. It was a large large win. Um especially you know coming off of a Republican incumbent uh and and majorities for Democrats in in both houses of the Virginia legislature. um and and their first big swing has been to jump into this redistricting fight, right? Um that that Republicans kicked off last year with the offcycle uh redistricting in Texas. Uh Republican or sorry, Democrats responded in California uh with a with a ballot measure to to permit a a redistricting um you know to to give Democrats more seats there.

[00:33:13]Basically, we've just had sort of competing outrageous gerrymanders across this across the country, right? Um in in in a lot of these states um there have been some smaller states uh where where Republicans have tried to just ek out one or two more seats here and there. Uh they did it in Missouri. They tried and failed to do it in Indiana. Um and now this is sort of the second big Democratic uh counter punch in Virginia.

[00:33:34]But it is also the most ostentatious um really of any of them, right? I mean like like Republicans uh picked up five seats in Texas, Democrats picked up five seats in California, but these are big states with, you know, 50-ish uh uh delegates. The the the map that has been proposed by Democrats uh in Virginia is going from a 65 uh Democraticleaning split to a 10-1 Democratic leaning split. So, I mean, it truly is an outrageous gerrymander like on the merits. And the the argument is, well, what are you going to do? you know, Republicans started this fight. Um, and we need to try to bring it back to parody nationally. You know, we we we don't want Republicans to to win. We don't want Republican states to win more seats through gerrymandering uh than than Democrats win seats through jerrymandering going into these midterms. And that's the only thing that matters. And this question of how how badly we're gerrymandering our own state uh uh just sort of pales in comparison.

[00:34:28]It's it's it's a it's an un it's an irrelevant concern compared to the national uh issue. Obviously, this is a a change, right, for for Democrats to be talking in these terms. Um, you talked a little bit about this on your uh on the podcast with uh Tim yesterday, Bill, but can you just kind of like walk me through how how you are you are crunching all this in your own in your own kind of personal assessment as a voter?

[00:34:49]>> Yeah, you know, it's a change in Virginia. Virginia voters uh voted two to1 in 2020. I was one of them. Uh to vote to have a nonpartisan redistricting mechanism put in place. uh kind of complicated involved the courts and a commission with people appointed from both parties. It ended up the commission couldn't agree so they went to the courts. They appointed special masters.

[00:35:08]I think I happen to know one of them slightly. Political science types did a very fair redistricting for 2021. There was uh um fair because it ended up 65 which is kind of what the split in the state would be in a normal situation, right? It's a slightly democratic state uh now. But also fair in the sense that they tried to keep communities together.

[00:35:28]It's the contiguous districts. you know, this was sort of like a good government dream of what a redistricting would look like and that's what Virginia has operated on in the last first half of this decade. Uh, and then as you say, then Republicans went first in Texas and California responded, but other states were going to go Missouri and others went. Florida may still go that direction. And so the Virginia Democrats decided we have to have a temporary. And to be fair, it's it's it it for the rest of this decade, it puts into this place if the voters vote for it today. this constitutional amendment which or constitutional provision I guess uh which which u embodies this new gerrymander or or a a new gerrymander replacing the old non-jerrymander uh but it only lasts through 2030. So it's sort of explicitly a temporary fix for this temporary crisis that the Texas Republicans and Trump basically have caused. That's the argument for it. I think it's convincing. Um and so I voted for it uh last week as you say I voted for early. It's pretty close though. A fair number of Democrats, clearly a fair number of Spanberger voters, I'll put it this way, have are are uncomfortable with this because I think there are a lot of good government Democrats and some Republicans too to be fair in Virginia and and it was a 2 to1 vote in 2020. So, a lot of people from both party voted for that and they don't like this concession to partisanship, which I think is justified by the kind of emergency situation we're in with what the Republicans are trying to do. But uh I in a way it's a tribute maybe to Virginiaians that they're nervous about it even though they may well pass it.

[00:37:04]They may not. It's pretty close it looks like. Um we'll see what maybe I'll write about it tomorrow morning what the results are. But it's interesting how many I I know personally people who uh you vote very good thing this morning about your reluctant. You're a likely yes vote but you're a reluctant yes vote. I actually know a couple of people up here in MLAN who are no votes. Uh though certainly Spamber are voters and anti-Trump because they just think it's a mistake to go down that road. So I respect people who have those hesitations though I think in this case they're they're misguided.

[00:37:34]>> Yeah. No and and I totally see where where they're coming from. I mean again just just to to talk about myself personally like I I I voted for Abigail Spamberger last November with a song in my heart. It was the easiest thing easiest decision ever, right? I mean it was just um I you hardly had to think about it. And this is a very different this is a very different uh situation as far as I'm concerned. And I guess in in in some ways it it really does reflect, you know, the journey that the Democratic party has had to go on in the last number of years where where they really have grown more sharp elbowed and they really have, you know, woken up, I guess, to to the to the threat um on on the other side of things. woken up to the the realization that no actually Donald Trump truly does want to destroy a lot of the things that makes this country uh uh strong and a lot of the institutions and the the you know just the I I I hate to say norms because that's such a threadbear word but but you know the rule of law and and all these things like it and he has to be stopped and we should pursue whatever sort of legal democratic measures we can uh in order to in order to reign him in to whatever degree we can and Jerry Mandering is one of them you know it's It's legal. It's on the books. You're you're elected. You're allowed to wield this power. Maybe voters will punish you for wielding this power. Um but but you know, it's it's not like Donald Trump trying to run the entire country by fiat. Uh and and saying, you know, let the courts try to restrain me if they will. You know, I am the avatar of the popular will. Jerrymandering isn't like that. You know, this is this would be uh likely legal. I guess I should say there are there are legal challenges to it.

[00:39:03]So, it's not impossible that it would get thrown out. Um and and and if that happens, then the old maps will stay in place. you know, this is all sort of like normal procedural stuff. And yet, I do worry about it. I do I do worry that it is it is sort of a coarsening and and and a lowering of of, you know, democratic uh hopes and goals for for for you know, what what we should what we should expect and demand our government to do for us. It is actually factually the case that we as Virginiaians will just be more poorly represented by a heavily gerrymandered map. we have less ability to sort of uh choose our own leaders and and to sort of uh influence the course of action by voting all these sorts of things. And these are problems and and the other the only other thing I would say about it is I really do detect kind of like an echo and I wrote about this a little bit in Morning Shots today. I mean like when when you look back in 2016, Donald Trump had his core base of you know lunatics and and and you know terrible people deplorables one might even go so far as to call them. Those were real people.

[00:40:02]But that was not a winning electoral coalition, right? And there were a lot of arguments uh that that sort of normie Republicans and reluctant, you know, anti- Hillary voters and all these people. Um there were a bunch of different arguments that ended up pulling these people together into a coalition that end that was that was large enough to elect Donald Trump president of the United States to all of our sorrow. And and one big piece of that, and I remember living through this, one big piece of that was this whole flight 93 election conceit that like uh Republicans just thought Hillary was so bad and and Democrats were so awful that we truly as a country could not survive her election. Could not survive one more Democratic president.

[00:40:40]And therefore, the only thing to do was to sort of jettison all sort of thought of scruple and all thought of principle and any sort of moral or intellectual objection you might have to Trump or even to anything that Trump might try to do. And you just had to throw him with the guy. And I am not at all saying, to be clear, I am not at all saying that decision was like equivalent to, you know, whether or not Virginia should rejerrymander it maps, right? It's a very different very different sort of thing. Uh Republicans were obviously not correct in that moment that that a Hillary Clinton presidency would have destroyed the country. Um I think I think everybody has had cause to sort of look back at that and laugh by now. But I the only reason I bring it up is to get at the the sort of the way you can trick yourself into sort of deciding uh that that this or that principle that you that you that you actually consider yourself to adhere to very strongly uh is is is okay to set down just this one time or for just this one uh uh reason because the benefit will be so good. And it's always easy to do that you know when it comes to like acrewing more power. You can you can easily say, well, you know, all of this all all that this sort of principled opposition to gerrymandering is really doing for us uh is is keeping us from getting the power that if we had, we would do so much good with it, and if they have it, they're going to do so much bad with it. So, how could it not be like the appropriate thing um to set aside this scruple or set aside that principle and just go get that power? Um, but I also think that that that is a an impulse that we have recently witnessed do shocking harm uh to the country as as it has sort of greased the skids uh for for Trump to take and then retake power later. Um, and so and so I don't know. I'm just I'm just kind of bummed out and and and tormented about the whole thing. I probably will still vote yes though uh because you know we need a Congress that will that will stop this guy in so far as possible. So I don't know. Those are just my thoughts on it. No, I think it's well said and well written this morning and people should read it and make up their own minds. I I would just add one thing. They could have it's they could have gone to the ballot with re gerrymandering of of state level districts and they didn't. Uh and there too, Virginia has this, you know, has this uh relatively non-jerry well not relatively has a non-jerrymandered state house and state senate and and they've swung as you said the Republicans Democrats one house that was up last year. The Democrats picked up a whole bunch of seats but they could lose them again and Republicans have controlled those bodies were very tightly balanced uh before that uh very closely balanced.

[00:43:00]So, uh, it's not like in some states there's just gerrymandering top to bottom, right? And you start gerrymanding from the congressional level all the way down to, uh, the state assembly level. Uh, and that Virginia has been not been that way. And, and as I say, I think this is a reason personally a reasonable temporary uh, um, uh, expedient, but as you say, these temporary expedience can become more than temporary and and the expedient can start to swallow the the rule or the principle, which isn't good. So, we'll see what happens tonight. Maybe I'll write about it tomorrow because I've been trying to follow the you know the election a little closely and it'll be a little bit of a tip off I suppose on on um you know democratic this it's not really a part I mean it's a little different from a typical vote for candidates but it probably will tell us something one way or the other and and it will have a real world effect that is I think you're you probably are looking at a 10 to1 delegation if this passes you're probably looking at maybe 74 if they just if Democrats have a good year and pick up a seat just in the normal course of things >> but um so that's three congressional seats difference which is not nothing given that the current margins are are less than that right in the house.

[00:44:03]>> Yeah, it a a couple other interesting things just to say about this before we go. First of all, it is not at all clear it's going to pass. The the polling seems to suggest it is favored uh but not by not by near as much as maybe its proponents expected going in. Um there there really are a significant number of these sort of defections from the Spanberger coalition um who are who are voting no or just staying home. Um Republicans seem very energized about it for obvious reasons. One interesting thing on that though is that nobody has really sought to get the president involved in any way. There's been no effort on the part of the Virginia Republican party to bring him in to kind of rally the troops. And I think that's wise. I think I think that they you know Republicans are really trying to run this playbook that is 100% focused on the sort of good governance issues.

[00:44:46]they're trying to pull at, you know, the heartstrings of gullible rubes like myself, um, and and your friends that you were talking about earlier, um, to say, "Are you really are you really going to stoop to this level? Are you really going to do that?" Um, and meanwhile, if they got the president involved, I think all all of us would be like, "Oh, yeah. No, that's what this is all about." And uh, and and we would go with a go into it a little easier. So, that's probably smart on smart on their end. Um uh Democrats have or Democrat aligned groups have heavily outspent Republican aligned groups uh in this in this uh fight over this over this initiative. Um it it is very funny the way these things get kind of cloaked. Um I think I think the the group on one side is Virginiaians for fair elections and the other one is Virginiaians for fair maps. Um so uh so yeah, that's the whole thing is sort of there's a there's a comedy to it. It's sort of sort of ridiculous in in a lot of ways too. Um but uh but anyway, we can leave it at that. Um, we will uh we if if you're a Virginiaian or if you just want a backseat drive, feel free to to chime in in the comments about how how you're parsing all this stuff, we'll we'll we'll we'll read all that. Maybe you'll even maybe you'll even convince me one way or the other when I go to vote later today. Uh but I don't know, Bill, anything else before before we let the good people go?

[00:45:55]>> No, let's let people go and um get back to work. And uh this was a good discussion though. And uh yeah, we'll and you'll you'll you'll talk to the White House about the Trump scheduling of those. May maybe I Yeah, Tuesday morning's okay to do the 8:30 or 9 a.m.

[00:46:07]interviews, but most mornings early. Uh or late the night before would be better.

[00:46:13]>> Yes, you heard it, Caroline, if you're watching. Uh Donald, if you're watching, um you know, that that would help us out a lot. We'd really appreciate it. Um you know, really really good for our programming schedule. Um so so thanks uh thanks Caroline and Donald for in in advance for figuring that out for us.

[00:46:26]Thanks, Bill, for coming on and talking.

[00:46:28]Uh and uh and thanks to all of you out there who are watching. Uh we hope you enjoyed the show. Um we'll be back here next Tuesday. I'm sure we'll we'll see uh here and there on YouTube in or or on Substack if you're watching over there uh in the intervening time as well. Uh we hope you'll subscribe to the channel.

[00:46:41]We hope you'll subscribe to our newsletter over at thebwork.com. Morning shots in your inbox every Monday through Friday morning uh at or around 9:30 a.m., you know, depending on on how how uh well the wheels are turning on any given morning. Uh thanks everybody and we'll see you all next time.