The Weeknight 5/9/2026 | MSNBC Breaking News Today May 9 2026

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[00:00:02]Good evening and welcome to the weeknight. I'm Michael Steel with Simone Sanders Townsend and Alicia Menendez.

[00:00:08]Well, folks, settle in because it's a massive night of breaking news. A Virginia court just blocked the redistricting referendum from going into effect. You know, the one that took place last night in Virginia? Well, we're going to break it all down what this could mean in just a moment with Claire McCaskill. Also breaking, Republicans refuse again [music] to hold Trump accountable for his war of choice with Iran. And the Secretary of the Navy is fired mid-conflict. Senator Tammy Duckworth is at the table.

[00:00:37]>> [music] >> As if that were not enough breaking news, there is more from the New York Times. The FBI investigated one of the paper's reporters after they published an unflattering story about Kash Patel.

[00:00:48]Oversight ranking member Robert Garcia is with us soon.

[00:00:52]Breaking tonight, Democrats in Virginia are vowing to fight a court ruling blocking the certification of last night's redistricting referendum. Just a short time ago, a Virginia judge temporarily halted the implementation of the state's new voter-approved congressional map. The move prevents election officials from carrying out the new redistricting referendum unless the ruling is overturned by a higher court.

[00:01:17]Virginia's Attorney General says his office will immediately file an appeal.

[00:01:22]We're going to follow the story as it unfolds. This all comes after Donald Trump spent the afternoon trying to undermine last night's election. Posting baseless lies about the vote, slamming the will of the people as quote rigged, and attacking mail-in voting. But Donald Trump started this off-cycle redistricting fight, a fight House Democrats now say they're going to finish.

[00:01:45]We are in an era of maximum warfare. And we're going to keep the pressure on Republicans in every single state in the union to ensure at the end of the day that there is a fair national map. We think the American people should decide the future of their democracy, not the politicians.

[00:02:12]And that's why we're putting redistricting on the ballot.

[00:02:17]As we count down to the midterms, new polling shows Donald Trump's approval rating at a second term low. A Reuters poll finds just one in three Americans approve of the president's job performance. 62% disapprove. And as Trump's behavior becomes increasingly erratic, Americans, well, they are starting to notice. The same poll finds just just 26% of Americans think Trump is even tempered. 71% well, they say the opposite.

[00:02:46]Well, here's the deal. Um y'all need to understand exactly what happened last night versus what happened today because it's a precursor, I think, of what's going to happen this November.

[00:02:58]Every election that Democrats win, Republicans will challenge and say that there was fraud.

[00:03:05]This is now getting baked into our system, America. This is not how we do things. The people of Virginia spoke last night. And you can have you can quibble about the process. You may not like what the state legislature did. But how is that worse than what we saw happen in Texas? At least here, the people of Virginia had a say in what the maps in their state would look like. In Texas, Donald Trump made a phone call and Republicans couldn't bend over fast enough to give him what he wants. So just get set at 33% approval and with losing special election after special election and now this defeat last night, they're locking in stealing this election this this November. Put it out there. You know what? Alicia touched on a number of things in the in open and I know we'll talk to Senator McCaskill in a second more about Virginia and the lawsuit and whatnot. Shout out to Speaker Don Scott and Senator Louise Lucas who held the line with because they did what they did in Virginia in and with the help of frankly Hakeem Jeffries, we are looking at a very different situation come this November. Again, we'll see what happens with the lawsuit.

[00:04:18]I I'm very interested in the fact that the voters seem to be understanding that there's something going on with the president. Can we just play the side mash real quick?

[00:04:32]For 25 million and it would be better it would be better.

[00:04:37]See this pen right here? The stock market took the first dip yesterday because of Iceland.

[00:04:42]So Iceland's already cost us a lot of money. So this pen is very inexpensive.

[00:04:48]But it writes well. I like it. I picked those drapes in my first term.

[00:04:53]I always liked gold.

[00:04:54]>> I love the government like I love >> [snorts] >> myself economically and I got all you people looking and you say there must be something wrong with Trump.

[00:05:02]You think Thom Tillis is going to give you a >> Well, we're going to have to find out.

[00:05:05]He might die, but that's why Thom Tillis is no longer a senator.

[00:05:09]Okay.

[00:05:09]On the on the I think >> Yeah, Thom Tillis is no longer a senator, right?

[00:05:12]>> on his way out.

[00:05:13]>> Well, no, he quit. But he quit.

[00:05:16]Is the president okay? I think we should be asking this question more and more.

[00:05:21]The voters, given this polling, seem to understand that is it a national security risk? Is the president okay? Is he in charge? Is he calling the shots?

[00:05:28]Those are the questions I have. We have lots of questions. Let's bring into our conversation to ask them of her, former Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri. She is an MSNBC political analyst.

[00:05:39]Well, Claire, first do you think the president is okay? I'm going to continue to ask because I I know and enough people are asking, okay? You don't think he's already why not? He ain't well. No.

[00:05:50]No, he he Listen, this is not There's There are different levels of not being well. His level is I look in the mirror and all I can think about is myself. And you know, one of the things I'm going to say about Virginia, we can talk about the legality and the fact that it's on pause now because it's going to the Supreme Court of Virginia, but look at the money that was spent in Virginia. I think the Republicans need to wake up. Donald Trump is sitting on a war chest without ever going to run for election again of almost $400 Okay?

[00:06:24]His His MAGA pack. And then you take the RNC money, they have like $600 million more in the bank than the Democrats. So, why didn't they spend that in Virginia?

[00:06:35]Why did the Democrats outspend them three to one? And you know why I think it is cuz I don't think Donald Trump cares.

[00:06:42]I don't think he cares whether the House goes to the Democrats or the Senate goes to the Democrats. He's already proven he can do what he wants without Congress.

[00:06:51]He can tear down the White House, he can build a new The things he cares about, he can build a new arch for himself, he can make the military go to war at the at the drop of a hat without any real reason why or justifying it to Congress or the American people. I think he likes the idea that his last 2 years in office he can blame everything on the Democrats and just get to the stuff he likes to do which is build, you know, tributes to himself and try to get stuff named after himself.

[00:07:20]Um and and Congress, they can step up after if we win, they can step up and do investigations. But he knows it takes a long time for that stuff to get through the courts. He knows that he's got immunity while he's in office. So, I don't think he's trying to win the redistricting war in Virginia. I think more he wants to plant the seed that all elections are unfair. That will be his excuse when he loses in November, and then he'll go do whatever he wants after November, even if the Democrats are in charge.

[00:07:49]You know, Claire, I want to peel back a little bit more on the cognitive decline thing because the one thing that struck me because I think it's really instructive relative to what we're seeing in the polling. When you go back and you look at the conversation around Joe Biden, that was a largely a Republican effort media campaign to paint the president as cognitively impaired, old, and all of that, reinforced by a media ecosystem that wrote those stories and put that in front of voters.

[00:08:21]And and in this situation though, we're at the president sitting at 33% Claire.

[00:08:27]I don't see a whole lot of stories being written about that cognitive decline. We show you just a small tip of the stuff that happens in this town every day out of this White House by this president.

[00:08:38]And it's not covered the same way. What it tells me though is that the voters see this for themselves. They now see and understand for themselves exactly what's at stake here. The man has taken us to a war they didn't want. He's caused families and communities and small business owners a lot of their hard-earned money that they had set aside for savings, that they planned to educate their kids with. Hell, just to get groceries this weekend, they can't fill up their gas tanks anymore. There's only one person to look at for that. And when they look at him, they hear the stuff that we played in the clip. Standing sitting there at the desk talking about how much he likes a pen, or bragging about the fact that he hung drapes in front of a a hole in the wall.

[00:09:23]While this war gets prosecuted, and now, which again we haven't talked about because the press, I don't know why they're not leveling it up. Y'all know there's a draft coming for your 18 to 26-year-old child this this December, your son, right? Y'all know that.

[00:09:39]So, I think voters are beginning clear to sort of see this this thing a little bit differently than they may have seen it with Biden, largely because you don't have that sort of filter.

[00:09:52]I think that's right. Um now, Trump has one advantage that Joe Biden didn't have, and that is that Trump has always said crazy stuff.

[00:10:01]And so, a lot of Republicans just write off that Well, that's just Trump being Trump. And Trump Oh, he's a kidder. You hear the You hear Republican senators in the United States Senate say, "Oh, he's just kidding. He doesn't mean it." And they they You know, it's just like it's like the crazy uncle that comes over for dinner. We all love him, and he's You know, he he he's going to do the right thing. He may be a little crazy. That's kind of what's going on here.

[00:10:26]And I don't think that the people in elected office are going to deal with this. I think the voters are going to deal with this. And I think the voters are going to deal with this. And And by the way, the other thing, Michael, that isn't covered enough is the corruption.

[00:10:40]Mhm. I mean, both his both his mental decline, his cognitive impairment, his inability to to string together three or four sentences in a cogent thought, and the fact that in the back room, his family is making billions of dollars off the presidency. Those two legs of this really unwieldy stool are not getting covered like they should. Um we are covering the fact that he's doing nothing about inflation. Um he's doing nothing about the cost of goods for Americans. He's doing nothing in terms of explaining this war and how we're going to get out of it. That's all getting covered, but the corruption and his mental decline needs a lot more attention.

[00:11:22]Clare, you you referenced the fact that you have Republicans in Congress who are willing to carry water for a president who is increasingly erratic. I want to talk about the judge in Virginia who issued this order who on paper it would seem is doing much the same. This judge even prior to this ruling had issued two orders that would have stopped this vote on the referendum from ever having happened in the first place. On the latest go-around, he was overruled by the Virginia Supreme Court, but I want you to look at two things side by side. The first is language that appears in this judge's ruling, and then the second is a message on the president's social media platforms from the president himself. You tell me if you see any similarities. This is from the judge's ruling. The ballot language proposed in HB 1384 submits to the voters a flagrantly misleading question to the voters. And then this is Trump on Truth Social. In addition to everything else, the language on the referendum was purposefully unintelligible and deceptive. As everyone knows, I am an extraordinarily brilliant person, and even I had no idea what the hell they were talking about in the referendum, and neither do they. On top of that, that echoes language that we've heard from the RNC, Claire. I mean, what does that tell us about the judiciary, about the rule of law, about the very systems that are supposed to be issuing checks on this president, who as Michael said is giving us a preview of what he plans to do in November?

[00:12:46]Well, I will say this for the judiciary.

[00:12:49]By and large, with a few exceptions, the guardrails have held, but usually through the appellate process. It usually takes an appellate court.

[00:12:57]Um now, the Supreme Court has done some things like that immunity decision that I will never understand. Uh that decision by Roberts is a real head-scratcher, and I think will go down, unfortunately, as his legacy as one of the worst opinions by the Supreme Court right after Citizens United. Um but the the point is that this is going to be appealed, and it's going to be appealed, and a number of judges will have eyes on this, and a number of judges will opine on this before this process is over.

[00:13:26]Uh this judge has been overturned before on this subject matter and it will not surprise me if he's overturned again.

[00:13:31]And by the way, one thing that they will do I think in Virginia is move quickly.

[00:13:35]Um now time is really of the essence because we've got an election in months, not years. And so people need to know who's running and who's not running and where they're running and where the boundaries are. So I think we'll get a final decision in in fairly short order.

[00:13:50]It will not surprise me at all that this decision is overturned. It does sound like to me he's in the tank for Trump.

[00:13:58]Claire, I want to go back to a point you made at at the top of this about Donald Trump not necessarily caring about the House or the Senate. I I mean I think at one point he did care because he asked Texas to find him five more seats. I think that he by his actions cuz we don't know what's in this man's head, but by his actions I think he does believe he can act with impunity, but I do think he's a little scared and I say that because there are eight Senate seats at least to watch. I would add more to this list that we're going to put up on the screen. Democrats currently hold hold Georgia and Michigan. Those seats are up.

[00:14:30]Republicans hold North Carolina, Maine, Ohio. If we could put it on the screen, Alaska, Texas.

[00:14:37]Ohio is on here twice by the way. So Iowa, these are all seats that are up for election. I would also put Mississippi on the table here. I think that that could be competitive. I think that Donald Trump has lived under a house where Democrats are in control and he was impeached both times. I think that the prospect of a Senate a Democratic held Senate and a Democratic House where Democrats are emboldened by a base that wants them to um fight and deliver results is a very scary place for maybe if not him to be, the people they work for him.

[00:15:13]Well, I I not that it won't be it won't be fun because there'll be investigations as there should be into all that corruption.

[00:15:20]Uh there will be hearings, there will be subpoenas, um, but I'm just trying to be a realist about this, Simone. I I honestly believe that in 2 years, it is very difficult for Congress to have its way in terms of these investigations. And impeachment requires a bunch of Republicans to vote for it.

[00:15:40]And we all know the Republicans have totally been, you know, hiding under the table from their responsibilities when it comes to Donald Trump. And I think they'll continue to do that cuz they want to win primaries. So, I I And if he really cared, why wouldn't he spend some money in Virginia? Why would he be outspent three to one? I think he's looking for an excuse cuz he knows he's going to lose. And I think then he's going to be looking, as he always does, who can I blame besides myself? Because we know he'll never take responsibility. He's He's said famously that he pretends he says he's a Christian, but says he's never had to ask for forgiveness. Now, that's all you need to know about whether or not this guy understands Christianity.

[00:16:20]And And secondly, it's all you need to know about who he is. He refuses to take responsibility for anything he does that is wrong. And I I I I just I think he's looking for somebody to blame, and I think he's going to say that the elections are rigged, and then he's going to do what he wants, build his stuff, and the Democrats are going to do their best if we win, but it's very hard to get him impeached and out of office without Republican votes in the Senate.

[00:16:45]Our resident realist, Claire McCaskill, we always appreciate you. And it's good to see you tonight.

[00:16:52]Thank you.

[00:16:52]>> Next, folks, >> [clears throat] >> more breaking news. There's just been another Pentagon shakeup in the middle of a war, actually. Senator Tammy Duckworth will join the table to react.

[00:17:01][music] And later, Congressman Robert Garcia is with us to discuss a New York Times report [music] that the FBI investigated one of the paper's reporters for reporting on Director Kash Patel. Mhm.

[00:17:13]You are watching [music] The Weeknight.

[00:17:21]>> Hey folks, we've got some breaking news out of the Senate tonight. A fifth war powers resolution to check Donald Trump's war with Iran just failed.

[00:17:28]Democrat John Fetterman from Pennsylvania joined Republicans in voting down the measure. Republican Rand Paul of Kentucky voted with Democrats in favor.

[00:17:38]Ahead of the of the vote, Senator Cory Booker took Republicans to task.

[00:17:44]What is that body doing?

[00:17:47]Nothing.

[00:17:48]Republican leadership has called no open hearings.

[00:17:53]No sufficient accountability.

[00:17:55]No substantive oversight.

[00:17:58]They're kowtowing to a president and allowing him into a reckless war with grave consequences and a shredding of our constitutional intent by our founders.

[00:18:11]Also breaking tonight, the Pentagon announced that art collector and businessman turned Navy Secretary John Feeley is leaving effective immediately.

[00:18:20]It's the latest Pentagon shakeup during this war. Joining us now is Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois.

[00:18:26]She's a member of the Armed Services Committee and a decorated veteran of the war in Iraq. Now Senator Duckworth, I'm I'm I'm a little bit vexed about where to start here. We've got this war powers vote that has failed again aided and abetted by your colleague John Fetterman. But then also this recent firing and apparently according to reporting the firing of the the secretary is because of disagreements with Pete Hegseth and other deputies. He was not aligned.

[00:18:56]We're in the middle of a war.

[00:18:59]What's your take about everything that's happening today? Understanding you're going back to Congress actually tonight to start on a vot-o-rama looks like.

[00:19:05]>> Yep, voting all night tonight on actually funding for DHS.

[00:19:09]Listen, this is a sign of what a weakened incompetent Secretary of the of Defense Pete Heck said is. You know, this is a guy who is an infantry an infantry officer who made it to the rank of major without parachutes without jump wings without an aerosol badge without a ranger tab or company command. And this is a guy who operates on ego and he just fires people that he doesn't agree with. And you know, you've got Navy Secretary Fallon.

[00:19:34]I mean, he's you know, he's not a military officer, but this is the kind of shake up when you start firing generals while you're in the middle of a war and preventing the promotions they just prevented the promotion of two African-American female generals who had earned an additional star.

[00:19:48]>> Because because they're African-American >> African-American women. Yes, no other reason it seems.

[00:19:53]>> right? And so they are not listening to competent military leadership. And then when you have someone who actually speaks up and said, "Hey, I don't agree with you." they fire you. I mean, from everything that I've seen Mr. Fallon was pretty surprised that he was fired today. Wow. And then you have Senator John Thune saying this about Democrats posture on this war. Take a listen.

[00:20:15]I think that the Democrats in many ways and you've seen some of the statements they've made at least rhetorically are almost cheering against American success in this region which obviously strikes at the very heart of America's national security interest. So it it's really unfortunate they continue to put up these show votes.

[00:20:35]Democrats quote cheering against American success. Your response, Senator.

[00:20:41]This is the lie that Republicans and Trump is trying to sell to American people. They hide their cowardice behind the valor of our men and women in uniform. And when we go into briefings and we talk about and we want to talk about why is it that you went to war this war of choice? Is it justified? Did you prepare for it? What is the end state? They respond by saying, "Oh, look at how great our troops are doing." They are [clears throat] hiding their incompetence their behind the valor of the men and women in uniform who will always show up and do their jobs, who will always sacrifice. We have 13 dead service members, we have hundreds more injured, gas prices at home have gone through the roof. We are not better off or more secure as a nation. And so then they what they what do they do? They hide their own cowardice, their unwillingness to stand up to this incompetent president, this incompetent Secretary of Defense by saying, "Oh, you're criticizing our troops." No, we're not criticizing our troops. We have the greatest troops on the face of the military of the face of the earth.

[00:21:35]But it is our responsibility as senators to truly debate is this justified? Is this going to protect Americans? And our troops deserve for us to protect them so that when we do send them to war and they do sacrifice on our behalf, it is not in vain. I went through this with the Iraq war. I served in a war that I did not believe in, but I was proud to go and I volunteered. I wasn't even supposed to go. I volunteered even though I disagreed with the war because that's what soldiers do. You stand up and you go. But you expect your civilian leadership to have actually had a debate, to have actually talked about what the consequences are and is this worth is your is it this worth the sacrifice you are willing to make? And unfortunately, my Republican colleagues are not willing to do their jobs and live up to the sacrifice of our troops.

[00:22:24]Senator, I I I want to put a a a a beautiful button on that because the the the thing that struck me when I heard John Thune's remarks um was why I'm sir, how would you debase yourself like that? How could you debase yourself like that? As a US senator, you know better. And the reason you should know better because are you saying that the American people the American people uh as you put it, are cheering against American success in the region because the polls that we read tonight at the opening of this show, the polls that are out around the country right now show that not only uh you know, do Democrats not support this, not only do independents not support this, the American people do not support this war.

[00:23:10]So now suddenly American people un-American because we don't support a war A that no one told us was going to happen.

[00:23:20]B we have no idea how it's going to end because every day it's a different mission, a different narrative, a different storyline. Oh, and more cost.

[00:23:30]And C this this sort of politics playing is mind-numbingly stupid because we have 13 dead right now. 13 men and women that you know how that service you just alluded to what that service is like. You just talked about what it meant to give yourself to the country in service for a cause that protects this country. And that's the response?

[00:23:56]It makes no sense that you could sit here and look the American people in the eye and say something so inanely stupid as oh well Democrats must be cheering the cheering for you know us not to have success. Well, Democrats are Americans the last time I checked.

[00:24:11]>> Yeah, well let let let What's and I want to know what he's defining as success.

[00:24:15]Let's see, is success a regime change in in in Iran because there's regime changes and it was not for the better. We now have a worse Ayatollah, more radical Ayatollah who's younger than a doddering 90-year-old that was in power.

[00:24:29]Is success opening the Strait of Hormuz because by the way it was opened before and now all we've done is taught Iran that they can turn it into a toll road.

[00:24:37]Now they're charging a million dollar per ship to go through.

[00:24:40]Is is success spreading American influence in the world? No, I mean what >> Cuz our allies aren't helping us. Is is success gas prices being a dollar or more higher a gallon? And by the way, my farmers in Illinois, we're we're farming state. Diesel prices have more than doubled and even if the war were to end tomorrow, the American people are going to be feeling the effects of this war with food costs come harvest time. And so, is that is that what John Thune is saying is success? Mhm. A Strait of Hormuz that's closed or now is a toll road?

[00:25:11]Uh you know, a worse radical who's consolidating his power in Iran?

[00:25:16]And 13 dead Americans and over you know, hundreds of troops who are wounded and Americans who are in jeopardy around the world? The Strait of Hormuz is also apparently filled with mines that could take 6 months to clear according to the Pentagon.

[00:25:28]Um that's what they told uh Congress.

[00:25:30]They shared that estimate. Here's the thing, given all of that, Senator, I I I do think that you have some clarity that I I I think a lot of other people need to grasp onto. That there is no there's no strategy here. There's none. There this is just a pattern of the president's erratic behavior. I continue to ask, is the president okay? I don't He's not acting like it. What is he doing? Who is And what is he doing and who is constraining him? Because I am very concerned about what happens next.

[00:25:59]We are literally, as Michael Steele said said last night, flying by the seat of the president's pants. Well, anybody that stood up to them, they have fired, right? They fired the Army Chief of Staff because he wouldn't take away the promotions of the two black female generals.

[00:26:14]Apparently, Mr. Feelin opposed and is now out. This is This is a Mar-a-Lago buddy of his. This is a man who raised millions of dollars for Donald Trump.

[00:26:21]And you also have to understand that he has surrounded himself by a bunch who have been over, quoting you from earlier tonight. [laughter] We just going to quote Michael Steele all evening.

[00:26:32]You know, for Donald Trump over and over and over again. You know, is Pete Buttigieg going to stand up to Donald Trump? Pete Buttigieg is an incompetent fool. And that's our Secretary of Defense. Mhm.

[00:26:44]Could be more >> Senator Tammy Duckworth.

[00:26:46]Indeed, Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois. Thank you, Senator, for for with us. When we come back, a bombshell from the New York Times about the FBI investigating a Times reporter >> [music] >> after they published a story on Kash Patel's girlfriend. Congressman Robert Garcia is going to join the conversation. [music] Keep it right here on Weeknights.