Congressman, how many of your constituents did you bring down here today?

Oh, about 300.

We're all proud of Joe Torrey.

I played in the Joe Torrey Little League, but in those days, Joe was a nobody.

Frank was our hero.

He was in the major leagues.

The Joe Torrey Little League has been a blessing for Marine Park, and they're ecstatic about it.

I can't believe I'm here today.

... they're being emotional"?

If you could do a truth serum [laughs] and give it to Republican senators, about 80% of them would agree he's trying to steal the election.

The trouble is they're too damn scared to say anything about it.

But we, if we keep at it and keep at it and keep at it, every so often you get someone on our side, and the more we do that, the greater chance we have of stopping them, but of also winning elections so we can prevent these bad things from ever happening again.

We're not sure who that is, but we'll get into it next on Morning Joe.

[upbeat music] There's a lot of news to cover.

But-

He wants to end democratic elections and actually make himself king or dictator.

But then if you feel that way, how do you do the normal business of the Senate?

You have to show that you can s- both stop Trump and try to have government move forward.

You have to.

If every time Trump did one of these things we just froze, he'd win.

Maybe

... and I organized the legislature.

And we went into the speaker, who was the boss of Brooklyn, uh, Meade Esposito.

You know, it was Stanley Steingut.

Meade was then the boss of Brooklyn.

And we demanded that we ...

Oh, and the only staff you'd get before this was the assembly would asse- assembly leadership would assign you a secretary for three months.

How much can that work if the Supreme Court is going to make the kinds of decisions it makes if the federal government te- uh, starts preempting progressive, uh, action at the state level, which it often tries to do?

When would Trump go so far that Lindsey Graham is left speechless?

[laughs] Yeah.

Well, look, I don't have too much sympathy for these guys.

We gave them eight times to vote against this damn war.

We told them over and over again.

It was clear that he had no goals, he had no plans, that we were gonna be worse off after the war than before, which we are.

The Strait of Hormuz, Iran has more control.

You will be the next, uh, Senate majority leader, and he's saying all of that because the Republicans in the Senate are not trying to push through his bill to restrict voting in this country.

What did your party actually accomplish with this shutdown?

Well, first, let me say that the Republicans are hardly unified.

Johnson, for the second time, rejected a proposal made this morning by John Thune with unanimous consent support of all the Republicans to fund the DHS agencies like the Coast Guard, like FEMA, like CISA, which we need.

This is now clearly the Johnson shutdown.

It's a Republican shutdown.

All he had to do was put that bill on the floor and it would have passed overwhelmingly.

So the Republicans are hardly unified.

How do you respond to that as a Democratic leader in the Senate?

I- is that what you're preparing for? Is that what people watching should be preparing for, them escalating into other countries with military action?

Look, I've sat through two classified briefings and I've asked them a whole lot of questions.

How many troops are you gonna want there? I asked them how long will it take? How much will it cost? I asked them do they have plans to use military action in Colombia, in Mexico, in Cuba, even in Greenland of all places.

I cannot tell you their exact answers 'cause it was a classified briefing, but I can tell you this.

It was extremely unsatisfying and unnerving to hear their answers.

I'll tell you one other thing.

They have no plan for Venezuela.

Is there enough Republican support you think could be built to override? That would require two-thirds of the Senate of course that...

What's your reaction to it?

The reaction's very simple.

They've become...

They are Trump's shill.

If everything is so hunky-dory, then release all of the files.

They have blanked out.

They have blanked out huge amounts of these files.

... getting this resolution through?

What's your reaction to it?

The reaction's very simple.

They've become...

They are Trump's shill.

If everything is so hunky-dory, then release all of the files.

They have blanked out, they have blanked out huge amounts of these files.

In one whole grand jury testimony, 119 pages, totally, totally blacked out.

... getting this resolution through?

What can you in the Senate do about this out of control Secretary of Defense?

Well, Lawrence, you're certainly right.

Not...

He's out of control, he's incompetent, he's juvenile.

You know, when the president chooses a Fox News commentator to run the most important, most complicated, most life and death department in the government, obviously that was a mistake.

And now it's clear it's not just a mistake, it's an outrage.

Uh, he has endangered the lives of servicemen and women, uh, he has, uh, he's hidden up, uh, the tapes of what's going on in the Caribbean, he seems to be covering that up.

this month in the Senate?

Can you tell us about that maneuver?

Yes.

What it means is the Senate has virtually approved it.

Once the House sends it over to us, it goes right to the President.

No amendments, no delays, no anything.

It's called deemed passing, and it means that it's passed, it's deemed to have passed even before it was sent to us.

So this is very good news.

Is there-

Can you tell us about that maneuver?

Yes.

What it means is the Senate has virtually approved it.

Once the House sends it over to us, it goes right to the president.

No amendments, no delays, no anything.

It's called deemed passing, and it means that it's passed, it's deemed to have passed even before it was sent to us.

So this is very good news.

Is there-

It's about-

No, no.

Three things have happened between then and now.

Then we wanted to give them a chance to see if they could work with us.

First, Trump has decimated healthcare between then and now.

Second, we had time to prepare.

We've been preparing for this, Democrats, House and Senate, united, for months.

You're putting a lot of eggs in that basket as your front door.

What is your off-ramp this time if the government does shut down? Do you have one?

Yeah.

Look, God forbid the Republicans shut the government down.

The American people will know it's on their back.

First, they're in charge.

They have the House, they have the Senate, they have the presidency, so they know what's in ch- they're in charge.

Second, everyone knows that you need a bipartisan negotiation to get this done, the American people do.

Do you trust, do you have faith in the judicial system?

Right.

So it's a Republican shutdown.

Number one, they're in charge.

Number two, and this really matters to the American people, they don't wanna sit down and negotiate.

The average American, you don't have to be a big liberal or, or whatever, you just say to yourself, "Whoa, why won't they sit down and negotiate this?" And listen to this, when we w- uh, uh, our, our research shows that when people hear that Republicans won't s- wanna sit down with us, who do they blame for a shutdown? 59% blame Trump, 31% blame Democrats.

So that's number two.

But number three and maybe most important as you correctly and as usual astutely pointed out, this is something that people from both parties want, and it's th- it's the ACA premiums, but rural hospitals, these Republican congressmen and senators are hearing from their rural hospitals that they could very well close.

Like, do you see any wiggle room there or people sort of... or no?

So, why do you think President Trump canceled this meeting just a day after you announced it? And is there a path forward absent, uh, direct negotiation with him?

Well, we hope there's a path forward, uh, to avoid this Trump shutdown.

We've been trying for a long time to sit down, first with the Republican leaders, uh, ha, um, uh, uh, Speaker Johnson and John Thune, and they wouldn't sit down with us and we wondered why.

And then it came out clearly two weeks ago.

Trump said, "We don't need the Democrats.

Uh, we can do it on our own." Now obviously, he doesn't know his math.

You need 60 votes in the Senate.

And, and to what degree are you feeling pressure from Democrats who say that elected leaders should hold firm and fight?

Point us in a direction if you're able to.

Yeah.

Well, one thing I would do, it has gotten more listenership, uh, you know, people listening in when we read the bill, I don't know if people know we forced them to read the bill.

I was allowed to do that.

That's one of the few prerogatives the n- the minority has in the Senate.

And it took 17 hours.

I know MSNBC and, uh, CNN played some of it.

Is that what it is?

Uh, I mean, I'm not the vote-counter you are, Senator, but, uh, I- I don't know if they have the votes as of right now to pass this bill.

Well, let me tell you.

It- the way it works is if they had the votes, they'd be putting their bill on the floor.

They are not.

They're s- extending things every time we have a vote.

They don't call the vote even though we're supposed to do it after 10 or 15 minutes.

And that's 'cause they don't have the votes right now 'cause their caucus is in disarray, fighting with each other and trying to shove down America's throat a deeply unpopular bill that, in one sentence, the first amendment I did said, "We cannot raise taxes- cut taxes- we cannot cut taxes for billionaires if we cut a penny of Medicaid." They hated that 'cause in sum, what their bill does in a sentence is have b- billionaires win and have, uh, families lose, um, taking money away from healthcare, taking food out of the mouth of hungry children to give a greater tax break to billionaires.

You're inviting them to cast votes in favor of their c- constituents, but it seems like, uh, so far, they are casting votes against certainly the healthcare interests of their constituents.

Where are you with this?

O- Okay, so we have one bill that passed the Senate because we got every Democrat voting to get rid of, uh, the...

We did the Canadian tariffs first 'cause that was last week, and we got four Republicans to vote for it.

Maria Cantwell put together a bipartisan bill with Grassley.

We haven't had that on the floor yet.

We'll try to have, to force them to put it on the floor best we can.

But that's seven more Republicans joined in.

Do you think Democrats need to do more of this, to go everywhere?

What do you say to Wall Street tonight?

tonight?What I say to Wall Street is, "This-this man is a menace." You know, Donald Trump, this is one of...

this is about the worst decision or one of the worst decisions Donald Trump has made.

And given his presidency, that's saying a whole lot.

Why are they doing this? Why are they imposing such tariffs on people? I'll tell you there's one reason, Lawrence.

They want to use this money for tax breaks for billionaires.

And they're making the average American family pay, it's now about, estimated about $5,000 a year.

these tariffs are their tariffs?

When asked about your future at a town hall Senator Michael Bennett said, quote, "It's important for people to know when it's time to go." Leader Schumer, are you feeling pressure to step down?

Look, I'm not stepping down.

And let me just say this, uh, Kristen, I knew when I cast my vote against, uh, the C- uh, against the government shutdown that it would be, that it w- there'd be a lot of controversy, and there was.

But, uh, let me tell you w- and your audience why I did it, why I felt was so important.

The CR was certainly bad, you know, the continuing resolution, but a shutdown would be 15 or 20 times worse.

Under a shutdown, the executive branch has sole power to determine what is, quote, essential, and they can determine without any court supervision, the courts have ruled it solely up to the executive what to shut down.

With Musk and Doge and Trump and this guy, Voght, V-O-G-H-T, I think is how you spell his name, is the head of OMB, they would eviscerate the federal government.

Please.

Yep.

... like it. We're hammering away at that. Today it was Medicaid. Tomorrow it's gonna be, or in the next few days, it's gonna be tariffs. He's raising those tariffs, raising your cost, Mr. and Mrs. American, by $2,000 a year if he raises all these tariffs, so that he can use that money for tax cuts for the billionaires. He's cutting your education funds, and so your kids don't get a great education, and your school taxes will go up for that. So we have started doing this day in, day out, every day, fighting relentlessly. His numbers have gon- started to go down from 51 to 47. If we keep at it and keep at it and keep at it, his numbers will be much lower. He will not only be less popular, but less effective. Second-... we will find the moments where we shouldn't give them votes. We're, we're, Hakeem and I met yesterday, we're exploring that right now, and there will be times, just like this instance, where people will say, "Don't give them the votes 'cause you have the leverage." It will be, there will be instances, not like this, where a shutdown would ex- ensue, but where we'll, we will have the higher ground. And we're gonna do it. Watch us.

Mm-hmm.

I thought I'd have more say talking about it on the left, although it's awful on the right too. Um, and I kept thinking and thinking and thinking, and said I had to write the book. The book, in conclusion, is aimed at five (laughs) different audiences. First, my generation. We feel alone. We feel sort of isolated. What is happening? I thought I could, going through my experience, not so different than the, than my generation's experience, would give people some help in feeling that they're not alone. Second, to their children. Our children are Jewish and proudly Jewish and pro-Israel, most of them, but they don't know the history, how Israel was beleaguered, how, uh, so much, um, uh, uh, uh, uh, change occurred, um, from back then. Third group are Christians who were, have goodwill to Jews. And they understand there's antisemitism, but their sort of attitude is, "You're making too big a fuss about it." They don't carry 5,000 years of history on our back. And when it starts, sometimes it doesn't stop. Fourth group was the left, 'cause I felt an obligation to talk to the left about antisemitism, where I thought I could better than others. But finally, it's America. And I hope every college and every high school will make this either required reading or at least advisory reading, 'cause people don't know the histories.... of the young people, 20% think the Holocaust is a lie and another 50% have no knowledge what it is.

Hmm.

So in 2001, for the first time after 9/11, we saw these conspiracy theories.

Oh, the Jews did it.

All the Jews evacuated the building, et cetera.

But okay.

It was not good, but it didn't lead to a huge spread of antisemitism.

2008 got a little worse because of the financial crisis and the international conspiracy, and there were all kinds of theories, George Soros.

I know.

... cost you see to the constitutional order of a shutdown that isn't already being done now?

It's a dramatic cost.

Here's why, Chris.

Under a shutdown, it is the executive branch, in this case Trump, Musk, Doge, and Vogt, who's head of the OMB, who we all know are authoritarians, vicious, nasty, who would have sole control over what is funded and what isn't.

They get to determine what is a, quote, "essential service," and they will just cut to smithereens, far greater than in the CR bill, which is a lousy bill.

Far greater than that what could be funded and what couldn't, and there's no recourse.

You can't go to court.

They came out against the CR, which really surprised me, right? These were the people that seemed to have the most skin in the game on precisely the terms you're enunciating, and they said, "The fact that this CR has no protections that will actually be followed means that we can't support it." If, if the people whose livelihoods are on the line say you have to, you cannot go along with this thing, why are they wrong?