‘It’s your fault!’ MSNBC experts crack up as they listen to Trump passing blame
President Donald Trump spoke for an hour with NBC News White House correspondent Kristen Welker and claimed that things going wrong in America are the fault of former President Joe Biden — and things that go well are because of him.
The comment prompted an MSNBC economics panel to laugh Monday.
“When does it become the Trump economy?” Welker asked Trump in the extensive interview that aired Sunday.
“It partially is right now,” Trump replied. “I think the good parts are the Trump economy, and the bad parts are the Biden economy.”
Trump alleged the interview was "dishonest."
Speaking Monday, MSNBC host Ana Cabrera asked for a reaction from Jared Bernstein, former chairman of the Board of Economic Advisers.
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Well, my reaction is that if this interview goes well, it's because of me. And if it goes badly, it's because of the other panelists," Bernstein said, as the other panelists and the host cracked up laughing. "It's as simple as that."
Cabrera quipped, "That's what I tell my producers. It's your fault if I mess up."
"I can't imagine anyone hearing that thinking it's anything other than ridiculous," agreed Bernstein.
NBC News senior business correspondent Christine Romans warned that the big banks anticipate a coming recession due to Trump's trade war.
"Well, I mean, there's a big concern about his tariffs and whether they slow growth, and maybe lead to higher inflation, and the major banks are really struggling with whether this could be something that, instead of just being slower growth and higher inflation, actually is something really terrible: A recession," she said.
"JP Morgan puts it at a 60% chance [of] a recession. Goldman Sachs and Citi about a 40% to 45% chance. But Bank of America says you could avoid one. What does that mean? It means no one knows for sure."
However, the bad news is the U.S. isn't "debating how blockbuster the economy is. We're debating how bad the pain will be," she added.
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‘Baffling’: Inside the bizarre MAGA entourage given prime White House seats
A new report from The Guardian delves into the "new media" personalities given prime seats in the White House press room that many say are perpetuating propaganda through "fawning, softball, or otherwise baffling questions.”
One example is Podcast host Tim Pool, who joined the press room last week.
A known far-right conspiracy theorist, Pool was paid almost $10 million by Russian state media operatives to publish videos promoting Moscow’s interests and agenda, according to the Guardian.
In his question to Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, Pool attacked media outlets by asking, “I’m wondering if you can comment on their unprofessional behavior as well as elaborate if there’s any plans to expand access to new companies?”
“We want to welcome all viewpoints into this room,” Leavitt replied.
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Another pro-Trump ‘influencer’ allowed into the press room is Dominick McGee. Known as Dom Lucre, the Guardian described him as a “self-styled Black Maga influencer.”
He is known to disseminate conspiracy theories on social media, including amplifying Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election he lost was fraudulent, and promoting the QAnon fiction that the so-called deep state was conspiring to usurp the president.
He asked Leavitt, “Is there any possibility for names such as Barack Hussein Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton, to ever possibly get investigated for … any of the wrongdoings they might have done?”
The press secretary called the question “refreshing.”
One softball question Leavitt received came from TikTok creator Link Lauren.
Known as “Maga Malfoy” because of his resemblance to the Harry Potter character Draco Malfoy, he asked, “You’re a very high-profile young mother who seems to juggle and balance it all beautifully. What advice do you have to young parents out there who are starting their careers, having kids, building families, and trying to find that balance so desperately?”
Leavitt had no advice to offer.
MTG rages at Trump advisers: ‘Anyone that gets in the president’s ear and is lying to him’
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) raged that unnamed advisers to President Donald Trump were "lying to him."
During a Monday interview with MGA influencer Steve Bannon, Greene reflected on complaints she made last week about the Trump administration moving closer to war with Iran — and losing his MAGA base.
"First off, Fox is making a huge deal of this, everybody's making a huge deal of this," Bannon told Greene. "Now you see a wedge coming between the base and President Trump. Nothing would be further from the truth."
"That's a lie," Greene agreed. "The wedge is between Congress and the establishment Republicans that are undermining the president's agenda. And also anyone that gets in the president's ear and is lying to him about what he should be doing, you know, here's the real issue."
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"We are embracing Make America Great Again, MAGA, America First, MAHA, No More Foreign Wars, this whole populist movement supporting America and American workers and American companies and American interests and solving American problems," she continued. "What we saw is all these Republicans that rejected Trump fought Trump in his first administration."
"And here's the issue, Steve, is they think they can manipulate the president, but you can't manipulate the base."
‘Chaos’ at Trump’s ‘mega master’ court renders judges and defendants ‘terrified’: Report
The Trump administration's newly launched "mega master" court system has quickly devolved into mass chaos that leaves defendants, guards, lawyers and judges "terrified," according to a new report.
"Attorneys and former judges say mega master hearings serve as the latest tool for the Trump administration to deport large numbers of people," the Chicago Sun-Times reported Friday. "This time by causing chaos and confusion in the courts."
Courtroom 11 at Chicago's immigration court barely seats 25 people — but one July morning saw 60 people, mostly unrepresented asylum seekers, crammed in wall-to-wall by 9:10 a.m., the Sun-Times reported.
This is a "mega master" calendar hearing, a new procedural format instituted by the Trump administration at the end of May that packs between 100 and 185 people into a single judge's morning docket — up from an average of just 30 before the change.
Chicago's courthouse at 55 E. Monroe has logged more of these mass hearings than any other immigration court in the country, according to immigration scholar Austin Kocher.
The scale has created conditions former immigration judges call dangerous.
On days when multiple mega hearings are scheduled simultaneously, hundreds of people — including families with strollers — spill into hallways narrower than an adult's arm span, waiting for hours to be called.
On one recent Thursday, roughly 200 people queued in the heat outside courtrooms designed to hold a fraction of that number.
"This is not good," one guard was overheard saying. Former judges have raised concerns that the overcrowded hallways amount to a fire hazard.
Attorneys and former judges argue the hearings serve to discourage immigrants from showing up at all, then fast-tracking deportations for those who don't.
In June, for the first time since 2019, more immigrants missed their Chicago court dates than attended — 58 percent of the 10,370 people summoned nationwide in June were marked absent, according to data from the nonprofit Mobile Pathways. Missing court can trigger an automatic in absentia deportation order.
Compounding the pressure, notice periods have collapsed. Median lead time for a Chicago hearing fell to just 34 days in June, down from 229 days in May.
The Justice Department, which oversees immigration courts, says the expanded scheduling is meant to clear long-standing backlogs.
But former judge Elizabeth Treacy, who resigned in June after presiding over three mega hearings with up to 150 people each, said the volume makes errors — and injustice — nearly inevitable.
She noted that indigenous asylum seekers with limited Spanish fluency are especially unlikely to speak up when they don't understand proceedings in a crowded, intimidating room.
“It’s not a coincidence, but another tactic to facilitate deportations,” said Stephanie Spiro, an attorney with the National immigration Justice Center.
“It’s much more efficient for the government to deport people without even having to read any briefs, without having to have a full hearing, without having to schedule hundreds of people, and actually listen to their claims, and afford them due process.”
That fear caused Carolina, an immigrant from Venezuela who just gave birth, to question whether she should show up for her hearing.
She and her husband eventually decided to risk deportation and bring their three children to court.
“I was terrified," she said.
