[0:05]Donald Trump rang in 2026 with billionaires and ice sculptures and caviar in Palm Beach. This according to a viral video shared by US senators and California Governor Gavin Newsom. Donald Trump literally rolled out the red, in his case actually black carpet for his own entrance.
[0:20]While Democrats were quick to point out the irony of how the out of touch lame duck, deeply unpopular $400 million dollar ballroom president started the new year. Joining us at the table host of Politics Nation and president of the National Action Network, the Reverend Al Sharpton.
[0:34]Tim is still with us. So this is clearly a president who's either out of touch with average daily working Americans who do not want to see their president doing that or he's a lame duck president. He's fully aware of it and is out of touch.
[0:51]He's spending his days attacking George Clooney and going after American actors as an average guy. What do you make of this? Both. I think that he is out of touch. I think that he always was. I think that people misinterpreted his anger
[1:07]and grudge at him being not regarded and respected by the elite crowd. When I had my interactions with him in New York, he would always complain no matter if we were marching on him or whatever. These guys on Park Avenue don't respect me either.
[1:21]You didn't see him at those spots. I think he was able to communicate that to people, working class people, blue collar workers around the country who didn't understand he was not reacting for the same reasons. He wanted to make deals with them. He wanted to go to the Regency for breakfast with them.
[1:38]They wanted a decent living. I think that's who he is. But at the same time, I think in his heart of hearts, he knows that he's a lame duck. He'll huff and puff like you blow the house down and act like he can go for a third term.
[1:51]He knows that's not going to happen. I think he's going to squeeze all he can out of the last several days or years, now three years unfortunately. He's going to try to make as much money as he can and have as much fun as he can.
[2:04]Yeah, probably for his family as well. I don't know if you saw this video, Tim, but we'll play it for you and our viewers. It was the DHS secretary, Kristi Noem and Stephen Miller dancing to Ice Ice Baby. The idea of watching these two people dance, but
[2:19]then also to Ice Ice Baby. The cruelty here is what this is about. People in America right now, families are being ripped apart from each other. People are being deported in violent and ugly ways that we're seeing. The White House social media accounts are basically trolling
[2:34]people day in and day out. They're really kind of reveling in this. People can't afford groceries. And your Homeland Security Secretary and Stephen Miller are dancing. Yeah, I kind of hate you for showing me that. Actually, I knew it existed. I saw it in my feed, but I scrolled past.
[2:49]I was like, I don't need this today. So now I've seen it. At least the caviar dinner that Donald Trump is having isn't doing any damage to anybody. You know what I mean? This is a lot sicker. There's like making light of this.
[3:04]You have these masked agents. Like disrupted a lot of holidays this year, disrupted a lot of families. Picking people up from Walmart shopping parking lots while they're getting Christmas presents for their families. Having people, people that were wrongly sent back to countries they never lived.
[3:20]You know, I was reading about this young woman who got sent to Honduras, who was just trying to fly home for the holidays to see her family. She had been brought here as a kid. So it's like dance around and joke about it. You've seen all the AI memes they do.
[3:35]They had the ice Santa and all this stuff. It's disgusting. And I just think substantively, the policy is bad. I also think the messaging is potentially harming them, as you see their numbers coming down. I mean, I was watching the Joe Rogan interview last week where
[3:50]he was, him and Shane Gillis were talking about this and they're just like, you know, they were for the stronger border. They're for deporting the criminals. But this kind of stuff doesn't resonate even with people that voted for him. You talk about messaging. Let me play for you a contrast to that type of messaging.
[4:06]It was Mayor Zahran Mamdani during his inauguration speech yesterday. Watch this. If you are a New Yorker, I am your mayor. Regardless of whether we agree, I will protect you, celebrate
[4:26]with you, mourn alongside you, and never, not for a second, hide from you. For too long, those fluent in the good grammar of civility have deployed decorum to mask agendas of cruelty. Many of these people have been betrayed by
[4:41]the established order. But in our administration, their needs will be met. We will answer to all New Yorkers, not to any billionaire or oligarch who thinks they can buy our democracy. So the contrast there, Rev, is pretty stark, right?
[4:56]Because you can see it just not in the words, but in the pictures. One guy is having caviars and tuxedos with black carpets and chandeliers. And here's another one saying we will not answer to billionaires and oligarchs. And I think he means it. I mean, I've gotten to know him and talk with him a lot
[5:11]over the last several months. He's come to National Action Network a few times. And I sense, I mean, even when you've been in this as long as I have, you kind of sense when a guy is putting on a performance or when he's talking, the vibe comes.
[5:28]I think the devil's in the details that he gets the help he needs and the staff he needs to enact it, because there's a difference between governing and running. And even the best guys have to find that. I watched President Obama go through a lot of that
[5:41]because I had access to him. But I think that he means what he says. And I also think that Trump means what he's doing. He means to be an oligarch. This is not an accident. He means to be a rich, ruthless guy, uncaring guy, which is
[5:58]why people could dance to ICE at a party. Like this is a joke. You're snatching kids out of school. And they want that. But if you grow up with that kind of mentality that a lot of the New York guys that he grew up under who were not that
[6:16]well placed in terms of proper society, you celebrate your ruthlessness as I think, man, Danny celebrates his humanity. The holiday break for Congress is almost over with the House and Senate both back in session on Monday.
[6:32]And one key issue we're expecting them to confront, the slower than mandated rollout of the Epstein files by the DOJ. Lawyers are combing through five million more documents left to review, according to reporting from Reuters and the New York Times.
[6:46]Let's bring in former federal prosecutor Ankush Kudori. Ankush, lawyers who pushed for the release are very unhappy about this. Lawmakers, I should say, are very unhappy about the slow rollout here. They floated the idea of inherent contempt or
[7:00]even impeachment articles against Pam Bondi, the AG. Realistically, though, what can they do to hold the DOJ accountable and force the full release? Look, I think their options are very limited here. I mean, they can initiate contempt proceedings and maybe find Pam Bondi.
[7:16]It's not clear to me that there is actually majority support in the Congress for that. So and the whole problem with this exercise was ultimately going to be up to the Justice Department and the Trump administration to decide how they handled this. And you know, I think there are multiple reasons why, you
[7:29]know, we're here where we are. One reason is that Congress crafted and passed it a very broad and indiscriminate law. And I've seen some at least one member suggest that if you criticize the breadth of the law that they passed, you're somehow
[7:44]on the side of sex traffickers or protecting Epstein. And I find the suggestion absurd and frankly outrageous. There were many options between doing nothing and dumping millions of pages of documents into the public domain so the whole world could have them.
[7:59]They could have produced a much more targeted law calling just for the internal DOJ, FBI memos, interview, interview summaries and summaries of evidence. So that's one problem we have here. A bigger problem is that the DOJ was clearly caught flat footed and not prepared to do this as they should have been.
[8:15]And the far biggest and most important here element here is that this is all downstream of Trump's relationship with Epstein and the administration's really bungling of this whole issue since the inauguration. You bring up a really interesting point there.
[8:29]Should we be expecting to have hearings on the Hill on this and who would we expect to testify? Yeah, no, I do expect some hearings. I mean, look, Pam Bondi may be testifying in the new year. Cash Patel may be testifying in the new year. These are totally appropriate questions to be asking them.
[8:46]I think one big question is, you know, last year, the DOJ and FBI issued a memo, a joint memo, unsigned memo saying that they had reviewed the investigation and they concluded there was nothing left to be done. Now, that memo is what spurred a firestorm here. But how is it that they crafted that memo if they did not
[9:03]even know how many millions of pages of documents that they had? So they're going to have to reconcile that at some point. I expect Congress to press them on that at some point. Yeah, there's something incongruous here. Attorney General Todd Blanch says that the department is now working around the clock and recruiting extra
[9:18]lawyers even to try to help with this review. Now we're hearing there's another five million documents they're combing through as well. How long could this take? Should it take for the DOJ to process all of these documents? And as you alluded to, you know, they can't they maybe can't or
[9:33]shouldn't just dump everything out in the public domain without making sure it's fully vetted. Well, absolutely. They need to protect at a minimum the victims. But look, they're complying with the law very belatedly. The fact that they weren't prepared for this is a violation
[9:48]of the law in terms of how quickly this is going to happen. I mean, I really think it's important to press upon the public. This is incredibly, incredibly unusual. According to reporting, the DOJ now has diverted hundreds of prosecutors from the national security and criminal divisions to work on this.
[10:03]I cannot even begin to tell you that is countless criminal investigations that are going to be delayed and upheld and interfered with as a result of this. Nobody can decide for themselves whether that's an appropriate balance. But there is going to be that cost. The DOJ has said they're planning to get this
[10:17]done by January 20th. I'm very skeptical that they will hit that deadline. Of course, they've already missed the most important deadline and they don't seem to have their arms around this this project. So I don't think this is going to be over on January 20th.
[10:31]Ankush, Hadouri, I really hope we can continue this conversation soon. I had so many questions I wanted to ask you, but we're out of time. Thank you so much. Joining us now, Democratic member of the Foreign Relations and Judiciary Committee, Senator Chris Coons of Delaware.
[10:45]Senator, good morning. Happy New Year to you. Let's start. Happy New Year. Let's start overseas. And there's no shortage of news. But let's begin with Venezuela. The president has commissioned dozens at this
[11:01]point of strikes on boats. And last week there was news that the U.S. has hit at least once on land in Venezuela as well. And now Maduro suggesting he's open to negotiations. Where do you what's your thought on where things stand right now?
[11:16]We seem to be approaching some sort of inflection point. Well look, President Trump ran on lowering your costs, making America healthy again and avoiding stupid new wars overseas. He's failing on all three. Health care costs are going to skyrocket now
[11:31]for millions of Americans. That was part of the surprise of New Year's for folks who get their health care through the Affordable Care Act. But in Venezuela, he's been sleepwalking without a clear policy or a clear path forward into
[11:48]a conflict with one of our hemisphere's most capable authoritarian regimes. Has this really been about interdicting drugs? Maduro's willing to negotiate about stopping the regime's support for drug trafficking. Is this about access to oil?
[12:02]That is something President Trump's talked about. And his chief of staff, Suzy Wiles, admitted in a Vanity Fair article that frankly this is about regime change. In neither case does it make sense with no plan for what
[12:18]would come next for us to use American soldiers and military force to directly try to overthrow Maduro. So this might be the off ramp that Trump needs. And frankly, he has to focus on the war in Ukraine, on the
[12:33]humanitarian crisis in Gaza, on the status of Taiwan, all big issues where he has failed to use tools at his disposal. One last point. He's been using our military to interdict oil tankers because there is this ghost fleet that helps keep
[12:49]Venezuela's regime alive. He should be using those same tools to interdict the ghost fleet that helps fund Russia's brutal war machine, that helps keep the Iranian regime alive and help support North Korea.
[13:06]He'd get bipartisan support for more actions to get tough on Putin and to begin to slow the flow of money into Putin's murderous war machine against Ukraine. Yeah, the Ukrainians have targeted some of Russia's ghost fleet, perhaps with some U.S.
[13:20]assistance. But you're right. It has not been a significant priority for this president. You mentioned Iran. Let's go there next. The president at 3 a.m. posting that the U.S. will be locked and loaded, in his words, about what's going on in Tehran.
[13:36]Now, certainly there's some hope to be seen, perhaps, in some of these peace protests there. You can see the Truth Social Post on your screen right now, Senator. But this is a remarkable escalation in rhetoric. It is.
[13:50]And one of the most unsettling and dangerous things that President Trump does is these unhinged tweets at 3 a.m. There have been nights recently where he fires off a hundred tweets on a dozen different subjects. And I feel for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, if you were
[14:05]responsible for leading the U.S. military and implementing directives from our commander in chief, what would you conclude from that tweet that we are locked and loaded and ready to go to support Iran's protesters?
[14:21]I do think it's appropriate to put more pressure on Iran's regime to say to protesters, we see you and we support the Iranian people in their legitimate aspirations to be out from under this terrible regime. But to threaten military action, to say we're locked and loaded,
[14:39]is just another empty threat, like Trump's threats to take over Greenland or Panama or Canada. And it frankly means that leaders around the world are either laughing at us or scared by what he's going to tweet next at 3 a.m. tonight. Yeah, it reminded me of his
[14:56]fire and fury threats to North Korea back in the first term. You know, you mentioned this president at the Times, really angry rhetoric in these tweets, but one place he hasn't directed that rhetoric, at least not often, is the Kremlin and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
[15:13]You know, I think there is a sense that Ukrainians at least feel like, well, the tenor of our talks with the U.S. have been better of late, but still a long way to go in terms of getting a deal done. And yet the president has still not shown any inclination to put real pressure, the tools, you mentioned the
[15:26]tools he has at his disposal. He's not using them against Putin. That's right. One of the striking things about President Trump's budget request for the military this year was it stripped out all
[15:40]funding for support for Ukraine. I'm the senior Democrat on defense appropriations and we're working hard to make sure that those resources for intelligence sharing, for the purchase of our weapons systems by Europe and support for Ukraine in its
[15:59]fight against Russian aggression remain a part of our posture with our allies in Europe. He's tried doing everything he can to give Putin what he wants, literally rolling out the red carpet for him in a meeting in Alaska now months ago.
[16:14]And he's pushed and pushed and pushed Zelensky and the brave men and women of Ukraine to make concessions of territory. Frankly, at this point, Putin's response is blindingly clear. Night after night, Putin launches waves of drones and
[16:29]missiles at civilian targets. The first lady is clear about what's going on. She's demanding that her husband, the president, take action against a murderous regime that has kidnapped tens of thousands of young Ukrainians.
[16:47]And there is bipartisan support in the Senate for us to take stronger action against Putin's regime for all the war crimes they've committed. It's time for Trump to be clear. Putin's playing him for a fool. He looks like a he looks like a man who doesn't understand who's
[17:03]the aggressor and who's the victim. And he can end this war if he puts pressure on Putin. Senator Coons, hi, it's Molly Johnfast. I was wondering about the Epstein files. The Department of Justice has five point two
[17:20]million million pages of Epstein related documents left to review. They've had these documents for years, right? Just can you explain to us what is happening here? Because that seems pretty insane.
[17:34]I certainly can't justify it. And the only explanation I can come up with, Molly, is that they've been dragging their feet on complying with a law that passed Congress almost unanimously. It passed the Senate unanimously and Trump
[17:48]was forced to sign it. They didn't just miss their deadline to release all the Epstein files. They blew right past it, clearly because they are trying as hard as possible to make sure there's nothing in there
[18:03]that is damaging or embarrassing to Trump and some of his billionaire friends. So, frankly, this is an embarrassment that the Department of Justice has profoundly failed to meet this moment, to stand up for victims, to meet the
[18:19]transparency requirements that Congress has imposed on them. And the idea that it's going to take them weeks or months of hundreds of Department of Justice employees going through these files when they've had a year to do it is just another striking example of them failing
[18:37]at their core mission, which in this case is standing up for victims. So, Senator Coons, obviously Congress, including the Senate, gets back in session next week. One of the questions right off the gate will be about Jack Smith, whether he's going to be testifying before
[18:51]the Senate likely in early part of this year. There's some thought that this time it would be an open hearing. It was decidedly not open in the House when he appeared there. It was closed, but then the transcript and video released in what would only be described as a classic news dump, the
[19:07]afternoon of New Year's Eve, December 31st, when most of the world not paying attention. And if the Republicans' goal was to sort of obscure what Smith had to say, you could understand why. I mean, he's very forthright, very clear. And frankly, I'd like to hear your thoughts on this. It seemed to be laying out a pretty strong case against
[19:26]President Trump on a number of realms, in particularly his handling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. Well, Jack Smith, in his testimony before the House, made it perfectly clear that President Trump was responsible for the dramatic mishandling
[19:42]of highly classified documents, storing them in his bathroom and his basement at Mar-a-Lago, mishandling them in a way that violates the basic principles of how we're supposed to handle highly sensitive material. I expect that we'll have him before us on the
[19:57]Senate Judiciary Committee. Chairman Grassley has for decades championed whistleblowers, and I think he owes it to the American people to deliver on transparency so we can be clear about what did and didn't happen and move
[20:11]past this chapter. Look, as we get into 2026, what I hear from Delawareans is they're concerned, even alarmed, about health care costs, about the rising costs of living from groceries to housing, about
[20:26]the softening job market and about the Epstein files and Trump wandering into a war in Venezuela. Having a hearing about Jack Smith is an important opportunity to set the record straight, but we also as Democrats coming into what's going to be an important
[20:42]election year need to have a clear, crisp set of things that we will do this year to stand up to Trump and his lawless administration and next year if we get the opportunity to play a part in governing at the state level and the national level.
[20:58]One of the most important midterm elections this nation has seen in a very long time. It is here. It is 2026. Democratic Senator Chris Coons of Delaware. Senator, thank you as always. We'll talk to you again soon. Let's discuss that with MSNOW Capitol Hill reporter Kevin
[21:12]Frey, our reporter Maya Eaglin here in New York, and we're joined by MSNOW political analyst, former Democratic Congresswoman Donna Edwards. Maya, starting with you, just lay out the scope of what we could see here when it comes to the monthly increases that people are going to see.
[21:27]Yeah, this is going to impact a ton of people want to take a look at some of these numbers. The average premium, according to health care experts, could increase 114% after those failed extensions for those subsidies. Over 20 million people impacted.
[21:42]However, some states like Massachusetts, Oregon and New Mexico provide state subsidies for low income enrollees, and they're trying to close the gap there. If you zoom in on those 20 million people though, it's usually people without employee sponsored
[21:58]insurance, those who don't qualify for Medicaid or Medicare, and small business owners, entrepreneurs, farmers, folks with less resources are going to be hit hardest here. Yeah. So Kevin, before Congress recessed for the holidays, a handful of Republicans joined
[22:13]the Democrats to force a vote on extending the ACA subsidies. So what happens when they return next week? Right. I mean, remember there was a lot of pressure points in December. There was this looming deadline. You saw an attempt by Republicans who kind of admitted they had to do something to get caught trying to put forward
[22:33]a bill, but it didn't address the expiring subsidies, that House bill. So while it passed the House, it's not going anywhere on the Senate side. And so you saw this handful of more moderate Republicans in these competitive congressional districts that if they do not act are more or less facing the chance of losing their
[22:50]seat in Congress, signing onto this discharge petition for a three year extension of those subsidies. Now that's already failed in the Senate. It's not going to become law, but the hope is from some moderates, both on the Democrat and the Republican side of the aisle is that this would force action and reaching a bipartisan
[23:05]compromise. So in terms of the timeline right now, we're looking at over the next two weeks, the House will vote on this three year extension bill. Send it over to the Senate side where bipartisan negotiations have been ongoing, including, I'm told, over
[23:20]the holiday break. And then they will potentially put forward an alternative, maybe a two year extension, a one year extension of the subsidies with various reforms that might be more palatable to what Republicans have been demanding, like,
[23:33]for example, income caps. And then they could send that bill back over to the House for final passage and extend these subsidies in some form for a few years to address the health care costs. Of course, this involves a lot of ifs.
[23:46]Will the Senate be able to actually come to a deal? They have struggled to do so over the last several months. Will leadership of both houses, the Republican leaders, put those bills on the floor for consideration? They'll face a lot of pressure to do so from their moderates. But that's another open question.
[24:00]Yeah. And another big variable, Kevin, is whether President Trump himself will get involved here. We know the president was pretty hands off with ACA negotiations during the shutdown. Now that the price hikes are officially upon us and it's a midterm year, are GOP lawmakers going to demand that the
[24:18]White House step in here, less some sort of plan? I mean, look, they have been. If you talk to Republicans on the Hill on the side, they will tell you, many of them, that they would like to see the president more directly hands on in these negotiations
[24:33]in no small part because it would basically force Republicans to move forward. Yes, there have been obviously some very notable breakings from Trump in recent weeks and months by Republicans, including prominent members of the MAGA movement. But the president still has a lot of sway on Capitol Hill.
[24:49]And so if he's able to put forward a proposal that could move things along. Keep in mind his idea, and he has repeatedly gone back to this, is essentially replacing the extended enhanced subsidies with HSA accounts, sending the money directly to consumers.
[25:04]That is an idea that Republicans have been working on, but it would be a much bigger lift than just a simple extension. Yeah, that's something Bill Cassidy has been trying to push through. We don't know how much support there will be for that or whether it's logistically possible. But Donna, Republicans, as Kevin alluded to, want to see those
[25:20]guardrails to protect against fraud. They want to see caps on credits to hire income earners. Some of them demand the Hyde Amendment, anti-abortion protections for any extension. We of course know that's a non-starter for Democrats. But what kind of compromises should Democrats take a
[25:36]look at to push through a fix in Congress? Look, I think there is a sweet spot for a negotiation and for a compromise. And it is on the income caps for higher income earners. It's on putting some guardrails against fraud.
[25:55]So I do think that there is the ability to do that. But I think when the president stepped in back in December, he dipped his toe in offering a solution. He was rebuked by conservatives. And so he's going to have to really lean, I think,
[26:11]on Republican members. Otherwise, the Republican Party, Republicans across the country are going to face a real backlash by voters and consumers because these health care spikes are really huge.
[26:28]And frankly, the HSA, the Health Savings Account program, really doesn't work because the amount that's being proposed, about $1,000, doesn't really go to the costs, the high costs and increased costs of the premiums. So Maya, according to KFF, if ACA premiums double, one in
[26:47]four enrollees say that they're likely to just drop their insurance altogether. So speaking of voters, of Americans who are affected by this, what are they telling you? They're at a crossroads, right? So many of them are having to make these really difficult decisions, some of them moving back home with other family members, others jumping off of health
[27:03]care completely and just hoping that they don't get sick. I want to play a conversation with a mother who was enrolled in ACA from Virginia. Her name is Kathleen Winters. She spoke to her colleague, Ariel Hickson. It could be anywhere from, you know, $3,600 more for the
[27:22]year to almost $20,000 more for the year. And I'm not sure, or $20,000 total for the year. So I don't know even where we'll find the $300, if that's all it is. That's a really significant increase. It's almost doubling. We pay $1,200 a month for preschool for my four year old.
[27:40]Like I don't think most people have an extra $300 a month that they can easily absorb. It would frankly be catastrophic if it really is going to be $1,000 more a month. So for folks who do get their health insurance from healthcare.com, they have until January
[27:54]15th when open enrollment ends. It's really important to check your new numbers and make your decision for your family there. So if people do ditch their insurance, what kind of prices are they going to be dealing with when it comes to their health care, like medication? Yeah, most medications are way more expensive
[28:10]without insurance, especially specialty drugs for cancer, HIV, autoimmune diseases. And so you can go with generic drugs from pharmacies. There's also companies like GoodRx, Amazon Pharmacy that offer subsidizing kind of lower costs.
[28:25]Another thing to check out is city and state programs that can also help families that are low income and in need of medical care or medication. Really important advice there. And Donna, one of the main reasons for the ACA in the first place was reducing the number of uninsured Americans.
[28:39]Many Democrats saw Obamacare as the first step on the path towards universal health care, universal coverage. 15 years later, is that goal just totally politically out of reach? Well, look, I think that if we're going the direction that
[28:56]we're headed right now with so many people making a decision that they're going to come off of an insurance program at all, that means that mostly a lot of young people are going to say, you know what, I'm going to take my chances
[29:10]and I'm not going to get health insurance. And what that means for the entire system is that the costs really go up because you don't have a whole bunch of healthy young people in the system. So this is a real disaster. And people going into emergency rooms because they
[29:25]don't have primary care. And so they're using emergency rooms, which are much more costly than just going to a physician. So all of the health care costs would be driven up if we don't resolve this problem.
[29:41]Certainly ripple effects. I want to bring in now former Republican governor of Ohio, John Kasich. Governor, thanks for dealing with the perils of Zoom. We're glad to have you with us. According to KFF, good to be with you. According to KFF polling, 84 percent of ACA enrollees,
[29:58]including nearly all Democrats and seven in ten Republicans say Congress should be extending these tax credits. The data was taken, of course, before these expired. But most enrollees say either President Trump or congressional Republicans deserve most of the blame here.
[30:14]So will health care be an Achilles heel for Republicans come the midterms? I think it's a big, big issue for them. I've been saying it since they could not get the subsidy extension done. You know, maybe there's still a chance.
[30:30]Maybe there is an opportunity here in the next month or so. You know, part of it is going to depend, I think, Ariel, as to whether the media continues to focus on this and point out the hardship, because the hardships are something that gets legislators attention.
[30:44]And you're going to try to run for reelection. You know, that's that's an issue. But secondly, it's a it's a matter of the heart. You know, you imagine if you didn't have any, excuse me, imagine if you didn't have any health insurance. What would you do?
[30:57]You know, to the emergency room, that is, as Donna was saying, that's the worst way to get health care. So I'd say two things. One is clearly I believe that these things should be extended to people who are needy. They can make a compromise here about what the
[31:11]income levels are. And I've talked to members of Congress who are pushing for a compromise. But here is the fundamental issue. Can we at some point change the health care system to be one that treats people to keep them healthy rather than
[31:25]treating them when they're sick? In order to do that, you need really significant leadership on both sides of the aisle. And what that means is that you have got to get doctors and hospitals, insurance companies, the pharma companies, lawyers
[31:41]in a room and come up with a program that bends the curve from the standpoint of I will give you an incentive to keep me healthy rather than treating me when I'm sick. In the meantime, those those subsidies need to be extended because people are up against the wall and it
[31:56]is just not right. And it needs to get done. And I give credit to a guy like Brian Fitzpatrick, a Republican from Philadelphia, who's been in the middle of this. And hopefully something can get done in the period of the next month or two.
[32:12]The Trump administration is expanding its response into alleged fraud by child care providers with the Small Business Administration announcing the suspension of nearly 7000 Minnesota borrowers. On Tuesday, the government froze child care payments to the state, but it isn't just Minnesota.
[32:27]The administration now says it will implement new requirements for child care payments nationwide. The move provoked by a viral video alleging fraud at child care facilities across Minnesota, which has many daycare providers and families rattled, wondering
[32:42]what the cuts mean moving forward now. Maria Steffel, executive director of the Neighborhood Development Alliance in St. Paul, Minnesota, whose organization partners with a nearby daycare, spoke about the impact of the freeze on funding. Look at this.
[32:59]You cannot blame an entire community or an entire group of service providers for a clip that is looking for fame. Everything is uncertain for me on what the outlook of 2026 might be.
[33:15]And joining me now is MSNOW reporter Alex Tabot. Alex, walk us through, talk me through what we know about these allegations against these Minnesota borrowers and how the Trump administration is responding and leveraging all of this. Well, Antonio, this bombshell announcement from the head
[33:33]of the SBA, Kelly Loeffler, is just the next installment of the Trump administration's federal funding crackdown on the state of Minnesota. In a post on X overnight, Loeffler wrote that her agency is suspending 6900 Minnesota borrowers
[33:48]amid suspected fraudulent activity. Loeffler says those borrowers were enrolled in the payment protection program and the economic injury disaster loan program, which the state has been relying on heavily since the COVID-19 pandemic.
[34:03]And in total, Loeffler says that those now suspended borrowers were approved for about 7900 loans worth about $400 million in total. She also said that these borrowers will be banned from future SBA loans, including disaster
[34:16]loans. And Antonio, it's important to note that Loeffler didn't substantiate or provide evidence for these specific claims, at least not yet. She hasn't given us the receipts. And this comes after the Department of Health and Human Services announced the freezing of about $185 million in federal
[34:36]funding that subsidizes child care centers across the state of Minnesota. And those child care centers are attended by about 19,000 children. So if the Department of Health and Human Services follows through with its recently announced plan to freeze all of that funding for child care centers
[34:51]in Minnesota as they investigate fraud, it's going to have a huge impact on low income families who have nothing to do with this potential scandal. And I say potential, Antonio, because the state of Minnesota has been investigating child care fraud for years,
[35:06]and it's only come up with a handful of convictions, at least so far. So Antonio, if you're picking up on a theme here, that's because there is one. The Trump administration announced the freezing of funding that will impact all of the 19,000 children who rely on these subsidized child care centers,
[35:23]not specifically targeting the funds that may have been connected to fraud. The Trump administration is demonizing the entire Somali diaspora in Minnesota, some 81,000 people, not just the 85 people of Somali descent who have been charged in fraud schemes in the state.
[35:42]Antonio, collective punishment seems like the name of the game. Alex, you've been to Minnesota recently and you've had the chance to speak to people there on the ground. What are they telling you about the kind of pressure they're dealing with, the threats, the rhetoric? What impact is it all having on the community there?
[36:01]There is a pervasive sense of fear. I was in Minnesota, the Twin Cities, Minneapolis, and St. Paul amid the peak of the ICE raids. And I talked to some members of Somali descent, Somali diaspora,
[36:16]who told me that they were afraid to go pick up their kids from school. They were afraid to go buy their groceries. They were afraid to go live their everyday lives, even though they were American citizens because of the racial profiling that they had seen
[36:31]on their streets, Antonio. And this is not dissimilar to what we've been seeing in so many other cities where these immigration raids have been cracking down. But the level of xenophobia from the president on down has
[36:48]really ramped up that sense of anxiety. Antonio. Alex Tabot, thank you so much for your detailed reporting. Appreciate you. Joining us now, the executive director of Children's Action Alliance, Januari Contreras. She's also a former government fraud prosecutor.
[37:02]Good to see you, Januari. So you used to run the division of HHS, which distributes federal funding for places like child care centers around the country. What kind of impact could this decision have on
[37:17]all of these families? Yeah, it's really important to understand that the headlines are very focused right now on Minnesota. But really, all parents need to be paying attention to these headlines because, as was mentioned, we know potentially
[37:34]there are some bad actors and there's a government fraud a lot. That's how I had a full time job doing that at one point. But what we need to focus on is there is a lot of change being implemented in a very short amount of time. And normally when we're making these changes, we do
[37:49]that in lockstep with states. We give them notice, we help them put the tools in place that they need. We all are anti-fraud at our core. We don't want people taking advantage of government funds.
[38:03]And here we have kids and parents are desperately in need of child care assistance. So we want to make sure every single dollar is made available for the children to be able to get child care. But it does create concerns when this is done overnight and
[38:21]child care providers, the child care infrastructure is pretty fragile. We saw that during the pandemic when parents didn't have anywhere to help them get to work safe quality places for their kids to be. And when we are making change like this so quickly, we
[38:37]create those concerns again. I want to ask you very quickly before I have to go to break just for you to expand a bit on what you mentioned there that typically HHS would work closely with the states on an issue like this. There would be a notification period.
[38:52]There would be time for an investigation to get the facts right first before you take drastic action. Is that right? January Contreras, thank you so much for breaking all that down and for sharing your experience