Lawrence: Trump says 65% of Americans are ‘FOOLS!’

Well, Donald Trump, who is facing the disapproval of 54 percent of Americans, continues his politically losing ways by saying something that could get that disapproval number up, something that no president in history has ever said. Two-thirds of Americans are fools. Donald Trump put that in writing. Donald Trump said in writing, people that are against tariffs are fools.

65% of Americans are fools, according to Donald Trump. 65%. 65% of Americans oppose the Trump tariffs, and Donald Trump's response to that is to call them fools with an exclamation point. 65% of the country knows that Donald Trump's tariffs are causing inflation, causing them higher costs that they're facing. 65% know that the Trump tariffs are economically hurting them.

And Donald Trump calls them fools and then says he wants to send them all a check for $2,000 to compensate for the economic harm that his tariffs have caused those people. The Wall Street Journal editorial board responded to that idea saying, quote,

"'If tariffs are a free economic lunch "'and their benefits abound, why offer a rebate?' Donald Trump is the most inconsistent, incoherent, ignorant federal elected official in history on the subject of tariffs. And because he spreads so much madness and chaos every day,

the Washington news media is incapable of what would be their standard reaction to a politician saying that 65 percent of Americans are fools. There would be outrage. Imagine once again if Joe Biden or Kamala Harris or Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton had ever said 65 percent of Americans are fools.

Imagine the number of articles that would pour forth out of the Washington news media about how elitist and out of touch that Democrat is for saying 65 percent of the American people are fools. Donald Trump can say it, and the Washington news media doesn't even notice it, because his madness has understandably worn them down. They have lowered their standards for Donald Trump.

Later in this hour, we will hear from President Obama's chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, Jason Furman, on Donald Trump's idea about paying $2,000 to 225 million people he calls fools. Also later in the hour we'll hear from an expert on how to refund tariffs. If the Supreme Court properly rules that Donald Trump's tariffs are illegal and unconstitutional, then those illegally collected tariffs will have to be refunded.

And Donald Trump is lying about such a refund, now claiming that it would involve trillions of dollars being refunded from the Treasury. That is a complete lie. Only $195 billion has been collected in Trump tariffs, and all of that could easily be refunded. The IRS refunds that much every year in overpaid income taxes.

Our guest, joining us later in the hour, will show you exactly how tariffs are paid and exactly how they can be refunded, and it's just as easy as the refund that the Treasury sends to millions and millions of income taxpayers every year. That expert will show you an actual receipt for tariffs paid, $98,000 in tariffs paid, which includes all the information that the Treasury needs to refund that tariff money to the American payer of the Trump tariff. But we begin tonight with your feelings.

There was much disappointment about the way the end of the shutdown was brokered in the United States Senate by five Democratic senators who appeared to change their position at the end of seven weeks of shutdown. By the time I presented that news last night, there had been an outpouring of outrage on social media all day about Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer failing to control every Democratic vote in the Senate, something no Democratic leader of the Senate has

ever been able to consistently do. The late-night comedians had their usual fun at Chuck Schumer's expense. Some of them clearly think that they would be better at the job of Democratic leader of the United States Senate, because obviously it's easy in their view. When I explained what I think is the reality of Senate leadership here last night, based on my experience working in the Senate, I wasn't so much concerned with the feelings of the disappointed than I was with the reality of the situation and getting that reality

as clear as possible here. But our first guest tonight is much better at addressing feelings than I am as he showed in this video posted yesterday.

I know that a lot of people are feeling some pretty strong feelings today, feelings of frustration, even betrayal. I have somewhat the advantage of, from being in the Senate, being a couple of days ahead of everybody, seeing that this was going to happen. So I've had a bit more time to process it than people who discovered it yesterday. And while I think everybody is entitled to their feelings on this, and I don't want to derogate those in any way, we need to remember the battle that we're in.

And every ounce of energy that we put into fighting with each other, fighting with other Democrats, is energy that is lost to the fight to defend our country from Trump and MAGA. Whatever your feelings are, I validate them. Great. Feel that way.

But we've got a battle on our hands and it's a battle whose real game day is November a year from now, when we have the chance to throw Speaker Johnson out of the Speaker's office and put the Senate under Democratic control and put real obstacles in the way of Trump's corruption and misconduct.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse is one of the people who one of our faithful viewers suggested on Twitter last night should be the new Senate Democratic leader. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse is one of the people who one of our faithful viewers suggested on Twitter last night should be the new Senate Democratic leader. I'll ask Senator Whitehouse if he thinks Chuck Schumer should be replaced as leader and if he wants that job. It's worth noting that no Democratic member of the Senate has said their leader should

be replaced. And we now have reporting indicating that the small group of Democratic senators who reached a compromise with Republicans started working on that compromise on the first night of the government shutdown seven weeks ago. Politico reports Senators Gene Shaheen of New Hampshire and Angus King of Maine began talking with Republicans the first night of the shutdown by Shaheen's account.

So with a small group of Democrats working with Republicans from the first night of the shutdown, Chuck Schumer was able to convince those Democrats not to make a deal until after last week's election. Donald Trump himself blamed the shutdown for the Republicans' wipeout in last week's election. And if that's true, does Chuck Schumer deserve some credit

for pushing the shutdown through last week's election so it could have that impact on the election? The final Democratic vote that sealed the deal came from Tim Kaine of Virginia, who was Hillary Clinton's vice presidential running mate. There appears to be a belief out there that the minority leader of the Senate can simply tell Tim Kaine what to do.

Tim Kaine said that his number one issue in the shutdown was always protecting federal government workers. And he achieved some protection for government workers, many of whom live in his state of Virginia, in his negotiations with Republicans. Political reports Tim Kaine privately laid out weeks ago what he needed in return for his vote to end the government shutdown, a

moratorium on mischief. He meant no more firing of federal workers. So there's the final vote that sealed the deal, that got them to 60. The final vote sealed the deal, negotiating with Republicans for weeks, negotiating with Republicans weeks before last week's election. And through it all, Chuck Schumer tried to hold on to those Democrats. Undoubtedly to Chuck Schumer, who told members involved in the talks about two weeks ago

he could not support the deal they were sketching out, continued privately urging them to hold out even as they moved to concede this week. Every Democratic senator had exactly the same chance to talk Tim Kaine out of it, every single one of them. Every Democratic senator had a chance to try to change John Fetterman's mind, but John

Fetterman and two other Democrats voted with the Republicans even before any compromise was struck. There were three Democrats siding with the Republicans basically from the start on this shutdown, and so the shift to a compromise was done by only five Democrats, and that then added up to a total of eight Democrats who were willing to vote for the compromise that brought that total to the necessary 60 votes. The minority party has never won a major concession in a government shutdown. It's never happened.

That's one of the facts that moved those five senators toward compromise. Most of the people with the most hurt feelings about this seem to believe that they know for a fact what was going to happen next in the government shutdown. They have mistaken their guesses for facts. There are never answers for what happens next in a government shutdown, only guesses. And in the past, the reason shutdowns ended is that both sides were rational.

Donald Trump is not rational. Donald Trump is not running for re-election. Donald Trump doesn't care about anything. Donald Trump doesn't care about starving people. Donald Trump doesn't care about health insurance premiums. Donald Trump doesn't care about starving people. Donald Trump doesn't care about health insurance premiums. Donald Trump doesn't care about government itself.

That makes him a unique negotiating partner in American political history. He has no political future to care about, and he doesn't care about the future of his political party. The five Democrats who made the compromise made the guess that they were never going to get the big thing they were asking for. So they asked for and got something smaller.

Only in the age of Trump, with a news media that lost perspective a long time ago, could this outcome be reported as a loss for the Democrats, meaning all Democrats, instead of a strategic choice by five Democrats who changed their position in exchange for 271 Republicans, including the president, changing their positions and agreeing to increased funding for supplemental nutrition assistance, for agreeing to protect government workers, to not allow Donald Trump to fire them, not

allow any of the layoffs that Donald Trump has executed during the shutdown to hold. All of those people will be rehired because of what Tim Kaine negotiated. They will all get back pay. There was nothing unusual in what those five Democrats did. There is no reason to presume that they were trying to sabotage anyone.

Everything that they've publicly said about it indicates that those five Democrats were trying to do the right thing in an unprecedented situation, a situation that no one in the Senate has ever faced before. And the choice that they made was a guess, just like the rest of the Democrats, who guessed that the best thing was to keep the shutdown going, to try for the first time in history to legislate from the minority in a shutdown.

A small minority of Americans pay Obamacare premiums. Six percent of Americans pay Obamacare premiums. The Democrats were holding out in the shutdown, fighting for those 6% of Americans who desperately need help to pay for health insurance. They are the kind of people that the Democratic Party and the Democratic Party alone cares about

and has cared about since Franklin Delano Roosevelt made concern about the people who need help from the government, the soul of the Democratic Party in 1933. And it has been ever since. That small group of people, 6% of the country, was successfully leveraged by the Democrats during the shutdown to show Trump Republican cruelty, to vividly show it in a way that anyone could understand it.

Without the attention of the shutdown, 94% of the country would have no idea that those premiums were going up. The shutdown made the Republican position hugely unpopular and my guess is it didn't just pay off in the last election, my guess is it will pay off in the next election. But that is just a guess, like everything else in this situation. I've seen many legislative losses in Congress and the smart losers never blame themselves.

They don't really admit they lost because they don't admit that it's over. They just say that they're gonna keep fighting. They treat it like the third inning of a nine-inning game, which is what it is. It is exactly what it is.

We're in the third inning in a nine-inning game. The sixth inning is a year from now in November, and the ninth inning is the next presidential election. And you can start attacking people on your own team in the third inning if you're that kind of player. Here's a guess, and it's just a guess.

Maybe, with Thanksgiving flights canceled and the holiday ruined for millions more people than the 6% who pay Obamacare premiums, a large majority of the country might turn against the small group of Obamacare beneficiaries who they would then see as ruining their Thanksgiving for the majority if the shutdown had continued through the holidays. Now, that's just a guess.

That's just a possible scenario. It's all it is. It's just a guess. I'm not suggesting that. I'm not. It's not.

It's not something I believe. I'm just coming up with it as an example. It's just a guess. But no senator, no senator could tell you that that absolutely would not happen. Maybe it would. Maybe most of the 94 percent who don't pay Obamacare premiums would resent the disruption of their holidays. Or maybe they wouldn't. Maybe they would be generous about it. Maybe

they would be thankful on Thanksgiving that they personally didn't have to pay higher Obamacare premiums and want to help those other people. Maybe they would want senators to keep fighting for that 6% of the country. Who knows? Your guess is as good as mine. Everyone's guess is as good as everyone else's guess. That's in the nature of guessing. So many of the people who were crushed by those five Democrats seem to think the future is a fact, not a guess.

They seem to think that when they look into the future, when they see the Thanksgiving holidays and the government shutdown, they can see facts and not just guesses. But the future is not a fact. The future is a guess, especially in politics. Sometimes the old saying, your guess is as good as mine, is where we end up.

Sometimes the old saying, your guess is as good as mine, is where we end up. And you can think that one Democratic senator's guess about what would happen in the future is better than another Democratic senator's guess about what would happen in the future.