WEBVTT

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Joining us now,
MSNBC White House reporter Laura Barron-Lopez,

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chair of the Advancing American Freedom Board
and former Trump White House legislative

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affairs director Mark Short.

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Good to have you, sir.

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MSNBC columnist and contributor Philip Bump
and senior writer at The Dispatch

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and MSNBC contributor once again David Drucker.

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All right, Laura, H-1B visas.
 Does the White House.

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Is the White House concerned?

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Look, I think the White House is
definitely a concern

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because I was just talking to a former
Trump advisor who regularly talks to

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White House staff still.

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And that advisor told me that
But staff is not happy about those comments

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that the president made
during that Laura Ingram interview,

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specifically because they feel
like they were just trying to get him

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onto an affordability message,
onto more of that America First message

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that you're talking about.

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And then he went
and said this about American workers,

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saying that no,
America doesn't necessarily have, quote,

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certain talent.

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And this former advisor
that I was speaking to said

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that cavalier approach,
that's the word that they use,

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the fact that he was, quote, dismissing Americans.

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 That's the problematic part for the president.

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And it's something that they feel
that he needs to essentially stop saying.

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I mean, right now, they think that obviously,
this created a lot of backlash.

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And MAGA base and a number of Republicans
across D .C. that

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I've talked to were not happy
about this interview.

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They were frankly pissed off.

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But they said
THAT THEY THINK THAT AS LONG

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AS THE PRESIDENT STICKS TO HIS INITIAL
H-1B VISA PLAN, WHICH WAS TO, YOU KNOW,

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ADD THIS $100 ,000 CHECK TO IT AND
ESSENTIALLY SAY THAT HE WAS GOING TO

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restrict the number
of high-skilled workers coming

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in, they think that if he sticks to
that policy, then eventually this could potentially blow over. Yeah,

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Yeah, there was one social media post
that I saw, Mark, that said we trained a bunch

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of housewives
in world war ii to drill together

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airplanes you're telling me we can't
train people to work in tech

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or engineering they were they were upset
that the don't that donald trump would say

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this country doesn't have a smart enough uh...
i guess base of people to do it

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but tell me i'm wrong tell me
that this is not a big issue

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i don't think
that the president's going to lose his support

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over immigration issues i think
that support is pretty well locked

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in i think
that the president has um an adept

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ability to change positions quickly
and often he beta tests uh lines

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that he sees don't work
and he reverts back to the original position

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uh katie you've covered him long enough
uh you'll recall

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multiple incidents where this has happened
on other areas

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and maybe they're not perfect you know analogies
but uh you know certainly

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as you might recall after one of the tragedies in the first administration of a school shooting he hosted a large group

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of senators in the cabinet room
and called for gun bans.

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And, you know,
he quickly received what

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that response was from his base
and reverted back to his original position.

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And I think
that his base is going to give him a lot

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of latitude on issues when it comes
to immigration,

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particularly when they see the border secure
in ways that it was not

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in the previous administration.

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So yeah, do I think this is an unforced error by him?

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It is.

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But do I think that it's something
that he's going to lose his base over?

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No, I think you'll
see him probably pivot back to original

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messaging on H-1B visas before too long.

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David, we were just talking
about another form of this conversation

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with the anti-Semitism stuff,
but I wonder what you're seeing out there

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from your reporting.

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 Do you think Mark's right?

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Do you think the base is not going anywhere,
no matter what Donald Trump says?

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Well, I mean,
you never want to say never

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because eventually you're wrong.

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But I think Donald Trump continues to
have a really unique,

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strong connection and relationship
with his voting base,

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more so than other politicians I've seen.

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I think what this episode does tell us,
though, is that his successor at the top

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of the ticket in 2028
for the Republican Party is going to

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have a much tougher time keeping
the Trump coalition together

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and may not be able to do it.

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Donald Trump has always been just
establishment enough

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for old guard Republicans
and just anti-establishment enough

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for old guard Republicans and just anti
enough for the populist right that doesn't vote

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in every election
but has been reliably showing up whenever

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Donald Trump is on the ballot.

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I think we should also point out here
that Donald Trump really fumbled

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the answer which he doesn't you know to
really do that often when talking

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about immigration all he had to say was
that of course we have a lot

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of american talent but one
of the things that has made us one

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of the greatest countries in the world
and given us a competitive global edge

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that no other country has is

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we don't not only have our talent
we attract talent from

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around the world they help us develop uh...
you know medical devices

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and technology and all the sorts
of things that end up enriching

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the american economy and the american worker
so we're gonna train up our talent

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and we're gonna you know scoop up talent
from around the world

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and nobody's gonna be able to match us
of course that's not what he said phil

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yeah i mean yeah i think david is
exactly right you should never bet

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against donald trump being able to lock
down his base right we've it's been 10 years now

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since he's been the preeminent voice
in republican politics

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and that is held true i do think
though that it's important to remember

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that every day
that passes is one day closer to donald

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trump not being president anymore
and that there There are a lot

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of people who are going to be jockeying
for the attention of his base

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to potentially be the replacement or to carve off a slice of that power and attention for

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 themselves.

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And so every day that passes,
we see more and more of these sorts

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of fissures and yes,
he may be able to seal some of

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these fissures back up.

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But eventually there's going to be someone
or something that emerges

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that he's not able to repair that,
that ultimately that power

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and that attention are going to go somewhere else
and everyone is going to start making inroads.

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It's happening even as we speak.

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Yeah, but I mean,
there are a lot of there's a lot

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of discontent out there
and it's not just the stuff

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that you're seeing online, Mark.

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And I'll push back.

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You have Marjorie Taylor Greene,
who's been becoming very quickly a big

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thorn in the president's side.

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She responded to him earlier this morning
saying he said that she had lost her way

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and she says she's always been
for the American people.

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NBC News is reporting
that she's now questioning

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if Donald Trump is still the American America
first president.

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So I'll bring you back to the question I had
at the beginning.

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So if the Tea Party became MAGA and MAGA,
is MAGA still MAGA

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or is MAGA becoming America first?

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 And if so, is Donald Trump still that guy?

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Do you really think it's easy
for him to brush these sorts of comments off?

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No, I don't, Katie.

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To be clear,
I didn't say he would never lose his base.

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What I said is,
I don't think he's

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in jeopardy losing his base
over this issue with immigration.

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And if we think that, you know,
he never does that on immigration issues

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in the first administration,
you might recall, he said,

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I think we should have a pathway to citizenship
for DACA.

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And he wanted to offer that in exchange
for border wall funding.

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 And so he does do this.

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And he gets singed and then, you know,
he responds

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and he has an amazing ability to pivot
and switch his positions

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and pretend he never had the other position.

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And so I don't think that his base is
in risk of losing him,

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even if Marjorie Taylor Greene is out pushing
for extension of Obamacare subsidies

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and Trump's not or other areas
that Marjorie Taylor Greene is pushing.

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I don't think that's a risk.

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I do think that obviously what we've seen,
though, is that the party has abandoned

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and its principles
for traditional conservatism entirely.

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And now you have us basically advocating
for massive protectionism,

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price controls on drug imports,
state-owned enterprises,

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and things that are antithetical to conservatives
or anybody who believes in free markets.

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And so, yeah,
you might see people break away

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from him at the moment,
but I think that he'll pivot

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on some of the issues that are core to him,
like immigration.

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And then he'll pivot back when he feels
like the base is responding to a line

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that he's beta testing.

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Well, there's an interesting overlap here, David,
with what we were talking about a moment ago

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with the anti-Semitism stuff
because this idea of America first

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is being very wholly embraced
by the Tucker Carlson's

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and the Nick Fuentes' on the right,
but their version of it is even more extreme.

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It's white and Christian first.
 It's no immigrants.

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It's going back to a more familiar
in their terms view of this country

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as something that is better off
without immigration,

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without diversity.

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Yeah, well, I mean, you know,
America First itself was a slogan

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that had been banished
because that's what it originally meant.

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And until Donald Trump revived it
and refashioned it,

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nobody used it for decades.

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I mean, look, this is this is, I think,
a part of the debate that, you know,

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the country has from time to time.

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And I don't mean anti-Semitism
and racism versus not.

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I just mean that there are always,
you know,

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wings of the political parties that are pushing
for either policies that are extreme

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or policies that are not acceptable.

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And, you know,
that's where the political parties can

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be very useful
because they can they can moderate

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and they can excise the extremes in their midst.

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It's just a matter of whether
or not they're going to do it.

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Yeah, they've got some pant body news
I'm going to get to in one second.

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 But just one more to you, Phil.

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There is this there's this bumping of heads.

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There's this fight
within the Republican Party

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for what it's going to be.

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Maybe maybe Donald Trump is Donald Trump
for the next three years.

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But what it's going to be after Donald Trump,
what it looks like.

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Is it the Tucker Carlson Party
or does it go to back to, I don't know,

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some other form of normie Republican?

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Does it become this white nationalist
party that believes that immigration

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wholeheartedly is bad
and that this country should be Christian

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and Christian first and foremost?

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Yeah, I mean,
I think the challenge

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that the party has fundamentally is
that Donald Trump has successfully

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shifted the political right
in this country to essentially an attention-based economy.

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And the things that seize the most attention,
the reason that we know who Nick Fuentes is

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that you can just mention him
and assume people know who he is,

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is he's very good at getting attention, right?

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And he does that by being provocative.

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He does that by saying things that are
beyond the pale and that are

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outside the norms of what we would accept,
but he gets a base because of that.

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And because of that shift
toward this attention-seeking,

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that's the locus of power.

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That is what's being fought over.

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And so you're not going to win that,
you know, God bless Mark Short.

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But you're not going to win by that by saying,
but what actually what we need to do is

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move back to free trade.

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That's not the sort of thing that compels
that the people who see that.

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Exactly.

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And so so that's what the fight is going to be
unless there's a total revamp

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of what it means to be on the political right.

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It feels like all political
parties have a fight about who they are