1902. no voter ever saw his name on a ballot. he was elected to the senate the old-fashioned way, in a way the founders thought senators should be elected. a state legislature chose and voted for reed smoot to go to the united states senate to represent the state of utah. in his 30 year career as a senator, reed smoot rose to the most powerful chairmanship in the senate, chairman of the senate finance committee with jurisdiction over the federal government ways of raising revenue, bringing money into the treasury. taxation and tariffs. with the stock market crashing in 1929 and the country and during the great depression, reed smoot had the worst idea any chairman of the senate finance committee ever had. it was an idea that would end his career in the senate. the house ways and means committee had the same jurisdiction in the house that the finance committee has in the senate. taxation and tariffs. the chairman of the house ways and means committee loved reed smoot's very bad idea. that idea also ended chairman holly's career in the house of representatives. in 1930, with the country sinking deeper into an economic depression, the chairman put the tariff act of 1930 through their committees and then they both got it passed in the house of representatives and in the senate and by the time it reached the president's desk for signature it had come to be known as the smoot-hawley tariff act. it raised tariffs astronomically, higher than ever before on thousands of goods. it was exactly what donald trump is now proposing as a presidential candidate. economics was a much less complex field of scholarship. in 1930 than it is today. the analytical tools available to economists were far fewer and very unsophisticated compared to today, but even then the smoot-hawley tariffs were something economists could agree on. over 1000 economists signed a petition to president herbert hoover, republican president herbert hoover, asking him to veto the smoot-hawley tariffs. america's most famous industrialist at the time, henry ford, knew it would be a disaster for business and a disaster for the economy. he went to the white house to try to convince republican president herbert hoover to veto the tariff bill written by republican senator reed smoot and congressman willis holly and passed with overwhelming republican support in the house and senate. henry ford called the tariffs, quote, and economic stupidity. j.p. morgan's chief executive said, quote, i almost went down on my knees to beg herbert hoover to veto the asinine smoot-hawley tariff. herbert hoover, a successful businessman in his own right, thought he knew better. and he signed the smoot-hawley tariffs into law and in the next election herbert hoover lost his reelection campaign for the presidency to the governor of new york, franklin delano roosevelt. in the same election in 1932 when voters were living with the disaster of reed smoot's bright idea and willis hawley's support of that idea, senator smoot and congressman hawley lost their reelection campaigns. there is universal agreement among economists that smoot- hawley tariffs made the great depression even worse. those tariffs did not protect american jobs. they killed american jobs. and it meant that the portrait of willis hawley hanging in the offices of the house ways and means committee along with the portraits of the other chairman of the committee and the portrait of reed smoot hanging in the offices of the finance committee along with the portraits of all of the other chairman of that committee, it means that those portraits hang forever in disgrace and infamy. smoot and hawley hurt america more than any other chairman of the senate finance committee and house ways and means committee and history. they destroyed lives. people lost their homes, lost their jobs, lost their hope, because of what senator smoot and congressman hawley did when they did not have any idea what they were doing. just like donald trump. and so when you hear economists now saying donald trump's idea about tariffs is even worse than smoot-hawley, you have to know something to really understand just how bad donald trump's idea is. henry ford would have to reach for a new extreme to describe it because henry ford's phrase, and economic stupidity, would feel inadequate. last week donald trump said he wants to eliminate the tax code. eliminate the personal income tax and corporate income tax and replace the income tax with nothing but tariffs. donald trump wants to eliminate the income tax, replace the revenue to the government with nothing but tariffs. the biggest tariffs in american history. cnbc reports donald trump on thursday brought up the idea of imposing an all tariff policy that would ultimately enable the u.s. to get rid of the income tax. sources in a private meeting with the republican presidential candidate told cnbc. every trump supporter who attends trumps rallies believes donald trump's big lie when he says this. >> nobody ever took money out of china. i took hundreds of billions of dollars out in the form of tariffs and taxes. >> nope, he did not take a penny from china, not one penny. it is reasonable to assume that most trump voters believe that china pays the tariffs imposed by donald trump, because donald trump says china pays the tariffs, but in high school they should have learned and maybe before high school for a lot of students, they should have learned that tariffs are paid by the people in the country that imposes the tariffs. that is how tariffs work. you don't have to take advanced placement american history in high school to learn about tariffs, including the smoot- hawley tariffs. donald trump knows that china does not pay the tariffs that he imposed. he knows that american consumers pay those tariffs. they function as sales taxes on american consumers. and donald trump is consciously lying when he says that his audience about china paying the tariffs and because american consumers pay the tariffs, in effect as sales taxes, and increase in tariffs means an increase in prices through, in effect, sales tax, which is the very definition of inflation. that increase in prices that donald trump's tariffs would bring about. donald trump is proposing the single most inflationary idea of our lifetimes and that is just one aspect of the pain donald trump would inflict with this idea, which harvard economist lawrence summers, the first to raise concerns about possible inflation during the covid-19 pandemic, says is the worst economic policy proposal in u.s. history. in u.s. history. larry summers knows economic u.s. history and that means donald trump's idea is worse than smoot-hawley, much worse. >> replacing the income tax with the revenue with tariff would be the worst macroeconomic policy proposal in u.s. history. it of course burdens the middle class and the poor who purchased goods that exist on international markets, so it is regressive as many economic commentators have suggested, but that is actually the least of it. think of it this way. the smoot-hawley tariffs, which did enormous damage, some people would say made the depression great, were 6/10 of 1% of gdp. if you replaced half of income tax revenues, not all like he talked about. if you replaced half of income tax revenues with tariffs, those would be six times the smoot- hawley levels. that's got the potential to do enormous damage to the competitiveness of every u.s. exporter. to do huge damage to all kinds of workers who use imported goods and what their businesses produce. to create a downward spiral as much higher prices for everything we import. it means consumers have less to spend on everything else. create worldwide economic warfare as the rest of the world responds. this is a prescription for the mother of all stagflation. >> stagflation is a not so easily achieved economic condition of stagnant economic growth combined with high inflation and high unemployment at the same time. we have not seen stagflation in this country in the 21st century, but donald trump is now running to make stagflation great again. leading off our discussion tonight is robert reitz, who served as secretary of labor under bill clinton. he is a professor of policy at uc berkeley and cofounder of inequality media. thank you very much for joining us tonight. i know that you have much to say about trump economic policies, but i wanted to do a quick back of the envelope sketch here because i know for some people out there they are hearing, what? get rid of the income tax? i would be better off. okay, let's say you're making $100,000, and the 22% income tax bracket. you will have sales tax through tariffs in effect that could approach 20% or above. you could have interest rates on home mortgages that go way into the double digits and all sorts of other ways in which you are economically much worse off under the sales tax tariff regime then you would be under an income tax regime and by the way when you lose your job because of all of this, your tax bracket actually goes to zero. >> lawrence, you know, we have come to have such low expectations in terms of coherence and rationality of donald trump that these kinds of proposals can very easily get under the radar. people say well, he is just mouthing off again. the fact of the matter is, this is serious. he doesn't put forward many serious proposals. this one seems to be serious because he does say it in a way that makes you think, well, the income tax, getting rid of the income tax might be a pretty good idea. until you actually think about the consequences. in order to have enough revenue from tariffs to match what you would lose by getting rid of the income tax, you would have to have a tariff that is at least in the range of 138 to 140%. this is way beyond smoot- hawley. this takes us to another planet, because with that kind of tariff, it is like the largest sales tax you could conceive of. that would bring the economy to not only stagflation, but probably much worse. >> that $30,000 car you have your ion becomes a $60,000 car and there is nothing about having your income tax reduced that makes that more affordable for you. professor, there is more. even before he got to this utter madness of let's finance the government through tariffs, there is so much more about what he has been saying about economic policy that you have been taking a part in your way. take us through some of that. >> while he talked about exerting control over the federal reserve board, which would basically eliminate the credibility of the fed in terms of setting interest rates. he talked about rounding up 11 million or 15 million people who are in the united states, who are undocumented, which would have drastic effects on our labor market. not in a positive way, because we need those people. if you look at what they do and how much revenue they actually bring in. he is talking about reducing taxes on the highest income earners and we are talking about all sorts of taxes and what is the effect there? remember in his term of office as president, he told us he would cut the taxes on the rich and big corporations and we would all, all of us, get a $4000 bonus as it trickled down to everyone else. well, did you get a bonus? did anybody you know get a bonus? we can go on and on. this is the most ridiculous, to call it a plan dignified is it. >> then there are the other elements which aren't economic elements, for example just getting rid of obama care. that is an incredible economic hit. nevermind the health conditions that can be affected by it, but the actual economic life of people who defend -- depend on obamacare and cannot afford health insurance without it. >> the interesting thing, lawrence, we are having a substantive discussion right now. we're talking about real people, real policies, real laws, real economics and donald trump does not live in this realm. he throws things out there and he says yes i'm going to get rid of the affordable care act. yes i'm going to give the oil and gas industry free reign to do what they want to do as long as, by the way, they give me $1 billion for my campaign. i'm going to basically wreck the economy with the smoot- hawley, the most egregious form of smoot-hawley on steroids you can imagine and people are not putting this together and they are not seeing the disaster for what this actually is. yes, all of the things he said about democracy, about our democracy, are bad enough, but taking a wrecking ball to our economy and really imposing extraordinary costs and hardship on so many working- class, middle-class, and poor people. well, it is hard to find the words, quite frankly. >> henry ford's word for it was an economic stupidity. professor robert reich, thank you very much for starting our discussions tonight. coming up, you might notice this program is concentrating as much on senate elections as the presidential election. we will be joined later in this hour by someone who knows more about the u.s. senate than i ever will. ira shapiro has worked in the senate and written about the senate for 50 years and will explain the importance once again of the senate, no matter who is president. and next we will be joined by the democratic senate candidate in texas running against republican senator ted cruz. congressman colin allred joins us next. ♪♪ i have type 2 diabetes, but i manage it well. ♪♪ ♪♪ jardiance! -it's a little pill with a ♪♪ ♪♪ big story to tell. ♪♪ ♪♪ i take once-daily jardiance ♪♪ ♪♪ at each day's staaart. ♪♪ ♪♪ as time went on it was easy to seeee, ♪♪ ♪♪ i'm lowering my a1c! ♪♪ jardiance works twenty-four seven in your body to flush out some sugar. and for adults with type 2 diabetes and known heart disease, jardiance can lower the risk of cardiovascular death, too. serious side effects may include ketoacidosis that may be fatal, dehydration that can lead to sudden worsening of kidney 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2024. financial disclosures are available at sfethics.org. i was at risk of organ damage to my kidneys and brain, but i still wasn't that enough for an exception for abortion care in texas. >> that is texas mother of two lauren miller who joined us on this program recently. she was testifying to the senate judiciary committee. lauren miller is one of the 30 million texans who republican senator rafael edward cruz is supposed to represent. >> senator cruz, who is on that subcommittee, couldn't even be bothered to show up. he was simply too much of a coward to face the situation that he forced me into or he did not care. >> texas congressman colin allred, now running against senator cruz, met with miller before that hearing and he heard what senator cruz did not want to hear. miller traveled over 700 miles to colorado to get the life- saving treatment that she was denied by the republican government of texas. there are several texas cities now trying to pass abortion travel bands that make it illegal to use local roads and highways to help a person access and abortion outside of texas. congressman allred will join us in a moment. heard all of that today from the amarillo reproductive freedom alliance. the group successfully defeated a petition in the city of amarillo that would have adopted an abortion travel ban. here is what congressman allred had to say. >> we don't have to be embarrassed by our senator. we can get a new one and that is what this is all about. that is what this is all about. it is about the women in the panhandle standing up to billionaires who want to ban travel on local roads to access and abortion and they are winning, by the way, and it is about the mother, too. who has a much wanted and much prayed for third pregnancy. who gets the news that we all hope we don't get. the pregnancy is not viable. the baby is not going to make it. she now has to make one of the most heartbreaking decisions any person will be faced with and because of extremists like ted cruz she can't get the care she needs close to home, so she has to flee our state under the threat of criminal prosecution. that is not my texas. in my texas we believe in freedom. we believe in the freedom to make your own health care decisions including access to an abortion. >> joining us now, democratic congressman from texas colin allred, democratic nominee running for the u.s. senate in texas against senator cruz. thank you very much for joining us tonight. you are part of our campaign here to convince viewers and voters to understand the importance of the senate in our election, no matter who wins the presidency. it is incredibly important either way, but what we are also seeing here is that for the people of texas ted cruz does not seem to believe that he represents all of them. he certainly doesn't represent women who come to testify to him about the struggles he has imposed on them. >> that's right and thank you for having me on. happy juneteenth. it was a texas holiday, now it is a federal holiday. lauren miller is an eighth generation texan. she lives not far from where i am sitting now and she came to the senate to tell her story and just like when we talked a few months back, ted cruz who is on that committee refused to hear her out. would not even show her the basic respect of just sitting in the seat and hearing her tell her story. because as you said i don't think ted cruz does see himself representing all 30 million of us and he certainly doesn't want to take responsibility for the fact that his extreme policies, this is the end point of it. this is what it looks like when you pass in extreme abortion ban and also try to say that folks can't travel. this is what it looks like. it is a mother who gets the news we all hope we don't get that when she is hoping to welcome twins, the one of those babies is not going to make it and it is killing her. instead of being able to get a procedure close to home she has to go to colorado. that is not who we are as texans, that is why november 5 we are going to get rid of ted cruz. >> the last time we had a travel ban in this country it was on the free movement of enslaved people, to move both out of a state and across the states, as you said. juneteenth, today, originated in texas. what does it feel like to be in texas for the people of texas on this day? >> juneteenth is a texas holiday i have celebrated my entire life and i am so glad that our country is getting a chance to celebrate. i think it is about freedom, but also a chance to recommit ourselves to the promise of our founding documents. to recommit ourselves to these ideas that we have not fully committed, but we have been working towards and that is what we have been talking about today in dallas. we had a great march with the grandmother of juneteenth. she is a wonderful person and this, i think, does cross into reproductive freedom and the ability to make your own health care decisions and the ability to make decisions about your life and so much of that is at risk in texas and folks think it won't come to you if you are not in texas. let's be clear. of ted cruz gets a chance he will pass a nationwide ban on abortion enforce what is happening to women all over this country. it is not who we are as texans, it is not who we are as americans. so i need folks to help make sure we can stand up for who we really are. >> you know that the republicans who are working within the house of representatives, that there is strong support with the speaker of the house to pass the national abortion ban. the current speaker of the house i am sure lives for nothing more than that. wants nothing more than that. with the republican senate they could do that. >> that's right and they would not stop there. we've seen them talk about ivf and when you support these laws which are speaker has supported, he is a cosponsor of that legislation that ted cruz supported in 2016. that means ivf is no longer something that will be legal. they are openly talking about birth control. it is hard to imagine that in 2024 we are talking about this, but we've seen this before. they start talking about something that seems extreme and then a few decades later they actually do it. that is what we saw and now they are aiming their sites at other freedoms and we can't let it happen. i know that we are not going to and i think that is the good news that i want folks to know. that folks are standing up. they know that is not who we are. they know we have to fight back and i know that all across the country the biggest coalition that we have is a pro- democracy, pro-freedom coalition. when that fundamentally understands the freedoms are at risk. i think that is the one we will see on november 5. >> congressman colin allred, now running for senate against senator cruz, thank you for joining us tonight. coming up, vladimir putin's excellent adventure in north korea today produced an agreement not worth the paper it was 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no, really. he wrote me beautiful letters and they are great letters. we fell in love. >> it is no longer easy to say that kim jong-un is crazier than vladimir putin, because at least kim jong-un has not launched a war that north korea cannot win against south korea. today kim and putin tried their best imitation of serious world leaders by signing an agreement that they claim is a pledge for each country to assist the other in the event of aggression from another country. according to the new york times translation, vladimir putin said this is a truly breakthrough document reflecting the desire of the two countries not to rest on their laurels. good idea for two countries that don't have any laurels to rest on. the document is, of course, a fraud and no document of it will be released publicly. when historians finally get their hands on it, possibly decades from now, it will no doubt be seem to be nothing and me nothing. in the meantime what everyone in the world knows is neither one of them can be trusted in any situation to do anything. no matter what piece of paper they might have signed today. just remember, anyone in the news media who is describing this deal to you has not seen a single word of the deal and many of them are making the mistake of believing that it is actually possible to make a binding deal with either vladimir putin or kim jong-un. nothing happened today. there is nothing on that piece of paper that means anything. north korea does appear to have agreed to sell more arms to russia, which only highlights russia's desperate inability to continue to support the russian military. joining us now is richard stangl who served as under secretary of state in the obama administration. he has a msnbc political analyst and the author of information wars, how we lost the global battle against disinformation and what we can do about it. thank you very much for joining us tonight. this seems to be a meeting of the most exaggerated importance, especially by the news media if you take in certain news of it. neither one of these guys believes the other guy means a thing that the other guy says, right? this is a meaningless exchange. >> yes, they are both, as you put it, lawrence, they are authoritarian pariahs on the world stage. they come from the two most sanctions nations in the world. it is a pact of desperation and as you said, you know, vladimir putin, the head of what was formerly a superpower, going for hat in hand to north korea to get artillery shells for his war in ukraine is a huge comedown. as you say nobody goes to north korea, but he had to go to north korea. you know we are looking at a world where i am sorry to go straight to it, but you did it in your introduction. a world where if donald trump is elected these pariah nations will go from being excluded from the family of nations to being included in the family of nations. exchanging love letters and this is not something good for the united states. it is not good for our children or our children's children and that is what we are looking at. >> there is a terrible turn of history here, but it happened a while ago. vladimir putin we thought sometimes used to try to be helpful. american diplomats would ask the russians to help coax north korea into a more reasonable position on certain things. try to inch them one direction or the other. that's gone. there's no possibility of ever asking vladimir putin to do that again. it was not clear how much putin was able to do when we were asking him to do that. >> you know lawrence for a decade he was for the de- nuclear station of the korean peninsula. he voted for that in the security council. he doesn't want nuclear weapons near him on the korean peninsula. north korea is right beside him. he is so desperate to get arms for this illegal, obscene war in ukraine that he is going back on a policy that actually jeopardizes russia. that is how desperate he is and it is too bad because we often used to do things with russia that were in our mutual interest and now putin is only doing what is in his interest, which is not in the interest of anyone else in the world at all. >> richard stengel, thank you very much for joining our discussion tonight. >> thank you, lawrence. coming up, ira shapiro worked in the senate longer than i did and he will join us next to consider the stakes in this year's important senate elections. then i found a chance to let in the lyte.” discover caplyta. unlike some medicines that only treat bipolar i, caplyta is proven to deliver significant symptom relief from both bipolar i & ii depression. and in clinical trials, movement disorders and weight gain were not common. caplyta can cause serious side effects. call your doctor about sudden mood changes, behaviors, or suicidal thoughts right away. anti-depressants may increase these risks in young adults. elderly dementia patients have increased risk of death or stroke. caplyta is not approved for dementia-related psychosis. report fever, confusion, or stiff muscles, which may be life threatening, or uncontrolled muscle movements which may be permanent. common side effects include sleepiness, dizziness, nausea, and dry mouth. these aren't all the side effects. in the darkness of bipolar i & ii depression, caplyta can help you let in the lyte. ask your doctor about caplyta. find savings and support at caplyta.com. were you worried the wedding would be too much? 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to make them understand what is at stake in the next line on their ballots. which will be there votes for united states senators. in his book about the senate, now out in a new paperback edition called the betrayal, how mitch mcconnell and senate republicans abandoned america, ira shapiro, who knows more about the senate than i ever will, rights i believe trump's presidency was an unmitigated disaster for america with continuing repercussions that inflicted grave damage on our country, with echoes all over the world. i stand by my view that he will go down as the most reviled president in american history. in our system home on wan -- system no one man or woman is supposed to be able to destabilize our democracy. for that reason i contended that the responsibility for the catastrophic failure of government resided with the senate, specifically mitch mcconnell and senate republicans. it was the senate's role to stop a president who was threatening our constitutional democracy and the polarized degraded senate knowingly and repeatedly failed to do so even after trump instigated the january 6 attack on the capital in his indefensible effort to remain in power after losing the 2020 election to joe biden. joining our discussion now is ira shapiro who served over a decade and senior staff positions in the u.s. senate and served in the clinton administration. ira, thank you very much for joining us tonight. we meet in this subject on sadness because we are always -- it might not be apparent to others, but morning what the senate used to be. the senate that we lost, where we could easily respect the positions of republicans who were opposed to our views and legislative engagement on the senate floor. senate floor. compromised solutions. sometimes not. never think we were up against a force was trying to harm the country in any way. >> thank you for having me. of course you and i go back in the senate and we look at the senate and the long decline of it with sadness. on the other hand, i was interested in updating the book to find that in 2022, for instance, the senate actually came up with quite a few bipartisan accomplishments. president biden and senate leader schumer, unified the democrats, for the most part. they were able to find a dozen or 15 republicans for the first gun safety legislation in a long time. the chips and science act. marriage equality act. they wanted to make up for their catastrophic failure, failure and -- the senate with democratic leadership and control canonically -- makes this election cycle critically important to keep the senate majority. which is now hanging by a thread. >> that is what is at stake. in all of these elections. you may not think your particular state matters much to you, control of the senate, t to be the chairman and who will run the committees, who will be in control of the way it works, which party, that is night and day. >> it was not always that way. we had shifts in the senate. go back to 1980 or 1986, control shifted and yet the senate functioned either way. the senators had a concept of what the senate was about. they knew how to do the business of the senate. as we have become more polarized as a country and in recent years, the control of the senate is absolutely critical and imperative. we have the biden administration and the schumer majority senate, which ma contrasted so dramatically from the mcconnell controlled senate, which failed this country and gave us the extreme supreme court majority that has imperiled our rights on a continuing basis. >> you had a quote that i had forgotten in this edition from senator -- he makes the point that in the next century, america has to consider how the representation pattern in the senate. the two in state and how that turned out in a way founders could not have imagined. the way the state of california size is, and the state of dakota having two, people are wildly overrepresented in some states and underrepresented from other states -- such that now, you pointed out that there are nine states were you have almost a majority of the country represented by only 18 senators. >> the senate's legitimacy hangs on that. the notion that california has only two senators. wyoming has two senators. offends our concept and is baked into the constitution. what was the solution to that in practical terms? in practical terms, so many excellent senators came from small states. they proved to be, whether south dakota, vermont, all over the country, small state te senators, montana, proved to be great senators. as a consequence, the senate operated. we were not so conscious of the disparities of population. when the senate breaks down, the inequity of california having two senators, opposed to glamming having two, that is striking to us. >> you had a proposal for having at-large senators. a group of senators, 15, many, a let it nationally. >> that is my idea. i would like people to think about it at some point. fundamental change in the senate is probably years off. i thought if you elected 15 senators nationally, the national senators would have a different sense of responsibilities. it would upgrade the senate overall. and i think they would encourage the other 100 senators to think about their commitments to the national interests. opposed to simply being representatives of their state or party members. the senate has deteriorated quite a bit because the senators have become fundamentally partisan operative. many of them, republican senators, became partisan operatives. opposed to people who were looking at the national interests. >> will get to the other side of the election we have to talk about ira shapiro's senate reform ideas. the book, of the trail. -- the betrayal. thank you for joining us. we will be right back. for the acute treatment of migraine with or without aura and the preventive treatment of episodic migraine in adults. don't take if allergic to nurtec odt. allergic reactions can 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