year i reduced the deficit by $350 billion! and you know how much i'm going to reduce the deficit this year? $1,500,000 reduction in the deficit. and, by the way, just by dealing with allowing medicare to negotiate drug prices, it means medicare doesn't have to pay out that many tax dollars to buy them. that alone is going to reach over time $300 billion reduced in the deficit. you would think the republicans really cared about reducing inflation, they would vote for the inflation reduction act, but every single republican in the house and senate voted against it. now, i admit someone voted against it they thought it made sense but they couldn't let biden, quote, have a victory. it's not my victory. it's the american people's victory. here in america every single republican voted against lowering prescription drug prices, against lowering health care costs, against protecting your pensions, against lower energy costs, against creating good paying jobs, against a fairer tax system. every single one in the house and senate. every one. and one thing more. when franklin d. roosevelt signed the national labor relations act, when it passed in the 30s, he didn't say it was creating union, he was encouraging unions. well, i'm encouraging unions. it includes public service sector workers in wisconsin as well. today's support for unions in this country is higher than it's been in nearly 60 years. think about this. you guys know the numbers. unions have more support today in america in public opinion than any time in 60 years. the key -- it's a key way to building the economy, grows from the bottom up and the middle out. i'm so sick and tired of trickle down economics. i come from a family where my dad worked hard. he worked like hell. we lived a decent middle-class life. we lived in a three-bedroom split level home in a development as the area was growing with four kids and a grand pop. and i sometimes wonder -- anyway, it was great for us but those walls are thin. but all kidding aside, we did fine. no complaints. we did fine. but here's the point. the biggest contrast from what maga republicans, the extreme right, the trumpies, they want to go to -- these maga republicans in congress are coming for your social security as well. now, by the way, as i said, you might think i'm making some of this stuff up it's so outrageous but here's the deal, guys. read the republican campaign plan, the senate campaign plan they put out this year. senator rick scott of florida heads that campaign committee. it's all in black and white. i'm not making it up. you can go online and read it. they want to require congress to vote on the future of social security, medicare and medicaid every five years to decide whether they continue. no, no, every five years. they get to vote to change, to cut, to reduce or entirely eliminate social security. how does that make us feel? knowing you guys -- and then a long, you know, remember that song "along comes" -- and then along comes ron johnson of wisconsin. he's arguing that five years is too long to wait to savage these programs people depend on. he wants to put social security and medicare literally on the chopping block every single year, treat it like every other appropriation. let me remind you, paid for your social security. taken out of your paycheck since the time you were 18 years old. and they're coming after the affordable care act again, denying health insurance to anyone with a preexisting condition. that's the only reason they're able to get insurance is because of the affordable care act. that's not a joke. this guy never stops. but guess what? i ain't stopping either. folks, you and i, we offer a starkly different vision for this country, a vision of a fair, more decent america, one where everybody has a fair share, where every american is treated, as i dad would say, with dignity. the economy that works for work, not wealth. let me close with this. we're in a serious moment in our nation's history. and i mean it from the bottom of my heart. as i said last week, we remain in the battle for the soul of america. by the way -- all right, god love you. let him go. let him go. no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. let him go. let him go. look, everybody's entitled to be an idiot. okay? look, extreme maga republican don't just threaten our personal rights and economic security, them brace -- they embrace political violence. the reason -- i'm not talking all republicans. i'm talking about the extreme maga republicans. think about it. think about it. the definition of democracy is you accept the world of people when votes are honestly counted. these guys don't do it. name me a democracy in the world where a leader argues to engage in violence. to this day maga republicans in congress defend the mob that stormed the capitol and people died later. senator johnson said it was a by and large a peaceful protest. have you seen the videos what happened that day? listened to the stories of the members of both parties of congress and the jeopardy they were put in? cops attacked and assaulted, sprayed with mace, stomped down, brutalized. police lost their lives as a result of that day and your maga republican senator said it was a peaceful protest. folks, you can't be pro insurrectionist. i'm being deadly ernest now. there's no democracy where you can be pro-insurrection and pro-democracy. when i say democracy is at stake, i mean what i'm saying literally. you can't say you support law enforcement and call the people who attacked the police on january 6th patriots. this was an attack on american democracy and all we stand for. imagine if you go home this afternoon, turn on the television and saw several thousand people storming the british parliament, knocking down the doors, threatening the lives, trying to overthrow the election of the new prime minister and people dying. what would you think? i'm being deadly honest now. honest to god, what would you think? you'd think this is not a democracy. well, let me tell you something, let me tell you something. this is why in this moment those of you in this country, democrats, republicans and main stream republicans and independents, we have to be stronger and more determined and more committed to saving american democracy than the maga republicans and that guy destroying democracy because democracy is at stake. we got to remember who we are! we're the united states of america! there's nothing, nothing we can't do if we do it together! god bless you all and may god protect our troops! thank you, thank you, thank you! [ cheers and applause ] all right, everybody. we have been listening to president biden there at labor fest in milwaukee, wisconsin, talking on some labor points, unionization, talking about the importance of the american worker, but also reiterating some of his points from earlier in the week, going after maga republicans, not saying republicans of all, just these far right republicans who he believes you cannot believe in democracy if you're pro-insurrectionist. also hearing from president biden slamming trickle-down economics, slamming republicans for not going along with the inflation reduction act to help people. this is just one stop on his multi-stop blitz this weekend. we're in milwaukee. he's going to pennsylvania after this. we'll have much more, including a little spot at the end there where i believe we heard a heckler and the president said "everyone is entitled to be an idiot." we're do want to start this hour with some breaking news we're following, which is a major legal win for former president trump. the federal judge in florida granting the former president's request for that so-called special master to oversee all the evidence the fbi seized from his mar-a-lago home last month. in a new 24-page ruling, the judge also moved to temporarily block the d.o.j., which opposed the request, from using the seized material from investigative purposes until after the justice department's work is done. they are, quote, examining the opinion and consider appropriate next steps in the ongoing litigation. let's get to ken dilanian and "new york times" chief white house correspondent and analyst peter baker, charlie savage and what more do we know about this ruling? >> good afternoon, lindsey, this is a significant setback obviously for the department of justice. judge eileen cannon in florida, a trump-appointed federal district judge agreed that trump did not show a callous disregard for rights and then has essentially ordered the imposition of a special master to review these 13,000 documents that have been seized at mar-a-lago, not only for the purpose of attorney/client privilege, to sift out attorney/client privilege documents, which is fairly standard but she went a step further and said this master should also examine documents to see whether they are subject to executive privilege. this is very strange. the d.o.j. argued in the court hearing last week that there was no real claim of executive privilege here, no -- [ no audio ] >> it looks like we don't hear ken anymore. let's go ahead and go to peter baker. peter, why don't you pick up where ken left off, what it means for the investigation moving forward. >> yeah, i think what ken was trying to get at is that this special master is going to look at these documents also through the lens of whether they are covered by executive privilege potentially or not, which is unusual because it's the former president, not sitting president, it's the executive branch asking for its own documents back, as opposed to congressional authority. and also former president trump actually hasn't exerted an executive privilege claim at this point. having said that, what it meanly does for the justice department and others on the panel will no better, it sort of mucks up the water and delays their ability to proceed on their investigation. the special master will not take away the classified documents that the government has retrieved, it will simply weed out the things that it says the government didn't have a right to see in the first place, probably doesn't go to the larger issues involved in the investigation but it will take time and that's something the justice department obviously was against. >> ken, we have you back. why don't you finish your thought. >> just that there is nothing in this opinion that appears to guide the special master on how they are supposed to figure out what is subject to executive privilege and then what happens. it's a very strange ruling in that respect. the other interesting thing about the ruling is that the judge bends over backwards to say this case is special and there needs to be the appearance of fairness here. that's a reasonable opinion but i'm not aware of anything in the law that treats a former president any different than anybody else. the department of justice is reviewing this opinion and will decide on next steps. they have the ability and option to appeal this. that could delay things further. this is going to certainly delay the investigation. one other thing to mention, they've already seen the documents. the fbi and the investigation team at the justice department has seen the documents that they've seized and right now i would say that witnesses in this investigation are just as important as documents in terms of trying to answer the fundamental questions about how those documents got there, who saw them and what was donald trump doing with them? >> lisa, to ken's point, can the d.o.j. still do investigative work in terms of interviewing witnesses if right now they're not able to work with these documents? >> they can but it's certainly like litigating with one hand tied behind their back. and one of the things that's really challenging for department of justice is that as ken said, the d.o.j. can't review or use these materials. on the other hand, they've seen them. it's like they say in "harry met sally," you can't take it back, it's already out there. at the same time they won't be able to ask witnesses about specific documents under the special master's review. one other thing i wanted to adhere is that the judge goes out of her way to cite a report about the privileged material saying they included not only medical information but tax information and accounting information. those are things, all three categories, about which the former president has been extraordinarily sensitive in the past and it just bears note that those are three types of things that were included among the things that got swept up by the fbi and d.o.j. >> charlie, you report that top d.o.j. officials are weighing whether to temporarily scale back their work because of an unwritten self-imposed 60-day rule. talk us through your reporting. >> sure. the justice department has a tradition, not a written rule that they call the 60-day rule and it is a practice of not taking steps that could impact voting within 60 days of election day. they're forbidden from ever taking steps for the purpose of actually impacting voting and this is more of something that could give rise to that appearance or make some people think they're using their power illegitimately. usually that would apply to somebody actually running for office, a candidate has broken some law, maybe they wait until after election day to indict that candidate. but it gets tricky when you talk about trump, he's obviously not on the ballot and yet in every way except his name on the ballot, he is. he is synonymous with most of the republican party, his fate and image is bound up in many congressional sitting members of congress and aspiring members of congress in his party who is tightly enbraced him. part of what the justice department is wrestling is does this apply to this investigation and the mar-a-lago documents investigation and if it does, how far does it extend? does it extend to things the government might prefer to keep behind closed doors or but might become public anyway because someone who receives a subpoena are free to tell the public about it or the lawyers are. hanging over all of this is the great desire not to give ammunition to trump and his allies to accuse them of politicization. this practice that jim comby famously violated in 2016 and many liberals are upset about is of great interest because that deadline is the end of this week. >> i want to play some of what trump said over the weekend in pennsylvania. it appears he's taking grievances from true social out on the road, online. >> they talk about documents not being properly stored yet they go in and take documents, dump them on the floor, stage a photo shoot and pretend that i had done it, like i had put them all over the floor. they took that back after a lot of prodding. then they put out for public consumption a picture which is seen all over the world, this is what they do, it's called disinformation. these are very dishonest, sick people. >> lisa, many of the analysts we've had on this network say they would not envy trump's defense lawyers. could these comments on true social come back to haunt him? >> i think they could. one of the things he said is the fbi found documents that they said had been planted. they scattered them all over the floor and then they took pictures of them but he's not denying that they were found where they were found. similarly, some of the comments he made about the fbi ransacking his closet or going into baron's bedroom, we saw from the detailed inventory filed by the d.o.j. before the weekend that what they found was mostly found in the storage room and in the office, not in either of those places. so he's definitely trying to on obfuscate that these were found pursuant to a legitimately authorized search warrant. >> thank you to all of you. peter baker will stick around. just within the last hour president biden wrapped up those labor day remarks in wisconsin that we brought you live. next he heads to pennsylvania, using the holiday to hit two key swing states in the mid-term elections. let's play a little bit of the president in milwaukee speaking about the importance american workers have had on his career. >> i wouldn't be here without unions. unions. electricians, iron workers, letter carriers, teamsters, laborers, bricklayers, transit workers, plumbers and pipe fitters, steel workers. i wouldn't be here without cops, firefighters, teachers, nurses. >> next the president will address members of the united steel workers of america in pennsylvania. this will be his third visit to the keystone state in the last week. let's bring in julia jester, covering the president in milwaukee. peter baker is still with us, and jeff mason joins us, white house correspondent for reuters. julia, what's the latest on the ground in milwaukee and how that speech hit? >> reporter: president biden just wrapped his remarks here. this crowd was not a typical dnc democratic group. this is labor fest. it's a big deal here for local union chapters. while i did talk to a lot of democrats, there were also independents and republicans who were intrigued to hear what president biden had to say. i spoke to one mother who is part of a union here. she brought her son because she thought it was important for him to hear what the president had to say. >> i think it's wonderful. i think it's actually an opportunity for my son here to see that even though people have differences and who is elected when or where but they actually come out to support and have a core understanding of what's important and what's not. >> reporter: president biden was welcomed warmly here in wisconsin saying unions built the middle class, the middle class built america and touted all of his accomplishments that his administration has had in recent months to a lot of applause, a lot of cheers and he even went on the attack criticizing senator ron johnson, the republican from wisconsin, for opposing a lot of issues that workers really care about, whether it was opposing big pharma or health care or especially social security, which is a big issue here in the senate race. so the mid terms kickoff was in full swing with biden essentially taking a victory lap of the past few weeks of his presidency. >> some themes we heard in the milwaukee address touched on what we heard on thursday, going after maga republicans and the president said everybody has the right to be an idiot. are these teams we're going to hear, president biden going more forcefully over maga republicans? >> you're hearing two different speeches married into one. one is we're for medicare, for abortion rights, they're not, we're for unions and they're not, those that we've heard for generations. but he's overlaying it about the argument of maga republicans who in his view do not have democracy as a fundamental value, who are willing to overturn an election as they did in 2020, a direct shot at president trump and his most fervent supporters and allies. he's trying to make a case there's an extremism out there that should be enough to scare at least democratic and independent voters who voted for him two years ago. he might convince people who came out and gave him a majority in the presidential election to come out this fall for his allies and keep the democrats in charge against him. uphill fight. history is against him. he thinks that marrying that extremism argument with the conventionalism argument may make the difference. >> about biden's push, some political pundit see a path for democrats to hang on to both houses of congress. biden has tried to drive up strong democratic turnout and appeal to mainstream republicans. >> certainly at the white house they're pretty confident about the senate and i think there's a little bit of a shift now that they seem to be slightly more optimistic about the house. the president has been saying at fund-raisers as long ago as a few months ago he felt they h