Weekend he effectively did. Good morning and welcome to morning joe. It is monday, august 10th, along with joe and me, we have nbc news capitol hill correspondent and host of kc d. C. On nbc, kasie hunt. Political analyst and former chairman of the Republican National committee Michael Steele is with us. White house reported for the associated press, Jonathan Lemire. And former treasury official and morning joe economic analyst steve ratner is with us. And joe, a lot happening over the weekend. And weve got major covid19 news as well. Yeah a lot happening over the weekend. Of course, a lot of chaos, of course, coming from the white house. Jonathan lemire, we have economists, we have people on the hill, we have business owners, we have ceos. We even have well, we have white house officials that are sort of scratching their heads and asking what exactly happened on friday. The president tried to look like he was in control by pushing unconstitutional president ial directives which seem to go in all of these Different Directions and if that wasnt enough, friday night we had yet another trump friday night massacre where the new head of the post office just again not trying to hide it at all. Apparently doing whatever he can to sow chaos inside the post office as he and donald trump appear to be working together to sow seeds of doubt on whether the post office is going to be able to carry out its functions as we move towards the most important election of our lifetime, certainly the most important election as it has to do with the post offices participation. Try to tell us all the things that were going on friday and this weekend. Joe, it was a remarkable weekend. I was traveling with the president as part of the press pool of reporters. He spent the weekend at his golf club in bed minister, new jersey. On friday we werent expecting to see him. He had no events scheduling and reporters got a lid saying there was no events. And then the you lid was lifted. Ill take a minute to paint a surreal seal. The president at the podium delivered the speech in front of an audience, members of his club, many of them drinks in hand, not wearing masks, taking up space in the room. And seemingly in violation of the state of new jerseys guidelines for covid19. If its a political event, which this was deemed you can have up to 100 or so people in the room, there was more if you count the crowd, press, and secreta service. And they werent 6 feet apart. The crowd booed the reporters and applauded him. It had the makings of a political rally at an official white house event. On friday night he said he thereund threatened the executive actions were coming and then saturday he signed them. The takeaway seems to be two things, one real doubts about whether theyre constitutional. Whether or not the president has the authority to take the powers of the purse from congress through taxes and spending. They expect legal challenges, democrats were critical yesterday on the sunday morning talk shows. I expect well see a lot on the legal front in the days ahead. Also theres a question of whether or not theres as much here as the president says. The Unemployment Benefits were 600 a week, now its 400. And the white house wants states to pick up 100 of that, so its reducing the federal contribution to 300 from 600. Last night the president said maybe the federal government will fund the full 400. The evictions moratorium its about exploring how to stop that, no real teeth behind it. Youre right, the other story was the postmaster general. The president , whos always been defending it, the postmaster loses money, needs reforms. But we know, joe, this has been part of an all out assault on the integrity of mailin balloting ahead of the election. This would seem to add to the chaos and delays. Mika, there are, of course, one of two choices if you support the president you can say the president is intentionally sabotaging the United States post office in the run up to the most important election of our lifetime when the post office is going to be playing its most Important Role. And the president has decided to put a man in place with no postal background for the first time in decades in that key position. So you say, yeah, donald trump is intentionally trying to sabotage the elections, or two, he is performing, which is the equivalent of at this point injecting somebodys body that has covid with bleach and disinfectants and trying to stick uv lights in there. And its just a complete absolute ignorance of a situation. Regardless, whether its incompetence or intentional undermining of our democracy, there arent really a lot of good ways to look at this. And it does appear to be one of the great challenges that are going to be facing this country in the next two to three months having a president and a postmaster general who at the worst time possible are putting measures into effect that will undermine democracy. Were going to get to the economic and political fact check of the president s moves in just a moment. But youre right, the fact is, its happening. But first where things stand with the virus, the u. S. Surpassing 5 million covid19 cases. The alarming tally, which really puts us number one in the world has doubled since late june. Right now the country holds about a quarter of the worlds cases. While topping the list for most reported coronavirus deaths globally. We top the lists for people who have died of coronavirus. So far five states account for more than 40 of infection nationwide. Hot spots continue to grapple with rising cases like florida which yesterday reported nearly 6,200 cases and set a new weekly record for covid19 hospitalizations. Over the weekend, california confirmed more than 10,000 deaths since the start of the crisis. And more than half a million covid19 cases in all. Texas also confirmed more than 500,000 cases as Governor Greg Abbott extended his disaster declaration due to the pandemic. Meanwhile, Governor Andrew Cuomo reported the lowest rate since the outbreak. Theyve done it there. President trump signed a set of executive orders over the weekend expanding coronavirus relief. After lawmakers failed to reach a deal with the white house. Among the directives include deferring payroll taxes through the end of the year for americans earning less than 100,000. They also defer student loan payments through 2020. Discourage evictions and extend enhanced Unemployment Benefits. The payments will be at a reduced rate of 400 a week instead of the previous 600 that democrats have been pushing to reinstate. The federal government will only cover 75 of the cost with the other 25 falling back on the states. Here was trumps justification for that decision. Why did you decide on 400 when previously families were receiving 600 . That will be a hardship to many, what do you say to that . This is the money they need, the money they want. And this gives them great incentive to go back to work. A guy who claims to be a billionaire many times over telling families faced with unemployment what they dont need. No, they dont need that money. This is exactly what they need. This is exactly what they want. It is, though, of course, most likely unconstitutional because you have the president , again once again infringing on article 1 powers. As far as spending and taxing. And steve ratner, its just a bizarre list he put out there. He has had this obsession for some time about payroll taxes and cutting payroll taxes when economists, republicans, democrats, just about everybody on the hill have said, this does not make sense. This does not work. Especially when you have so many people who are out of work and arent paying payroll taxes right now. But take us through this bizarre laundry list of proposals by the president , most of which will, im sure, be declared unconstitutional in time. Yeah, joe. It is a bizarre laundry list. I think the president is was in a bad place politically. Hed be outma nufred by the democrats who passed the 3. 4 trillion bill in may. And the republicans until a few weeks ago hadnt be able to agree on a counter offer so he had to show the American People he was doing something. So its a bizarre list, a lot of odds and ends. I think we can litigate the executive order but it isnt much more than if he declared National Ice Cream day or another minor matter. To put it in perspective, youre talking about a couple billion dollars that may get to americans and the bid ask on the hill was between a tril and 3. 4 trillion. If you want to focus on payroll taxes for a second. You can see whats going to happen there. Its not a reduction, he doesnt have the authority to do that. Its a payroll tax deferal until the end of the year and its not clear that employers would cooperate since they might have the liability. And hes taking the money, 34 billion from fema, from Disaster Relief at a time when everyone is expecting a busy Hurricane Season and weve already had a bad storm. So all in all its not much of anything. The last point id make about it is, its not economically progressive in a sense. Yes, it is capped at 104,000, but if you make 90,000 youll get nine times the benefit of someone who made 10,000 is getting. And you can trust that to what the democrats wanted and what we did in the spring where checks of 1,2 1,200 to all those below certain level. So to take that one provision it doesnt make a lot of sense. Unemployment insurance if i can talk about that. We talked about the 400, which is really 300. The states dont have the money. Thats the point of the exercise. Theres nothing from what the president said for states, for schools, for hospitals, for testing. And andrew cuomo already said new york doesnt have the 4 billion to come up with their share of it. Other states the legislature is out of session very hard to implement it. I think mika also mentioned the eviction order isnt really an eviction order its an instruction to departments to stu study ways to help renters who are behind and cant pay their rent. And my approach would be to point that out to the people and we can talk about litigation if people want but theres not much here to litigate, quite frankly. It was a huge, gigantic nothing burger when you look through the policies at the end. In fact, some of the policies he put forth are going to hurt people, hurt Small Business owners the most. Mika, again i go back to the payroll tax cuts, economists, republicans, democrats, everybody opposing this, this is an obsession like hydroxychloroquine with the president of the United States. Hes been told by republicans and conservatives on the hill time and time again thats not the answer. We dont want that. Dont do that. The president goes ahead, he moves forward with it and what does he do . He just puts a deferal in place, he wants it to defer through his election. And then after the election, they have to pay it all back. So hes not giving them a cut. A payroll tax cut anyway. Hes deferring it until after the election and then the tax man cometh and asks for all that money back from Small Business owners, from working class americans, from people who arent going to be able to pay a big lump of money at the end. It is sheer insanity by a president whos obviously very desperate for a lot of reasons. And the very people who could make a difference and say something, not really stepping up. There seem to be only a few republican lawmakers who expressed concern over President Trumps new executive order. Senator ben sasse of nebraska being one of the strongest. He issues a statement which in part reads, quote, the pen and phone theory of executive law making is unconstitutional slop. President obama did not have the power to unilaterally rewrite Immigration Law with daca and President Trump does not have the right to rewrite the payroll tax law. He went on to say, under the constitution that power belongs to the American People acting through maiembers of congress. The wall street journal writing, the good news is that President Trump on saturday escaped the trillion dollar terms of surrender demanded by House Speaker nancy pelosi, the bad news is he followed the barack obama method with executive orders, one of which stretches the law in a way that a future progressive president will surely cite as a precedent. This seams like an area where republicans could just talk about the law, joe. It seems to me, i remember quite a few, i think ted cruz went crazy when barack obama was signing executive orders. I know a lot of people were concerned about it and criticized Barack Obamas executive orders. But silence. Nothing but silence on capitol hill, other than we saw ben sasse and the wall street journal both who had criticized barack obama when he did it and are criticizing donald trump when he does it. But Michael Steele, lets step back for one second and look at this and realize what republicans are doing here. They are setting a precedent you know, theyre so short sided because theyre thinking that donald trump is going to be president forever. And theyre so short sided that they dont realize that they are going to have a generation in in the minority to think about all the mistakes they made while trump was president and all the precedence that they set for the line of democratic president s who are going to be elected after this fall. Because if you look at the demographic changes, you look at the Republican Party in disarray, i think there are going to be democrats elect to the white house for quite some time. And what have they done . They have so undermined their position as legislators by deferring time and time again to Donald Trumps own power grabs that as the wall street journal said, theyre giving future president , Kamala Harris all that she needs to do something on abortion, gun laws, to do something on whatever they think theyre the most afraid of, she can do a president ial directive and say, donald trump did it, ted cruz said nothing about it, im good. Yeah, this is the constitutional slop that ben sasse referred to. The one thing about constitutional slop it doesnt go down easily at all. And the republicans are going to rue this moment. They in some respects already have. Because the question becomes ultimately, joe, so what . Thats Donald Trumps bottom line. Im going to do this, what are you going to do about it . So whether youre talking about some type of legislative remedy or some type of legal remedy, you go do that. In the meantime ive set the pattern in motion, ive established what im going to do. Let me know when you catch up. So the idea that began going back about 20 years now of executive authority thats unchecked. Weve given the executive branch an enormous amount of power by allowing these things to happen and the question becomes for republicans, particularly after this administration and what weve seen the president do, what do you say when a democratic moves on, like you said, abortion, the environment, health care, and a host of other issues because they figure, well, i dont like what congress is putting forth. Im not going to sign off on their bill so im going to create an executive order thats going to raise taxes on millionaires and billionaires. Im going to go ahead and put in an executive order that is going to, you know, restrict, you know, companies and what theyre doing in the environment. So these are the these are the stones that are being laid now on a path that republicans, while they were crying i think rightly about what obama did wi with daca through executive orders. They are now silent. They better Pay Attention to what ben sasse is saying. This is the problem for Mitch Mcconnell, how do you get out of the constitutional slop. How do you reposition the senate going into the november election. On the back end of this is not a lot of good for you. Okay. So kasie hunt in defense of republicans who are not speaking out vocally, what do they have to lose . Whats the risk . What is it we can understand as to why they wouldnt speak out at this point . Well, mika, its the point that joe was making about a generation in the minority, and instead of taking that long view of this, theyre taking a pretty short view saying weve got this election coming up in three months. Theyre increasingly afraid theyre going to lose the majority in the senate and this generated a set of headlines that at least made it look like they were doing something and, you know, behind the scenes republicans are telling me, okay, democrats we dare you to sue over Unemployment Benefits because they dont think that would look very good. And nancy pelosi and Chuck Schumer both declined to say they would do that when they were questioned about it on the shows yesterday morning. But the reality here is that this isnt one of the situations where President Trump can go out there and write his own reality based on headlines. These are people in every state across the country in red states, blue states, swing districts, safe districts, whose quality of life has suddenly plummeted in the last couple of weeks. They are turning on the tv, they are following every turn of these negotiations because it is the question between whether they can put food on the table or not or make their car payment or not, or pay rent or not, you cant blow through that from a media narrative and republicans on the hill are well aware there are all these issues. They do not want to go out and attack the president , for the same reason they havent wanted to attack the president any other time or on any other issue. They know they still need to get a deal and that is the bet that nancy pelosi is making here. She knows how hard this is for so many people. She also can point to something that they did in may. She can say, we were going to fix this for you in may. Its the republicans who waited around all of this time and now here we are. And so, i see this continuing at least through t