After a question on whether the MAGA coalition will be able to hold it together until Trump takes office, Milbank walked through the last things Trump has walked back, including starting to downplay China tariff talk.
"Now, he is siding with Elon Musk and says we can have some more visas for foreign workers. I don't think any of us should be shocked to think Donald Trump didn't keep his word," he said. "But it sounds like he kind of pulled the wool over a lot of his supporters' eyes."
He added, "So, no, I don't think they will be able to hold together the unity. There will be this constant tension."
Donald Trump has an "aching thirst to monetize the presidency," according to the president elect's own biographer.
Tim O'Brien, who spent massive amounts of time with Trump before writing TrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donald, appeared on MSNBC on Saturday to discuss Trump's recent transition moves.
O'Brien, who has previously commented on how he perceives that Trump's brain is "degrading," was asked about the items Trump sells on his social media site, Truth Social.
Saying Trump is preparing to "fatten his wallet" in the new administration, O'Brien notes that the former and incoming president's habit of selling merchandize with his name on it is "low-hanging fruit."
The writer said that private citizens are given broad discretion to engage in legitimate LLC transactions, but that Trump is taking things to a new level.
"There is a lot of freedom there," he said, noting that the founders "never anticipated someone would enter the White House both with his wallet wide open and with the aching thirst to monetize the presidency."
"So, when you don't have transparency about who the investors are or who the beneficiaries are in these LLCs, it raises an obvious financial conflict of interest that voters and policymakers should be concerned about."
Donald Trump was warned on Saturday that, if he keeps catering to the "Mar-a-Lago crowd," he's going to learn how quickly things will fall apart for him and his major coalition.
Former White House speech writer Jesse Moore appeared on MSNBC over the weekend to discuss Trump's ongoing transition.
MSNBC host Christina Ruffini asked Moore about MAGA infighting over immigration concerns.
Moore said there's a false sense that Trump's supporters are united, when in reality "it's a very finely knit-together coalition."
"It's almost like there's a Mar-a-Lago wing of the coalition who think of his presidency as a place you bring wine and gifts and flatter the host and get what you want and then there is the MAGA wing of the coalition who want to see the wrecking ball swing and take down the whole system," he said. "The biggest piece of this coalition he stitched together were a bunch of voters who were just mad and he is speaking their native tongue, p----- off."
He then added, "If he does too much to take care of the Mar-a-Lago crowd going or the MAGA crowd going down ideological rabbit holes and not bringing down the cost of groceries he will find out really quick how fast this can fall apart."
A baffled MSNBC host and an amused Florida prosecutor attempted to make sense of a brief submitted by Donald Trump's lawyers to the U.S. Supreme Court regarding a possible ban of the popular TikTok app.
With the court poised to rule on the ban, an attorney for the president-elect -submitted a brief on Friday asking the judges to hold off on hearing the case until the president-elect is sworn in so he can attempt to negotiate a compromise.
In the brief, which has been widely ridiculed, the incoming president's attorney asserted, "President Trump alone possesses the consummate deal-making expertise, the electoral mandate and the political will to negotiate a resolution to save the platform while addressing the national security concerns expressed by the government — concerns which President Trump himself has acknowledged."
Speaking with State Attorney for Palm Beach County Dave Aronberg, MSNBC host Christina Ruffini professed, "Does the president even have standing to do this? And what kind of a motion is this? Is this an amicus brief, a writ? I don't know what this is. Can he just involve himself in a case that he is not, you know, a party to? "
The laughing Aronberg replied, "These are all great questions; I had the same questions, too, because normally, Supreme Court? You've got this very buttoned-up group of lawyers who argue specific legal issues, and here's Trump, coming in like a bull in a china shop."
"It's like the movie 'Legally Blonde' when he comes in and just starts spouting off, like 'I have a huge electoral mandate, I'm the smartest and the best, and I can negotiate, so just pause everything, let me step in and let me handle this!'" he joked.
"There's nothing in the law that says he can do that, but he's Donald Trump," the prosecutor explained. "He appointed three out of these nine justices, so he thinks he can do it. I don't know if the Supreme Court is going to go along with it, but it is really interesting that Trump, who often thinks he's above the law, is now doing something I've never seen before in front of the Supreme Court."
During an appearance with MSNBC host Katie Phang on Saturday afternoon, Slate legal analyst Mark Joseph Stern predicted the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas will be given unfettered access to Donald Trump after he is sworn in on Jan. 20th.
Brought on to discuss Justice Thomas being accused of hiding more trips paid for by a billionaire benefactor that appear to be of no concern to Chief Justice John Roberts, Stern brought up Ginni Thomas who was implicated in the Jan 6. insurrection that was put in motion by the president-elect.
According to the Slate journalist, there appears to be no impediment to Ginni Thomas visiting Trump in the Oval Office to push her proposals –– some of which could come under legal review by her husband.
As Stern explained, " [Justice] Thomas has devoted his career to destroying campaign finance laws and granting billionaires a 1st Amendment right to purchase elections. Elon Musk, the richest man on the planet, took advantage of the decisions to essentially buy Trump the presidency, to bail him out and to put Trump back in the White House."
"Because of Musk's work, now, Ginni Thomas is going to have access to the Oval Office. Ginni Thomas will be having meetings with Donald Trump, pushing her preferred policies and there is no real chance that the president will approve of any kind of accountability for Thomas' violations of the law," he continued.
"C'mon, we know that Trump is not going to approve court reform, he's not going to impose a code of ethics or sign one if Congress happens to pass it," he elaborated. "His attorney general is certainly not going to bring the civil or criminal penalties that could be on the table because of Clarence Thomas' law-breaking here."
"It really seems like this coterie of billionaires and their benefactors are all sort of entrenching and reinforcing each other's power and privilege. If that is not an oligarchy, I'm not sure what is," he concluded.
According to longtime political observer Jonathan Alter, the moment Donald Trump is sworn in on Jan. 20, the clock begins ticking on his hold of power since he will be widely regarded as a lame-duck president.
Speaking with MSNBC host Charles Coleman Jr. on Saturday morning, Alter said that the president-elect stands no chance of running for a third term on 2028 despite speculation that he might attempt it, and lawmakers won't have to go along with every demand he makes.
As he explained, "In the short and middle term I think he'll be held to account for all sorts of campaign promises. If he is not successful in lowering prices, as he promised he would do, and if his tariffs and other policies contribute to renewed inflation, he will be judged very harshly on that."
"But remember, he's not a candidate for reelection," he pointed out. "He becomes a lame duck on January 20th. I know people talk about him getting around the 22nd Amendment and being in office forever –– that's not going to happen."
"His political power will start to ooze out of him, and a lot of the accountability will be reflected first in the Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial elections this coming year and then in the 2026 midterms," he elaborated. "But if he ends up governing with a billionaire boys club -- he's already appointed 12 billionaires -- that's not what he promised. He promised to look out for middle-class working families and if his policies include deep cuts to very popular programs or other things that don't really seem to resemble the populist promises that he made during the campaign, his popularity is going to suffer."
Donald Trump's plans to hit the ground running after his Jan. 20 inauguration will likely not go as smoothly as he and some members of his inner circle seem to believe it will.
That is according to Guardian reporter Hugo Lowell who appeared on MSNBC on Saturday morning with host Charles F Coleman Jr. and was asked what to expect moments after the president-elect is sworn in.
"Hugo, these are a dozen-plus day-one promises," the MSNBC host began. "Which can Trump actually do and what's the most important? "
"The most important is definitely immigration, as you said, because that has been the campaign promise," the reporter replied. "I also think it's going to be the most difficult of his priorities, because he faces roadblocks at every turn. If he wants to start mass deportations he needs the cooperation of states and cities, and it's not clear he will get that. He's going to run into judges not so favorable to him."
"The first administration, they bungled the Muslim ban and didn't get the sign-off of the Department of Justice, and the whole thing kind of cratered," he recalled. " But, beyond that, I do think the president does have a lot of power, particularly when it is going to be interpreted by a Republican-leaning Supreme Court or a Republican-leading DOJ. And Trump's own White House counsels who all will take this idea of a unitary executive power to basically mean Trump has free rein over a lot of areas."
Discussing what is expected to be a chaotic election of the next Republican House Speaker late next week, a former high-ranking Republican Party official criticized the caucus and told them to "grow a spine" and pick someone serious about asserting the authority of the chamber.
Speaking with his co-hosts on MSNBC's "The Weekend," former RNC chair Michael Steele lectured the House Republicans who stumbled and bumbled their way to previously picking Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) who is already facing stiff opposition.
"This is something that the American people by and large don't care about because they don't know how their government functions and they don't know how these roles are played and how important they are. Why it matters when dealing with the budget and the debt ceiling, why it matters when you have an incoming president who wants the speaker to kowtow to him," Steele remarked.
"That is why I said that Congress is an independent body, –– they are not an adjunct of the executive branch, they are an independent branch and it is high time Republicans started acting like it," he continued before exclaiming, "Grow a spine or other body parts that may help you understand what your job and your role is."
"And if you want a good speaker, Republicans, elect one! Because you ain't got one and you haven't had one in a while!" he added. "You know that person exists within your ranks, it is just that you are too scared to nominate and elect him."
"The American people don't care because you don't care and you don't make it important so it is not important," he accused.
The co-hosts of MSNBC's "The Weekend" were beside themselves with laughter on Saturday morning as they discussed Donald Trump advisor Vivek Ramaswamy angering the MAGA faithful with a "screed" he posted on X that has led to a schism within the president-elect's base.
With co-host Michael Steele bestowing "screed" on the Ramaswamy post where the entrepreneur maintained, "Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long (at least since the 90s and likely longer)," co-hosts Alicia Menendez and Symone Sanders Townsend all piled on when they weren't laughing at each other's comments.
"He laid out basically you white folks out here should have been focused on doing a little bit more Urkle than anything else," Steele joked before adding, "You know, Symone, I'm tickled. I'm tickled by this. Who would have saw this coming? "
"Well, I mean definitely not the folks who voted for Donald Trump and they're American workers," Townsend Sanders replied. "Look, this is, you know, my mother told me this is just some business that don't involve you. You don't need to step in it, so I have been watching, because this is what happened."
"And that is the point," Steele added. "But what you have happening here is the very thing that white folks have said about Black people and for generations. They were saying that about white people and they don't like it. "You're not lazy, you're not slow, you're not stupid. Well, that's what we've been saying for 400 years, yet here we are."
While introducing his guests on MSNBC's "The Weekend," co-host Michael Steele promised they were going to cover "A whole lot of stupid," and then proceeded to mock Donald Trump's out-of-nowhere fascination with buying Greenland.
Getting right to it, the former Republican National Committee chair sarcastically joked to his co-hosts and guests, "Let's start with this smart idea that we are somehow going to take control of Panama and that we want to go and buy Greenland."
"Why?" he continued. "Because it is there and it is green and I guess that is what Donald Trump wants to do."
Turning to guest Marianna Sotomayor of the Washington Post, he asked, " Is there any appetite, do you think, from your reporting and your coverage of these things with this coming Congress, the idea that they are going to entertain legislation to do these crazy fantasy-driven ideas of Donald Trump that, somehow, he not only wants to rule the United States but he wants to rule the world?"
"Absolutely not," she shot back. "Honestly among Democrats and definitely among Republicans, they don't want to be doing these things. There are so many things Congress could do, not to mention raising the debt ceiling in just a couple of weeks Janet Yellen just mentioned that Wednesday night saying this should be the priority of the conversation even before Trump is sworn in."
"How are they going to tackle something like this? Trying to acquire other nations or other nations' properties?" she added.
A never-Trump conservative thinks MAGA's recent division over immigrant visas is one of what he expects will be many rifts "coming down the pike" and took a shot at the movement, telling CNN on Friday night it would take a "heart of stone" not to laugh at the chaos.
The rift emerged between two factions. On one side, tech allies such as billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy — who have been tapped to slash trillions from the federal budget — are advocating for more visas to attract highly skilled foreign workers. On the other side is the MAGA base, which has opposed expanding H-1B visas, seeing it as a threat to American jobs.
Political commentator Jonah Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Dispatch, told CNN panelists he expects this is just a preview of what's to come.
"I think it's just one rift of a bunch that's probably coming down the pike as we move forward," he said. "But look. It would take a heart of stone not to laugh at the situation that they've gotten themselves into."
Goldberg called Trump a "salesman" who made promises to the Musk faction and the Laura Loomer faction — referring to a white nationalist podcaster and Trump ally who once appeared on Trump's plane ahead of a debate — along with a litany of other factions that "can't be reconciled with each other."
Goldberg said he's closer to Musk on policy issues and called out the "irony" of the situation.
"They rode this populist tide in claiming that establishment Republicans and the conservative establishment and the old Reaganite crowd, the old National Review crowd — they don't know anything and all the answers are super easy and we know exactly what to do," he said.
The journalist noted topics such as H1-B reform aren't so simple in practice — they're "really complicated." He lamented that the "serious people" — he didn't specify who those were — were pushed aside for "populist yahoos" such as Trump ally Steve Bannon.
"And now they're the dog that caught the car," he said. "They don't know how to do any of this policy because they haven't done any of the leg work on it."
Rep. Debbie Dingell on Friday evening called the issue "difficult" — but said lawmakers in both chambers passed the bill for the good of the country.
"This was a very difficult decision for me, Wolf," said Dingell on "The Situation Room" with host Wolf Blitzer. "It is national security versus the millions and millions of users that we have in this country. But the fact of the matter is, is that a significant majority in both the House and the Senate, in a very bipartisan way, voted for this because of the reasons that we got."
Dingell acknowledged that while young people — who are largely the main users of the app — voted for Trump, she and her colleagues have a "responsibility" to protect national security.
"They also don't understand how much of their information is being tracked, how it will be used in the future, etc. The Supreme Court needs to make its findings on a Constitutional basis. The president has the right to express his opinion. And I hope the Supreme Court makes its findings based on the law that was passed and the Constitution."
Dingell also weighed in on a massive split in MAGA land over H1B visas, and pointed out Republicans — much like her party — are finding immigration reform a "difficult issue."
"While Musk is concerned about Silicon Valley and technology, we have a lot of farmers, we have a lot of small businesses that also are looking at these kinds of issues," she said.
Dingell called for ensuring the government is investing in American workers, including training them.
"We need engineers in this country, we need those skilled trades," she said.
The recent schism further shows "there's a reason" comprehensive immigration reform has been so tough for both parties, she said.
Dingell also called on her party to improve how it talks to workers about issues that matter to them, including the cost of eggs.
"We as Democrats do a lousy job at times just talking to the working men and women of this country," she said.
She added: "We did a bad job of that" — and while Trump didn't, he faces a steep challenge in addressing those problems.
Donald Trump's top issue next year is fixing immigration, and an MSNBC political panel thinks he set up his supporters for an internal civil war over it.
Speaking to Ayman Mohyeldin, who is filling in for Nicolle Wallace, Lincoln Project co-founder Rick Wilson said Trump has spent the past decade blaming immigrants for all that ails them. Meanwhile, Trump has welcomed the billionaire class, in stark contrast to the MAGA ideology.
It presented itself in a very public fight between MAGA darling Laura Loomer and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who has been on Trump's side for the past several months. Musk's Tesla company is the third largest user of H-1B visas, which allow immigrants to work in the United States.
This week, Musk and his ally Vivek Ramaswamy have expressed support for prioritizing skilled immigrants over American workers in online discussions. Musk even agreed with a user's controversial comment on his platform, which suggested — using offensive language — that Americans might lack the qualifications for certain skilled jobs.
Ramaswamy went so far as to claim that Americans are lazy and care more about watching "Friends" and going to the mall. He complained Thursday that American culture prizes jocks over nerds in a world he said was run by the latter.
Mohyeldin said everyone saw the clash coming, but it happened quickly.
"It is an inevitability the non-college educated base, which is the majority, were always going to be preconditioned to believe that the word immigrant or visa means brown people bad," Wilson said.
Many MAGA supporters believe they could have been millionaires working as software designers at Google if it weren't for immigrants or DEI, he said.
"You see this conflict. It's going to be the hyper-populists," Wilson continued. "They don't care about the more sophisticated arguments about the visas. They care, brown people bad. That's the driving conditioning they have had from Fox for years."
Writer and commentator Molly Jong-Fast agreed, saying Musk invested over $200 million in electing Trump and thought he'd gain something from it.
"I think he thought, as a lot of billionaires thought, it would be transactional, and they could give him money and get what they wanted," she explained. "What they want is skilled workers for their companies."
Skilled American labor crushed under the weight of college debt won't work for the bottom-dollar salaries in jobs that require more than 40 hours a week.
"Donald Trump has a problem," Jong-Fast continued. "He has a base that has elected him on 'mass deportation now.' They had it on signs. Then he has billionaires who paid for this campaign and who want workers. I think this is going to come to a head pretty quickly."
