Maddow: Trump Cabinet too rife with scandal to designate a 'survivor'

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“The American people are basically telling the president that they are not okay with any of this.”

Sign up for the Project 47 Newsletter at ms.now/project 47. Thanks to you at home for joining us this hour really happy to have you here. So who's going to be the designated survivor? It's the most morbid thing, but it's a real thing they do it every year.

Every state of the union they picked somebody, some lucky stiff from the administration, from the cabinet,

to be a designated survivor, to not go to the state of the union address.

“It feels like it's left over like from the mutually assured destruction days of the Cold War or something.”

But the logic of it really is apocalyptic. The logic of it is that if some catastrophe physically happens at that event at the state of the union, while all of Congress and the President and the Vice President and the Joint Chiefs and the Supreme Court and everybody are all in that same physical place.

If something, God forbid, terrible happened there during that event.

The designated survivor by virtue of the fact that that person didn't attend the event, that designated survivor would be the one. Would be the person who would reconstitute the government of the United States and keep the government going after the President and the Vice President and the whole rest of the cabinet and the whole Congress.

“We're all swallowed up in a hellmouth or something. It's very weird. The whole idea of it is very dystopian and weird, but they do it every year.”

And you think, given the responsibility associated with being the designated survivor, you think they pick like the most widely respected person. They pick the person who everybody agrees would be the best choice to take over the country in the wake of an unimaginable disaster. You think it would be like a really high profile person they picked every year. They don't do that. Actually kind of the opposite. The person does get some attention for being picked as the designated survivor every year, but usually the person is kind of not well known.

And so like in this cabinet, you might expect that they pick maybe the labor secretary, right? Labor is not a particular area of interest for this President or early for any Republican president. So maybe they just, you know, keep things quiet, pick somebody low key, make the labor secretary the designated survivor this year. Could they do that? Oh, no, no, no, no, no, can't do that. Trump's labor secretary is Lori Chavez Deremer, and if they pick Lori Chavez Deremer as the designated survivor, then people will Google Lori Chavez Deremer, and this is what they will find.

Headlight, labor secretary Lori Chavez Deremer, under investigation, for quote, inappropriate relationship with employee. These are reports that started with a complaint that was reportedly filed with the Inspector General of the Labor Department. Trump Labor Secretary, quote, accused of drinking in her office during the work day and committing travel fraud by having her chief of staff and deputy chief of staff, both of whom are now on leave. If quote, "make up official trips to destinations where Chavez Deremer can spend time with family or friends on the taxpayers dime."

Headlight, Trump's married labor boss, accused of booze filled fling with staffer. Headlight, Chavez Deremer's security staffer placed on leave amid scandal investigation. The labor secretary has been accused of engaging in a romantic relationship with said security staffer. Headlight, Lori Chavez Deremer, reportedly under investigation for misusing funds. Headlight, Trump Labor Secretary, accused of taking staff off, taking staff to a strip club on an official trip. That's a real headline.

I mean, now admit everything else you are probably a nice person, an empathetic person. Perhaps you're not just a dog by looking at those headlines about that scandal, perhaps you were thinking, "Oh, wow, this must be really hard on her family." Headlight, husband of Labor Secretary Lori Chavez Deremer, accused of sexually assaulting two staffers. Headlight, Labor Secretary's husband, borrowed from Labor Department headquarters amid staffers sexual assault allegations. Headlight, DC Police, search Labor Secretary's office in sexual assault investigation.

The Metropolitan Police Department searched Lori Chavez Deremer's office as it looks into allegations against her husband.

But does that mean they're going to let him back in?

I don't know. So, yeah, in a normal administration, if a normal Republican administration may be somebody like the Labor Secretary would be the designated survivor at the state of the union.

“But do you want to put a spotlight on that hot mess right now?”

That absolutely radioactive scandal engulfing everything related to Trump's Labor Secretary?

Yeah, maybe it's not going to be her. Maybe instead you go with another low profile department. One of those departments where only real government geeks even know what the department does. Like maybe you'd go with something really obscure like the Commerce Department. Whose Trump Secretary of Commerce again?

“Hey, line, new details from Epstein files reveal Trump Commerce Secretary Howard Ludnick had years long business tie with sex offender.”

Oh, yeah, that's the Commerce Secretary. So maybe we can't have the Commerce Secretary be the designated survivor either. Not when today, the day before the state of the union, we had the former British ambassador to the U.S. Peter Mendelsan arrested and perp walked out of his home because of his Epstein ties. Right after former Prince Andrew was arrested as well, both of those arrests are not just because of their Epstein links, but because of their Epstein links and their government jobs. Peter Mendelsan is for when he had the exact same job as Howard Ludnick, but in the British government rather than the U.S. government.

Here, all the Trump connected people like Trump himself and like Howard Ludnick, Trump's Commerce Secretary, they are apparently a no trouble at all, but maybe you wouldn't want to highlight that at the state of the union. I mean, will Dr. Oz be at the state of the union? Trump's Medicare guy.

Dr. Oz personally invited Jeffrey Epstein to a Valentine's day party in 2016, not like a million years ago before Epstein had ever been arrested or served jail time, but in 2016 he invited him.

Because, you know, what adult Valentine's day party is not complete without the presence of one of the most notorious convicted sex offenders and child sex traffickers of all time. Dr. Oz.

“Is Dr. Oz going to be there at the state of the union?”

Maybe they'll sit him alongside the survivors of Epstein's trafficking ring who are going to be brought to the speech by Democratic lawmakers. Will Dr. Oz shake their hand? Will Howard let Nick shake their hand? Will Trump? Will Trump? All of those guys, of course, deny any wrongdoing when it comes to their long, creepy, seemingly kind of intense relationships with Jeffrey Epstein about which they have not been particularly forthcoming. Maybe Trump will have to go with a more high-profile department, a more mainstream department for the designated survivor this year. Maybe like head of the Department of Justice, right? That's always a prestigious job.

The attorney general could be the designated survivor. It's happened a couple of times in the past. Would you want it to be Pam Bondi this year? Would you want to shine a light on on Pam Bondi's department right now? Give people a reason to Google. Oh, yeah. What's she in charge of? What's been happening with her department? Headline, FBI director Cash Patel during what his spokesman said was an official trip to Milan for security meetings was filmed guzzling from a beer bottle and celebrating in the locker room with US Olympic hockey players on Sunday.

Quote, eight former FBI and Justice Department officials sent MSNow a copy of that video, which they said was drawing outrage as it rocketed around FBI and DOJ circles. Quote, FBI spokesman Ben Williamson told MSNow on Thursday that Cash Patel was going to Milan for a series of quote, "Business meetings," and he said it was unfair to describe Patel's trip as having to do with hockey or pleasure of any kind. Quote, your rag outlet wrote that he went to hang out at the Olympics on the taxpayer dime.

Williamson posted Saturday on Twitter. Then on Sunday, several videos emerged on social media. In fact, showing Patel in the locker room after the hockey game, with one in particular drawing outrage from current and former FBI agents it depicted Patel, pouring what appeared to be beer down his throat, spraying some of it in the air, and screaming in celebration. The FBI spokesman did not respond to a request for comment about the video. NBC News is also reporting tonight that the Justice Department has just had to drop their humiliating total debacle of an effort to bring criminal charges against six Democratic senators and members of Congress,

Not a single grand juror, not that they couldn't get the grand jury to agree to the indictment. They couldn't get a single grand juror, meaning they couldn't get one person. They couldn't even get one vote. In the last few days, at Pam Bondi's Justice Department, we've had Justice Department lawyers abjectly apologizing to judges in three different states, essentially begging not to be held in contempt, at least one Justice Department lawyer has just been held in contempt in Minnesota. Things are really seemingly breaking down there. We're going to talk tonight about a novel effort to try to document and try to sort of walloff and preserve evidence of all the abuses and authoritarian misuses of the Justice Department under Donald Trump and Pam Bondi.

This is something I don't think you've necessarily heard about anywhere else. I hope you'll stick with us for that little later on in the show tonight.

“But what would you, I mean, you know, would you pick Pam Bondi to be a designated survivor given what's going on?”

At the Justice Department right now, would you want to put a little extra spotlight on her? I'm not sure that you, not sure that you would, but who else could you choose? Maybe Christy Known could be designated survivor from Homeland Security. You want to give the American people a reason to focus on her for an extra minute? Do you think? Headline, Homeland Security reverses course on TSA pre-check suspension after confusion. As Christy Known announced with great solemnity this weekend that she would be shutting down TSA pre-check and global entry at all airports because

Because she can, um, honestly, she said had something to do with a shutdown shutting down TSA pre-check. Let's bring total chaos to airport TSA checkpoints all around the country.

She announced that and then basically immediately, uh, we were told, um, no, that's not actually happening.

“Who decided it's not happening? And did she decide it was happening? Why did she decide that? And if she had a reason to decide it, then why was it done?”

Who's running things? Who's making these decisions? What's going on there? It's like when they announced that the El Paso Airport and all airspace over El Paso would be closed for 10 days. And then a few hours later, nope. No, sorry. Didn't mean that. And then we learned it was because they had let the border patrol under Christy Known's leadership play with a military laser weapon, which they used to shut down my. To, excuse me, to shoot down my large party balloons over El Paso without it for telling the FAA that they were doing that. And so the FAA closed the airspace. And then the White House said, no, you can't close the airspace. And so yeah, maybe things aren't being all that well run right now. Do you get that sense?

So, before I test to find in Congress, he just resigned as a lawyer at ICE. He's a guy who's been a big part of the training that ICE officers get. He resigned and went public today saying, "On my first day, I received secretive orders to teach new cadets to violate the constitution by entering homes without a judicial warrant." He said, quote, ICE is teaching cadets to violate the constitution. He provided documents to Congress today that show that ICE has cut hundreds of hours from their training, including classes that teach, quote,

the constitution or legal system, firearms training, the use of force, lawful arrests, proper detention, and the limits of officers authority.

“The agency that's doing that, you want the head of that agency to be the designated survivor?”

Well, Christy Nome to be the designated survivor. If you did, people might Google her name, Christy Nome. One of the things they would come up with are these recently published photos. Isn't this nice? This is a plane that Christy Nome wants taxpayers to buy for her. This is Trump's Homeland Security Secretary who already took over for herself, the house that's supposed to belong to the common Don of the Coast Guard. This is after the Wall Street Journal reported that Christy Nome's alleged boyfriend/chief of staff/fixer in the Homeland Security Department fired a Coast Guard pilot in the middle of a flight,

because someone forgot to bring Christy Nome's personal favorite blanket onto a flight that she was on. Warders reports today that Corey Lewandowski actually stormed into the cockpit of that plane to fire the pilot mid-flight because of the pilot's quote. Well, because of the pilot's insufficient attention to Christy Nome's blanket. We have not confirmed this, but this is Warders' reporting today, quote, "the pilots in the cockpit asked Lewandowski to return to the cabin until they had reached cruising altitude."

A Boeing 737 Max A. On paper, they say they need this particular plane for, quote, "immigrant deportation flights."

They've been leasing it already. You have been paying for them to use this plane on a lease. But now Corey Lewandowski and Christy Nome want you to buy this plane for them. I'm sorry, not for them, but for deportation flights, and also occasionally they say perhaps for cabinet officials travel. Christy Nome being the relevant cabinet official.

“This particular plane they want, again, mostly for deportations, but maybe occasionally for Christy Nome, it looks like it's really outfitted for deportations, right?”

It has a bedroom with a queen bed. Sure, that's normal for deportation flights. Also has a bar. That's nice. I'm sure the deportees have come to expect that.

Quote, "No expense has been spared and every detail has been meticulously executed with, quote, "exceptional interior design by renowned New York designer Peter Marino."

This is the plane she is leasing right now on the taxpayer dime for her own use, saying it is for deportations. And now she wants you to stop leasing it and just buy it for her and Corey. It has a queen bed. So yeah, I doubt they're going to pick Christy Nome for designated survivor. But if they do, what are the odds that she'll be enjoying the heck out of her special blanket on her special plane that you're paying for? The interior design is impeccable.

“Today you know there's this huge blizzard on the east coast.”

Today, for some reason, Christy Nome's department decided to fly a real deportation flight into New Hampshire. They flew it into Portsmouth, New Hampshire at 1 AM today, right at the height of the blizzard. The airport in Portsmouth said they had no idea this flight was coming, had they known they would have told them don't come, it's not safe, but Christy Nome's department and its infinite wisdom flew this plain full of people there, presumably shackled, if it's like a normal deportation flight, and then they left the people on that plane on the tarmac for more than 12 hours in the middle of that blizzard.

According to W.M.U.R. and New Hampshire some genius at Christy Nome's department decided that that plane should take off from Heartland, Texas. Last night, Sunday night, flying right into the biggest blizzard in the northeast in years. Portsmouth International Airport officials said they were not told the flight was inbound until 15 minutes before it arrived at 1 AM. "had we been informed in advance of their intent to land here during the blizzard, we would have strongly advised against it." And then they left the people there on the tarmac for 12 hours.

The day before the storm hit on Saturday, this was a big protest that erupted in small town Maramaque, New Hampshire. Christy Nome's department is trying to force that town to have a huge new Trump prison camp, that clearly the people of Maramaque and the people of New Hampshire do not want.

Regular people, every local official, basically everyone in New Hampshire is telling the Trump administration they do not want a Trump prison camp in this New Hampshire town.

Everybody expressing opposition to it except for Republican Governor Kelly A.I., who bravely, bravely, bravely is still refusing to say whether she's for it or against it. Because... Courage. The entire New Hampshire congressional delegation, both the states, U.S. senators, both their members of the House, the whole congressional district from the state of New Hampshire, are co-sponsoring now a bill that would not let Trump put a new prison camp in any community anywhere in the country, without the state and local authorities, they're formally signing off on it.

We shall see. I will say this thing in Maramaque stinks to everybody anywhere near it. A few days ago, the Boston Globe started asking questions at a healthcare company that had started to post job listings that were apparently for this new prison camp. I would guess that it is not easy to answer questions about why you'd want your company to be involved and try to make money off of something like that. The company asked a medical group at first didn't give any comment to the Globe and response to their questions, but then the president of the company eventually told them, "It's not looking likely that we will ever bid on any of these facilities, meaning on any of Trump's prison camps."

“That's hard to answer questions about that, hard to defend the idea of doing that kind of business, right?”

In social circle, Georgia officials there are fighting the Trump prison camp that Trump's trying to put there as well. Local officials in social circle, Georgia, say they refused a demand from Christy Nomes Department to turn on the water at a warehouse facility there that they want to turn into a prison camp.

Look at this, look at this. This is the supposed blueprint they were sent by Christy Nomes, but department by DHS.

“For a blueprint for a warehouse filled with up to 10,000 people, two and a half times the size of the largest federal prison in the United States. What does this document remind you of?”

Each little tiny dot there is a human. Social circle, Georgia, local officials also published the truly insane documents that Christy Nomes Department sent them about water supply and issues like that for this proposed facility.

The city of social circle responded, quote, documents provided by Homeland Security indicate this detention facility alone would have a sewage demand of 1,683 gallons per day.

“The city's current wastewater system processes 660,000 gallons per day, and is already operating at capacity. It cannot accommodate an increase in usage of this magnitude.”

That's for wastewater. How about the water supply freshwater to the facility? This is absolute genius from Christy Nomes. Look at this. The Homeland Security Analysis references a quote, "Sistern-based, sistern-based approach" in which tanks would be filled from local municipal systems during off-peak hours. Regarding this of time of day, the city's infrastructure cannot accommodate this level of demand while the proposal is certainly creative. It does not resolve the fundamental issue. The total additional water demand required for a facility of the scale simply exceeds what the city's system is capable of providing.

“I mean, this is the genius of the Trump administration as affectionated by Christy Nome. This is a town that does not have enough water to support a massive prison camp for up to 10,000 people.”

Christy Nomes proposed solution to that is to say, "It's okay. We'll build big tanks and we'll fill them only at night."

So that means they'll be enough water because you said you're only using, you know, ex-gallon's per day. We'll take our water per night. So bingo, problem solves. In the great state of Maryland, the Attorney General of that state as of today is suing the Trump administration to stop one of these massive prison camps from being built in Maryland in Washington County. This is a protest this weekend in North Carolina in Concord, North Carolina, where locals there are worried that they're going to have one of these Trump prison camps too.

We've been monitoring protests and local anger about potential prison camps all over among other places in Chester, New York and Lebanon, Tennessee and Roxbury, New Jersey. I single out those three places in particular because in just the past few days, Christy Nomes, Shambalic Department, has reversed itself and in some cases double reversed itself, confusing everyone in those three places about whether they really are still trying to put prison camps in those towns. In Chester, New York, for example, we got an official statement from Homeland Security that they purchased a warehouse in Chester, New York to turn into a Trump prison camp there. Then five days later, they reversed that and announcement that no actually they hadn't bought anything and there's not going to be a prison camp there after all.

We're going to talk with local congressmen, Democrat Pat Ryan about that in just a moment, but that's not the only place where they've been changing their minds in Tennessee. Here's the Homeland Security announcement that they had bought a warehouse there followed by four days later, a retraction from the Homeland Security Department saying, "Nope, actually we haven't bought a warehouse there at all. We put out that statement in error. This false, no prison camp is going into Lebanon, Tennessee." Well, now today, a few days later, they've reversed again. News in Lebanon, Tennessee, that actually yes, there might still be one and if it is going to be one there, it's going to be bigger than ever.

It's not going to be 10,000 people, it's going to be a mega prison, 14,000 to 16,000 people in Lebanon, Tennessee, which would make Lebanon, Tennessee home to one of the largest prisons in the world. But maybe it won't be there at all? Who knows? It's Christy Nome's department, so there's literally no way to know. And if they do put it there, presumably, they'll mine the water for it on the moon or something. If you get it at night, it doesn't count as daily water alignment, because it's dark. Rocksbury, New Jersey's also been on a roller coaster. Christy Nome's department telling the news outlet Gothamist that they had bought a site for a Trump prison camp in Rocksbury, New Jersey.

Now, the talent says they've just gotten word that officially, yes, they have bought a facility in Rocksbury, New Jersey.

“We saw protests against ice this weekend in Bloomfield, New Jersey. Those protests attracted, among others, Democratic Senator Andy Kim of New Jersey.”

In Rochester, New York, we saw protests this weekend in the snow outside the federal building there. In Bellevue, Washington, we saw protests there this weekend in the rain. In Little Rock, Arkansas, we saw protests in Little Rock. Good sign there. We saw will trade racists for refugees. In Portland, Oregon, Japanese Americans let a protest march to the ice facility there. The local NBC station channel eight asked this local woman, Joni Komoto, why she in particular had decided to be there. I was in turn, in 1942, I spent four months at the Portland Assembly Center, and then I was sent to Minidoka, Idaho, an internment camp.

And we were there for two, three years. That lived experience, informing her position today denouncing the actions of ice. It is parallel. It is exactly the same. Our government is forcefully taking people away from their lives, and putting them without due process of law into places that they shouldn't be, into detention. Trump State of the Union is tomorrow.

“Since his last one, his approval ratings have dropped 15 points with independence, 16 points with young people and 19 points with Latinos.”

His approval ratings have never been lower.

The number of Americans who strongly approve of Donald Trump right now is dropped into the teens. His approval rating with Americans overall is 27 points underwater. His approval rating with independence overall is 47 points underwater. That is a portrait of a country that is repulsed by their president. While his cabinet is convulsed in scandal, each one more repulsed than the next.

I mean, the only saving grace for some of these cabinet members is that the president himself is so awash in scandal. It's kind of hard to share the spotlight with him. But amid this smoking mess, what's he trying to do? He's trying to build himself a huge new archipelago of mega prisons.

“To lock up huge, huge, huge numbers of people without due process effectively outside the legal system.”

Because he seems like the trustworthy leader we should give that kind of power. I don't know who the designated survivor is going to be tomorrow night. I don't know. In many ways though, it does feel like the unimaginable calamity is already here. Regardless of who they pick.

Stay with us. A live short daily news podcast focus on just one story. But right now, you probably need more.

On up first from NPR, we bring you three of the world's top headlines every day in under 15 minutes.

Because no one's story can capture all that's happening in this big, crazy world of ours on any given morning. Listen now to the up first podcast from NPR. The village of Chester, New York's about 60 miles north of New York City. It's home to about 4,000 people. On Christmas Eve, the people of Chester read for the first time in the Washington post of all places.

The Trump administration was on was planning on sticking a huge new prison camp in their little town. They were planning on doing it here in this warehouse that used to belong to a pep boys. Local officials from the village of Chester saw this in the Washington post and they immediately wrote to the Trump administration to say, Hey, nobody's told us anything about this. What's going on here?

When they got no response, the village of Chester wrote to the administration again. This time they sent a 59 page letter spelling out why it was a terrible idea for the village of Chester, New York, to get a prison camp like this. Since then, bipartisan groups of New York lawmakers have written letters to oppose any such prison camp being built there. The county executive is a Republican.

He says he hasn't talked to a single elected official in the whole state. No Democrat, no Republican who is in favor of this thing. And of course, the opposition is coming from the people too. After the news broke, so many people showed up to the next village meeting that, look, this was the overflow outside.

There weren't nearly enough chairs. There almost was enough space in the town. There have been protests almost every week since in Chester. And in the surrounding areas, outside in the frigid cold in this cold winter.

Congressman Pat Ryan said, I should, should quote,

“stay the F out of the Hudson Valley. He didn't say F.”

Congressman Ryan started a petition against the prison, and less than a month, it got more than 20,000 signatures. Again, this is a town of 4,000 people. It's been one big loud unified know from Chester, New York. We do not want your Trump prison camp in our little village.

For now, it seems like the people of Chester might have won this fight. A little over a week ago, an ice spokesperson said the Trump administration officially had bought that old pet boys warehouse in Chester. And they're planned to turn into a prison camp was a go.

But then just a few days after that, a spokesman for ice said actually never mind that was a mistake.

The Trump administration hasn't bought that. Warehouse are bad. We didn't mean it. We accidentally sent out that statement in error. So now maybe it's not happening all around the country.

This plan to buy up warehouses to turn them into massive Trump prison camps. It has been more than chaotic. It has been filled with chaos and disinformation and misinformation and reversals from the administration. But maybe Chester really has won this. Weirdly breaking detail in this story on Friday, just a few days ago,

a Republican New York State Assemblyman says he talked to a senior advisor at ice about this. What were the circumstances of that conversation?

Well, he said he randomly bumped into the person on an overseas military deployment.

Okay. After that happens stance meeting the Assemblyman says he got confirmation from ice. That in fact, Trump will not build that prison camp in Chester, New York after all. What kind of process is that? I have no idea.

But for now, it seems like the people of Chester, New York and their elected officials might have won this. They might have stopped this prison camp from being built in their town. You don't win every fight, but you can't win any of them without fighting. And sometimes, sometimes you do win. Joining us now is Democratic Congressman Pat Ryan.

He represents the village of Chester. He started that petition against the prison camp. That is more than 20,000 signatures, Congressman. It's nice to see you. Thank you for being here.

Thanks for having me.

First of all, I just have to ask you with the blizzard.

How's your district doing? We're good. We love this known outstanding New York, so we're tough. It has been a tough year though, so we're ready for spring. Yeah, I live in Western Massachusetts.

And I feel like people don't understand that we already had a couple of feet of snow on the ground. And before this new couple of feet came down, it feels different. But I know you guys are tough. So let me ask you about this process.

“Do you actually believe that the prison camp isn't coming to Chester?”

Do you think this is settled now? Look, I don't trust this administration at all. I think any of what you could chalk up to confusion. I think it's just them being straight up to seed full straight up lying to the American people, and seeing from day one of this administration.

So we are going to fight this until the very last until we're certain. And I mean, quite literally myself and others have said, If we have to like chain ourselves to the perimeter of this, we are not going to let this happen in our community. We're not going to let this happen in our country.

And it has been a righteous fight. I'm really proud of our community. It's a wide coalition too, which is so encouraging to me in a really obviously dark and tough moment. Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that because your district sort of famously is a real swing district, and it's very very ideologically diverse in terms of your constituents,

town to town and county to county.

“Has it been a unified know from all those different types of people in your district?”

It kind of seems like it's been a really wide swath of people. Partisan swath of people that has all got the same idea that this shouldn't come in. Yes, I mean, remember, this is a county Orange County, New York. President Trump has won every time he's run in this county. He won this in 2016 by five and a half, six points, even won it in 2020.

And then in 2024, he won this county by nine percent. So, you know, this is one of three counties I represent, and it's the most conservative part of my district. With that context, it is incredibly, I think patriotic that we're seeing a very wide set of elected officials, community leaders, immigrants, rights activists.

I mean, we've had everybody out there, you asked about this now. I mean, we were out one night. I think it was near or at zero and there were hundreds of people out there.

I mean, we pick righteous fights, we fight them smartly.

We build the coalition as, as we fight them. And to see every local Republican at every level on side for this, it gives me at least a sliver of optimism. Do you have any advice having been through this for all the other communities around the country

“that are trying to fight these same kind of fights?”

Well, this is what's encouraging too. I've been talking to my colleagues. I know you covered earlier in a hamster, I've been working with my colleagues. Their colleagues in New Jersey, that northern New Jersey facility, you talked about in Roxbury.

That's only an hour or so from my district.

And they're building this kind of concentric circle, essentially around New York City, which is incredibly concerning in terms of what that might portend or probably does, or tend for New York City in the greater metro area. So all of us in the house and the Senate are working together on this. And it has been a unifying piece.

The main thing I would say is we started this petition. Early and often, and we now have actually almost 30,000 signatures. As you said, it's a village of just a few thousand people. And everywhere I go in my district, people say, "What's going on with this? What can we do to be in the fight?"

We've had towns, counties, and others all passing memorializing resolutions at their town and village level. So we've really created a place for everybody to get involved in this and say, "Look, regardless of party identification, if you believe," I mean, look, I served 27 months in combat to not to come home and see my fellow Americans being rounded up. It's as un-American as you could possibly imagine.

“And so I think creating a broadest possible ten for people to reject this un-American behavior”

and say, "We might not agree on everything, but man, we agree that these detention camps are not what we can or should be doing." Congressman Pat Ryan, Democrat of New York, sir, thank you for being here. I know it's a busy time right now in your district, especially, thank you so much. Thank you for having me.

All right, much more news ahead, stay with us. The U.S. military deployed on the streets of America. Whole communities targeted for removal.

And when accountability finally came knocking, the burn order to cover it all up.

Reach a metal percent burn order, all episodes available now. Just in the last few hours, tonight, a federal judge in Minnesota, Trump appointee has issued an order holding the administration in contempt for disobeying a court order in an immigration case. A federal judge finding that the federal government is in contempt that is notable and unusual enough. But this is the second time the Trump administration has been found in contempt in the space of a week.

Just a few days ago, another federal judge in Minnesota held a DOJ prosecutor in contempt in a different immigration case. She actually ordered the prosecutor to pay a $500 daily fine until the Justice Department started complying with her orders in that case. Which they finally did the next day. That sort of thing has a way of getting their attention. But this is becoming a theme.

“And I think this is really important. Everybody said at the outset of Trump's second term that it would be a bright red line in terms of a slide into authoritarian rule in this country.”

If the Trump administration started defying orders from the courts, right? You remember all those discussions? Well, the Trump administration is now routinely and frequently defying orders from judges. Specifically on cases relating to immigrants. And the courts have not only figured out that that's happening, the courts have now decided to stand up and fight for themselves. We've seen the Chief Judge in Minnesota compile a list of nearly 100 violations of court orders in immigration cases just in that state.

In New Jersey, the Trump Justice Department was just forced to apologize in court for violating more than 50 orders from federal judges in immigration cases. They were essentially pleading to not be held in contempt in that state as well. Another DOJ prosecutor also had to apologize to a judge in Virginia. This time, the judge had rebuked the Justice Department for keeping relevant information from him when they sought a search warrant for the search of a home of a Washington Post reporter. In another case in West Virginia, before a judge named Joseph Goodwin last week, this is a case where masked ICE agents arrested a man and jailed him without a bond hearing.

Judge Goodwin wrote this. He wrote, quote, "Anaseptic judicial rhetoric cannot do justice to what is happening." Across the interior of the United States, agents of the federal government masked anonymous armed with military weapons operating from unmarked vehicles acting without warrants of any kind. Our seizing persons for civil immigration violations and imprisoning them without any semblance of due process.

Place it beyond the reach of ordinary legal description.

It is an assault on the constitutional order. Judge is standing up for themselves, standing up for the court system, standing up for the constitution. The Justice Department is not just any other among the many failing parts of the government under Donald Trump's misrule. The Justice Department, too a large extent, kind of is our legal system. It has a qualitatively different amount of responsibility, at least, for keeping us going as a constitutional republic.

“So one of the things that's going to be really important for when we come out the other side of this, which we will,”

is that the behavior of this agency, in particular, of DOJ in particular, it's going to have to be sort of walled off and bracketed as not normal. The things that happened in the Trump Justice Department are going to be need to be labeled as not normal, something that can't be precedent.

As things that we can never do again just because they were done now.

We are not going to evolve in a direction in which this is the kind of stuff that our Justice Department and our government tries to get away with. All right, now federal judges from one end of the country to the other are starting to draw bright lines around this behavior saying this is not okay. And we're going to punish you for it until you fix it. We're going to need that because one day we are going to need to remember how to have a real functioning Justice Department again. It's tomorrow's day to the union gets closer.

“The list of ways Democrats are going to respond keeps getting longer and more interesting.”

This year, a few Democrats say they're going to bring some of the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking and abuse as their guests to the state of the union address.

Other Democrats say they're bringing people affected by Trump's attacks on immigrants.

Congressman Shuigar Sia has invited Marimar Martinez, she's the 30-year-old teacher in U.S. citizen who was shot five times in Chicago, by a federal agent who then bragged about it to his colleagues. This year also a growing number of Democrats say they're going to skip Trump's speech altogether and hold their own state of the union event outside the capital on the national mall. They're calling it the people's state of the union. It's hosted by the progressive media company, Mightest Touch, also by move on.

Organizers say they're counting about 30 Democratic lawmakers among their line up and that list keeps growing. Some other Democratic members are planning to attend a different counterprogramming event at the National Press Club in D.C. I see right MSNow, we're going to cover all of it as best we can. Our coverage begins tomorrow night at 7 o'clock Eastern with Jen Psaki at the helm. And our many friends here at MSNow, I'm going to be part of our coverage here starting at 8 o'clock.

You're not going to want to miss any of it. It's going to prove to be a, well, an interesting night. MSNow's full coverage of the state of the union and again starting tomorrow night at 7 eastern. We'll be right back, stay with us. All right, there's one other piece from tonight's show that we're going to post on YouTube tomorrow morning.

It's more on the effort to document and wall-off and kind of preserve evidence of the abuses and misuses of the Justice Department under Donald Trump. You know, the bogus charges against protesters and politicians, the weird terrorism references they're inserting everywhere, the lying to judges. The misconduct and unprofessional behavior with grandjuries. None of that should become precedent for how the Justice Department behaves in the future. And the legal profession knows that.

So we're going to have more to come on the, on the effort to wall those things off. Again, we're going to be posting that on YouTube tomorrow morning. So put it up on nato blog.com. I hope you check it out. Meanwhile, I'll be back tomorrow night for the state of the union. Our coverage kicks off here at MSNow 7 PM eastern. I'll be here at 8.

State of the union tomorrow night should be weird. Subscribe to MSNow Premium on Apple Podcasts for early access at free listening and bonus content to all of MSNow's original podcasts.

“Including the chart topping series The Best People with Nicole Wallace. Why is this happening?”

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