← Deadline: White House
Deadline: White House
"A mountain of evidence"
00:42:09
Nicolle Wallace on brand new reporting undercutting the original lie told by Donald Trump and his Cabinet in the wake of the shooting death of Renee Nicole Good: that she was threatening the life of the ICE agent who killed her.
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- [00:00]
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- [00:30]
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Nicole Wallace
And right now, when you order a dozen multicolored roses, we'll double it at no extra cost. Don't miss out on this limited time offer. Order today at 1-800-flowers.com sxm. That's 1-800-flowers. Com sxm. Hi there everyone. We made it to Friday and it's four o'clock in New York. There is a mountain of new evidence and brand new reporting today that undercuts the original lie told by Donald Trump and his cabinet in the wake of the shooting death of Renee Nicole Goode that she was somehow threatening the life of the ICE agent who killed her. That lie has been used by the Trump administration to justify a surge of federal agents, more agents being sent to Minneapolis, and ever increasing brutality being used against Americans and immigrants alike. A comprehensive analysis of currently available video footage by the New York Times shows that the ICE agent who killed Renee Nicole Goode was not being run over as Donald Trump and others have claimed. Watch.
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New York Times Analyst
This moment is when Agent Ross fires. We see the other agent pull back from the suv. Both of them stumble, apparently slipping on the ice. This is also the moment many have said looks like Agent Ross getting run over. And it does when watched at full speed. But looking more closely, we can see in multiple angles that there's a visible gap between the vehicle and his legs, indicating his feet are positioned outside the SUV's path. The agent's left hand is still against the vehicle and gripping his phone. We see as he fires, it's recording the clouds and the trees overhead. It's not because the agent is knocked to the ground. The other angle shows he's still standing, continuing to maintain his grip on his phone and his gun. And we see a clear and growing gap between his body and the SUV as he fires a Second shot and a third.
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Nicole Wallace
The New York Times also reports and concludes that it was indeed Goode's killer who made the now infamous comments after shooting her.
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New York Times Analyst
According to our analysis of audio from Agent Ross cell phone video, this is his reaction.
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Miles Taylor
Good.
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Nicole Wallace
That's the F word followed by the B word. A reminder. Donald Trump said that Good ran over the ICE officer who shot her. Vance said that she aimed her car at the officer. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, wearing a cowboy hat, called her a domestic terrorist. All of that now flies in the face of all of the evidence and everything that anyone can see with their own eyes and ears. Transcripts of the 911 calls were also released last night. They capture the shock that firsthand eyewitnesses expressed and felt and shared with 911 operators in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. A sense of panic and a sense of fear for their own lives and the safety and well being of their children jumps out from these transcripts. One caller says this to a 911 operator, quote, unquote, a bunch of ICE agents on 33rd in Portland. They just shot a lady point blank range in her car. When the operator asks how many are there, he responds, quote, There's 15 ICE agents and they shot her because she wouldn't open her car door. Just before hanging up, he says this, quote, send an ambulance please. Ambulance please. Another caller to 911 tells a 911 operator this ICE just shot someone on Portland between 33rd and 34th, shot an observer in her car and it crashed, end quote. The 911 operator responds by saying, quote, okay, somebody else just called us and well, can you see the person who shot at all? The caller responds, I'm sorry I had to walk away because I have young kids and ICE is everywhere over there. But the person, the person who was shot, you can see the car ended up crashing. So I don't think they're okay, end quote. New details and brand new evidence about the shooting death of Renee Nicole Goode and what it says about the Trump administration's gaslighting of Americans is where we start today. Senior contributing editor of Minneapolis native Michelle Norris is back with us. Also joining us, former DHS Chief of staff during Donald Trump's first term as president. Miles Taylor is here and former senior advisor to President Biden and Vice President Harris, the former mayor of New Orleans, Mitch Landrieu is here. He's now the co chair of American Bridge. 21st century. Michel Norris says, we've done so many days since this happened. We turn to you for your reaction to the new evidence, the new evidence being made public today.
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Michelle Norris
Well, it paints an ever more vivid picture and an ever more gruesome picture of what happened there in the 3400 block of Portland Avenue. One of the things that I think that we should be looking for is also the communication between the ICE officials and local police because I wonder if they reached out to local police, to sheriffs, to someone, to EMTs to get them on the scene. The language there certainly does not comport with the hasty conclusions that were made by the administration and shared with the public long before anybody had a chance to investigate this. There are so many questions about protocol here, about how quickly the car was taken away, about how quickly her body was taken away, about, you know, in normal investigations, when you talk to law enforcement issues officials, normally what they do is they would separate everybody who was there on scene to make sure that everybody, that they could take testimony and that no one could collude and get together and get their stories straight. None of those traditional protocols were handled. And so that's what happened in the 3400 block. What we're seeing now in the days after that is the, you know, what has flowed from this in the state of where people feel like they're living a state of terror and under a state of siege. It's also been reported today that there were on Wednesday night when there was that shooting on the north side of the city. There were some children that were taken to the hospital because they were in a van with their parents. The parents were trying to turn around and get away from the crowds that had gathered there. And you remember the pictures from that evening, there were chemical irritants that were used, the pepper pellets were used. And one of those flashbangs was, was emitted in the direction of the car. And there were several children in the car and a couple of them had to go to the hospital, including a six month old child who lost consciousness and stopped breathing for a time because of the chemical irritants that were in the air. DHS said that they were actually the victims of and I want to get this right, rioters and agitators and not the immigration enforcement agents. And if we're not, they were saying if it were not for the people who showed up to observe or to protest, they wouldn't have had to use the flashbangs. But that's but one example of kind of terror that's gripping the city where parents are wonder children are wondering where their parents are. Some of the schools have been closed. We've talked about this. There's a lot of online learning because people are afraid to send their kids to school. Businesses are closing. People are afraid to go to work. And also we learned this afternoon that DHS has subpoenaed the personal information for employees of the Hennepin county healthcare system. That's a huge healthcare system. And they've subpoenaed that so they can get their home addresses, their Social Security numbers, and their employment eligibility. And this is an example of how this affects everyone, because it's not just the immigrant immigrants who work or the suspected immigrants or people who are thought not to be citizens. Everyone who works in that medical system had their information subpoenaed, and people don't feel comfortable about this. So this is something that is affecting the entire area of the Twin Cities in the state of Minnesota.
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Nicole Wallace
Why are they seeking all the personal information of everyone in the healthcare system.
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Michelle Norris
To check employment eligibility? I mean, it's, you know, there are. It is thought that there are several people who are working in healthcare who might have immigration status and might not have. Have legal immigration status. And it's a way that they can, you know, check their eligibility. You know, oddly, I was talking to an attorney about this, and he's. And he said that they were actually, they're uncomfortable with them seeking the information, but they do prefer that they actually look at information as opposed to during the indiscriminate sweeps that seem to be happening elsewhere in the city where they're. They appear to be just approaching people who are commuting, who are on their way to work, who are on their way to school. He said, at least in that case, they're at least looking for information to figure out someone's eligibility without, you know, before just indiscriminately targeting them.
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Nicole Wallace
Michelle, who is protecting the civilian population of Minnesota right now?
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Michelle Norris
This is, this is a really difficult question that the police department is dealing with, that lawyers are dealing with. If you remember the images from Wednesday night, it was. It was immigration officials that were doing crowd control, and that's not something that immigration officials do. I was talking to someone who works in law enforcement in the Twin Cities at that time. And, you know, when they were looking at these images, he was wondering, how many of those people on the ground have actually had training in crowd control? How many of them actually understand how to de. Escalate situations like this? So, you know, that raises one question about, you know, are they there to protect and to serve people? Have they been trained, you know, in how to do this? There are a group of lawyers that met this after afternoon convened by the former Associate justice of the Minnesota. Actually not convened by, but it was a, it was a. Let me get this straight. It was a conversation that was moderated by a former Associate justice of the US Supreme Court. Very high ranking person, someone who is very well respected. Attorneys from big firms, corporate attorneys, a number of, a very large number of lawyers coming together and trying to figure out what's happening when the rule of law appears to be so fuzzy right now and fig out there will be a lot of lawsuits that flow from this. But also just figuring out who is there to protect the people, who is there to protect the guardrails around American democracy and the rule of law. And there have been so many lines that have been crossed and so many protocols that have been completely ignored or warped in some way that the people of Minnesota in government and in the legal system are trying to figure out how to move forward in this and not, not just let this completely melt away, but figure out how to establish some sort of guardrails around the rule of law so that citizens are protected.
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Nicole Wallace
Mitch, you've been a mayor. I wonder if you've been in touch at all with Mayor Fry or your thoughts about how he governs his city in this moment.
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Mitch Landrieu
Well, first of all, it's a very difficult situation. To the comments made by my friend Michelle. Hey, Michelle. She's exactly right. You can tell that these ICE agents were not trained appropriately in de escalation techniques or crowd control because of the way they're behaving in the city of New Orleans. As you know, we have massive numbers of major events. We've also had a number of different catastrophes. We've had the National Guard here. It works when the federal government and the state government, local government, are working together in their lanes to do the things that they are trained to do, which is never to shoot first but always to shoot last, always to get out of the way, always to de escalate and always to work towards a common goal that is not happening here. You will notice and Miles will probably speak to this. You can see this with the Trump administration, whether they're talking about national security or domestic affairs, they will try to label something as bad as it can be to give them the most power to not have any accountability. And then they gaslight people when people call them on it. The death of Renee Good was, was an incredible tragedy. It was unnecessary, it was avoidable and it was predictable. As Mayor Fry has said to many People, and I would really encourage the Trump administration to step back on this thing. These raids clearly are not targeted. We can see that with our own eyes, no matter how many times they tell us that they are. I don't know a mayor in America that would refuse help from the dea, the FBI, the atf, or even ICE to go after hardened criminals. But that's really not what's happening here. It's indiscriminate, it's chaotic. It's making us more unsafe, not less unsafe. It's hurting more people. And unfortunately, it's going to result in more tragedy unless they really get their act together, which they seem to be very far away from.
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Nicole Wallace
Miles Taylor, if a couple is hiking and the wife falls over the cliff and it's reported to be a tragic accidental spill, I guess initially the benefit of the doubt is given to that story. But if a fellow hiker films the husband, doesn't see or push her, but gets him on tape saying F word ends in ing B word, rhymes with which the husband is probably arrested for murder within 24 hours. The other new piece of evidence we have today is that the person who calls Renee Nicol. Good. An F word ending in ing a B word, rhyming with which right after the three shots are fired, is the officer who fires the three shots. How do you see that?
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Miles Taylor
Despite what you said, Nicole, I see a silver lining in that. This is undoubtedly a tragedy. We don't have to say that. The silver lining, though, is we now have the ability to defy the lies of this regime. It is this thing thousands and thousands of Americans are being trained in how to lawfully and peacefully and defiantly use this to document their interactions with ice. That's how we know that the administration is lying. That's how we know crimes are being committed by ice. That's how we're going to continue to expose them. And I think the example you give of the woman being pushed over, you know, the edge on a hike is a scary example, but we're seeing it happen every single day. I mean, I would take you back in time, Nicole, to 1999. You remember? I remember. Mitch remembers. Michelle remembers Elian Gonzalez. We remember the young Cuban boy who the Clinton administration sent armed INS agents into their home, got him out of a closet, and deported him. That one picture of Elian Gonzalez set the nation on fire. There was an uproar about immigration in the United States. That's happening now every single day in this country with ICE abuses is a controversy that big or bigger than Len Gonzalez. The good news is that we are documenting it. But the bad news, as Mitch said, is we're only documenting it because these guys are not trying to de escalate. And, Nicole, that is by design. The Trump administration has sent thousands of ICE agents into this state. They're accusing people of domestic terrorism, including a woman that they killed. And now you've got Stephen Miller in the past 24 hours saying the word insurrection over and over and over. Let's remember how all of this started. This started with Somali American kindergartens that allegedly had accounting discrepancies and were taking federal tax dollars. That's not something you send thousands of agents in for. You send accountants in to look at that. You send investigative auditors. These guys are not trying to de escalate. They are trying to escalate, Nicole, by design. That's why the administration is doubling down. They want to foment the circumstances for the president to ratchet up his crackdown. This is 10 years in the making. They're trying to make Minnesota the example for executive power.
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Nicole Wallace
So pull that cord for me. Miles, what should people do, understanding what their intentions are?
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Miles Taylor
Well, look, I would go back to this. I mean, I think it's very important. There's a people power aspect to this that helps expose them. I mean, we just held a meeting on this this week with our organization, defiance.org we brought together thousands of members to say, what can we do? And we decided to go fund more efforts in Minnesota and elsewhere to train people to document these ICE abuses, but also to do know your rights training, because these agents are consistently blowing past constitutional guardrails. People need to know what they can and cannot do. We're also now the, the biggest buyer or one of the biggest buyers of literal whistles around the country. And I think a lot of folks initially last year when they saw people buying whistles for these communities, said, well, what's that going to do? Why is someone going to literally blow the whistle on ice? That can mean the difference between life and death is communities notifying people. Hey, ICE agents are here. Get your phones out. Protect yourselves. Know your rights. The more those things exposed are exposed, the more outrage there is, the more likely there is to be the mass nationwide pressure. We need to push the White House to change these policies. And we are already are getting some hints that the administration is getting nervous about the optics that should have happened a year ago, but the pressure is starting to have some impact.
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Nicole Wallace
Yeah, and I mean, the pattern here, we won't compare Trump to anybody else because he is unlike everybody else. But in a first term, the child separation policy was, I think, one of the only signature Trump policies that Trump himself reversed course on because it was so heinous and the public abhorred it so much. He seems different. The people around him are different. So I'm not saying that's the path we're on, but I want to show all of you the witness testimony to the point you're all making from a field hearing that Democrats held today. I have to sneak in a break before they do that. Also head for us. Donald Trump has not given up on his wildly unpopular foreign policies either. That would be his desire to annex Greenland, something upwards of 78% of Americans oppose today. He wouldn't rule out engaging militarily with or against a NATO ally if that ally got in his way. Just as a group of Democrats and Republicans traveled to Denmark to try to lower the temperature with our allies. We'll bring you an update on that story. Plus, more and more Americans are showing in poll after poll after poll that perhaps they got played on the things Trump campaigned on and promised. We'll look at the brand new political climate Donald Trump is waking up in these days. And later in the program, Jimmy Kimmel has figured out just how to get to Donald Trump. Give him an award, a trophy maybe, or a medal. We'll talk about that and much more when deadline White House continues after a quick break. Don't go anywhere today.
- [20:10]
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- [20:40]
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Nicole Wallace
We're back with Michelle Miles and Mitch. Mitch, I want to show you some testimony from a field hearing that Congressional Democrats are having today.
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Andrew Weissman
I immediately started repeating over and over again, I'm a citizen. I'm a citizen. I'm a citizen. But the agent did not stop to look at my id. As second ICE agent entered the restaurant to there. They dragged me outside and put me into a headlock on the ground. I repeated, I'm a citizen. I have an id. The agent kept saying, that don't matter, that don't matter.
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Commercial Voiceover
One agent took a photo of me on a cell phone and showed it to the other two laughing. Another made demeaning comments about my appearance. About two minutes into the ride, one agent said, quote, you guys got to stop obstructing us. That's why this lesbian bitch is dead. Speaking of Renee Goode, when I was inside my cell, I heard wailing, screaming, crying, begging and pleading from women, men and children. Alongside that visceral anguish was the small talk, banter and laughter from the federal agents outside our cells, clearly desensitized to the deep and audible pain right in front of their eyes. It's worth mentioning that two other people in my cell with me that day were Marine Corps veterans, brave women who said they had gotten arrested for the same reason they wanted to join the Marines, to protect their fellow countrymen.
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Nicole Wallace
I don't know that anything we can say has the power, the potency to what this witness testimony is evoking. And I just wonder your thoughts on the field hearings. It feels like something that Democrats could scale nationally if this is what ICE is doing to people.
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Mitch Landrieu
Well, listen, I don't forget Democrats. Every American citizen should be outraged, outraged by that testimony. You have heard Stephen Miller, you've heard Tom Holman parroting comments from the president and that, listen, they're only going after the worst of the worst. Not people who are illegal by definition of coming into the country, but people who have committed violent crimes, rapists, robberists, murders. They put the worst names on and said those are the only people they've gone after. I know that not to be true. In the city of New Orleans, at five o' clock in one afternoon, ICE, in a white van with masked people, grabbed a lady. Her name was Mrs. Konashian, who was gardening, and they put it in the van and they went and put her in a hole in the jail in South Louisiana. Now it sounds just like what they're doing in Minnesota. So it is an absolute lie that they're going after the worst of the worst. There's no police department in the world that wouldn't help them find people that they think would hurt the people that live in neighborhoods that's not what they're doing. It's a pretext for them exercising power and not having accountability. They're doing the same thing with national security. And I want the people of America really kind of to understand this. Stephen Miller on TV the other day said that power is the thing. It governs everything. It is the rule of the road in a realistic world. And when they asked Donald Trump what the limit was on his power, now listen to this. He said his own morality, of which he has none of, by the way, which is. And they finally said, after this incident, they came out and said these federal officers were immune, which is a misstatement of the law. But it's also a terrible signal to send to a law enforcement person on the ground who has not been properly trained, that actually has malice in their heart and has been told by his supervisors to see American citizens as enemies rather than friends. And that is how democracy is lost. And oh, by the way, all of this has gone on why costs are going up and Trump is not paying attention to health care costs, food costs, electricity costs, which is what Americans want them to do. It's just a tragic of epic proportion.
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Nicole Wallace
Michelle, I just don't want to gloss over the misogyny here we have today. One of the developments is that it is the officer who fires three shots at Renee Nicole Good, killing her, who uses the F word and the B word to describe her after the shots are fired. You've also got this testimony from someone who describes her interaction with ICE this way. ICE said, quote, that's why this lesbian bitch is dead. I mean, to be so flagrantly sadistic and misogynistic in the name of the federal government, in the name of a taxpayer funded federal law enforcement agency, wearing masks isn't something that I want to play any role in suggesting is normal. That's in any other time, a scandal in its own right and a problem.
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Michelle Norris
In its own right. Whether you're talking about a tax funded federal, you know, large federal operation or, you know, a police department in a small town, you know, when they investigate things like this, they look at something called patterns and practices, you know, and how common this is. And that speaks to what Mitch was just talking about, Mitch Landrieu was just talking about with this notion of immunity that Stephen Miller and J.D. vance suggesting that these agents, these officers, these people who are representing the federal government have total immunity. Now, there are times when people might have qualified immunity in very narrow and specific circumstances, but the idea that they're telling them that they have total immunity sends A very, very dangerous message about the scope of their work, about the tone of their work, about how they can conduct themselves and whether they are accountable to other, each, anyone, anyone, both in their actions or their language. And that should be concerning. And I think that that's why you're starting perhaps to see some of the polls start to shift, because people are watching what's happening in Minnesota and you can't help but watch this and wonder, could this happen on my block? Could this happen in my neighborhood? Could this happen on my way to work? You know, James Baldwin once said, if they come for you in the evening, they're coming, or if you come for you in the morning, they're coming for me at night. And I think that some people are starting to recognize that this is not a Minnesota problem, that if they are successful in warping the rule of law and constitutional norms in Minnesota, then that will be the standard that will be applied in cities and states throughout our great nation.
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Nicole Wallace
Myles To Michel's point, Trump is now more unpopular on immigration than he is broadly. So there's that. There's also, you know, the reporting is really painting a pretty vivid picture of what ICE is, who ICE is, how they act and how they function in a community. The Minneapolis Star Tribune today reports that ICE agents ate at a small town Mexican restaurant, then went back and arrested the workers. Quote, federal agents detained three workers from a family owned Mexican restaurant in Wilmar yesterday, hours after four agents ate lunch there. It was not immediately clear what the immigration status of those detained was or whether the people detained included the restaurant's owners or only workers. An eyewitness who declined to give a name for fear of retribution, told the Minneapolis Star Tribune that four ICE agents sat in a booth for a meal at El Tapatio a little before 3pm the arrest came around 8:30pm as agents followed the workers after they closed up for the night. A handful of bystanders blew whistles and shouted at agents as they detained people. Would your mom be proud of you right now? One of the bystanders asked. So everything is fair game, even the place where you had lunch earlier that day?
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Miles Taylor
I don't know, Nicole. I hear a story like that and I went into government like you after 911 to protect this country, to help protect this country. I saw a lot of different iterations of ICE when it was a young agency, when we were trying to mature it during the Bush years from Capitol Hill, working with the Obama administration to expand its national security remit back in the second Trump administration. This ain't the same agency anymore. This agency has been hijacked for one man's whims. And I hear a story like that, and I think these guys are the grab and go Gestapo now. And don't just take my word for it. Donald Trump's own top MOG supporters, like podcaster Joe Rogan this week, said these guys look like the Gestapo. When you're losing the MAGA side of this argument, you're losing the nationwide argument. That's what this looks to people. And you hear a story like that and you say this is exactly. Well, it's what the founders feared. And it's also after 9, 11, what we did not want the federal national security state to look like. We didn't want a massive surveillance state. We didn't want facial recognition at every pullover stop with police. We didn't want cell phone monitoring for American citizens. ICE is now doing all of these things without ever any congressional debate. That's what's so insane about this. This has been done by fiat. This has been done because they just go purchase products to do it. It's not going through Congress. It's not going through the 20 years of debate we had about the line between privacy and civil liberties and national security. They're just doing it. So I don't think it's an overstatement when the Joe Rogans of the world wonder aloud whether this is the Gestapo. This is, as we just saw, the grab and go Gestapo of the United States.
- [30:39]
Nicole Wallace
Miles Taylor, Mitch Landau, Michel Norris, thank you so much for starting us off today on all this. Coming up next for us, during Donald Trump's first term as president, the worry, as his advisers told us, was that Trump would somehow pull America out of NATO, weakening it forever. But now in Trump's second term as president, we're facing with the very real concern that Trump could actually attack a NATO ally. That's our next story. This afternoon, it was what Donald Trump refused to say about his plan to, quote, conquer Greenland from another NATO member that our allies are likely to view as the most serious escalation to date.
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Mitch Landrieu
Watch, Mr. President, you commit to not. Do you commit to not militarily engaging NATO partners? I don't talk about Mr. President, you're not willing to commit to not attacking a NATO partner.
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Commercial Voiceover
You urge protesters.
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Nicole Wallace
This is our own colleague Von Hilliard asking Donald Trump if he would simply put off the table attacking a NATO ally. He clearly refused. Donald Trump has also threatened to use his wildly unpopular tariff policy and tool as pressure against countries that don't quote, go along with whatever he wants. Meanwhile, everything we've heard even before today, including Donald Trump's refusal to rule out the use of military force against a NATO ally, has clearly alarmed Congress. A bipartisan group of lawmakers is in Denmark today in an attempt to lower tensions. As one Republican House member, Don Bacon, is warning he'd, quote, lean toward impeaching Donald Trump if he were to order a military invasion. I want to bring in former top official at the Department of Justice, Mississippi, now legal analyst Andrew Weissman and political analyst, the former Senator Claire McCaskill. I don't even know where to start. I don't even know how to form a question about this. It's bad, bleep crazy. It's wildly unpopular. You've got a Republican who says, I'll impeach you if you do it. And when handed this low hanging fruit of we just rule out war with a NATO ally, Donald Trump says no. Andrew Weissman, where are we?
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Andrew Weissman
I'd like everyone to think about the message to Russia. Russia has engaged in an unprovoked attack on Ukraine. The Congress heretofore has viewed that Republicans and Democrats, it used to be sort of Republican orthodoxy to defend Ukraine in the face of Russia, but this is sending a message that what Russia is doing is what America is going to do and what China could do with Taiwan. This sort of might makes right view of the world where you blow off the United Nations Charter, you blow off the sense of the rule of law internally, domestically and externally is what leads to global chaos and a world that's not civilized or at peace. This is that could not be worse for our country. Even if you have a sort of America first view of the world, this, there's a reason that I think you're seeing so many people react to this latest outrage by the president.
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Nicole Wallace
I mean, Andrew, though, isn't the apple to apple like Russia attacking Belarus or like Venezuela attacking Cuba. I mean, this is like America, a member of NATO, the only NATO nation to actually ask anyone to go to war with us after we were attacked, after 9 11, attacking one of our own, attacking someone within our coalition. It feels worse in some ways than regional aggression that you're talking about.
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Andrew Weissman
You might be right. The reason I was thinking of Ukraine is because it is going on now because Russia has the internal myth that Ukraine was always theirs and was really part of Russia and that it's necessary to their national security. And so whether, whether it is, you know, apples to apples or, you know, or, you know, you're Right. That there's a. There's a better analogy. The message to other superpowers and to other countries is the same, whether it's identical or worse. It is still saying that the whole idea of the League of Nations, the whole idea of I'm dating myself for the United nations, is a thing of the past. And, I mean, you really do have to tie it to Venezuela, where every reputable expert who I know has viewed that as a clear violation of international law and a violation of the UN Charter. And this would be equal, if not worse, to use your analogy, by what he's saying here, and extremely dangerous in terms of the world at large.
- [36:07]
Nicole Wallace
Claire, we run out of, I think, sometimes ways to describe how off the grid Trump is, and that's where he is. There's no appetite in public opinion for this in America. I think upward of 80% of Americans oppose it. The 2 to 4% who support it don't articulate a rationale. There just might be reflexive Trump backers who think he must have a reason. But we also assume that people won't understand or appreciate what the destruction of NATO means. And I think that's unfair. Right. I think the American people, you go to a baseball game and they'll honor, you know, a veteran of World War II, and they get up and people stand up and they put down whatever they're doing and they applaud and they listen to the story. I mean, it is a fabric of our country to honor and revere the veterans of World War II and to honor and revere what was defeated. And I know there's a lot of counterfactuals that, you know, that there are people celebrating Nazis and they're neo fascists, and that's all true. But I think the idea that Trump is just gonna cross this other norm and not just pull America out of NATO, which was the constant tension as told by the national security folks who went in and Trump 1.0, but he's not going to rule out attacking a NATO ally. And that the country won't absolutely lose its mind is the biggest political miscalculation to date of this second term.
- [37:39]
Ms. Now Announcer
I think it is. And I think what you have here, Nicole, is you have a man who is radically insecure, and you have a toxic and deadly combination of a very insecure man who is in command of the most capable military in the world. He surrounded himself with sycophants that are telling him every day what he wants to hear. And in his head, what he did in Venezuela was way Cool. You know, it was great. You know, I was able to go in there and command them to do this, and they were able to go in and grab these people and look what our military could do. And that's what he's into. He doesn't think he needs anybody, Nicole. And the dangerous part of this, the most dangerous part of this is the permanent damage he is doing to America's reliability on the world stage. The destruction of NATO is way more than symbolic, because what it's really saying is nobody in the world can trust us anymore. That's a very dangerous thing for national security. It's a very dangerous thing for Americans. And I do think most Americans get it, especially those that will control elections. And those Republicans who are upset about this, they better get busy or they're going to have a wipeout like hasn't been seen in American politics in some time. Donald Trump goes through with this, and they don't speak out and try to stop him.
- [39:10]
Nicole Wallace
Right. And they were on a ticket with a guy that promised no more foreign entanglements, no forever wars. He's literally threatening war with three countries. No one's going anywhere. We'll delve into the politics on the other side of a break. Stay with us. We're back with Andrew and Claire. Andrew, to build on Claire's point that this isn't without a consequence in terms of our standing in the world, here's how French President Emmanuel Macron is responding today. Quote, an initial team of French soldiers is already on site and will be reinforced in the coming days by land, air and sea assets. Macron told an audience of top military brands, quote, france and Europeans must continue wherever their interests are threatened, to be present without escalation, but uncompromising on respect for territorial sovereignty. Politico notes that, quote, in an obvious jab at Trump, who he didn't mention by name, Macron criticized a new colonialism that is at work among some. It is hard to piss off the French, but we have done that.
- [40:22]
Andrew Weissman
Well, it's all of Europe. You know, I keep on thinking about John McCain, you know, a former colleague of, of Claire's, and, you know, his fierce defense of this country, both personally in terms of his sacrifice, his strong support for NATO and his unyielding support for Ukraine. All of this flies in the face of that. I want to make sure the reason I'm sort of pointing to him is that is sort of a traditional Republican patriotic view about what is in America's interest. The idea that we're on a show talking about the fact that the president United States is not ruling out a war involving what has traditionally been our closest allies and for a reason. It is in our interest to do this. It is something that was anticipated and thought of in connection with World War I. It was implemented for sure after World War II because of what the world witnessed. Going it alone is not a good strategy for putting the safety and security of America first. And just really quickly, as somebody who is in the national security world, the people that we are alienating are vital to our national security. That relationship and that sharing of information is critical to our safety, not just the world's safety.
- [42:08]
Nicole Wallace
Right. Our ability to sort of function really does depend on those alliances and the intelligence sharing and others. And he seems willing to burn it all down. Andrew Weissman, thank you for your time today. Claire sticks around a little bit longer after the break. For us, a judge with some very harsh words for Donald Trump, calling his actions and those of members of his Cabinet nothing short of a breathtaking conspiracy against free speech. We'll tell you more on the other side of a short break. Stay with us.
- [42:43]
Mitch Landrieu
Start your day with the MSNow Daily Newsletter. Sharp insights from voices you trust, standout moments from your favorite shows, and fresh perspectives from experts shaping the news. Sign up at Ms. Now.
- [43:00]
Nicole Wallace
Federal judge has offered a scathing rebuke of Donald Trump as well as Marco Rubio and Kristi Noem. It happened at a hearing yesterday where the judge accused all of them of a, quote, unconstitutional conspiracy in their efforts to deport pro Palestinian students. Judge William Young, who was appointed to the federal bench by President Ronald Reagan, did not hold back in the courtroom when, according to reporting in Politico, he said he found the case, quote, breathtaking. The judge continued, quote, how could our own government, the highest officials in our government, seek to infringe the rights of people lawfully here in the United States? And I've come to believe that there is a concept of freedom here that I don't understand. The record in this case convinces me that these high officials, and I include the president of the United States, have a fearful view of freedom. The most searing criticism was directed at Donald Trump when, according to Politico, quote, young used extraordinarily stark language describing Donald Trump as a, quote, authoritarian while insisting that he was choosing the term carefully. After the break, Donald Trump struggling in the court of public opinion mightily on just about every single issue that voters are asked about, especially the ones that got him elected. We'll bring you that reporting next. Don't go anywhere.
- [44:25]
Mitch Landrieu
Ms. Now presents the chart topping original podcast, the Best People with Nicole Wallace. This week, she sits down with American historian Heather Cox Richardson in the United States of America.
- [44:37]
Michelle Norris
The the Constitution rests on the power of we the people, not a religion, not a nation.
- [44:43]
Mitch Landrieu
The Best People with Nicole Wallace. Listen now. For early access ad free listening and bonus content, subscribe to Ms. Now premium on Apple Podcast.