“A reality game show”

Summary

Podcast Summary: Deadline: White House

Episode: “A reality game show”

Host: Nicolle Wallace
Date: September 2, 2025

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Overview

This episode centers on the Trump administration’s threats to deploy federal troops and militarized immigration forces into Chicago, under the pretext of fighting crime. Host Nicolle Wallace and a roundtable of experts dissect the administration’s motivations, the responses from Illinois leadership, and the real drivers of violence in Chicago—especially gun trafficking from red states. The episode blends on-the-ground political drama, fact-checking, and expert commentary, all while drawing stark lines between "Earth One" (reality-based discussion) and "Earth Two" (propaganda-fueled narrative).

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Trump’s Threats Toward Chicago

• Trump's Statement: Threatened to “deploy troops to the streets of an American city” citing Chicago as “the murder capital of the world” (factually incorrect).
• Social Media Rhetoric: Trump escalates with posts calling Chicago a “hellhole” and “the worst and most dangerous city in the world.”
• Motivations Questioned: The roundtable repeatedly asserts this is political theater—to stoke fear and distract from other controversies.

“He is insulting the people of Chicago by calling our home a hellhole. And anyone who takes his word at face value is insulting Chicagoans too.”
— Governor JB Pritzker [16:02]

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2. Governor JB Pritzker’s Rebuke (Full Statement: 02:15 – 17:12)

• Lack of Coordination: Outlines Trump’s refusal to work with state/local officials, a stark break from historical precedent.
• Federal Staging: Leaked plans to deploy ICE, CBP, and other agents in military vehicles to federal property.
• Community Impact: Warns of raids targeting Latino neighborhoods, especially during Mexican Independence Day, calling it “terror and cruelty” by design.
• Statistical Reality: Rebuts Trump with crime stats, noting significant decreases—murders down 50%, shootings down 57%, robberies down 34%.
• Theatrics Accused: Singles out Gregory Bovino, ICE official who turns raids into social media spectacles.
• Systemic Undermining: Notes cuts to violence prevention funding by the Trump administration.
• Call to Action: Urges citizens to know their rights and document abuses, publicly rejecting authoritarian normalcy.

“I refuse to play a reality game show with Donald Trump again... The terror and cruelty is the point, not the safety of anyone living here.”
— Governor JB Pritzker [09:55, 13:05]

“Once they get the citizens of this nation comfortable with the current atrocities committed under the color of law, what comes next?”
— Governor JB Pritzker [16:38]

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3. Mayor Brandon Johnson’s Response (18:31 – 28:08)

• Unified Stand: Chicago city, county, and state leaders jointly oppose troop deployment.
• Root Causes of Violence: Argues the real crisis is gun trafficking from red states (Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi), not immigration.
• ATF Funding Cuts: Trump administration slashed ATF budget by 30%, undermining gun trafficking enforcement.
• Efforts Ignored: Despite removing 24,000 illegal guns, local efforts are overwhelmed by interstate trafficking.
• Direct Appeal: Demands federal focus on stopping guns at their source, not militarizing urban streets.
• Fact-Checking: Lays out contrasting responses between Trump and previous Democratic administrations.

“Chicago will continue to have a violence problem as long as red states continue to have a gun problem. Shootings will continue as long as this presidential administration continues to put politics over people.”
— Mayor Brandon Johnson [20:36]

“Trump gutted the agency that actually catches gun traffickers just so that he could hand money to ICE and Border Patrol. This president doesn't care about gun violence. He just wants his own secret police force...”
— Mayor Brandon Johnson [22:47]

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4. Panel Analysis and Fact-Checking

Vaughn Hilliard (MSNBC White House Correspondent)

• No White House Response: Confirms no Trump admin response to claims about budget cuts to law enforcement or racial profiling in raids [30:33–31:12].
• Political Motives: Cites Trump’s history of manufacturing chaos, including consideration of invoking the Insurrection Act.
• Wider Perspective: Notes similar maneuvers in other Democratic-led cities (Los Angeles, D.C.), and a pattern of targeting blue states.

John Heilman (Puck News)

• Earth One vs. Earth Two: Describes the disconnect between reality and propaganda, where Trump’s supporters only see crime footage from Democratic cities.
• Critique of Democratic Messaging: Suggests Democrats must go beyond statistics and directly counter the false narrative.

Basil Smichel (Political Strategist)

• Systemic Racism and Selectivity: Champions the “iron pipeline” argument, explaining that gun violence is fueled by policies outside city jurisdiction.
• Historical Context: Reflects on past crises and federal-local coordination, highlighting the absence of such collaboration now.

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5. Authoritarian Playbook & Historical Parallels

Anne Applebaum (The Atlantic)

• Authoritarian Tactics: Draws direct lines to 1920s authoritarian theorists like Carl Schmitt, who prescribed states of emergency as a means of power consolidation.
• Warning to Democracy: Highlights the importance of proactively exposing political theater and not treating it as normal.
• Paramilitary Concerns: Notes the danger in deprofessionalizing law enforcement and building a “paramilitary” loyal to a single leader.

“He’s doing so using emergency powers, declaring these so called fake emergencies... that is a very, very clear authoritarian history.”
— Anne Applebaum [48:54]

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• Pritzker on Trump’s politics:
  “None of this is about fighting crime or making Chicago safer. For Trump, it’s about testing his power and producing a political drama to cover up for his corruption.”
  [12:34]

• Brandon Johnson reframing the debate:
  “Violence in Chicago is not because we have too many immigrants, it’s because we have too many guns.”
  [26:17]

• Panel on gun policy:
  “If you want a partnership with US President Trump, here’s a thing you could do that would really help our city... let’s hear what they have to say about that, which will not be much.”
  — John Heilman [37:54]

• Anne Applebaum’s warning:
  “He’s producing an alternate reality... bringing in American military people who are not trained to fight crime. They're trained to fight the enemies of America and doing so while suspending all, all kinds of laws and rules, or at least stretching the laws and rules.”
  [49:08]

• On propagandized media portrayal:
  “If you looked at the amount of crime footage that's shown on national conservative television... the vast majority of it would be exactly the same places Donald Trump is targeting. That is not a coincidence.”
  — John Heilman [39:31]

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Important Timestamps

• [01:36] Trump’s statement and threats
• [02:15–17:12] Governor Pritzker’s full rebuke
• [18:31–28:08] Mayor Johnson’s speech
• [30:33] Vaughn Hilliard: No White House response
• [33:45] Fact-checking Trump’s Chicago claims
• [37:54] Panel: Gun policy as key argument
• [48:15] Anne Applebaum on authoritarian tactics
• [51:13] Discussion on political reality/propaganda split

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Flow, Tone, and Takeaways

The tone is urgent, indignant, and analytical, reflecting outrage at governmental overreach and the hijacking of public safety for political drama. The speakers—governor, mayor, analysts, and journalists—emphasize reality, data, and the defense of democratic norms. The language brims with resolve, skepticism toward the White House, and a call for vigilance from both people and the press as democratic guardrails are tested.

Biggest Takeaway:
Trump’s threats to Chicago are depicted as a “reality game show”—a diversionary, authoritarian spectacle with real human costs—distinctly disconnected from effective crime policy or constitutional governance. Chicago’s leaders demand an end to political stunts and urge a focus on the real roots of violence: unfettered gun trafficking, underfunded prevention programs, and a disregard for American norms.

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Transcript

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Saturday, October 11th. From New York City, it's MSNBC Live 25. Join your favorite MSNBC hosts, Rachel Maddow, Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski, Nicole Wallace, Ari Melber, Alicia Menendez, Simone Sanders Townsend, Michael Steele, Chris Haynes, jen Psaki, Lawrence O', Donnell, Stephanie Ruhle, and more. Visit msnbc.comlive25 to buy your tickets today.

[E]

Hi there, everyone. It's 4 o' clock in New York. Facing sinking approval ratings on practically every front, and continuously dogged by questions about his relationship with a deceased sex offender, Donald Trump has turned his sights on a city that is now bracing to resist his authoritarian overreach. Here's what Donald Trump had to say in the last hour. Essentially threatening to deploy troops to the streets of an American city.

[C]

Well, we're going in. I didn't say when we're going in. When you lose. Look, I have an obligation. This isn't a political thing. I have an obligation.

[E]

To do what wasn't totally clear. Trump went on, though, to slam the city of Chicago, calling it a, quote, hellhole on truth social. Donald Trump called Chicago the murder capital of the world. It is not the murder capital of the world. He also called the city of Chicago, quote, the worst and most dangerous city in the world. Actually, Governor Pritzker is responding to all this. Let's listen to that.

[C]

And Illinois. I'm going to do my best to share what we know as of today and speak frankly to the people of Illinois. Rumors have been swirling about what the White House has planned, and sifting fact from fiction has been increasingly difficult because Donald Trump's administration is not working in coordination with the city of Chicago, Cook county, or the state of Illinois. I want to take a moment at the top of my remarks to note how truly extraordinary it is for the federal government to refuse to coordinate with local law enforcement and government. Our state police regularly works with the FBI, the atf, the dea, to go after gangs and gunrunners and drug cartels. Under previous White House administrations, we regularly received notice and worked together on crime fighting operations. This city has hosted major political conventions, flashpoint events like the NATO conference, and huge sports and entertainment gatherings over the years and across many presidential administrations. All those events required significant coordination between all levels of government. Some, like the Democratic National Convention last year, even required a limited deployment of the Illinois National Guard for broad security purposes, including especially preventing terrorism. For that four day event, there were conversations and meetings that began one year before the convention between my office, the Mayor's office, the County Board, President's office, cpd, State Police, the FBI, the Secret Service, and the Department of Homeland Security. The mayor and I were briefed at the highest levels of government and we pledged unwavering support in the effort to pull off a convention that kept attendees safe and protected the rights of all citizens to express their First Amendment rights. The convention was a true success because of that collaboration. Fighting crime requires coordination. We have experienced nothing like that over the past several days and weeks. On Saturday, the head of the Illinois State Police received a phone call from CBP's chief patrol agent, Gregory Bovino, indicating that ICE would be deploying to Chicago. It's the first outreach we have received from the Trump administration on this topic. Bovino was short on details and long on rhetoric. So in the absence of significant federal coordination, we've gathered information from unauthorized patriotic officials inside the government and from well sourced reporters about Donald Trump's plan, which is to deploy armed military personnel to to the streets of Chicago. I'm aware that the President of the United States likes to go on television and beg me to call and ask him for troops. I find this extraordinarily strange as Chicago does not want troops on our streets. I also have experience asking the President for assistance just to have the rug pulled out from underneath me. When execution meets reality. I refuse to play a reality game show with Donald Trump again. What I want are the federal dollars that have been promised to Illinois and Chicago for violence prevention programs that have proven to work. That is money that Illinois taxpayers send to the federal government. And it's an insult to any and every citizen to suggest that any governor should have to beg the president of any political party for resources owed their people. I'd like to ask a question of my own, and it's one the press should be asking as well. When did we become a country where it's okay for the US President to insist on national television that a state should call him to beg for anything, especially something we don't want? Have we truly lost all sense of sanity in this nation that we treat this as normal, as I have done since becoming governor. I've been reflecting on my responsibilities to the people of Illinois. And one of those duties is to share with the public exactly what we know. In the coming days, we expect to see what has played out in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. to happen here in Chicago. First, Donald Trump is positioning armed federal agents and staging military vehicles on federal property such as the Great Lakes Naval Base. It is likely those agents will be with ice, Customs and Border Patrol, the Department of Homeland Security, and other similarly situated federal agencies. Many of these individuals are being relocated from Los Angeles from for deployment in Chicago. We believe that staging that has already begun started yesterday and continues into today. Second, unidentifiable agents in unmarked vehicles with masks are planning to raid Latino communities and say they're targeting violent criminals. As we saw in Los Angeles, a very, very small percentage of the individuals they will target will be violent criminals. Instead, you are likely to see videos of them hauling away mothers and fathers traveling to work or picking up their kids from school. Sometimes they will detain, handcuff and haul away children. They are law abiding individuals who pay taxes and contribute to the communities who feel safe going to work and attending mandatory immigration check ins. In other words, they're following the law. We have reason to believe that Stephen Miller chose the month of September to come to Chicago because of celebrations around Mexican Independence Day that happen here every year. It breaks my heart to report that we have been told ICE will try and disrupt community picnics and peaceful parades. Let's be clear, the terror and cruelty is the point, not the safety of anyone living here. Third, as lawful citizens exercise their First Amendment rights, Trump and his team will be looking for any excuse to put active duty military on our streets, supposedly to protect ice. We have reason to believe that the Trump administration has already begun staging the Texas National Guard for deployment in Illinois. I want to be very clear on this point and I want to speak directly to the press right now. We know before anything has happened here that the Trump plan is to use any excuse to deploy armed military personnel to Chicago. If someone flings a sandwich at an ICE agent, Trump will try and go on TV and declare an emergency in Chicago. I'm imploring everyone, if and when that happens, do not take the bait. Lastly, after about 30 days or so, we believe that they will pick up all of those resources that they send here to Chicago and send them to the next city in a blue state, ignoring cities in red states with higher violent crime rates than we have none of this is about fighting crime or making Chicago safer. None of it For Trump, it's about testing his power and producing a political drama to cover up for his corruption. If you need any proof of this that it's all a big show, well, look at who they're putting in charge. Gregory Povino, a guy who desperately wants to be a reality TV star. He led the cruel adventures of ICE in Los Angeles and he's been sent here to do the very same thing. Go look at his social media. He terrorizes innocent people and then posts on TikTok edits of himself. Apparently this is a Trump administration norm because the last time we saw staged major ICE raids in Chicago, they sent Dr. Phil here to embed with the agents so he could get views and likes for his social media. When Bavino pulled these stunts in la, people got hurt. Two innocent people died trying to flee his masked agents. ICE opened fire on a vehicle without dangerous provocation. They detained a disabled 15 year old, Drew their guns on him. They have ripped mothers away from their babies and handcuffed 10 year olds. In Washington, they pulled over firefighters headed to fight an actual wildfire and detained two of the firefighters on duty in that effort. And they want to bring all of that to Chicago. During one of Bovino's raids, U.S. customs and Border Patrol's own data indicated that their officers had no prior knowledge of criminal or immigration history for 77 of the 78 people arrested. Again, this is not about crime. More and more reports around these raids include people who were stopped or detained because of how they look and not because of any threat to the public. If any of this was about dealing with the complexities of a broken immigration system, then Trump would have had the Congress, Trump, Republicans, control, write and pass a comprehensive immigration bill. Not only has that not happened, there is no talk of any such effort on the horizon. I know how Donald Trump thinks because I've been governor during both of his terms. He has surrounded himself with groveling yes men who are too weak to restrain his most violent and unhinged impulses or who share those impulses. As a governor who cares about the well being of my people. I can't live in a fantasy land where I pretend Trump is not tearing this country apart for personal greed and power. I have to deal in facts. And here they are. Crime is down in Chicago. Murders are down by almost 50% in the last four years. Shootings are down 57%, robberies down 34%, burglaries down 21%. Motor vehicle thefts down 26%. One violent crime is too many and we have more work to do. But we have made important progress on safety that Trump is now jeopardizing. Just during the last week, I've been in neighborhoods across Chicago from Bronzeville to South Shore to Chatham to Little Village. The President's absurd characterizations do not match what is happening on the ground here. He has no idea what he's talking about. There is no emergency that warrants deployment of troops. He is insulting the people of Chicago by calling our home a hellhole. And anyone who takes his word at face value is insulting Chicagoans too. Crime is a reality that we all take seriously. Me especially. I've held the hands of grieving mothers who have lost their kids to gun violence. I've been in consistent contact with law enforcement and managed our state through some of its toughest moments. That has informed our comprehensive, evidence based approach to crime. Hiring more police officers and giving them more funding, gun and drug and gang interdiction, investing in community violence intervention, mental health supports, more substance use treatment. Those programs have shown real progress. Then you know what happened. Donald Trump and his Republican allies in Congress cut those programs because they are unserious people who seem to know nothing about fighting crime. We are ready to fight troop deployments in court and we will do everything possible to ensure that agents operating inside the confines of this state do so in a legal and ethical manner to Chicagoans. What you can do is look out for your communities and your neighbors. Know your rights. Film things that you see happening in your neighborhoods and your streets and share them with with the news media. Authoritarians, thrive on your silence. Be loud for America. To everyone listening, but most especially to the press, I refuse to pretend that any of this is normal. I refuse to concede that the abject cruelty that we're seeing play out with the execution of Trump and Stephen Miller's policies are okay or justified. I refuse to fall into the pundit trap that demands we sacrifice vital constitutional rights if it's being done in the fake guise of fighting crime. Because as I said six months ago in my State of the State address, any rational person who has spent even the most minimal amount of time studying human history has to ask themselves on one important question. Once they get the citizens of this nation comfortable with the current atrocities committed under the color of law, what comes next? Now I'd like to turn the podium over to the Mayor of the City of Chicago, Brandon Johnson.

[F]

Thank you, Governor.

[E]

I think that you have to have faith that in the end it'll all be okay that no matter who wins a presidential election, we will live in a democracy. The First Amendment will govern what journalists can say and do. The Constitution will protect the rights of everybody if you can agree that most people want those things. Our show is about trying to bend the arc toward that end result.

[D]

Deadline White House With Nicole Wallace Weekdays from 4 to 6pm Eastern on MSNBC. Subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts for early access, ad free listening and bonus content. Content to all of MSNBC's original podcasts including the chart topping series the Best People with Nicole Wallace, why is this Happening? Main justice and more. Plus new episodes of all your favorite MSNBC shows ad free and ad free listening to all of Rachel Meadow's original series, Ultra Bagman and Deja News. Subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts. Start your day with the MSNBC Daily Newsletter. Sharp insights from voices you trust, standout moments from your favorite show, and fresh perspectives from experts shaping the news. Sign up [e-mail].

[F]

Thank you Governor Good afternoon everyone. Good afternoon. Thank you, President Prekwinko, Lieutenant Governor Stratton for being here and our Attorney General Raul to the members of the press Today we stand here united as the State of Illinois, Cook county and the city of Chicago to send a very clear message. We do not want or need military occupation in our city. We do not want or need militarized immigration enforcement in our city. We have been clear on that and we will continue to take every single measure that we can to protect our people from these threats. However, I also want to be clear about this. There are measures that the federal government can take right now to help continue to drive down violence and crime in our city. We need the federal government to stop the endless flow of guns into our state and into our city. Chicago police officers have taken more than 24,000 guns, illegal guns, off the streets of Chicago since I've taken office. Over 24,000 illegal guns taken off the streets of Chicago since I've been in office. They have worked hard every single day to make our city safer and they've made historic progress. However, we will never be able to end gun violence in Chicago as long as the President continues to allow tens of thousands of guns to be trafficked into our state and our city. The vast majority of guns do not come from Chicago. They are not made in Cook County. They are not bought in the state of Illinois. These guns come from red states. They are coming from Indiana. They are coming from Mississippi. They are coming from Louisiana. That is the harsh reality Whether Republicans like it or not, occupying our city will do nothing to solve this problem. No matter how much work we do or how hard we work, whether it's expanding our Detectives Bureau, investing in community violence intervention, and addressing the root causes of crime, none of it will ever be enough until the President decides to end the mass trafficking of guns in our city. For every gun that the Chicago Police Department fights to get off the streets, two or three more new guns come into our city. Chicago will continue to have a violence problem as long as red states continue to have a gun problem. Shootings will continue as long as this presidential administration continues to put politics over people. We have sued Glock over their semi automatic guns that are easily converted into automatic weapons with switches. We have taken down gun stores in Indiana that illegally sell thousands of guns to traffickers who move them into Chicago. But whatever we shut down and whenever we do this, another one pops up. The Governor has worked extremely hard to strengthen our gun control laws across our state. And as much as we would like to, we cannot send officers across state lines to stop this problem at the source. We only have jurisdiction over our own city. The governor only has jurisdiction over our state lines. It is the role, more importantly, the responsibility of the federal government and the President to stop the trafficking of weapons across state lines. For every shooting in Chicago, there is a gun trafficker in Mississippi making money. There is a gun trafficker in Louisiana profiting off of our pain. This is a serious problem that has gone on for far too long, and it requires serious solutions. We wrote a letter to President Biden after a mass shooting in Chicago two years ago, asking for more resources to stop gun violence in our city by deploying federal agents to hold these gun traffickers accountable. President Biden responded with more resources and stronger enforcement. And that alone had a significant impact on gun violence in our city. We need President Trump to do the same. Instead of using militarized ICE agents to terrify our communities here in Chicago, instead of sending in Border patrol to our city to detain mothers and fathers who have called Chicago their home for decades, working class people who pay their taxes and make our community stronger, they should direct those resources to taking down gun traffickers so that we can finally put a stop to the violence. If the Chicago Police Department had a fighting chance, we could end gun violence in Chicago. But as long as this President allows hundreds of thousands of guns to come into our city, we will always be fighting an uphill battle. And so our call to the President and to his fellow Republicans who want to weaponize the tragedy of gun violence. The Republicans who want to use the pain of families who have lost loved ones to shootings and who want to use our city as a punching bag. Our response is that they should get their own house in order before they say anything about the city of Chicago. We have done tremendous work with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, firearms and explosives, ATF in Chicago. On August 4, ATF worked with the Chicago Police Department to take 171 guns off the streets. In just one action, they took 64 machine gun switches. These are devices that turn guns into automatic weapons and they are almost always found on the scene of mass shootings in our city. These guns are linked to shootings and homicides in Chicago going all the way back to 2017, including the killing of a 14 year old boy. So my question is, why did Trump cut $468 million from ATF's budget in his nasty signature bill? Why did he cut funding for the agency responsible for getting guns off our streets by almost 30%? Why did he cut 1,465 positions from an agency that is so critical to reducing gun violence? They cut funding from the agency that is actually stopping gun traffickers so they could increase funding for ICE and Border Patrol. I'm going to repeat that again so that it sinks in. Trump gutted the agency that actually catches gun traffickers just so that he could hand money to ICE and Border Patrol. This president doesn't care about gun violence. He just wants his own secret police force that would do publicity stunts whenever his poll numbers are sinking, whenever his jobs report shows a stagnating economy, whenever he needs another distraction from his failures. That's what this is about. The Trump administration continues to try to use the real pain and loss of gun violence victims as a pretext for expanding his own power. Unfortunately, even some elected officials in our city and state have parroted these lies. But here's the truth. Donald Trump is the last person in America who cares about families on the south and west side of Chicago, those who are dealing with violence on a regular basis. He's the last person. The thought doesn't even cross his mind. If he did, he wouldn't have cut $800 million from violence prevention organizations. These are funds that would have gone towards organizations on the south and west side who are on the front lines driving down gun violence. He wouldn't have cut $468 million from ATF. He wouldn't be sending ice and border patrols to Chicago. He would be sending ATF agents to Mississippi. He would be sending these agents to Indiana. He's worried about the wrong border. We don't have an immigration crisis in Chicago. We have a gun crisis. And the president could care less about the real solutions. In closing, violence in Chicago is not because we have too many immigrants, it's because we have too many guns. So our message to Trump continues to be the stop posting truth socials, stop making statements, stop threatening to send troops or ice, stop defunding our communities. Just do your job and end the trafficking of guns into our city. Thank you. With that, we'll turn the podium over to the Cook County Board President, Tony Prekwinkle.

[E]

Well, that is what offense looks like from the state of Illinois and the city of Chicago. The mayor of Chicago taking a 2 by 4 to the I want to use Bill Barr's favorite word, but I won't. But the lie that anything Donald Trump is doing is about crime. Mayor Brandon Johnson saying, quote, chicago will have a violence problem as long as red states have a gun problem. The mayor then ticking through the systematic cuts on Donald Trump's part in funding for every single federal program that funds cops on the streets of cities, that funds law enforcement efforts to remove illegal guns. Mayor Brandon Johnson giving some statistics of his own, saying that Chicago police Officers have taken 24,000 illegal guns off the streets of Chicago. Describing what amounts to essentially a pipeline of illegal arms flowing into the city of Chicago from red states, he name checked the states of Indiana, Louisiana and Mississippi. This came after a sharp rebuke of Donald Trump's theatrics and the name checking of another gentleman that Governor Pritzker seemed intent on making a household name. A gentleman who spends time on TikTok named Gregory Bovino, who he essentially accuses of theatrical displays of force in American cities, describes him as packing up his operation in la, deploying to Chicago and warning other cities in blue states that this is the show likely to come to their city and state next. Joining our breaking news coverage, MSNBC senior White House correspondent Vaughn Hilliard. With me at the table, Puck News senior political columnist, MSNBC national affairs analyst John Heilman, who's been watching along with us, and Democratic strategist and professor at Columbia University, MSNBC political analyst Basil Smichel. Vaughn Hilliard, I know that the Trump folks view themselves as pithy and quick. Do they have any response to the gutting of funding for federal law enforcement programs that take illegal weapons off the streets of American cities?

[G]

No, not at this point in time. Nicole.

[E]

Boy, let me just real quick. Do they have any Response to the cuts in funds for cops on the streets of American cities?

[G]

No, not at this point in time. And look, this is one more time.

[E]

Do they have any response to the idea that this is a shadow operation that will racially profile Latino communities at a time meant to celebrate their heritage September by falsely accusing these community members of violent crime when the statistic is 77 of 78 people that get rounded up, usually being nonviolent non criminals?

[G]

No, not at this point in time.

[E]

Hmm, Interesting. What do they have?

[G]

I think that this weekend, social media post by the President of the United States set up not only the preemptive order from the Chicago mayor saying that Chicago PD will not collaborate with federal agencies or the National Guard on the ground, but also the remarks that we just heard here that were very poignant from the Governor of Illinois. Essentially, this White House has premeditated their next move and said that Chicago is next. And I think that I don't know if folks can hear from my microphone behind me, but during that press conference, I hear several hundred folks behind me here in Washington, D.C. protesting outside the White House chanting, whose streets? Our streets. This is still an issue here in Washington. And in a lot of ways, listening to these remarks, it is the question of what's next. And I go back to early June, while National Guard and 700 Marines were deployed into the streets of Los Angeles. I was at Fort Bragg with the President of the United States, Nicole, when he was actively effectively rallying members of the military against Democratic officials. And it was the remarks from him at the time in Los Angeles. These were his words. The Governor of California, the Mayor of Los Angeles, they're incompetent and they paid troublemakers, agitators and insurrectionists. It was not just a distortion of the violent crime rates in Los Angeles, but it was also a lie about what was taking place in the city of Los Angeles to justify his actions. And on Friday afternoon before this weekend, this White House shut down for the weekend. I asked Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller specifically about their plans for the Chicago. He said he wouldn't divulge details, but I also asked him a very specific question of whether he had engaged with the President in a conversation about potentially invoking the Insurrection Act. And I asked that because Michael Schmidt back in 2021 reported that in 2020, that was a conversation here within this White House during the George Floyd Floyd protests. And knowing J.B. pritzker, effectively making the case that he believes that this is an effort to manufacture chaos. And if the Insurrection act were to be invoked by this White House. Effectively, it would toss aside the decision in the ruling of the federal judge in California today, and it would allow him to use the military for domestic civilian law enforcement purposes. I think there's a lot of questions about what we would be looking at in the weeks ahead if, in fact, he were to send not only the National Guard, but also other federal agents into the streets.

[E]

And all of it designed to scare people. Let's do a little bit more fact checking, because I think if they were on solid ground, they wouldn't be lying so much, would they? Donald Trump said this in the last hour. Quote, chicago is the murder capital of the world. Fact check, false. That's actually a distinction that Tijuana, Mexico has right now, the highest homicide rate in the world. Trump posted in that weekend post. You're talking about Vaughn, quote, chicago is the worst and most dangerous city in the world. That is also false. That distinct of the US city that cracks the top 10, there's only one, and it's Memphis, Tennessee. Has the White House addressed what it's going to do for Memphis, Tennessee today? Yvonne?

[G]

No, not for Memphis, Tennessee. And Speaker Mike Johnson sidestepped for Louisiana. I think Nancy Mace is somebody else. We could look at Nicole. She was asked, she's now running for governor of South Carolina. She was asked whether she would welcome the military onto the streets of South Carolina, Carolina, and she said that she looked forward to seeing the president's actions in Chicago. So we have not heard a direct response to how the military or how the National Guard or how federal law enforcement would be used in Republican cities now.

[E]

I mean, hashtag sad John Howland for the people of Memphis, Tennessee, because if you think Chicago is a, quote, hellhole, you know, it looks like statistically Memphis is underneath that. So I'm not sure what's underneath the hole of hell, but it must be really sad for them, according to Trump.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Look, it has been transparently clear and obvious for quite some time that all of these activities from Los angeles to Washington, D.C. now in Prospect in Chicago, are not about crime.

[E]

But not to his supporters. I mean, to us, it's been transparent. But if you watch Fox, all you see is a loop of crime stories.

[A]

I'm on Earth One. I'm on Earth One. I understand that there are probably propaganda, disinformation and misinformation efforts. I also understand there are people who are deluded, people who are, like, really high on some incredible drugs who see things that aren't there. I get all that. I get all that but again, on Earth one, just looking at who the targets are, looking at what the deployments have been, looking at where the troops have been stationed, looking at all those things, you can have an interesting conversation about how much of that is about intimidation, how much of that is about fear, how much of that is about some longer game about federalizing and militarizing law enforcement for some political purpose as yet unknown. We can speculate about those possibilities, but we can have, there's a range of possibilities. What they're not about is a coordinated national policy on crime reduction. Because that policy would involve calling together mayors, governors, state representatives, people from around the country. You'd pick out the cities that are in fact the most violent. Dude, they in fact have the most highest crime rates. You pull them all together and say, okay, we have some problems in America. We do violent crime, some nonviolent crime, property crime, there's all kinds of crime problems. People are not wrong to think there's more too much crime. In almost any town you live in in America, there's more crime than you would want in your town. You would like to see active efforts on the part of the state, local federal government to ameliorate the crime problem. But if you were going to do that, you would have to do it in a coherent, cohesive way, working in real partnership with governors in red states and blue states, in big cities, in small towns, in red states, capitals around very republic Republican states and very democratic states. You would do that in a triaged way. It's a big problem. So you'd think, where do we have to focus most intensely? Where do we have to put the most resources? What are the actual causes of this crime? What are the things we need to do on a day to day basis just to calm situations down. In some places that really are full of fear for good reason, you do all that stuff. How much of that has we seen? We've seen none of that. What we've seen instead is what we won't repeat, what it's been. But so it's to me again here on Earth one, judging the actual facts, it's clear that the objectives here are not about crime. And then the question becomes, what do Democrats do about that, given that they are the targets? Whether it's Los Angeles, Washington, D.C. chicago, Maryland, other places that are soon to come. And that's the big political question is how well are Democrats in various places handling that. We've seen some variation between what Wes Moore is doing versus what J.B. pritzker is doing. Both are resisting but taking slightly different tones and slightly different tactics. We just saw a new move on the part of the mayor of Chicago, which is what we should probably talk about here, which is the first time I think we've seen a Democratic mayor, governor or anything else make a direct link to gun policy. That could change at the federal if you want a partnership with US President Trump, here's a thing you could do that would really help our city. And that's the point you're making rhetorically here, which is, hey, let's hear what they have to say about that, which will not be much.

[E]

I want to spend the rest of the time actually talking about the argument that was just advanced in this press conference because I think it's a game changer. I think it's a thing that you've got 85% of Americans who want to see legislation on gun safety. You don't have 85. I think they maybe agree that Trump is doing a bad job on the Epstein files. That number is 81%. 85 is bigger than the number of people who think Trump has something to hide in the Epstein files. It's a massive number of Americans on guns. But let me just press you one more question on the politics if you're first of all, it is a massive years long project of the right to run it and when the news for Trump is bad, they just basically run like streetlight camera footage of American cities and talk about crime in America's cities.

[F]

Sure.

[E]

If you are of the MAGA persuasion and you consume that propaganda, why aren't you demanding that Republicans do something about Memphis and Dallas and New Orleans? I mean, why aren't you demanding say you believe all those things and you're immune to messages about statistics going down, why aren't you then demanding that Republicans do something about crime?

[A]

Well, I think mostly because you're seeing images. If you are in on earth too and you are persuaded by the images you're seeing, what you're not seeing on Fox News is images from, from Louisiana and from Memphis, Tennessee. What you're seeing is San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Baltimore, New York City, Boston in an endless loop. What they what do you I have not done, I have not done the data media research on this. But I would bet a lot of money that if you looked at the amount of crime footage that's shown on national conservative television, right. Leading television, far right television, that the vast majority of it would be just like the places are exactly the same places Donald Trump is targeting. Now that is not a coincidence. And so you don't believe.

[E]

Right.

[A]

And then we come to them, we people on Earth One come to them and say the murder rate in Memphis is higher than the murder rate in Chicago or et cetera, some similar example. And they say, well, I don't see any images from Memphis, Tennessee. So I don't believe that they think that they're just hearing us using fake news statistics, because that's what Donald Trump has told them for the last 10 years, that anytime someone from Earth One gives them a stat, it must be false.

[E]

It's so exhausting, but you're probably correct. All right, let's talk about Mayor Brandon Johnson, who from the moment he stepped to the podium, seemed to put not just his city or his party, but the entire argument about crime on a back foot. I mean, anyone that sees that, and I would venture to say on Earth One and Earth Two. Well, say, what about the guns?

[B]

Right. I think, you know, mayors have talked about this for a while, that iron pipeline. You know, as someone who grew up in this town in New York City, I grew up with a lot of gun violence, lost a lot of friends to gun violence. And it's a constant conversation. You've had mayors do gun buyback programs in communities where people would, without, you know, fear of prosecution, just be able to turn over their guns because there was so much importance on trying to get that off the street. Because we've known what a lot of America just heard, which is that this is not a problem that is inherent to the communities where you have a lot of this violence, because those guns come from somewhere else. The ability to modify guns, that is somewhere else. A lot of the violent crimes that we're talking about happen in places where the gun laws are actually very strict. So they're coming from places where they're not. And just a quick point about the mayor himself and what he talked about in terms of the coordination, somebody that grew up in New York City. What we don't talk enough about, I think, in this entire debate is the bad old days when crime really was out of control, those 70s, the 80s, early 90s, height of the crack epidemic, when there were communities who are never passive in this affair, by the way, communities were asking the federal government leaders were asking the federal government to do more, to contribute more, to not not only help get the guns off the street, but also help mayors do their job better. A lot of that did not happen. But if you take New York, specifically, David Dinkins, when he became mayor in 89 or 90, when he was sworn in actually went to D.C. asked the federal government for more money, for cops, to put more cops on the street. Those additional police officers were deployed to do two things. One, fight crime and do it in a more strategic way, but also to find ways to bring in more community policing, to give neighborhoods and leaders more support locally, because they know what to do. They know how to get the kids off the corner. But what's different here is exactly what we've been saying and what the mayor and the governor have said. There is no coordination. This is the mayor, this is the president saying we're just going to put troops on the street for that fear, that fear mongering, that anticipatory obedience, all for a whole other purpose other than trying to actually get to the heart of. And just a quick point. When it was HIV and aids, when it was crack, there was all kinds of stigmatization around who was being most impacted. All the help came when it was opioid addiction. That didn't affect people that look like me generally. So there is this other layer of race and class added onto everything that the mayor and the governor talked about.

[E]

Before I lose, Yvonne, let me just ask you this. We know Donald Trump can read a poll because he sometimes sues pollsters and tweets a lot about polls. It's obvious that the polling on his immigration is well below his approval on crime. It is transparent that he's wrapping what has become completely operationalized political dead weight around. I mean, if he decided to stop the mass deportation today, which I would hope he would, and simply deport adjudicated violent criminals, he couldn't. All the money left law enforcement, it left doj, left the FBI and it all, it left all these programs that the mayor just talked about. And it's all at ice. It is clear that somebody, maybe Trump himself, who knows, knows how unpopular immigration is and is wrapping it in an issue on which his approval rating is not high, but higher than immigration. Is anyone considering an about face on what has become a political deadweight for Donald Trump? And that is the unpopularity of the mass disappearing and the mass deportations, where they're losing in court after court and they've lost important figures in the manosphere like Joe Rogan? Right.

[G]

I think it's a good question because I think that Chicago is the perfect example of that evolution of the justification of the argument to have such a presence of this across American cities that the president, the images that he likes to see. Initially, Kristi Noem, the DHS secretary, was suggesting the federal action that we were going to all see in Chicago. It was precipitated by a need to surge federal immigration enforcement. That was the reason that was initially given. And it wasn't really until largely this weekend in social media posts that that the president started throwing out crime statistics and the need to take over that. J.B. pritzker, if you don't take care of the crime and the shootings, quote, we're coming. And I think that that is where these two are tangled together in ways that you have to extrapolate the images in the visceral polling that I think bears out right. I was working this weekend and on Sunday we were in real time time trying to get an understanding of the images that we were watching On a Texas tarmac outside of McAllen is Guatemalan children were getting off of an airplane because a federal judge ordered an airplane to be turned around as it was heading with hundreds of Guatemalan children back to Texas, saying that he could not deport them until they had an opportunity for asylum hearings. And so in a lot of ways, what you are looking at is an administration not necessarily bear hugging those images in this mass deportation effort like they once were. And instead, you see the president almost keenly aware and instead focusing on the idea of crime as a means of going into these cities.

[E]

Vaughn Hilliard, I apologize for the peppering of questions at the beginning. Thank you for indulging me and for joining us and watching along with us. I'm always grateful to you, my friend. The table sticks around. When we come back, more on Don't Trump's threats to the city of Chicago and what sounded a whole lot like a threat of a siege of an American city from Donald Trump. And later in the broadcast, it's back to work for lawmakers in Washington. One of the first orders of business today, we alluded to it, the Jeffrey Epstein files that the Trump Justice Department still doesn't want you to see. We'll get to the bipartisan push for answers and much, much more when Deadline White House continues after a quick break. Don't go anywhere.

[D]

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[E]

Joining our coverage is staff writer for the Atlantic, author of Autocracy, Inc. And Applebaum is here. She joins John and Basil who are still here as well. And Applebaum, I feel like it's becoming a weekly interval where Trump does something that the folks who were describing him to Bob Woodward, at least as, quote, fascistic to the core does. One of the things they warned about in this case, John Kelly, specifically warned about using the military on American citizens, on the streets of American cities. Donald Trump essentially announcing, quote, we're coming in. The way you talk about moving around on a foreign battlefield.

[H]

I would also add to that that he's doing so using emergency powers, declaring these so called fake emergencies. He's doing that in actually a lot of spheres as well, including tariffs. Unfortunately, this is a practice that has a very, very clear authoritarian history. There was a theorist in the 1920s called Carl Schmidt, who later became enthusiastic supporters of the Nazis, who talked very specifically about the so called state of exceptions, that a truly sovereign leader can declare a state of exception. They can suspend all the laws, they can change all the rules, and they can fill it with whatever is their own will. And that appears to be what Trump is doing in multiple areas, as I say, but especially in this area where, as you say, he's bringing in American military people who are not trained to fight crime. They're trained to fight the enemies of America and doing so while suspending all, all kinds of laws and rules, or at least stretching the laws and rules. It fits right into a long tradition.

[E]

We also always want to ask you if there are any signs of life on the pro democracy side. And I wonder if JB Pritzker holding up a mirror to this, calling it out ahead of time, essentially communicating to his constituents, to the citizens of Illinois and the city of Chicago what is about to happen, how effective a tool that is in pushing back.

[H]

I think it's really important, especially for mayors and governors and other political leaders to explain to people what is happening and to remind them that this is not about crime. Crime is a problem. I'm not denying that crime is a problem. But this is not a solution to crime. And Trump is not sending troops to American cities because of crime. He's doing so, as I said, as a way of abusing emergency powers, as a way of demonstrating authority, and also as a way of putting, creating photographs and pictures and B roll for his, for his, for, for his followers to use, and so focusing on what Trump is really doing, why he's doing it. That's, it's, it's, it's great for, as I said, governors and mayors to do that in advance.

[E]

I mean, to Anne's point, Governor Pritzker was so explicit about that last point she made that he's basically producing an alternate reality. And to pick up on your point about Earth 1 and Earth 2, well, right.

[A]

And again, I don't think it's an effective political strategy for Democrats to cite statistics. I, however, am not a Democratic politician, so I will cite statistics. And you know, Basil was talking before about the early 90s when America's violent crime rate was genuinely horrific. And you had, According to the FBI, 750, 760 violent crimes per 100,000 people. Right now we're at a half that level. And falling. From 2023 to 2024, the crime rate fell nationally 4 and a half percent. Murder and non related manslaughters fell 15% in the course of last year. This is, it's true in the cities there may be, there's some variance, but the big national trend, especially coming out of COVID which is, which when we saw crime rates spike during the pandemic, we're going down. Is it still too high? It's still too high. It's subjective. It's still too high. People need to have their concerns assuaged about crime in their communities. But, but you're on this downward trajectory. So what are you seeing? What you're seeing is the federal government is cutting the funding for the FBI, cutting the funding for the dea, cutting funding for all of crime, a professional crime, at the federal level, except for ice, where they've tripled the budget for ice. And now we see them out doing this recruitment for and lowering standards in order. You triple the budget for ice, you want to hire that many more ICE agents, you are going to have to drop standards because there's not enough qualified people to really do that work. What are the people who are coming into ICE see? They see ICE agents who are in plain clothes with masks, bashing in car windows, doing all kinds of stuff and say to themselves, oh, that's what I want to do with my life. That is the path towards deprofessionalizing law enforcement at the federal level and combining that with emergency. Emergency, the invocation of emergency status in places where there is no emergency. Even if you think the crime rate's too high, the overall trend and in all of these cities, the trend is down. Trending down does not usually indicate an emergency on Earth 1. So what do those things tell you? What they tell you is about a president who is, in the words of people who are not. I have no expertise in this area, but I increasingly hear people who study this saying the president's building a paramilitary that is loyal to him, that is a deprofessionalized professional version of law enforcement and an increasingly militarized and loyal to him version of it, which is a paramilitary. And in the history of democracies around the world, paramilitaries, when you start seeing leaders building paramilitaries, those things in general do not tend to turn out well.

[E]

Basil, I think all the warnings are there. I think the governor also spoke directly to the media about not taking the bait. And nobody here has. But I wonder how important in this. It feels like the moment before, right. Maybe the moment before all that is in effect, the moment before the emergencies are invoked. It almost feel and I interviewed Stacey Abrams today. She made the same point about the media. It feels like it's time to step up and be a little more critical of what's coming out of this administration.

[B]

Absolutely. It's important to be more critical. But you also need to hear what you heard from the governor, mayor today. Go directly atif it's a red state issue. Go directly at the red state. Don't sugarcoat it. You have to call out the problem for what it is. You have to present it very clearly and precisely. And I know that this we may not be good at or shouldn't be talking about a lot of statistics, but we should also consider the fact that not only is Donald Trump increasing the budgets, let's say, of ice, defunding the other law enforcement agencies, he's also defunding the areas wherethe areas that are the social determinants of crime.

[E]

Right.

[B]

When you deal, when you make cuts to education, you're making your threatening cuts to Medicaid, Social Security, that social, that platform, that social safety net. When you create housing and food security.

[E]

No housing, no food, no money, all.

[B]

Those things that we're not supposed to say right now, right. Housing and food insecurity, the social determinants of crime, when you affect those in a positive way, but then decrease funding, fund ICE for wraparound services.

[A]

Yeah, all that stuff, what do you.

[B]

Think is going to happen?

[E]

Right. And I mean, I guess the question for another day is is that intentional? Right. I hate to lay too much intention on them, but we'll figure that out another day. Ann Appelbaum, thank you for scrambling the jets and joining this conversation. John Heilman and Basil Smigel, thank you for watching with us and spending the hour with us. Up next for us, lawmakers are back on the Hill and so so are Jeffrey Epstein's survivors. Some who have never spoken before the full court press for transparency on that front. Ahead, when Death in White House continues after quit break. Don't go anywhere.