“A tribute to culture and togetherness”

Summary

---

Podcast Summary: "A Tribute to Culture and Togetherness"

Deadline: White House with Nicolle Wallace (MS NOW)
Date: February 9, 2026
Host: Nicolle Wallace
Guests: Adrienne Carrasquillo, Eddie Glaude, Molly Jong-Fast, Micah Rosenberg, Rep. Ro Khanna

---

Episode Overview

This episode explores the cultural, political, and moral landscape of current-day America, centering on the intersection of pop culture and national identity. Using the recent Super Bowl halftime performance by Bad Bunny as a springboard, host Nicolle Wallace and her panel examine reactions from the political right (particularly the MAGA movement and Donald Trump), contrasting them with the performance’s messages of unity, cultural affirmation, and hope. The discussion broadens to analyze how popular culture leads political change, the courage of grassroots movements, the trauma of children detained under current immigration policies, and the ongoing demand for accountability relating to the Epstein files. The episode weaves together commentary, personal stories, and hard reporting to offer a nuanced look at the state of the nation.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Power and Politics of the Super Bowl Halftime Show

[01:28–05:21]

• Nicolle opens by celebrating Bad Bunny's joyful, multicultural halftime performance, highlighting the English words "God Bless America" and the message "the only thing more powerful than hate is love" displayed behind him. She notes the positive, patriotic sentiment and contrasts it with MAGA outrage and criticism from Trump and his circle.

• Trump and allies characterize the performance as a "slap in the face" to the country; criticism centers on the use of Spanish over English, ignoring the broader unifying theme.

• Quote:
  “For them, Bad Bunny's 13 minute tribute to togetherness and fun and art and performance and culture was laden with political messaging and anti MAGA stuff.” – Nicolle Wallace [01:55]

• Adrienne Carrasquillo reflects on the joy and importance of cultural affirmation, stating Bad Bunny’s message cut against MAGA’s divisive ideology.

  • Quote:
    "He's affirming our humanity at a time when this administration is denying our humanity. And that goes for Latinos, that goes for immigrants, that goes for U.S. citizens." – Adrienne Carrasquillo [05:49]

2. Culture Leading Politics

[06:21–11:33]

• The hosts and panel discuss how cultural courage—evident in sports and music—drives political change.
• The NFL embracing diversity via Bad Bunny is spotlighted as culture resisting MAGA pressure.
• Quote:
  “Politics is downstream from culture. You've now lost the people who have put steel in the spine of culture, who have put steel in the spine of sports...” – Nicolle Wallace [07:40]
• Olympians’ mixed feelings about representing the U.S. under Trump are highlighted, reflecting a divergence between officialdom and the people.

3. Complexity of American Identity

[09:47–12:19]

• Eddie Glaude frames culture as the “site of contestation,” where national identity is actively argued and constructed. He notes the NFL’s embrace of Latin music and culture is both a market calculation and a reflection of America’s lived diversity.
  • Quote:
    “Whatever makes America swing is rooted in the diversity that makes this place unique. We're like no other place in the Western world.” – Eddie Glaude [11:53]

4. The Failure of Elites vs. The Bravery of Ordinary People

[13:12–14:29]

• Molly Jong-Fast and others discuss the meekness of corporate, tech, and law leadership in Trump’s America—refusing to stand up, in contrast to ordinary Americans who are speaking out and acting with courage.
• Trump succeeded at first by engaging with “low frequency” voters and popular culture, but the tide is turning as his version of culture appears increasingly hollow.

5. The End of the Beginning? Assessing the MAGA Movement

[15:51–17:30]

• The panel debates whether America is moving past the darkest phase of Trumpism, cautioning that major undercurrents remain.
• Eddie Glaude offers a warning:
  “He is an avatar. He is in so many ways a kind of boil that represents the sickness under the skin. That hasn't gone away… This is category six. It ain't Category five. This storm is huge.” [16:26]

6. The Lasting Need for Accountability—and the Persistence of Harm

[22:59–26:10]

• Discussion returns to Trump’s refusal to apologize for racist content and the lack of repercussions in business or politics.
• The contrast between the symbolic embrace of diversity (e.g., Bad Bunny at the Super Bowl) and the elite’s ongoing complicity or cowardice is emphasized.

7. Immigration, Family Detention, and the Voices of Children

[29:58–37:56]

• Micah Rosenberg provides harrowing reporting from the Dilley Detention Center, reading letters from detained children describing depression, sadness, and the trauma of being separated from family and held in poor conditions for months.
• Quote (Letter):
  “Since I got to this center, all you will feel is sadness and mostly depression.” – Arianna, 14, detained at Dilley [32:08]
• Eddie Glaude’s reaction:
  “What we're seeing is the theft of innocence. They've stolen it. Whether you're 5 or 15.” [36:28]
  “The only way I can describe this is it's evil.” [37:36]

8. Epstein Files and the Demand for Elite Accountability

[38:41–45:26]

• Rep. Ro Khanna joins to discuss the ongoing investigation into the Epstein files, emphasizing the lack of transparency, the revealing of six co-conspirators in just two hours of file review, and the moral imperative for accountability.
• Quote:
  “Get to the question that most Americans want to know. Who were the rich and powerful people who went to this island? Did they rape underage girls? Did they know that underage girls were being paraded around?” – Nicole Wallace [39:27]
• Khanna on MAGA:
  “This is one thing that is breaking MAGA… when I go and talk to a lot of men, particularly young men, people who have a sense of honor, they are dismayed by Donald Trump and what he has done.” [44:41]

9. The Power of Local Activism and Imagination

[46:23–46:55]

• The episode closes with a call to focus on tangible, local action and imagination as key to resisting autocracy and despair.
• Eddie Glaude:
  “History is replete with people, ordinary people doing impossible things. But the way the imagination works best is when it's close to the ground and local... Let's reach for the possible right in front of us.” [46:51]

---

Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• “For them, Bad Bunny's 13 minute tribute to togetherness and fun and art and performance and culture was laden with political messaging and anti MAGA stuff.”
  — Nicolle Wallace [01:55]

• “He's affirming our humanity at a time when this administration is denying our humanity.”
  — Adrienne Carrasquillo [05:49]

• “Politics is downstream from culture. You've now lost the people who have put steel in the spine of culture...”
  — Nicolle Wallace [07:40]

• “Culture is the site of contestation. It's the argument. It's the space where we work out who we are.”
  — Eddie Glaude [09:47]

• “Whatever makes America swing is rooted in the diversity that makes this place unique. We're like no other place in the Western world.”
  — Eddie Glaude [11:53]

• “He is an avatar. He is in so many ways a kind of boil that represents the sickness under the skin. That hasn't gone away... This storm is huge. We haven't gotten near the tail yet.”
  — Eddie Glaude [16:26]

• “Since I got to this center, all you will feel is sadness and mostly depression.”
  — Arianna, 14, detained at Dilley (Letter read by Rosenberg) [32:08]

• “What we're seeing is the theft of innocence. They've stolen it. Whether you're 5 or 15.”
  — Eddie Glaude [36:28]

• “Get to the question that most Americans want to know. Who were the rich and powerful people who went to this island? Did they rape underage girls?...”
  — Nicolle Wallace [39:27]

• “Let's reach for the possible right in front of us.”
  — Eddie Glaude [46:52]

---

Timeline of Important Segments

• [01:28] Bad Bunny’s halftime performance and its cultural/political ripple effects
• [05:21] Panel reflection: Politics and unity in the performance’s message
• [09:47] Culture as a site of national contestation — Eddie Glaude
• [13:12] The people’s bravery vs. elite cowardice — Molly Jong-Fast
• [15:51] Are we moving beyond Trumpism? Panel analysis
• [22:59] Trump’s refusal to apologize for racism — what it signals about American leadership
• [29:58] The reality of child detention centers in America — Reporting by Micah Rosenberg
• [38:41] Rep. Ro Khanna on the still-hidden truths and coverups in the Epstein files
• [46:23] Eddie Glaude’s closing: The need for local optimism and courage

---

Tone and Style

• Thoughtful, earnest, and at times urgent — balancing analytical insight and emotional resonance
• Accessible yet unafraid to confront moral and political complexity
• Frequently conversational, with warmth and personal anecdotes woven in
• Unflinching in discussing the harms wrought by current policy and political culture, but emphasizing agency, hope, and collective action

---

This episode offers a stirring tribute to the resilience of culture and the ordinary Americans driving positive change—even in the face of deep divisiveness and ongoing injustices. The panel’s reflections, reporting, and heartfelt moments provide both clarity and inspiration for listeners seeking to understand (and shape) the country’s current moment.

Transcript

[Nicole Wallace]

Lifelock. How can I help?

[Micah Rosenberg]

The IRS said I filed my return, but I haven't.

[LifeLock Advertiser]

One in four tax paying Americans has paid the price of identity fraud.

[Nicole Wallace]

What do I do? My refund though.

[Adrienne Carrasquillo]

I'm freaking out.

[Nicole Wallace]

Don't worry, I can fix this.

[LifeLock Advertiser]

Lifelock fixes identity theft guaranteed and gets your money back with up to $3 million in coverage.

[Nicole Wallace]

I'm so relieved.

[Adrienne Carrasquillo]

No problem.

[LifeLock Advertiser]

I'll be with you every step of the way. One in four was a fraud paying American. Not anymore. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit lifelock.com Specialoffer terms apply avoiding your unfinished home projects because you're not sure where to start. Thumbtack knows homes so you don't have to. Don't know the difference between matte, paint finish and satin or what that clunking sound from your dryer is. With thumbtack, you don't have to be a home pro. You just have to hire one. You can hire top rated pros, see price estimates and read reviews all on the app.

[Eddie Glaude]

Download today. Peru, ecuador, brazil, colombia, venezuela, guyana, panama.

[Ro Khanna]

Costa rica, nicaragua, el salvador, guatemala, mexico, cuba, republica dominicana, jamaica, utila, united states, canada, puerto rico.

[Nicole Wallace]

It was awesome. Even if you didn't understand a word of it. It made you smile, made you d. Hi again everybody. It's five o' clock now in New York. What an uplifting end to a really amazing performance. You heard Bad Bunny there. God bless America, he said during his super bowl halftime show behind him in the Jumbotron, you couldn't miss it. It said the only thing more powerful than hate is love. And on the football he was carrying together, we are America inspiring positive, dare we say, patriotic. Evidently not for Donald Trump and his crew. No, for them. In the course of their performative outrage today, what we just watched was somehow some way an insult. To who? We're not clear for them, Bad Bunny's 13 minute tribute to togetherness and fun and art and performance and culture was laden with political messaging and anti maga stuff. And then there was this complaint.

[Ro Khanna]

Is it too much to ask to.

[Nicole Wallace]

Put it in English? I mean, just, can we, can we put it in English? Most of it, obviously not even in English. You have Forbes magazine with an article titled, quote, what did Bad Bunny say.

[Micah Rosenberg]

At the super bowl halftime show?

[Nicole Wallace]

Great question.

[Ro Khanna]

Not one word of English.

[LifeLock Advertiser]

Not one word of English.

[Ro Khanna]

One word.

[Nicole Wallace]

It's so funny because when they played Tucker Carlson's clips from the Putin interviews, I checked and none of those guys ever complain that none of the words are in English. But I digress. For the record, God bless America is three words in English. But the point is, what wasn't enough for MAGA figures who alternated between insisting, oh, we didn't watch it to we watched all of it because that's the only way we know that none of the words were in English. Donald Trump himself watched it. Poor Kid Rock. Never thought I'd say that. And ranted and raved on social media about it, insisting the show is terrible, one of the worst ever. Nobody understands a word the guy is saying. My God, has anyone listened to a Trump speech lately? And then Trump said this about the dancing. It was, quote, disgusting. He called the performance a slap in the face of our country. Again, this guy is in. According to Danny Bensky, the Epstein files more than Harry Potter's in Harry Potter. But that dancing is quite a review for someone who's refusing to apologize for posting a now deleted and blatantly racist video portraying President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama as apes. From the New York Times, quote, Speaking to reporters on Air Force One Friday, Trump said he only saw the beginning of that video. Quote, I just looked at the first part and it was about voter fraud in some places, Georgia, maybe. Trump said, quote, I didn't see the whole thing. Then tried to deflect blame, suggesting he had given the link to someone else to post, quote, I gave it to the people. Generally, they'd look at the whole thing. But I guess somebody didn't. He told reporters it was like two in the morning. So yeah. Still, Trump offered no contrition when pressed. No, I didn't make a mistake, he said. Competing definitions of what exactly constitutes a slap in the face to our nation is where we begin the hour with some of our most favorite reporters and friends. National political reporter for the Bulwark, Adrienne Carrasquillo is here. Also with us, Princeton University professor political analyst Eddie Glad is here. And Molly, John Fast is back, host of Fast Politics. A New York Times contributing opinion writer. Adrienne, I actually thought of you last night and I didn't want to ruin whatever, you know, vibe you have, but I wondered, I wanted to hear your review. Was it everything that we talked about Friday, everything you hoped it would be?

[Adrienne Carrasquillo]

Yeah, it was everything I hoped it would be. I just had this, like, permanent smile on my face the entire time. But I do sort of hate that. Everything in my mind goes back to politics. I was like, oh, man, Mag is hating this. Oh, they're hating this moment, you know. But it was joy, and I think it Goes partly to some of the stuff we've talked about, which is that the Grammys was his sort of explicit, like, do you need a statement? For me, here's my statement. Here's how I feel. And then the super bowl was allowed to be his art, and it was allowed to be fun and celebratory, people dancing. And, you know, what I took away from it was that he's affirming our humanity at a time when this administration is denying our humanity. And that goes for Latinos, that goes for immigrants, that goes for U.S. citizens. And so that there's a. Clearly, it goes completely against what MAGA is into, and they are offended by the fiber of every. The fabric of every piece of his performance. But you could see the way that he was speaking to America and saying that together, you know, we're stronger. And that unity, it was a really powerful message.

[Nicole Wallace]

I didn't think about maga. I thought about the NFL and I thought about Goodell, and I thought about Colin Kaepernick, and I thought about this choice from the NFL, right? Like, he, like Bad Bunny didn't pick himself. He was chosen by the NFL with all these MAGA owners, and they seemed really into it. I want to show you. This is the video of the embrace. I think we have that. We'll find it. But just talk about why the NFL sided with Bad Bunny over the Magatron, MAGA world, whatever we're calling maga.

[Adrienne Carrasquillo]

I was thinking about this today. You go back to last February and last year, and there were so many institutions, law firms, universities, that were just cowing to this administration, so, so afraid of it. Well, it turns out if. If the people aren't with maga, as you know, polls show that they're going against a lot of issues, their. Their view of the economy and immigration and things like that. Well, then all they have is fear. And that's why they are so upset. And they don't want people to be into something like this performance that dares to say love is. Is. Is the only thing more powerful than hate, you know, and so for all those reasons, and like we said, it was a party it good time and not what. Whatever they did as their counter programming.

[Nicole Wallace]

Okay, so this. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. This. Okay, so the people have driven the culture. Sports is responding to the culture, responding to the people. And as Halman always says, politics is downstream from culture. You've now lost the people who have put steel in the spine of culture, who have put steel in the spine of sports, who now, I think Prove and let me put up some of the Olympians. I mean, this is happening every day in Italy since the Olympics started last week. This is athletes. This is Hunter Hess. Let me show you this.

[Adrienne Carrasquillo]

It brings up mixed emotions to represent the US Right now. I think it's a little hard. There's obviously a lot going on that I'm not the biggest fan of, and I think a lot of people aren't. Just because I'm wearing the flag doesn't mean I represent everything that's going on in the US.

[Nicole Wallace]

And then New York Times reports that Chloe Kim, Eileen Gu spoke out after Trump called Hunter a loser, said, quote, I'm sorry that the headline that is eclipsing the Olympics has to be something so unrelated to the spirit of the Games. It really runs contrary to everything the Olympics should be. The whole point of sports is to bring people together. One of the very few common languages, that of the human body, that of the human spirit, the competitive spirit, the capacity to break not only records, but especially in our sport, literally the human limit. How wonderful is that? That all these folks who have nothing to gain, right, by sticking their toe into politics are more brave than the law firms, than the universities that capitulated, than the Tech. I need a forum where I can swear we're going to do that soon. Right? The Tech who stood shoulder to shoulder with no shame with Donald Trump. Tim Cook, who showed up at the White House in a tuxedo the day after the second American citizen was killed in the streets of Minneapolis. This all emanates from the courage that the people. It started in Minneapolis, it's gone coast to coast. Have displayed in the face of Donald Trump.

[Eddie Glaude]

You know, culture is the site of contestation. It's the argument. It's the space where we work out who we are. It's the space where we live who we are.

[LifeLock Advertiser]

Right?

[Eddie Glaude]

You can have an idea of what America is, right? It could look like what MAGA thinks it looks like. But then you run up against our actual lives. You might be in some rural town in Iowa, right? But if you live in the cosmopolitan spaces of the United States, what we saw last night, what we heard last night wasn't so unfamiliar to us. So culture is this complicated space. And sometimes arguments bubble up. Sometimes arguments evidence themselves in very forceful ways. Sometimes culture can bounce back and push back. That's not who we are in so many ways, Right? But also, culture is complicated because the NFL understands its growth market. It's clear, right? So, yes, there's all of this stuff going on. Colin Kaepernick taking a knee could hurt the bottom line. But this is the most streamed artist in the world. And if there's expansion possible, we might be going into these Spanish speaking countries in so many ways. So we don't want to overread it in some ways, but we also want to understand it as the site of. How can I put it? The way in which America actually lives. It's the. It's the mess, the messiness of democratic culture.

[Nicole Wallace]

It's also at a time when Trump is so obsessed with presenting his, you know, bouffant and his orange skin as an apex figure in our culture, it is a sign that he is not more powerful than Bad Bunny. He is not more powerful than the NFL. It is a puncturing of what he's projecting as his power.

[Eddie Glaude]

And that creates a sense of terror. Right. A panic that flows from that, that we are not who we say we are. There's this wonderful line that James Baldwin often pushes. He says we need to crack open the image of America to see what it hides and obscures and whatever. Most of the time, what is hiding and obscuring is a panic around the lie that actually informs the buffon, actually. Because deep down, you can hear the diversity on our tongue. You can taste it in our food. You can hear it in the sound of the music. Whatever makes America swing is rooted in the diversity that makes this place unique. We're like no other place in the Western world.

[Nicole Wallace]

Yeah. Brandi Carlisle, I think, played a big role last night that I think when people look back at this moment, they'll look back at what she said about her performance of America the Beautiful. She said this. It feels almost like lyricist Katharine Lee Bates was feeling the way about the country when she wrote it that I'm feeling today, singing it, just this fragile hope, love, and belief in where it could be and acknowledging where it's been and. And acknowledging that we're not there yet. And that's what I think is so American about that song. That total celebration is not in order, that our prayers are still in order, but that the only way to move forward is with belief. Just sort of reclaiming agency is what I felt last night from both Brandy, from Bad Bunny, and I thought it was important to see the NFL not just stand by their choices, but celebrate them and lift them up.

[Molly John Fast]

Yeah. And I think it's been a year of Americans being brave and the oligarchy being really disappointing. Right. The tech oligarchy, the law firms, Brad Karp, who's in the Epstein Files, the chair of Scott.

[Nicole Wallace]

Right, who's stepped down.

[Molly John Fast]

Right, exactly. But he was the chair of one of the first law firms to make a deal with Trump. But yes, it has definitely been. The oligarchy has not done, but the people have. And I think what's interesting to me about Trumpism and MAGA more generally is one of the ways Trump won was he got into the culture. He got in front of low frequency voters. He went to wrestling matches. You know, he went to boxing matches, he went to nascar. He went to the things where politicians normally didn't go. He got in front of those people. And those people, those ones and twos, the low frequency voters, they voted for him and they. And you know, a lot of MAGA has seen the power of this. Right. That's why Turning Point USA had its own halftime show, because they were like, we're gonna.

[Nicole Wallace]

Which Donald Trump doesn't even watch.

[Molly John Fast]

Didn't even watch. Right. He didn't even bother commenting on. But like, they did that because they wanted to have their own MAGA culture.

[Nicole Wallace]

Right.

[Molly John Fast]

They wanted to try to sort of face off against regular culture. And that's why Trump has been at war with like the mainstream media. Cuz he wants to have his own MAGA media. And what you're seeing here is that the American people are not buying it.

[Nicole Wallace]

Yeah. Rosie Perez talks about this and actually gives Trump credit for trying to win culture. Do we have some of that? I am inspired by Minneapolis.

[Micah Rosenberg]

I am inspired by those people because it is terrifying. It's terrifying what's going on. And I'm also inspired by the American people. People are saying the American people have lost hope. No, we have not. No, we have not. Look at what is changing.

[Nicole Wallace]

We're starting to come together.

[Micah Rosenberg]

Whether we want to admit it or not. We are.

[Nicole Wallace]

She went on, she's a big boxing fan. And she went on to say that Trump showing up in those spaces was super effective, it seems. I mean, I track the manosphere and you've got big figures, Andrew Schultz and others saying, I'm out.

[Molly John Fast]

Yeah, no, he's lost those people now. I mean, the thing that's been so amazing, and it's something that we all saw coming a mile away, was that none of this is popular. You know, they were waving these mass deportation now signs at the rnc, but they didn't realize that meant like grandmothers and the woman who works in the deli who you've known for 40 years. You know, it meant huge swaths of America. And I think now that they're seeing it, you know, when the ICE murders, I mean, they don't like it. And thank God they don't like it.

[Nicole Wallace]

Yeah. I hate to put you on the spot, but are we at the end of the beginning or the beginning of the end?

[Eddie Glaude]

We're at the end of the beginning, I think, to be honest with you, I'm sitting there trying to process it. Remember how excited we were about the large crowds going to Kamala Harris, her Kamala Harris campaign? And we were like, oh, my God, this is America. Because we didn't think she could do it. We didn't think she could generate that energy. And then we were all like, what the hell just happened? Right. So there is this excitement, there is this stuff happening, but then we know that there's counter programming. Even if it's terrible, even if it's horrible, there's counter programming. And I'm not trying to be negative, you know, but what I'm trying to do is to understand and to remember that people voted for this guy twice, knowing who he was. And he's an avatar. He is in so many ways a kind of boil that represents the sickness under the skin. That hasn't gone away. That hasn't gone away. And you know, when you talked in the segment, and we're probably going to get to it in the opening about an apology, and I'm wondering, I keep asking myself, why are we wanting an apology that we know will be insincere? Because we want the illusion that we're okay and we know we're not. Because if he apologizes for it, we still know he's a racist. We just don't want to feel like we're racist. But we elected him twice. So part of what I'm thinking, we're still in the midst of it. This is category six. It ain't Category five. This storm is huge. We haven't gotten near the tail yet.

[Nicole Wallace]

Yeah. And it's that adaptive piece of our brain. Right. We want him to apologize because we want the mirage of normalcy.

[Eddie Glaude]

Exactly.

[Nicole Wallace]

Oh, there's so much more. There's so much more to get to with Eddie, Molly and Adrian. Also ahead for us, Donald Trump. Trump's version of America includes locking kids up in ice. Detention kids, children. Now those kids and children are speaking out, telling us in ways that are impossible to look away from about the horrific experience they're enduring. There's chilling new reporting about what they're saying as their lives in this country get taken from them. Plus, she must immediately be sent back to the maximum security prison. Where she belongs. Those are the words of Congressman Ro Khanna after hearing Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell repeatedly refused to answer questions about the men in Epstein's orbit who abused young girls. Congressman Khanna has just seen the unredacted Epstein files and he will be our guest later in the hour. Deadline Whitehouse continues after a quick break. Won't go anywhere.

[LifeLock Advertiser]

It's tax season and at LifeLock, we know you're tired of numbers, but here's a big one you need to hear. Billions. That's the amount of money and refunds the IRS has flagged for possible identity fraud. Now here's another big number. 100 million. That's how many data points LifeLock monitors every second. If your identity is stolen, we'll fix it. Guaranteed. One last big number. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit lifelock.com specialoffer for the threats you can't control. Terms apply as President Trump continues implementing his ambitious agenda. Follow along with with the MSNow newsletter Project 47. You'll get weekly updates sent straight to your inbox with expert analysis on the administration's latest actions and how they're affecting the American people.

[Nicole Wallace]

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

[LifeLock Advertiser]

Sign up for the Project 47 newsletter at Ms. Now. Project 47.

[Nicole Wallace]

Adrienne, I want to come back to you on what in your view. We're talking about the extremes, right? The MAGA, whatever. They're down to 34%. Some fraction of them were triggered. I imagine even some of them on truth serum would admit they enjoyed the hell out of the bad bunny performance. But we'll let them come out of hiding when they're ready. And then there are the die hard fans like yourself. What did the country get from last night? What did you think was most significant?

[Adrienne Carrasquillo]

That, that that message of unity really mattered to me. And you know, I was thinking, look, not to trigger anybody here. And can I just say that as I'm listening and as I'm enjoying this panel, obviously I love being on Nicole. Eddie and Molly are great and I'm fans and I'm just like, just enjoying hearing them and the smart things you're saying, but not to trigger anything.

[Nicole Wallace]

I enjoy hearing them. Them too. Like if I could, you know, go get a coffee and listen to the three of you talk amongst yourself, it'd.

[Adrienne Carrasquillo]

Be better not to trigger anybody here. You may remember in 2016 a little slogan from Hillary Clinton that said love trumps hate. That didn't really work out did it right. And we've been over the last 10 years have had to become experts on this guy and the way he thinks and the way he speaks and his. And everything. But, but Bad Bunny's message was very similar conceptually, that the only thing stronger than hate, love. But it's, it's wrapped in his brand, it's wrapped in who he is. And he's not an immigrant, but he's a Puerto Rican man. And he's talking about the colonial past of this island. And like not every message is getting through the same way that not every word is getting through because it's not in English, but people can tell. And I've loved watching like the Black creators on TikTok and just the folks who are just like enjoying the music. I mean, again, right, he's an artist. He has, he's the top global streamed artist in the world. So just getting to enjoy the music and, and have joy. And what's the flip side of that? The flip side of that is that MAGA is losing. They're losing when it comes to the US citizens that they killed in our streets that we saw on video. Horrifyingly, they're losing when we see what happened with Liam Ramos and the way the country rallied to how horrible it was to see a. In a bunny hat and a Spider man book bag be taken 1200 miles away and used as bait to lure out other members of his family and his own father. And so people are just turning against what this administration thinks is normal, which clearly is not. And so then I think yesterday was just that, you know, the country getting to enjoy and actually take a moment to breathe and process some positive things in 2026.

[Nicole Wallace]

You know, I mean, Adrian's getting at like the mirage, right? So the mirage and I, and I take everyone's points like it's not been a. But there's some chinks in the Mirage. The other Mirage that was damaged is that San Francisco is some hellscape. San Francisco is the most beautiful. It's my hometown, so I'm not objective. But it's exquisite, it's beautiful and it is not this much maligned city that's been smeared and depicted in right wing media.

[Molly John Fast]

Yeah, it's the Twitter is not real life. And remember there were a lot of worries that the left had become too online. Well, now we're seeing that the right is very online and we see Trump and Elon, you know that they are sort of fighting with each other on Twitter because Twitter has become so right wing. But yes, I do think a lot of this Fox News narrative of like cities are dangerous, that gets pierced when you go to these cities and they're beautiful.

[Nicole Wallace]

The other piece that, you know, we started off talking about is this world that Trump lives in where no apologies are necessary. And I'm with you. I don't know why there was an expectation that Trump had apologized for the video that you and I talked about on Friday in this hour, but that he doesn't and that in our name as Americans, that is where the leader of the country stands. He stands by the video. He says, I didn't do it, someone else did. But it was 2:30 in the morning. So that's too much of his personal life than I really even want to wonder about. But 2:30 in the morning, he posts this video and there's no apology. There's an uncommon, there's an unexpected. And that's who to the world. As well as being the country that isn't investigating the revelatory content of the Epstein files, we're also a country whose leader won't apologize for the depiction of President Michelle Obama as apes.

[Eddie Glaude]

Yeah. You know, last time we talked, I said he's broken and I pitied him. I pity him.

[Adrienne Carrasquillo]

Right.

[Eddie Glaude]

I mean, he thinks this is what it means to be a strong man, not to admit when you're wrong, which means he has no capacity to grow, which means in some ways, given who he is, that he's monstrous. I keep feeling, you know, when I think about this, the ugliness that he spews, the desire to put his name on everything, to build these monuments. He is confronting his own mortality. He understands that judgment is on his heels. And he's trying to make his presence felt and known. And instead of a moment of contrition and repentance in the face of mortality, he's just going to spew all of his ugliness onto the world and so onto us in some ways. And so I want us not to fall for his mania, his psychosis in some ways. And the last thing I would say is this, that genie's out of the bottle, America. The post civil rights consensus where we banished racist talk, explicit racist talk, to the margins of our politics for the last decade. We've undone, we've thrown that consensus out of the window. You can't now Republicans try to put that back in the tube because you've been co participants in this for the last 10 years.

[Nicole Wallace]

Well, and then the other piece that I think is so interesting is Donald Trump hasn't lost any donors that I've read about since the day he post the racist video of President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama as apes. Donald Trump hasn't lost any donors to the destruction of the East Wing. He hasn't lost any business partners in his crypto business. Donald Trump hasn't lost anything from the private sector. So in the same news cycle where we lift up the NFL for embracing the most streamed artists on Spotify, not really something to throw a parade for. We shouldn't lose sight of the fact that not a single individual that I'm aware of, right, someone may have cut ties with Donald Trump that I'm not aware of, but not a single person from American industry or manufacturing or tech has cut ties with Donald Trump for posting a video of Barack and Michelle Obama as apes. Adrian.

[Adrienne Carrasquillo]

I mean, you talked about it earlier. Tim Cook showing up to the White House in a tux right after Alex Preddy was killed. I wrote recently about Mark Zuckerberg, about his cowardice. You know, he used to support comprehensive immigration reform. He used to be out there. He used to. He had dreamers over his house. And then all of a sudden showing up at the inauguration and he's not talking. What, what could his. What could meta. What could Facebook and Instagram be used for to help people now during this time when so many communities are under assault? So, yeah, with the same time that we see that the NFL is just sort of taking like a pretty popular stand, there's still so many people that can stand up this year and they should watch what the people in Minnesota, Minneapolis are doing. Because I was there and I was just stunned by. Look, I've always known that the Latino groups and the immigration groups are doing the work, okay? And the coalitions of 106 groups in the Midwest. But what about the white US citizens who are stepping out of their car or out of their homes? They don't have to do that to go do ICE watch, to go beep their cars when they have ICE agents with this level of surveillance that are able to tell them their first name and go to their home and tell them they know where they live. That's terrifying. And I would understand if these people say, look after these shootings, I just can't be involved with this for my safety. But these people are so brave and they're standing out there and they're standing up for their neighbors and for their fellow churchgoers and for the parents of kids who play soccer with their own kids. So it's time for the leaders in our country and these other sectors to stand up also and understand that what is going on with MAGA and with this administration represents a small percentage of what people in this country want and support.

[Nicole Wallace]

It's so important, it's such a good point, that they've been forced to choose in a way that most Americans have not. And when they were forced to choose, they stood with their neighbors. Adrienne, wonderful to see you. Molly, thank you for joining us. Across two hours, Eddie sticks around with me. We played a little bit of my conversation with my friend Rosie Perez. You can listen to the whole thing on this week's episode of the Best People. It's a first. She's my first dear friend that I've had on the podcast. She's also obviously an iconic actor and activist. You scan the QR code on your screen to listen now or download wherever you get your podcast. As always, be sure to let me know what you think. Think on Blue sky or Instagram when we come back. Family separation was so brutal that in his first term as president, Donald Trump ended the policy. He reversed himself. Now children are speaking out about the traumatic experiences they are enduring inside ICE detention during Trump's second term. The journalist who spoke to those kids is our guest after a short break. Lifelock how can I help?

[Micah Rosenberg]

The IRS said I filed my return, but I haven't.

[LifeLock Advertiser]

One in four tax paying Americans has paid the price of identity fraud.

[Nicole Wallace]

What do I do? My refund though.

[Adrienne Carrasquillo]

I'm freaking out.

[Nicole Wallace]

Don't worry, I can fix this.

[LifeLock Advertiser]

LifeLock fixes identity theft, guaranteed and gets your money back with up to $3 million in coverage.

[Nicole Wallace]

I'm so relieved.

[Adrienne Carrasquillo]

No problem.

[LifeLock Advertiser]

I'll be with you every step of the way. One in four was a fraud. Paying American. Not any more. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit lifelock.com Special offer terms apply.

[Ro Khanna]

Hey everyone, it's Chris Hayes. This week on my podcast, why is this Happening? I'm joined by Ms. Now's Jacob Soboroff.

[Eddie Glaude]

And Alex Wagner to discuss what we saw in Minneapolis.

[Nicole Wallace]

It was so emotional to see the goodness and the organization and the bravery of these strangers, hoping that they can help someone in a way that will maybe redirect the course of their life or their immediate, you know, next couple weeks.

[Ro Khanna]

As much as the Border Patrol has.

[Adrienne Carrasquillo]

Evolved their tactics, I've seen them evolve on the other side of the nonviolent resistance since la.

[Ro Khanna]

That's this week on why is this Happening? Search for why is this Happening?

[Nicole Wallace]

Wherever you're listening right now.

[Ro Khanna]

And follow.

[Nicole Wallace]

As the Trump administration has ramped up its mass deportations to meet their quotas. Some of those hit the hardest have been kids, little kids. Our next guest, ProPublica reporter Micah Rosenberg, collected some of their stories. The children who have been sent to the now notorious Dilley Detention center in Texas. Of that she writes this quote, Moms told me that their kids had lost their appetites after finding worms and mold on their food. That their kids had trouble sleeping on the facility's hard metal bunk beds in rooms shared by at least a dozen other people and were constantly sick. One detainee, 14 year old Arianna, wrote Micah a letter about what she went through there. My younger siblings haven't been able to see their mom in more than a month. They are very young and you need both of your parents when you're growing up. Then referring to Dilly, she adds this quote. Since I got to this center, all you will feel is sadness and mostly depression. One girl, Gabby, added that the guards treated them poorly, saying they have bad manner of speaking to residents. She writes, quote, the workers treat the residents inhumanely, verbally and I don't want to imagine how they would act if they were unsupervised. One boy, a 15 year old named Alexander, tried to deliver a message of hope for other kids detained in Dilley. Take a look. Have patience. I want to bring in ProPublica investigative reporter covering immigration, Micah Rosenberg. Eddie is still here. Micah, tell me what you're reporting, what you're learning.

[Micah Rosenberg]

Well, what was really surprising about this reporting is that this family detention center had been open during the Obama administration and in the past had primarily held children who had recently crossed the border, had never been in the United States. But what I found is many children who had actually been living here for years. Some of them spoke perfect English, they were in the middle of their school years and they had been detained all over the country and sent there and really pulled out of their American lives. I spoke to kids who were high school students, kids who were 7 years old, 9 years old, and then also on video calls, saw several small tiny babies there with their parents.

[Nicole Wallace]

Here's a letter from a 9 year old, Maria Antonia. Quote, I am Maria Antonia Garamontoya and I have been here 113 days in detention. I miss my friends and I feel they're going to forget me. I am bored here. I already miss my country and my house. They only wanted to arrest my mom because my mom didn't have documents to live in the usa. But ICE used me to catch my mom and now I'm In a jail and I'm sad and I fainted two times here inside. When I arrived every night I cried and now I don't sleep well. I felt that being here was my fault. They don't give me my diet. I'm vegetarian, I don't eat well and there's no good education and I miss my best friend Julieta and my grandmother and my school. I already want to get to my house. DHS actually denied using 5 year old Liam Ramos as bait. But here's another example where nine year old claims that she was quote, ice used me to catch my mom and now I'm in a jail. How common was that story among the kids?

[Micah Rosenberg]

Well, I think in the case of Maria Antonia, it was a pretty unusual case because she was actually living in Colombia with her grandmother and her mother was here in New York. She was married to a US citizen and was in the process of trying to adjust her green card. And she was traveling back and forth regularly on a tourist visa to see her mother here, waiting for them to adjust her status. And she had actually come to meet her mother for a vacation in Disney World and they had arrived. They had done this before. Just a few months earlier she had gone in and out of the country with no problem. But this time when they went for the Disney Halloween parade and they were both detained in the airport and sent immediately to Dilley with what they said was little explanation. And when I had met them, they had been there for over four months.

[Nicole Wallace]

What is their process for being released? How long do they plan to hold kids there?

[Micah Rosenberg]

Well, there is a long standing legal settlement that's been in place for many decades that says that generally the government shouldn't be holding kids for longer than 20 days. The government says that this settlement is outdated. There's many regulations that have should supersede it and it should be terminated. But it's still basically the standard. Kids shouldn't be held for 20 days is what's generally believed. And what we found is that there are hundreds of kids who have that been in Dilley this year since it was reopened who have been held for longer than a month.

[Nicole Wallace]

What sort of trauma, Micah, are folks telling you kids are enduring being detained at Dilley for 113 days?

[Micah Rosenberg]

Well, I think it's hard for sometimes the kids to be able to know what the long term impact was when part of the purpose of this reporting was that we really wanted to hear what the experiences were from the kids themselves. That's why I tried to speak with them on video call I tried to get letters from them. Some of them really talked about being sad about missing their friends and not understanding why they were detained. Also, some of them were separated from their siblings on the outside. And that was difficult, not just for them, but for the kids who remained outside of detention.

[Nicole Wallace]

Eddie, you cannot look at those faces and think that what is being done in our name as Americans is a good thing.

[Eddie Glaude]

Absolutely not. What we're seeing is the theft of innocence. They've stolen it. Whether you're 5 or 15. Think about what they're trying to process. Think about a five year old trying to process this.

[Nicole Wallace]

I can't.

[Eddie Glaude]

What is Liam dreaming? What are his nightmares? Because he doesn't have language to describe this. And the question we have to ask is for what? Wholesale theft of the innocence of babies. They're going to have to grow up and deal with this. What they've seen, what they've felt, what they know, and it's going to have an impact on their soul. And, you know, the only way I can describe this is it's evil. And if you, you could talk about the politics. If you do this to children that mean this to children, you don't see them like you see your own babies. I know this. I come out of a tradition where they don't see. They didn't see our babies like they saw. They. They understand their babies. Right. And so to treat babies like this, you're monstrous. And they're going to have to grow up with it. And, you know, we're happy Liam got out, but he didn't. On a certain level, what is he dreaming? So I'm heartbroken and I'm enraged because these broken people are doing this to babies.

[Nicole Wallace]

Yeah. Micah, it's really important reporting. Thank you so much for bringing it to us and joining us to talk about it. When we come back, Congressman Ro Khanna will be our guest. He's one of the leading voices calling for transparency and accountability for those who associated with Jeffrey Epstein. He has just seen the unredacted Epstein files. He'll join us after a short break. Moments ago, we heard from Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna and Republican Congressman Thomas Massie, who led the push to pass the Epstein Files Transparency act late last year. Today, they got their first look at the unredacted version of the 3 million publicly released files. Look at what they said.

[Ro Khanna]

There are six men.

[Eddie Glaude]

We went in there for two hours. There's millions of files, Right.

[Ro Khanna]

And in a couple of hours, we found six men whose names have been redacted, who are implicated in the way that the files are presented. The point is that these six are just what we found in two hours of a review of the files that aren't redacted. The broader issue is why so many of the files they're getting are redacted in the first place. And until that becomes unredacted, the main things that they're sending to the career attorneys to review, I don't think we're going to have full compliance with the law. Get to the question that most Americans want to know. Who were the rich and powerful people who went to this island? Did they rape underage girls? Did they know that underage girls were being paraded around?

[Nicole Wallace]

One of those two lawmakers joins us right now. Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna. He's a member of the House Oversight Committee. He was pivotal in forcing the Department of Justice to release the Epstein files. Thank you for joining us.

[Ro Khanna]

Thank you, Nicole. Thank you for your coverage of this.

[Nicole Wallace]

Who are the six men whose names you saw?

[Ro Khanna]

We are going to push the Justice Department to release those. They had photographs as marked of co conspirators. Some of them are American. Some of them are powerful people overseas. And there's no reason that they should be covering up those names.

[Nicole Wallace]

Of the ones who are Americans. Are they in our politics?

[Ro Khanna]

No. But look, the six people that Thomas and I were talking about are just what we discovered in two hours of searches. There are probably many more that have been hidden. But this was so blatant that there were six people who were named as co conspirators. By the way, there were others named as co conspirators who were women. And our assumption is some of those women may be survivors, but it's not clear that all of the women were survivors. Some of the redactions, even on the sensational emails are appropriate. Some of them were potentially survivors, but they clearly have redacted in a way that is excessive. The most important thing is, though, that these career attorneys got documents that were already redacted. Most of the survivor statements to the FBI where they named other men and particularly men in this country. The F302 forms, they were already redacted by the time the attorneys reviewed it. And our law, the Epstein Transparency act, required the FBI and the grand jury testimony to be unredacted. That obviously has not happened.

[Nicole Wallace]

Danny Bensky, one of the survivors who I know you and the committee have met with, was here at the beginning of the last hour. Her personal information was not redacted, including her address. Did you have any sense in viewing the unredacted material about the motive behind the redactions. And I guess what I'm asking is, do you understand why co conspirators names were redacted and Danny Bensky's personal information was not?

[Ro Khanna]

The Justice Department obviously did not take enough care to protect the survivors. They refused to meet with some of the survivors lawyers like Bradley Edwards. They should have consulted those attorneys to make sure that they did not release the survivors information and they just did not take it seriously enough. And as a result, they have caused so much harm to survivors by exposing them in a way they should never have done.

[Nicole Wallace]

In the UK the release of the files has been met with a very different reception where laws of political gravity and decency seem to still be holding. Did you see anything in the unredacted version that their investigation will pursue and lead to criminal charges?

[Ro Khanna]

Yes, absolutely. I mean, and like I said, what we've witnessed, probably 70% was still redacted, 30%, we had a glimpse more than the general public. And there are absolutely people who should be pursued based on that in terms of an investigation and criminal charges. And I appreciate your bringing up Britain because they are actually dealing with the consequences of these disclosures. You have the King making a statement. You have the Prime Minister in trouble and not clear whether his government is going to survive. And we have people like the Commerce Secretary who are all over the files, who are, who have lied about their relationship with Epstein and there are no consequences. It's the President saying move on. And the question for this country is, are we going to just say, okay, if you had business dealings with a known pedophile and if you went to his island knowing that he was raping underage girls, and if you were still soliciting his funding, fine, we're going to move on. Or are we going to have a moral reckoning in America about an elite class that engaged in heinous behavior and have us finally elite accountability.

[Nicole Wallace]

Danny Bensky also made the point that Donald Trump is in the Epstein files. Even the wildly redacted version that the public has seen more times than Harry Potter is named in the entire Harry Potter series. What does it say to you that that hasn't broken the trance of Republicans in their sycophantic adherence to Trumpism?

[Ro Khanna]

This is one thing that is breaking maga. I was on Sean Ryan's podcast a couple days ago. He has the number two podcast in the country. He was a huge supporter of Donald Trump and J.D. vance, and he basically said that Donald Trump has lost him because he has covered up for this Epstein class. And when I go and talk to a lot of men, particularly young men, people who have a sense of honor, they are dismayed by Donald Trump and what he has done. But he needs far more accountability. You know, there's been all this push to get President Clinton to testify and Secretary Clinton to testify. We need to hear from Donald Trump to answer the questions of the American public about what he knew and what he did.

[Nicole Wallace]

Congressman Ro Khanna, thank you for your work on this issue. It is the rare issue that unites the American people, even if the Republicans want to ignore that reality. Thank you for joining us on it today.

[Ro Khanna]

Thank you. Well, you've been covering this for a long time. I appreciate it.

[Nicole Wallace]

Thank you, sir. We're going to sneak in our last break. We'll give Eddie the last word on the other side. So, Eddie, I think you know this. I read a lot about autocracy. I read on tyranny again. I read Ruth's book, Ruth Bengiot's book. And I was really fixated on the idea that the cheapest, most efficient tool of the autocrat, in addition to obeying in advance, is our despair. And I feel like some of that is abating. Right. The people of Minneapolis have given us courage. Right. In seeing ordinary people do this extraordinary thing, they've also eliminated one of the other most efficient tools of the autocrat, which is isolation. People are coming together.

[Eddie Glaude]

I think that's right. And, you know, really quickly, you know, we're in the moment where there's all of this ugliness surrounding us and all this possibility. Oftentimes we overburden our imaginations. We want to think at a scale that makes it seem impossible. History is replete with people, ordinary people doing impossible things. But the way the imagination works best when it's close to the ground and local. Yeah. To see the possible right in front of you. And I think that's what we need to reach for in the midst of all of these horrors. Let's reach for the possible right in front of us.

[Nicole Wallace]

Right in front of us. Thank you for always doing that with me, with us here at this table. Love you, my friend, and thank you for letting us into your homes. We are grateful.

[LifeLock Advertiser]

Subscribe to Ms. Now premium on Apple podcasts for early access, ad free listening and bonus content to all of MSNOW's original podcasts, including the chart topping series the Best People with Nicole Wallace, why is this Happening? Main justice and more. Plus new episodes of all your favorite msnow shows. Ad free and ad free listening to all of Rachel Maddow's original series, including Rachel Maddow Presents Burn order. Subscribe to MSNow Premium on Apple Podcasts.