Nicole Wallace (0:00)

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It's now 4 o' clock in New York on a very busy Friday and a very busy day of developing news stories right here at home and abroad. We'll have all of it for you. There is a volatile situation unfolding in the Middle east right now. Iran today launching a wave of airstrikes against Israel after Israeli strikes last night targeted Iran's nuclear program and killed a swath of Iran's top military leadership. At this hour, Israeli officials say that the public is allowed to leave shelters. We'll bring you the latest and we'll talk to the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, Congressman Jim Himes, about what the US does as this conflict rages on. But we begin today with what threatens to be a full blown constitutional crisis right here in at home with consequences for every American. Events in Los Angeles could be merely the canary in the coal mine when it comes to which path we take and the very future of our democracy. The Trump administration is heading into the weekend facing protests nationwide from a galvanized opposition and a sharp rebuke written for the history books from a federal judge. That opinion amounts to a legal body blow to Trump's efforts to use the United States military against Americans. It's a ruling currently paused by an appeals court from federal Judge Charles Breyer. That order says that Donald Trump can no longer mobilize and command California's National Guard troops over the wishes of California's Governor, Gavin Newsom. The judge went even further, though, than what the state of California asked for, which was an order limiting what exactly the troops could do on the streets of Los Angeles. The judge said that Donald Trump's, quote, actions were illegal, both exceeding the scope of his statutory authority and violating the 10th Amendment to the United States Constitution. This is from the ruling, quote, he must therefore return control of the California National Guard to the governor of the state of California forthwith. The judge went on to say that Donald Trump's order deploying the National Guard, quote, sets a dangerous precedent for future domestic military activity. The citizens of Los Angeles face a greater harm from the continued unlawful militarization of their city, which not only inflames tensions with protesters, threatening increased hostilities and loss of life, but deprives the state for two months of its own use of thousands of National Guard members to fight fires, combat fentanyl trade and perform other critical functions. Here's what California Governor Gavin Newsom had to say about the ruling. Today was really about a test of democracy. And today we passed the test. We the people, passed the test. Donald Trump has tested the limits of that and has done so consistently. But today's order makes clear that he is not above or beyond constitutional constraints. Governor Newsom also took Trump to task, calling him out for suddenly suggesting that he's going to protect farm workers from deportations. Take a listen to Newsom. This is what he does. He creates a problem and then he tries to be a hero in his own Marvel movie. Did it on Ted. Fill in a blank on almost every topic, creates the problem and then tries to do a make believe as if you're all perfect little sheep and you're going to go on with it. To be the hero in his own Marvel movie. He initiated those raids. He significantly increased the scale and scope of those raids. That's why he wants the National Guard. Where we start today with some of our favorite reporters and friends in Los Angeles. For us, once again, my friend and colleague, NBC News correspondent Jacob Soboroff. Also joining us, MSNBC political analyst, host of the Bulwark podcast. Tim Miller is back as well. And with me at the table, NYU law professor, MSNBC legal analyst Melissa Murray is here. Melissa, can you just, you know, talk to me like I'm not a lawyer? Because I'm not. And help me understand the status of this really strong ruling last night. So Judge Breyer issued this ruling. He had a hearing yesterday in his courtroom. He issued the ruling very quickly. It's a 36 page ruling, a blistering ruling and a blistering indictment of this administration's actions. I will note that it is not necessarily far ranging Justice. Judge Breyer, who is the younger brother of Justice Stephen Breyer a former member of the United States Supreme Court, said that Donald Trump exceeded his authority in federalizing the National Guard, that he has to do so with the consultation of California's governor, which did not happen here. But as to the deployment of the Marines to Los Angeles, Judge Breyer said that it would be premature to rule on that because those Marines are simply protecting federal buildings right now, which is totally within the scope of federal and presidential authority. So that's on the table for now. What this means right now is this was obviously appealed by the administration to the Ninth Circuit, which is the intermediate appellate court over California. And the Ninth Circuit stayed the ruling until it can conduct a hearing of on June 17, so next Tuesday. So that means for this weekend, when these protests and the no Kings protests and the parade are supposed to happen, we will actually see the National Guard acting under the auspices of presidential authority and not the governor's consultation in Los Angeles. So that can continue to happen, and then the 9th Circuit will step in. Will it be moot at that point? It really depends on what the president does with regard to protests in other cities and whether he will be nationalizing the National Guard in those other venues, too. Ruling on the substance, which I understand has stayed impact the legal terrain if Trump decides to deploy National Guard troops to other states with Democratic or Republican governors who don't ask for them. Well, I think it definitely provides a blueprint for other courts that are considering this issue. I mean, I don't think this is a very difficult question. There are two federal statutes in play here. There is section 12406, which is the statute that the president has used here. It typically is invoked to nationalize the National Guard in tandem with some aspects of the Insurrection Act. It's only been used without the consultation of a state's governor in, to my knowledge, two circumstances, both involving civil rights. So it was deployed by President eisenhower in the 1950s to integrate Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. It was later used by President Johnson to protect civil rights marchers in Selma, Alabama, without the consultation obviously, of those states governors. But otherwise, it's really been used as a kind of collaborative consultative method with the president consulting with the governor of the state in order to nationalize the state's Guard in that way. And Judge Breyer laid all of that out very clearly. And I think if this spreads to other cities, blue cities throughout the country, this is going to be a very potent blueprint for other courts who are examining the same issue. You said blistering. I mean, in some places, it almost reads like a fact check. There is no invasion. Well, I mean, I think that's a question about the statutory language. So when the President gets to invoke this section of the act and without the consultation of, he has to have to meet certain statutory standards, certain statutory conditions, and one of those is that we are being invaded, we are in open rebellion. And Judge Breyer sort of just stepped through the language of the statute, I mean, this is reading basically, and said that's not what's happening here. In fact, what is happening here is that we have individuals who are protesting, exercising their First Amendment rights, rights that literally this country was founded on. And it cannot be the case that mere protest amounts to an invasion or a rebellion. You know, Jacob so leapt out of those 36 pages for me because he becomes the second official from a different branch from the judiciary. But he follows the hand picked Trump appointed Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, who said the same thing. There is no invasion. How do you see the state of play right now and what does it feel like in Los Angeles? Well, we're exactly one week, Nicole, since the start of these ICE enforcement operations. The mass deportation effort promised and now being executed by the Trump administration. Administration. And the palpable feeling of fear, of terror, I think it's fair to say, is as strong as ever on the streets of Los angeles. This is MacArthur Park. I'm about half a mile from the Home Depot where ICE kicked off those raids last Friday before the National Guard was deployed by the President. And this is normally a bustling area. You might have seen David Noriega, my colleagues report earlier this morning from the downtown part of Los Angeles. What would normally be a hub of the immigrant community is very quiet right now. But I'm here in this park because this is the site of a very famous confrontation between law enforcement and immigrants rights protesters in Los Angeles back in 2007. It's known as the Mayday melee. And after immigration protesters clashed with the Los Angeles Police Department, not only were many people injured, but the police department itself was held responsible for that confrontation, for the suppressing. You're looking at images from that time here in Los Angeles. It was, I think it's fair to say, amongst the immigrants rights community and honestly from the police department as well, a sort of a stain on this city the way that that clash happened. And I think that there's a lot of fear that with the National Guard still under the control of the President of the United States, you could see similar scenes on the streets of Los Angeles tomorrow. When as many as hundreds of thousands of people could take to the streets. Wilshire Boulevard, which is adjacent to where I'm standing right now, was the site of the grand marcha in Los Angeles that preceded the Mayday melee a couple years before. And you had 500,000 people on the streets of Los Angeles protesting for immigrants rights then. And so if those two precursors to this moment were any indication, I think a lot of people are watching very closely. What's going to happen here tomorrow, Nicole, the terror that you're reporting is felt by the immigrants. What is the mood from? Or is that the mood of the majority of citizens in the city? It's almost like people's heads are on a swivel here, looking. I mean, I can't ever remember a time and, you know, maybe some migrants who have been the target of immigration enforcement would contradict me, where people are literally looking left and right as they go down the streets of Los Angeles to see if they see an ICE enforcement operation sort of gearing up or getting ready to take place. Social media is filled with reports from Ventura county, where I reported from that farm with you earlier in the week to here in Los Angeles by the Home Depot in the Cypress park neighborhood of Los Angeles on the east side, in Whittier, in Montebello, in Moore park today. I mean, all over Los Angeles county and beyond into Riverside county, in San Bernardino county, people are concerned because of the unknown, because of this fear that is being instilled purposefully. It's a deterrent based effect. They want people to self deport. They've been very, very clear about that, that the Trump administration has been pushing here. That's the way that people feel. The streets feel nearly empty in some places where you would normally be seeing a bustling scene of the migrant community in Los Angeles. And it's almost a wait and see sort of approach day to day. Nicole, until this operation is either called off, the President loses control of the National Guard and it goes back to the governor, or there's other, there's some other defining moment in this continuing clash. I want to do two things I want to play first, Senator Murphy reacting to news that got. We covered it, but we didn't get to really sink our teeth into it. Donald Trump seemed to reverse himself yesterday and announced what sounded like amnesty for people from the agriculture, hospitality and leisure industry. This is Senator Chris Murphy on that. Yeah, they're chasing agricultural workers through the fields so Donald Trump can try to sugarcoat the policy, but they are absolutely going after the workforce on our farms, the workforce, in our leisure industry, they're going after individuals who are actually here with pending asylum claims. They are acting illegally every single day of the week. And what Donald Trump did in Los Angeles was the opposite of try to keep the peace. He sent the National Guard in there to intentionally create a fight. Right. He was looking to create a pretext in order to do what he has always wanted to do, to impose some form of martial law and pay attention to the military order to deploy the National Guard. It was not exclusive to Los Angeles. It didn't create the legal foundation to deploy them only in Los Angeles. It was a nationwide, meaning that at any time, on a moment's notice, if there's a protest that the administration doesn't like in Tulsa or in Boston or in Hartford or in Miami, the National Guard can be in your community in a heartbeat because they are looking, they are ultimately looking for some form of quasi military control. Tim Miller, let me bring you in on this. I mean, this is, I think, the best articulation I've heard of, where even Donald Trump's language doesn't match with the rest of his administration is carrying out on the streets of American cities. Yeah, Senator Murphy's been very good on this. Here's what really has happened from my vantage point, is that Donald Trump has heard about the impact of his policies on a few industries that he cares about. Right. The hoteliers. Oh, won't somebody think about the hoteliers who can't hire people to work in the kitchens or whatever, that those are Donald Trump's friends and those people that he has worked with over his career? So they're calling him up on that cell phone that he apparently answers. The big ag community, this is a big Republican constituency in rural America that employs a lot of migrant workers. And so they are calling Donald Trump and the people around him, and so he gives a comment that's like, okay, I've heard some blowback from a few of these folks and maybe we should dial it back. Like, he does the Trump thing, where whoever called him last, he echoes their, you know, what their message was to him. But here's the problem with that, Nicole. So when you're running a massive government like this and you institute a policy from the top from him and then from Tom Homan and Stephen Miller, that is aggressive. That is more than aggressive. That's lawless in many ways. That is encouraging people. And there have been reports that folks, that there are quotas for the amount of immigrants that people get at DHS and ICE Once that directive comes from on high, then that trickles down through the whole government and through people all around the country. And so, you know, like, if you were a U.S. attorney in a red state, well, you are feeling pressure, political pressure, to go find undocumented immigrants, prosecute them, detain them. So you can report up to the DOJ and say, look at our numbers for this week. Like, that's what's happening. So unless Donald Trump changes the policy, unless Stephen Miller changes the policy and says, wait a minute, no, we're gonna focus instead on people who have committed crimes in this country, or we're gonna focus instead on whatever else, then that is gonna happen. It doesn't matter what. Trump bleeds and he can try to save face with his buddies in the hotel industry, but the havoc that is being caused across the country is gonna continue until they change the policy. And there's really no signs of that happening, at least at this point. Jacob, I want to play some of your interview. We were. The three of us were last together less than an hour after this extraordinary scene with Senator Padilla. You had the first interview with him. Let me play some of that. Well, the whole time being escorted in this federal building by somebody from the National Guard, somebody from the FBI. I've gone through screening. This is a federal building. And so tell them, let's go listen to the press conference. They escort me over to that room, and I'm sitting in the back of the room behind the cameras, behind the reporters, listening, listening. And at one point, it was just too much to take. Not the first, but the second attack on the political leadership of California and this notion that Donald Trump and Kristi Noem had to come in and rescue the people of Los Angeles from Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass. It was too much. And so I spoke up. I introduced myself and said I had a question. Look, they said I wasn't wearing my pants. My polo says United States Senate. There was no threat. There was no lunging. I raised my voice to ask a question, and it took, what, maybe half a second before multiple agents were on me. What does it feel like the day after a sitting United States senator is manhandled and wrestled to be face down on the ground by the FBI? Remember what Kristi Noem said just seconds before? I don't think this has gotten enough attention. Before the senior senator from California was put down on the ground and placed into handcuffs and detained by federal agents. She said that the city of Los Angeles needed to be liberated from the socialists that were on the streets. Of Los Angeles. Look behind me. Does it look like this is a city that needs to be liberated? On the contrary, this is a city that is terrified to come out into the streets because of what is going on, at least a particular population of this city. I guarantee you that people will be out in the streets tomorrow standing up for the rights of those people. And Alex Padilla, the senator, son of Pacoima of the northeast San Fernando Valley, son of two Mexican immigrants, one of whom was a short ordered cook, the other who cleaned houses in order to send him to MIT and come back and represent this state in the United States Senate. People are going to be out in the streets protesting what happened to him. The outrage is palpable. The amount of people that I have heard from about what Senator Padilla went through and experienced in front of the world. I don't think in all of my years covering these issues for this network, I have gotten so much feedback about a particular moment in time, a particular official, a particular enforcement action, as they did yesterday. People were outraged and they remain outraged. Jacob Soborough and Melissa Murray, thank you so much for your reporting and for being with us today. Tim, we don't let you go yet. You're going to come back later in the hour. Still ahead for us, the world is watching. The future of the global order of things could drastically change in the coming days after a massive strike on Iran by Israel. We'll look at what's happening today as Iran retaliates and how it seems to be another example of Donald Trump not exactly thriving on the world stage. Later in the broadcast, standing up to the Trump administration's cool deportation policy, a look at the protests and some real voters expressing remorse about what's happening right now around the country. All those stories and more when DEADLINE WHITE HOUSE continues after a quick break. Don't go anywhere foreign. Hey, this is Will Arnett, host of Smartless. Smartless is a podcast with myself and Sean Hayes and Jason Bateman where each week one of us reveals a mystery guest of the other two. We dive deep with guests that you love like Bill Hader, Selena Gomez, Jennifer Aniston, David Beckham, Kristen Stewart and tons more. So join us for a genuinely improvised and authentic conversation filled with laughter and newfound knowledge to feed the smartless mind. Listen to Smartless now on the SiriusXM app. Download it today, nearly home. Isn't home where we all want to be? Reba, here for realtor.com, the Pro's number one most trusted app, finding a home is like dating. 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One of that country's military officials, who briefed reporters anonymously to comply with protocol, told NBC this, quote that Iran has been advancing a secret program to assemble a nuclear weapon that's according to Israeli intelligence, and that it has enough material to assemble 15 nuclear bombs within days. The official did not provide details to support that assessment. This does mark a hugely significant escalation, though, to a conflict between two of the most powerful military in the Middle East. Iran is calling the initial strikes an act of war, while Israel suggests that what we've seen is simply, quote, the first stage. The Trump administration, for its part, maintains it had no involvement in the strikes. It was set for a sixth round of nuclear talks with Iran this Sunday in Amman. Earlier this morning, NBC's Garrett Hake spoke by phone with Donald Trump. Trump appeared non committal on whether negotiations would move forward, saying, quote, they missed the opportunity to make a deal. Now they may have another opportunity. We'll see. End quote. Joining our coverage is ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, Congressman Jim Himes of Connecticut and New York Times diplomatic correspondent Michael Crowley. Congressman, tell us what you know about this developing and escalating situation between these two nations. Yeah. Where to start? Well, you know, I guess the two most obvious things to say is that the Israelis had a absolutely remarkable 24 hours. The precision, the accuracy, the taking out of senior, many of the Iranian senior military commanders, the destruction of Iranian air defenses is staggering. The intelligence failure on the part of the Iranians, you know, to allow the killing of their senior most military people, even though this was largely telegraphed, you know, it was no secret that the United States was taking non essential personnel from embassies out in the Gulf for some time now. So, you know, now we're sort of on the cusp, as we always are in the Middle east between, you know, does this continue with Israeli competence ultimately, you know, somewhere between badly hurting and eliminating the regime or as is all too often in the case, the case in the Middle east, does this end with unpredictable and awful circumstances? The United States gets brought in, the Straits of Hormuz are closed and you know, oil goes to $100 a barrel and we feel it the pump. You know, the Middle east has a way of crushing whatever optimism you may have at the start of an event like this. What happens now? Well, you know, we're already seeing, you're showing the Iranian retaliation and I think there's two questions about that. Number one, will it be competent? Because the Israelis have certainly destroyed an awful lot of the Iranian military infrastructure. But the other big question, of course, is not just how deep is it, but how broad is, you know, are the Houthis now who showed themselves to be militarily, staggeringly resilient against the full force and power of the United States military? Are they going to go all in? You know, are the remnants of Hezbollah going to use whatever missiles they have left to try to incinerate Tel Aviv? Is the Iranian regime going to activate terrorist cells in London and New York City and that sort of thing? So again, I think it's a moment of real uncertainty both about what Iran has left and how broadly they're willing to deploy those tools, obviously thinking a little bit about how to avoid intervention in this conflict. I just don't want to gloss over something you just mentioned, the relationship with what you just said, terrorist cells potentially in London. I mean, what is the sort of counterterror posture right now in the wake of this escalation? Well, that's a fascinating question, right, because the Iranians have suffered embarrassing defeat after embarrassing defeat with Hezbollah, with Hamas, the killing of the Hamas leader inside Iran. But we have not seen an equivalent dismantling of what is almost certainly, and I don't know if it's a large number or a small number, but almost certainly the kinds of cells that if the Iranians choose to do so, they could activate. And I must point out that the United States has taken a strategic decision, which most of us have supported, to slide our assets and our resources to the Indo Pacific, the Taiwan and China situation. And so we are probably not configured against counterterrorism as we were, let's say, 10 years ago. And that raises the risk level here. Let me bring you into this, Michael Crowley. Here's Senator Chris Murphy this morning on Morning Joe. Clearly, our President Donald Trump didn't believe that a military strike was the right option. He in fact, told the world that he had told Netanyahu to wait to give him time for diplomacy. Now it looks as if diplomacy has no chance. Trump tried to spin that overnight to say that Iran should come to the table and make a deal, but Israel killed their chief negotiator. That makes negotiations very hard, if not impossible. I just want to press you on your understanding of what the US Position is right now. Who does Donald Trump believe America could negotiate with this weekend? It's not clear, Nicole. I asked an administration official last night, I said, you know, maybe this is a stupid question, forgive me, but, you know, is there any chance that we're still going to send Witkoff to Oman for talks with the Iranians as was previously planned? And this person said, well, if he does go, he may have no one to talk to but himself going to that exact point that his interlocutor is dead. So could you imagine the Iranians sending someone else? I suppose it's difficult for me to imagine that Iran at this point is going to proceed. I think among other things, they've got to be completely shell shocked. Their leadership has been partially decapitated. And I'm not sure they are in a position where they know how to proceed. I don't think right now Iran's instinct is to start talking and show that they are cowed and want to negotiate further. I think just as a matter of national pride, they've got to hit back and, you know, at least adopt a defiant position and then figure out whether over the longer term they need to come to the table and basically cry uncle. Congressman Lee, you described one element of the attack inside Iran as a, you know, my word, colossal, but as an intelligence failure, which was also the assessment of Israel response on October 7. What is happening globally around intelligence that two of the more proficient intelligence agencies inside those nations now seem to be not quite so proficient? Yeah, yeah, no, it's an interesting question and I'm not sure that there's one answer. I cannot explain the Iranian failure. You see those photographs of the six or seven apartment penthouses where the IRGC commander, you know, the chief of staff of the Iranian military were taken out in penthouses and apartment buildings. I would have thought that five days ago, just based on what you can see on cable news, the Iranian regime would have put their key people, you know, 100 meters underground. So I don't know how you explain that because, you know, we don't think of the Iranians as utterly incompetent, although that, that assessment may be changing. You know, the Israel, Gaza thing of course is staggering failure of intelligence. And I think, you know, one of the challenging things is that, you know, the Israelis have put off and put off the really, really hard questions to get to the bottom of it. But it's pretty clear that the headline will be that, you know, nobody inside the Israeli intelligence community or military thought that Hamas had the capability. Even though in retrospect, and it's always in retrospect, it was pretty clear that they had some pretty dramatic capabilities. Do you know of any efforts by our intelligence community to sort of push out what we can imagine possible based on these two big players missing these two very seismic and potentially history altering attacks? Yeah, well, in some ways there is a lesson in both Gaza, October 7th and let's go back to the failure to find weapons of mass destruction. And one of the probably key lessons is that even the very best intelligence services are subject to confirmation bias. Right? Yeah. If an intelligence analyst has a preexisting belief, it's very hard for the facts to necessarily alter that. Or if, and here's where I spent a lot of time worrying about the politicization of intelligence, which is what happened. And you know, when it was very clear that Vice President Dick Cheney wanted those weapons of mass destruction to be found, you know, when there's political pressure to find a certain answer. Even the best intelligence services in the world, and I count the United States amongst them, will fail. Congressman Jim Himes will be calling on you often in the coming days, I'm sure. Thank you for spending time with us today. Michael Crowley sticks around. We'll keep this conversation going. We'll bring in Tom Nichols on the risk that Israel took last night by launching these strikes in Iran. Much more ahead. Michael crowley, the AP is reporting that Mossad spy agency officials positioned explosive drones and precision weapons inside Iran ahead of time and used them to target Iranian air defenses and missile launchers near Tehran. It's according to two security officials. It comes on the heels of that extraordinary Ukrainian attack inside Russia. And I wonder what sort of reporting you and your colleagues have developed about what you know. I guess we only have two examples. I don't know if two makes a pattern, but it feels like a new front in these wars between long, simmering adversaries. Yeah, Nicole. I mean, there's so much going on here, and we're going to spend so much time dissecting this operation. It was really looks like an astoundingly complex operation that involved airstrikes smuggling weapons into Iran, smuggling teams of operatives into Iran. I saw some reporting suggesting that there was a Mossad team of Iranian nationals who were working with the Israelis. I don't know if we've confirmed that, but there's no question that this was one of the most complex operations we've seen in modern military history. And part of that was employing not only drones, but it appears that there were sort of mobile it's a little unclear, but maybe mobile missile launching systems or rocket launching systems that were positioned near Iranian missile systems that might have done damage to some of those. So it's, you know, we are in an era where technology is making lethal weaponry a lot smaller, a lot more mobile. It's incredibly precise. And, you know, one benefit I mean, in many ways it's sort of disturbing and alarming because you start to think, you know, is anywhere safe. On the other hand, some of these strikes are carried out with quite minimal civilian casualties. Now, if you're a family member of a small number of people who were killed in Tehran, it's not much comfort. But to take out several senior Iranian commanders with very limited collateral damage is not something you could have done 20, 30 years ago. So it's extremely sophisticated. And the last point I'll just make, Nicole, is that that these advances in ingenuity, planning, technology and intelligence have just transformed Israel's strategic position in the region. You know, they use these advantages to decimate Hamas, to decapitate Hezbollah and almost completely neutralize it. And now we'll see how this plays out. But to have inflicted the kind of damage on the Iranians that the Israelis have been dreaming about for years and years and years. So. So it's a transformative moment for Israel, but also possibly for warfare around the world. And certainly other countries are watching carefully and making their own similar plans for operations like this. Do we know yet if Israel is safer because of them? We don't. And that's the big question. You know, my colleague Ronan Bergman, who is just an astoundingly good reporter based in Israel, wrote a terrific book. It may be somewhere behind me on this shelf. Rise and Kill First. I recommend it to everyone. It's a history of Israel's targeted assassination programs, and it's an incredible guide through, again, the sort of ingenuity and imagination of the Mossad and the Shin Bet and the incredible operations they have pulled off to strike at Israel's enemies. But one consistent theme through the book is that the Israelis kill their most wanted enemies, the leaders of the groups that are out to get them, and someone new pops up and the threat just morphs into something else. There's a new radical imam, there's a new terror cel, and they have to go out and get that one. And along the way, there are certainly major drawbacks for the country, including condemnation around the world of the way Israel has acted toward the Palestinians generally. And so we'll see what happens. In this case. If you could imagine a scenario where Iran's leadership falls apart or is overthrown, Iran plunges into chaos and civil war. You know, that could be extremely dangerous for Israel. Maybe Iran has more ballistic missiles than Israel counted on, and they could inflict huge damage on Israeli cities over a long period of time. But maybe not. Maybe they chop the head off and they're in a great position. Michael Crowley, thank you for bringing your reporting to this moment. We're grateful. We're going to sneak in one more break. We'll be back with Tom Nichols. On the other side, turning our coverage, staff writer at the Atlantic and a contributor to the Atlantic Daily Newsletter, Tom Nichols is back. Tom, let me get your big, smart thoughts about all things first. Last night you write this. Israel's bold, risky attack. Preemptive attacks in both international law and the historical traditions of war are spoiling attacks meant to thwart an imminent attack. In both tradition and law, this form of Self defense is perfectly defensible, similar to the principle in domestic law that when a person cocks a fist or pulls a gun, the intended victim does not need to stand there and wait to get punched or shot. Preventive attacks, however, have long been viewed in the international community as both illegal and immoral. History is full of ill advised preventive actions, including the Spartan invasion of Athens in the 5th century BCE, the Japanese attack on Pearl harbor, and the American war on Iraq in 2002. Sometimes such wars are the product of hubris, miscalculation, or plain fear. But they all share the common trait that a choice was made to go to war based on a threat that was real but not imminent. Just talk us through that. Well, preventive wars are not always the wrong thing to do, but they are fraught with a lot of moral and strategic risk. Once you embark on that, as Americans learned, you can't just decide that you've made a mistake and then just back up. So the Israelis have really embarked on something here that's going to take a while and last a long time and have repercussions that, you know, are just hard to foresee. On the other hand, the problem with a nuclear threat is that you can't simply wait until that threat gels and becomes so obvious that it's too late to save yourself. I don't think it was probably the best idea to phrase this as a preemptive war because Israel and Iran have been in a kind of a slow motion war for a long time. I think they could have made a stronger case to say that this is, you know, that this threat has become just intolerable and existential for Israel. But the difference in both, again in both international law and traditional, is a significant one. And although Israel doesn't have to care a lot about international opinion, it is good to have friends and it is good to make, you know, to have the justice of your case a little more obvious to the world. So I think, you know, I'm not certain that this wasn't preemption, but part of that case is that, you know, at some point be good to see the evidence to say this was something that was so imminent, so overwhelming that the Israelis had to act right now. What is your understanding of the US Posture on any and all of this? Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, said, we didn't know anything about it. Donald Trump or no, said we didn't have anything to do with it. I want to be precise. And then Donald Trump said, quote, we knew everything. Not technically inconsistent statements. But that's what's public facing. Where does that lead the U.S. it leaves us, it's really evidence of how much, because of the chaos and the damage that the administration has done to America's standing in the world, leaves us as bystanders. It leaves us as sort of just observers when in fact, the United States was always part of the prime mover of events in a lot of the international community. And I think Americans should worry if our friends and our allies as well as our enemies, because I think you see this in Russia, in Ukraine, in the Middle east and other places are now basically acting as if the United States doesn't exist, that they really don't have to think about Washington or take the United States into its calculations. And that for a country that is a superpower with interests all over the world, world's largest economy, a lot of friends and enemies scattered all around the globe, that's a bad place to be. Well, how do our adversaries and friends view us in this moment where you've got the president of the United States moving the National Guard, moving military into an American city, as well as 700 active duty troops, Marines, over the objection of that state's governor, and now after a rebuke, at least on the national card piece of it from a federal judge, I'm sure our enemies are delighted. There's nothing they would love to see more than the President of the United States and a significant component of the armed forces of the United States that is our National Guard component. You know, in a, in a political food fight. It rivets our attention at home. It keeps us away from international affairs, it divides us. It hurts the morale of our military, the Marines and the National Guardsmen who don't want to be there in the streets of Los Angeles. So I'm sure our enemies are perfectly delighted and hope Donald Trump keeps deploying the military to cities all over the United States. Our friends, I think, are probably just at this point, this isn't new to them. They've already lived through one term of Donald Trump. So I think several. I think our allies are just looking with a certain amount of sadness and confusion and with an understanding that they may feel like they're on their own in very important ways now. Tom Nichols, it's always great to get to talk to you. Thank you so much for taking time for us today. We're going to sneak in one more break. We'll be right back. As Americans prepare to take to the streets in protest of this administration's actions and policies. Some of the country's top lawyers are pushing back against Donald Trump in their own way. Seven partners at the law firm Willkie Farr, that was one of the firms that capitulated and cut a deal with the Trump administration, have resigned. They're now heading to a rival firm, Cooley, one that has shown itself willing to fight the Trump administration by representing a peer law firm that sued the White House and prevailed in the case that Cooley won. A federal judge called Donald Trump's order, quote, doubly violative of the Constitution. It builds on a pattern that's emerged in the last month. Six top partners at the law firm Paul Weiss, that was the first one to capitulate and cut a deal with the Trump administration. After an executive order targeting them, those partners decided to leave and four of them started their own law firm. Former Vice President Kamala Harris husband Doug Emhoff is a partner at at the firm. With the news today, Wilkie Farr. And while he has said he opposed the deal with Trump, he has remained at the firm. We'll stay on top of that story. When we come back, the planned protests of Americans collectively saying no, thank you, standing up to the Trump administration. What we expect this weekend when the next hour of Deadline White House starts after a quick break. Hey everybody, Ted Danson here to tell you about my podcast with my longtime friend and sometimes co host Woody Harrelson. It's called where everybody knows your name and we're back for another season. I'm so excited to be joined this season by friends like John Mulaney, David Spade, Sarah Silverman, Ed Helms and many more. You don't want to miss it. Listen to where everybody knows your name with me, Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson. Sometimes wherever you get your podcasts, nearly home. Isn't home where we all want to be. Reba here for realtor.com the Pro's number one most trusted app. Finding a home is like dating. You're not just looking for a place to live, you're searching for the one. That's where realtor.com comes in. Like any good matchmaker, they know exactly where to look. 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Hundreds of Marines and National Guard troops have been deployed to assist in that and to intimidate and quell exercises of First Amendment rights for speech and protest. In fact, we are just getting our first look at Marines standing guard outside a federal building in Los Angeles today. That is the backdrop to a multimillion dollar massive parade set to take place in Washington, D.C. tomorrow being thrown by Donald Trump. Held in honor of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the US army, it will feature thousands of soldiers and hundreds of vehicles, including dozens of military tanks and aircraft. It also happens to be Donald Trump's 79th birthday. If the clashes in Los Angeles compared to those celebrations set to happen in D.C. weren't already a stark enough split screen moment, tomorrow we'll provide another one. In almost 2,000 locations across our country, protests will be held in opposition to Donald Trump's autocratic ways. The no Kings Day protests will, according to the event organizers, quote, take action to reject authoritarianism and show the world what democracy really looks like on June 14th. We're showing up everywhere. Trump isn't to say no thrones, no crowns, no kings. All of this reminding us that as much as Donald Trump is trying to use the government to amass more power, he's also waging a war of image and perception. As a new op ed and the New York Times explores, Trump's deportation machine could be taken down by exposing the truth through recording and detailing what really happens from that piece. Quote, each act of documentation chips away at the alternate reality that Trump and Stephen Miller have constructed, one in which ICE is making communities safer. Trump is not waging a war for the streets. He's fighting a war for the hearts and minds of Americans. The most formidable weapon on this battlefield is the human story. Not fire, not fists, not bullets. The war will be won only through strategic and relentless exposure. That is where we start the hour with some of our favorite experts and friends. Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell of California joins us. Also joining us, retired Marine Corps Lt. Col. Amy McGrath is here. She is the founder of the Democratic Majority Action PAC and the co host of the Truth in the Barrel podcast. And with me at the table for the hour, my colleague, host of MSNBC's Politics Nation and president of the National Action Network, the Reverend Al Sharpton. Congressman, I start with you. Your sense of where we are in this moment. Nicole. These protests this weekend are not only about immigrants, otherwise known as our friends and neighbors who came here in awe of America and with a will to work. They're also about a mad king who is hell bent on going after anyone who shows dissent. And if you think about who he has arrested, it could be any of us. We've seen a US Member of Congress indicted this week, a senior senator arrested, but also in the last month, a four year old American citizen, child battling cancer, deported. So somewhere between the four year old boy fighting cancer and the senior senator from California who was arrested is all of us. This could be all of us. And the important part of this protest is that Donald Trump may pick off individuals and be able to take away an individual's freedom, but he can't take away all of our voices. And that's why it's so important this weekend that we show up and make sure that he ultimately backs down. Rev, this is your expertise. What is your feeling about the importance of this moment? I think it's very important. The significance of it keeping can't be underestimated. When you see people all over the country marching tomorrow that don't agree on some specific things, but agree that we cannot have a king in this country, we cannot have someone that is above the law. And I've talked to many groups, different races, different persuasions that we don't usually see come together that are planning to be members of my Nash Action Network. All of us are talking about this is not about whether you're Republican or Democrat. And I think that it goes to the whole adage that you can push too far. I think that Trump has pushed too far with the deportations, with the arresting of members of Congress, blocking other members of Congress, saying I'm going to have 19 countries that cannot send people to this country, but I'm going to bring up 59 people in from South Africa who are white, saying there's genocide against whites when nobody, including Fox News, can find the genocide. Crime is bad there, but it's as bad on blacks as whites. All of this builds up to where people say, you know what, we've all got to do something collective. And I think that the feeling I'm beginning to have is that he has pushed it so far that he's going to unite the opposition that couldn't unite itself. Amy, what are your thoughts as Donald Trump seems to delight in thrusting the traditionally apolitical and highly regarded United States military into the middle of this moment? Well, I think that's part of what these protests are all about. As your two other guests have just mentioned, part of this is that Americans don't want to see their military in the streets of Los Angeles and in the streets of cities around the country. We're sort of tired of it. And this is part of what you're seeing around the country. Americans look at this and they see camouflaged men with masks raiding people's homes, businesses. And people are looking at that and saying this is authoritarianism and it is a step too far. Using the active duty military, federalizing the National Guard without the consent of the governor. All of these things are really unprecedented in the modern era. And this is a way to peacefully protest, stand up against that stuff. And it's happening around the country, all 50 states this weekend. So let me show all of you where it's happening. This is a map from the no Kings website showing where the protests will be tomorrow. And there are, as you just said, there are dots everywhere. I want to also do two more things. The coalition is grassroots, right? There are certainly going to be politicians there. But this is a groundswell. These are sort of spontaneous, maybe pent up over the last five months, activists taking to the streets, but they will include very prominent figure, the Walmart heiress. Let me show you this. This is a Full page ad in the New York Times from Christy Walton. The ad says to mobilize at no Kings protest this Saturday. It ends with, quote, we are the people of the United States of America. The honor, dignity and integrity of our country are not for sale. Our government is of the people, by the people, and for the people. This seems to sort of defy what has been a lot of people from the business world. Silence. Well, isn't it great that some people are standing up? Yeah. You know? Yeah. And it's so important because they're putting resources toward this. They're standing up. Up. We're expected to see 5 million Americans around the country protest this weekend. And contrast that with Trump's unfortunate birthday parade in Washington, D.C. that it's really hijacking the United States Army's 250th birthday. But I really think people around the country are fed up and we are Americans and we want to get out there and show what America is all about. And so, thankfully, some of these business leaders are coming forward and doing some of this stuff. Congressman, let me show you what Pete Buttigieg had to say yesterday about this moment and what people are protesting not just against, but for. We name what just happened, which is that the Trump government has crossed one of the reddest of red lines that can exist in a free society. Any salute to the flag or talk of patriotism or American greatness is completely hollow if you do not respect the freedoms that that flag represents, the Constitution that directs the course of this country, and they've shown what they think of those freedoms and that Constitution. Your thoughts about the fundamental freedoms that are on the line right now? And Secretary Buttigieg is so correct that we have to elevate this as an issue. And I think this has been a weakness of our party, frankly, Nicole, is we often will look at snapshot polls and then we'll decide based on what a poll shows is the most important issue. And then we'll be told, don't talk about anything else, because the number one issue is this. And that's always going to change as, like, the times change. My Republican colleagues, they take their values and they talk to the country over and over and elevate those issues. Our value is freedom. It's freedom of health care, where Donald Trump is taking it away from 15 million Americans. It's freedom of your body. It's clearly freedom of speech. It's economic freedom. And so we have to elevate this as an issue and not just lead from behind. And we have a Real opportunity to do that this weekend. Talk about the branding. No kings. I mean, I think that most Americans are against having a king. That is our very identity as a country. What do you make of that? Well, right now, America's streets are starting to look like they're running by a monarchy or a dictator. When you see, as Amy pointed out, masked men going to schools, going to car washes, going to farms, and just pulling people into unmarked cars, that doesn't look like America. That looks like the KGB and the town square and Russia, and we don't want to look like that. And I actually, Nicole, I'm surprised at the number. And I. I maybe approach this with a little bit of a bias as a son of a cop and a brother to cops and a former prosecutor. And I thought, well, people will just accept that this is what police officers do. And I have been completely floored by regular people who tell me, this does not look like America. Show your faces. And I think as Democrats, I've heard from enough colleagues that when we're in the majority, when it comes to ICE enforcements, we are going to require them to show their faces for the safety of every American. But also, if you're not doing anything wrong and you're standing on the law, you shouldn't have anything to hide. Let me ask you about the last 24 hours. I mean, did you hear from any Republicans who said, you know, we're going to, you know, our base was excited about mass deportations, and I know they look terrible, terrible. And Trump's now seems to be for amnesty for agricultural workers and leisure workers and hotel workers, but we've got to do this. But I draw the line at the manhandling of a sitting U.S. senator. I mean, are any of them capable of seeing what we all saw and talking like normal human beings? No. Many of them, to my surprise. And I think you pointed this out on Pod Save America this week. They are going farther than Trump on this because Trump is now no longer convinced that we should be having ice raids that take people out of the fields when they're putting food on our plate or out of hotels and the hospitality industry, because we're all going to pay more if there aren't workers there, which to me shows that the public sentiment works. Trump always chickens out. He's going to cave if the public sentiment drives him that way, which is the reason we all have to show up this weekend. One colleague of mine did speak out, and I want to give him a shout out because David Valadao of the Central Valley, who has one of the largest immigrant communities who work in the farms in the Central Valley, tweeted out this week that these ICE rates are going too far and they should focus on violent criminals. And I hope more of my colleagues speak up in that way. Rev. Now that the Congressman called me out, I was shamelessly promoting Mining Podcast, the best people on one of the best podcasts around, the Pod Save America podcast. But this was the point I made. It was actually about this poll, how Americans feel about these deportations. This is from Pew. This is from February and March before. These images of people being, you know, this four year old boy deprived of cancer treatment, families being ripped apart and fields being, you know, people being chased through the fields. This is February, March in this country. Support for deporting undocumented immigrants who have a job. 15% of Americans. Support for deporting undocumented immigrants who have children in the U.S. 14%. Support for deporting undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children. 9%. Support for deporting undocumented immigrants who are married to a U.S. citizen. Only 5% of Americans for that. And my point in the podcast was that Trump seems to have joined the ranks of people who oppose deporting some of these people. The observation that, and according to Jacob Sobras reporting, is that the raids continue. I think it raises an important question about who's running the country. It does raise a very serious question because sometime, particularly in the last 48 hours, Trump's rhetoric doesn't match the policy that is being executed by his own administration. So he's saying, of course we shouldn't do this to certain people doing certain work while they're doing it. And while you have troops on the ground in la, I mean, I mean, the pictures of those Marines sitting there in trucks and the masked National Guard, I don't think he understands what that says to the average American, no matter what their political party. It's an important point. Amy, let me bring you in on this. So these are the facts. And Trump sits atop the military chain of command. Trump said yesterday that we should not deport people working in the agricultural business, in farming or in hospitality or in leisure. What does that mean in terms of following an order from the commander in chief? If you're National Guard and you're sent to California's inland valley to protect ICE agents deporting people working in agriculture, I mean, who knows what it means? Because Trump is all over the map. I mean, he's got his guys, Stephen Miller and these agents doing these raids. And meanwhile, he's back in Washington, D.C. saying, oh, don't deport the agriculture workers. I mean, the reality is it's chaos. And from the perspective of the military, this is not something that the military should be doing at all. The military should not be standing around. You see these pictures of ICE agents going after folks, and then you see these National Guardsmen and potentially Marines standing around them guarding the ICE agents. This is not what our military. Our Marines are not trained for this. It's very dangerous. You're taking them away from training for the real wars. And, boy, there's another one that just started last night in the Middle East. So we're taking them away from their real job. And it's really going to hurt our military in the long run. This politicization of our military. It's terrible. Let me show all of you. Trump, in his own words on this. Our farmers are being hurt badly by, you know, they have very good workers. They've worked for them for 20 years. They're not citizens, but they've turned out to be, you know, great. And we're going to have to do something about that. We can't take farmers and take all their people and send them back because they don't have maybe what they're supposed to have, maybe not. We're going to have an order on that pretty soon. I think we can't do that to our Farmers and Leisure too, hotels. So we're going to Trump's words, quote, we're going to have an order on that really soon. We can't deport people working on the farms. Pay and leisure, too. Again, Congressman, he has deployed National Guard troops to the streets of Los Angeles to support ICE carrying out raids that he is their commander in chief no longer supports and has a, quote, order coming out soon. Trump is complaining that farm workers and hotel workers are being deported. And he says we have to do something about this. Hey, genius, you are the one who can do something about this. And what we are learning is nobody asked for this, as the poll you just pointed out showed. We were promised that violent individuals in our community would be removed. I support that. I think everyone on this panel supports that. But people who are supporting themselves, they're a part of our culture, a part of our community. Nobody wants to see them targeted. And so the call to action that I have is Kristi Noem should resign. She's lost the confidence of the American people. ICE agents should remove their masks and Homeland Security should stop terrorizing families and focus only on the most violent in our community. You do those three things, you're going to get back the confidence of the American people. I mean, yes. Or ask for a meeting with Trump and ask him what he meant when he went before cameras and said, we can't deport people working on our farms. We're going to have an order on that. And by the way, leisure, too. I mean, either that or find out what your boss thinks you should be doing and who you should be targeting. An extraordinary moment in the history of our country. Congressman, thank you for starting us off and for listening to podcasts. You are who you are. The millionaires. My treadmill. Yeah, my treadmill. Those guys are so smart. Those guys are so smart. I was really, I was happy to be there. Amy and Rev, stick around a little bit longer. When we come back, a former top Air Force official on the ominous message being sent by Donald Trump with his military parade at a time when federal troops are on the streets of Los Angeles deployed against against the will of that state's governor and positioned against citizens of their own country. Former Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall joins our coverage later in the hour. Reaction from California's lieutenant governor as her state battles the Trump administration's use of force against its own citizens and its senior United States senator. Deadline White House continues after a quick break. Don't go anywhere. It's a vulgar display. It's the kind of thing you see. Kim Jong Un, you see it. Putin, you see it with dictators around the world that are weak and just want to demonstrate strength. Weakness masquerading as strength to fet the dear leader on his birthday. What an embarrassment. Honestly, that's about as small as it gets. How weak, how weak do you have to be to commandeer the military to fet you on your birthday in a vulgar display of weakness? That's Donald Trump. We'll call that a mic drop. Moment from California Governor Gavin Newsom ahead of Donald Trump Trump's North Korea style military parade tomorrow. Joining our coverage is Secretary Frank Kendall, former secretary of the Air Force during the Biden administration. Amy the Revver here as well. Mr. Secretary, I was reminded that this was attempted during Trump's first term. He returned from Bastille Day and asked his senior military and senior Pentagon leaders to do this the first time. It's where some of the incredible reporting about how he didn't want wounded veterans or wounded soldiers to appear and that there's a thread that comes through in the Fort Bragg reporting where, quote, no fat soldiers could stand behind him. So I want your thoughts on what now stands between the men and women of the military and Donald Trump when this same play is run by the same president, returned to power and has success in having a military parade through the streets of Washington. Thanks. Thanks for having me on. The pattern we've seen here with Donald Trump is disturbing to me. He basically is conditioning the American people to the domestic use of the military in a way which is really unprecedented. And the parade's one of the manifestations of that. But so was what you were previously talking about of what was happening in Los Angeles, the incident at Fort Bragg. His speech there was incredibly political, more than I have ever seen a president give. And his address to West Point, my alma mater, recently, also was highly political. He is conditioning the American people to accept his control of the military in a way which is unprecedented. He fired several of the senior officers, including the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He's bringing in or brought in people that I think he expects to be loyal to him. He fired the Judge Advocate Generals of all the military departments and is replacing them. I think he's laying the groundwork for his personal use of the military in a way which we've never seen before. What guardrails exist right now for him? I mean, it sounds like he's made a lot of headway. What remains, I guess, between his complete politicization of the United States military, or are we there already? Well, there are two things. The first is that all officers swear an oath to defend the Constitution. We repeatedly make the point. Senior leadership does this all the time. That our oath is not to an individual or a political party, certainly not to an individual president. It is to the Constitution of the United States. All military people are required to obey all lawful orders and to not obey orders which are unlawful. Now, that brings us back to the replacement of the Judge Advocate Generals, the senior lawyers for the military department. There is the professionalism of our military, and there is that oath that stands between us and what Donald Trump might want to do in his role as president's Commander in Chief. I'm very, very confident of the professionalism of our military. I'm a retired army officer. You just had Amy McGrath on. Throughout my entire long career, I have worked with a great number of very highly professional people who take that oath incredibly seriously. And I think we can hopefully depend upon them when the time comes to stand up to that oath and to defend the Constitution of the United States. We need to be a little bit worried about where the president tends to go with all this. So let me show you testimony from Wednesday of this week from Donald Trump's his pick to be chairman of the Joint Chiefs. This is General Kaine on Capitol Hill Wednesday. Is the United States being invaded by a foreign nation? Sir, thanks for your question. I think at this point in time I don't see any foreign state sponsored folks invading. But I'll be mindful of the fact that, that there has been some border issues throughout time and defer to you to DHS who handles the border along the nation's contiguous outline. And then Mr. Secretary, here's Pete Hegseth, the country's Secretary of Defense, who was opposed by bipartisan members of the Senate. I think for the first time in history here he is contradicting term the Joint Chiefs king. The orders that have been issued, which are publicly available and known, relate to an ongoing situation in Los Angeles which could expand to other places. But it's quite easy to point out that there has been an invasion of 21 million illegals in our country under the previous administration. What does that do to General Kaine's ability to, to do his job? I think it creates an inherent conflict. I know General Kaine reasonably well. I've always known him to be a very professional officer. I think he's in a very awkward position right now. And I'm hopeful that he'll stay true to his values and true to his oath as a professional military officer in the United States. I don't know how this is all going to come out, quite frankly. After we watched Donald Trump tried desperately to stay in power after the election 2020, after we watched him try to direct General Milley to personally go out and suppress protest. I don't think there's much of a limitation on what Donald Trump is willing to ask the military to do. And I think that again should concern all Americans. Let me show you one more piece of sound. This is from, this is an op ed from Congressman Jake Och, former Marine. He writes this. The president's deployment of Marines to Los Angeles is not only unnecessary and illegal, it's also unfair to the Marines. The sergeants and corporals themselves have to adopt tactics against their training. The lieutenants and captains have to wrestle with the lawfulness of this executive order. These young officers are not a check and balance on the president like I am as a member of Congress. They are under his command. He is demoralizing and denigrating their units and their service. They did not sweat and bleed in training to be used as political props. You take the deployment to Los Angeles, which has now been ruled unlawful, or the deployment of the Guard has been ruled unlawful by a judge who hasn't ruled on the deployment of the 700 Marines. But you've got the speech at Fort Bragg with extraordinary optics seen around the world world of active duty military cheering when Donald Trump insulted members of an opposing political party. Unprecedented. You've got a display of military equipment and strength that will be paraded around the Streets of Washington, D.C. on the day that happens to be Donald Trump's birthday. And you've got now one of the largest, second largest city in the country with military patrolling its streets. What does the world see right now? I think you described it very well. You summarized it. It's a set of incidents, set of actions that are unprecedented, contrary to American values, and they're dangerous. Dr. Sharpton and I, I think, are both old enough to remember Kent State. I don't know if anybody else is on here, but when you put untrained troops who are not prepared to deal with the kind of situation they're put in front of, in a situation like we might have in Los Angeles, Angeles, very bad things can happen. I made a comment to people as I left my office as Secretary of the Air Force that people need to think very carefully about where their lines were and where they would draw the line and what they were willing to do in order to do it or not. I think we may very well have some situations where people have to confront those sorts of decisions, and I don't know, quite frankly, how they're going to come out. Amy, what are you hearing from voices within the military about the concern that the military becomes another symbol and another fault line in our divided politics? Well, from what I'm hearing from my former colleagues in the military is we're all very concerned. Many are speaking out in ways that they have never done before, not only speaking out to the American public, but speaking out to troops who are active duty right now, just reminding them of their oath, like Secretary Kendall said, reminding them of what they stand for. I think that's really important. The politicization of our military right now is something I have never seen in my lifetime. And for those people who are at home, it may just be another day in the news cycle. But I'm here to tell you this is unfortunate. Unprecedented. Leaders in the military right now, I think, are a bit taken back. They don't really know how to handle, as was mentioned earlier in the first Trump administration, we had some buffer there, right where General Milley, Secretary Esper, said, hey, no, Mr. President, you can't do these sorts of things now. Those buffers are largely gone. And so these leaders are gonna have to figure out where those red lines are. And I, I really hope when the time comes that they will step up. But right now, we're seeing it being chipped away little by little. I'm worried. Yeah. And I think the Hegsas example is that he has no qualms undermining General Kaine publicly by going before the cameras and that body and contradicting the country's term of the Joint Chiefs. It's extraordinary. Secretary Frank Kendall and Amy McGrath, thank you. The Rev sticks around with me because when we come back, California's Lieutenant Governor will join us as her state continues to battle Donald Trump over his deployment of federal troops in la. To characterize what is going on as our city is a city of mayhem is just an outright lie. No matter what, what happens out of White House, the White House, we will always uphold and reflect what Los Angeles and the United States of America are truly about. Freedom, tolerance, and, for God's sake, our Constitution. After seven days of protests in Los Angeles, Donald Trump's militarization of that city is continuing against the wishes of of city and state leaders. Those leaders had a brief moment of relief yesterday when, as we've been covering, District Court Judge Charles Breyer ruled that Donald Trump had illegally taken control of California's National Guard troops. The ruling ordered Trump to return control of the National Guard to California's Governor Gavin Newsom and accused Donald Trump of setting a, quote, dangerous precedent for the future domestic. That ruling is now in limbo after an appeals court hit pause on the judge's order until Tuesday when they will hold a hearing on the matter. Joining our coverage is Lieutenant Governor of California, Eleni Kunalakis. Thank you so much for being here, Madam. Lieutenant Governor, take me inside. Any developments today and what you are prepared for over the weekend while this order is stayed. Well, Nicole, thank you so much for having me. There is so much happening in California right now, I don't even know where to begin. You noted that this court case was decided in the favor of California. The judge ordered Donald Trump to return command of the National Guard back to the governor, but then that was quickly stayed by the appellate court, which will now hear the case. Case on Tuesday. So everyone is waiting and watching. In the meantime, you just heard the mayor of Los Angeles make it absolutely clear there is no reason for the militarization of Los Angeles. The characterization of L. A as mayhem, as burning down, it is just false. It is a lie. And we are doing our best to be able to push back against those false narratives, as we are also seeing, you know, Stephen Miller's plan of mass deportations, regardless of Donald Trump's seeming to understand that this is folly, that that appears to be continuing to move forward. So, yes, a lot going on. What is your greatest concern for the people in your state? You know, the first time Donald Trump was in office, there was a lot of absurdity. My biggest concern is that we are moving from absurdity to brutality. We saw that yesterday with the just ruthless and just horrible tackling of Senator Allen. Alex Padilla, who's known, by the way, among all of us as one of the most measured. You know, he's an engineer from mit. He is just a verya, very reasonable and diplomatic kind of a senator. So to see him in a room where now they're saying, oh, they didn't know who he was, you see the video, he absolutely announced who he was, but it was not. There were not that many people in the room. He was escorted in by the FBI and a National Guards member. You know, they knew who he was, they didn't stop it. This kind of thing, along with images of women and children, peaceful workers out in the fields being dragged off and disappeared, all of this is a move that is again, moved from obstacles absurd to brutal, and we are deeply concerned where it's going. Lieutenant Governor, one of the things that has troubled me is that this projection that, and you touched on it, that LA is out of control, in flames. I remember when I was a kid, 10 years old, 9 years old, the 65 Watts riots were people died, and we saw Rodney King, people died. We're not talking about that now, that level of violence at all. Even though you may have some provocateurs, the overwhelming majority of people there are peacefully protesting and are reacting to something. Paint the picture for us of what we're seeing, because I think people, because of the pressure President don't understand what a real violent riot is. That is not even remotely what I'm seeing. And I'm working with Reverend Moseleys and others that are there in LA that lead Nan that are saying, what are you talking about? We're talking about a little square quarter of a mile area, no deaths, and there's some provocateurs that are saying things, maybe burn the car, which is wrong, and she be denounced, but it's nothing like we saw with Rodney King. Well, that's exactly right. You know, I'm old enough reverend to remember the riots in 1992. And what's important about that as well is that the federal government is saying that they're attempting to use the Insurrection act which was used in 1992. But there are two things that are very, very different. One, the governor and the president and the mayor all agreed to move federal support in at that time. And then of course, the level of violence that was taking place back then because of that, you know, brutal, brutal attack of Rodney King. But at that time, over the course of two days, 60 people were killed, 30 thousands of people were injured, many thousands more were arrested. A totally different situation. But Donald Trump and this administration, they appear to be, to me to be so confident in their ability to manipulate information that they just get out there with these bold faced lies and they seem to think that it can fly in the face of truth. So that is what we are really all trying to do, is have it be clear. You know, last Sunday there were 400 people demonstrating in two different locations. That was the basis of his calling in the National Guard. Absolutely absurd. That threw gasoline on the fire, which started to see an increased number of people out on the streets. Again, nothing like what we saw before. An as we go into this weekend knowing that people are very determined to get out there and be seen that this is the United States. We do not want a king that is not even the people who voted for him did not votemost of them, I assume, did not vote for that. Certainly people I know did not vote for that. But that in these demonstrations coming this weekend, it is going to be so important that they stay peaceful because if not a big concern, that it could play into their propaganda machine and their rhetoric to bring more brutality. California Lieutenant Governor, I know you are very busy. California Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kunalakis, thank you for spending time with us today. Nicole. Can I just end by saying that my father was a refugee to the United States. We stand by our immigrant workers. What is happening is so uncalled for. Three quarters of the vegetables in this country are brought to the United States by workers in the fields of California. So we are very, very hopeful that the rhetoric yesterday out of the White House will actually lead to pulling back on these brutal and unnecessary actions. It's a fascinating point. You now have the commander in chief giving an order that that contradicts what seems to be the mission of the National Guard there. Aiding ICE in raids of agricultural areas of your state where Trump came out yesterday against deportations for anyone working in farming. We'll stay on top of that part of the story. Thank you for ending with that. We have to sneak in a quick break. We'll be right back. Rev, what's your advice for people who want to be out there? Want to make their voices heard but are maybe rattled by the way they saw a sitting U.S. senator treat that should in many ways encourage them to say, I'm not going to be rattled. I'm not going to stop. The democracy's at stake here. That's why it's no Kings Day. And they should be impeccably non violent. They may be provocateurs that come in, say they're agents of those that want to be king. Because the more you can show a dignified, nonviolent but determined presence tomorrow, tomorrow all over the country, the more you contrast with a man who pardoned people that assaulted law enforcement officers on January 6, people forget he was president. He could have sent the National Guard if he wanted to do something to the Capitol that day. He did not. He sat there and watched television three or four hours. So let him be who he is and you be the contrast. I love that. Be the contrast. Reverend Al Sharpton, thank you. We'll see you this weekend for Politics Nation. One more break for us. We'll be right back. Do you vote for someone for what it does for you or what it does for people who you care about? It's gotta be the latter, right? But I think we're stuck in the first. Yes. And I think like, and I think that and I think maybe we're playing two different games, right? Maybe that's why we keep losing. That was NBA legend, one of my favorite people, Doc Rivers. He's the head coach of the Milwaukee Bucks. He's a powerful voice on the side of the pro democracy movement. I'm so excited about this one. He's my next guest on the next episode of the Best People podcast. You're not going to want to miss this one. Doc says that if he were not coaching in the NBA, he'd be working in politics. He said that after I said if I wasn't in politics and news, I'd want to work in the NBA. Doc also talked about why he refuses to simply shut up and dribble. Talks about the resiliency you have to have in life and in sports. That episode drops on Monday. Watch it and let me know what you think. You can scan the QR code on your screen and subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts. If you do that, you could listen to it earlier. You could listen to it right now if you want. Early access and ad free. We have one more break. We'll be right back. Thank you so much for letting us into your homes all week. This is Comedy Bang Bang the Podcast, the promo, and in 30 seconds I'm going to tell you why you should check out the show. I, the host, Scott Aukerman, have a light hearted conversation with famous celebrities like Jon Hamm, Allison Williams, Phoebe Bridgers, Jason Alexander, Natasha Lyonne, Bob Odenkirk, just to name a few things go a little off the rails, but when different eccentric characters and oddballs drop by to be interviewed as well. Each week is a blend of conversations and character work from your favorite comedians as well as some new hilarious voices. Comedy Bang Bang the Podcast Listen every Monday wherever you get your podcast.