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Deadline: White House
"The Big Lie again and again"
00:43:37
California has become the latest flashpoint in Donald Trump’s crusade against free and fair elections in this country.
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Literally transparent walls where anyone in Los Angeles, including Spencer Pratt or Donald Trump, if they want to come here, could come and look through the window to watch the ballots being tabulated. There are cameras in here 247 that are live streaming to the Internet. Bipartisan election observers have been here around the clock. The idea that anything is anything other than transparent in this building is belied by anybody who wants to come in here and look at it with their own eyes.
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D
That was last night. You'll see our magic in a second. Hi again everybody. It's five o' clock in New York. California has become the latest flashpoint in Donald Trump's delusional crusade against free and fair elections in our country. He's yet again spewing lies, spewing his big lie and claiming that elections are rigged without producing a scrap of evidence. As you just saw, our friend and colleague Jacob Soborough, who's right here at the table, visited a ballot processing center in Los Angeles to show what this looks like, to show our democracy in action, transparent and all, and to show that the ballot counters there are counting through glass windows. They obviously have nothing to hide. Last week, California held its primaries and it is widely known that that state can take days or even weeks to count all their ballots. So it was notable when last night a call was made in the Los Angeles mayoral race In November, Mayor Karen Bass will face off against progressive Democrat Nithya Raman. When polls first closed, Raman was behind on Election Day Republican Spencer Pratt. But as more of the mail in ballots were counted, Rahman pulled ahead yesterday before the race was even called. But when the margins were tightening, Trump did what Trump does and declared that Pratt's loss amounted to a rigging of the election, when in fact Los Angeles is a heavily Democratic city and Pratt's early lead was due to this thing we've talked about for years now, the Red Mirage. It's yet another example of Donald Trump calling any election where a Democrat wins fraudulent. Even though this is a local election, it could have huge national implications. As we head toward November's midterms, New York Times writes this quote, trump's fraud claims about California could matter, especially in November. The House majority rests on a thin margin with Republicans holding 218 seats to Democrats 213. After California voters approved Prop 50 in November, a constitutional amendment pushed by Governor Gavin Newsom to permit a redrawing of the state's congressional map, Democrats have a chance to flip as many as five Republican held seats, potentially enough to take the chamber. Many of those seats lie in the same Central Valley and Orange county districts whose ballots take days or weeks to tally. In other words, the races that may decide control of Congress could be counted in precisely the slow way Trump reflexively calls fraud. Donald Trump weaponizing the big lie yet again is where we begin the hour with some of our favorite experts and friends. Director of the Safeguarding Democracy Project at UCLA School of Law Rick Hossen is back with us. Also joining us, Media Matters for America President Angelo Carazone is here. And joining me at the table, senior national and political reporter Jacob Soboroff is here. We are excited that Jacob's new show, Connect with Jacob Soboroff premieres Saturday, June 13th. So explain the magic first. That was you on Rachel's show last night. And here you are.
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A
Red eye Travel is really messy.
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D
Red eye, red eye.
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A
My hair is always messy, but it's extra messy today after trying to sleep on the plane.
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D
I mean, you're the person that brings the receipts, I guess, right? Like on the. I mean, this is, this is ballot counting behind clear glass for the purposes of transparency, trying to put the truth in front of people who are so wedded to the lie that their eyes aren't even open. And I wonder what that reporting feels like.
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A
It just feels like facts on the ground, the military and diplomatic term. All you have to do is go look at it with your own eyes to understand the idea that California's elections are not slow counted because of a conspiracy, but because of bureaucracy. This is the way that it is supposed to work or democracy in action. And Donald Trump yesterday sat behind transparent, what I assume was bulletproof glass. At the knicks game with Mr. Dolan. I would Recommend you go check out the transparent glass in the ballot processing center in the city of Industry in California. It might even be bulletproof. I actually don't know because of the threats that election workers have been getting around the country to watch. Every single step of this process that is deliberate and designed because California, Los Angeles county in particular, has more registered voters than any election jurisdiction in the nation. It takes a long time to count votes when you are trying to get it right.
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D
But they don't say that there's fraud because they think there's fraud. I mean, we know from Lindsey Graham's closed door testimony in Georgia that they all knew there was no fraud. Mitch McConnell said, We're gonna let Trump cry it out. Bill Barr called it bullshit. Mr. Rosen, who replaced Bill Barr, threw his body between Trump and his people who were gonna help him try to steal the election. People were fired at U.S. attorney's office. I mean, we know that they all knew it was a lie and we know that Trump knew he had lost.
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A
Bill Eslay the I hope I'm saying that right. The U.S. attorney in California for Trump sent his deputies out to this facility last Friday and again yesterday. And I asked the election officials there, well, did they, you know, they keep saying there's an investigation underwear, have they subpoenaed documents or are they opening boxes of ballots? Are they, are they getting some kind of access in order to do this so called investigation? And the representative, the spokesperson for the LA County Registrar Recorder, County Clerk, almost laughed and said, no, they're standing in the same publicly available place that you are looking at publicly available data. Which is why Trump's U.S. attorney in the Central District of California, Los Angeles, put out a tweet over the weekend to say some of these conspiracy theories are false. He's already debunked some of the theories that Trump himself has put forward. Not because he has some special super secret access to what's going on behind the scenes, but because he's looking at the publicly available data that all of us, anybody who is watching us right now could go to the City of Industry, could say, I'm an election observer, I want to walk in there and I want to see how you do it here. And that is how transparent the process is in Los Angeles.
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D
But Rick, the big lie I think we've come to learn here, and I think this is the seventh year I've been covering the big lie isn't just about the fraudulent claim of rigged elections. It's also about Trump's views about who should have the right to vote in our country.
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F
Well, sure. You know, I want to look on the bright side of things, which is that Trump is making these claims when it doesn't really matter. Right. What really would matter is in November. So here we have Trump claiming fraud. Democrats must be pretty bad at it if Steve Hilton, the Republican, is likely to make it to the top two in the governor's race in California. We saw on Meet the Press this weekend Trump being repeatedly pressed to come up with evidence and he had really absolutely nothing. So I think this is a clarifying moment. Of course, some of his base is going to believe these claims, but any person who invests any time to actually see if these conspiracy theories have anything will know that there's nothing there. And so this effort by Trump is actually a kind of pre bunking. It's helpful because now we know exactly what his playbook could be and that there's nothing to it.
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D
We know that. And what's interesting, I feel like there's been so much attention around his tantrum with my former colleague Kristen Welker that the things he blurts out seem to reveal that he knows there's no evidence. It's just in his gut. Angela, let me play that for you again. This is Donald Trump storming off the set of a Meet the Press interview.
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Let me tell you, it's four days and they aren't even close to coming up.
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That's how they catch up.
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You know why they're doing that? Because they're cheating on the election.
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There's what do you have evidence to support?
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All I have to do is look, all I have to do is.
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D
That's not evidence.
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You know that I won an election in a landslide And I got 94 bad press. But Mr. President, you know why I got that? Because you have no credibility.
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But you've never presented evidence that it was rigged.
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Let's keep talking about.
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I want to talk about.
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Todd, you have more ev. More evidence than ever presented. Let's talk your elections in this country, we're like a third world country. Your elections are crooked and you're crooked. At least the press is crooked.
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Mr.
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So is ABC and CBS and CNN. But Mr. President, one sided, crooked network. So let's call it quits because I've had enough. Thank you, darling. Have a good time.
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D
Two things. Who's the you in your elections are crooked and you're crooked. But the second. So he's had nine years. It feels like nine. It's actually only six. Right? He said six years. He's had Tulsi Gabbard and now the Fannie Freddie guy about to take over. He's got Todd Blanchett doj, he's indicted Comey for Seashells, and he still cannot present a thimble full of evidence that there was any fraud in the 2020 election. Angela no, you can't.
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H
And I think the way that he reacted when he was pressed for evidence to sort of ending the interview in the way that he did, you know, there's a lot to be said about his emotions and getting frustrated and not being able to handle it. That's a whole story unto itself. But I think one of the key parts is that there's a decision that he made at that moment, which is that it was better to hit the eject button than to sit there and have to confront that particular type of pressing. Because this isn't about Spencer Pratt or trying to help Spencer Pratt. It's about keeping the machinery of misinformation warm, keeping the engine running. And that's the part, you know, I look at the trend line here and that's what alarms me because one, he's keeping it running, he's keeping the audience primed. And to your point, even though they haven't really produced anything credible or tangible, in fact, some of the most concrete stuff was that Fox News knew they were lying when they were carrying water for Donald Trump. And yet somehow that has all been memory hold. But he's keeping the audience sort of primed and more importantly, he's been moving the ball forward. So I'm so glad Jacob mentioned that point about the US Attorney there because he's gotten worse in the last couple of days as Trump continues to hammer away, at this point he is getting more extreme. So he was just on Glenn Beck's show yesterday promising charges, saying there will be charges brought, promising it, talking about the timeline for that being the certification. And you know, as Jacob notes, you know, they're not really doing an investigation ostensibly right now, but it doesn't matter because they are going to use the machinery of government, the power that they have, coupled with their misinformation engine, to create at best massive disruptions and doubt. And that was something a lot more destructive than that to our democracy. And that's really the. So what of all of this from my perspective?
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D
What do we have in terms of antibodies in the system, Rick, in sort of year six of dealing with Trump using his ever massive megaphone to spread a lie about fraud in our election, Something Bill Barr called, quote, bullshit.
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F
There are a lot of bulwarks. First, as Jacob pointed out, the very transparency of election officials, and it's not only at the tabulating centers, they're also on social media, participating, debunking claims. So that's one bulwark. Another bulwark is the courts. If there's going to be a seashells, like level of fraud allegations put forward, they're likely to not get anywhere. And so courts can serve as that bulwark. And then we, the American people, are that bulwark, too. Anyone who has the ability to look at evidence would know that there's nothing here. And so, although I am concerned, Trump could try to seize ballots, Trump could try to send troops. All of these things are going to face a tremendous amount of resistance if it happens in November. And so, you know, it's. We shouldn't think that just by him having a magic incantation of voter fraud that he suddenly gets power over our elections. He's powerless. Which is why I think you see him flailing in that Meet the Press interview.
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D
The other people flailing are the people who seem to be inside the MAGA tent but wanting to retain credibility in the real world. Let me show you Jay Clayton. He's a U.S. attorney for SDN on CNBC.
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On the integrity side, we're doing an absolutely terrible job, and the American people are right to question it. Do you think that it helps, given where you sit in the world, to speculate about fraud or potential fraud without any direct evidence of said fraud? Because typically, if you were to bring a case, wouldn't want to speculate about the case. I am not speculating about fraud. I'm not saying there is fraud. Okay. I am saying that the opportunity for fraud makes no sense to me when we can run a much better system. But you. But I only say that because the President over the weekend, very openly, he didn't just speculate that there was fraud, he said directly that there was fraud. We're all worried about the integrity of our voting system. Let's all agree that it can be improved dramatically.
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D
I mean, these people, to me, are the worst of the worst because they know that they're in this phony reality, right? So they're trying to not get fired by Trump. But he can't say what he said. And what he said was that
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on
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the integrity side, we're doing a terrible job, and the American people are right
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to question it, but he's not saying there's fraud.
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D
And you know who else said there was no fraud? Mike Pence, Bill Barr, Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, Republican Governor Ducey of Arizona, Republican Governor Kemp of Georgia, Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, I mean, Republican after Republican after Republican said there was no fraud in the 2020 election.
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A
Not only that, and I think I pointed this out yesterday with Rachel when I was in the vote processing center. This system that we use in Los Angeles is called vote centers. It's a place anybody can show up to any polling place and cast a ballot. You can drop your mail in, ballot off. And so many people have reached out to me, conspiracy theorists on social media saying, well, this is a Democratic implemented system and created for the purpose of overturning the will of the people and the results of the election. Vote Centers were created by Scott Doyle, the Republican county clerk in Larimer County, Colorado, in 2003 after the Help America Vote act in 2002. I was an election reform advocate at the time. I had met Rick Hasen for the first time 18 years ago when in Indiana. Voter ID then was a solution in search of a problem. It continues to be a solution in search of a problem. And they just seem to be getting more and more extreme about it, forgetting the lessons of the past that they have tried this before. It doesn't work. And what does work is fair, safe, reliable voting systems like the one we have in California.
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D
In 2000, after the Florida recount, former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker looked at fraud and found none.
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None. And I went to North Carolina with Katie Turwin. We did American swamp here on Ms. In 2019. They were yelling and screaming about needing voter ID and more restrictions on the vote. And when we asked the Republican on the, I think it was the legislature there to tell us how many instances of fraud there were. They were Republican instances of voter fraud. You could probably count them on a single hand. And they had nothing to do with Democrats.
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And Trump's DHS under Kristine Nam looked for fraud and found none.
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Over and over and over and over again. Where's Chris Krebs?
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D
You know, where's Chris Krebs when you need him? All right, no one's going anywhere. There's much more on Donald Trump's delusions about the big lie and attempts to weaponize it ahead of November's midterms. Also ahead for us, some alarming and harrowing new reporting from our friend Jacob about the number of children, toddlers and babies. Let that sink in. Toddlers and babies that the Trump administration has detained and held in ICE detention centers. The number is much higher than previously known and Jacob will bring that reporting to us and tell us what can be done about it later in the hour. The White House continues after a quick break. Don't go anywhere.
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D
We're back with Rick, Angelo and Jacob. So Angelo, we could build a mountain higher than Mount Everest. Of the facts, why do the lies still work?
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H
One, there's a narrative engine behind it that is continuing to distribute it. And then you have these ostensibly official actions that give it legitimacy. And at least in their minds, it's like you have a announcement of an investigation from the U.S. attorney that then gets cited in this larger sort of distribution engine, this right wing media echo chamber to make it a storyline. And so that's a big part of it. The big lie didn't get more true, okay? But it didn't get more armed. And I think that's the part that we shouldn't lose sight of. And the second thing, and it cuts both ways. In some ways it's Trump is a little weaker here, right? Because as we noted in the last segment, they're not repeating the Claims that Trump is making, you know, Speaker Johnson, John Thune, you know, the U.S. attorney in Southern District of New York, they're not repeating it, they're giving a watered down version of it. You know, one light, one little bit of water, like Speaker Johnson is to say, well, it just smells fishy. It seems weird, it's unsettling. Or Senator Thune, who says it's incompetence, a little more water. They're taking the big lie and they're diluting it, actually. So in a way, Trump is weaker. Right. That they're not reflexively just repeating the thing he's saying. But there's something more pernicious happening that we can't lose sight of. They're watering it down and distributing it more widely. And that's, that's what gives it some uplift as we go forward and then sort of put a bow on it. You know, at the same time that all this is happening, we should not lose sight of the fact that the DOJ shut down the command center that they typically stand up that's supposed to deal with midterm election threats. So they're out there screaming, fire and close the fire department.
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D
Yeah. I mean, Rick, there's so much of the infrastructure. I mean, Chris Krebs is now one of the people Donald Trump would like to weaponize his Department of Justice against. Viewers of my program know that he was the guy in charge of protecting our election from foreign interference. And he went on 60 Minutes and said, we did it. It was the, quote, most secure election in America's history. That's what got him fired. So you have to assume in 2.0 there are no more Chris Krebs. How does that actually play into Trump's diabolical scheme?
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F
Well, I do think the fact that both DOJ and cisa, the cybersecurity federal agency pulling back from helping state and local election officials, increases the chances of, say, foreign interference. We had back a few elections ago. Russia tried to break into voter registration databases in various states. This was back in 2016. The federal government was very helpful there. Now, unfortunately, I think if you're a local election official, the biggest threat to the integrity of the elections is federal government interference itself. So it's really an odd and tragic set of circumstances where local election officials have to protect themselves from the federal government. And it's really a situation where we, because our elections are decentralized in many ways, that's a weakness because we have so many different paths by which elections can be run. It's turning out to be a strength when you've got someone who wants to centralize power and actually rig the elections. You know, everything that Trump claims is happening by others is something he wants to do.
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D
Right. It's always a projection. I mean, I think the other piece is people at a local level tend to have more credibility than anyone in national politics.
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A
There's no doubt about it. Dean Logan, the registrar recorder, county clerk of Los Angeles County, I think today is a shining example of an official that will count the votes in a nonpartisan, bureaucratic way no matter what's happening. I said to him when I was there on Sunday, I have seen the Republicans take control of the House from this very facility. And I have seen a progressive Democrat overtake Spencer Pratt because of the slow and deliberate count in an election here just in the last couple of days, and he doesn't. It is never about the party inside a facility like that is always about the process. Always. And I mean, you know me, it's all about the people. It's not about the politics. To me, there are no better people than election workers in a facility like that who go in there under attack from the most powerful person in this country and sit there and count every vote fairly and accurately and in a
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D
secure way, sort of like the unsung heroes. Thank you for that reporting, Rick and Angelo, thank you so much. To be continued. I am sure when we come back, Jacob will bring us his brand new reporting on the staggering number of kids, some of them very, very little, under three, taken by ICE and detained in immigrant jails during Donald Trump's second term. The numbers are much higher than we previously knew. We'll bring you that reporting after a short break.
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- [26:05]
D
we have some breaking news to tell you about out of the Middle East. In the Last few minutes, U.S. central Command announced that they have launched, quote, self defense strikes against Iran. Those strikes are in retaliation for an Iranian strike that took down a US Apache helicopter. Centcom saying in a tweet this quote, the mission is a proportional response to unjustified Iranian aggression. Earlier today Donald Trump had said that the U.S. quote, must of necessity respond to this attack. Both crew members on that helicopter were rescued after the helicopter went down. More on that story as we get it. Now on to Jacob's reporting on the Trump administration's cruel immigration policies. They are well chronicled and documented at this point, but Ms. Now is out with exclusive new reporting on a disturbing trend that's happening at immigration detention centers all around our country impacting the youngest detainees. In the first partnership with the Marshall Project, my colleague Jacob Sobroff reports on how 500 babies and toddlers have been held in ICE detention since Donald Trump became president again last year. According to that reporting, quote, ICE has dramatically increased detentions of children age 3 and under, holding 25 of them in custody on an average day between January of 2025 and March of this year. That number is 10 times higher than it was in the previous 12 months under former President Joe Biden. Back then, on an average day, fewer than three babies and toddlers were held at facilities across the country. That age is a crucial time for the human brain to develop and concern is growing over the lifelong damage being done to those babies and toddlers. Jacob spoke to a couple who fled Russia over their opposition to the war in Ukraine, worried about what spending months at the daily detention center has done to their one year old son, Amir. Here they are speaking through translators.
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A
You left Russia because you didn't want to go to prison. Yet you get to the United States of America and you end up in a place that to you feels like a prison. What was that like for you? We came here to escape prison. We wanted to be free. But once we arrived in America, we spent four months in detention. Four months in detention.
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H
118 days to be exact.
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A
Gotcha. It's crazy to hold your son like this and look at this beautiful child in the face and think that for 118 days the three of you were locked up in a prison for families in the United States. I cannot imagine what it was like for you.
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D
It was very hard not knowing when they would let us go, where we
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would go or if they were going to deport us.
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D
Ms. Now and the Marshall Project reached out to dhs, but the agency declined to answer specific questions after we refused to provide identifying information about our sources. DHS and ICE did however, dismiss claims against Dilley, calling them, quote, media lies. Jacob Sobroff is still with me and joining our coverage. Former DHS official and White House advisor, founder of America's Promise and senior fellow at Forward US Andrea Flores. Jacob, take us through the reporting.
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A
Well, I first want to say how grateful I am to both Kay Guerrero, my colleague here at msnow and our partners at the Marshall Project. This is the first in a series of reporting partnerships that we're going to be doing with the Marshall Project. And along with the Marshall project we@MS. Now analyze data from the Deportation Data Project, publicly available data about this largest mass deportation effort in American history. And uncovered it was really plainly available for anyone to see. But it takes an in depth analysis like only the Marshall Project can do to see that 500 children, babies and toddlers have been detained by this administration since the very beginning. Many of them over the 20 day period under statute, the Florist settlement agreement that is allowed under law. The Biden administration didn't detain any children in this age group for that amount of time over 20 days. But our reporting found that so many of have been held like Amir, 118 days in the Dilley Detention center in Texas where I went with Congressman Joaquin Castro to see these conditions and the allegations of the situation inside that facility. We have heard so many people talk about this unsanitary conditions, improper food, access to baby formula but not clean water to go along with the baby formula. Little Amir, who you're looking at here, I went to visit in Sacramento, basically could only say the words mom and dad by the time he got out of there. Such a regression in his development as a little child. And remember during family separation they called it government sanctioned child abuse. They called it torture according to the UN Definition. That was Physicians for Human Rights. This is a different version of the same political strategy that really is just masking cruelty towards children. I think anybody who is a child welfare expert would tell you that. And these kids, and go read our story on MSNOWS now, right now, will have a lifetime of trauma because of what they're experiencing right now under this administration. All in the service of Donald Trump's political goals.
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D
Well, even the people that voted for him, I'd like to think, didn't vote for this. I mean, this was about criminals. This was about violence. The videos that he showed at his rallies before he came out and talked were about violent crimes carried out in American streets and cities. I mean, none of these families have committed any crimes, let alone violent crimes.
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A
How about this case? And it wasn't that hard to find. Alsu and Azat Amir's parents fled Russia because they were going to be political prisoners or opposing the war in Ukraine when they showed up here, ostensibly allies of this country and political asylum seekers, they were put into detention for four months and their child, according to them, was mistreated not just by the United States government, but by Corecivic, which is important to underline a for profit prison company detaining children and making money off of it. Of course, as you said, DHS and ICE and CoreCivic all say that this is a family friendly environment, that kids are treated well, that these are up to standards, that everybody's gonna be okay once they're inside there. But the facts that were uncovered in this investigation show that just on the numbers alone, kids are being held longer than they are supposed to under the law in a facility like this, whether they are treated well or not.
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D
Andrea, what is the best case scenario for how to shed light on what's happening to young kids and families?
- [32:55]
E
Well, I think that Congressman Joaquin Castro has been leading the way in exposing what's happening at a facility like the Dilley Family Detention Center. But I think the Democrats in this midterm year need to be far more direct and say that family detention is not necessary to enforce immigration law. And they really need to be doing a more unified call to shut that facility down because there is no legal reason that a family needed to have been in detention for over 100 days. We know that there is essentially no safe way to detain a child. And this is really just a well recorded aberration. As Jacob said, it's not hard to find these cases. And going back to what people voted for, what they didn't vote for to do mass deportations. It was always going to require mass detentions because it's part of the cycle to deport people. And so it's really going to get far worse before it gets better. So if you do not succeed in shutting down some of these facilities and also cutting some of these privatization, you know, looking at the contracts, really exposing the corruption of these contracts. This is a system that when I worked for the Obama administration, right, they got rid of private prison contracts in the federal prisons, but they left them in immigration detention centers. So there is work to be done if Democrats are going to regain power. But I think a first basic ask is to close Dilling.
- [34:21]
D
What do you know from these interviews in your reporting about what else is going on?
- [34:26]
A
The bottom line is when they're inside these facilities, it's a circumstance that I don't think anybody who as a parent of a child at any age would want to be in. The allegations include lights being on overnight. Al Suah and Azad said they had to steal food in order to feed baby Amir so that he was nourished enough because the food that they were getting was not appropriate, age appropriate for the child. The bedding situation, you know, you name it, they could tell you that it wasn't what the type of care, more custody that they would want to put their child in. And like I said when I was sitting there across from them in Sacramento, look at this beautiful boy. The idea that a child, I mean, let's just slow down and say it. The fact that we have prisons and jails for families in the United States of America, it's insane. Is an insane thing to say. And these people are here to seek political asylum because they feel like they will be thrown into a place like this ultimately. So this weekend on Saturday, we're gonna run Almost the entire 17 minute report on my starting at 10am on the east coast because we feel like it's so important for people to spend time with us and sit in it, really marinate it. Look at what Joaquin Castro is doing by bringing his colleagues down there over and over again. He has gone in to try to pull individual cases kids out of this facility. But there are still children as we sit here, 25 on average a day that are locked up in immigration custody. And that still is going on and we only have data up until March of this year. We don't know what has happened Trump since March. And that's why we're going to continue to dig on it.
- [36:02]
D
Andrea, I take your point. About Democrats, but Republicans are the ones who vote to continue to fund these centers. I mean, what is the I asked you about the best case scenario. I mean, what is the best case scenario for holding Republicans accountable for something more cruel than even what Trump did in the first term?
- [36:19]
E
Well, Republicans shouldn't be in the House, should not be funding the president's budget requests to give even, you know, a huge historic sum for the next two years to ice to continue to run these contracts. But they're going to Senate Republicans. Did they put in no accountability features for these family detention facilities, which isn't a surprise because while we're talking about detention, this administration is doing something we've never seen in the immigration detention context, which is they call it a choice because their goal is not to make the conditions livable or adhere to legal standards. Their goal is to make them so miserable that people self deport. They put that in every statement. They say detention is a choice. You can leave. And so this is how they're really putting the pressure on families. And so Republicans, once again, this is a midterm election year. It's why Democrats do need to crank up that contrast because Republicans are about to vote to fund and expand this type of system into warehouses, into other facilities that are even less fit than dilly to hold children. So I keep saying this will get worse because there are unfettered resources that Republicans are giving to Trump for mass deportations. And so I think voters really need to understand what that means going forward.
- [37:35]
D
So important, such an important point. Andrea Flores, thank you, Jacob. Thanks for your reporting. Congratulations on your new show. We're only watching to read more from Jacob's new series, America's Youngest Detainees in collaboration with the Marshall Project. You just scan that QR code on your screen right now and be sure to watch the full report during the premiere of Jacob's new show, Kynek, this Saturday at 10am Eastern. I'm so excited for you. I'm so excited for this.
- [38:00]
A
I can't wait. Thank you.
- [38:02]
D
Are you going to be out there with everybody like you always are walking and talking about?
- [38:06]
A
This will be a show about the people as much as anything else.
- [38:08]
D
If you ever need a sidekick to the threadiest, you can walk.
- [38:11]
A
You better be careful.
- [38:12]
D
I'm going to hit you up anytime. I'll be at the sidelines of a baseball game, but I'm, I'm always available to you.
- [38:17]
A
That's a deal.
- [38:18]
D
When we come back, an extraordinary story of a group of Ukrainian teenagers competing against some of the world's best and brightest other young people. We'll bring it to you after a short break. Stay with us. More than four years ago now, Russia launched a brutal, illegal and unprovoked war against Ukraine. And virtually every day since it has been met by the undeterred strength and resilience and ingenuity of the Ukrainian people and their military. Despite an unimaginable toll on the country's youngest citizens, their children who have lost parents and been displaced from their homes and their schools, there are real signs of resilience and glimmers of hope for Ukraine's future. We're seeing that once again this week in an extraordinary way. 39 high school students from Ukraine are here in the U.S. they're in Rochester, New York for the International Genius Olympiad, an international high school competition between some of the world's brightest teenagers. I want to bring in Dr. Erwin Redleenner who is joining us from Rochester. He co founded the nonprofit Ukraine Children's Action Project in the aftermath of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. And with Dr. Redlener is the star of this segment, 16 year old Nicole from Kyiv. Thank you so much for being here, you guys. Dr. Redland, are you first? What are you seeing and why are the Ukrainian teenagers able to continue to compete with the best of the best as this brutal war rages on?
- [39:54]
B
Yeah, really, it's quite incredible, Nicole. You know, we were here two years ago and the Ukrainian team ran away with prizes and awards here. And what it shows me is that that the promise of Ukraine is going to be fulfilled by these children, the next generation, who are just as innovative and will shape the future as much as their, their parents do. And this reflects a point that I think Americans should understand that Ukraine is extraordinarily resilient. It is extraordinarily innovative and smart. And they've been recognized now as really holding the line for democracy against basically a geopolitical bully that has invaded their sovereign territory. And Ukrainians will have nothing to do with this. They don't want to give up an inch of Ukrainian space, no matter how much pressure from Vance and some other international leaders are posing. But Nicole here is really a heroine and will help Ukraine recover after this horrendous war. And Ukraine will be one of the leading countries in the world economically and scientifically and technologically.
- [41:09]
D
Nicole, tell us about, tell us about your project.
- [41:14]
I
My project is speech. I'm talking about the extinction. And I think it's a very crucial and important topic to share that many people should know because it's just what we face. And maybe if right now it's not very affects all of us in the future.
- [41:30]
E
Sure it will.
- [41:32]
D
Nicole, what is it that people need to understand about? I've interviewed a lot of Ukrainians over the last four years and everyone has a different story about how the war has affected them, but everyone has the same sort of steely resilience. Where does that come from?
- [41:51]
I
I think that's just in our blood and I think it's the way the history shaped us because throughout so many years we faced a lot of.
- [42:00]
E
Yeah.
- [42:00]
I
In some way, how you said, geopolitical bullies because Russia for a very long time been trying their best to stop Ukraine's existence and to make us believe we're Russians and there's no such thing as Ukraine.
- [42:13]
D
Nicole, what do the Ukrainian people need from your many, many friends in America?
- [42:20]
I
I think it's support. I know there's so many amazing people just like you and it's incredible to know there's such support.
- [42:30]
A
Yeah.
- [42:30]
I
Just remember that the war is still on and how grateful we are for having such an incredible people there in Ukraine who allow us, like me personally, all us who were able to come here to fight for this honestly, amazing opportunities that we have. And we're so grateful that they spent all their time, their holidays and work there to give us such an incredible opportunity.
- [42:55]
D
Nicole, next time you're in New York, please come sit at our table and talk to us some more and stay in touch with us. It's very nice to get to meet you and we thank Dr. Redliner for the opportunity to talk to you. Thank you both.
- [43:07]
I
Thank you.
- [43:08]
D
Thanks, Nicole. You can learn more about the Ukraine Children Actions Project at ucap. Help the latest on the breaking news from the Middle east, those new strikes on Iran. We'll have that update for you after a very short break. Stay with us. We're now on those new U.S. military strikes against Iran we reported on earlier this hour. ABC's Jonathan Karl says he was on the phone with Donald Trump, as journalists often are as CENTCOM announces new strikes. On that phone call, Trump told Carl this, quote, this is a response to what they did with our helicopter last night. And I believe the response should be very strong, very powerful. And that's what this one is, end quote. I want to bring in Washington correspondent host of the Weekend am Jackie Alemani joining us from the White House. Jackie, what do you know?
- [44:01]
G
Hey, Nicole. Well, this is still quickly developing. We don't know all that much yet other than what CENTCOM has put out there and what the President told John Carl as these retaliatory strikes were occurring. But CENTCOM released a statement on X saying that the mission is a proportional response to unjustified Iranian aggression. Again, this Is according to U.S. central Command. They also added that airstrikes were launched at 5pm Eastern. But this comes amid a period when the President has repeatedly said that the US Is close to nearing a deal with Iran, something we have heard now for throughout the course of the 101 day war that the President also said would end within four to six weeks. We've obviously blown past that deadline and but earlier in the day the President was forecasting that the U.S. would potentially be retaliating for this attack on an Apache helicopter, which the U.S. service Member Pilot did ultimately survive. We also know that as well. But earlier Trump had blasted Iran for shooting down the aircraft and said that the US must of necessity respond to this attack. Obviously over the past few months we have sort of had these starts and stops and along with the President's threats to resume hostilities and these military operations towards Iran, our regional allies have for the most part up until today, walked him back from doing that, urging him to continue to be committed to the diplomatic negotiations in order to reach a deal. But the President has become impatient and it's unclear whether or not this attack on US Servicemember and the US Military maybe was just a pretext for the President to launch an attack to try to speed up some of the stalled negotiations. As again, we have been at a stasis here. It's something we're going to be watching closely and hopefully we'll get more information soon.
- [46:00]
D
Donald Trump was very defensive. In an interview with our former colleague Kristen Welker, the word Vietnam came out of his mouth inexplicably a few times. Scott Bessant, the Treasury Secretary, Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, said the war was over. How does the White House square those two things? Their Cabinet saying it's over and CENTCOM announcing a new round of strikes.
- [46:22]
G
That is the million dollar question and the key question heading into the November midterms. I mean, and it's pretty typical of this administration saying one thing, repeating the false narrative over and over and over again, regardless of what the reality of the situation is, which is that we are in the middle of a war, whether or not hostilities are escalated and there's sort of active fighting or not. This action today also comes on the heels, we should note, of the House and Senate both separately passing different war powers resolutions, acts to curb in the President's passage power. Obviously, nothing has made it to the president's desk yet. And whether it does or not, it might not ultimately sway him. But. Yeah, Nicole, I mean, that is a, that is a pattern that we have been watching with many different things of this presidency, but has been at the forefront when it comes to the war with Iran.
- [47:20]
D
You're right. Patterns that you and I have been talking about for years now. Jackie, thank you so much for jumping on the air to report on this for us. We're really grateful. One more break. We'll be right back. Thank you so much for letting us into your homes. We're grateful.
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