← The Briefing with Jen Psaki
The Briefing with Jen Psaki
Psaki: No one home at the White House but the man-children
00:41:30
Jen Psaki looks at the myriad ways Donald Trump and members of his administration are indulging reckless, juvenile ideas with no one pushing back to force a re-thinking. Miles Taylor, former chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security during Donald Trump's first term, joins to share his experience of why it's so bad that there are no grown-ups in the White House in Trump's second term.
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- [00:00]
Jen Psaki
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- [01:01]
Chris Hayes
I have asked this question many times in the last year. It's almost become a bit of a cliche, I guess. But sometimes Donald Trump does something so completely bizarre, so eye popping, so outside the role of an American president that it just prompts me to ask this question again. I mean, what would have happened if a Democratic president did this? Again, this is an evergreen question. And today Donald Trump is once again forcing us to ask that oft repeated question. Because I am genuinely curious. I truly, truly want to know what would have happened if Joe Biden or Barack Obama, or frankly any president before the mirror in between them, stood before a national audience and suggested we change the name of American football to appease a European based soccer league.
- [01:52]
Donald Trump
When you look at what has happened to football in the United States, again, soccer in the United States, we seem to never call it that because we have a little bit of a conflict with another thing that's called football. But when you think about it, shouldn't it really be called, I mean, this is football. There's no question about we have to come up with another name for this.
- [02:14]
It really doesn't make sense when you think about it. This is really football.
- [02:19]
Chris Hayes
That is again, the leader of the Republican Party, a party that once tried to change the name of French Fries to Freedom Fries. Remember that? Just to spite the nation of France in that case, suggesting that American football give up its name to accommodate soccer. Now the backstory of this whole episode also is even crazier because the reason Trump was on that stage ranting about changing the name of the most popular sport in America was so he could accept a made up peace Prize from the notoriously corrupt soccer organization FIFA. Actually, I take that back because FIFA actually gave the president two made up awards today. One big trophy. We can see it on your screen right there. And what looked like a big gold coin taped to a lanyard cable, I guess, thing what's around his neck there. It was all a part of what they are calling the FIFA Peace Prize. In a word, that is not a real thing and never existed before this year and was clearly just invented to make Trump feel good about himself. Never mind the fact that the organization handing out this so called peace prize has been accused of everything from corruption and bribery to abusing migrant workers building soccer stadiums in the Middle East. That's the organization that gave it out. Which basically means that, I mean, the irony is, doesn't even begin to tell the story here. It's completely crazy and totally ironic. But this is how Donald Trump treats the American presidency these days. He's slapping his name on the US Institute of Peace to feed his already overinflated ego. He's changing the architect for his new White House ballroom, another absurd vanity project occupying all of his time. He's attending what is essentially a private concert by the Village People and doing that kind of weird little dance he does that I just can't even recreate whatever's happening on the screen right now. And when all of that tuckers him out, and it seems to be tuckering him out, he enjoys dozing off in the middle of cabinet meetings and all of that. Everything I just showed you was just within the past week. The past week. POLITICO's Jonathan Martin summed it up pretty perfectly in his piece, the President who Never Grew Up. Martin wrote that quote, trump has turned the office into an adult fantasy camp. A Tom Hanks and big ice cream for dinner escapade posing as a presidency is pretty good, let's be honest. That seems to be how Trump always envisioned the presidency, even back in his first term. It's kind of always how he wanted it to be. But here's the thing. Back then, when Trump wanted to indulge his inner man child, he had a crew of far more competent handlers around to make sure that someone was still running the country. I mean, you could rest a little easier knowing there were at least a few grownups, especially in the national security space, around who could keep a handle on things. And if the little boy snapped awake occasionally or took a break from playtime with a big, bright idea, they could at times find a way to stop him. When Trump proposed court martialing two decorated military leaders, for example, just for criticizing him, his defense secretary stepped in and said, you know, let's, let's maybe not do that. When Trump raised the question of what would happen if the military started shooting protesters in the legs, Trump's defense secretary again told him, hey, that's a bad idea. And when Trump wanted to fire missiles at suspected drug dealers south of the US Border, his defense secretary said, maybe, maybe let's not violate international law. But that was then and this is now.
- [05:49]
Jen Psaki
We also don't fight with stupid rules of engagement.
- [05:52]
Michael Feinberg
We untie the hands of our war fighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt and kill.
- [05:57]
Jen Psaki
The enemies of our country.
- [06:00]
Michael Feinberg
No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement.
- [06:04]
Jen Psaki
Just common sense.
- [06:06]
Michael Feinberg
Maximum lethality and authority for warfighters.
- [06:11]
Chris Hayes
Maximum lethality. That guy. The former Fox News weekend host decrying the stupid rules of engagement for armed conflict, has spent the past week embroiled in scandal over his department's apparent decision to defy those very rules. Every day, we learn new, harrowing details about the Trump administration's decision to launch missile attacks on boats in the Caribbean, which many experts believe could amount to war crimes. And then just today, we got even more new details about one of those strikes. And I'm going to get to that later in this hour. But what's important to note here is that Pete Hegseth is enabling Donald Trump in every way that his predecessors would not. This time, when Trump says he wants to court martial critics like Senator Mark Kelly, Pete Hegseth says, yeah, sure thing. Why not? When a Democratic senator asked if Pete Hegseth would follow a Trump order to shoot protesters in the legs, Hegseth won't rule it out. And when Trump again asks to carry out extrajudicial strikes in the Western Hemisphere, Pete Hegseth says, great idea. I'll go do that. That's what happens when the man child in the White House taps another man child to run the Department of Defense. And here's the other problem. Trump's cabinet members aren't just indulging his juvenile impulses. They're indulging their own. Like, say, Trump's FBI Director, Kash Patel. I mean, for weeks, Patel has faced mounting scrutiny over his decision to turn America's premier law enforcement agency into his own personal concierge Service. Using the FBI jet for date night with his 27 year old girlfriend and to hang with his bros at something that's literally called Boondoggle Ranch. I mean, you'd think he could find a different ranch, even though it's clearly a boondoggle. He's also given his 27 year old girlfriend her own dedicated security detail. That's not a thing that happens. But today we also learned that Patel's misuse of government resources goes even further. According to new reporting from MSNOW's Carol Lennig and Kinselinian Kash Patel has on more than one occasion ordered that the security detail protecting his 27 year old girlfriend escort one of her allegedly inebriated friends home after a night of partying in Nashville, according to three people with knowledge of the incidents. In other words, Kash Patel is making career FBI agents act as chauffeurs for the supposedly drunk woman he is dating, just to just put a fine point on it all. And when agents objected to being diverted from their assignments, which is understandable, Kash Patel insisted they follow his girlfriend's request. On one occasion, he even called the leader of the security detail and yelled at him, according to those three sources.
- [08:46]
There used to be people in Trump's orbit who would push back on these kinds of things, but today those people are gone and all we seem to be left with is is man children enabling man children enabling their Gen Z's girlfriends, drunk bff. That's where we are. How does a dedicated public servant or a career military officer or just anyone willing to act like an adult push back on all of this? That's a big question. And I have just the person to ask. Joining us now is Miles Taylor. He was chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security during Donald Trump's first term in office. He's now co founder of Defiance.
- [09:23]
We have talked about this before, just about the differences between the second term and the first term. I mean, you were part of the effort, of course, as everybody knows, well, to push back on Trump in his first term. And now it's obvious. It's very obvious. Every week that passes, it's more and more obvious that those guardrails are completely gone. Talk to me about what has stuck out to you over the past couple of weeks. To me, there's incompetent people, there's Trump feeling unleashed. What has really stuck out to you?
- [09:53]
Jen Psaki
Well, I mean, look, Jen, start with the fact that in the first term we even had to say that there were so called adults in the room. I mean, that in and of itself should tell you everything you need to know about Donald Trump. And look, I didn't know him well personally when I came into that administration. I met him once during the transition period and then like most of his cabinet and sub cabinet officials got to know him in meetings and witnessing his decision making. And they, like me, tended to find that he was the most undisciplined and impulsive and uninformed and sloppy, confused and often cruel person most of them had ever met in their life. And that's why that term adults in the room emerged, because you have a person like that, they require some kind of supervision, not to stop them from doing the things they're allowed to do lawfully, but to keep them from breaking the law. The thing that Donald Trump has said the past few weeks is sedition is the thing most of us think is what public servants should do, speak truth to power and refuse to do illegal things. And if that's seditious, by the way, Jen, then I'm guilty of sedition because we did refuse to do illegal things. You don't break the law for the president. But watching the past couple weeks and given your intro tonight, Jen, I mean, it strikes me that if you try to sum up what this second term has looked like by the numbers, you are seeing on average, more than one revenge action a day from this man. There have been dozens of constitutional violations according to the courts. There have been hundreds of illegal acts, according to the courts. There have been thousands of questionable, questionable pardons, as you and Chris Hayes noted, and hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer money that has been allegedly pilfered for his own benefit, to say nothing of the billions of dollars that are being wasted to try to turn this country from a shining city on a hill to a fortified bunker in a mountain. So I would say, Jen, the question is, how's that for making America great again? Because that's what this man has achieved.
- [12:02]
Chris Hayes
One of the other things that's been striking, it feels to me more than it was in the first term is Trump's consistently saying he's basically out of the loop. I mean, he was asked about the strikes on Wednesday, which is five days after the reporting first came out. He still oddly sounded out of the loop. I just wanna play that for you again.
- [12:23]
Donald Trump
As far as the attack is concerned, I didn't, you know, I still haven't gotten a lot of information. Cuz I rely on Pete.
- [12:31]
Chris Hayes
I mean, he basically says he didn't have the information because he relies on Pete Hegseth. I don't know if we believe that, if it's punting, if he's using Hegseth as the scapegoat. What do you make of all of that?
- [12:46]
Jen Psaki
Well, sometimes, Jen, he's lying. Sometimes he's lying because he doesn't want to be caught doing something unlawful. He doesn't want to be tied to something. Even that's just going to be unpopular. But sometimes it's also because he's just that uninformed. I mean, the man didn't read. I mean, this was one of the first problems in the first month that I was there is I thought it was a joke when someone told me, hey, you know, you can't send that five page memo up to the White House. I thought, five pages, that was pretty, you know, it was pretty good. We cut this thing down from 60 pages. They said, no, you can't take that into the Oval unless it's a page and it better have a graphic on it. And in fact, you're in even better shape if you just have one point in written word, maybe a sentence and a graphic. We're not talking about a high school football coach. We're talking about the President of the United States and some of the most complex issues we're facing, like airstrikes against military targets. You really can't sum up very well in one bullet point and a picture. But I mean, I could tell you story after story about how that's what we had to do. We had to prep with basically a coloring book before going into the Oval Office. People should, they can laugh for a moment about that, but they should be mad about that. They should be pissed off that the President of the United States is so disengaged that he can't dial into the details. Because the details, as you know better than anyone, Jen, are where policy is made. The details are where are life and death. And so Donald Trump will conveniently not dig into the details, either to avoid accountability or just because he's checked out.
- [14:12]
Chris Hayes
Well, he's involved in the details of the architecture, so we can, I guess, give him credit for that, I suppose. But you're right, it is. At moments it's funny, but it's also horrifying. And I think that's an important thing to restate. You know, Kash Patel and Pete Hegseth, the two of them both have had a series of, well, what would be kind of debilitating, completely embarrassing career ending events over the past couple of weeks. Yet they're still there. Obviously they're loyal to Trump. Is that it or why do you think they're still there?
- [14:45]
Jen Psaki
Oh, I think it's the loyalty. I mean, it's the fact that both of these men have shown themselves fully willing to do Whatever the president wants, including things that. That are known to be illegal. I mean, just take the strikes, for instance, Jen. This isn't a new development that the administration is grappling with, whether or not these strikes are lawful. Okay. I told Stephen Miller seven years ago that it would be illegal to do something like this seven years ago. They've known for at least seven years. I can't have been the only person they floated this idea of blowing up unarmed civilians and boats to. I can't have been the only person. But if I was, they received that warning, and they've spent at least part of that time trying to figure out how to get around the law to effectively murder people. And the genius solution that they've come up with under Pete Hegseth's leadership is to say, well, we're not targeting the people, we're just targeting the boats. And if we happen to kill the people, that's collateral damage. I mean, that's lazy at best and criminal at worst. And so you ask, you know, why does he keep someone like that around? Because it takes that type of person to do the extraordinary logic leaps that have been done to get to such an obvious criminal decision as these airstrikes. And so I think despite the fact that there are people in the White House and other agencies who want to see folks like Hegseth go and who want to see folks like Kash Patel go. And on Capitol Hill, the president's going to keep them around because he knows these are the best yes men he's ever had.
- [16:20]
Chris Hayes
They're operating under assumption no one's going to ask questions in the military or in Congress or in the media or anywhere, which is not the case. Miles Taylor, thank you as always for joining me. I really appreciate it. We've got to sneak in a very quick break, but coming up. Thank you. But coming up, if you thought Pete Hegseth's airstrikes were illegal before, and we were obviously just talking about that, just wait until they tell you about the new reporting we got today. The survivors were waving. That's a part of it. I'm going to tell you more. Jeh Johnson has served in many big jobs in the U.S. government. Among them, the top lawyer of the Department of Defense. There's literally no one better to talk to about this story. And he joins me here at the table when we come back.
- [17:04]
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- [17:35]
Jen Psaki
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- [17:59]
Jen Psaki
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- [18:44]
Chris Hayes
A big part of the justification for Trump's so called drug war. I mean, the reason, one of the main reasons why the United States military carried out a boat strike last September that killed 11 people without any due process. The reason why that was all okay again, according to the White House, was because those people were transporting illegal drugs into the United States. That's what they said. Well, guess what? Earlier tonight, CNN reporting cast some major doubt on that justification. According to cnn, Admiral Frank Bradley, who oversaw the, told lawmakers yesterday that while it was possible they could eventually end up in the United States, the alleged drug traffickers were attempting to link up with another larger boat bound for Suriname, a small South American country east of Venezuela. So just to get this straight, the idea is that drugs on this boat were on their way to another boat near a small island, and that at some point in the future, maybe they could possibly make their way to the U.S.
- [19:42]
I mean, that's it. This comes as multiple people who viewed footage of the boat strike tell the New York Times that the two survivors of the initial strike waved something overhead as they clung to the wreckage for their lives. And according to the Times, some of the people viewing the video thought the waving by the survivors could have been an attempt to surrender. But as we know, the Pentagon ordered a subsequent strike and killed them. And unfortunately, as shocking as all of this is, and it should be, it also shouldn't really be a surprise considering who is leading the Pentagon right now. I mean, even before his Senate confirmation hearing, when he was still a weekend morning host for Fox News, Pete Hexseth published a book called the War on Warriors in which he complained incessantly about how the quote woke military, as he called it, needed to restore a warrior ethos. What exactly does that mean, you ask? Well, in his book, Hegseth answers that question by asking his own. Here's what he when you send Americans to war, their mandate should be to lethally dominate the battlefield. Should we follow the Geneva Conventions? What if we treated the enemy the way they treated us? Makes me wonder in 2024, if you want to win, how can anyone write universal rules about killing other people in open conflict? There it is, right there in black and white by the secretary of Defense. And so when a Fox News host who is hyper fixated on killing gets promoted to what he now calls the secretary of War, I suppose it's not that shocking to see stuff like this. If when you see an on screen is defense, what you're seeing on your screen right now, I should say is Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth seemingly taking requests online from conservative activists to sink more boats and execute more people.
- [21:25]
Without any due process. And the reason why this is all such a big deal is because of one very simple and undeniable fact. It puts our troops in harm's way. That's why there are rules of engagement. Joining me now is Jeh Johnson, former top lawyer at the Pentagon and the former secretary of Homeland Security. I'm so grateful you could be here. I cannot think of anyone who can help us understand this better. Let me just start by getting your reaction.
- [21:49]
Jeh Johnson
I'll do my best.
- [21:50]
Chris Hayes
Well, I set you up a little bit there, right? But you do know a lot about these issues. Let me just start by getting your reaction to the latest developments in this story. How Admiral Bradley, during his briefing yesterday, reportedly told lawmakers this alleged drug boat was not headed for the US and that two survivors who were later killed possibly waved to surrender and be rescued.
- [22:10]
Jeh Johnson
Public hearings, public congressional committee hearings with witnesses under oath, released the video of the strike on September 2nd so that you and I don't have to depend on secondhand hearsay about what somebody supposedly said behind closed doors in a briefing to Congress. This situation demands that the administration, our Government release publicly the video. They're very anxious, they're very happy to release the video of the first tap. So what about the second tap? That's no more classified than the first tap. And we have congressional hearings about all kinds of things. I cannot think of anything more important right now for Congress to insist upon is that witnesses involved in this undeclared illegal war come before Congress and the American public under oath, to explain their actions, to explain the legality of their actions, to explain exactly what happened on September 2, who ordered what and when, and show the American public this video. I think the American public should insist upon it. I think the American public has a right to see what we are doing, extrajudicial killings in the name of the United States.
- [23:29]
Chris Hayes
And you want, and I just double tap on this, which is that it's important for people to testify publicly because then you see the whole context of it and it's not piecemealed by anyone.
- [23:39]
Jeh Johnson
Publicly and under oath and under oath. I've been in these behind closed door briefings and it's a bit chaotic because you have all these members of Congress who are impatient and have to go to the next vote and you can basically, you know, BS your way through it. Public hearings under oath are very different.
- [23:58]
Chris Hayes
That is different. There's this larger question here, and Charlie Savage raised this question. Others have raised this question about whether the United States military should be using wartime authority for alleged or suspected drug smuggling, which has long been considered a criminal process. And you know this well from the many roles you've had in the past. That's the larger question here. Beyond this first and second strike, what do you think about that?
- [24:22]
Jeh Johnson
Well, the answer is no.
- [24:26]
Wartime authority, the US Military, targeted strikes, drone strikes should never be a convenient substitute for law enforcement.
- [24:37]
After 9 11, we were attacked by Al Qaeda. The Taliban harbored Al Qaeda. Congress gave the executive branch the wartime authority to go after these guys and use lethal force and treat Al Qaeda, treat terrorist organizations responsible for 911 as if they were enemy combatants, which is what we did in successive Republican and Democratic administrations. Implicit in that is that terrorist organizations harboring, hiding in Afghanistan, places like Yemen, Somalia, are beyond the reach of law enforcement. You cannot take criminal activity and all of a sudden declare it to be a war situation here. These people are not beyond the law. El Chapo, the drug kingpin from Mexico, is sitting in a US Jail after having been put, prosecuted and convicted in a US Court. The former president of Honduras was convicted sitting in a US Jail before President Trump let him out the US Coast Guard, with the aid of the US Navy, routinely catches these guys on the high seas and arrests them and brings them to justice. Hence, the term extrajudicial killing is appropriate in this context. And let's point out, by the way, that these drug couriers on the high seas are basically low level schleps who've been coerced into this very high risk activity. Some of them, most of them are probably even not even members of any drug cartel. They've been pressed into doing this. And we're killing them, though we could capture them and bring them to justice.
- [26:21]
Chris Hayes
In the US and even learn more. You have been part of these discussions.
- [26:26]
Jeh Johnson
And Congress has declared none of this. By the way, Congress has authorized none of this.
- [26:29]
Chris Hayes
No, a very important point. You have been a part of so many discussions, given your past roles, about the legality of military action, about using the use of force with President Obama. What were those conversations like? What were bring us kind of inside of the room of that, because it seems so perplexing that Trump is not aware of any of this, that these considerations are not really being discussed at that level.
- [26:59]
Jeh Johnson
There are always difficult discussions.
- [27:02]
Giving the legal sign off for a counterterrorism operation is never easy. I personally watched the aerial surveillance of just about every operation I authorized. And it's something you should never get used to. You should never.
- [27:20]
Applaud it. You should never be happy about it. You should never proclaim we kill people, rename the Department of Defense the Department of War. You know, one of the points I think you were alluding to, Jen, is when you have a Secretary of Defense who seems to revel in and glorify killing, and referring to rules of engagement as stupid, you create a permission structure for abuses of authority, excess abuses of authority, and make something like what happened on September 2nd virtually inevitable. And in the Obama years, were we perfect? No. I'm convinced. However, we, through our counterterrorism operations, we made America safer. We interdicted a lot of terrorist plots. Were we perfect? No. We worked hard to make it better. And President Obama wanted lots of lawyers around to have robust debates about what we were doing to get at the right result. You know, books have been written about some of the heated debates that Harold Koh, the State Department and I used to have about are we getting this right? Could we do better? And we were transparent in speeches that I gave, that Eric Holder gave, and others about what we were doing so that the American public and legal scholars outside the administration could judge for themselves what they're doing here? The supposed legal authorization for all this is in an OLC memo that is classified, which could probably be declassified because constitutional law is not classified. And I think that this administration, this government, owes the public a much better explanation for extrajudicial killing on the high seas.
- [29:13]
Chris Hayes
Secretary Jeh Johnson, I think you met the bar I set for you, but I'm grateful you were here. Thank you so much.
- [29:18]
Jeh Johnson
Thank you.
- [29:19]
Chris Hayes
All right. Coming up, when Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva tried to investigate an immigration raid today, ICE agents responded with pepper spray. She's going to join me live in just a few minutes and we'll talk about what happened today. But first, the new revelations about the suspect who allegedly placed pipe bombs in D.C. before the January 6th interrection. We'll talk about those. And those revelations go against the narrative once pushed by FBI Director Cash Patel. More on that after a quick break.
- [29:50]
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- [30:20]
Jen Psaki
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- [30:24]
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- [30:45]
Jen Psaki
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- [31:19]
Chris Hayes
Today, the January 6th pipe bomb suspect made his first court appearance. And during that appearance we learned that he has been cooperating with investigators and that he spoke with them for more than four hours yesterday. And that four hour conversation appears to have completely blown apart the conspiracy theories that FBI Director Patel and his deputy Dan Bongino had long peddled prior to getting their jobs in the administration.
- [31:45]
Jen Psaki
There's a reason the government gangsters at the FBI under Chris Wray are hiding this information about this investigation. If the allegations are true that there is a bomber in the United States of America running wild who tried to blow up a Vice President elected the United States. And in the flip side, if the allegations aren't true or there was some government ruse or some FBI rogue source.
- [32:08]
Donald Trump
There is a massive cover up because the person who planted those pipe bombs, they don't want you to know who it was because it's either a connected anti Trump insider or this was an inside job. Those bombs were planted there. This was a setup. I have zero doubt.
- [32:30]
Chris Hayes
So keep that all in your mind because that's what many in MAGA conspiracy land pushed for years. But according to new reporting from Ms. Now, the man who confessed to the FBI that he planted the bombs, who was of course charged, told the FBI he supported Donald Trump and believed Trump won the 2020 election. And by the way, Trump's top prosecutor in D.C. jeanine Pirro, downplayed that a bit today, saying the suspect was disappointed in various aspects of the election. MsNow also reports that investigators found social media posts in which the suspect appeared to express anarchist leanings. That all sounds very far, very, very far from the inside man conspiracies Patel and Bongino. Push that I just played. And last night on Fox News, Dan Bongino admitted as much.
- [33:17]
Donald Trump
You put a post on X right after this happened and you said there's a massive cover up because the person that planted those pipe bombs, they don't want you to know who it is because it's either a connected anti Trump insider or an inside job. Listen, I was paid in the past, Sean, for my opinions, that's clear. And one day I'll be back in that space. But that's not what I'm paid for. Now I'm paid to be your deputy director.
- [33:43]
Chris Hayes
So when you are paid to push conspiracy theories, it's all good, I guess. But when you're on the government payroll, you're willing to maybe take a brief hiatus from that. Got it? That's what he just told us. Joining me now is former FBI Field Operations Sections chief Michael Feinberg. It seems like it's great to see you. Thank you for being here. It seems like the FBI got the right guy yet when this was announced yesterday. I think a lot of people, unfortunately, took an extra moment of hesitation because considering how both Patel and Bongino have peddled these conspiracy theories, misrepresented facts, and really done it while they were kind of trying to push this all showing loyalty to Trump on the outside. As someone who has dedicated their life to the FBI, how do you. How has that impacted. I mean, how do you square that with the important work the bureau still has to do? What's the impact?
- [34:35]
Michael Feinberg
The impact is that the important work is really falling by the side. Now, big cases do still happen, as we saw, a major potential bomber was arrested yesterday morning by this FBI. But this is coming on five years of both the director and the Deputy director not only doing everything they could to undermine the FBI as an institution in their previous roles, but also doing everything they could to peddle conspiracy theories about this particular case. I don't think it's a coincidence now that if you look at the far right Twitter sphere, most of the people who listened to Bongino's shows and who followed Patel's various interviews don't believe the story that the government is now telling. And that's the ultimate problem you have when you peddle conspiracy theories and trying to undermine institutions is that you get point where even your own supporters won't believe what you say. That's a problem for the Justice Department.
- [35:44]
Chris Hayes
Yeah. It shouldn't be a political story at all when a person like this is arrested or the political story leading up to it. One of the things just to keep going on this political point that Trump officials like Patel have said is that the Biden administration purposefully let this investigation languish. What do you mean of that?
- [36:06]
Michael Feinberg
I'm going to refrain from using the language that first comes to mind. I will.
- [36:10]
Chris Hayes
It's a Friday night.
- [36:13]
Michael Feinberg
I will simply say, you know, I was at the Washington field office while this investigation was going on for the overwhelming majority of the Biden administration, and I saw nothing languish. I saw an entire field office in the aftermath of January 6th. Both the insurrection and the planting of these pipe bombs put the pedal to the floor and not let up for years because they wanted to see the cases resolved. The notion that this was allowed to sit fallow is not just false, it is an insult to the hundreds and thousands of FBI agents, analysts, and support staff who have spent their entire lives working hard on behalf of this country and protecting its citizenry. While people like Dan Bongino and Kash Patel were sitting from the sidelines taking potshots about people they'd never met and about topics they had no understanding of.
- [37:14]
Chris Hayes
And not to mention all of the work in the FBI done to capture and go after the people who were part of the insurrection, which was very time consuming effort. Michael Feinberg, thank you so much for joining me on a Friday night. I appreciate it.
- [37:28]
Michael Feinberg
Thank you for having me.
- [37:30]
Chris Hayes
Up next, she is a sitting member of Congress and she says she was just pepper sprayed by ice. Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva is going to tell us. What's that story next.
- [37:48]
Arizona Democratic Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva has received maybe the most challenging welcome to Congress of any member in modern history, at least that I can remember. First, after Grijalva won her seat in a special election, House Speaker Mike Johnson refused to swear her in for nearly two months, 50 days. She didn't get sworn in until last month. And now today, while Grijalva and her staff are on their way to get lunch in her district in Arizona, they ran into what she says were around 40 masked immigration agents raiding a local restaurant. Congresswoman Grijalova said she presented herself as a member of Congress and asked the agents for more information about what they were doing. And the federal agents replied by pushing and pepper spraying her and her staff. You can see video on your screen right now. One even fired what appears to have been a pepper ball gun straight in the congresswoman's direction. That's what happened today. And I want to hear more about this. I have lots of questions. Joining me now is Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva. First of all, it's great to see you. I'm happy to see that you're okay. How are you? How are your staff doing?
- [38:55]
Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva
I think we're all okay. It was really scary, very jarring. I mean, it's one thing to hear about these things happening in communities. It's another thing to have it happen directly to you. I really did go with the assumption that I'm just trying to understand what's happening. And so I went up, I introduced myself, I let them know who I was. One agent said, I don't care who you are, you need to get out of the way. We were pushed. We were shot at. And it's really scary. It was very frightening and very jarring.
- [39:29]
Chris Hayes
The Department of Homeland security spokesperson, Tricia McLaughlin released a statement denying your version of events. At first she said that you were not pepper sprayed. We just showed the video of all of this. You were just in the vicinity of someone who was pepper sprayed. Then she said that that person, the person who was pepper sprayed was obstructing and assaulting law enforcement, and that two law enforcement officers were seriously injured by the, quote, mob you joined. I'm only listing all of this because I want to give you the opportunity to debunk all of this. And we've seen the video, so let's just, let's go through each of these claims one at a time. What do you make of the Department of Homeland Security claiming that one of their officers did not pepper spray you today?
- [40:13]
Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva
I'll let the video speak for itself. I was in a very small crowd. You know, there were clearly individuals marked as members of the media. And the agent that hit closest at me, the person in front of me, was a member of the media with press credentials, cameras, everything in front of them. And so, you know, I also identified myself as a member of Congress beforehand.
- [40:39]
I just don't. And we have video to prove it. So, I mean, in every angle, it wasn't just what was being. This is filmed all around us.
- [40:48]
Chris Hayes
You have every right to be there. I should note, also, which is just important to reiterate, you were in your district. You were simply asking questions about what was happening. The HS spokesperson also described the protesters you joined today as a mob that was obstructing and assaulting law enforcement officers. Can you just help everybody watching understand how these protests formed and what they were actually like?
- [41:12]
Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva
Literally, when I walked up to the area, because this is a restaurant I go to all the time. It's right across the street from a preschool, down the street from a church. I mean, it is a well established mom and pop restaurant. And so community members were rightfully concerned about ICE being in their communities. People were literally walking out from their homes to find out what was happening. This was not a mob. There were some people that were not peaceful. The vast majority of us were and were just very concerned and wanted ICE to get out of our neighborhood. So while we, I don't know the full circumstances of this raid, we do know this, that this Trump administration has communities across the country being terrorized by a lawless agency that doesn't feel like they have to have. They don't have to abide by any, any protections of this community. And I was so very grateful for the local law enforcement agencies that were protecting the community and really protecting us from ice.
- [42:14]
Chris Hayes
In response, this is one more piece of this. Trisha McLaughlin also said presenting oneself as a member of Congress doesn't give you the right to obstruct law enforcement, which is certainly not what you were doing. Can you help us and perhaps her understand as a member of Congress, what you were actually trying to use your powers to do today as you saw what was happening?
- [42:37]
Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva
Oversight is my responsibility. Understanding what's happening in my community is clearly in the realm of the things I should be doing. So oversight is not obstruction. I clearly was asking what was happening. And if you looked at the video, I'm the one that was initiating the de escalation because ICE agents were not. They were getting more and more aggressive, pushing people around. One agent put their hands on me and tried to push me. And I said, do not put your hands on me. I am not being aggressive to you. I'm trying to understand where you're taking the people that are being arrested. Because people started screaming in my ear, where are they taking them? And I asked the question and then I said, if you, if we move out of the way, will you leave? And they said yes. And then shortly thereafter, vehicles left. So my old cold goal was really being peaceful. The vast majority of the people were peaceful there too. They just wanted ICE out of their neighborhood.
- [43:32]
Chris Hayes
Congresswoman Grhalva, I sincerely hope that you can spend the next months and years just representing your community and doing what you were elected to do. I'm so deeply sorry this happened to you today, and I'm so grateful that you were able to be here and share your story with us.
- [43:49]
Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva
Thank you for having me. And as a sitting member of Congress of a border community, unfortunately, this is happening all too often in our community.
- [43:58]
Chris Hayes
Very well aware of that. Thank you again. When we come back, RFK Jr. S hand picked panel of vaccine skeptics do something I guess basically everybody saw coming. That's next.
- [44:14]
Before his time in Washington, Senator Bill Cassidy spent nearly three decades working as a doctor in Louisiana's public hospitals. His specialty was caring for patients with failing liver, some of them caused by Hepatitis B. Seeing firsthand the lives wrecked and ended by the infection, Cassidy became a fierce advocate for the vaccine that prevents it. But fast forward to earlier this year when vaccine skeptic RFK Jr needed Senator Cassidy to be the deciding yes vote for his confirmation as HHS secretary. Cassidy voted no. It would have been enough to derail Kennedy's nomination, but under pressure from Trump, he voted yes. And well, we've seen how that has been going. I mean, just today, RFK's hand picked vaccine panel at the CDC voted to overturn a decades long policy that recommends the Hepatitis B vaccine at birth, a practice that Cassidy himself has credited with preventing tens of thousands of infections. Every year. Following the vote, Cassidy posted online that he believes the committee made a mistake, but of course he said nothing about his own that does it for me tonight. You can catch the show Tuesday through Friday at 9pm Eastern on Ms. Now. And don't forget to follow the show on Bluesky, Instagram and TikTok.
- [45:26]
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