← The Briefing with Jen Psaki
The Briefing with Jen Psaki
Trumpworld shocked: Governing is hard!
00:41:33
Donald Trump and his cast of supporting characters are learning the hard way that actually governing is much more difficult than shooting hot takes from the hip and spinning up conspiracy theories about how the world works. Jen Psaki reviews the struggle Trumpworld is having with real world governing.
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- [00:00]
Jen Psaki
It has not been a good 24 hours for Donald Trump. It's been a very bad 24 hours for Donald Trump. I mean, last night, a federal court unanimously ruled that Trump's erratic tariff policy is illegal. Surprise, surprise. They said that Trump does not have the authority to just randomly declare tariffs on every country in the world. And then today, another federal judge in a separate case said basically the same thing. Donald Trump cannot unilaterally tariff countries just because he feels like it. Now, those decisions are on hold tonight, and that is thanks in part to a federal appeals court that agreed to take up the case. But this is still a huge loss for Trump, and there are few issues Trump has fixated on as much as tariffs. And every day, the universe is telling him that upending global trade as we know it isn't as easy as he thought it would be. It's hard. And this is not the only issue where Trump is learning that lesson. I mean, who can forget the extremely confident promise about the war in Ukraine that Trump made over and over and over and over again?
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Donald Trump
I will end that war in one day. It'll take 24 hours. It would be easy. That deal would be easy. It will take me no longer than one day. I will have that war settled in one day. 24 hours. 24 hours. 24 hours. Within 24 hours. You watched.
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Jen Psaki
It will be easy. I mean, he repeatedly promised, as you remembered and you just saw there in all those clips, to end the war in Ukraine in just 24 hours. But here we are, a full four months plus into his presidency, and we are still waiting because Vladimir Putin has rebuffed his efforts at every turn. So what does Trump say now?
- [01:40]
Donald Trump
We're gonna find out whether or not he's tapping us along or not. And if he is, we'll respond a little bit differently. But it'll take about a week and a half, two weeks.
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Jen Psaki
Oh, was I supposed to do that four months ago? Yeah. I don't know. This Putin guy is really tapping me along. Give me another two weeks. You see, just over four months into his second term, Donald Trump is learning a lesson that most actual politicians and public servants learn much earlier in their careers. Governing is hard. It's a lot harder than just posting capitalized rants on Truth Social or spouting off for hours at a campaign rally about nonsense. And Trump isn't the only one learning that lesson right now. I mean, last night, we learned that Trump's official White House best friend, his best buddy, Elon Musk, is leaving government behind. It's been quite a dramatic rollout from him. And minutes ago, Trump announced he would be holding a farewell press conference with Musk tomorrow, writing on Truth Social. This will be his last day, but not really, because he will always be with us, helping all the way. Which kind of makes it sound like Trump sending Elon Musk to live on a farm upstate somewhere. It's kind of weird, that phrasing, but remember, when Musk first entered the Trump administration, he promised a lot of things, including slashing government spending by $2 trillion. Then he quickly lowered his estimate to $1 trillion, and then a few months later said he would cut only $150 billion. Good times. Lots to keep up with there. We've been trying our best. And now as Musk leaves D.C. and his special government role, it's not even clear he accomplished that. I mean, in an interview with the Washington Post, Musk said, quote, the federal bureaucracy situation is much worse than I realized. I thought there were problems, but it sure is an uphill battle trying to improve things in D.C. to say the least. Yeah, dude. Turns out governing is hard. It's a lot harder than just posting on X or dreaming up ways to slash spending without any care for who it impacts while getting high with Joe Rogan, which is literally something, as you can see on the screen that he did. But everywhere you look in the Trump administration, there is somebody learning the same lesson that real government and real governing requires hard work. It requires building coalitions, it requires passing legislation, it requires actual policy planning, it requires consulting real experts, it requires building alliances and engaging global partners and much more. And above all, it requires you to trust the dedicated career public servants who literally spend their lives making the government run smoothly. But no one in the MAGA universe came into this job with that mindset. And so now they are all learning this lesson the hard way. Take, for instance, Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino. Now, for years, he hosted a podcast where he would criticize the FBI and play a version of an armchair quarterback.
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Donald Trump
There's no longer any question the FBI conspired to crush people's civil rights. The FBI has not thought any of this through here. Now we're starting to dig into. Has the FBI thought this through? Folks, I'm so sorry that we're at the point where I have to tell you not to talk to the FBI if you are a Republican. We do not live with a serious law enforcement entity anymore at the FBI.
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Jen Psaki
Tell us what you really think, Dan. It feels very awkward now, but now he's actually in the Number two job at the FBI. He and his boss, Kash Patel are facing criticism from MAGA World for not exposing the so called deep state. In other words, Dan Bongino is on the receiving end of some of the same criticism he used to dole out. How is he handling all that pressure, you may be wondering? Well, here he was this morning on Fox News.
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Donald Trump
I gave up everything for this. I mean, you know, my wife is struggling. If you think we're there for tea and crumpets, well, I mean, cash is there all day. We share, our offices are linked. He turns on the faucet. I hear it, he's there at, he gets in like 6:00 in the morning. He doesn't leave till 7 at night. You know, I'm in there at 7:30, but I stare at these four walls all day in D.C. you know, by myself. Divorced from my wife. Not divorced, but I mean separated, divorced. And it's hard.
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Jen Psaki
There was a lot in there. That guy doesn't seem okay. I'm divorced from my wife. No wait. I mean, we're separated. No wait. I mean, I'm staying with a roommate and he won't stop running the faucet. He's talking about Kash Patel, who he shares a wall with. Dan Bongino clearly doesn't seem okay. And there's no question that he is learning that governing can take a toll. It's hard, especially when you're contradicting what you said for years before taking the role. And it turns out being second in command at America's top law enforcement agency is a lot harder than doing a podcast from your basement. Who knew? But maybe the Trump official is having the hardest time learning this lesson is Trump Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Jr. Now, for years, RFK Jr. Has been promoting, as we all know, fringe medical theories, lots of them. And last week, he finally got a chance to try and legitimize those theories with his very own official report on America's health. You may remember this, it was rolled out with a lot of fanfare. They called it the Maha report and claimed that it would definitively lay out the drivers of chronic illness that Americans face, starting with childhood. But today, the news outlet Notice found that the so called Maha report is riddled with citation errors. In fact, they found that seven of the cited sources in the report don't appear to exist at all. Notice even managed to contact several of the real scientists listed as authors on those fake studies. And each of them confirmed to notice that they had never authored any such paper. One scientist told Notice, the paper cited is not a real paper that I or my colleagues were involved with. That's pretty direct. And other researchers who were cited in the report said their findings were misrepresented. As one scientist told Notice, the conclusions in the report are not accurate and the journal reference is incorrect. So it turns out running a vast science based health care bureaucracy is a lot harder than being eccentric Nepo baby who feeds conspiracy theories to get attention. It's a lot harder. Look, clearly the Trump administration is completely out of its depth on a lot of different fronts right now. And I want you to imagine having to walk into the White House briefing room today and explain all of that. It's not always easy being Caroline Levitt, but today seemed especially painful to be Caroline Levitt. So to help her out a bit, I thought I would answer some of the questions reporters threw at her today. Let's start with Jasmine Wright from Notice A Notice investigation found that the Hallmark Maha Commission report that was released last week cites studies that appear to not exist. We know that because in part, we reached out to some of the listed authors who said that they didn't write the study.
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Dan Bongino
So I want to ask, does the.
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Jen Psaki
White House have confidence that the information coming from HHS can be trusted? You know, Jasmine, that's a really good and thorough question. I don't usually do this, but I kind of want to see how Caroline answered that one. Yes, we have complete confidence in Secretary Kennedy and his team at hhs. I understand there were some formatting issues with the Maha report that are being addressed. I've heard a lot of things in my time, a lot. But formatting issues? Seriously? That's the best you could come up with? That was what was spit out of the system to come up with what she should say about the story. They put out a report that was full of errors with broken links, and seven of the sources they cited don't exist at all. And not for nothing, they also just canceled a $600 billion contract to develop an MRNA vaccine for bird flu, or while at the same time trying to import ostriches exposed to bird flu to Dr. Oz's ranch. I am not making that up. That is what HHS is up to these days. Okay, I think we can all agree here. Caroline's answer wasn't exactly great on that one. But I'm going to take the rest of it from here. All right, Peter Doocy. Good to see you, my friend. What do you got today? So the courts are basically telling you guys they think that The White House's policies, the president's policies are in some way against the law. So why can't President Trump ask the Republicans that control the House and the Republicans that control the Senate just to make a new law? Well, Peter, as I often like to say to you, there is a lot to unpack there. I'm just going to start with the fact that judges are only telling the White House that their policies are against the law because, well, their policies are against the law. And the panel on the tariff decision was unanimous and included a judge Trump appointed himself. And on your second point, he absolutely could ask Republicans in Congress to pass a bill implementing sweeping tariffs. If they did that, that would actually be a legal route. But not even a Republican controlled Congress that's under the thumb of Trump would really want to do that because these nonsensical tariffs are wildly damaging to the economy. Just ask basically any business and anyone on Wall street and wildly unpopular among the public, including the people who send them to office. Okay. Wei Jiajiang from CBS News, what's on your mind? Today? President Trump was asked what he thought about Elon Musk's claim that the big beautiful bill increases the budget deficit and undermines the work of Doge. And the president didn't actually comment on those remarks. He just talked about the need to support the bill. So what does the president think about what Elon Musk said? Well, frankly, Weija, he is probably pretty annoyed and probably pretty pissed off. But you can't say that out loud. He can't say that out loud about a guy who spent a quarter of a billion dollars to get him elected and who still holds massive sway inside the party, primarily because he's the richest man in the world. So until Trump decides, which he may at some point, who knows that he would rather have Musk outside of his political tent rather than inside. He's probably going to stay very quiet on what he thinks about anything Elon Musk says, which I bet Elon Musk also knows. All right, we have time for one more. Kristen Holmes from cnn. President Trump said that he needed one and a half to two weeks to determine whether or not he believed Vladimir Putin wanted peace. He has been in office now for four months. What does he believe is going to happen in the next one and a half to two weeks that would change his opinion? Kristen, you know well that Donald Trump loves to say things are coming in two weeks. I mean, it's sort of a tick of sorts. I can't tell you how many times nothing actually comes in Two weeks. And when it comes to Putin, Russia in particular, Trump is in kind of a bind here because his strongman role model is ghosting him. So for Trump, there really are no good answers. But I suspect he's hoping that if he can just keep punting this down the road, two weeks at a time, say, because he loves to say two weeks, perhaps maybe you and your colleagues will get distracted and start focusing on something else that he's attempting to distract you with. But here's the thing. The American people see what's happening. They see what's happening on Russia and with tariffs and with Elon Musk and with RFK Jr. And with every abject failure coming out of this administration, which means that right now, the opening for a political opposition for Democrats has never been bigger. Senator Mark Kelly held a town hall in his home state of Arizona today, and he joins me in just 90 seconds, as promised. Joining me now is Senator Mark Kelly from the great state of Arizona. Senator Kelly, thank you so much for joining me. I know you've already had a long day with the town hall, which I want to talk to you about. I just wanted to start by asking you, because you've been around your state, you've been talking to people in your state, how they're responding to what's happening in Washington. I was just talking about how Trump has had a bit of a tough week. I mean, a huge loss on tariffs in the courts. Members of his own party are speaking out against the big ugly bill, as I've been calling it. Elon Musk is even criticizing him on his way out the door. It seems kind of obvious things aren't going that well for him. But what have people been saying to you in Arizona as you've been meeting with people and talking to people over the last couple days?
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Mark Kelly
Yeah, well, I've done a number of these Medicaid town halls. The one I did yesterday, just today, Jen, was close to the border. It's in Cochise County. Chiricahua Health Center. It's one of those community health centers. And we had a packed room, and folks are really scared. A lot of these people here use Medicaid. It's called Access. Here in Arizona, they're worried about losing their health care. They're worried about food benefits, food stamps, or SNAP going away. And I heard some really compelling stories from this town hall, but also from others. I mean, parents who relied on SNAP to just be able to feed their kids. There was one woman today, her name was Tara, who had previously been on Medicaid and on snap. She needed those resources to support her family. The good news is she doesn't need them anymore. And she works in behavioral health. But she's really worried about all the other moms out there that are in a situation that she was in when she was a young single mother. So I tried to motivate these folks that this thing is not over yet. You know, we could win this fight in the Senate or if we make changes to the bill, it has to go back to the House and that they really have some agency and some power to speak out against this bad legislation. Which, Jen, as you know, and I think your viewers know, this is all about taking money from folks that don't have it, take away their health care, give a big tax cut to the wealthy.
- [15:40]
Jen Psaki
We've been talking about this bill a lot. There's so much in here that's so important for people to understand, which is one of the reasons I really want to talk to you tonight. As you said, I mean, you told people tonight this isn't over yet. For all the people like Tara and like people in your community who are worried about the Medicaid cuts and the SNAP cuts and all of the terrible things in this bill, what does that look like? Is there enough Republican opposition to prevent it from moving forward, to making massive changes? And what do you expect those could be at this point?
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Mark Kelly
Well, I think they're going to make changes in the Senate, but they might not be able to pass those. And you know, maybe, just maybe there's another John McCain out there. Remember in 2017, John McCain, I'm in John McCain's Senate seat, who gave that big thumbs down from preventing Donald Trump in his first term from taking away health care from people who can't afford it? I think we could see that again in the Senate. We could also see it in the House of Representatives. If the bill has to go back.
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Jen Psaki
To the other chamber, there's a long way forward. And I've been talking about this a bit as well, things it has to be the same bill or can't go back to the House exactly the same way. There's a long path here. Lots of time for people to speak out. I wanted to ask you, I mean, Elon Musk just announced he's, I guess leaving Washington is the way to describe it. Even though he's leaving Washington, he has done a whole lot of damage to the system here, to the federal workers, to a lot of programs people rely on. I think we all remember when he called you a traitor simply for visiting Ukraine. But how would you characterize his time in government and how are you talking about that with constituents?
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Mark Kelly
Well, it was incredibly short and that's a good thing. He did a lot of damage. I had veterans in my office that had previously received excellent performance reports that were fired for poor performance with an email from Elon Musk. And in a couple cases, these folks are telling me how their lives have been ruined for no reason. These were valuable public servants. One was a disabled veteran who had served our country in combat. So Elon did incredible damage. It's still lasting. Today. We've got seniors that having a hard time getting through to a Social Security office because of the damage Elon did. So it's good that he's gone. It was a short period of time, but a guy like him could do a lot of damage in a short period of time.
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Jen Psaki
That's true. Lots to unwind from there. Senator Mark Kelly, thank you so much for joining us and for sharing your town hall meeting today as well. Thank you again. And coming up, Elon Musk may be on the way out as we just talked about, but Republicans in Congress are already promising to take up the Doge mantle. Congressman Maxwell Frost is standing by and he joins me next. So we've already been talking about the richest man in the world and self dubbed first buddy Elon Musk says that he's leaving the Trump White House to spend more time with his multiple businesses. Now on the way out, Musk has been venting some of his frustrations. It's been quite a rollout. And lamenting the damage that his time in Washington has done to his and his company's reputation. That's tough to hear, pal. But what Musk leaves behind from his brief stint is mostly a trail of damage and failure, as well as quite a bit of corruption. He's been a big contributor to that. As a special employee and the de facto head of his Doge operation, Musk purged dedicated civil servants, decimated international aid to the poorest and most vulnerable communities in the world, hobbled benefit programs in the name of rooting out non existent fraud, slash government agencies that regulated its companies, and to top it all off, failed at accomplishing his stated goal of cutting government spending. Now the lemmings leading the Republican Congress are on a bit of a mission, I guess to codify the Doge cuts into law. And after a bit of waiting, the White House is sending House Republicans what may be the first of many cuts packages. This one cuts $9.4 billion, which is a fraction of the amount that Doge claims to have cut, and well shy of must's promise to cut trillions. But I guess they have to start somewhere. Joining me now is Democratic Congressman Maxwell Frost of Florida. It's great to see you, Congressman. I just mentioned this, but the White House is sending a package to Congress to codify a package of Doge cuts into law, I think in part to kiss up to Elon Musk. But including in that package is a number of problematic cuts to NPR and PBS and foreign aid agencies. Probably other things I haven't mentioned you could share with us. Of course, it's a fraction of what Musk promised. Is it to. Do you think it's to placate the guy who still has a lot of power over the party, or what do you think about it?
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Dan Bongino
Yeah, I think it's in part to placate him. And I mean, just because of his power over the party in terms of communication, but also the fact that he's still the richest man on Earth. Yeah. And they want to be able to get into that wallet at any point they want for the midterms and for any other races. And so I think this is more of a thing to appease him while he's on the way out the door. A lot of us knew this was going to happen. And in my earliest interviews talking about Doge, I said, all you got to do is look at how they're coming to the table. I mean, we all know government efficiency is important and that we need to modernize government, yada, yada, yada. However, when they came to the table, they said, we want to run this like a company. We want to slash and burn the federal government, just like he did to Twitter. And look what's gone to that. The value's completely gone down. Same thing is happening with Tesla. So I agree with you, though. We'll see if it passes, we'll see how if it moves forward. But it's obviously to placate him because of the timing of this bill as well.
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Jen Psaki
Yeah, he sort of said he's going to do less political spending. I wonder if there's a connection. So you're a member of the House Oversight Committee, which you talk about a fair amount. You do have oversight, of course, over Doge. He and his. A number of his special employees are leaving Washington, but they still left this trail of damage. What do you think can be done? What can Democrats are still in the minority do to continue to hold them to account?
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Dan Bongino
Well, I like to say we're not in the minority, but we're in the opposition because we're actually in the majority. In terms of what people. Yeah, in terms of what people in this country think about what the Republicans are doing, we're definitely in the majority. But what I would say is this. There's a lot we can do on the Oversight Committee in terms of hosting what's called ad hoc or shadow hearings, where we should really be talking with of course, federal employees, but also people who are deeply impacted by the cuts that have been made by doge. And I think what's really important is it shouldn't just be about us defending institutions. We which to a lot of people would feel like we're defending the status quo, which I think is part of the reason we didn't do great in the elections last election. But it's not about defending institutions, it's about defending people and programs. And so it's less about defend the Department of Education, more about defend Head Start, defend Title 1 funding, defend funding for schools and rural communities and students with disabilities and defend the good work that the Department of Education does. And when we do that, we can tie it back to, to the agencies and departments that we want to preserve. And I think that's how we're gonna really sell. Not just sell, but talk about exactly what these things do. Cuz a lot of people don't understand what the Department of Education is. And when there's a void of knowledge in the public that is when people like Donald Trump, right wing authoritarians, can come in and fill people's mind with bs, with lies, with misinformation and disinformation. And so I think now's the time for us to center people and how these programs impact working people in their daily lives at home.
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Jen Psaki
It's incredibly smart. I mean, I am a defender, you're a defender of the Department of Education. But a lot of people kind of their eyes glaze over. And if you talk more about how they impact people and these programs impact people, it's how hopefully you connect. You've been out there a lot. I mean, you've done a lot of town halls since the House went into recess. You held one today. What have you been hearing from your constituents? What are they mad about? What are they enraged about? What do they want you and others to be as active and more than you've been?
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Dan Bongino
Well, you know, yeah, people are showing up. We actually did two today. One in the morning was in a coffee shop with like 60 people. And then tonight we had a couple hundred that we did with the Orange County Democratic Party. And you know, it's a combination. I feel like a few months ago people were shocked by what was going on. But I think we've turn this corner where people are still angry, but I see it as more of a righteous anger and people really want marching orders. People are asking me at these town halls, not necessarily what I'm doing. I mean, we communicate that a lot to our constituents here in Orlando. But they're asking, what can I do to help you? What can I do to be a part of this? And I think something that's important for all Democrats, especially in elected office, to keep in mind is that this energy is here now. But as an organizer in the gun violence prevention movement, I can tell you that it won't last forever. And usually as organizers, we gotta go to people's doors and knock on it and beg them to get involved. Now we have people reaching out to us, asking what can I do? So we gotta take advantage of it. Plug them in either to our campaigns, the work we're doing. We also have to recognize not everyone's political home is going to be a campaign. Some people are going to want to be involved in grassroots organizations, protests, mutual aid, I don't know, everyone's different. But we got to view this as an apparatus and an ecosystem of advocacy and fighting at the local level and plug people in right now because I'm worried that there might be a point where people aren't as excited to do something as we see right now. So we got to take advantage of it.
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Jen Psaki
Congressman Maxelfrost, I've gotten to know you a little bit. I love how you speak about personalized activism and how everybody has a voice and how every. It doesn't have to all fit into the same square peg. So thank you for sharing that message with us and for being out there and doing two town halls today and many more this week. Thanks for joining us tonight. Coming up, I'm going to talk to Congressman Dan Goldman who confronted ICE agents at a courthouse in Manhattan today. But first I'm going to tell you about some deep red communities who are not happy with Donald Trump right now. And the reason they're so upset might surprise you. Going to be right back. That was the scene at the Tweed Courthouse in Lower Manhattan tonight as the United Federation of Teachers joined state and local officials in protesting for the release of this Bronx high schooler named Dylan. Dylan is an asylum seeking migrant from Venezuela. He goes to a school called Ellis Prep in the Bronx and works as a delivery driver to help support his family. And last week, he became the first New York City public school student to be arrested by ICE since Trump's second term began. All week, we've seen protest after protest for his release. And last night, 23 people were arrested at a protest marking one week since Dylan's arrest. You can see the footage there. The people of New York are clearly outraged. And they're not even the only ones. I mean, this is Kennett, Missouri. It may be about as different from New York City as a place can be. While we don't have election results from the city itself, it is the largest city in Dunklin county, which voted for Trump last year by more than a 4 to 1 margin. She would think if anywhere in the country would support Trump's immigration policies, it would be a place like Kennett, Missouri. Right? But when this woman, a longtime resident of Kennett, a woman who goes by Carol, a waitress at the local diner, a mother to three kids, an active member of the local church. When Carol got arrested by ICE earlier this week, the residents were shocked. One resident telling the New York Times, quote, I voted for Donald Trump and so did practically everyone here, but no one voted to deport moms. We were all under the impression we were just getting rid of the gangs, the people who came here in droves. This is Carol. The diner that Carol worked at, John's Waffle and Pancake House, is normally closed on Tuesdays, but last Tuesday, they stayed open. They called it Carol Day. The staff and their families wore shirts that read Bring Carol. You can see them right there in the photos. All of the proceeds from every single meal that day went to a fundraiser for Carol. They filled every seat and raised nearly eight grand that way. But get this. There were more people who wanted to help than the diner even had seats. So they put out a donation box for people who couldn't get a seat in the diner, and they raised nearly another 12 grand that way. On every table between the jelly packets and the ketchup was a petition to bring Carol home. Hundreds of locals have signed it. Look, the Trump administration is reportedly aiming to deport 1 million people this year. And big numbers like 1 million people, they sound large, but they also sound pretty abstract. They're kind of hard to wrap your head around in terms of what it means. But when someone from your own city, from your own town becomes one of those 1 million people, it all becomes much more real. This is Murillo Ambrosio. He is a pastor at a local church in a town just south of Tampa, Florida. He was arrested by ICE and slated for deportation. Just a few weeks ago, his neighbor voted for Trump. But when he heard about what happened to Pastor Ambrosio, he was beside himself. The neighbor said he was hoping Trump would target people without papers or with criminal records. But what he never expected was someone like Pastor Ambrosio to be taken away. He said, quote, you're going to take, you're going to take, you know, a community leader, a pastor, a hard working man. What did you need, a number that day, Pastor Ambrosio's neighbor posed that question when speaking with NPR just last week. And then last night on Fox News, Stephen Miller kind of answered it.
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Dan Bongino
Under President Trump's leadership, we are looking.
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Mark Kelly
To set a goal of a minimum of 3,000 arrests for ICE every day.
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Dan Bongino
And President Trump is going to keep.
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Mark Kelly
Pushing to get that number up higher each and every single day.
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Jen Psaki
To put that quota system in perspective, in the first 100 days of Trump's new term, just the first 100 days, ICE averaged 665 arrests a day. And that means this quota system is pushing ICE agents to arrest four and a half times more people than their already unbelievable pace. Axios reported yesterday that when Miller announced his quota internally, people at DHS left the meeting feeling their jobs could be in jeopardy if the new targets aren't reached. If they don't arrest more people, that is now beyond how much their arrests upset their communities. There's another thread linking the arrests of Dylan and Carol and Pastor Ambrosio. Dylan was arrested at a courthouse. He showed up for a routine immigration hearing, and ICE was waiting for him. A high school kid, Pastor Ambrosio has done a check in with immigration agents once a year for the past 10 years without any incident at all. This year when he showed up, he was arrested. And as for Carol, she got a sudden call late last month asking her to drive three hours to ICE offices in St. Louis. It kind of felt suspicious, but as she put it, quote, I didn't want to run. I just wanted to do the right thing. She was arrested and put in jail while she awaits deportation. These stories are, unfortunately, the new normal. They're not the only ones at all. I mean, all across the country, immigrants are showing up to routine court hearings and check ins, doing their best to follow the law and try to become citizens legally, only to be arrested, jailed, and slated for deportation. Trump claims his immigration agents are only going after the worst of the worst, hardened criminals. But to get the kind of deportation numbers Trump is aiming for, ICE appears to be arresting anyone they can. I mean, earlier this week we got the story of a four year old girl in California. You can see her there with a life threatening medical condition. The Trump administration has ordered the girl and her family to leave the country, despite her own doctor saying that if her treatment is interrupted, she would die in a matter of days. Today, the Washington Post reported on a two year old American citizen who was deported to Brazil alongside her undocumented parents. Because the two year old girl is not a citizen of Brazil, she has become, quote, all but stateless. Last week, the Supreme Court stripped 350,000 Venezuelan immigrants of their protected immigration status, opening them all up to deportation. And last night, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the US Will aggressively revoke student visas from Chinese students. There are roughly 275,000 Chinese students studying in the US right now. What are the odds one of those Venezuelan immigrants or one of those Chinese students lives in your city or your town? How soon until we all know a Dylan or a Carol or a Pastor Ambrosio from our lives? New York Congressman Dan Goldman, who confronted ICE agents in Manhattan today, joins me next. When ICE agents showed up at a courthouse in Manhattan today, New York Congressman Dan Goldman, whose office happens to be in the same building, was there to confront them. He spoke with the agents, some of whom were covering their faces. And Goldman's team also captured video of an arrest. His office says that at least 15 people who were there for routine appointments were taken into custody. And joining me now is Democratic Congressman Dan Goldman of New York. Congressman, it's great to see you. You were there today. You saw ICE arrest these people there for routine appointments. Tell us about what you saw today and what you think about it.
- [33:34]
Dan Goldman
Well, my district office in Lower Manhattan is in a federal building where the immigration court is also. And as with all immigration courts, they have various check ins in their cases, whether they're removal proceedings or asylum proceedings. And often they end up being both. And what has happened today, which I witnessed both in the courtroom and then in the lobby of my building, is that the Department of Homeland Security lawyers are moving to dismiss the removal proceedings, the deportation proceedings that are currently ongoing in court. And in many of those proceedings, the immigrant who is, who is the subject of, of the case files an asylum claim. That is because of what they allege to be fear of persecution. And that takes a while to play out, which is part of the reason why we have such a backlog. But when they dismiss the main case, they are also essentially dismissing the asylum case. That can, in theory, be remade down the road. But once there's no jurisdiction over it, then these plainclothes ICE officers with face masks are waiting in the lobby, like, you know, laying in wait and waiting for the immigrants who have just been released from court and think their case was dismissed, not understanding exactly what's going on. And they're grabbing them, arresting them, detaining them, and putting them in an expedited removal proceeding. So a different removal proceeding, it is cynical, is really cruel, and it goes against everything that the Trump administration has said. These are the opposite of, quote, murderers and child rapists. These are people who are following the process. They're going through the legal process. They're not criminals, they're not violent. They are actually trying to do the right thing in the right way. And they're getting detained because the ICE agents know where they're gonna be because they report for court.
- [35:49]
Jen Psaki
Is that why? And this is a new tactic, just of arresting people at courthouses? This is not normal business that has happened over the years. Do you think they're taking this approach cuz they're trying to run up their numbers? That's an incredibly cynical view. But why are they doing it?
- [36:06]
Dan Goldman
Yes, I absolutely think that. And I think, as with most things related to Donald Trump, he's telegraphed that he has made it clear that he's not happy with the number of deportations, which are actually, I believe, lower than what they were under the Biden administration. So rather than keep to his promise of going after convicted criminals and others who have broken the law and should be deported, he's instead just going after anyone and everyone that he can find. And he's actually disincentivizing people to follow the rules. He's creating this fear, this terror, this dynamic where people who are following the right laws, who in many cases are actually paying taxes to the US treasury, are the ones being arrested and deported, and then the ones who are not following the rules evade arrest and evade deportation, which just makes all of us much less safe. It drives people underground, and it creates a very, very uncertain and dangerous environment for immigrants.
- [37:14]
Jen Psaki
It's also an incredibly cynical and aggressive approach to law enforcement in our country, as you've already alluded to. You referenced that they were masked. We've seen that in the footage, we've seen that in photos, we've seen that at other courthouses. Why do you think that is? And are you trying to find out who they were?
- [37:33]
Dan Goldman
Well, I've made a point of going around and approaching as many of the dozen or so ICE agents who were there. And by the way, there was also an FBI agent. FBI has apparently been tasked with supporting the Department of Homeland Security in these operations. And I asked them, I said, why are you wearing masks? Because I was a prosecutor for 10 years. I dealt with a lot of plainclothes officers. They never wore masks. I never have seen a law enforcement officer wear masks. And of course, it doesn't. It bears mentioning that the Trump administration is attacking universities for allowing protesters to wear masks. And here, our own, the same government is doing that. I asked one guy, why are you wearing a mask? And he looked at me with a straight face and said, cuz it's cold in here. Of course, it was 70 degrees. And I said to him, will you testify to that under oath? And he walked away. And another one just told me flat out, I don't want to be on a videotape because I'm scared as to what might happen. The bottom line, Jen, I think a lot of these officers do not want to be doing that. This is not what they signed up for. This is not who they are. This is not who America is. And they are patriots, and they are trying to represent the best of America. And they're not happy that they're being directed to essentially trick immigrants who think they are showing up for court without lawyers, without speaking the language, and then arresting them and deporting them as soon as possible.
- [39:14]
Jen Psaki
I hope that's the case. I suspect there's still a fair number of them who just don't want to be identified, but maybe we'll learn more soon. Congressman Dan Goldman, thank you so much for joining me tonight.
- [39:23]
Dan Goldman
Thank you.
- [39:25]
Jen Psaki
Coming up, remember that big, fancy plane Trump is getting from Qatar? Well, we've got an update on that. We'll be right back. Okay, we have a very quick update on Donald Trump's plan to accept a $400 million luxury jet from the government of Qatar. Remember how he originally claimed it was Qatar that reached out and so generously offered to give him the big, beautiful jumbo jet free of charge? And remember how the Department of Defense announced that the deal was officially good to go, that the whole thing was signed, sealed, delivered, ready to go? Well, as it turns out, none of those things are true. As we learned last week, it was Trump who reached out and asked Qatar for the jet. So much for the random gift offer. And now we've also learned that the deal with Qatar actually hasn't been finalized at all. According to new reporting by the Washington Post, before Qatar makes anything official, they want the White House to clarify a few things you could say. Specifically, Qatar would would like Trump to admit that the whole thing was his idea, not a generous offer from them. This is from that new reporting in the Post, quote, qatar is insisting that a memorandum of understanding between Washington and Doha specify that the aircraft's transfer was initiated by the Trump administration and that Qatar is not responsible for any future transfers of the plane's ownership. That's very specific. The delay reflects lingering concerns about legal liability stemming from the White House maneuver to transform what was originally a sale between two countries and into a gift that Trump continues to tout as a major deliverable from his recent trip to the Wash. To the Middle East. The old art of the deal in action just got a little bit awkward, I would say. And Cutter laid it all out in a memo that the Washington Post seems to have found and reported on all details. Maybe we'll learn more. That does it for me today. You can catch the show Tuesday through Friday at 9pm Eastern on MSNBC. And don't forget to follow the show on Blue sky, Instagram and TikTok for now. Goodbye from Washington and we'll see you next week.