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Rachel Maddow (0:00)
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Stuartholme (0:30)
Thanks Stuartholme for joining us as I'm really happy to have you here this Monday night. They said that by nightfall the turnout was somewhere north of 325,000 people. Look at the size of this. We knew in advance that this is going to be a big demonstration. The government knew it was coming. The government had parked a whole bunch of tractors around their capitol building in anticipation that there were going to be a lot of people there, and they thought the wall of tractors might put people off. I guess all through that afternoon, Saturday afternoon, you could see the crowds starting to build up in the capital city. But when they ended up at night at something like 300, look at that, 325,000 people in the streets. I think pretty much everybody was surprised this happened Saturday in Serbia. In a country that's only got about 6.6 million people, they got a third of a million people to show up at a single demonstration when they don't even have 7 million people in the entire country for their population. If you want to compare that to us, if we got a similar proportion of our country's population to all show up for the same demonstration, that would be a demonstration of about 17 million people. Yeah, this is just massive. This is Belgrade this weekend. Serbia's president is pro Putin and pro Trump. The people of Serbia are not, and they are mobilizing in almost unbelievable numbers now to try to get rid of their president. These are the biggest protests that have happened in that country in a generation. Absolutely massive. President Donald Trump's son, Don Jr. The brunette, he visited Serbia last week and said that he thought the protests there were artificial, that they weren't real. The real Serbian people certainly wouldn't be protesting against their leadership. The Serbian president posted photos of himself with Don Jr. Like he was greeting a head of state or something. The Serbian president also ordered police in that country to raid the offices of four of the major civil society, civil society NGOs in that country. The police went in without warrants. They went in armed and they just took everything at those organizations. The justification for them doing that was Donald Trump. Trump is trying to abolish USAID trying to close down America's foreign aid agency. In so doing, Trump's top campaign donor, Elon Musk called USAID a criminal organization. Remember when he said that that has had consequences? Serbia's government is deciding that they're taking that literally. Well, it's Donald Trump's top campaign donor saying they're criminals. They're taking that literally. And essentially operating now on the assumption that, or at least on the pretext that any organization that ever got any support from USAID must be a criminal organization. And so now they've got armed police raids and shutting those organizations down and the threat of, in fact, criminal charges. That said, the people of that country in absolutely massive numbers would seem to disagree. What's going on in that country started as a group of students protesting against corruption and its consequences. In November, there was a disaster at a Serbian train station. The concrete roof of a train station in Serbia collapsed And it killed 15 people. And that might not sound like a political event, but it has sparked this huge political movement because students after that disaster took to the streets and said reasonably that the reason that train station roof was improperly built and it therefore collapsed is because the government is corrupt. And that's the kind of construction you get when the only criteria for getting a government contract is cronyism and bribery instead of actually knowing how to do the work. That is the kind of accident you get when your terrible train station construction passes inspection and opens up to the public, not because it's actually safe or properly built, but because the necessary bribes were paid. Corrupt countries, oligarchic countries, autocratic countries, are lousy countries. Bad governance means bad standards of living, means bad economies, means worse lives for everybody except the people at the very top. And these students started demonstrating against their Putin and Trump style corrupt government in November. And now they are turning out hundreds of thousands of people in the streets of their capital. And it is very possible that that government will fall. Despite a friendly Visit from Dong Junior Another 50,000 people turned out in Hungary this weekend. Look at this. To protest against the Trump and Putin aligned dictator in that country, Viktor Orban. Look at this crowd in Budapest on Saturday. Viktor Orban is the tool that Vladimir Putin is using to try to break apart the eu. Viktor Orban has also provided the Trump movement in this country with much of its playbook for what they're doing to our country and to our government right now. Firing as many civil servants as they can, discrediting, attacking, intimidating, ultimately trying to co opt all of the media, attacking and trying to close down colleges and universities, discrediting and attacking judges and the court system. That is all Viktor Orban's playbook. And the Trump movement credits him with all those good ideas which they are now trying to put in place in the United States. States. Viktor Orban has been in power in his country for 15 years now. He has turned his country into an autocracy. And although his family and his friends have become very, very, very rich, Hungary's economy is also trash now for everyone else. And so Hungary in large numbers, Hungarians are turning out in shockingly large numbers against him and in support of a rising opposition party that very well may beat him and remove him from office if he allows the next rounds of elections in Hungary. Also this weekend in Romania and in the nation of Georgia, there were more huge anti Putin, pro Europe large scale protests. Russia is accused in Romania of not only interfering in their last election, but also just outright trying to mount a military coup to oust the government there to instead install a pro Russian, pro Putin puppet regime. Vice President J.D. vance has taken up Russia's talking points against the Romanian government, criticizing them, while the EU has taken steps to try to help Romania defend itself against Putin. In the nation of Georgia, they also have a pro Putin, pro Russia authoritarian government, even though much of the population of that country wants Georgia to be part of Europe. Instead, the opposition in Georgia, the pro European, pro western opposition in Georgia, has mounted increasingly large demonstrations in their capital city. They've actually done a large scale demonstration in their capital city every single day for the last 110 days. Today was day 110. They are protesting the government itself. They've interestingly and I think importantly been protesting against state tv, which is just relentless Russian style propaganda now. But they're mounting those demonstrations in the state, in the Nation of Georgia, 110 straight days now and counting. Lest you feel like we're all alone here, we've got plenty of company. And they're doing it in massive unified protests over there, particularly in huge numbers this weekend. Here we're doing it mostly in widely dispersed protests all over the place, all the time. Some of them large, some of them small. This was Boise, Idaho at the state capitol on Saturday. Deep, deep, deep red Idaho. Look at this. Thousands of people turned out in Boise on Saturday protesting against Trump and what he and his top campaign donor are doing to the US Government. This was in lower Manhattan this weekend, what they call a die in thousands of people protesting what Trump and Musk are doing and their threats to things like Medicaid and Medicare that tens of millions of Americans rely upon. Protests against Trump and his top campaign donor are everywhere. People in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and in Olympia, Washington, this weekend protesting at their state Capitol buildings in support of veterans and against Trump's cuts to the va. People in Kansas City, Missouri, this weekend. Save the Civil Service people in Reno, Nevada, this weekend outside the office of Republican Congressman Mark Amaday. And like I said, some of these protests are big. More big protests this weekend in Boston, on Saturday, in Tarrytown, New York, where they said courage is contagious this weekend. But some of these protests are small, too, which actually shows its own kind of courage. Little protests, little sort of sparky, spunky protests this weekend in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, and in Canton, Ohio, even after President Trump and his top campaign donor and the Attorney General Pam Bondi, all started threatening Americans who don't support Elon Musk's car company. They started threatening people that they'd be hit with terrorism charges or that these, you know, boycotting Tesla or protesting against Tesla was somehow specially illegal in a way that other forms of protests aren't, which is nonsense, legally. But they issued the threats anyway, even after those threats last week from Trump, from Musk, from Attorney General Pam Bondi. There were dozens and dozens and dozens of protests at Tesla dealerships all over the country this weekend. There was a big one in Tucson, Arizona, another big one in Pasadena, California, another one in Seattle, Washington. But they were everywhere from Golden Valley, Minnesota, to Santa Rosa, California, to Loveland, Colorado, to Cleveland, Ohio, to Austin, Texas, to South Burlington, Vermont. Protesters all over the country with this simple and now defiant message. Just asking people simply, if you drive a Tesla, please sell it and if you own stock in Tesla, please dump it. Elon Musk is not a government official, right? He was never elected. And so this is the way people are trying to protest against Elon Musk and his role in our government. We saw constituents of Republican Congressman Lloyd Smucker turn out in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, this weekend. They held essentially a mock town hall in the name of Congressman Smucker. Since he won't hold any real ones with his actual constituents, they did it for him. Same thing in Arizona. Tucson area constituents of Republican Congressman Juan Siskamani held a big town hall in his name because he won't weep with his constituents now at all. And so they met without him. They saved him a seat. We also saw big and frankly, angry demonstrations for Mahmoud Khalil and other permanent residents or people with valid visas who have nevertheless been arrested or deported. You've seen the five alarm constitutional fire Trump set this weekend by appearing at least to defy a court order when he chose to disappear several hundred men out of the country without any legal process at all, apparently on the pretext that Trump can use wartime powers. Even though we're not at war, I say this was a five alarm constitutional fire. There was aover this matter. There was a big showdown on this in court this evening. Tonight, here live, we're going to be talking with the lawyer who got the court order that should have turned around those planes this weekend, the same lawyer who was arguing the case in court tonight. We're gonna be speaking with him live just after that court hearing in just a moment. You're gonna wanna see that. But before we get to that, and that is an urgent story, there's one other story that is breaking just tonight. It's just broken. It's just developed sort of within the past couple of hours. And I want to bring this to you first. I'm not sure you've seen this elsewhere. You might remember a couple of weeks ago, we covered here on this show a sort of, in the grand scheme of things, a small scale confrontation in one small government office in Washington. It's a little agency that you definitely haven't heard of. It's called the US Africa Development Foundation. And the reason we covered what was going on there is because something unusual happened there. When Trump went after that office, went after that agency and tried to shut them down at that agency, they had a physical confrontation with people from doge, from the Elon Musk Austerity group. These would be anonymous young men who work for Elon Musk. They showed up. Do you remember the story? They showed up at that small government agency and they demanded to be let inside. And that small government agency told them no. They said, we're an independent agency. We are actually not part of the executive branch. You have no legal authority over us, legal right to come in. We do not invite you in. We say, you can't come in, you cannot come in. And the Doge kids left when they were told they couldn't come in. But then the next day they came back with muscle. They came back with people who said they were U.S. marshals. And we think those people were possibly armed. They were carrying guns. Now, the US Marshal Service consistently will not comment on this. They will not say whether or not those people were actually U.S. marshals. We have some reporting that suggests they may not have been U.S. marshals. Nevertheless, they reportedly claimed to be U.S. marshals. And with Those men with those people claiming to be U.S. marshals, the young men from Doge did physically force their way into that agency and then locked out all the actual staff and changed the locks. So whether or not you, you know, your heartstrings are pulled by the fate of that individual agency. Right. You can see why this might be a qualitatively more worrying thing than some of the other stuff we have seen. I mean, there are legitimate legal disputes as to whether this Doge group has any legal authority over some of these agencies that they're trying to get into so they can take over their systems and fire their staff and shut them down. Those disputes are legal disputes that need to be sorted out legally. You can't just use guns to force your way in. In the meantime, as a means of settling that dispute. If there's a legal dispute as to whether or not you are allowed in a US Government building, and you cast that aside and say, we've got guns, and that's the grounds on which we're coming in, what that is is an armed assault on the US Government. That is an armed assault on a US Government office. That's a break in. That's call the cops territory. That's barricade the doors territory. I mean, at that point, what's to stop the little government agency from bringing in their own armed force? Right? And then we shoot it out. That said, if there is an armed part of the US Government, somebody who's allowed, you know, whose agents are allowed to carry weapons, who have badges, who are allowed to use physical force as part of their job, to the US Marshals or anyone else, if they are now working for Doge against other parts of the government that you might think have an equal claim to their services and protection, well, then, if that's the case, DOGE is something different than we thought it was. Do they have an army? I mean, if the president has given his top campaign donor the ability to use physical force, the ability to use the force of arms against other parts of the US Government, we are in a different place than we thought we were. Worrying possibilities were raised by that conflict at the US Africa Development foundation when that unfolded a couple of weeks ago. That's why we covered it here on this show when it happened. That led last week to a lawsuit being filed against the US Marshals. Democracy Forward filed this lawsuit last week asking, in part, why, quote, individuals associated with Doge have repeatedly invoked threats to engage the U.S. marshal Service when seeking questionable access to agency buildings and information. So that happened at The US Africa Development Foundation a couple weeks ago led to the lawsuit against the US Marshals demanding information from the marshals last week. Well, now tonight, it has led to another physical confrontation. And this time, the agency in question actually did call the cops. In this case, it's something called the US Institute of Peace. It works on things like research in conflict zones and training future diplomats. It was created by Congress during the Reagan administration. It was created in 1984, but it is not an official part of the US government. It does not act in the name of the US Government. It is a separate institution. Nevertheless, on Friday, representatives from DOGE showed up unannounced at their building. And they showed up unannounced this time, not with somebody claiming to be a U.S. marshal. This time they showed up with FBI agents. Wait, the FBI works for Doge? They demanded entry into the US Institute of Peace. The Doge team was reportedly met by lawyers for the Institute who informed them, quote, of the Institute's private and independent status as a non executive branch agency. They told them they could not come in. The Doge representatives on Friday then departed. That was Friday. But now today, apparently, it has come to a different ending. We got this alarming quote from the CEO of that independent organization tonight. DOGE has broken into our building. The New York Times reports, quote, the U.S. institute for Peace called the D.C. police on the Musk team members in an effort to stop them from trespassing because the Institute has control of its own building and the land it sits on. But instead, the D.C. police allowed them to enter and kicked out the institute's officials. FBI agents reportedly. And the local police are being used by one government agency as an armed force against another part of the government, another government agency that controls its own building and that says you can't come in. What's going on here and how do we figure it out? Joining us now is somebody who has been trying to pry loose some of the truth of what's going on here. Sky Perriman is the president and CEO of Democracy Forward, which sued the U.S. marshals Service last week, asking why Doge was repeatedly invoking the marshals while trying to force their way into various buildings in Washington. Ms. Perryman, thanks very much for joining us. I appreciate it.