Maddow: Trump is terrible at everything except this one thing

Summary

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The Rachel Maddow Show – May 5, 2026

“Trump is terrible at everything except this one thing”

Main Theme & Purpose

Rachel Maddow and her expert guests dissect the Trump administration’s broad failures in governance, policy, public services, and public opinion—contrasted with one “success”: a systematic, unprecedented campaign targeting Black Americans and dismantling civil rights protections. The episode weaves together news analysis, polling, historic context, and interviews with those on the front lines of resistance, offering both a critical overview and a warning about American democracy’s current test.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Administration Scandals & Incompetence (00:50 – 08:44)

• Contempt of Court and Legal Failures

  • DOJ and Homeland Security officials face contempt charges for lying to and about a federal judge in Rhode Island.
  • In Alabama, allegations surface that DOJ lawyers lied to a grand jury to indict the Southern Poverty Law Center—a rare move that could end in case dismissal and lawyer disbarment.
  • Quote (Rachel Maddow, 02:16):
    “Lying to a federal judge, lying about a federal judge, is a really big deal if you’re a lawyer, or a government official.”

• Poll Numbers and Public Opinion

  • Trump’s approval is plunging: -25 overall, -31 on the economy, -53 on cost of living, and 76% disapproval on inflation.
  • Quote (Rachel Maddow, 05:49):
    “He’s minus 53 as, among other things, his war of whim, his war of impulse, this war of choice drags on with no end in sight.”

• Government Dysfunction and Dangerous Cuts

  • Tornado outbreak in Kansas City, Kansas resulted in minimal warning due to gutted NOAA and National Weather Service staffing—a direct result of “Trumpism.”
  • Agriculture mismanagement: after severe staff cuts (23,000 jobs lost), crop estimates were off by 1.3 million acres, disrupting farmers and markets.
  • Quote (Rachel Maddow, 08:34):
    “It’s just failure. It’s what happens when you break things. Turns out then they’re broken, so they don’t work when you need them to work.”

2. Foreign Policy Chaos: Iran War & Troop Withdrawals (11:00 – 14:54)

• War in Iran Escalates
  • Hostilities intensify, with U.S. and Iranian ships exchanging fire.
  • Trump withdraws 5,000 troops from Germany, undermining U.S. military logistics for the war. This mirrors a similar, Putin-inspired move in 2020.
  • Quote (Rachel Maddow, 13:53):
    “The president publicly announced that he wants thousands of US Troops pulled out of Germany...Then it turns out...he made this announcement about pulling U.S. troops out of Germany right after he got off the phone with Vladimir Putin. Pulling US Troops out of Germany is something that Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin really, really want.”

3. Racism & Civil Rights Rollbacks – Trump's Real "Success" (15:00 – 27:09)

• Racially Disastrous Policies

  • Trump administration’s only consistent “success”: devastating, systematic rollbacks targeting Black Americans.
  • Repeal of anti-discrimination and anti-segregation executive orders (the LBJ 1965 order, and federal contract desegregation clause).
  • Firing high-profile Black officials across government sectors, cutting agencies with high Black employment.
  • Quote (Rachel Maddow, 20:24):
    “In the year of our Lord 2025 and now 2026, this President and this administration is not just inheriting that history from the Wilson administration. It’s furthering it in its own ways.”

• Unenforced Civil Rights Laws

  • Fair Housing Act enforcement ceases; HUD employees warn discrimination cases are being dropped.
  • Black unemployment spikes to 7.5%, reversing gains from Biden’s record low of 4.8%.
  • Supreme Court (dominated by Trump appointees) “effectively ends” the Voting Rights Act, ushering a new era of minority disenfranchisement.

• Nationwide Effects

  • Swift efforts in GOP-led states to eliminate Black congressional districts:
    • Louisiana’s new maps eliminate Black representation despite 1/3 state population being Black.
    • Similar plans in South Carolina and Tennessee target the last Black districts.
  • Quote (Justice Elena Kagan, 25:30):
    “[The decision] will likely cause the largest reduction to minority representation since the end of Reconstruction.”

• Summary (Rachel Maddow, 27:01):
  “It is a war on black America. The fight to save it is looking like it’s going to be the fight of all of our lives.”

4. Pushback and Resistance (29:20 – 46:34)

• Redistricting Battles & Voting Rights Litigation (29:20 – 35:47)

  • Democrats and civil rights groups ramp up legal and legislative countermeasures—focusing on state legislative races and court challenges.
  • Quote (Rep. Hakeem Jeffries via Rachel Maddow, 30:27):
    “Across the nation, we will sue, we will redraw, and we will win.”
  • Interview (Sophia Lynn Lakin, ACLU Voting Rights Project, 31:50 – 35:46)
    • Legal chaos in Louisiana as the GOP governor cancels mid-voting congressional elections to push new, GOP-favored maps.
    • ACLU argues this is “true disenfranchisement,” seeking federal injunction.
    • Lakin calls SCOTUS decision “an extraordinary gut punch,” threatening decades of civil rights gains.

• Religious Groups Divesting from Pro-ICE Bank (37:10 – 43:42)

  • Greater Boston Interfaith Organization withdraws $1 million from Citizens Bank for funding private prison operators CoreCivic and GEO Group, pressing for change.
  • Interview (Reverend John Edgerton, Old South Church, 39:12 – 43:42)
    • “We feel deeply betrayed by what Citizens Bank is doing...Rather than partnering with and building up all our neighbors...they are making money tearing families apart. It is unconscionable. It is against the basic values of this country. And it is something that I find religiously abhorrent.” (41:34)
    • Other faith groups (e.g., Greater Cleveland Congregations) join, upping pressure.

• Federal Court Pushback on Executive Overreach (43:48 – 46:34)

  • Trump’s plan to seize control of DC’s East Potomac public golf course (after using it as a construction dump) is blocked by a federal judge.
  • Judge’s warning:
    “If anyone orders big things to show up—by big things I mean anything bigger than my sedan—then I want the plaintiffs to have notice. Anything bigger than my sedan. Got it?” (46:00)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Rachel Maddow (on government dysfunction):
  “They are terrible in the courts to the point where...their performance in court jeopardizes the law licenses of everybody who speaks for them.” (16:41)

• Rachel Maddow (on Trump's only "success"):
  “But on the issue of race, on the treatment of African Americans specifically, even being terrible at what they’re doing has still proven to be disastrous for our country.” (17:22)

• Guest Analyst (Naming targeted Black officials):
  “Right away, we get the firing of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Charles CQ Brown... [and many others]” (18:33)

• Reverend John Edgerton (Faith-based bank boycott):
  “They are making money tearing families apart. And it is unconscionable. It is against the basic values of this country. And it is something that I find religiously abhorrent.” (41:34)

• Sophia Lynn Lakin (ACLU):
  “You are disenfranchising voters. You’re creating a situation that nobody wants to see when it comes to talking about elections that have integrity.” (33:56)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Trump Administration Legal Failures & Court Contempt: 00:50 – 04:47
• Polling, Public Opinion, and Practical Failures: 04:51 – 10:57
• War in Iran, Troop Withdrawals, and Russia Influence: 11:00 – 14:54
• Historic and Systematic Civil Rights Rollbacks: 15:00 – 27:09
• Potential Mitigation and Pushback (Redistricting/Voting Rights): 29:20 – 35:47
• Religious Groups Divest from Pro-ICE Bank: 37:10 – 43:42
• Court Blocks Trump’s Golf Course Land Grab: 43:48 – 46:34

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Conclusion

Rachel Maddow and her guests deliver a relentless, detailed indictment of the Trump administration’s across-the-board failures, with special focus on the coordinated attack on civil rights and Black Americans as the “one thing” where Trump’s team has proved ruthlessly effective. The episode lays bare present dangers to democracy, the rule of law, and multiracial representation, but also spotlights ongoing, creative resistance—legal, political, and religious—offering both context and urgent calls to action.

Quote to Remember (Rachel Maddow, 26:56): “It is a war on black America. The fight to save it is looking like it’s going to be the fight of all of our lives.”

Transcript

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[Rachel Maddow]

Really happy to have you here. There is a lot that the U.S. government and this presidential administration is failing at right now. In the courts, in public opinion, in politics, in the technocratic and practical functions of government. Even some of their schemes and scams are falling apart. Every day, every news cycle, the list just piles up of things at which they are failing.

[Guest Analyst]

Today, for example, the Justice Department and the Homeland Security Department learned that their officials may be held in contempt of

[Rachel Maddow]

court by a federal judge in Rhode Island. The administrative put out a press release lying about this particular judge, vilifying this particular judge in terms that were not true. What it said in the press release about this judge was false. Now, today in court, the Justice Department's lawyer begged the judge's forgiveness for that. He admitted in today's court hearing in Rhode island that he, in fact, had deliberately withheld information from this judge. He said he only did so because the Department of Homeland Security explicitly instructed him to do that. That's really bad. But he sort of threw himself on the mercy of the court, told the judge he's so, so sorry.

[Guest Analyst]

Lying to a federal judge, lying about

[Rachel Maddow]

a federal judge is a really big deal if you're a lawyer or a government official.

[Guest Analyst]

And even though Trump's Justice Department lawyer,

[Rachel Maddow]

quote, profusely apologized for it in court

[Guest Analyst]

today, the judge said at this hearing today that she is weighing contempt charges against DOJ officials and Homeland Security officials

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

for the lying that is very not good.

[Rachel Maddow]

And that happened today.

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

While another federal judge, a judge in

[Guest Analyst]

Alabama, is also weighing a very serious

[Rachel Maddow]

allegation, a potentially very consequential allegation that DOJ lawyers may have lied to to the grand jury in a very high

[Guest Analyst]

profile case in Alabama. This is the case about the Southern Poverty Law center where Trump's DOJ has brought a bizarre prosecution against that longtime civil rights group, the Southern Poverty Law Center.

[Rachel Maddow]

In responding to the indictment, they've done something very unusual.

[Guest Analyst]

Now, they have now asked the judge in that case to allow them to

[Rachel Maddow]

see, to allow them to see the

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

transcript of what the lawyers from Trump's

[Rachel Maddow]

DOJ actually told the grand jury behind closed doors when they went in to

[Guest Analyst]

talk to that grand jury to convince that grand jury to sign off in the indictment on this civil rights group.

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

They want to know what Trump's DOJ lawyers said to that grand jury.

[Guest Analyst]

This is a very rare request. This is a very unusual thing to request of the judge in a court case. But the reason they have done it is because in this case, in the Southern Poverty Law center case, the indictment

[Rachel Maddow]

really makes it seem like Trump's Justice Department lawyers might have lied to the grand jury, might have told them things

[Guest Analyst]

either about the civil rights group or

[Rachel Maddow]

about the law that were just factually wrong.

[Guest Analyst]

The arraignment in that case is on Thursday. The judge is right now considering whether to release the grand jury information to the defense.

[Rachel Maddow]

If it, if that happens, if it

[Guest Analyst]

does turn out that the lawyers at

[Rachel Maddow]

Trump's DOJ lied to the grand jury in order to get that indictment, not only would that instantly end the indictment,

[Guest Analyst]

end the case, it could very easily

[Rachel Maddow]

mean contempt of court or discipline or even disbarment for the Trump lawyers involved here.

[Guest Analyst]

The fact that this is even in play in a high profile case like

[Rachel Maddow]

this is unheard of for Justice Department lawyers.

[Guest Analyst]

But in Trump's Justice Department, that's kind

[Rachel Maddow]

of how they roll. They are not great at this. They are really not great at this.

[Guest Analyst]

Politically, they're not great at this either, it turns out, in an environment where the Republican Party is embodied essentially entirely

[Rachel Maddow]

by their leader, while nobody, where nobody else is allowed the oxygen to thrive or speak.

[Guest Analyst]

The latest Washington Post ABC News Ipsos poll has has Trump negative 25 overall.

[Rachel Maddow]

He's 25 points underwater on his overall

[Guest Analyst]

approval rating, and that's kind of the

[Rachel Maddow]

high point for him in this poll. -25 is kind of as good as it gets. On the economy, his approval rating is 31 points underwater. On the Iran war, his approval rating

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

is 33 points underwater.

[Rachel Maddow]

On inflation, Trump's approval rating is 45 points underwater. On Trump's handling of the cost of living, which is effectively what he ran

[Guest Analyst]

on to get a second term in the White House, Trump is 53 points underwater. 76% of the country disapproves of Trump's

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

handling of the cost of living.

[Rachel Maddow]

He's minus 53

[Guest Analyst]

as, among other things,

[Rachel Maddow]

his war of whim, his war of impulse, this war of choice that he doesn't even seem to understand drags on with no end in sight.

[Guest Analyst]

And the energy crisis he caused by starting this inexplicable war just gets worse

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

and worse with gas prices continuing their steady, steep rise.

[Rachel Maddow]

They are really, really not great at this. They're not good at this.

[Guest Analyst]

We're also now seeing every day the practical impact of what it means that

[Rachel Maddow]

they kicked off this second presidential term for Donald Trump by wholesale breaking the government in every way they could figure

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

out to do it.

[Rachel Maddow]

And we're seeing that in very practical ways. Like, regardless of your politics, regardless of your ideological can't, we're seeing it in very practical consequences.

[Guest Analyst]

Last month's tornado outbreak in Kansas City, Kansas, trees damaged, homes damaged, mobile homes and RVs overturned, people injured.

[Rachel Maddow]

Turns out people had basically no warning

[Guest Analyst]

of those tornadoes last month.

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

And why not, right?

[Rachel Maddow]

Usually a tornado watch goes up a

[Guest Analyst]

few hours before storms are anticipated. But in the Kansas City, Kansas, tornadoes last month, they only got the tornado

[Rachel Maddow]

watch up about 30 minutes before the first storm hit. And that's not the warning.

[Guest Analyst]

Hey, it's coming.

[Rachel Maddow]

That's the watch which usually gives you hours of notice to let you know

[Guest Analyst]

that tornadoes are a possibility.

[Rachel Maddow]

That day, they only got 30 minutes before the watch, no time to get

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

ready, which undoubtedly affected people's preparedness and undoubtedly affected the amount of damage and potentially the number of injuries.

[Guest Analyst]

What happened there?

[Rachel Maddow]

Why did people get no notice? Quote, many forecasting offices in the Great

[Guest Analyst]

Plains

[Rachel Maddow]

did not launch weather balloons at 7am that day, as they have for decades?

[Guest Analyst]

And why didn't the National Weather Service

[Rachel Maddow]

offices launch the weather balloons that morning as they always have, every 7am every day for decades? Well, thank Donald Trump. Weather balloon launches was one of the

[Guest Analyst]

first things that had to go.

[Rachel Maddow]

When Donald Trump and his infinite wisdom

[Guest Analyst]

started radically cutting the staffing levels at

[Rachel Maddow]

the National Weather Service and noaa, the

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

national oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

[Rachel Maddow]

Why did he cut those jobs? What do you have against weather forecasting and tornado watches? Who knows? But there's your tornado warning system on Trumpism. And again, this isn't, you know, this isn't abstract. This isn't theoretical.

[Guest Analyst]

It isn't ideological.

[Rachel Maddow]

It's just failure. It's what happens when you break things. Turns out then they're broken, so they don't work when you need them to work.

[Guest Analyst]

They really are not great at this. The Trump administration, in its infinite wisdom,

[Rachel Maddow]

also this year radically has screwed up its agriculture numbers, which has turned out to be a huge, expensive catastrophe. Here's Byline Kansas City, Missouri from the New York Times.

[Guest Analyst]

After Trump's Agriculture Department made its estimate last summer of how much corn American

[Rachel Maddow]

farmers would harvest this year, quote, the projection had to be repeatedly revised upward until, in January, the department found 1.3 million more acres of corn that it had not accounted for in its earlier estimate. 1.3 million acres is an area, quote, larger than Delaware. Why is this estimate important? Well, traders use this estimate to buy and sell commodities, affecting the prices that

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

farmers receive for their crops.

[Rachel Maddow]

Farmers use the estimate to make decisions

[Guest Analyst]

about how and when to try to

[Rachel Maddow]

sell their crop for the most money. But under Donald Trump, the apparent the US Government is apparently no longer capable of making these very basic estimates. Quote, it was a miss no other way to call it. It was the department's worst projection in recent memory. And why did they screw this up?

[Guest Analyst]

Why did it happen?

[Rachel Maddow]

I don't know. You tell me. Quote it came as the Trump administration was cutting staff at the Agriculture Department. The agriculture department lost 23,000 employees in

[Guest Analyst]

2025 as Elon Musk's doge slashed jobs

[Rachel Maddow]

across the federal government. The National Agriculture Statistics Service, which produces the crop reports, was one of the hardest hit divisions.

[Guest Analyst]

They took its staff from about 800

[Rachel Maddow]

down to about 500. Yeah, and then, weirdly, turns out the crop reports started sucking worse than they ever had, which kicks American farmers in the teeth right at the moment that Trump's other genius policies mean they can't afford fertilizer or diesel for their tractors

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

or for the trucks to get their harvest to market.

[Guest Analyst]

If anyone in the world will still buy their harvest.

[Rachel Maddow]

Since Trump screwed all that up with

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

his tariffs adventure as well, I mean,

[Rachel Maddow]

they're really not good at this.

[Guest Analyst]

As the war in Iran seems to have become a hot war again today,

[Rachel Maddow]

with US And Iranian ships firing at each other in the Strait of Hormuz, President Trump has decided at the same time that he's going to pull 5,000 U.S. troops out of Germany. Now, wait, why does that matter for the Iran war? Germany isn't Iran. Hmm. Well, when Trump started the war in Iran without hardening and protecting any of our gazillion military bases and installations all over the Middle east which were now in the range of fire for Iranians missiles and drones, oops, where do you think they sent the US Troops who had to be evacuated really quickly, all off of all of those undefended bases all over the Middle east where'd they send them? They sent them to Germany because we have a really big troop presence in Germany and lots of facilities for our troops in Germany. There have been hundreds of U.S. troops

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

wounded in Trump's Iran war so far.

[Rachel Maddow]

Where do US Troops get evacuated to when they're wounded in the Middle East?

[Guest Analyst]

They get evacuated to Germany because we

[Rachel Maddow]

have such a big troop presence there and lots of military facilities there to handle those things. Trump is now sending 5,000American troops home

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

from that crucial position.

[Rachel Maddow]

Trump is simultaneously re upping the war in the Middle east and also shrinking our ability to support that war from the place where we support a war like that, which is Germany.

[Guest Analyst]

Why did he decide to do this now?

[Rachel Maddow]

Simultaneously upping the Iran war and also taking away the military's ability to support

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

the troops that are there fighting the war.

[Rachel Maddow]

Why did he decide to do this now? Where did he get this idea? Well, you know, little clue in the fact that he's done this exact same thing before in his first term in 2020, you might remember this. It went down kind of exactly the same way. In 2020, Trump announced that he was going to take thousands of US Troops out of Germany. And the Pentagon was totally blindsided. Nobody could figure out why he announced it. Turns out he had just talked to Vladimir Putin right before making that announcement about pulling U.S. troops out of Germany. Of course, you know, Putin more than anything wants US Troops out of all of Europe. So he was delighted then. That was in June 2020. Then the following month, July 2020, Trump talked to Putin again. And right after talking to Putin again, Trump reiterated more forcefully this time, I really mean it. I want those thousands of US Troops taken out of Germany. The only reason it ultimately didn't happen back then is because that was already late in the year, in 2020. And then Trump lost the presidential election,

[Guest Analyst]

and President Joe Biden countermanded Trump's ridiculous, nonsensical order.

[Rachel Maddow]

But now Trump's back in the White House. And so here we are again, and it's gone down exactly the same way. The president publicly announced that he wants thousands of US Troops pulled out of Germany. The Pentagon, once again, totally blindsided. Nobody knows why he has done this. Then it turns out it emerges that he made this announcement about pulling U.S. troops out of Germany right after he got off the phone with Vladimir Putin. Pulling US Troops out of Germany is something that Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin really, really want.

[Guest Analyst]

Something that would be terrible for the

[Rachel Maddow]

United States, but really good for Vladimir Putin. And somehow, magically, every time Trump talks to Vladimir Putin. He emerges from that phone call with this same idea over and over again, to give the Kremlin what it wants, even though it is terrible for the

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

United States and particularly terrible for the United States military right now while they're

[Rachel Maddow]

fighting a war in the Middle East.

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

That Trump, for who knows what reason,

[Rachel Maddow]

they're not good at this.

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

It was three months ago tonight when

[Guest Analyst]

the president posted online a video depicting

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

former President Barack Obama and former First

[Rachel Maddow]

Lady Michelle Obama as if they were apes.

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

President Trump did later take it down.

[Rachel Maddow]

He refused to apologize for it and

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

still hasn't to this day. That was three months ago. It was five months ago when Donald

[Rachel Maddow]

Trump confirmed something that he had previously long denied. Back in his first term, President Trump

[Guest Analyst]

had told a group of senators at

[Rachel Maddow]

the White House that he thought it was terrible that immigrants to America were

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

from s hole countries. And according to reporting at the time,

[Guest Analyst]

he named some predominantly black countries and

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

he said they were s hole countries. And couldn't we instead have immigrants, Immigrants from predominantly white countries? You mentioned Norway, since countries with white

[Rachel Maddow]

populations are apparently good and countries with black populations are swear words. So Donald Trump said that in his

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

first term, and when it was reported

[Rachel Maddow]

that he had said that, he denied it. He said he had never, ever used that language. But then just a few months ago, he started bragging proudly, weirdly, at a speech in Pennsylvania, he started bragging that, yes, actually, despite all those earlier denials, of course he had used that term and more, he still believes it.

[Guest Analyst]

Predominantly black countries are s hole countries. This administration, I, I think it's clear

[Rachel Maddow]

from just the repeated daily news cycle,

[Guest Analyst]

I think this administration is bad at

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

everything they set their mind to. They're terrible in the courts to the

[Guest Analyst]

point where, like, their performance in court jeopardizes the law licenses of everybody who speaks for them.

[Rachel Maddow]

They're terrible in the court of public

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

opinion, which you can see in the polls, which is going to have a

[Guest Analyst]

big political impact on them the next

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

time people get a chance to vote for them en masse.

[Rachel Maddow]

They're terrible, really terrible at all the

[Guest Analyst]

technocratic, practical stuff a government is supposed

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

to do, including, like, basic stuff like the weather.

[Rachel Maddow]

They're terrible at war, terrible at diplomacy. They're even terrible at hiding the ball in terms of how much this president

[Guest Analyst]

does whatever Vladimir Putin wants, even when

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

it makes no sense for us.

[Rachel Maddow]

They're just not great. They're bad at basically everything they try to do.

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

But on the issue of race, on the treatment of African Americans specifically, even

[Guest Analyst]

being terrible at what they're doing has

[Rachel Maddow]

still proven to be disastrous for our country. And it is in part the posturing

[Guest Analyst]

and the messaging and the racist vibes

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

from the White House and the president.

[Guest Analyst]

That is stuff that validates and excites the worst bigots in the country, and that is consequential.

[Rachel Maddow]

But it's more than that, too.

[Guest Analyst]

We are now about 16 months into

[Rachel Maddow]

what has been from day one, a concerted and intense targeting of black Americans,

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

specifically by this president and by this administration.

[Rachel Maddow]

On his first full day in office, he proclaims war on diversity efforts, not only in government, but in any institution in the country over which he can exert leverage, everything from schools and universities to law firms to private businesses of every stripe. He then immediately started firing some of

[Guest Analyst]

the highest profile black public officials in

[Rachel Maddow]

the whole US Government, seemingly regardless of

[Guest Analyst]

any other thing about them.

[Rachel Maddow]

I mean, right away, we get the firing of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Charles CQ Brown.

[Guest Analyst]

We get the firing of the Librarian

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

of Congress, Carla Hayden, and then it's

[Rachel Maddow]

Gwen Wilcox from the National Labor Relations,

[Guest Analyst]

and then it's Robert Primus, the chair of the Surface Transportation Board, and then it's Alvin Brown from the ntsb, and then it's Peggy Carr, the head of the national center for Education Statistics, and then it's Willie Phillips from FERC from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and then it's Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, and on and on and on.

[Rachel Maddow]

When Trump and his top political donor, Elon Musk, then started just lopping off

[Guest Analyst]

huge swaths of the federal government to disastrous practical effect.

[Rachel Maddow]

The largest and most egregious cuts targeted

[Guest Analyst]

federal AGENC that employed a disproportionate number of black employees. Reporter Erica Green wrote about this a

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

few months ago for the Times, noting

[Rachel Maddow]

that nothing had moved backwards in the federal government for black Americans this quickly

[Guest Analyst]

or this far in over 100 years

[Rachel Maddow]

since Woodrow Wilson came in in 1912 and resegregated the federal workforce, quote, black employees were fired or demoted to lower

[Guest Analyst]

level jobs, relegated to separate and inferior lunchrooms and other facilities, and accused of

[Rachel Maddow]

making white women feel unsafe. Those who remained were humiliated.

[Guest Analyst]

A black worker in the Postal Service

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

was surrounded by screens so white workers would not have to look at him.

[Guest Analyst]

Another employee had a cage built around

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

him to separate him from his white counterparts.

[Guest Analyst]

A clerk in the Treasury Secretary's office

[Rachel Maddow]

was assigned to rewrite all correspondence to

[Guest Analyst]

address black employees by their first names. The way Trump addressed the Librarian of

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

Congress, Carla Hayden, by her first name when he crowed publicly about firing her for no reason

[Rachel Maddow]

in the year of our Lord 2025 and now 2026. This President and this administration is not

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

just inheriting that history from the Wilson administration.

[Rachel Maddow]

It's furthering it in its own Ways.

[Guest Analyst]

Since 1965, there has been an executive order in effect. It was signed by Lyndon Johnson, 1965.

[Rachel Maddow]

Since 19, all federal contractors have been banned by executive order from discriminating on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or national origin. Donald Trump rescinded that 1965 rule on

[Guest Analyst]

his first full day in office.

[Rachel Maddow]

Less than a month later, Trump announced another rule change. They rescinded clause 52.22221 of the federal acquisition regulation, which doesn't sound like much,

[Guest Analyst]

but I'll tell you what the title of that is.

[Rachel Maddow]

It's Prohibition of Segregated Facilities.

[Guest Analyst]

That's what Trump rescinded. Less than one month into being back

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

in the White House.

[Guest Analyst]

That section reads, quote, the contractor agrees

[Rachel Maddow]

that it does not and will not maintain or provide for its employees any segregated facilities at any of its establishments and that it does not and will not permit its employees to perform their services at any location under its control where segregated facilities are maintained. That anti segregation clause has been in government contracts for decades. Donald Trump overtly reached out to rescind

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

it, which means, bluntly, that the federal

[Rachel Maddow]

government no longer explicitly prohibits contractors from

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

having segregated restaurants, waiting rooms, and drinking fountains. Make America great again, right?

[Rachel Maddow]

Recently fired and sidelined employees in the

[Guest Analyst]

Department of Housing and Urban Development have

[Rachel Maddow]

started sounding the alarm that the Trump administration is no longer, just bluntly, no longer enforcing a federal law known as the Fair Housing Act. Fair Housing act, another pillar of the

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

civil rights movements and its achievements, the

[Guest Analyst]

Fair Housing act dates to 1968. It says you can't refuse to rent to someone or refuse to sell a

[Rachel Maddow]

house to someone on account of their

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

race or their color or religion or

[Rachel Maddow]

national origin or any other factor against

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

which we're supposed to be protected from discrimination.

[Rachel Maddow]

According to current and former employees of

[Guest Analyst]

the Department of Housing and Urban Development

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

under Donald Trump, they have dropped. They have dropped enforcement of the Federal Housing Act.

[Rachel Maddow]

In Trump's first year back in office,

[Guest Analyst]

black unemployment spiked in this country from

[Rachel Maddow]

6.2% all the way up to 7.5%,

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

making it the highest of all racial groups. Under Joe Biden, black unemployment had been at a record low of 4.8%, spiking now under Donald Trump.

[Guest Analyst]

The Trump administration, generally speaking, is bad at its work.

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

It is bad at what it sets its mind to in all sorts of ways.

[Guest Analyst]

But black Americans, African Americans, have been

[Rachel Maddow]

targeted by this administration in a concerted way that has nevertheless been devastating, even

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

though the Trump administration isn't good at anything they set their mind to. And that was all before the conservative

[Rachel Maddow]

majority on the U.S. supreme Court, including

[Guest Analyst]

all of Trump's appointees, voted to effectively

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

end the Voting Rights Act a few days ago.

[Rachel Maddow]

As soon as the court said they

[Guest Analyst]

would take up that case, people started mapping the worst case scenario for what Trump and the Republicans would do, particularly

[Rachel Maddow]

in the south, if the court gutted the Voting Rights act of 1965, the

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

crowning achievement of the civil civil rights movement.

[Rachel Maddow]

And the before and after looks like

[Guest Analyst]

the snap back after the end of

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

Reconstruction, after the Civil War.

[Rachel Maddow]

I mean, look at the state of Louisiana. There, a third of the population of Louisiana is black. Louisiana's Republican governor canceled congressional elections that are already underway in that state to rush through new maps that will presumably make sure that even though one third of the population of that state is

[Guest Analyst]

black, there will be no black representation in Congress for Louisiana at all. South Carolina, a quarter of the population is black.

[Rachel Maddow]

They have one majority minority district represented by an African American Democrat, Jim Clyburn.

[Guest Analyst]

They are going to try to get

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

rid of that one black district so that South Carolina is all white, all Republican in representation, while a quarter of

[Guest Analyst]

the people who live in that state are black.

[Rachel Maddow]

Black. In Tennessee, one in six residents is black.

[Guest Analyst]

Republicans now want to make sure all

[Rachel Maddow]

nine congressional seats in Tennessee are white.

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

All nine of them. They want it to be nine, nine, nine to nothing, white and Republican, and one in six people in that state is black. In her dissent from the majority ruling,

[Guest Analyst]

Justice Elena Kagan said it will likely

[Rachel Maddow]

cause the largest reduction to minority representation

[Guest Analyst]

since the end of Reconstruction. She probably didn't need to use the word likely there. The war on black Americans that is being waged by this president and this

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

Republican Party is one of the only things they have put their mind to in this past year that they've actually done pretty well at. A comprehensive attack on black public officials and black public power. A comprehensive attack on black public officials

[Rachel Maddow]

in the federal government, black employees in the federal government, black representatives in Congress, and now all around the country, where everywhere Republicans are in charge, they are

[Guest Analyst]

scrambling to make sure that black public

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

officials can no longer hold office.

[Rachel Maddow]

We're going to talk tonight about the pushback against that and the strategies to make them pay for it, both in Louisiana, which is ground zero here and around the country.

[Guest Analyst]

We're going to talk tonight about some

[Rachel Maddow]

surprising pushback from churches and the clergy. We're going to talk tonight about a blistering takedown of Trump and the administration in federal court in Washington in a most unexpected case. But big picture, here we are. We are in the middle of something really radical in this country. Not just to get rid of our constitutional republic to replace our form of

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

government with something else, but to get

[Rachel Maddow]

rid of the multiracial democracy that our

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

Constitution is supposed to protect.

[Rachel Maddow]

It is a war on black America.

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

The fight to save it is looking like it's going to be the fight of all of our lives. More ahead tonight. Stay with us.

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[Rachel Maddow]

Democrats

[Guest Analyst]

currently hold about two dozen congressional seats in the American south on this map. Those are the islands of blue. Now that the Supreme Court has cleared the way for Republicans to erase majority minority districts by gutting the Voting Rights act, some estimates say Republicans could quickly

[Rachel Maddow]

pick up a minimum of half those seats.

[Guest Analyst]

At least a dozen people who study this thing say that by 2028, Republicans could draw maps that would give them as many as 19 of those seats in the House. One analysis shows the Congressional Black Caucus shrinking by as much as a third.

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

That's the risk.

[Guest Analyst]

That's what Democrats are looking at if they do nothing. But what if Democrats fight back with every single thing they've got? What if Democrats everywhere, they can draw maps that maximally favor them? The voting rights group Fair Fight Action estimates that Democrats could pick up 10 seats by 2028. Democrats could pick up 10 seats using maps drawn in states where Democrats control the state legislature. If Democrats gain control of more state legislatures, say, this year in November, if they win in places like, say, Wisconsin, they could pick up as many as

[Rachel Maddow]

22 seats, which would all but erase

[Guest Analyst]

any advantage Republicans are about to give themselves by losing the Voting Rights Act's protections. The first thing that means is that races for state legislature, state house, and state senate this year just got way more important in the immediate run in the right here, right now, Democrats are already taking steps to protect what they have to try to expand the map. Today, the Democratic leader in the House, Hakeem Jeffries, said he's already talking to Democratic officials in his home state of New York to come up with a plan for new maps there in time for 20. He said today, quote, this is just the beginning.

[Rachel Maddow]

Across the nation, we will sue, we will redraw, and we will win. The we will sue part of that

[Guest Analyst]

strategy is key because Democrats and voting rights groups are also pushing back in the courts wherever they can. As I mentioned at the top of the show, the Republican governor of Louisiana just took the extraordinary step of announcing it was an emergency and stopping an election that was already underway, specifically so his state can draw new maps that favor Republicans and that disfavor black voters. In Louisiana today, a coalition of voters and voting rights groups sued the governor for stopping those elections after Louisianans had already started to vote. In a statement announcing the lawsuit, they said by attempting to suspend an ongoing election, state officials are creating confusion, undermining public trust, and placing partisan interests above the constitutional rights of Louisiana voters.

[Rachel Maddow]

Black voters and communities that have long

[Guest Analyst]

fought for equal political representation should not be forced to bear the burden of unlawful power grabs designed to silence their voices. Elections belong to the people, not to politicians seeking to manipulate the rules. Joining us now is attorney Sophia Lynn Lakin. She is director of the ACLU's Voting Rights Project. The ACLU is representing those voters and civil rights groups in court. Ms. Lakin, thanks very much for being here.

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

Appreciate you being here in person.

[Sophia Lynn Lakin]

Thank you for having me.

[Guest Analyst]

So first of all, have I said anything about the situation in Louisiana or what the governor there is doing or

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

what this case is about that strikes you wrong or the wrong way around?

[Sophia Lynn Lakin]

No, not at all. Not at all.

[Guest Analyst]

Unfortun, canceling an election after people have

[Rachel Maddow]

already started voting feels like it should be the sort of thing you're not allowed to do. Can you help us understand the legal

[Guest Analyst]

arguments here and what this case is about?

[Sophia Lynn Lakin]

Sure. You know, this is actually the second case that we filed. We filed an action on Friday in state court saying the governor actually doesn't have the authority to issue this proclamation, this executive order to try to suspend the elections in an attempt to stop this before early voting in person started on Saturday. Unfortunately, the court denied our, our temporary restraining order there. So we have since, as you've pointed out, moved in federal court today to try once again to put a stop on what's creating massive confusion. We are hearing Republican election administrators calling this a nightmare for election administrators. It is chaotic. People don't understand what the situation is. There are actually elections that are proceeding irrespective of the suspension.

[Guest Analyst]

Right.

[Sophia Lynn Lakin]

There are other things on the ballot as well. So voters think, think that, oh, the election is off. They may not have their opportunity to even vote in those other elections, too. So we're talking about tens of thousands of voters who have turned out, who have cast ballots already, having their ballots suspended. And we are potentially canceled. A true disenfranchisement of voters in the very real sense of the word.

[Rachel Maddow]

So voters are being handed a ballot where there's lots of different races in the ballot. They're being told, some of your votes here will count, but some of them will. And in terms of when you want to cast votes for that other election, we'll let you know later. But if you cast it now, we're not going to count that, but we

[Guest Analyst]

promise we'll count the other things.

[Rachel Maddow]

I mean, I can't imagine that voters, I mean, any voter would be confused in that circumstance. But what's the remedy you could even seek with, you know, 80,000 people having already voted, that can retroactively fix the confusion that's already been cast over this election?

[Sophia Lynn Lakin]

Well, that's what we're trying to do by going in very quickly asking for a temporary restraining order to say, please halt, halt the enforcement of this suspension of the election, let it go forward, count everyone's votes that have been currently cast and continue on with this election. If you want to redraw these maps, we can talk about that at a later date. But at this moment in time, you're just causing chaos. You're disenfranchising voters. You're creating a situation that nobody wants to see when it comes to talking about elections that have integrity.

[Rachel Maddow]

I know that the ACLU is also

[Guest Analyst]

involved in a number of other cases over gerrymandering and racial discrimination. Places like North Carolina, Texas and Missouri.

[Rachel Maddow]

How does this sort of world shaking

[Guest Analyst]

Supreme Court decision affect the legal battle

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

in those kinds of cases?

[Sophia Lynn Lakin]

I mean, it's an extraordinary gut punch to the work that we have been doing to protect fair maps for voters of color. You know, the Supreme Court in its majority opinion describes this as an update to the Voting Rights act when, as Justice Kagan points out in her dissent, it is all but dead. Yeah, and that's really going to be a challenge for us going forward. This is one of the principal tools that we have used to bring progress to this country, to bring diversity in our representation, to ensure that voters of color have have a say, an equal say in our political process. And it's going to be difficult without this primary legal tool to ensure that we aren't rolled back to a time before the Voting Rights act to a time of Jim Crow.

[Rachel Maddow]

Sophia Lynn Lakin is director of the ACLU's Voting Rights Project. You have your work cut out for you. Thanks for being here to help us understand.

[Sophia Lynn Lakin]

Thank you for having me.

[Guest Analyst]

Appreciate it.

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

All right, we'll be right back. Stay with

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[Rachel Maddow]

Last week on the show, we showed you some of these images from Providence, Rhode Island. This was outside the Citizens park bank annual shareholders meeting.

[Guest Analyst]

These folks were demanding that Citizens bank, which is based in the Northeast, they

[Rachel Maddow]

should drop the big financial investments that

[Guest Analyst]

bank has in two private companies that

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

run immigrant prisons for the Trump administration.

[Rachel Maddow]

And it was not just at that shareholders meeting. There have been protests all across the

[Guest Analyst]

Northeast specifically targeting Citizens bank because of its involvement with Trump's immigration prison. Citizens bank stopped funding ICE prison.

[Rachel Maddow]

One Rhode island union has now said

[Guest Analyst]

it's withdrawing hundreds of thousands of dollars from Citizens bank in protest of what Citizens is doing with Trump's immigrant prisons. On top of that, a coalition of dozens of religious groups in Boston, they've announced that they will be pulling a

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

million dollars out of the bank unless

[Guest Analyst]

leaders of the bank at least held a meeting with them to discuss their concerns.

[Rachel Maddow]

They made that threat that, that charge basically last week.

[Guest Analyst]

In a statement, Citizens bank said in response that it does not comment on

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

specific customer or client partnerships.

[Rachel Maddow]

But after having put that charge to

[Guest Analyst]

Citizens bank last week, well, that coalition of religious groups, the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization, they say this meeting they've asked for with Citizens bank and its executives

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

has not been forthcoming.

[Guest Analyst]

And so they say as of today, they're following through on what they said they're going to do. Do members of this interfaith group, ministers, pastors, rabbis, they all gathered at a Citizens bank branch in Boston today to follow through on their pledge.

[Rachel Maddow]

They withdrew $1 million from the bank. Apparently this interfaith group has like something like $14 million in the bank altogether. They say they're going to keep pulling it out a million at a time,

[Guest Analyst]

as long as Citizens bank doesn't change its way.

[Rachel Maddow]

They even brought this giant $1 million

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

withdrawal slip with them for today's announcement.

[Guest Analyst]

Among the speakers today was Reverend John Edgerton, senior minister of Old South Church in Boston's Back Bay, who said in part, we are here today because we need to let the banks know that

[Rachel Maddow]

people of good faith, people of good

[Guest Analyst]

conscience, people of goodwill, our neighbors will not stand for building private prisons, for building deportation machines, for crushing our neighbors underneath their wheels for profit. No, he said. No, not with Our money. Joining us now is the Reverend John Edgerton, Senior Minister of Old South Church in Boston. Reverend, thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate you making time.

[Reverend John Edgerton]

Well, thank you so much, Rachel, for having me. Really appreciate it and giving the opportunity to speak to your audience.

[Guest Analyst]

How did this come about? Why did the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization decide to start pressing Citizens bank this way?

[Reverend John Edgerton]

We pulled a million dollars out today. We transferred it to another bank because we want Citizens to stay. Stop doing this dirty business. Citizens is one of the only banks in the country that banks with and provides financing for CoreCivic NGO Group, two of the most notorious private prison companies in this country. This year. Emmanuel Damas, who is a neighbor, a Boston resident, a 56 year old man, he died in Corecivic detention in Arizona from a toothache. He had a toothache. He complained about it. They didn't give him proper care. His toothache became an infection, his infection became sepsis and he died. And these are the practices that Corecivic is notorious for and GEO Group is notorious for. And they will not be abusing our neighbors, not with our money.

[Guest Analyst]

I got the sense from the speeches today from you and your fellow clergy who are part of this interfaith group, I got the sense that Citizens bank is not a symbol. They're not a sort of a distant corporate abstraction. To you. As a bank that is based in the Northeast, as a bank that is something that deals individually with all the different faith organizations, churches and synagogues and mosques that are part of the interfaith organization.

[Rachel Maddow]

I got the sense that U.S. faith leaders in Boston have a real relationship with Citizens Bank.

[Guest Analyst]

And that is part of what, why

[Rachel Maddow]

it both pains you and motivates you

[Guest Analyst]

that you haven't been able to shift them on this. Is that fair?

[Reverend John Edgerton]

We feel deeply betrayed by what Citizens bank is doing. Twenty years ago, we helped them to build relationships in the immigrant community so that they could expand their business. And since then they have turned into an organization we don't recognize, into an institution we don't recognize anymore. Rather than partnering with and building up all of our neighbors in Boston, instead they are making money tearing families apart. And it is unconscionable. It is against the basic values of this country. And it is something that I find religiously abhorrent.

[Guest Analyst]

Do you and your fellow clergy who are part of this interfaith group plan to continue to withdraw more money from the bank as a way of sort of ramping up the pressure? Are you hearing from any other faith organizations or nonprofits or entities that bank with citizens who may want to follow your lead on this.

[Reverend John Edgerton]

Today, a sister organization, Greater Cleveland Congregations, joined. They pledged that they would pledge their deposits toward this as well. So we are now well over $14.5 million of deposits. We are customers of citizens. We don't want to hurt citizens. They are long. We are 20 year customers with 14 and a half million dollars and growing of deposits that are ours. And we, we want for them to do what is right. Their core customer base is in Massachusetts, Rhode island, across New England. They are fast becoming the ICE bank. And if they think being the ICE bank is going to play well with their core base here in New England, they need better advice. And that is what we are trying to do, is give them some good advice, which is that they need to stop being involved in this dirty business.

[Guest Analyst]

Reverend John Edgerton, Senior minister of Old South Church in Boston. Reverend, thank you so much for your time. Keep us apprised. We're really interested in this campaign, both for what it means in New England, but also, I think, the kind of model that it presents around the country. We'd love to just have you again

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

and to hear how it goes.

[Reverend John Edgerton]

Wonderful. Absolutely. Anytime. Really appreciate it, Rachel.

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

All right, we'll be right back. Stay with us.

[Rachel Maddow]

This is the East Potomac Golf Course in Washington, dc.

[Guest Analyst]

It's a public course, so that means

[Rachel Maddow]

you don't have to be a member.

[Guest Analyst]

Anybody can sign up to play there.

[Rachel Maddow]

I don't know anything about golf. I can't tell golf from mini golf, but I can tell you that East

[Guest Analyst]

Potomac is thought of as a really beautiful course. It's a lovely and well loved amenity in New York. Excuse me, in dc.

[Rachel Maddow]

Or at least it was last year after President Donald Trump demolished the East Wing of the White House, bulldozed it, surprise, on his own, say so to build himself a ballroom nobody asked for. After he bulldozed and tore down the historic East Wing of the White House, he had the dirt and the rubble from that hauled away from the White House in trucks and had those trucks dump it all at the East Potomac Golf Course with, again, no warning or explanation.

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

That's nice.

[Rachel Maddow]

Like I said, this is a public golf course. This is not one of Donald Trump's private golf clubs. This belongs to the people.

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

People. But then,

[Rachel Maddow]

even after he turned it into his own personal construction dump, how did that happen? The Trump administration then announced that they were going to seize control of that course and DC's two other public golf courses as well. Again, no consultation, no explanation. Just gimme Just hungry, Hungry Hippo style. I'm taking it.

[Guest Analyst]

At East Potomac, there was reporting that

[Rachel Maddow]

the White House planned to shut the course down as early as this week. As early as today, the legal advocacy group Democracy Forward sued the Trump administration to try to stop them from taking

[Guest Analyst]

control of this course, which is part

[Rachel Maddow]

of a whole park that belongs to the taxpayers and not to the White House or Donald Trump. Well, today the judge in the case

[Guest Analyst]

told the Trump administration in no uncertain terms that the East Potomac Golf Course

[Rachel Maddow]

must stay open and the administration cannot make any significant changes to it without notice or approval. The judge today in court warned the White House that if so much as a shovel is seen scene at East Potomac, if anything even resembling heavy machinery pulls into its parking lot, she said, there's going to be hell to pay. Quote let's just say, given some issues

[Guest Analyst]

around the district recently, I would have a particular concern that we not ask,

[Rachel Maddow]

we not act first and ask forgiveness later, she said, quote, if anyone orders big things to show up, by big things, I mean anything bigger than my sedate, then I want the plaintiffs to have notice. Anything bigger than my sedan. Got it?

[Guest Analyst]

Tee times at the East Potomac Golf Course are available bright and early tomorrow morning and every morning from here on out. They are not going without a fight.

[Co-Host or Correspondent]

Stay with us.

[Rachel Maddow]

All right, that's going to do it for me tonight. Thanks for being here.

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