← The Rachel Maddow Show
The Rachel Maddow Show
Maddow: Trump's dismantling of the independent news media is happening before our eyes
00:43:24
Rachel Maddow looks at examples of how Donald Trump and his allies are undermining news outlets, both local and national, by targeting revenue streams and exploiting oppressive legal strategies, while Trump embraces and rewards outlets that are politically loyal, building the basis of a state press.
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- [00:01]
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Business Host
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- [00:52]
Rachel Maddow
Get the CFO's guide to AI and machine learning at netsuite.com podcast25netsuite.com podcast Happy to have you here. I'm also very relieved to not be leading the show tonight with news of yet another plane crash on the second week of this presidency. The new president of course, caused mass confusion among everyone who works with the federal government. Mass confusion, mass anxiety when he sent all federal employees a weirdly worded spam like email message telling them all to resign. That went out from the White House on Wednesday morning to everyone in the government, including say air traffic controllers and FAA staff and people who work for the National Transportation Safety Board. That went out Wednesday morning. That night. Wednesday night is when there was a mid air collision plane crash over the Potomac river in Washington D.C. killing 67 people. Absolutely horrific tragedy. The day after that Thursday, with rescue and recovery operations underway in the river, it finally occurred to the White House that maybe they should name someone to be the acting head of the faa. Maybe there should be somebody in charge of aviation safety in America. There had been an FAA chief who was right in the middle of his term, but he had been threatened by Trump's top donor, Elon Musk. Musk had demanded the resignation of the head of the faa. And so the head of the FAA resigned on Inauguration Day and the Trump administration had not gotten around to replacing him. It was not until a press conference about the plane crash that the President announced that he had decided to get around to naming an acting director of the faa. Still though, that same day after the plane crash, the White House sent out another email message to air traffic controllers and FAA staff and and all the rest again reiterating that they should resign their job Telling them that their job's working for the American people, working for the federal government. Those are, quote, low productivity jobs. And they should get out and go work in the private sector because that's where the real high productivity jobs are. Now, to be clear, the White House was not saying, listen, we need you out of here because we've got people who are better than you, who are all trained and ready to take your job as air traffic controllers and FAA staff. They're not telling them, we've got somebody to replace you with. They're just telling the people who do work there, who do work at the faa, who do work as air traffic controllers, they're just telling them now to get out, get out, resign. You're not needed. We do not value you. The next day on Friday, another horrific plane crash, this time in northeast Philadelphia. People killed on the plane, people killed on the ground in the densely populated neighborhood into which this plane crashed. And then the following day on Saturday, at one of the nation's busiest airports, Chicago, O'Hare, an Air Wisconsin plane taxiing to the gate smashed into a tug vehicle which tows aircraft at the airport. It flipped over the vehicle critically injured the driver. That night, Saturday night, the NOTAM system, the notice to Air mission system, which circulates critical basic safety information for every pilot on every flight. The NOTAM system on Saturday night crashed in the United States overnight, Saturday into Sunday morning. That caused last minute cancellations of like 80 flights, another 1300 to be delayed. Then midday on Sunday, a United Airlines flight From Houston to LaGuardia Airport in New York City caught fire on the Runway. Passengers could see smoke and flames coming from the wing of the plane. Look at that. They were initially told to stay in their seats. The passengers reportedly objected to that instruction because they could see the smoke and flames coming out of the wing of the plane. Plane passengers were then evacuated off that plane using slides and stairs onto the tarmac in Houston. So in the space of five days, that's the first major commercial air disaster in this country in more than 15 years. And then another catastrophic and deadly plane crash and then an airport collision and then a commercial plane fire that causes an on tarmac evacuation of all the passengers and a nationwide critical system failure that grounded flights all over the country. All in five days. All in five days. And who knows, Maybe that's just bad luck. Or you know what? Resign. Why don't you resign? Why don't the people who caused this mess, who oversaw, who proceeded over this mess, resign? That is what we would expect in a Normal country, we would expect resignations at a very high level. If a new political leader started off his time in office by threatening and chasing out the man in charge of aviation safety for the whole country and then forgetting that you needed to replace him, forgetting that until after the first plane crash happened, you would expect apologies and resignation in disgrace if you not only forgot to put someone in charge of aviation security for the country. Ooh, haven't gotten around to it, but you also spent your second week in office, both before and after that first plane crash, crash, telling all the air traffic controllers that they're low productivity, unwanted people and they should resign when you have no one to replace them. After they realized that air traffic controllers and FAA staff and people on the National Transportation Safety Board were among the employees they had just told to resign. Resign, get out. You're not wanted. After they had sent them their second notice telling them to get out in the wake of the first plane crash, the White House then realized, oh, maybe this isn't good. And so they tried to say that that had all been a mistake, that they didn't mean those government workers when they said all government workers had to resign. The Associated Press reports that even after they tried to claw back the resignation demands to air traffic controllers, saying, no, no, no, you received that in error. We didn't mean you. It still wasn't clear whether the air traffic controllers who received the resignation demands from the White House had actually been told that those demands were a mistake, that the White House didn't really mean it. And then, anyway, the next, that night, we had the next plane crash, and then we had the fire on the Runway, and then we had the collision, and then we had the critical computer system meltdown overnight. Resign. Resign. Anywhere else in the world, we would be expecting them to resign. You know what? Not just anywhere else in the world, anywhere else on our modern timeline in this country, you would expect top people at the White House, top people in the cabinet who presided over this mess, you would expect them to resign. And that may sound blunt, I know, but you know why it sounds blunt? It's because that's how I mean it. I mean it to sound exactly that way. And so that is how I said it. And that is because we have a free press in this country which does not work for the government and which is not obliged to be nice to the government when the government is failing and doing things for which there really ought to be high level resignations and apologies and some sort of corrective effort.
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Ken Martin
Made.
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Rachel Maddow
In the free press in this country, we tell the truth, we say what we think it means, we don't cower, we don't try to make anybody like us. That's what we do. So obviously, there's a lot going on, like there has been and will be every day for a while yet. And it is frustrating to me that we cannot cover everything all at once. All we can do is try to cover as much as we can, and we will keep doing that for the duration. Tonight, one of the congressmen who raced to the impromptu protest in Washington today when they're trying to illegally close down usad, he's going to join us here live tonight. Also here tonight, the newly elected chair of the Democratic Party is going to join us for his first interview since becoming chair of the Democratic Party. So just tonight, we've got a lot to get to. But there's a couple of things I want to draw some attention to tonight because as yet, as far as I can tell, nobody's really headlining these things as news stories, as new happenings. But these are things that are happening, and I think they're really important to how this radical moment in our country is going to resolve. And the first thing is about the press. And this is not something I talk about a lot on this show, but I believe this moment calls for it. So there's a newspaper in Long Island, New York, that's called Newsday. Long island, just so you know, is massive. It's got millions of people. And in New York City, there's the New York Times, the New York Post, the New York Daily News, all based in the city. All these things we think of as New York papers. But out on Long island, where there are millions of people, forever it's been New York Newsday. On Long Island, NY Newsday is a big paper, a big circulation. It is indisputably the paper of record, and it has been there forever. And I actually mean that literally. Local laws all over the country require the publication of public notices in the paper, in the paper of record. So this is notices about upcoming public hearings, about proposed laws, real estate transactions, stuff like that. We don't really have classified ads the way we used to in newspapers, but there's still a bunch of fine print notices in major papers, and those are often public notices that are required by law in the local paper of record. And those public notices are a considerable source of income for local newspapers on Long Island. In Nassau County, Long island, the county government there is headed up by an elected county executive. And in Nassau county, the county executive is a Trump guy. So much so that perhaps feeling a little jealous that Trump has his oath keepers and his proud boys. Pro Trump paramilitary militias. This county executive on Long island has also formed his own semi official paramilitary force of military and law enforcement veterans that he says he wants to be able to call up on his own orders to supplement official law enforcement. If that puts a little shiver in your quiver, it's because you're paying attention. But that same very Trumpy county official in Long Island, New York has now yanked all public notices from Newsday from the paper of record in Long island and instead has started putting public notices instead in a right wing New York City tabloid that's not even based in Long Island. Newsday is suing to get the public notices back. But we'll see. That's one. Here's a second story. This is the second part of the same story. You might have also seen headlines recently about Trump's new FCC chair going after NPR and pbs. Now, I recognize you might have skipped past those headlines because they look familiar. Every time a Republican's in the White House, they always say they're going to go after NPR and pbs. And every time Americans rise up and say leave Big Bird alone and leave NPR alone, we freaking use it and we like it and go mess with something else. This time, though, did you see how exactly they're going after them? They've decided to go out a different way this time. They've opened an investigation into how NPR and PBS stations state on the air who their underwriters are. NPR and PBS are public broadcasting, so they don't accept ads per se, but they do accept sponsorships. And when you're watching something on PBS or listening to something on npr, you will hear them tell you who their sponsors are. It's part of how NPR and PBS stations stay financially viable and sustainable and honestly locally grounded in their local communities, because a lot of their underwriting is from local businesses. I mean, if you've ever listened or watched public media, you know this. They do pledge drives to raise money from people who join as members. They also get local organizations and local businesses to sponsor their programs. So you get like, you know, this hour of jazz and classical music brought to you by your local Ford dealer or whatever. But that is what they're going after them for. This time. They're saying that their underwriting is somehow wrong. The way they state the names of their underwriters, that's illegal somehow. And this isn't. This is a new approach. This is not the usual blunt force Republican attack of threatening to take away their federal funding. Federal funding only makes up a fraction of the budgets of NPR and pbs. Now they're doing it differently this time. They're actually going at the, they're going at the way these stations are sustainably and locally making money to keep their programs on the air. Right. Because actually that funding is more important to NPR and PBS stations than federal funding is. And so, yeah, go at the thing that makes them their most money. Go at the thing that actually makes them viable. I mean, if these guys can stop the thing that makes these stations actually most of their money, that is a better way to cripple the high quality, gold standard independent US Journalism and programming of NPR and pbs. That's a better way to do it. And just threatening to cut off the fraction of their funds that come technically from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and taxpayer money. So that's another. You might also have seen headlines about the move at the Defense Department to take away office space used at the Pentagon by correspondents from the New York Times and NBC News and other major news organizations. Now, it does not mean that these news outlets are banned from covering the Pentagon. It just means they can't cover the Pentagon as well as they do now. I mean, they'll be allowed to attend briefings and get emails or whatever, make phone calls, but they are no longer allowed to be based there at the Pentagon. So they can be there all around the clock while decisions are being made and things are happening. They can't do that anymore. That office space has been there for Pentagon correspondence for decades. But in the Trump administration, they're pulling it from well established, competent, independent news organizations that they don't like and that they would like to hurt. All of these stories are the same story. This is not just your typical political thing where you've got somebody in the White House or somebody in politics complaining about press coverage. It's not even the typical thing with, with Trump calling the press the enemy of the people or whatever Stalinist thing he's on to. Now, this is what they call the Viktor Orban playbook for using the power of government to eliminate independent, credible, professional journalism. Using the power of government to hurt journalism as much as possible, to weaken it as much as possible, to try to drive independent, capable, professional media out of business and into ruin so that it goes away. And the only thing that's left is, for lack of a better term, State tv. In September, a few weeks before the election, the publisher of the New York Times wrote a long op ed and In a sort of gesture of solidarity, I think he published it not in his own paper, but in the Washington Post. So it's the Times publisher publishing something in the Washington Post. And it was a really important piece. It was about what he thinks, at least we should have been expecting. If an authoritarian minded Donald Trump returned to the White House and was determined to do to the press what he had been promising to do to the press through his first term. The warning basically was that Trump would probably try to do something to the press in this country, along the same lines of what Viktor Orban did to the press in his country. In Hungary, when he destroyed the free press there as part of his takeover as a de facto dictator, it said this quote, he can't simply close newspapers or imprison journalists. Instead, he sets about undermining independent news organizations in subtler ways, using bureaucratic tools such as tax law, broadcast licensing, and government contracting. Meanwhile, he rewards news outlets that toe the party line, shoring them up with state advertising revenue and tax exemptions and other government subsidies. He helps friendly businesses. Excuse me, he helps friendly business people buy up other weekend news outlets at cut rates to turn them into government mouthpieces. Within a few years. Only pockets of independence remain in the country's news media, freeing the leader from perhaps the most challenging obstacle to his increasingly authoritarian rule. Instead, the nightly news and broadsheet headlines unsceptically parrot his claims, often unmoored from the truth, flattering his accomplishments while demonizing and discrediting his critics. Whoever controls a country's media, the leader's political director asserts, quote, controls the country's mindset, and through that, the country itself. This is the short version of how Viktor Orban, the prime minister of Hungary, effectively dismantled the news media in his country. This effort was a central pillar of Orban's broader project to remake his country as an illiberal democracy. A weakened press made it easier for him to keep secrets, to rewrite reality, to undermine political rivals, to act with impunity, and ultimately to consolidate unchecked power in ways that left the nation and its people worse off. It's a story that is being repeated in eroding democracies all around the world. And it is a story that is being aped right now by the second Donald Trump presidential term. And this is not yet being treated as one of the things the new Trump administration is doing, but they are doing it, and they are using both the federal government and allies outside government to do it. And if the model holds, I expect that what we're going to see is a big spike in defamation cases brought against various media companies, particularly now that so many companies are settling them and paying rather than fighting them. We will see a systematic litigation effort, I believe, to undo libel law in this country. The decades old precedent called New York Times v. Sullivan. The goal of undoing precedent will be to make it easier for truly ruinous lawsuits to be brought against news organizations, whether or not they're brought in good faith. If they can succeed in restructuring defamation and libel law in this country, which they are trying to do, it will result in a restructured legal environment where news organizations really can't win. And yeah, you can have the government come after them, but you can also have the President's allies in private life come after them in ways that are designed to financially weaken, cripple and ultimately shut down or cause to be sold the oppositional independent media in this country. We have a free oppositional, independent, aggressive, often annoying and pushy press in this country, which you may not always like. But it is how we learn what the government is doing and it's the main reason why the government has to answer questions about what they're doing. Support for professional, independent and even oppositional media has never been more important. We are seeing a wall to wall strategy start to gear up to try to blow up the press and effectively just have state TV from here on out. It is a concerted and I'm pointing this out not because I like talking about the press. In fact, it's one of my least favorite things to talk about. But if you haven't done it before, this would be a good time to support your local public radio or TV station. This would be a good time to subscribe to any independent paper or media source that serves your community. We of course thank you for continuing to watch us here at msnbc. We also thank you for continuing to watch our competitors who are independent and professional and oppositional when they need to be or when they just feel like it's. So this is a heads up that this is happening. If you don't want it to happen, it's time to think about what you can do to help stop it. I'll just mention that they're about to drag NPR and PBS into Congress before a hearing that's going to be headed up by Marjorie Taylor Greene. They're going to force NPR and PBS to testify about these made up controversies about them. That might be a place where the pushback will start. But that's one thing to put on your radar today. The second thing to put on your radar today, and we're going to be talking about this every day, I think, from here on out, is that as we are watching these concerted efforts to fire people in the government they're not legally allowed to fire, to shut down whole parts of the government. Wall Street Journal is reporting tonight that they're trying to just illegally shut down the Department of Education. There were all the revelations this weekend that they're trying to illegally shut down usaid as we are seeing them do that. One of the things that is happening is that people who work in those organizations are responding themselves in ways that are brave and that show some real creativity and moxie. Federal workers themselves, people who work in these agencies are taking the lead in ways that I think are unexpected, super creative, brave and already productive. And we've got that story here for you next. And I know there is so much to cover. Like I said, the new chair of the Democratic Party is here tonight. One of the congressmen who rushed to respond to the shuttering of USAID is here tonight. We're here. We're not going anywhere, no matter what. Stay with us.
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Planned Parenthood Representative
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- [24:46]
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- [25:08]
Rachel Maddow
Get the CFO's guide to AI and machine learning at netsuite.com podcast25 netsuite.com podcast25.
- [25:17]
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- [25:18]
Rachel Maddow
Easy.
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- [25:52]
Rachel Maddow
Over the weekend, security staff at USAID tried to block Trump administration minions from taking control of sensitive computer systems at that agency, including classified information. Top security officials at the agency reportedly refused to hand over that access, refused to allow that access until they themselves were removed from their offices. By setting up that flare, those security officials at usaid, among other things, let people know what was happening. And that, among other things, led to people turning up this weekend at the White House Office of Personnel Management and at USAID itself overnight last night to try to basically defend that agency, to try to watch what was happening there. That led to this demonstration and impromptu press conference by Democratic senators and members of Congress who, among other things, demanded access to the building themselves as some random Homeland Security police force tried to bar them from doing it. But Democrats turned up. They took the fight today to the doorstep of usaid. USAID is America's main agency for delivering humanitarian aid around the world. The Trump administration is shutting it down despite having no legal authority to do so. Among the ways that Democrats are responding, Hawaii Democratic Senator Brian Schatz announced today that he's putting a hold on every one of Trump's nominees to the State Department. Democrats can't stop the confirmation, but Schatz is essentially saying he'll make those confirmations as slow and as difficult as possible. No more unanimous consent. No one gets waved through. Senator Schott saying, quote, trump and Musk cannot just wish USAID away with the stroke of a pen. This self inflicted chaos of epic proportions will have dangerous consequences all around the world. I should note that the activist group Indivisible is calling on US Senators to use this kind of leverage with all of Trump's nominees in every department and at every level. But this hold by Senator Schatz on State Department nominees is at least a step in that direction. Also turning up today at USAID headquarters supporters was Democratic Senator Andy Kim of New Jersey. He started his government career with usaid. This morning he showed up to ask just what the heck is going on. By midday, there was a whole bunch of other Democratic lawmakers gathered outside to demand that the agency be reopened. One of them, Congressman Jamie Raskin, is going to join us here live in just a moment. Beyond Washington, some Democratic governors are also leading the pushback. In Illinois, Governor J.B. pritzker has announced he's banning all January 6th offenders from taking any job with the state of Illinois, never mind the pardons from the White House. Pritzker is using his power as governor to do that in the Senate, in the House and governor's offices. We are starting to see some elected Democrats take action, taking a stand against what Trump is trying to do, figuring out how to block it as best they can. As that effort is shaping up among Democratic elected officials, the Democratic Party now has a new leader, somebody who you might not have heard of before this weekend. His name is Ken Martin. This weekend he was elected as the new chair of the dnc. He won that position in part because of his track record advancing the Democratic Party's interest in Minnesota politics. He started his career as an intern for the late progressive firebrand Senator Paul Wellstone. He worked his way up to becoming head of the Democratic Party in Minnesota, the Democratic Farm Labor Party. In the two decades before Martin became the state party leader, the Minnesota governor's office had been occupied by two Republicans and one libertarian leaning former professional wrestler. But in the 14 years since Martin took over a state party chair, not only have Minnesota Dems won every governor's race, they've also won every statewide race, period. After winning the race this weekend for DNC chair, Ken Martin declared a new day for the Democratic Party nationwide. He said, quote, trump the Republican Party, this is a new dnc. We are not going to sit back and not take you on when you fail the American people. Joining us now is Ken Martin. He is the newly elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Mr. Martin, congratulations. Thanks very much for joining us tonight.
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Ken Martin
Thank you for having me, Rachel. I'm glad to be on.
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Rachel Maddow
What should Americans know about you who don't know about your record or have just heard me describe your record in Minnesota. Might have been aware that there was a fight for Democratic Party chairman, but aren't sure what to expect now that you have emerged victorious from that closely fought context?
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Ken Martin
Well, look, I mean, first you mentioned our track record of success in Minnesota. It's not just winning elections for winning sake. Right. We've been able to deliver on the promises that we made to working people throughout our state. And that's the same lens I want to bring through this work here. There's so many people that have struggled throughout this country over the last several years who are feeling forgotten, left behind, feeling like our party's not fighting for them anymore. And so what we need to do in this moment, when the stakes are so high. Right, is to stand up and fight back, give people a sense that we're willing to advocate for their best lives and to make sure that we're doing everything we can to build for better days to come for not only Americans, but for this world. Frankly, there's a lot at stake right now, and Americans are relying on our party right now to stand up to the excesses and extremes of the Trump administration.
- [31:10]
Rachel Maddow
Right now, I know that there's among sort of Democratic Party professionals, there is an imperative to focus on 2026, frankly, to focus on the next big national elections. We'll have important elections in a number of states in 2025 in the meantime. And I know that your job is to get Democrats elected and try to win back the House and the Senate, to set up the Democrats to win back the White House. I get that. In the very short term, though, in this first hundred days of the Trump administration, we are seeing something more radical being done to the US Government than anything in a century. And I think there's a lot of feeling among Democrats nationwide, yeah, we want to win the next elections. But Democrats also need to do something effective right now in opposition. What do you think Democrats can do right now in opposition to try to mitigate some of the harm that's being caused as they dismantle the federal government and to. And to get on offense.
- [32:10]
Ken Martin
Well, you saw, you see. Excuse me, you saw that earlier today with what the senators and congressional members were doing and resisting what we saw with the usaid. It's important right now, when the stakes are as high as they are, that we are fighting back and we're resisting the excesses and extremes of this Trump administration. It's really critical that folks throughout this country see that we're willing to fight for them in this moment. And, you know, I think for the Democratic party these first 100 days, we have have to do a few things. One is we have to stand up the war room, which is to make sure that we are stamping out the misinformation and disinformation campaign of the Republican Party and that we are also, at the same time, defining ourselves. Right. I remember in 2016, someone saying that the Republicans are shameless, but the Democrats are spineless. And so it's important for folks to know that we have a spine. We're not dead as a party. We're still alive and kicking, and we're going to fight for our values and we're going to fight for American values. At this time, when people are seeing what Donald Trump and the Republicans are doing at this time. Look, you know, it's only been two, two weeks now, and Elon Musk has always already shown us that he's the worst president that this country has already had. I mean, look, at the end of the day, we've got to do a job of showing that this Cabinet, which is the wealthiest cabinet ever in American history, worth $460 billion, right? Not just the top 1%, but the top 100th of 1%, now has control of the federal government. And if you think they give a damn about working people in this country, that they're actually going to make a difference in people's lives, help people who are struggling right now to afford their lives. Look, you know, we saw two weeks ago the four richest men in the world surrounded by this billionaire Cabinet who now control the government. You know, it's just a shame what they're going to do to this country. And they're going to profit off the backs of hardworking men and women in this country. We see what they're doing to damage this world and, of course, this country right now. And it's up to us to stand up and fight back.
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Rachel Maddow
When you said you're going to stand up a war room, what do you mean by that?
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Ken Martin
Well, what we mean by a war room is making sure that we take on the misinformation, the disinformation that we take these folks on in real time, both Trump and his administration make sure that we're standing up and we don't have to win every single battle, but we do need to win the war. And what I mean by that is we have to give people a sense of who they are. And this is really a question of which side are they on? Which side are we on? Right. And the contrast is very clear. The Trump administration and his billionaire Cabinet is on the side of the robber barons, this current crop of robber barons, which are trying to profit off the backs of hardworking men and women in this country. I know whose side I'm on. I know whose side the Democratic Party is on. And we're on the side of hardworking men and women who just want the country to not forget about them to make sure that we are center in their lives and focusing again on making the American Dream real for all Americans. You know, this group of people that now control this government are doing everything they can to set this up so that rich people and corporations in this company can make as much money as they can off of the backs of hardworking men and women in this country. We got to push back. The war room isn't just about going on the offense against Donald Trump. It's also defining who we are as a party, giving people a sense in this country again that the Democratic Party is their party. We haven't forgotten about them. We're going to continue to stand up and make sure that they get their shake at the American Dream.
- [35:49]
Rachel Maddow
Ken Martin, newly elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee. It's going to be trial by fire in terms of the fight for this country right now, the fight in Washington and around the country leading towards those elections in 2026 when Democrats are going to have to prove themselves. Your leadership is going to be going to be crucial. Thanks for talking with us for your first interview since being elected chairman. Appreciate it.
- [36:10]
Ken Martin
Thank you so much, Rachel.
- [36:12]
Rachel Maddow
All right, much more news ahead. Stay with us.
- [36:20]
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- [36:35]
Business Host
Okay, business leaders, are you here to play or are you playing to win? If you're in it to win, meet your next MVP. NetSuite by Oracle NetSuite is your full business management system in one convenient suite. With NetSuite, you're running your accounting, your finance, your HR, your E commerce, and more all from your online dashboard. Upgrade your playbook and make the switch to NetSuite, the number one cloud ERP.
- [36:58]
Rachel Maddow
Get the CFO's guide to AI and machine learning at netsuite.com podcast25 netsuite.com podcast25.
- [37:06]
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- [37:41]
Rachel Maddow
You cannot wave away an Agency that you don't like or that you disagree with by executive order or by literally storming into the building and taking over the servers. That is not how the American system of government works.
- [37:57]
Jamie Raskin
Just like Elon Musk did not create usa, he doesn't have the power to destroy it. And who's gonna stop him? We are. We're gonna stop him. We don't have a fourth branch of government called Elon Musk. And that's gonna become real clear.
- [38:15]
Rachel Maddow
They're shuttering agencies and sending employees home in order to create the illusion that they're saving money. In order to do what? Pass a giant tax cut for billionaires and corporations. We talked about Trump wanting to be a dictator on day one, and here we are. This is what the beginning of dictatorship looks like when you gut the Constitution and you install yourself as the sole power. That is how dictators are made. Democratic members of the House and Senate. Outside the Washington headquarters of USAID today, they stood with protesters who had gathered to denounce the Trump administration illegally shuttering that agency. USAID employees were told to stay out of the agency's headquarters today. Many were locked out of the agency's computer systems. When senators and members of Congress tried to enter the building today, they were blocked by what appeared to be uniformed Department of Homeland Security officers. What are you doing there? Congressman Jamie Raskin told Axios, quote, we were told the office is closed, and all employees were told to just telework, but I thought that was illegal. Now, Donald Trump has said working from home will be almost entirely banned as he tries to get federal workers to quit. There was also a protest this morning outside the Office of Personnel Management, which is essentially the federal government's HR Department. This is the office from which Trump appointees have been sending out emails to federal employees telling them to quit. Tomorrow, there's a protest planned at 5pm Eastern at the Treasury Department in Washington, D.C. that's where Elon Musk's demolition crew got access this weekend to the Treasury's payment system, which means that, among other things, Musk now has access to personal and financial data of millions of Americans. Tonight, federal government employee unions joined an advocacy group for retirees in filing a lawsuit against. That's Musk. Obtaining sensitive personal data on, say, everyone in this country who gets a Social Security check. Pushback is happening on many fronts. Is it going to work? Joining us now is Congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland. He's the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee. He's one of the lawmakers at USAID today. Congressman Raskin, it's really nice to see you. Thank you.
- [40:35]
Jamie Raskin
It's great to see you, Rachel. And thank you for coming back into service. You're a model to all America here.
- [40:41]
Rachel Maddow
Well, I don't know about that, but I'm here and I'm not going anywhere. Can you describe your decision to go to USAID today? And actually, can you also describe what happened when you tried to go inside the building today?
- [40:54]
Jamie Raskin
Sure. Well, for me, it was easy, Rachel, because not only have I been trying to defend the Constitution and legality in America, as you know, for the last several years, but I have tens of thousands of federal workers who are my constituents in beautiful Montgomery County, Maryland. And what I see are all the telltale signs of a coup. A coup is a seizure of state power by unelected actors who work to take over the critical infrastructure of government outside of the rule of law. And that's what I see as going on right now. I mean, Elon Musk has basically tried to take control of the country communications infrastructure, the governmental financial, payments infrastructure, the data infrastructure, and he's got important parts of nodes of the military infrastructure. So I'm looking right through Donald Trump, who no doubt wants to abuse everybody's civil rights and civil liberties and centralize all the power in him. But at this point, you know, I'm with Steve Bannon and Laura Loomer and the people on the right who are saying, watch Elon Musk because he's the guy who's trying to centralize all power behind him, and he hasn't been elected to anything.
- [42:13]
Rachel Maddow
When you say that, as you did today, and we played the clip of it, that we're going to stop Elon Musk, what do you see as the most effective means of opposition to that, the scale of what you're describing there?
- [42:28]
Jamie Raskin
Well, every Democratic means available to us now, fortunately, because they think they're dictators, they're trampling the civil service law. I mean, the heart of civil service law is you can't fire people for political reasons. That's why we have a civil service, as you know. And yet they are being very open and explicit about their doing that. I mean, to the extent people are given any justification at all, it's that we don't think that you can successfully forward the agenda of President Trump, which is not an acceptable justification for firing people who haven't had a chance to even work for Donald Trump. Right. These are professional independent civil service members, Republicans, independents, Democrats. In any event, the vast majority of them have excellent civil service records, and you have to give them a due process administrative hearing and tell them specifically what are the charges against them. It's the same thing, by the way, with the inspectors general, 18 of whom were sacked en masse by Trump. When those people have the right to 30 days notice to Congress with a specific substantive elucidation of the charges against them, they've just run roughshod all over that. So we're going to start with civil service. We've got constitutional claims against them in a lot of places because the First Amendment stands for the same principle. You can't fire neutral, nonpolitical officers like prosecutors, like FBI agents, like cops, simply because a new party comes to power and they think that they want to stuff it with their own political sycophants.
- [44:05]
Rachel Maddow
Congressman Raskin, if you don't mind, I'd like to hold you through a quick break. I want to ask you about people showing up in the streets, which we are starting to see now. We saw it a little bit today in Washington, where you were. We also are starting to see it in cities around the country. There's something big planned for tomorrow. I want to talk to you about how that dovetails or doesn't with the kind of opposition that you're talking about. If you can stick with us for just one more moment.
- [44:30]
Jamie Raskin
You bet.
- [44:31]
Rachel Maddow
Indeed. Congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland is with us again right after this break. Stay with us. Today, protesters and Democratic senators and Democratic members of Congress showed up at the headquarters of Union USAID in Washington as the Trump administration is trying to illegally shutter that agency. Yesterday and last night in Los Angeles and Atlanta and several other cities around the country, we had big protests in support of immigrants and against what the Trump administration is trying to do with these mass arrests and roundups of immigrants. Tomorrow we're expecting people to protest at the U.S. treasury Building at 5:00pm Eastern Time in Washington, D.C. joining us once again is Congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland, who was at USAID headquarters today. Congressman, you're talking about civil service law and lawsuits to try to protect civil servants being one of the fronts on which the opposition can proceed. What are you seeing as the other potential fronts on which the opposition can advance in very short notice?
- [45:38]
Jamie Raskin
Well, in Congress, of course, we're going to be fighting them in subcommittees and committees on the floor in the House, in the Senate, with filibuster officers at every turn. But popular protest is going to become very important here, and it's going to look very different from the first Trump administration. Everybody remembers, you know, a million people gathering for the women's March. And I have no doubt we could get at least that many, if not 5 million. But we also know that Donald Trump has just pardoned 1,500 Proud Boys, oath keepers, violent insurrectionists, cop assaulters. And so, so we don't want a huge protest like that to become a magnet for right wing provocateurs and violence. Donald Trump would love nothing more than to send in the police and to, you know, stage some kind of, you know, declare martial law or something in a situation like that. But I think the decentralized local protests around particular departments, particular agencies, in particular towns and cities are going to proliferate. And I got to tell you, it was thrilling and exhilarating to see hundreds of people show up on just a couple hours notice that we were going to have a press conference outside of AID today. So there's tremendous popular fervor here and that's giving everybody a lot of confidence and showing that we're not afraid of these people. They might be attempting a coup against America, but we're going to stop them and we're going to use every means available to us.
- [47:04]
Rachel Maddow
Congressman Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland, thank you so much for your time today. Thank you for doing your part in the, as you say, sort of impromptu press conference come protest today at usaid. It's become a real focal point for a lot of people in terms of thinking about templates for moving forward and for speaking out. Thanks for being there and thanks for talking to us about it tonight.
- [47:26]
Jamie Raskin
I appreciate it.
- [47:28]
Planned Parenthood Representative
All right.
- [47:28]
Rachel Maddow
We'll be right back. Appreciate it. All right. That's going to do it for me for now. I'll see you again tomorrow and every night this week at 9pm Eastern here on MM MSNBC. In the meantime, you can find me on Blue Sky. On Blue sky, I am atto.msnbc.com auto.
- [47:47]
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