Kleenex Advertiser (0:00)

When a cold has you down, it's the little comforts that lift you up. A warm blanket, a cup of tea and a tissue that actually feels good on your skin. Infused with Aloe Kleenex Cooling plus Aloe provides a hint of cooling freshness to help your skin feel restored. So whether your skin is feeling dry, chafed or irritated, you're only one wipe away from helping it feel relieved. The next time you have a cold, get a hint of instant cooling relief with new Kleenex Cooling plus Aloe. For whatever happens next, grab Kleenex.

MSNBC Announcer (0:31)

Subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts New episodes of all your favorite MSNBC shows are ad free plus ad free listening to all of Rachel Maddow's original series, Ultra Bagman and Deja News and all MSNBC original podcasts are available ad free and with bonus content including why is this Happening? Main justice, and more. Subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts.

Rachel Maddow (1:01)

So this is one of those stories that starts far away, but then it comes right here, right home at the end. So stick with me, all right? You might remember a few weeks ago we showed you images, kind of overwhelming protest shots from Europe, from Serbia. Do you remember this? Serbia has a president that is kind of their version of Donald Trump, and protests against him like this have been sweeping that country. They started small, and week after week they just grew and grew to the point where, frankly, it has become hard to imagine that that Serbian president is going to be able to stay in office, given the size and the sort of the breadth of the opposition to him in his country and their persistence at saying that he must go. These massive, very impressive, repeated protests in Serbia are also, I think, a good reminder for us and for everybody around the world that part of the reason it's not good to have a strongman leader, part of the reason you really don't want your country turned into some version of an authoritarian dictatorship is because authoritarians and dictators are always, always corrupt. Why do you think they want to get rid of the rule of law anyway, right? So they don't have to abide by the law. Because they're crooks always. And everywhere, dictators and authoritarians are stealing from the people. They are crooks. They are corrupt. It is an axiom. And in the case of these huge, impressive protests in Serbia, these started over something that at first was billed as an accident started over something that happened in November of last year. A roof, kind of a canopy at a train station collapsed and 16 people were killed. And that event that Tragedy sparked protests against the authoritarian government in that country. Because even though that might have seemed like an accident, everybody knows that authoritarians are, say it with me now, always corrupt. And so the protesters in this country realized instantly that had they had a good government, a not corrupt government, that concrete canopy at the rail station would have been built by a qualified contractor, not just the one who was connected or the one that paid the biggest bribes. In a country with a rule of law in effect, in a way, well run country, the contractor who built that thing would have had to comply with building codes for safety's sake, rather than, say, being able to pay somebody off to avoid those building codes. And so in this country, after that collapse at that rail station, the people of that country made that connection, right? You may or may not care about politics, you may or may not have a preexisting opinion about our strongman leader. But if for no other reason, can't we all agree that we need to get rid of our authoritarian president so that we can have a government within the law, so we can have the law, so we can have real building codes, so our fricking newly built train stations stop collapsing on our heads and killing us by the dozen. And that simple connection started this very broad based protest movement. It was like students for a day and then it was everyone. And it has just built and built and built every week from there. And in the face of those protests in that country, the eldest son of the President of the United states, Donald Trump Jr. Has made multiple trips to Serbia to try to shore up their very Trumpy president against these calls from the millions of people in the streets demanding that that guy resigned. Why would Donald Trump Jr. Like that guy so much? Why would Donald Trump Jr. Be willing to travel all the way to Serbia more than once to try to shore this guy up while all his own people are in the streets week after week demanding that he go. What Does Donald Trump Jr. Care about this guy? Guess. Guess. So in the middle of the capital city of Serbia, there is a ruined building, used to be the headquarters of what was then the Yugoslav army, is now the Serbian Army. And in 1999, that army headquarters building was bombed by NATO, all but destroyed it. That bombing, that was 26 years ago. And that country has never repaired that building right in the center of their capital city. They have preserved that wrecked building as a memorial to what happened in the war in the Balkans, to what happened in the NATO bombing campaign against their country. That ruined building is preserved officially as a national heritage site, a protected monument in that country. And Donald Trump would like to tear that monument down and build a luxury hotel and apartment tower there, literally on that site. You know, there is a. There is a Trump Tower in Istanbul. Istanbul, famously, is right on the Bospora Strait. It's right on the border between Europe and Asia. But that is as close as the Trump family has ever gotten to having a Trump Tower in Europe. Their Serbia plan. To have the first ever Trump Tower in Europe. Their Serbia plan is to tear down the most recognizable national Heritage site monument in that entire country and turn it into Trump Tower Belgrade. You know, Trump Tower, Serbia or something. It will be a joint operation between the Kushner family and the Trump family. Now, how can they do this, given that it's a national heritage Site and protected under law? Ah, well, that's one of those times where it comes in handy that there's no rule of law. Somehow the very Trumpy authoritarian president of that country, somehow he was able to come up with some kind of waiver, some kind of permission slip that said, actually, that site is no longer a protected national heritage site. The president said he got an opinion from a National Heritage Site expert which said, basically, who cares about that site anyway? Go ahead, tear it down. And they said that expert opinion gave them the legal basis they needed to approve this big project for Donald Trump. And with that expert opinion in hand, with that being the legal basis for getting rid of the National Heritage Site designation. I mean, jackpot, right? Jackpot for some. The Trump and Kushner families thereby get permission to bulldoze the Serbian equivalent of Mount Rushmore in order to build themselves on that site, a $500 million luxury development, while the regular people of that country get to be killed by collapsing train stations. A few weeks ago, on the anniversary of the bombing campaign that destroyed that army headquarters in the first place, there was a whole new round of protests in Serbia specifically against this deal, against that country's president trading away a site of national, cultural and historical significance for a development deal that personally benefits Donald Trump and his family. But now, guess what has happened amid the relentless, just unrelenting, ever increasing, ever broadening, totally persistent, creative, totally unafraid pressure campaign from that country's citizens who have turned out into the streets again and again and again. This whole mess is all now falling apart. Headline, Trump, Kushner Hotel project in Serbia hits snag. Alleged forgery. Forgery. What? The Trump family's $500 million luxury hotel project in Serbia, slated to be built on the site of a bombed out Defense Ministry building has run into an embarrassing complication. A key document in the A key document the Serbian government has relied on to deliver this deal was forged, said officials this week. The leader of the Serbian agency charged with protecting cultural monuments admitted to authorities that he had forged a document allowing the former Yugoslav Ministry of Defense headquarters in Belgrade to be demolished and replaced with a Trump hotel. Officials said the agency's leader fabricated an expert opinion to justify the government's decision to strip the site of its cultural heritage status. Forged document served as the legal basis for lifting protection from the complex. The official has served as acting director of the Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments since June. He now faces charges, criminal charges of abuse of office and forgery of official documents. Darn that rule of law. If it wasn't for the remaining rule of law and for those meddling kids now, maybe there never will be a Trump Tower in Europe. QUOTE Mr. Kushner's company said in a statement, quote, we will review this matter and determine next steps. Womp womp, Sad trombone. Yeah, it's amazing how corruption makes things go so well and so easy and so fast for seconds before it all goes to heck. Right before the people absolutely cotton to what you're doing and they figure out a way to stop it. And as the people of that country keep marching, keep peacefully protesting, it's hard not to believe ultimately that they're going to win. I mean, look at the geniuses they're up against. The great American city of Chicago is so big and so dominant in its influence in its part of the country that the whole area around Chicago for miles and miles is called Chicagoland. I've always loved that. Nobody talks about New York land or San Francisco land. For all of the swagger of those American cities, only Chicago has enough swagger that its whole region is Chicagoland. It's a very Chicago designation. The city of Aurora, Illinois is, I think, fair to say, sort of on the edge of Chicagoland. It's about 30 miles from downtown Chicago and this weekend there were 15,000 people who signed up to join hands to literally line up next to each other to cover that whole 30 mile distance between Chicago and Aurora, Illinois, all to protest President Donald Trump and the actions of the Trump administration. 15,000 people in a single line over 30 miles. They called it hands across Chicagoland. This weekend there were big protests in California against Trump shutting down the Department of Education and against his cuts to education. Big protests simultaneously in San Diego and also in San Francisco and also in Sacramento also this weekend, also in California, there was a big joyous and sort of gleefully foul mouthed anti Trump demonstration at the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, California. I say foul mouthed. It was mildly foul mouthed. They held signs like way worse than the last nickname for Richard in the White House. Also this one which pictures Richard Nixon himself saying, I can't believe they let Trump get away with all this stuff. This weekend there were anti Trump protests in Buffalo, New York and in Austin, Texas, at the Texas State Capitol. There were anti Trump protests this weekend in Ogden, Utah, where people were standing up for immigrants. Also along the same lines, people standing up against Trump and for immigrants in Watertown, Massachusetts, people standing up against Trump this weekend in Nashville, Tennessee, particularly protesting against ICE raids and arrests in that community. There are protests against Trump this weekend in Los Osos, California and in Williamsburg, Virginia, in Omaha, Nebraska, save the US Post Office, no to privatization in Wyandotte, Michigan, hands off the VA and defend the rule of law. There's actually a second protest in Omaha, I should mention, against the Medicaid cuts in the Trump Republican budget. There was also a big Protest in Hawthorne, California this weekend at the headquarters of SpaceX, which is owned by the President's top campaign donor, Elon Musk. People protested at a gazillion Tesla dealerships this weekend, again including these in Tucson, Arizona and Lyndhurst, Ohio and Charlotte, North Carolina. That was a big one in Charlotte. Irvine, California, Albemarle County, Virginia, Tysons, Virginia. People are also branching out and coming up with new ideas as schools get out and people start heading out on summer vacations. The lefty political group More Perfect Union has put up 300 billboards all across the country pushing back on Trump for his cuts to our beloved national parks. Greetings from Gateway Arch National Park. Now with reduced staff made possible by Doge attacking Trump for the cuts to the national parks which have resulted in closed sites, long waits, reduced services, miserable staff. After weeks of protests and boycott campaigns against Avelo Airlines for taking a big lucrative contract with the Trump administration to do their deportation flights for them, one Democratic state lawmaker in New Hampshire crowdfunded a few thousand dollars online to put up bill criticizing Avello. Avello then threatened him and the billboard company with legal action if the billboards didn't come down. Now that state lawmaker, his name is Seth Miller, is suing Avello in the state of Nevada where the company is headquartered. He's suing them simply so he can put the billboards back up. So when people write about the history of this moment in the United States. When they write the history of what was happening in the 2000s when democracies in some cases were falling into authoritarianism and dictatorship, when lots of democracies around the world started sliding in that direction and then fought their way back, what will the story be about us in our country in 2025? I mean, what will they say about what motivates our protest movement here against Trump? It's not like it is in Serbia, right? You can't trace it to, you're not going to be able to trace it to the one railway station collapse like they had, right? Serving as the catalyst for that movement that just caught fire and took over the country. For us, it's a million things. I mean, your mileage may vary. Maybe for you it is that Avelo Airlines decision to keep marketing themselves to US Customers for pleasure trips while they're also using their planes and their pilots to fly deportation flights for Trump to for profit. Maybe it's the cuts to Medicaid in the Trump Republican budget. You know, there is a reason they keep scheduling the votes on this thing at 11:00 clock last night on Sunday, and the next vote is 1:00am on Tuesday night slash Wednesday morning. That's their next vote on it. I wonder why they keep scheduling the votes at times like that. Well, polling from Data for Progress says there isn't a single congressional district in the entire country where cutting people off their Medicaid health insurance is popular. But Trump and the Republicans are trying to pass this thing to take health insurance away from at least, at least 5 million Americans and likely millions more than that. Maybe that's it. Maybe for you, it's the National Weather Services offices being cut, so being so cut down by Trump that in many places they can now no longer staff our National Weather Service offices overnight. They don't have staff there at night because, oh, you know, who cares? Obviously, dangerous weather always confines itself to business hours, right? Maybe it's the ongoing disaster at Trump's faa, where our nation's air traffic controllers are losing communication with planes over and over and over again now at multiple major airports. Maybe it's the Trump Republican plan in this budget to sell off thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of acres of US Public lands, lands that belong to the American people that we will never get back after they sell them off. Maybe it's the fact that Trump has now got inexplicable AI chatbots answering the phones at the Social Security Administration. Chatbots that appear designed simply to make you hang up in frustration. Frustration without ever getting the help you need to say, locate your missing check. Maybe it's that. That's that Trump is is cutting the program that helps babies born with health defects. Maybe it's that Trump is stopping support for Narcan Narcan, which does nothing except save the lives of people who are overdosing. Maybe it's the fact that Trump is sending hundreds of tons of perfectly good food, enough to feed a million three months. He has sent that food to instead rot in four government warehouses in Dubai and Djibouti and Houston and South Africa. Because the sign off to allow that food to be given to starving people is sitting on the desk of a 28 year old with zero government service experience who has nevertheless been put in charge of the fate of a million people, at least because of his connection to the president's top campaign donor. Yet maybe it is any of those things. Maybe it's the fact that Trump just effectively legalized machine guns. You heard me right. Trump just effectively legalized machine guns. He is allowing the sale of something called a forced reset trigger. You'll now be allowed to buy those and possess those in this country. What's a forced reset trigger? It turns basically any AR15 style rifle into a machine gun. Just hold the trigger down and fire all your ammo. Trump's attorney general says they are now allowing those devices to be sold again, effectively legalizing machine guns in the United States, because she says, in her words, it will, quote, enhance public safety machine guns. So when the history books are written about our generation in this moment, what will they say is our cause in standing up against the Trump administration? Turns out we don't have just one. And I think that might be part of our superpower here because it allows for protests of various kinds and various stripes, nonviolent protest of every imaginable variety in every state in the country, just about every single day. And sometimes they are massive. I think what we're going to see on June 14th is going to be massive. Sometimes they are a few people, Sometimes they are 15,000 people across 30 miles of Illinois. But whatever we're doing, the various forms of pushback against Trump are also working in various ways every day. Today, for example, a federal judge ruled that Trump acted in a manner that was blatantly unlawful when he shut down the US Institute of Peace and effectively tried to steal their building, even though the institute itself owns the building and not the US Government. The US Institute of Peace put out a statement tonight saying they look forward to restarting their work. Now that A judge has shut down Trump for unlawfully trying to shut them down. This weekend, a judge ruled over and over and over again hundreds of times that the so called military zone that Trump has set up across three states on the southern border is effectively legally meaningless. And just because Trump has declared that a military zone, it doesn't give him the right to have people arrested there for trespassing on military property. Today at Columbia University in New York City, Mohsen Madawi walked at his graduation to accept his diploma after a huge movement of his friends and his community in Vermont and in New York culminated in a federal judge in Vermont ordering him freed from prison. He is a legal permanent resident. He is a green card holder. He was never been, he has never been accused of a crime. Trump had his immigration agents arrest him exclusively for his constitutionally protected political speech, but that did not stand. He was freed by court order. And today he graduated from Columbia and got a huge standing ovation tonight. The bizarre criminal charges against the mayor of the largest city of New Jersey, the mayor of Newark, New Jersey, Ross Baraka, for the crime of showing up outside the controversial immigration prison in his city. Those charges tonight were dropped, although they say they are now charging a member of Congress who was on the same scene that day. This is no time to check out and do not sleep on the power of protest and the power of pushback. And every country has its own history and every country has its own navel gazing ways, right? I don't think Serbia much cares about what's happening here. I don't think that, you know, we care most. We care more about other countries than we do about ourselves. But it's the same kind of guy doing the same kind of politics for the same kind of reasons in all of these places. And when the people see through it, we see through it the same way in every country. We recognize like and like. And so these authoritarians have effects on one another and the protest movements against them have effects as well. After Trump was elected, Canada, for example, changed their mind and decided they would not elect their own Trumpy candidate. They would elect someone else who would stand up to Trump. Instead. They did a U turn in that election. Same thing happened in Australia right after it happened in Canada this weekend. Same thing happened in Romania. A huge upset. The Trumpy candidate had long been expected to win and win by a lot. The people of that country turned around and said nope and elected the centrist mayor of Bucharest instead. Authoritarians fight hard to make change seem difficult, to make ousting them seem impossible to make opposing them seem hard or pointless or dangerous. But everybody else knows better all over the world, including here. Much more to come tonight. Stay with us.