← The Rachel Maddow Show
The Rachel Maddow Show
Trump makes laughingstock of America with repeated embarrassments in early days of new term
00:50:59
Rachel Maddow looks at the myriad ways Donald Trump has not only humiliated himself with foolish statements ill-considered ideas, but also embarrassed the United States of America for electing a fool for president.
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- [00:00]
Rachel Maddow
Really happy to have you here. So the president's family does not have a family crest. His family is from Germany originally. I don't know if in Germany they do family crests as a typical thing. I don't know. For a time, he apparently told people he was from Sweden, but his family is not from Sweden. They're from Germany. And for whatever reason, there is no family crest for the Trump family. And that's not embarrassing. There's no shame in that. In all likelihood, you don't have a family crest. I don't have a family crest. It's not a big thing. We don't wear suits of armor anymore either. We don't drink mead unless we know someone who makes mead for a hobby. And then we try it because we're trying to be nice. But in any case, there is no Trump family crest, but there is a crest that was on the wall at Mar a Lago when Trump bought Mar a Lago, when he bought that house in Florida in the 1980s. And it is somebody else's family crest. It's the family crest of the ex husband of the lady who built that house. His name was Davies. His family was originally from Wales, and he actually had an official family crest, and that was it. And while he lived at Mar a La, because he was married to the woman who owned Mar a Lago, he put up his family crest on the wall as a decoration. And then in what was perhaps a critical error, he apparently neglected to take it down when he left, and the family ultimately sold the house. And so when Donald Trump moved in there in the 1980s, the crest was still there, and Donald Trump took it. He took that other guy's family crest and proclaimed it as the Trump family crest. It is not theirs. It has nothing to do with them at all. Now, the Davies family, whose crest it actually was, they were apparently horrified that Trump took it down and started using it as if it was own, as if it was his own. They were particularly horrified when it turned out that Trump did make one change to the crest. Because in addition to all the, like, decorative and symbolic elements that, you know, dragons and stuff, the crest did have one word on it written across the bottom, and that little sort of swoopy scroll, you can see it there on the right. Trump did make a change to that. He erased that word in the little scroll and instead just put the word Trump there. The word he erased was integritas, which is how you say integrity in Latin. So to sum it up, Donald Trump stole somebody else's family crest without permission and then literally removed the integrity and put Trump in instead, instead of integrity, which is an embarrassing thing in terms of like family stuff. But you know what's more embarrassing? Since he has started this second term as President of the United States, Donald Trump has reportedly intervened personally. He has found the time to take a personal interest in the creation of a new official White House presidential challenge coin. You know what a challenge coin is? When the military was the only institution that had challenge coins, they were like a pretty sober and important thing. They were a real sign of respect, real symbolic value import meant, really meant something to be given one of these things. Now all sorts of people and institutions use challenge coins and so they've become more of a, like an all purpose tchotchke, like a keepsake. Trump, since he has been president, he has reportedly found the time in the midst of everything else that needs to be done when you're president, he has found the time to personally choose the design for the official White House challenge coin. And he has apparently insisted that it had to have the Trump family crest embossed on the back of it. So now we as a country have an official White House coin that has embossed on it. The stolen Joseph Davies family crest, except with the word integrity scratched out and the word Trump there instead. And actually we just found a picture of it tonight after this intervention by Trump was first reported by the Wall Street Journal for the White House version of the stolen family crest. They appear to have written in both Donald and Trump and not just Trump. So that means it's getting worse over time. There it is, Donald Trump, the big one at the top there. Yeah, that's not your family crest. We should just note, like for future archaeologists who may dig up that particular coin in the ruins of what used to be the American republic. Just going to note for the record here, more than half the country did not sign up for that embarrassment. Also, sorry to the Davies family. Sorry about your crest. A good remember to take all your stuff and change the locks when you move out. You never know who's coming in behind you or what kind of morals they might have. So that's embarrassing. Do you know what the BRICS nations are? The brics Organization of Countries. It's an intergovernmental organization of countries. And there's all different kinds of these intergovernmental organizations. There's like the G7 and the G20 and there's OPEC and the African Union and the Arab League. There's also another one of these groups, the Intergovernmental group that's called brics, and they meet every year. And last week, President Trump was sitting in the Oval Office. He was talking to reporters for some reason about how mad he was at Spain. He was explaining to reporters that he thought Spain was terrible. Spain should be ashamed of itself. Spain is bad. He said to reporters, quote, they are a BRICS nation. Spain. You know what a BRICS nation is? You'll figure it out. But. And if the BRICS nations want to do that, that's okay. But we're going to put at least a 100% tariff on the business they do with the United States. He continued, quote, you know what the BRICS is, right? You guys know. You know what I'm saying, right? You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Spain's really going to get it because Spain is a BRICS nation. You know what I'm saying? Right? You know what I'm saying? BRICS is an acronym. It stands for the first letters of the first five countries that formed the BRICS organization. Brics, B, R, I, C, S. Brics, Brazil. B for Brazil, R for Russia, I for India, C for China. S, S. What does the S stand for? Does it stand for Spain? No, it does not. The S in BRICS stands for South Africa, not Spain. Because South Africa, not Spain, is the S in brics, and Spain is not a BRICS country. And that kind of a mistake is okay if you're a fifth grader and this is the question in which you flunk your geography quiz. But when you are the President of the United States sitting there in the Oval Office and ranting about one of our close allies, saying they're really going to get it, they're going to get 100% tariff because they're a BRICS country. Go look it up. You know what I mean? And he is just factually wrong about that. And they are not a BRICS country at all. When you are not a fifth grader and you're the President of the United States and you do something like that, that is a lot of things. It's embarrassing to yourself, if you're capable of that. It's also just embarrassing to us as a country that you are the president making mistakes like that. I mean, like us having an official White House challenge coin with his fake stolen family crest on it is embarrassing him with the whole BRICS rant about Spain, which is not a BRICS country. That is also embarrassing. You know, just before he issued blanket pardons to everybody who participated in the attack on the U.S. congress and assaults on police officers. On January 6th, Donald Trump, you might remember, said at a press conference that he thought Hezbollah might have been behind the attack on the Capitol, which is what he said out loud. Hezbollah did January 6th, and we really need to look into it, okay? Now, today, he says that the way Hamas has been able to make bombs in Gaza is that they made their bombs from condoms they obtained from the US Government. They've used them as a method of making bombs. There is no factual basis for the claim that the US Government sent condoms to Hamas in Gaza. But even aside from that, how do you think he thinks you make a bomb? And what part of the bomb includes condom? How do you think he thinks you turn a condom into a bomb? He is the President of the United States. Imagine how the rest of the world is laughing at us about him about this stuff. He says he said in a late night online post a couple nights ago that the U.S. military had, quote, entered California and turned on the water. Enjoy the water, California. And while California officials, you know, laughed out loud and tried to keep a straight face while they solemnly announced to the public that, no, no one had turned on the water because the water wasn't turned off. Actually, it fell to the poor folks at the Fox News Channel who had to break the news from sources in Donald Trump's own Defense Department that, no, actually, no, he doesn't know what he's talking about. Here he is making this up. The Fox News Pentagon correspondent reporting, quote, U.S. defense officials tell me they did not send troops to, quote, turn on the water in California despite President Trump's claims. Oh, God, it's so embarrassing. It's embarrassing. Every day. Every day, new embarrassing. Just humiliating. Own goal, stupid stuff. I mean, and it's not just stuff that he's saying or typing out on his device, whatever he's using to post stuff on social media, it's also the stuff that his government is doing as its highest priority. Right? They're insisting they're only rounding up violent criminals for deportation. Meanwhile, they every day are rounding up hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people who they have to admit, have no criminal records at all. They are insisting that they want to use military aircraft to fly these people around the world at an added expense, in some cases, of hundreds of thousands of dollars per flight. And these flights, by the way, are mostly empty. Their violent criminal arrests and roundups have been so well planned that the very first one, they did not only didn't target a criminal, it targeted a US Military veteran who they arrested without a Warrant. Trump is plowing ahead with his effort to start a new war, maybe, or at least start an international crisis, by insisting that he is going to seize Greenland to become part of the United States. And he keeps saying he's going to do that. But don't worry, they want it. Quote, the people of Greenland would love to become a state of the United States of America. He says, quote, the people of Greenland would like to be a part of the United States. He even trotted out his family to make this case as well as if it was true. Did the people there that you spoke with and interacted with, did they seem interested in the idea of getting closer to the United States and maybe being liberated from Denmark, who's had control of Greenland for the last 200 years?
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Tom Costello
100%. I mean, honestly, I didn't see a single negative 100%.
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Rachel Maddow
100. They want to join the United States. Oh, yeah. They want to be liberated. They want to join the United. 100%. New polling in Greenland by a local polling firm today finds that, shockingly, it's actually not 100%. It's 6%. 6% of Greenlanders are in favor of their island becoming part of the United States. 6%. It's embarrassing. I mean, maybe if you round six up to the nearest hundred, then sure, 6% is close to 100%. Ish. Sure. Math. Tomorrow we're going to have confirmation hearings for Donald Trump's nominee to be intelligence director in the United States. This is right after the Washington Post's reporting on her secret and apparently friendly meeting in Syria with a Syrian cleric who, at the time she met with him, had threatened to activate his personal network of suicide bombers inside the United States. The Wall Street Journal reports today on the lengths that have been gone to by professional PR outfits to discourage any public scrutiny of Tulsi Gabbard's lifelong association with a group described by its defectors as an authoritarian cult. Known mostly as a secretive radical offshoot of the Hare Krishna movement, the group's guru has described Tulsi Gabbard as his, quote, star pupil. The group's members reportedly sprinkle that same guru's toenail clippings in their food. He clips his toenails? Or maybe somebody clips his toenails for him. They take the toenail clippings and sprinkle them in their food. They, quote, use his shoes as prayer totems. She's been associated with the group her entire life, and that is Trump's choice for Director of National Intelligence. She has her confirmation hearing tomorrow. The Wall Street Journal has also reported that in her early meetings with Republican senators ahead of this confirmation hearing tomorrow, Tulsi Gabbard, quote, couldn't clearly articulate what the role of Director of National Intelligence entails, meaning she could not clearly articulate what the job is that she's up for and that she, quote, seemed confused about the basic operations of the US Intelligence community. That was in meetings with Republican senators. That confirmation hearing is tomorrow because that's who Donald Trump thinks is the best choice in the country for intelligence chief because that's the kind of tough minded decision he's making in between designing the challenge coin and learning how to spell bricks. Tomorrow is also the confirmation hearing for Trump's choice for FBI director. He's someone who reportedly pled the fifth when he was questioned in the criminal case about Donald Trump stealing and hoarding classified documents in the b. At that house in Florida where he stole that other guy's coat of arms. Kash Patel was also found by a judge to be, quote, not credible when he testified about what happened on January 6th. Kash Patel has reportedly repeatedly claimed that he was the one. He was the one. He, Kash Patel was the one who gave the order to kill Abu Bakr al Baghdadi from isis, even though he definitely was not the person who gave that order. He has claimed to have led the prosecution team in the Benghazi case, which he definitely didn't do. He is said to have pretended in the White House that he had a job on the National Security Council that he definitely didn't have. He worked for years for a media company that is now facing a big federal indictment as an illegal money laundering operation, although he himself has not been charged in that matter. Kash Patel would like to sell you potions that he says will reverse the COVID vaccination. That's not a thing. But he says he'll sell you a potion that will do it. Kash Patel has been a vote has been vocally in support of the QAnon conspiracy theory which says Democrats are part of a satanic cabal that eats children. He is Donald Trump's choice to leave the FBI. His confirmation hearing is tomorrow. And if there is a nominee who is in competition with Kash Patel and Tulsi Gabbard for most embarrassing choice possible for an important government job, most comically, comically inappropriately chosen for the job for which they've been named, if there's anybody in competition with those two, it's the House secretary nominee, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Who today had his turn before the Senate. And it's interesting, his confirmation hearing went poorly. There's been a lot of attention to him not knowing even basic information about the fundamental things health and Human services does. But aside from that, we'll get to a little of that in a second. Did you also hear his answer when he was asked about babies? Mr. Kennedy, do you know how many babies born in this country are covered through Medicaid?
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Tom Costello
I would guess. I don't know the answer.
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Rachel Maddow
I would guess about.
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Tom Costello
30 million.
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Rachel Maddow
30 million babies. 30 million. He asked how many babies born in this country are covered by Medicare? 30 million babies. Medicaid covers the cost for about 40% of all births in this country. So if you do the math, he's saying that Medicaid would be covering about 30 million babies per year. If that's 40% of all births in the US in a year, that means Robert F. Kennedy thinks There are about 75 million babies born every year in this country. How many babies are born every year in the United States? Bobby Kennedy says it's 75 million babies born every year. The actual number is not 75 million babies. It's three and a half million babies. So he's off by 2,143%. Not for nothing, this means he thinks more than half the babies born on Earth every year are born in the United States. The majority of all human beings born on Earth are are Americans. He thinks the reason he's being asked in the first place about Medicaid and Medicaid covering births in the United States is because Medicaid does cover tens of millions of Americans, including what he thinks is 30 million annual births, which is hilarious. But it does lead you right to the next big question, which is, does he actually know what Medicaid is?
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Tom Costello
Medicaid is not working for Americans.
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Rachel Maddow
Most people who are on Medicaid are not happy. The premiums are too high, the deductibles are too high. Medicaid has no premiums. Medicaid has no deductibles. I don't know if people who are on Medicaid generally are happy or not happy, but if they are unhappy, it's not because of their high premiums and high deductibles, because Medicaid doesn't have premiums or deductibles. He has no idea. There's 330 million people in this country. He's the one who Donald Trump thinks should run not only Medicaid, but all health care. He should run Medicaid. He should run every Other thing he thinks is involved in the health care system in this country, which must seem like a wild ride up there in his head if he really does think that more than half the babies born on Earth every year are born right here in the US of A. Where actually we make up 4% of the world's population. Robert Kennedy Jr. Has no medical background. He has no scientific background. He has no public service background. He has no managerial background whatsoever. But he does say that heroin really helped him focus, that he has had real cognitive problems ever since that worm ate part of his brain and died in there. He says black people shouldn't be vaccinated the same as white people, that HIV doesn't cause aids. He says AIDS is caused by poppers. He said this in 2021. He says if you use WI Fi, it will make your brain start to leak out. And he says Covid is bioengineered to spare the Jews. He is Donald Trump's choice to be Secretary of Health and Human Services. We are supposed to be intimidated by these guys, right? Steve Bannon says they're going to rule for 50 years. Enrique Tarrio, the proud boys guy who Trump just let out of prison, he says it's going to be 100 years because they're so capable. We're supposed to be so intimidated and so impressed with them. While they are just symbolic at things they care about and things they don't, they're symbolic when they're trying. They're symbolic in passing. They have repeatedly just abjectly humiliated and embarrassed themselves every single day, including the President personally. And it hasn't even been two weeks yet. And, you know, in these, you know, 10 days, less than two weeks, we're already seeing them, unsurprisingly, we're seeing them fail and collapse and try to do backsies with all the things they have failed at trying to do. It started the very first day. You remember day one, they announced a hiring freeze. Full freeze, no exceptions at the VA at Veterans Affairs. So doctors, nurses, counselors, all hired to work at the va. People who want to work with our veterans in the VA health system, their job offers were withdrawn. We don't want you. Day one, there was a hue and cry and a huge pushback. Are you kidding? And then, whoops. Climb down, Oops. Actually, we didn't mean that. Never mind about the hiring freeze for VA health personnel. @ least we take that back. That's not what we meant. That was day one. We covered that here on this show. Day one. And I remember wondering whether that Was just gonna be a one off. Nope, it's not. It's at least one of these every day. Same deal, for example, with pepfar, right? With the HIV treatment program that is credited with saving 25 million lives. They announced that PEPFAR was going away. Stop work order for pepfar, effective immediately. Anybody getting HIV treatment through this program, too bad that's getting cut off. No warning instantly. Even if there are HIV antiretroviral medicines that are on the shelf and already paid for, no, we are cutting off patients who are actively taking these drugs, which literally puts millions of people's lives at risk. Since the treatment is what keeps you alive, it's also a brilliant way to mass manufacture new strains of drug resistant HIV to share with the whole world, including the United States. Since drug resistant HIV is what you get when you start people on treatment and then take them off it, then other people who get that strain of HIV can't take the drugs to keep them alive. And we go back to HIV being deadly instead of a manageable disease. Took us billions of dollars and decades to get here, but hey, let's throw it all in the trash bin. Day one, that's what they announced. Hue and cry. Huge pushback. And then they climbed down on that too. They've taken it back. Oh, wow. No, didn't mean that. Actually, the PEPFAR drugs, you can still keep administering those. Just today it's happening again. This time it's at the NIH National Institutes of Health. They had ordered a full stop, no exceptions to all clinical trials. Literally sick people in the middle of trials of experimental drugs. Stop those trials immediately. And no more research grants and no more review of research and no more releasing any scientific or health information, including information on the fast, very scary bird flu epidemic. Stop it all. And again, hue and cry. Huge pushback. Seriously? You're cutting off people with rare diseases and cancer in the middle of their treatment? Seriously, huge pushback. Hue and cry. And today, look, a climb down on much of what they had done at nih. Oops, never mind, take it back. That's not really what we meant. And of course, the big one yesterday, this bizarre two page announcement from the Office of Management and Budget at the Trump White House demanding an immediate halt to basically everything the government funds. Total chaos Yesterday in all 50 states as everything from, you know, firefighting to school lunches to Medicaid to preschool to meat inspections, everything all gets halted. And so yesterday, as we covered here on the show last night, huge pushback. Hue and cry. And they started during the course of the day trying to take back individual parts of the order. Oh, no, no, we didn't mean the part about that affects veterans. No, we didn't mean Medicare. Oh, no, no, no, we didn't mean the college loans and college grants paying your tuition. No, you know, we didn't mean food stamps. They tried to claw it back piece by piece by piece yesterday as the country rose up in outrage over what they were doing today. Finally, they realized they had to take it all back. Rescinded. Didn't mean it. Not what we meant. Sorry. Democrats seem to be fairly invigorated by the fact that all this pushback is working. Here's Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader today. Quote, round one goes to Team America. We remain in the ring until far right extremism has been completely and totally knocked out. Progressive firebrand Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez said the same thing, but shorter. She just posted this fafo, as in F around and find out. Chuck Schumer, Democratic leader in the Senate, said the climb down from the Trump administration, quote, would not have happened except for the outcry throughout America. Top Senate Democrat on appropriations, Patty Murray, said the climb down from the Trump administration was a, quote, victory for the American people that we only got because people all over the country fought for it. They've just done the first Gallup poll since Trump was sworn in for a second term. The first Gallup poll since Trump was sworn in for his second term shows that he is the first US president in more than 70 years of Gallup polling with more Americans against him than for him this soon after he was sworn in. No president has ever in the history of Gallup polling started off this poorly. No president has ever started off with more of the country being against him right out of the gate than this guy. So if you don't like what the Trump administration has been doing, if you have been unimpressed, angered, afraid by what he's doing, not only are you not alone, you're really not alone. The pushback is not only working to turn around what they are trying to do every single day. It also means that Democrats and other leaders who choose to lead this pushback, they have the country with them in doing it. So I told you it's on. It's on. We have so much to get to tonight. Stay with us. This is breaking news. This is something about which we're just getting initial reports. So forgive me for not having more fulsome detail to give you here, but there has been a incident involving A small plane in Washington. This is Reagan national airport in Washington, D.C. which is right near the Potomac River. There has been some sort of incident involving a small plane. There are rescue operations underway right now at the Potomac River. In the Potomac River. Fireboats are on scene. That's been confirmed by D.C. fire and EMS. But again, at this point, all we know is that it's a small aircraft. What's being described as a small aircraft. It's down in the Potomac river in the vicinity of Reagan National Airport, which used to be National Airport, DC's main airport, right there in downtown Washington near the Potomac River. Again, we do not know the size of the aircraft involved here. We don't know the nature of the incident, what may have caused the crash. We don't know if there's any specific nexus to the fact that this is Washington, dc. We don't know if any other, for example, aircraft were involved here. But we're watching here. You can see the police and fire and EMS response, response, including fireboats on the scene with what is now a rescue operation underway right now at the Potomac River. We'll keep eyes on this right now. This is all I know right now to be able to tell you, but we've got. We're on this right now. And we'll bring you more news of this as we learn more. All right, we'll be right back. This is a list of many of the places the Trump administration has conducted raids to round up immigrants and arrest them and deport them. New York, Chicago, L.A. seattle, Philadelphia, Denver, Atlanta. At least thus far, the administration seems to be holding these raids predominantly, if not exclusively, in blue cities in urban areas and parts of the country where more Democrats live than Republicans. For immigrant communities all over the country, the raids are thus far having what is presumably the intended terrorizing effect, making people start to think about whether it's safe to go to the grocery store, whether it's safe for their kids to go to school, about what they are going to do specifically if somebody knocks on their door. Our own Alex Wagner has been attending the Know youw Rights trainings that have been happening in Elizabeth, New Jersey, where immigrant communities have been learning and practicing what to do if, for example, ICE were to show up at your door one day. It's practical advice, step by step, instructions about how to handle living in this moment of terrorizing, uncertainty and fear.
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Alex Wagner
Do you think about ICE coming to knock on your front door? And do you think in that moment you'll know what to do? You have a son. How old is he?
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Immigrant Parent
One is 11, one is 7, and my older is 24.
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Alex Wagner
For the two younger sons, have you talked to them about what's happening?
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Immigrant Parent
Yes, they know. They listen. They listen outside in the school with other kids and I explain to all my kids what's going on. Don't be afraid. Everything is going to be okay. We are okay. You are okay. Don't open the door.
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Alex Wagner
In any case, you tell them they're safe, but you also say, don't open the door. So do they feel safe?
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Immigrant Parent
I don't feel safe.
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Rachel Maddow
Joining us now is the great Alex Wagner, who has been doing Frontline reporting all over the country for this first hundred days of the new administration. Alex, I have been keeping your seat warm and trying to do right, right by you in holding down the fort while you have been out in Trumpland. Thanks for being here. How's it been going?
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Alex Wagner
Oh, Rachel, it's tough out there. You know, I will say we talk a lot about how crushing this fear is, how omnipresent it is. The fact that sometimes the ICE agents may show up at schools or hospitals, they may show up at church, they may be wearing ICE uniforms, they may not. They may have a warrant, they may not. And certainly the communities, these marginalized communities that have been thrust into the shadows feel terrified. Right. That part is working. But at the same time, you know, these trainings that are happening across the country, led by community groups, are a form of empowerment that I honestly wasn't expecting to see. Right. One of the things they do is they run these role playing exercises for what, you know, immigrants should do if ICE comes to your door. And they literally have one immigrant play the ICE agent and one play, you know, himself or herself. And they sort of map out a strategy for how to deal with ICE in ways that are constitutionally sound and lawful. And what's so amazing about it is it's a way for these people to confront what is their sort of darkest, basest fear in this moment, the knock on the door from ICE and sort of figure out how they'll behave in that moment and come up with a plan. And I saw in the course of these trainings the way that people who were otherwise trepidatious and basically terrified came to sort of have agency, agency over themselves and a feeling that acting as a community, they had some power in all of this. And I would love it if we could just take a listen to one of those trainings to give people a sense of what's happening on the other side of this.
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Rachel Maddow
Yeah, please.
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Community Trainer
So I'm gonna paint the scene. Karina's in her home. She doesn't have a keyhole, but she does have a window. The door does have a lock. And there is nobody in the home that has a deportation order. So, Coneso, there will never be enough lawyers in this movement to keep us safe. And so it is incredibly important that we remember that these trainings are like muscle memory, the same way children do fire drills. And now they walk out of the school and they're texting. They're not even thinking. That's the sort of muscle memory we.
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Alex Wagner
Want to build here, Rachel. There's obviously the political sort of aspect of all this. Trump can basically deport whoever he wants. But there's the story of human suffering that is part of this. And what really struck me about this is it's the essence of human resilience. Right? These people have not given up on America. They still believe in the Constitution. They want to be part of our democracy, and they want to exert their equal rights under the law. It was pretty extraordinary.
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Rachel Maddow
It is extraordinary. It's amazing to see it as it's happening. We've been reporting, you know, all week long for these last couple of weeks, about all the different kinds of pushback that are happening, all the different kinds of friction that are being created for this administration. People defending their own communities, defending their own families, defending themselves within the Constitution, within the law. And not being as hard a target as possible for this stuff is a really, really, really big part of that. It's really moving to see. Alex, thank you for. Thank you for going and for filming it and for coming here to show it to me.
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Alex Wagner
Thank you. Thank you for giving it some maritime, Rachel.
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Rachel Maddow
I appreciate it. All right, we're going to go back now to this breaking news that we have just started to cover, which is a plane crash in Washington, D.C. we have a little bit more information than we previously had just moments ago when I first brought you news of this crash. These are still preliminary reports, but this is a serious incident. What we believe has happened here, again, according to preliminary reports, is that there has been a collision between an American Airlines regional jet. So a passenger plane that was flying into DCA flying into Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C. originating. The flight originated apparently in Wichita, Kansas. The collision was reportedly with a Blackhawk helicopter, and both the helicopter and the American Airlines regional jet are believed to be down in the Potomac river where rescue operations are currently going on. Reagan National Airport is shut down because of this emergency. Right now, the Potomac river is very near to Reagan National Airport. These things are in very close proximity, but as you see here, there's a huge police, fire, EMS response. We're told that police fireboats are part of this operation, but they are trying to rescue people out of the Potomac, as far as we understand it. Right now we have NBC News Tom Costello on the phone now, NBC News senior correspondent Tom Costello. Tom, has anything I just said gotten, has the reporting gotten any further beyond what I just said? And is anything that I said inaccurate?
- [38:54]
Tom Costello
No, you're absolutely 100% accurate, at least as of this moment. No surprise. Reagan Airport is now shut down as we are dealing with a major emergency here right on the Potomac at Reagan National Airport. As you mentioned, this is apparently a regional jet coming in from Wichita. And a regional jet can carry anywhere from 50 to 100 people, depending on how crowded it is, how busy it is, and then a Black Hawk helicopter. Anybody who's been to Reagan Airport, you know that there is a lot of military type of helicopter activity right over the river, right across the river, because of course, we've got, we've got the helicopter base that handles everything for the White House, for the President, and then you've got an awful lot of diplomatic type of helicopter traffic up and down the river. So exactly how this happened, how we have this apparent collision mid air over the Potomac river. And at this report, at this moment, we have reports that both the plane and the chopper are in fact in the water. It is a massive response. Complicated. It has been complicated by the fact that we have had a very icy Potomac river because it was so cold here over the past week. And Rachel, we had a horrific accident on one of the bridges last week between the District and Virginia where a truck went into the river. But because it was so covered in ice, the D.C. fire Department's icebreaker ship is out of service. It's not even anywhere near D.C. right now. And as a result, that complicated the rescue efforts. I am hoping that the ice broke up enough over the last few days where we've had warmer temps allowing these boats to get to the scene faster. That was a huge problem last week and literally two people died and the rescue response was delayed because of that, a lack of an icebreaker. As for this very moment, though, exactly how this happened, we simply don't know. At this hour, as you know, right on the river, anybody who's come into Reagan National Airport knows you come right over the river and you have to avoid that very sensitive airspace. Over Washington, D.C. for example, over the White House, over the National Mall over the Capitol. That's all restricted airspace. And so that forces air traffic to come down either down the river from north to south or from south to north. We don't at this hour know precisely how this particular flight was coming in, the regional jet, and we don't know exactly what if it was too far out over the river. A lot of unanswered questions and immediately the concern is are there people in the water who are alive? This is an all out emergency of the highest order right now. I would also point out for those who don't live in the D.C. area, there is a multi agency mutual assist agreement on major incidents like this. So they're going to have not only, of course, the airport fire rescue teams, they're also going to have the D.C. fire and Rescue. You're going to get Arlington and Alexandria from Virginia, probably even Montgomery county from Maryland, all responding in. This would be the highest priority. And you can imagine the mutual aid response is going to be, you know, really of a high magnitude.
- [42:09]
Rachel Maddow
Tom, as we've been talking, we've been observing some of the commentspublic comments that have been made, particularly by elected officials who represent Kansas. Again, we believe that this American Airlines regional jet originatedthis flight originated in Kansas, potentially in Wichita, Kansas. Senator Jerry Moran from Kansas has just posted online learning that a plane inbound from Kansas was involved in a crash at dca. He says, I am in contact with authorities. Please join me in praying for all involved. I mention that because it would seem to indicate at least besome corroboration of the idea that this jet was from Kansas in terms of where it started. Tom, let me just ask you what you were describing about the two aircraft that we believe were involved. A Black Hawk helicopter, the American Airlines regional jet, which as you note, is a jet of a size that can carry 50 to 100 people, generally speaking, categorically speaking, we have no idea how many people were on board that jet at this point. Is air traffic control at DCA more complex than it would be at other airports of that size? Because of the confluence of military and diplomatic travel, the involvement of things like Black Hawk helicopters along with commercial and private air?
- [43:30]
Tom Costello
I think that's accurate. Yeah. I mean, listen, I think. And we've also had a series of close calls here at Reagan Airport over the last couple of years in which planes got way too close to each other and had to wave off. And can I just draw your attention to the fact that we are just now getting an FAA statement that in fact a Bombardier CRJ700 regional jet collided in midair with the Sikorsky H60 helicopter while on approach to Runway 33 at Reagan Washington Airport, 9pm local time. And this was operating as Flight 5342 for American leaving Wichita, Kansas, inbound to Reagan Airport. And obviously, according to the faa, both the FAA and NTSB will investigate. The priority at this moment is saving lives and getting as many assets as possible out there onto the, onto the river, whether that's D.C. fire and Rescue, Arlington, Alexandria, whoever is available, whoever has rescue boats available, get them in the water as fast as possible. And this hearkens back in my mind. I would tell you, Rachel, back to the early 80s when we had a plane go down in the Potomac river and it was a plane that literally had left Reagan Airport and it was at the time called National Airport, had not been properly de iced. It hit the bridge and went into the river and killed an awful lot of people. I'd have to go back and look at how many. But since then, that was one of the many reasons that de icing equipment became standard on planes. Nonetheless, we haven't had any sort of an accident like this at Reagan Airport since then, since the early 80s. This is extremely serious.
- [45:11]
Rachel Maddow
Tom, I want to put up something on screen here that I've just been told. I have not seen this. We're going to be showing to our viewers and seeing it here for the first time. This is from Earth Cam some footage that may show the actual collision. Let's just watch here and see what we can see. Again, we're seeing this as you are. Oh yes, the crash there in the center of your screens toward the right. Again, what the FAA is saying that we are seeing here is the mid air collision of a Bombardier CRJ700 regional jet. It was American Airlines Flight 5000, 342 from Wichita to Washington D.C. colliding midair with a Sikorsky H60 helicopter as the plane was on approach to land at Runway 33 at Reagan Washington National Airport. We've got the FAA and NTSB investigating, the NTSB leading the investigation. We've got what appears to be a rescue effort underway with these aircraft and their passengers potentially being the icy Potomac river right now. And that rescue operation being not only massive but incredibly urgent in part because of the freezing temperatures both in that water and just generally in Washington D.C. right now. Tom, looking at this footage from Earth Cam, can you tell anything more, can you say anything to our viewers in terms of how to interpret what they're seeing?
- [46:45]
Tom Costello
Here, boy, I really can't, Rachel. And I'm looking at it with you, and, you know, all I can really discern from that is that there was some sort of a clearly an explosion from a midair, you know, midair contact hitting each other. Now, it looks to me like it's a smaller vehicle, a smaller craft that comes from behind and hits the bigger one. But, boy, you know, that's very speculative at this point. It's. That shot is taken from such a long way away, and you can see there are other planes, other air traffic in the air as well.
- [47:22]
Rachel Maddow
Exactly, yeah. So the thing that catches your attention first is a plane that's not involved in the collision that appears to be taking off in the foreground. You see there, that's the thing that's brightest. But then below it is where you see two smaller lights effectively come together. They're at a relatively low altitude compared to the other things you can see. You've got a little context there in terms of the bridge traffic over the Potomac, and then they go down. It's just very distressing to see this. Tom, can I also ask you, you talked about the scale of the response and the different agencies that you would expect in terms of fire, police, EMS and rescue that'd be responding from surrounding communities. If this is a military copter, would you also expect that the US Military might be involved in some of these initial rescue efforts? If this is their personnel, if these were their pilots, you know, I would.
- [48:17]
Tom Costello
Imagine that any military assets that are nearby would immediately respond, especially from that helicopter base that's so close, right across the river. And, you know, listen, this. This city has no shortage, as you know, of police agencies. And this is going to be an all hands on deck emergency. The priority is to get. Let's hope they're survivors, get people out of this icy water as fast as possible. But if it's in the middle of the river, that's. That really is. And of course, the river is moving. You know, they need to try to get that whatever, if they've. Whatever vehicle, whatever, whichever plane or chopper, if there's any craft that has the potential for having people inside, they've got to move fast.
- [49:03]
Rachel Maddow
Yeah, let's reset and let people know what they're looking at here. This is live footage that you're seeing here with the red and blue lights flashing. This is obviously a large emergency response for what appears to be a major emergency at D.C. national Airport, Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C. that airport is shut down. The airfield is closed. All runways are closed at Reagan National Airport. American Airlines Flight 5342. It was operated by PSA Airlines, but it was operating as American Airlines Flight 5342 taking off from Wichita, intending to land at Reagan Washington national Airport around 9pm it was approaching Runway 33, according to a preliminary statement from the FAA. And it collided, according to the FAA, in midair with a Sikorsky H60 helicopter. The geography of Reagan National Airport is such that that collision upon approach to that Runway appears to have put both of those aircraft into the very icy Potomac River. And we are seeing a massive scale rescue operation underway right there. We do not know the number of people who are on board that helicopter. We don't know what helicopter, what that helicopter was associated with. Obviously, Sikorsky Blackhawk style helicopters are associated with the US military, but they're used for all different types of government transportation. That regional jet, as Tom Costello just explained categorically, typically would be a jet that could hold 50 to 100 people. We have no idea at this point how many people were on board, but it was again, American Airlines Flight 5342 flying from Wichita to Washington D.C. reagan National Airport. That's what we know. We'll provide you continuing information as we learn it. We are watching these rescue operations underway live.