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agency, the single largest donor of humanitarian aid in the world. it is right now up in the air. but we begin today with an urgent warning for every american, from someone deep inside the country's top law enforcement agency, an agency already functionally decapitated. as a friend of this program, frank figliuzzi puts i, by the trump administration and facing threats from now pardoned january 6th defendants. our colleague ken dilanian reports that a message has been circulating in fbi circles from an fbi agent. it is believed to reflect the feelings of many inside that organization. we'll read that message to you. quote i offer this vignette free of political bias or moral judgment. it is not about any one person, but an amalgamation of multiple fbi special agents. i am the coach of your child's soccer team. i sit next to you on occasion in religious devotion. i'm a member of the pta with friends. you celebrated

my birthday. i collected your mail and took out your trash while you were away from home. i played a round of golf with you. i'm a veteran. this is the quiet side of me that you do not know. i orchestrated a clandestine operation to secure the release of an allied soldier held captive by the taliban. i prevented an isis terrorist from boarding a commercial aircraft. i spent three months listening to phone intercepts in real time to gather evidence needed to dismantle a violent drug gang. i recruited a source to provide critical intelligence on russian military activities in africa. i rescued a citizen being tortured to near death by members of an outlaw motorcycle gang. i interceded and stopped a juvenile planning to conduct a school shooting. i spent multiple years monitoring the activities of deep cover, foreign intelligence officers, leading to their arrest and deportation. i endured extensive hardship to infiltrate a global

child trafficking organization. i have been shot in the line of duty. something else about me. i was assigned to investigate a potential crime. like all previous cases, i have investigated, this one met every legal standard of predication and procedure. i'm now sitting in my home, listening to my children play and laugh in the backyard, oblivious to the prospect that their father may be fired in a few days, fired for conducting a legally authorized investigation, fired for doing the job that he was hired to do. i have to wonder when i'm gone, who will do the quiet work that is behind the facade of your average neighbor? that's where we start today. with me at the table, nbc news law enforcement and intelligence correspondent tom winter, and former federal prosecutor and former lawyer with the doj national security division, brendan ballou, is back. tom winter, i imagine as someone who

understands and has reported on the fbi for a long time, that this rings true to you. >> i mean, definitely, i can hear i don't know who this individual was. i didn't get the email, but i mean, i can imagine a whole bunch of people that i've met over the years that are special agent men and women that could fit this exact same bill. it's a very weird time for the fbi, just generally, let alone the january 6th threat, which i'll get to the first one being it's kind of the best of times and the worst of times. if you look at some of the priorities that the administration is shifting to, and you're an agent and you're thinking about transnational crime, you're thinking about drug cartels and the tools that they'll now be able to use to go after them. areas that have really frustrated you for decades and certainly the last decade, you're thinking, wow, we can really perhaps put some points on the board and do some damage. there also is going to be a change over at the bureau, some things that the fbi do need to change. if chris wray was sitting here next to me, he would be the first to say it. that's point one. on the other

hand, there was certainly work being done at the fbi last week to top ten most wanted list arrests. there were a number of cases that they brought or were culminating and working on. but now you're thinking approximately 4000 agents, maybe up to just shy of 5000 agents that have had their hands on this in some way or the other. and it's not the people that replied to my posts on this story on twitter saying, well, if it was 5000 agents and they must not have been too busy the past couple of years. no, it's not that. it's just somebody who gets a phone call and says, hey, can you go interview nicole? she might have some information about somebody who was at the riot on january 6th. hey, can you go, nicole? you're on the swat team, and today we're going after a drug dealer. yesterday was a terrorist. today it was somebody who sprayed a bear spray in a cop's face on january 6th. that's your job. you're taking that as a court authorized search warrant, a court authorized arrest warrant. you're going out there and doing your thing. and people were really concerned. towards the end of last week, it's abated a little bit. not a whole heck of a lot. both current and former

agents, former agents who may be in other law enforcement capacities, who may have their clearances, who may have jobs that still help this country's security. now thinking, what's next? i'm walking around with a baby grand piano over my head. am i going to lose that clearance? or if i'm active, fbi, where am i going to go to? and one of the things that the fbi has specific skills ensure they could be hired by their local police department, but they're not going to be hired at the sergeant lieutenant, captain level. they're going to have to start their careers all over again. that's a lot for families. and they already give up a lot. there's not ot, per se in the fbi. they spent a lot of time away from their families. if you're on a surveillance squad, it's 24 over seven not 24 over seven surveillance. you're not on it 24 over seven, but it's a lot of time away. you've devoted a lot of that to your mission because you believe in it. it's not a security guard job not to knock that, but it's not that type of a job. you have to be going out there and trying to make cases. and so i think when you look at it for them, there's an awful lot for them to

be concerned about. and the longer this kind of hangs over their heads, i think that there's really some consternation. and of course, it does naturally draw away attention. if my job was on the line sitting here today with you, i might not be fully focused on what i'm about to say. because you're thinking about your family, you're thinking about your livelihood. so those are all things that are in play. the other thing that's at play is, and there's a saying irs-ci teams say it, fbi agents say it. big cases when it comes to publicity, big problems. and so we've seen in the case of joe ziegler, he was one of the whistleblowers in the irs case. he was the one who opened the investigation into hunter biden. his whole life has been changed because of all the attention that that case brought and the eventual guilty plea that came out of it. if you're a federal agent, think about all the cases involving members of trump's circle over the years roger stone, paul manafort, mike flynn, everything we've been talking about for the last eight years, what is the incentive to go out and open that case, to go to your supervisor and say, hey,

i found out so-and-so might be up to something that's no good. and i'm not saying there's anybody that's under active criminal investigation. hopefully there's nobody that should have been under active criminal investigation that wasn't ultimately charged here in this whole administration. but we know the way that people are and every administration, particularly the last several, has had some sort of an issue swirling around it, whether people agree with it or don't, whether they think it should be looked into or not, it doesn't matter. there's been issues around all of these administrations, certainly in the first trump administration. so when you look at this, what is the incentive for that fbi agent to open that case and to a member of trump's inner circle? i can't think of one because it sounds like you're potentially asking for an automatic pink slip. >> well, i'm trying to listen for what you are and are not saying. and surely you're not arguing that the last four years were akin to the previous four years. i mean, the previous four years, the first trump administration, trump started by asking jim comey to see to it, to let mike flynn go, who pleaded guilty twice in open

court. so the fbi's also the last president never maligned the fbi once. so again, i just want to be really honest with our audience. this is not a bureau that had the same experience the last four years as the previous four. >> no, no, no, that's not the equivalent. but the equivalent is when you're in these cases that are big publicity cases, headquarters becomes involved, different procedures become involved. and all of a sudden, if you're i'm trying to put you in the shoes of the agent who's opening the case, i want to. >> know. >> what it's like these cases. >> to be. >> in a, in a, in a biden administration. what do you think i get that. >> i get that, but there's never been an agent in the fbi's history who's gone to work for the author of a book with an enemies list, with the last republican appointed attorney general on it, bill barr. what is that like? >> yeah. and i think that's the situation where you're coming into and you're saying, is it the guy who said the things he said in front of the senate trying to testify for his job? or is it the guy that wrote the book, to your point and the things he said in the enemies

list and things like that. and so i think that you look at that and you say, well, that's the book that the person wrote. where does their real heart lie? >> it's not like a college essay, though. i mean, it's a book he wrote last year. >> yeah. i don't think i need to spell it out for anybody. i mean, that's clearly like, this is what this guy's thoughts are. this is what he believes in. i mean. >> if they're. asked to investigate brendan, who prosecuted january 6th cases, what will they do? >> i think that's really where the rubber is going to meet the road. and i think that's something that we'll have to watch over the coming couple of years. and i think there's a feeling among the older guard of the fbi, which is if those types of things are coming forward, that's where an agent, that letter that you read when you started the show, that person who plays golf with their neighbor, who goes to school choir practices or goes to school soccer games that, you know, that's when that agent now has to make a determination. do i quit my job on principle? and that's going to be a really tough place for them to be because of how it impacts their

livelihood. that's what we've been reporting on. and that's a situation i think, you know, a lot of them are going to say, i might have to resign. and that's a tough that's a tough spot to put somebody in that in that space. >> it is a consequence of the election. elections have consequences. but prosecuting you. is something trump has talked about on the campaign trail. it's something pam bondi refused to rule out in her confirmation hearings. it's something, as i think tom is insinuating, kash patel was to be the most generous opaque on. but tell me what the nightmare scenario is for you. >> well, the nightmare. >> scenario. >> i suppose, for me. >> personally or for any of the prosecutors. >> that were. >> involved in. >> january 6th. >> would be. >> political prosecutions against us. >> but i think that. >> this president. >> would really. >> like the narrative. >> to be him versus. >> the prosecutors.

>> i don't think anybody's. >> better equipped. >> to. >> handle the stresses. >> of the legal system than lawyers and prosecutors. >> in. >> particular, the folks that i really worry about are the agents. >> that you're. >> just talking about, you know, name. >> identifying 5000. >> agents that. >> were involved. >> in the. >> january 6th. >> investigations and potentially. revealing those names. >> to the public. this goes part. >> and parcel. >> with the pardons. >> of the. >> rioters from a few weeks ago. >> you know. the purpose of those. >> pardons was. >> to empower vigilantes. >> and. >> militias that were loyal to. >> the. >> president. >> but ultimately. >> unaccountable to the government. >> and if. >> these names. >> are. >> released. >> that gives those vigilantes, those. >> militias. >> a target. >> and i mean, you know, michael fanone has said on this program he voted for donald trump in 2016. so the journey from a trump voter to the victim of vigilante violence directed at you can be unexpectedly brave. the agents involved in the mar-a-lago documents case have

been targeted by trump supporters with vicious threats on the dark web. there's some reporting that exists that a lot of the names on this list that, and it's my understanding that a list does exist. a list has been created that a lot of those folks are already being outed and unmasked, if you will, on the dark web. how are they protecting their families? >> it's a good question. >> you know, for. very prominent officials, people that are making a lot. of money in the. >> private sector, they. >> can afford private security. that's not necessarily the. >> case for. >> an fbi agent. one point. >> if i. >> can make. >> it, that i think is implicit in what you. >> were just talking about. >> is you mentioned fanone. >> voting for. >> donald trump. >> you know, i. >> think the expression that sticks with me in. >> the letter that you read at the outset of. >> this program. >> was free of political bias. >> and the agents that. >> i worked. >> with, we never talked about. >> politics, but the. >> sense that i got was most of them were pretty conservative. but they followed. >> these cases. >> very carefully.

>> they followed the law. >> they followed. >> the facts, and. they brought the cases and indictments. >> that were appropriate. >> i think the one. >> silver lining. >> of this is that the way that this. >> administration has. >> gone about. >> you know. blanket possible terminations, i think it. >> would be harder. >> for this administration. >> to off more fbi agents more quickly. and so. >> in the long term, i think. >> it is. >> going to make it. harder for this administration to politicize the fbi. >> what happens inside the bureau when your name is on a list of 5000 people who've been identified and targeted for possible firing? but at the end of the day, the purge is delayed. >> if it's delayed, it's not denied. and so you always wonder, is that list going to become public? when is it going to become public? to the point i was making earlier. you know, you, nicole, may be not assigned to anything involving january 6th, but i pick up the phone and say, hey, is it possible for you to run down a lead in an entirely other part of the country? you may say, yeah, i picked up a document or i served a subpoena on somebody. i have

nothing to do with that. now all of a sudden you're brought in the middle of it, and it's not like you have a choice. you don't have a choice. what evidence response team you go to? i mentioned the swat example before. that's not a choice you can't pick up. and i don't want to do that case. i want to do that case instead. there are some times where you can kind of pick your subject matter areas, but there are times when you've got to just go out and do your job. and so i think the fact that, you know, that you're on there in perpetuity, or at least for whatever period of time they tell you you're on a list and that they're researching or analyzing or trying to determine if there's anybody who violates this executive order. according to the memo from bovee the other day, then i think that's something that you always think about. and to your point, you don't know when that's going to come out and you don't know where your name is. one of the things that we've seen a lot is we've seen in prior instances not specific to this. we've seen members of law enforcement who were quote unquote, outed on social media. that had nothing to do with that particular case at all. people just put the wrong pieces of information together, and the internet

sleuths got it flat out incorrect. and in that circumstance, now we're not talking about 5000 agents who are impacted. that's fear. it's a lot larger. so again, these are all the different permutations that come up when we start to talk about it. but the real world impact for the three of us at this table, for people that are watching us today, is at a time when we've never seen the terrorism threat higher. we just had an announcement from the oval office as far as what's going to happen with gaza. how's that going to impact the terrorism sphere? probably not particularly great. we have a dhs memo today that even talks about it. that's the trump administration, dhs memo. the fbi has a lot of challenges right in front of their nose. and so does this become a distraction at a time when they need to be most on their game? i think the answer to that is yes, and i think that's going to be a big challenge for them going forward dealing with that. and that's something that i think concerns a lot of people both in and outside of the fbi. >> it is a self-created distraction created by one person, donald trump, and the people he selected to run the department of justice and the

fbi. i played some sound from a couple of weeks ago of, i think his name is jesse watters, interviewing josh hawley, saying things about christopher wray that i had no idea were being peddled in traffic about how he was a criminal, a lawbreaker, how they'd gone for eight years. i mean, christopher wray came on trump's radar, i believe, originally because he defended chris christie in all the bridgegate stuff. he is, i believe, a conservative, identifies as a conservative. in his private life. he ran the fbi with his head down. he was closely aligned with with the agents. to the degree anyone in management can be. he was closely aligned with bill barr when he was. i mean, the idea that what has been trafficked in right wing media that emanates from donald trump's lies about the bureau that has gone on for nine years, we don't sit around here three people sort of bemoaning the state of the fbi as distracted in light of a domestic terrorism threat. we sit here as citizens of this country and taxpayers with a weakened fbi because of donald trump. is it honorable for merrick garland and chris wray

to say and do nothing today? >> yeah. >> i certainly hope that the people in the center of power. >> in the. >> last administration, or at any point speak out here. >> you know. >> one thing that i think is pretty obvious to people in government, but may not be to folks outside of government, is that the less. popular a policy is, the. >> harder. >> it is for that policy. >> to happen. >> and i think, i mean, i think that's the more popular the fbi is, the harder it is to hurt them for political purposes. i mean, i wonder, i want to i want to show you, i need to sneak in. i want to show you guys what mr. driscoll made. he made a video that's a little campy, if that's a word that you can use about the fbi, but it's just about bad guy stuff. >> outside the norms. >> yeah, i i'm going to sneak in a break and come back and show this to you on the other side. can you stick around one more minute? tom and brandon are going to stay. you're going to stay because we're going to talk about your piece as well. on the other side and your experience in trump 1.0 and what it will take for all this to come together. for pro fbi

supporters, pro-democracy forces in and out of the government to work together and make sure the fbi functions and protects the american people as it's supposed to do. plus, what will happen when the trump administration's efforts to dismantle usaid comes to fruition. what happens next is that when people will care about what this agency does, how the millions of american workers will fare, as well as our standing in the world. what hit will that take? we'll talk about it with a former administrator of usaid ahead and later in the broadcast, if you're concerned about elon musk's unchecked powers, don't worry. my white house says he will be checked and policed by elon musk. yeah, that's right, that really happened. all those stories and more when deadline white house more when deadline white house continues after a quick break. if you have heart failure or chronic kidney disease, farxiga can help you keep living life, because there are places you'd like to be. (♪♪) serious side effects include increased ketones in blood or urine and bacterial infection between the anus and genitals,

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hey! no, i'm good to talk! xfinity internet customers, cut your mobile bill in half for your first year with xfinity mobile. plus, ask how to get the new samsung galaxy s25+ on us. prize picks. run your game. >> donald trump is defending the mass firings of federal watchdogs. >> our federal. >> government now can discriminate against the citizens of the country. >> we are all. >> watching and. >> waiting to see who is going to hold the line. >> don't miss the weekends.

>> saturday, and sunday mornings. >> at 8:00. >> on msnbc. >> what we do is. >> try to. >> cut right to the bone of what we're seeing in washington that day. >> our people. >> are hard at work with our local. >> state and. >> federal partners. and the run up to this sunday's super bowl. in addition to. our team in new orleans, we've deployed. >> scores of fbi employees to. >> surge in support. >> of this effort. >> from bomb techs to swat operators to. intelligence analysts. >> and each one of them. >> has focused. >> on keeping the event safe for everyone. our teams. >> have also been working around the clock to respond to the tragic plane crashes in philadelphia and washington. >> d.c. >> and support of recovery efforts. all of that work is critically important to our partners and to the american people, but it doesn't even scratch the surface of the work. the men and women in the. fbi are doing every single. day across the country and around the world to keep people safe.

>> we will never. >> take our eyes off. >> of our mission. protecting the american people and upholding the constitution. because at the bureau, we're focused on the work. >> that with brian driscoll, he is right now the acting director of the fbi. we're back with tom winter and former federal prosecutor brendan ballou. and so just i mean, this was so simple and so important and probably had an internal audience, definitely had an external audience. i mean, we're playing it here to our viewers. if one of the byproducts is that this process makes the fbi great, again, in the eyes of a broad swath of the american people, that is in some ways the simplest, the truest, and the best outcome. >> for the fbi, most certainly. former nypd commissioner bill bratton used to say this all the time. he when he would do a press conference or when he would say something publicly, he would say, look, i can send out

all the memos, all the emails, all the type notes to the precincts i want to. but when the cops see me talking on tv or when they read my quotes in the newspaper, then they believe it's real. similar situation here. the fbi has put out countless youtube videos over the years and published statements, but this one clearly was meant to go wide, not just for the purposes of nicole and this show and everything, but for the purposes of he wanted his own people to hear directly from him and not in a memo format. and so i think he's trying to set an important tone there. at the end of it, the people that have worked with driscoll in the hrt community, the ct community, they really like this guy. they really like this guy. and they have not been shy about sharing that information with their colleagues. so this is somebody who i think looks more like the current fbi. we were joking in in break here that herbert hoover, which is perhaps not the person to hold up on the pedestal here right now, but his version of the fbi, his initial vision of the fbi would not have had somebody with that haircut or that goatee. but this version of the fbi, that's who you have.

and you have somebody who's gone out there and been involved in the hrt world and held a gun and actually been in the middle of really aggressive actions and has actually done the job. and so i think for the agents that are watching this, they're saying, here's somebody who looks more like us than somebody who's a supervisor or somebody who was appointed because they knew the right people politically. and so that might also have a bit of a powerful message as well. it's up to the fbi now. and the agents there. you heard it from jim dennehy in a statement that he sent that we've confirmed here at nbc news to members of his staff. he runs the new york field office that we're digging in. and i think that's really the message from the bosses to their staff. dig in, make big cases, remind people of why we're here. >> tom winter, thank you. thank you for starting us off and staying for some extra time. i want to turn now to action from democrats in response to some of the trump nominees. take a listen to what senate democrats have been saying today about kash patel. he's donald trump's nominee to lead the fbi.

>> kash patel. >> has no business. >> being the director. of the fbi. >> somebody who. has faced. >> a substantial and real risk of criminal prosecution ought to have some explaining to do before they become the head of the fbi. >> the men. >> and women of the fbi deserve better than this nominee. and i ask our republican colleagues to stand up and say it to. >> might have taken them a second, but democrats are on their feet, ready, willing and able to show republicans that they're not going to take whatever trump sends them lying down. those democrats you just heard from are on the senate judiciary committee, and they flexed some more than rhetorical muscles. they flexed flex some procedural muscle today as well. they pushed kash patel's nomination to be the next fbi director back a week. they did so mere hours after their colleagues held the senate floor in an overnight protest of donald trump's office of management and budget nominee, russell vought. the project 2025 guy the democrats pulling levers

at their disposal is just part of this broader effort. protests erupted across the country wednesday, fueled by anger over the immigration crackdown, elon musk and the future of gaza. but what's happening inside the government, as we've been discussing with our friend brendan ballou in his role at the justice department, he was tasked with crafting a workable version of donald trump's muslim ban, ballou writes in politico. this quote, where we might otherwise have felt like lonely voices in a bureaucracy, public outrage gave us courage and the knowledge that we were, in fact, working in the public interest. advocacy on the outside made advocacy on the inside possible, while protesters online and in the street had no way to know it, their work was enormously influential. reminder brendan resigned from the justice department in the wake of the trump administration's mass pardons of the january 6th defendants. this is so interesting, samer. >> one of. >> the things that i. >> try to. >> communicate to folks outside

of government that is obvious to folks inside the government, we're just starting to talk about that in the last segment. is that public opinion really matters for making things happen in government. the president can't just order something to happen. the president actually has to convince the rest of government to make something happen. and the less popular a proposal is, the less likely it is to happen for a couple reasons. one, it empowers dissent within the bureaucracy, and two, it gives arguments to folks inside the bureaucracy about why proposals might be illegal, discriminatory, corrupt or otherwise. and so i say all that because i think folks outside of government may feel a certain amount of helplessness, but i have personally seen how much power those sorts of protests can have. >> it's so interesting. i mean, i hear this anecdotally in my life, and i see this in the responses of some of our viewers. will you say more about how that applies to your particular situation? if there is a real fear of retribution being carried out against some

of the prosecutors that brought the january 6th cases? >> yeah, yeah. whether it's prosecutions against the prosecutors or the agents or, you know, potentially even judges bringing a case, investigating a case is a big operation. it requires investigators, it requires prosecutors, it requires taking a case to a grand jury. all that requires expertise and energy within a bureaucracy. and the less energy there is, the less likely it is going to happen. and so the way that i think things change is if people both inside and outside of government understand the highly political nature of these potential prosecutions and the fact that these prosecutions, potential prosecutions are an effort to rewrite history around january 6th, that is the purpose here. >> there's something about the way trump has traveled this road where first it was pardoning his allies. i mean, everyone associated with trump has walked, right? so he pardons flynn, who pleads guilty in open

court, twice pardons manafort, pardons stone, pardon pardons steve bannon, i mean pardoned everyone associated with this first presidency and his first campaign. he's now turned the dial up to, you know, 11 and it's not just a second kind of justice for his allies where there is no accountability. it's turning the powers of criminal investigation and prosecution against perceived enemies who simply upheld the rule. it's so upside down and backward. i wonder how you would advise that it be communicative with the general public. >> yeah. i think, you know, one of the things that this president wants or this administration wants is this to be a story about him versus prosecutors. and i don't think that that's the right characterization. this is an effort by the president to rewrite the history of january 6th, because the problem is, a whole lot of people committed a whole bunch of crimes in his name and his political

legitimacy. the legitimacy of this administration requires americans to forget that fact. so i think going forward, what we need to do is make sure that the history of that day doesn't get forgotten. and the purpose of these potential investigations is made clear. >> let me just ask you one more question about merrick garland and chris wray. would any of the insurrectionists have been prosecuted without merrick garland and christopher wray turning the department toward those crimes? >> probably not. >> and so everything that happened at the department of justice and the fbi was under their direction. >> yeah. i mean, that's why leadership at the top matters so much. it's very hard to start any kind of investigation from the bottom up, let alone something of that magnitude. so leadership, whether it's merrick garland and chris wray or kash patel and pam bondi, is incredibly important. >> and lisa monaco was was involved as well. yeah. and have you heard from any of them. >> thus far? no. >> all right. we'll stay on it. we'll continue to turn to you. brendan, thank you so much for coming back. up next for us, a

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of this agency? it is a result of a brutal but effective disinformation campaign initiated by elon musk and cheered on by donald trump, by republicans, by right wing media, under the guise of cutting taxpayer spending, what they call radical left projects. make no mistake that donald trump is kneecapping america's global standing around the world. by gutting this organization, it has saved countless lives. it increases goodwill around the world. and perhaps most importantly, it counters adversaries like russia and china and keeps them from gaining more influence and power throughout the world. so with trump and musk are doing with the republicans cheering them on, and those over at fox news is to gut the program in the name of saving less than 1% of the federal budget. here's how former usaid administrator samantha power described it last night on msnbc.

>> american strength resides. in the. goodwill we buy. but also our. security resides in our ability to squash that ebola. >> outbreak in. >> uganda. >> to make sure that those flights. >> that come from kampala don't contain. people with ebola. >> who bring. >> that disease elsewhere. >> so they root against america. >> they root against democracy, therefore, they root against u.s. aid and are thrilled that it's the united states government itself that. >> is taking this agency off the field. but the other reason they're cheering is that usaid does. >> really important democracy work, really important. anti-corruption work, supporting. independent journalists, training. >> them to make sure that. they can go. >> out and about and cast sunlight on what is going on in. >> those countries. >> joining our coverage, andrew natsios, he was the administrator for usaid during the george w bush administration. he's now an executive professor at texas a&m university. and joining us here at the table, former

undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs during the obama administration, rick stengel. andrew, i wonder if you could just take us through what people, what people don't understand about how nonpartisan usaid mission is? >> well. >> any agency or department of the federal government follows the lead of the white house. so the fox news and other groups are attacking aid for having some social. cultural programs, the culture wars that's ordered by the white house and the white house. we had conservative programs when i was administrator and. >> when mark. >> green was administrator. and the bush administration, the trump administration, the first one. and when the democrats take, they move it left of center. and the career people didn't resist when i was there. and i probably the most conservative administrator in the history of the agency. they showed me how to do it. i trusted them, i treated them

respectfully. and they said, if you do it this way, you're going to get into trouble. if you do it this way, it's going to work. i reviewed every single program from the clinton administration when i took over in 2001, and i ended dozens of programs, and i redirected toward our priorities. that took a month. we did it quietly. the career people caught a lot of the clinton programs dogs because they didn't work. and they were they didn't even like them, but they they quietly implemented what they under the clinton years, what they were told to do. and they do the same thing when i was in office. i the notion that aid is not following the foreign policy, of course it isn't. there's no aid administrator. they haven't appointed any people from the republican party to run aid under trump. so of course it hasn't moved toward their foreign policy. they just took off three weeks ago. it takes a few months, you know, to move any agency or department. but i might add one last thing. the fact is that the state department in the f office

controls every single dollar aid spends. that's what the office was created for. and they've done that for 20 years now. it's not new, and i might add, who controls the appropriation? the congress does and omb does, which is controlled by the white house. aid doesn't run out and does do whatever they want. every single dollar in the aid budget is already earmarked. we don't have a lot of choice. and i might add, there's a federal index of how well managed agencies are. it's a nonpartisan group, independent on purely a technical basis. aid is ranked as the third best managed federal agency in the united states government. the notion that the agency are criminals and all that, that's a lot of garbage. it's a it's a lie. it's an insult. and what they do keep doing, if you if you repeat a lie long enough, people will begin to believe it. and i speak as a conservative republican. i worked as a vice president for

world vision, the largest evangelical ngo in the world. i served for 22 years in the army reserves. i retired as a lieutenant colonel. i served in the first gulf war. i am not on the left. >> i feel like there's more in there. i'm going to ask you to say more about why you think it was targeted by elon musk and donald trump. >> it was targeted because the immediate beneficiaries, the long term beneficiaries, like the american people, they don't realize it. they are it protects the united states. the reason that they targeted is it has a relatively weak constituency because the beneficiaries are in the global south. you don't see the programs. if you saw the programs, there'd be no one in the congress voting against it. i know some far right wing, very conservative senators and congressmen who are republicans went to the south with with democrat and republican administrations. they came back saying, i'm not going to oppose this anymore. i'm with this. chris wallace went with aid to

ukraine, said, i've never been a fan of foreign aid. he came back and said, i'll never criticize it again. i saw what they're doing. it's astonishing. i took i took some prominent conservatives to afghanistan, and they came back and said the same thing, including rush limbaugh. and he said that publicly in his own program. when they see the programs, they support it. the reason that they went after them is that we constituency, they wanted to make an example and show that they can they're in charge, they're in power, and they can crush our programs and our agency. and the consequence for the american people is we don't have an early warning system for disease anymore. there are 90 missions, 90 countries that have early warning systems that are installed over the last couple of decades for disease outbreaks. we're not going to have that anymore. it's going to disappear. it's already shut down now. it's in my view, this is an enormous risk for the united states. you know what

happens when famines take place? people start moving and mass. if we shut down the emergency programs and aid, which is what's happened, we are going to have famines across the globe and guess where they're going to end up in europe and the united states. the people, when they start panicking, they start moving in. almost every famine that's taken place in the last 50 years, it's and we're going to we're going to pay the price later on. >> let me ask you one more question. you touched on this. the workforce at usaid, did you? i was in the bush administration, and i remember condi rice as only she could do with her swagger, you know, walking in and demanding more funds for usaid because of the importance of the mission. and i remember george w bush rarely saying no to usaid or to you or condi rice, but i, i wonder if you could just tell me what the workforce was like when you turned this agency so conservative compared to the

administration from which you took it over? >> we had 1200 foreign service officers and 1200 civil servants. we had about 6500, 7500 foreign service nationals. there are people who come from the country itself. they're not americans here. they live in the in the they work in the aid mission, many of them for a long time. that is a training ground for local leaders. for example, the first woman prime minister in costa rica was a usaid foreign service national for ten years. the first woman vice president of el salvador was an fsn. the first lady of peru under a conservative president, was an fsn, and her husband got a phd with an aid scholarship. i can go around the world. i can do it for a whole hour and tell you how the aid missions, in fact, were the base for training

people who went on to become leaders in their country. they're pro-american. you know what's happening now? all that's going to shut down. you know, we used to give 20 000 scholarships a year in aid to people from the developing world. they go back and they change their countries. you know how much the chinese, how many scholarships they're doing, 40,000 scholarships, double what we did during the cold war. and they're coming back speaking mandarin. and the united states is just retreating from the battlefield. we've lost the first battle with the chinese and the russians, not by losing because our programs aren't there, but because we're leaving. it's disgusting. it's outrageous. it's a it's an egregious affront to the american people. >> i only regret that i didn't find you and get you on this program a few days ago. i do want to have that whole around the world conversation. i need to do two things. i have to sneak in a commercial break, and i want to bring my friend rick

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greatest humanitarian efforts in human history. it saved 25 million lives. but but to go back to also what andrew said, just in terms of selling it to the american people, although maybe it's too late if you want to prevent illegal immigration, if you want to prevent the spread of disease, if you want to prevent the spread of terrorism, fund usaid. they estimate that for every dollar they spend, we save $7 combating those things because they combat those things on the ground. and andrew had this experience. you probably had this experience. i've been around the world when i was in the administration. and you'd go, you'd be in a dock, you'd be in a village somewhere, and you'd see a crate from usaid as red, white and blue logo. and it says from the american people. and it does. it engenders so much soft power, so much affection for the united states, that the value of that is, you can't even estimate that. and, and, and to treat this in this kind of way that they're doing like, you can fire people at twitter, 80% of the

people at twitter, nobody gets hurt, but you halt the shipments and deliveries of medicines, anti-retroviral drugs for millions of people. you halt the delivery of medicine for malaria. that's just what they did. they're sitting on docks somewhere. so it's doing real damage in real time. not to mention the damage that it will do in the long run. >> can it be undone? >> you know, i'm hopeful. and human rights organizations, ngos are talking to the administration. let's preserve the things that we can all agree on. disease prevention, fighting terrorism, fighting migration. as as andrew said, there are problems with some of the programs. and let's as you said, let's look at them and let's toss out the ones that have some cultural implications. that's fine, but let's preserve the ones that are feeding starving children, helping ill people. >> andrew, let me ask you two questions. one. >> you said, tell you a story. >> give me a story. >> after the tsunami that that

killed 125 million people in aceh, in indonesia. we did. we were the primary responders. usaid with the us military. by the way, aid is very close to the us military. if you ask most military officers, they say aid is very operational. they get stuff done. we like working with aid, and we were in aceh and the newspapers in indonesia did polls of how popular the united states was before the tsunami. we had a 27% approval rating in indonesia, according to the indonesian newspaper. five newspapers did these polls. bin laden had a 63% approval rating. 63%, i'm sorry. 57%. after the tsunami. two. two months later, we did a poll. they did a poll, and they asked the same question. it completely reversed bin laden's polls dropped from

57% down to 26%. we went from 27% to 63%. and even two years later, we were still up about 50%. the point is, in the largest muslim country in the world, where we had terrible polls, our aid program reversed that popularity. now, we weren't doing it to be popular. we didn't even know this. and the cia told me they intercepted some messages from bin laden, who was livid. livid that aids polls. now a us government poll, not aids fault. the us government and the american people's polls had dramatically increased in indonesia and he had collapsed. so this, this and the president of indonesia told me privately, he said, i'm friends with president bush, but it's hard to be pro-american when you have a 27% approval rating, when you have a 63% approval rating. it's a lot easier to be very cooperative with the us, so it does make a difference. >> andrew, let me ask you to

reverse engineer that then. i mean, if usaid makes america safe and you take it away, america gets less popular, our adversaries gain a foothold. just pull that thread for me. then what happens? >> well, who who's taking over the international order? you know, people say, well, it doesn't make any. the president says this all the time. they don't. we don't need them. they need us. well, actually, we do need them. we don't have rare metals in the united states for high technology. we have to import them. we copper, cobalt, nickel, coltan. these are in developing countries, many countries where there are large age missions. i'm about to publish an article in foreign affairs tomorrow arguing that we need to have aid missions in countries. we don't have them now where there are critical port facilities, not port facilities, but we call them choke points. we close the aid mission in panama because it's a

middle income country. they still have serious problems and they didn't want us to leave. omb put pressure on aid. you got to show graduation. we shouldn't be graduating countries where unless they're so rich, like south korea and taiwan, we had a lot to do with them becoming very rich. their big trading partners. now, we should have a mission in panama because of the panama canal. when we left, guess who moved in? the chinese? yeah. do we need the canal? the us military needs the canal for our fleet. and secondly, we ship beef from this state, from texas to asia all the time through that canal. >> andrew, we're going to need to do the one hour. around the world. i want to hear all of it. we need to know. okay. so? so wait for a call from us. andrew natsios, rick stengel, thank you so much for this conversation. i'm really grateful. just ahead for us, how democrats on capitol hill are fighting back against hill are fighting back against elon musk. the next ♪♪ amazing.

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big game. available in 30 plus states, including california and texas. prize picks. run your game. >> what we do. >> is try to cut. >> right to the bone of what we're seeing in. >> washington that day. >> these three multi-billionaires. >> are working with. >> trump for one very. simple reason. >> they understand that. >> trump's policies. >> are designed to. >> make the very wealthiest people in this country even richer. since trump's election, mr. musk has become a $154 billion richer. not bad. in a couple of weeks time. >> hi again everyone. it's 5:00

in new york. in addition to being the world's richest man who keeps getting richer, as senator sanders says there are, elon musk at the moment also seems to be the world's most influential person. the newly minted special government employee, with donald trump's praise and constant admiration and fawning, has been whipping through the federal government with his doge team, gutting federal agencies, firing federal employees, and gaining access to troves of federal government data and materials, all while maintaining his very profitable leadership positions at several private companies. rolling stone points out just how problematic this is. quote. it's nearly impossible for musk to direct any action by doge in washington without potentially affecting one of his businesses. x, formerly twitter, currently faces a lawsuit from the sec that alleges he withheld information about the steak he was acquiring in the company ahead of his bid to purchase it. the department of labor, which

could be next on the chopping block for doge, has probed and fined tesla and spacex for unsafe working conditions through the occupational safety and health administration. tesla is also under investigation by the justice department for possible securities and wire fraud related to its unsupported claims about fully autonomous vehicles. but don't worry anyone. caroline leavitt, the white house press secretary, assured the country yesterday that there will be someone policing elon musk and making sure that all those conflicts of interest are completely avoided. >> the president was already asked and answered this. >> question this week. >> and he said. >> if elon. >> musk comes. >> across a conflict. >> of interest. >> with the. >> contracts and the funding that. doj's overseeing, then elon. >> will. excuse himself from. >> those contracts. >> and he has again abided by all. >> applicable laws. >> elon will excuse himself. they have a plan. these conflicts of interest are though a focus now of united states

senator richard blumenthal. he is opening an inquiry into doge, writing to six of musk's companies, including tesla and x, to demand more information. in a statement, senator blumenthal writes this, quote mr. musk's dual roles running a for profit corporation while serving in public office not only create glaring conflicts of interest that pose grave risks for america's most sacred institutions, but it may also violate federal law. the permanent subcommittee on investigations is conducting a preliminary inquiry into doge, and the ramifications of its conduct. that investigation is where we start the hour. democratic senator richard blumenthal of connecticut. senator, thank you for being here. i know these are busy days. >> busy day, but really delighted to be with you, nicole. >> because this story ought to make americans angry. that idea that there's accountability for elon musk in the present system. absolutely not. in fact, donald trump has fired all.

>> the inspectors general. >> who would be able. >> to. blow the whistle on. conflicts of interest. >> and that's why i've begun an. >> investigation through. >> the permanent subcommittee on investigation, because there is so much at stake here. and it isn't just privacy, access to information about va payments. on disabilities, tax refunds, all of that personal, private information. it's also that elon musk potentially benefits immensely at the expense of his competitors for government contracts and other business, and puts at risk our security, cyber security. if there is ever a breach of this information. >> one of the things about elon musk assuming the role of a co-president, well, one of the things is the disappearance of jd vance, but the other is that there wasn't any vetting, there isn't any understanding of his financial entanglements or legal

exposure. and i've seen a little bit of reporting about one of the things that usaid was looking into when it comes to one of his companies. i wonder if you will start by looking at what he's burning down fastest, to see if that is an intersection with his business interests. >> we will be looking at, and we've demanded information about what he is collecting by way of information, what he is using it for, who has access to it. you know, these 20 year olds and 25 year olds probably have no security clearances, but they have access to information that could be a matter of the utmost concern, security concern, if there are any, hacking into the systems that are being used by elon musk to monetize this information. so there are vast implications for our nation's

security potential breaches and hacking into those systems, but also monetizing it, using it for the benefit of tesla or starlink or spacex or neuralink or the boring company and x i, which is why we've written to all of them, demanding that they give us an accounting and we're going to hold them accountable for how this information is used to the benefit of elon musk's company. this idea of a conflict of interest is very abstract. it sounds hypothetical, but elon musk has made money from all of his government contracts. tesla, billions of dollars spacex tens of billions of dollars. and so we want to know how this information is being used and stored and potentially to the advantage of those companies at the expense of the american

taxpayers. >> will the investigation are the investigation? i mean, the public is getting increasingly vocal about this unelected unvetted non senate confirmed. not that that's a real process at this point. individual profiting enormously, as senator bernie sanders said, and gaining access to private information. if your investigation goes perfectly, what what power do you have to act on its findings in the minority? >> part of it is name and shame. the american people are angry, i hope, now, but they're going to be furious when they learn the truth about how elon musk is personally benefiting from this access. and you know, nicole, it would be one thing if we had some disinterested, impartial, objective business person, highly successful, looking at ways to make our government more

efficient and save money. that's not what's happening here. elon musk is doing a power grab and an information heist, the biggest in american history and probably the most detrimental financially to american taxpayers. and what we will do is not only expose it, but also try to mobilize the american people so that elon musk is stopped from this power grab and information heist and the theft of information that is to the detriment of american taxpayers. he is stealing not just information. he's stealing taxpayer dollars. >> what is the remedy? if you find evidence of crimes like stealing information and theft, will you take it to pam bondi? what will you do with it? >> well. >> first of all, it is potentially, and we think actually a violation of law, the privacy act of 1974, the

administrative procedure act, other statutes that exist right now to protect americans. yes. we will go to the department of justice. i think we could also go to other sources and potential litigation here brought by private groups and also even state attorneys general who might seek remedies. but i think there are sources of remedies and enforcement here that we will explore very actively. >> i want to show you well, i want to do two things. senator, this is a tweet from senator murkowski. she said this quote, i want to thank alaskans who have been reaching out to my office in d.c. and across alaska. the u.s. senate phone system has been receiving around 1600 calls each minute, compared to 40 calls per minute that we usually receive, which has disrupted our call systems. thank you for your patience as my staff works to review your messages and share them with me.

we're all working to get the issue resolved. representative jim mcgovern said. i can't ever recall receiving this many calls. people are disgusted with what's going on. they want us to fight back. others are talking about more than an uptick in calls, but an explosion of public outrage. do you do you feel i don't know, i don't want to i don't want to put an emotion onto this. but do you feel some wind at your back, even in the minority, with the public outrage over what elon musk has done, which appears to be an overreach? >> a lot of wind in our back, partly as a result of the excellent reporting that you and others h bn doing. thank you. but also because republicans are feeling the heat. if i have a message, it is. yes. direct your fury at democrats, but also republicans because they're in the minority and we need them to feel this heat and fury and frustration of

the american people. the elon musk story is a parable of the stealing that we are seeing, the grifters in control, the billionaires who don't need those additional dollars, but they are going to benefit from a tax cut. they are benefiting right now from contracts. and elon musk in control of more contracts, which he is doing in control of information and in control of not only private information about people receiving tax refunds or va benefits or social security payments, but also his competitors information gives him an advantage that's unprecedented. it's unparalleled in american history. >> i want to show you some of your colleagues sort of picking

up this message and running with it. >> what we are. seeing unfold. >> is an. >> unlawful power grab by a unelected and unaccountable billionaire puppet master who's pulling the strings of house republicans. and apparently the trump administration. >> just last night. >> elon musk. came out and we found. >> out that he's interfering with. >> air traffic control. >> when musk took over twitter, he repeatedly crashed that platform. it's not a big deal if your app doesn't load one day, but it is a huge deal if you don't know if your plane is going to crash or not. >> elon can buy a lot. >> he's the richest man. >> in the world. >> but the american. people and their security is not for sale. >> that was over on the house side. and former republican congresswoman liz cheney added this. damn right, elon, i'm proud of what america did to win

the cold war, defeat soviet communism and defend democracy. our nation stood for freedom. you may be unfamiliar with that part of our history since you weren't yet an american citizen. what is your theory of the case? is it is it simply the millions that went from elon's checkbook to donald trump's as a candidate? or what is your theory on why trump is, for the first time, so willing to be eclipsed in terms of attention? >> it probably has something to do with the hundreds of millions. but also it is a kind of malign neglect of the way government works and the way that it serves people. that reference to the faa is particularly timely, given the tragedy that we saw recently, perhaps partly due to the understaffing of the air controllers, perhaps due to the

antiquated technology that the faa uses and perhaps due in the future to elon musk recommending slashing the faa or undermining its work. so this kind of power grab unaccountability has real impacts on real people's lives. and those powerful statements by my colleagues on the house side, i think, are important in generating the understanding, the fury, the frustration that they should express, because we can do it from the rotunda of the united states capitol. we can reach out, but they're reaching out to their republican senators, and congressmen are going to have more impact than anything i say here in the capital of the united states. >> senator richard blumenthal, thank you for joining us. we'll continue to cover your efforts here. thank you for talking to

us. >> thank you. >> joining our coverage, former federal prosecutor. msnbc legal analyst kristy greenberg is back. also joining us, msnbc columnist, author of the newsletter. to the contrary, charlie sykes is back and the president of media matters for america, angelo carusone, who predicted just about everything you are seeing in your newspapers, is back with us. angelo, let me let me start with you. in the musk of it all, is there any sort of plot twist to how heavily overlaid project 2025 is? or christie had a good or, you know, just sort of the accelerant factor of musk over the project 2025 specificity and granularity. >> yeah. >> and i would add in a way. >> it's he's. >> both. >> an accelerant and he adds an important ingredient. >> and this. >> is one of the things. >> that even. >> russ vought. >> had. >> identified as a potential vulnerability. >> of. >> implementing project 2025. and that was fortitude. >> he talked about this. >> a. >> lot with tucker carlson. where he basically identified.

that most of the things that they're going to do are deeply unpopular. >> they fully. >> acknowledge that most of the people, even their own voters, didn't want a lot of the things discussed or. contemplated or proposed in. project 2025. but that in order to implement them both. >> at the speed that they wanted and the scale that they wanted, it was going to create a lot of backlash, both in the public and the media and then amongst their own supporters, even. >> and what. he had. >> identified was that there's a real challenge there that you have to have. >> individuals in these key. >> roles, these pivotal roles. >> across the government that are able. >> to withstand. >> the pressure. >> and forge ahead to. >> the other side. >> when it doesn't really matter anymore, because. >> they've been able to consolidate. >> so. much power and control. and what musk. really provides here is, is, is some. >> critical pieces. >> one, it's not just. that he's. >> the richest person. >> in the world and has, you know. >> you know. >> all this big following. he also has his hands on the lever of, of the, of. >> twitter, which is an influential social media platform. for at minimum maga

world. >> the trump. >> supporters and then by extension, that larger right wing media. echo chamber around it. while it may have lost some of its influence in traditional media, it's still it's still an engine, almost like an editorial assigner for the. >> rest of the right wing media. >> it's just it's the center. >> of gravity there. >> and obviously he is right at the center of it. >> and then. >> the other part and i think this is the piece is the fortitude. and, you know, he's done these kinds of things before at various scales, and he doesn't really. care about the. >> feedback or the blowback. >> he is, as everybody keeps pointing out. and i think that's an important connected piece here. you know, a lot of times people say, well, he's not elected. well, the so what of that isn't just that he's unelected doing these jobs. the so what is that? it means he doesn't have to care. you know, that's the implication when somebody is elected in theory they're accountable and they should care to some extent if something is wildly unpopular. that's why you see some republicans willing to at least break verbally with. >> trump on things, at least now. >> so that to me is the big consideration. and, you know, it

was kind of contemplated that twitter would be aligned. >> with the larger agenda. >> but this is a. >> whole new ball game now because of how. >> he's all in. and the last thing i'll just say here is that, you. >> know. >> i grew up in sort of. >> an immigrant family. my. >> my, my dad used to say that nobody gives you something for nothing. and so this guy spent all that money. and i think most americans understand that if you spend that kind of money, whether you're doing it because you want to get more money out of it, or you want power, or you want to be able to do something you didn't spend and do all that money and commit all that money to the campaign for nothing. and i think right now we're beginning to see the seeds of that something. >> charlie sykes. >> well. >> you know, it is interesting. >> you know. >> what we're we're facing right here. >> i was. >> listening to senator blumenthal. >> you know, he talked about the. >> conflict of interest in. >> a lot of the other things. i think it's very, very important to. >> recognize this is not an. >> an insider. >> story. >> that. >> there are real world. >> consequences to this. there is a. constitutional crisis

here. there are conflicts of interest. >> and the word i didn't hear. >> was corruption, because this is corruption. >> on a scale. >> that we have. >> never seen potentially, where you have somebody who has the access to the keys. and so the question is, is. >> he using. >> that access. >> to enrich himself? >> and i think this. >> is relatable. also, i think it's very interesting. >> some of the clips you played where members of the. house now are not talking. >> about what's happening in washington, they're talking about how this will play. >> out in the rest of the world. >> what does it mean. >> when you have. >> elon musk. >> in. >> his 25 year. olds who are hacking. >> into. >> in effect, hacking into the air traffic controller system? >> when you or your. >> family get. >> on an airplane. >> and i think this. >> is where we're going. >> to get the. >> shift in. >> a lot of the focus. >> i mean, i think that. >> we need. >> to recognize. >> this is not just about. project 2025 anymore. >> it is. >> about a constitutional crisis. >> it is about the. >> destruction of the normal balance of power between. >> the branches of government. it is about. >> corruption. and it is about the fact.

>> that this man of the people. >> this populist. >> president. >> has now basically turned over his government to unaccountable billionaires. and quite frankly, if democrats cannot figure out a way to message that, then they ought to get into a different line of work, because this is a dramatic moment. i also would point out that we are just 17. days into this presidency. >> and so. >> yeah, a lot of us would have liked a stronger pushback. and i think one of the things that is disturbing is the lack of resistance by many of the institutions that. that we had counted. >> on to be guardrails. >> but also, you know, we are take a deep breath 17 days into. >> this. >> and we are just seeing how this is playing out. >> all right. charlie sykes has teed up the constitutional crisis upon us and that we have to sneak in a break. we're going to bring christine on the other side and continue this conversation. also ahead, the trump administration evicting the former commandant of the united states coast guard from

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>> school pills. >> connect with a medical provider. >> at rokos. >> sparks the first 100 days. it's a critical time for our country, and rachel maddow is on five nights a week. >> now is. >> the. >> time. >> so we're going to do it. >> settle in. >> the rachel maddow show weeknights at nine on msnbc. >> christie the question, but is it legal? it used to be one of the sieves through which we shoved through whatever the trump, you know, chaos of the day was pushed. i think it's a different contemplation, right. without anyone at the department of justice who has pledged in open, you know, confirmation hearings not to politicize the

department. but but i will ask you a different version of that question. are there legal sort of hurdles that could slow this down? >> well. >> i think you're. >> seeing them. >> i think. >> you're seeing the lawsuits. >> that. >> are coming on behalf of the federal employees who were given that offer to resign or potentially face being fired. and you're seeing the unions come forward and file lawsuits and say, hey, wait a minute. there's fine print. this is confusing. it doesn't quite make sense. do you actually have the money to pay them through september? and so you're seeing some accountability, i think with the courts really holding the administration's feet to the fire. that's one example. you know, there are there are plenty of other examples now where you're seeing the lawsuits in the fbi case where you have the former fbi agents association saying, well, look like you want all of our information. why don't you just commit to not name and shame, right? and they filed a brief this morning.

d.o.j. one of the first ones under the new pam bondi administration. and nowhere in that brief did they say, oh, we're never going to publish this. they say, well, no, you didn't say that. we were going to do it imminently. so therefore you shouldn't get an order to stop us. but they never say we're not going to do it ever, because they clearly are. and so the court said, well, wait a second. that doesn't quite make sense. let's put it on pause. so i do think there's a real role for the courts here to be asking more questions, to say, hey, i need more briefing, i need oral arguments. i need to understand what the hell you're doing here because you're not explaining yourselves. and by the way, you file you fired these igs who would have oversight over you. so, you know, the inmates are running the asylum, and hopefully the courts are in a position to try to hold the law and try to hold some order in account. >> i guess. angela, the other half of that, though, is it's not what they're designed for. the country was founded and predicated on a two party system and three equal branches of government. and what you have is

one of the two parties has collapsed upon itself, and one of the three branches has thus collapsed on itself. there is no republican that i ever met who would think rfk was a good person to have any job in donald trump's cabinet? there's just no way i haven't been a republican in good standing for close to a decade, but that i know. so, you know, you paint a really bleak picture of musk making all this progress and being more than an accelerant. but the person with the fortitude to do the unpopular things. it is also true, though, that trump has already reversed course. they walked back the gaza as the next club med. i think about 12 hours later. birthright citizenship. the door has been slammed shut for now. i mean, just just paint the other picture if there is one. yeah. of what could slow this. >> there is i often these days i feel like i'm in an abusive relationship with almost. >> everybody i. >> interact with, because on the

one hand, i sort of terrify them about how and then wait, you know, there's. >> something what does it say? that i love it, i love. >> it because. >> there is there is actually a truth to a lot of that, which is that you said this earlier in the week when you were saying the politics haven't kicked in yet. and there are real parallels here. you know, when orban did a very similar thing in hungary, it's worth considering that in order to really establish the kind of authoritarian society that exists there now, he had to amend the constitution six times in his first year, and he had an enormous advantage in the political arena. he had a much bigger lead. his party had a lot more control over the legislature in order to execute that. republicans don't have that kind of control right now. what they basically have is, you know, musk has provided a lot of space. they've in some cases, they've gone a little bit further than even project 2025 proposed things that they left on the cutting room floor they feel comfortable to do now. but as you noted, a lot of these things are so deeply unpopular, and there's such a thin margin that when the rubber meets the road and the politics come into question, you start to see the

need to walk back, compromise, adapt or adjust to reality. and in a way, this is where i think it's worth, you know, just having a little bit of a horizon view, both in terms of how bad it could get, but also the reality. as long as we continue to be wise and smart and, you know, stiffen our spines and not give them more power than they have to recognize that they're also putting themselves in a bind here, too. you know, they are effectively tying their shoes together. they are a bit high on their own supply. they're taking more extreme actions as a result of it. when they haven't shored up the basic politics at some point, given their razor thin margins in the senate and the house, the reality of reelection is going to kick in here. you can only use the threat of a primary for so long against certain individuals. that doesn't work against some of these house members that are in districts that are either previously democratic, likely democratic, currently democratic, and they just happen to go republican last time. and that's when the politics come in. and i think it's important for the media to continue to tell their story, for the public to continue to triage, but then us not to lose

sight of this sort of short term strategy, which is that as things slow down and the reality gets met, we have to be able to provide the connective tissue so that people understand both the harms that are being caused here and are prevented, and two, that they still have power, that all the power now does not sit in the hands of unelected individuals, but rather we are still a functioning democracy, despite all of these attacks on the basic tenets of our of our norms and our society. >> you know, charlie sykes, there's a piece of this that is so important, i think, for us to accurately depict and this dynamic of being high on their own supply over on twitter. i mean, i'm not on twitter, but i am acutely aware of the supply on which they're high and the way in which they're in everybody's heads as a micro minority of public opinion is something that has to be corrected for in the coverage. it is inaccurate to suggest that they have the power to enact everything and project 2025 without our participation and complicity. it is inaccurate to

say that we don't live in a democracy today. i mean, listen and then who knows what tomorrow will bring today we live in a democracy where we are having a conversation free from any interference. and the fact is, what elon musk is doing is still something that we can cover accurately. it is also a fact that what he is doing is deeply unpopular. it is a fact that the democrats i mean, it's interesting that senator blumenthal is so aware of the rage being directed at democrats. it is the fact that they are in the minority and they have fewer levers, and they are the recipients of our rage because they lost this election with everything on the line that you and i shook the cages about. but as republicans who are part of that coalition, i feel like it is it is our obligation to do more than complain about democrats. what is that other bucket of stuff that we can do? >> well. >> look, i think. >> i think that people need. >> you know, people have. asked and. >> you get these questions. >> all the time, you know. >> what can i do? and i was. >> talking. to your friend steve schmidt last night and i said, you know what? everybody has has the ability to tell a story. and i think that this is something,

you know, don't wait. don't wait for the consultants. >> of the governors and. >> the. senators to come down. >> with. >> you know, big ad. >> campaign. >> every single person listening to us right now has an iphone, has a friend, has a social media presence. and i think that what we need to do is put a human face on all of this. because when that starts to happen, that then the unpopularity that angelo was talking about kicks in, because this is this is a fundamental reality. and i think this is going to be the ultimate clash. elon musk is running through the federal government like like a like a child with with a hammer in a, in a china shop. but and he and frankly he doesn't give a about the politics. he doesn't care about how this is going to play back in iowa or wisconsin or michigan or pennsylvania. and at some point, there's going to be that that moment where republican legislators have to decide, are we really going to slash all of these programs? are we going to go along with this unaccountable, narcissistic

billionaires agenda, or are we going to pay attention to what voters back home think? and by the way, voters back home still do not have any idea of all of the consequences that he's talking about. and elon musk has no idea what he's breaking. he's running around. he's breaking things. he has no idea. i think it is the obligation of both the media and people involved in politics to tell these stories, put a human face, put those messages out. every single person has the power to be able to do that, to be one of the influencers. if you know someone who is hurt by this, you know you may only have an audience of 100 or 150 people, but you never know when that one moment might go viral. and, you know, i keep thinking about the george floyd, the murder of george floyd. that story became a story because people who were witnesses recorded it. they got it out there. none of them woke up that day and thought that they were going to do something that was going to change the nature of

american politics and the dialog. but every one of us has that power. so keep that in min, and don't assume that this is going to be fixed by somebody in washington or somebody with $100 million ad buy. they should do all of those things. but i do think that, you know, putting putting a human face on the price of all this is going to be is going to be decisive. >> i mean, it might be the most important thing anyone's said in three weeks, agency and making you feel that you have no agency is in all the books. this is how an autocracy is born. one. they they remove your sense of agency. two they blanket the opposition in despair. >> so he's not unstoppable. he's he's not the strongman. don't buy into the narrative that that this is trumpian greatness, the new era of trumpian greatness. i mean, bs on all of that. you know, you're seeing this on a daily basis. donald trump is donald trump, the emperor is naked and he's still a clown, dangerous clown, but he's still donald trump. >> and i love that you kept your

swear quota at just one and pivoted to bs. we thank you. yeah. no one's going anywhere when we come back. as if it wasn't enough for the trump administration to fire the commandant of the u.s. coast guard, there's new reporting about her eviction from her home, and that's prompting a whole new round of fury that whole new round of fury that reporting so, what are you thinking? i'm thinking... (speaking to self) about our honeymoon. what about africa? safari? hot air balloon ride? swim with elephants? wait, can we afford a safari? great question. like everything, it takes a little planning. or, put the money towards a down-payment... ...on a ranch ...in montana ...with horses let's take a look at those scenarios. j.p. morgan wealth management has advisors in chase branches and tools, like wealth plan to keep you on track. when you're planning for it all... the answer is j.p. morgan wealth management. when emergency strikes, first responders rely on the latest technology. that's why t-mobile created t-priority built for the 5g era. only t-priority dynamically dedicates more capacity

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coast guard commandant linda

fagan from her home at a military base in washington, d.c, with just three hours notice on tuesday, not even enough time for her to gather and pack her personal belongings. it comes after fagan, a four star admiral and the first woman to lead a branch of the u.s. military, was removed from her post as the coast guard's top officer. hours after donald trump's inauguration. even though she had been given a 60 day waiver to find new housing. nbc's courtney kube reports that, according to one of the sources familiar with the incident, homeland security officials told the acting commandant, kevin lunney, that he had to kick her out because, quote, the president wants her out of quarters, end quote. more from that reporting. quote fagan made a convenient target for a new president who wanted to flex his muscle. the process for firing her was less complex than for dismissing chiefs. of the four main branches of the military. more than that, the move allows him to send signals about his anti dei agenda and desire to

stem the flow of illegal immigrants and goods into the united states. throwing her out of her house on short notice went a step further. quote. it's petty and it's personal, said one fagan ally. joining us now is nbc news national security correspondent courtney kube. courtney, why was she targeted and what does she have to do with dei other than being a woman? >> yeah. so the reason for her being the first person fired in the military, the first senior officer fired under president donald trump's term, literally the day after he was inaugurated to the white and to the presidency. nicole, what the reasons we were giving was she focused too much on diversity issues, and it came at the expense of securing the homeland. so as john allen and i write in that article, firing her really gave the administration the ability to highlight two of their main priorities getting rid of diversity and inclusion initiatives and focusing on the border and the homeland. whether those two things were really

such a priority or a lack of priority for admiral fagan. look, the reality is that that's that's more subjective, but it really sent a message that that first day or really the first full day of president trump's term, she was the one he fired. now, nicole, why this is so significant? as you mentioned, she's the first woman to lead a military service branch leading the coast guard. coast guard. she was sworn in in 2022. she was just short of three years in this job. but this move yesterday is really extremely unusual. of course, general officers, flag officers, they leave their jobs, they get fired. they have to move out of the housing that they are provided for, the job that they rate for their roles. but in this case, as you mentioned, the coast guard had given her a 60 day waiver that she could stay in the house. she was fired just over two weeks ago. they gave her a 60 day waiver. so at this point, her stuff was all still in the house, according to

officials we spoke with, she had three hours to get out, leaving much of her stuff behind. her personal effects, her personal items. she basically had to pack some bags and leave. what's really critical here, though, not only was, as you mentioned, read from the article, yes, the acting commandant, the person who essentially replaced her, was told by the department of homeland security to get her out of there. but after that, her staff, admiral fagan staff, were told that that some that another department of homeland security official wanted to them to leave the door, open the front door of the house so they could take pictures. now she still has the lease on that house, and she declined that offer. but nicole, i have to say, i have watched senior officers who've gotten fired. i've never seen any kind of scenario like the one that unfolded here yesterday. >> what is not public facing of this purge clearly underway in the military? >> well, well, i mean, we. >> are.

>> all waiting to hear if there will be additional senior general officers and flag officers who are fired. both the secretary of defense, pete hegseth and president trump and people who are in their orbit have spoken about this. the need for some have called them warrior boards. so essentially boards that would look at the records and the files of senior officers who are serving right now to determine whether they are in the jobs. of the word. we heard multiple times from pete hegseth during his confirmation hearing. hearing they are in the jobs because of a meritocracy that they earn the positions rather than being put in there to fulfill some sort of a, as he said, fulfill some sort of a quota. the reality, nikole, we are asking all the time, we have not heard any indication that those warrior boards are starting, but we are all expecting them to happen. and then the big question is who will sit on the boards? how will they evaluate these, these military packages and these records to determine whether people actually are in the jobs

based on their merit? and then if they determine that they're not, are we going to see a massive purge of senior military officers from the pentagon and frankly, from all around the world? >> courtney, thank you for your reporting on this. we're going reporting on this. we're going to bring christy and the —hi! —hi! ♪♪ chocolate fundraiser. ♪♪ with the chase mobile app, things move a little more smoothly. ♪♪ deposit checks easily and send money quickly. [coins clinking] ♪♪ that's convenience from chase. make more of what's yours. [restaurant noise] allison. [swooshing sound] introducing allison's plaque psoriasis. ♪♪ she thinks her flaky, gray patches are all people see.

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is. it is the policy of the new administration. and pam bondi is already at it. talk about that. >> well, she had her day one memo where she it was pretty extraordinary where among those memos she said, if you are prosecutor in the department of justice, you should not be substituting your own judgment for the policies and judgments of this administration. you are the president's lawyers. no they're not. they represent the united states. they represent the people. they are not his personal lawyers. department of justice is not his private law firm. and what you have now with this, with this retribution and telling prosecutors, you can't rely on your own best judgment about whether to sign a brief or what cases to bring. otherwise you will face termination or discipline. what you are doing is completely transforming this from the department of justice into like. i watched the reality show traitors, where you're looking for who's the faithful and who's the traitor, and

you're essentially turning the department of justice into that, where people are then supposed to turn on their own, you know, even just the access of the prosecutors looking at, you know, this weaponization group, we're supposed to look through all the files of the january 6th prosecutors. and, you know, what are you looking for, exactly? where is the predication to think that someone did anything with any kind of a political animus? you know, they have not pointed to any of it. they just say that it exists without pointing to any evidence. and the more we hear from these prosecutors, who many of whom were just assigned to come in and work these cases, much like pam bondi is saying, you can't refuse an assignment. well, these people just did what they were assigned to do, and now they're fired for it. and not only fired for it being told you could be investigated and potentially prosecuted for it, it makes no sense. but this idea of we're going to try and turn, you know, prosecutors against each other, turn investigators against one another. that is so antithetical to the culture of

that place and the fact that you're supposed to be working with one another to really to help the public and serve the public good. i mean, so many of these people that you're hearing from now, i mean, many of them were decades long public servants who served under democrat and republican administrations. and they're unsung heroes. they're peoples whose names you would never know. but they did their job every day. and now to see that they're being demoted, that they're being threatened, it's just a really sad state of affairs. it's not entirely surprising, but the more that we're hearing from these prosecutors who are very brave to come on here and talk to you and, and talk to others on this network and tell their stories, the more people can see and put a face to, you know, to what this really is, that that this is not just this weaponized department of justice, that these were just people doing their jobs, and that the people who made us live safe were the people beating the police officers, not the people who

were trying to find justice for the victims of those crimes. the more that we can see those people, the more we can see from, you know, director driscoll, and he's talking about all of the things that his agents are out there doing every day. the more you can see those people, i think the harder it becomes for trump and his team to really paint this picture of these terrible, weaponized department of justice that, in my experience, does not exist. >> one of the things that was a feature of sort of post nine over 11 government is that when there's a threat, there was a bulletin and it was a joint fbi, dhs product. christopher wray testified that the greatest threat to the homeland was domestic violent extremism. would you expect that if a threat emerged, that we would receive a bulletin? >> i think it's really hard to say, because that would that would certainly be in the interest of transparency and justice and the public getting information about what threats exist. but if they're not, if it doesn't meet with trump's

narrative, if it doesn't fit neatly within that narrative, i'm not sure we'll hear about it. there's so much that goes on at the department of justice and especially at the fbi, with investigations and threat assessment that we never know about, and some of that makes sense. some of it's classified and we shouldn't hear about it. but other things are rightly told to the american people when they are unclassified. but again, it just feels like there is an agenda. he's been very clear about what that agenda is. he's putting in place the people who will execute his agenda, and if it doesn't fit within that, i don't think we'll know about it. >> unbelievable. kristy greenberg, charlie sykes, angelo carusone, thank you all so much for spending the hour with us. we have an update on the breaking story about usaid. we brought you in our first hour. brought you in our first hour. baby: liberty! mom: liberty mutual is all she talks about since we saved hundreds by bundling our home and auto insurance. baby: liberty! biberty: hey kid, it's pronounced "biberty." baby: liberty! biberty: biberty! baby: liberty! biberty: biberty! baby: liberty!

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pills. connect with a medical provider at rocus sparks. >> donald trump is defending. >> the mass firings of federal watchdogs. >> our federal. >> government now. >> can discriminate against the citizens of the country. >> we are. >> all watching and. >> waiting to see who is going to hold the line. >> don't miss the weekends. >> saturday and sunday. >> mornings at 8:00. >> on msnbc. >> what we do. >> is try to cut. >> right to the bone of what we're seeing in washington. >> that day. >> thank you so much for letting us into your homes. we are so grateful to be with ari. melber starts right now. hi, ari. it's thursday right here. >> it is thursday. >> one day at a time, right? that's why they. >> each. >> name ends in a day. >> i think. >> i'll see you soon. >> have a good show. >> thank you. our thanks