d to wifi 90% of the time. that's why our network has powerboost with wifi speeds up to a gig where you need it most. so, this whole meeting could have been remote? oh, that is my ex-husband who i don't speak to. 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. pills. connect with the medical provider at. >> hello, everyone. i'm ali vitale, in for chris jansing. boos and backlash. frustration over the chainsaw approach to slashing the federal workforce. now building in red america, with some gop lawmakers now getting the brunt of it. but will it translate to the kind of opposition that can actually slow down elon musk and his doge team? plus, rewriting history.

the u.s. reportedly rejects all references to russia as the aggressor or ukraine as the victim. from a g7 statement marking the third anniversary of the war. will the rest of the g7 go along with it, though? and die dissidents, after denouncing and defunding government diversity programs, president trump goes ahead with a star studded event for black history month. but not everyone is celebrating. we'll explain, but we'll start first with a federal judge giving the trump administration the green light for more mass layoffs. that's despite acknowledging they've caused widespread disruption and even chaos. his ruling, which directed workers to try the federal labor relations authority instead underscored how difficult it's been for employees to cope with the scope and speed of these job cuts, let alone try to stop them. all of these headlines about layoffs, from the irs to the forest service are from the past week alone. you see them there, a half dozen on the screen that amounts to thousands of people suddenly out of work. and as the

shock wears off, the backlash seems to grow from protests in largely democratic leaning cities and states now to ruby red districts in places like oregon and georgia. >> in tonight, because we are all freaking off about this. yeah. there are other ways to have a pretty good relationship. some resolving. some. >> keep in mind, that's a district. mccormick won by roughly 30 points just a mere three months ago. now, politico reports a growing number of congressional republicans are trying to get some of the cuts reversed through back channel conversations with the white house, even as publicly they're still cheering them on. i want to bring in nbc's julie sirkin, who is at cpac in maryland. nbc's melanie zanona is on capitol hill. tim miller is the host of the bulwark podcast. he helped lead jeb bush's 2016 presidential campaign, and he's an msnbc political analyst. and

eddie glaude is a princeton university professor and an msnbc analyst as well. mel, let's start with you, because we've seen this disconnect between the way gop lawmakers are trying to assuage concerned constituents and then the way they talk on conservative media about doge and trump's cuts. so how much longer can they continue to play both sides like this? >> yeah, the rubber is really meeting the road for a lot of these republicans. up until this point, i would say most republicans on capitol hill have been publicly very supportive of the doge mission. right. and that was really easy to do when it was things like usaid or foreign aid that was on the chopping block. but now some of those cuts are starting to hit close to home for some of these lawmakers. there's a lot of federal workers and a lot of different parts of the country. there's a lot of concerns behind the scenes about slashes to things like officials working on the bird flu, for example, and how that might impact egg prices. and so behind the scenes, there's a lot of republicans who have been backchanneling with the administration raising alarm bells. i think they're really torn right now, especially when

it comes to what they're going to say publicly, because they don't want to be seen as disloyal to trump or crossing trump in the doge mission, but they want to stand up and protect their constituents. and in a lot of cases, this is going to have to be a choice that ultimately they are going to have to make. and you're starting to see those angry town halls playing out in very ruby red districts across the country. this is something that could continue on as these cuts start to really impact different places. and i just don't think republicans have quite figured out how to handle it yet. yeah, it's. >> a rock and a hard place, but ultimately you're elected by your constituents to represent them. it's going to be a hard sell. if they start saying they'd prefer to stay on the president's side versus the people who sent them to washington. but, tim, i want to play a part of an exchange between our own peter alexander and the white house press secretary, caroline leavitt. it's from this morning. and peter asked her about town halls like the one we've been talking about. watch. >> we're now hearing from constituents in some traditionally red districts right now, complaining about what they say is the chainsaw

approach and saying that it's been done very sloppily. the cuts to jobs and spending. how do you respond to that criticism? >> i love how the media takes a few critics when the overwhelming response from the american people is support for what this administration is doing. if you look at the public polling, 70% of americans, according to cbs, believe that president trump is delivering on the promises he made. >> however dismissive this white house wants to be about its critics. people are feeling this. lawmakers are hearing about it in lots of forums, not just in-person town halls. and for some of whom, the layoffs are recent. what happens, tim, after that last paycheck hits, how long do you think political ideology or the desire for a more efficient government is going to sustain people when they can't afford their groceries? >> yeah, it's a good question. it's a good question for peter, though. i was hoping that you were going to play a different good question that he asked if the if the if they've caught a lot of fraud in doge, where are

the indictments? because fraud is illegal. and she didn't have a good answer to that one either. but to your question, look, we are seeing some evidence of this and it's going to take time to show up at scale. but we wrote about this in the bulwark today. there's a 32 year navy captain who got fired. he was the chief of staff for one of the regional fema operations like that. this kind these kind of stories aren't going to wear well with people. like with the richest guy in the world, a south african immigrant, arbitrarily and capriciously firing veterans who are serving the public to protect us when there are natural disasters. you know, once you start to actually put faces on the people that are doing a lot of these jobs, it's going to be much harder to defend than, you know, kind of the first shock and awe, so to speak, where you can just generically attack bureaucrats. right? generically attacking bureaucrats is easy and popular, attacking veterans who lost their job? not so much. >> yeah, exactly. the idea of a faceless government bureaucracy versus your friends and

neighbors who are trying to provide for their families while also serving this country. it's a really important point there. tim. eddie, as we heard from these people in georgia and oregon, it's not the idea of saving money or a desire for efficiency that's actually got them upset. it's the way that this is being handled. so is there a message that the white house can take from that, that it's the blunt instrument approach that people are in large part being upset by? >> well, one would hope, if they were actually. >> concerned about what actual, everyday, ordinary people are thinking right now. they're like a bull in a china shop. the constituencies are their base is asking for more direct and more precision based kind of approach. but what we do know is this and tim and others have made the point. they're not concerned about the human cost. they're only concerned about these abstract questions of efficiency, of deconstructing the administrative state. what does it mean that all of these people suddenly have to think about how they're going to pay their mortgage? how are they going to put food on the table for their kids? how are they

going to pay for college? right. and it's not like a localized layoff. this is the federal government. so it's going to take it's going to impact across people across the country. and the thing is, is that what we're clear about ali is that they don't really care. they're just going to pursue their agenda. but hopefully the constituent base will will make the representatives who they elect care, because the folks elon musk and donald trump don't seem to. >> yeah, this is truly a moment where the grassroots, i think, could have an impact. meanwhile, as this is happening, julie, you've got elon musk, the face of all of these cuts going to cpac and literally wielding a chainsaw inscribed with the phrase long live liberty. the ad sort of writes itself for democrats on this one. you see the image there on the screen. but what was the reaction in the room? because you're with a group of people who are the conservative grassroots. >> for free. >> yeah. but in here, ali, as you know, this year's cpac is really a victory lap for trump and his allies. so the crowd here ate that moment up. it was

probably the most energetic that we saw them all day long. and i'll tell you, house speaker mike johnson, senator eric schmidt, senator rick scott, pam bondi, the attorney general, all praised musk's efforts. all praised the doge efforts as well. this is what musk, though, had to say when he was on stage in what he's discovered in his first few weeks, as apparently the head of this department watch. >> network of over a half a million. >> people ask me, what's the most surprising thing that you've encountered when you go to dc? you know, when you're in dc? and i said, well, the most surprising thing is the scale of the expenditures and actually of how easy it is to just just when you add caring and competence where it was absent before, you can actually save billions of dollars, sometimes in an hour. yeah. like it's wild. >> in that view. >> it's and i'm not quite sure that has happened yet. certainly there are doge committees on the hill in the house and senate. this is an area that really congress is supposed to be in charge of, that they're frankly

uniquely bad at over the last few years, especially adding to the deficit even now in the budget resolution that the senate passed last night, more funding for immigration, for military, for energy. and meanwhile, as musk is trying to cut a lot from the budget now, it was an interesting moment earlier when house speaker mike johnson, as melanie knows well, said, that they would not be touching medicaid. they won't be cutting that program. they won't be cutting snap benefits as well, musk said. they will be cutting those programs. and it's just that kind of tightrope that republicans are having to walk. while they don't want to necessarily push away the trump administration in these early days of his second term, but at the same time, they're hearing from constituents back home in those town halls and those red districts that mel was talking about. and so i think it's going to come to a head very, very soon here in dc when they come back next week. >> yeah. mel, julie tease you up nicely because it wasn't the only moment of dissonance that the speaker endured between him and musk, even at cpac alone, because musk and the president have also floated the idea of doge dividends. speaker johnson

came in, though, with a fiscal reality check of sorts. watch. >> politically, that would be great for us, you know, because everybody would check. but really, we have to think of it, i think in a that. >> just got everybody's attention. >> yeah i know. >> everybody look up all i know. yeah. >> but but if you think about our core principles right. fiscal responsibility is what we do as conservatives. that's our brand. and we have a $36 trillion federal debt. we have a giant deficit that we're contending with. i think we need to pay down the credit card. right. that's what i think we need to do. >> speaker johnson there, mel, basically saying, hey guys, remember we're conservatives. do you think he's going to get his way on this though? >> well, ali, as you know, and as julie knows very well, having covered capitol hill, trump does tend to get his way around here. so i wouldn't be surprised if ultimately that is what happens. but let me explain to you why this is such a big problem for johnson, because in the house, they are trying to pass this budget plan and they are trying to enact some very steep spending cuts and trying to get

fiscal conservatives to come along. and there was some hope that some of the doge savings could be scored, and that could maybe not formally add to the level of cuts that they're going to write in their bill. but it could at least assuage some of these skeptical fiscal hawks, some of these hard line conservatives, into backing a package that might be a little bit more expensive than they otherwise would have. so without those savings, if those go out the door in the form of checks that could complicate mike johnson's life here on capitol hill. but this is just another great example of how the cracks in the gop's support of doge are really starting to form. >> tim, i want to just stay on the idea of doge dividends for a few more seconds, if we can, because we don't have any idea if these checks would even work, how much they would even be for doge is completely untransparent in the work that it's actually doing, but is there any political risk to floating these kinds of checks if they aren't a sure thing? >> well, i mean, there's some political risk to mike johnson. you just look at those two videos there of elon musk with the sunglasses and the chainsaw

and everybody's screaming. and then you have poor schoolmarm mike johnson being like, remember, guys, remember our principles. we've got to pay down the debt. and you can see why one is more appealing than the other politically. but the reality is that they are in a bind with regards to the budget. even without paying doge dividends and the budget they put out with extending the trump tax cuts and no tax on tips, even with the doge cut, still adds another 3.5 trillion to the debt. and trump added more to the debt in his first term than any other president in our history. and so, like, you know, mike johnson, i think is going to have a tough sell talking about fiscal responsibility, you know, given the obligations that they have in the promises trump has made with the tax cuts, in addition to this now floated dividend. >> yeah, he might be shouting into the wind on that one. julie zanona tim miller. thank you eddie. stick around. we're going to see you a little later this hour. but first we have some breaking news to head to now regarding the federal corruption case against new york city mayor eric adams. msnbc legal correspondent lisa rubin joins

me now. lisa, get us up to speed. what did a judge just decide? >> judge dale ho of the southern district of new york. ali is the same judge who held a hearing a couple of days ago on that motion to dismiss the eric adams indictment. today, he has decided that the eric adams trial will be postponed indefinitely. but he is essentially called in reinforcements. he's asked the former solicitor general of the united states, paul clement, to serve as an amicus or friend of the court and basically put himself in the position that the former prosecutors were in to make this more of an adversary process. you'll recall from the hearing a couple of days ago, both the department of justice now through the acting deputy attorney general and eric adams's lawyers, represented by alex spiro, they want this case to go away. and judge ho is essentially saying, i need to hear from somebody who might represent a different point of view, or at least a neutral point of view. he's asked for briefing, and in the meantime, that trial is on hold indefinitely. >> so the trial is on hold. but

what happens next here? >> so he's asked for briefs by march 7th from all of the parties. and he has specifically enumerated five questions that he has for each side here. one of them is particularly interesting to me. he's asked them to what extent is he allowed to consider materials outside the motion? that's a follow up to a question he asked during the hearing. he's basically asking, am i allowed to take into consideration the various memos that the department of justice sent to danielle sassoon when it first directed her to dismiss the case, and then in response to her resignation, there have been a series of shifting explanations for why this case needs to be dismissed. there's also a follow up tweet by the chief of staff to attorney general pam bondi, chad mizelle, that takes a third and different set of considerations into account. the judge is asking, am i allowed to think about to what extent this is pretextual, and whether what you're really trying to do is get eric adams to execute on your priorities in exchange for dismissing the

indictment. >> that is the question looming over all of this politically and legally. lisa rubin, always so clear eyed and pitch perfect in real time for us. thank you. thanks. and coming up in 90s, what president trump is saying about his not so good talks with ukraine. stay right here. >> oh, i hate these things. >> that's one of the great things about consumer cellular. they're 100% us based. customer service is also 100% human. you don't have to. oh. >> for those 50 and up, get two unlimited lines for $30 each. with consumer cellular. >> ever worry that you're drinking too much? take back control with or health or health provides access to medication proven to help a daily pill to drink less or to quit drinking drink less or to quit drinking altogether. your shipping manager left to "find themself." leaving you lost. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. sponsored jobs on indeed are two and a half times faster to first hire.

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breaking news here, president trump is addressing the souring relations with ukraine as his policy pivots towards russia. here he's addressing the nation's governors. just moments ago. >> with russia, ukraine, trying to get that horrible situation over with. it's terrible. it's just so terrible. i see pictures that you fortunately don't get to see. you don't want to see them. and that is a killing field. you have young soldiers being killed thousands a week. and we got to get it over with. it's bad for russia, and it's bad for ukraine. and it's bad for us on a humanitarian basis. i've had very good talks with putin, and i've had not such good talks with ukraine. they don't have any cards, but they play it tough. but we're not we're not going to let this continue. this this war is terrible. it would have never happened if i were president. but it did happen. so i got stuck with it and the whole world is stuck with it. and

right now you have a country that has its cities. they look like demolition sites. those beautiful towers, those thousand year old golden domes that were so beautiful, the most beautiful in the world. they say they're all in smithereens. millions of people are killed. i think far more people than anyone understands. and we have people that better get to the table, get it ended. >> trump's tilt toward putin on display again there. meantime, the new york times reports the u.s. is objecting to labeling russia the aggressor in a joint g7 statement to mark the third anniversary of the war in ukraine. that's according to four senior officials from countries involved. the administration's stance earning a rebuke even from the right word. rupert murdoch owned tabloid the new york post, where the front page reads president trump this is a dictator over a giant photo of vladimir putin. nbc's sahil kapur is reporting from capitol hill, and we'll get a report from richard engel to

sahil. first to you, though, we've got one republican senator, thom tillis of north carolina now on the record with a strongly worded reminder about who putin is. it shouldn't be notable. and yet, because of trump's posture towards putin, it is. and here we are. >> yeah. that's right, ali, we're seeing this rare pushback to trump come from a host of spaces on the right, including longtime conservative commentators, right leaning publications like the one you just showed there, as well as republicans in congress, some of them, at least, who don't accept trump's characterization of the situation. they don't accept his comments attacking zelensky as the dictator while taking a light touch to vladimir putin. that includes centrists like susan collins of maine. it includes representatives like brian fitzpatrick and don bacon, who both have a military background themselves. and then there's senator thom tillis, who's generally an ally of president trump. take a listen to how he described this. >> whoever believes that there is any space for vladimir putin and the future of a stable

globe, better go to ukraine. they better go to europe. they better invest the time to understand that this man is a cancer and the greatest threat to democracy in my lifetime. vladimir putin is a liar, a murderer and a man responsible for ordering the systematic torture, kidnaping and rape of innocent civilians. believe me. >> now, that's not exactly a consensus opinion within the party. ali. there are others, like senator jim banks and josh hawley, who are effectively siding with trump on the on this the way he's trying to handle the war in russia and ukraine. this is where the rubber ultimately is going to meet the road. this is congress. the question is not are they going to put out some tweets and statements. it's will they act? will they use their article one powers? and they absolutely can if they choose to. just a couple of years ago, we saw an example where congress passed a law preventing the president from unilaterally withdrawing from nato. one of the key sponsors of that was senator marco rubio. now the secretary of state, they've got a few pressure points coming up, including a

government funding deadline in just a few weeks. there's the ndaa coming up later this year. that was the vehicle they used last time to make the legal change on nato. and there's also the fate of ukraine aid. speaker johnson at cpac said there was no appetite for that going going forward. and the crowd booed the idea of additional aid to ukraine when that came up. so that gives you a sense of where this maga base, this america first coalition that all these republican senators answer to are thinking right now. >> it's a really fascinating realignment, one that's stunning our allies on the world stage. sahil kapur, thank you. in the meantime, national security adviser mike waltz is addressing the pressure for ukraine to sign a deal that would allow the u.s. access to the country's rare earth minerals. >> president zelensky is going to sign that deal. and you will see that in the very short term. and that is good for ukraine. what better could you have for ukraine than to be in an economic partnership with the united states? number one. what

better could you have for ukraine to stop the killing? number two. and you know what? by the end of this all, we're going to have the nobel peace prize sitting next to the name of donald j. trump. >> our richard engel is in ukraine with more on the difficult situation the ukrainians now find themselves in with the us. >> i'm on the outskirts of the eastern ukrainian city of kharkiv. and these are russian armored vehicles that were destroyed by ukrainian forces as the russians tried to take over this city. and there are still russian troops positioned not very far from here. but now ukrainians are finding themselves caught between a rock and a hard place, as this war is at a inflection point. do the ukrainians accept president trump's demand that ukraine hand over a large percentage of their mineral rights, the natural resources of this country that are trapped underground? or do they face the possibility of having to fight the russians without american support? and this has been a very sensitive

issue for president zelenskyy. president trump initially presented the ukrainian government with this mineral deal, asking for 50% of ukraine's rare earth minerals in exchange for american military support, but president zelenskyy rejected it. he said it was too vague. what he wants is security guarantees. and now he is potentially open to the idea because president trump reacted very badly after zelenskyy rejected this deal. that's what set president trump off. he called zelensky a dictator falsely. president zelensky is elected. he said that he has low approval ratings. he called him a failure. he called him a con man who's been fleecing money from the united states. and he's stressed over and over again that ukraine needs to sign this mineral deal, or else bad things will happen to ukraine. and now president zelenskyy seems amenable to it. he's saying that security arrangements and economic arrangements go hand in hand. and we'll see if this is

enough to bridge this. this very personal rift between president zelensky and trump, a rift that is extremely dangerous because there are still troops here from russia. there is still the possibility that russia could go on the advance. and what is at stake here is not just the future of this country. there are also much larger political and historic issues at play. ukrainians took particular offense when president trump said that they were responsible for starting the war, and that president zelenskyy is a dictator, not russian president vladimir putin here in this this parking lot where they brought a bunch of these destroyed russian vehicles so that they can show the ukrainian people what they were facing. they also have this this mural clearly showing vladimir putin in front of a panel of judges being tried as a war criminal. and over there is the former chief of the

ukrainian army, general zaluzhny. this is what they would like to happen. but it does not seem like the trump administration is on the same page, at least when it comes to vladimir putin, because the administration has just declined to endorse an international proposal that would specifically name russia as the aggressor in this war. >> richard engel from the ground in ukraine. thank you. and turning now to a spectacular night of hockey that ended in an overtime thriller in some ice cold revenge for canada. we had to. connor mcdavid scored the game winning goal to lift canada to a thrilling 3 to 2 victory over the united states in the first ever four nations face off. the rivalry, played out in the midst of political tensions ratcheted up by trump's tariff threats and his taunts of canada becoming the 51st state. the president even calling team usa before the game. >> i just want to wish you a lot of luck. you really are a skilled group of people. it's an

honor to talk to you and there's no pressure whatsoever. >> oh. canada. did not start. >> true u.s. fans were heard there booing the canadian national anthem ahead of the game. retaliation for the u.s. anthem getting booed on canadian soil just last week. but it would be canada who got the last laugh winning the gold there. prime minister justin trudeau posting afterward you can't take our country and you can't take our game. next, we're live outside the courtroom where the suspect in the united health care ceo killing is due back in court any minute. plus, an nbc news exclusive. the trump administration has already moved all of the migrants it transported to tanamo bay elsewhere, where they're being taken now. that's next. you're taken now. that's next. you're watching msnbc reports. ♪ music ♪ ♪ unnecessary action hero! ♪

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include those terrorism related enhancements that stem from a nine over 11 law that can bring stronger sentences when a murder is found to have been used to instill fear in civilians or to influence the government. now, this hearing could wrap up pretty quickly, but we know during the arraignment that happened late last year, mangione's attorneys were already saying that they want that evidence that prosecutors have had since this shooting actually took place. so we could expect to hear more of that. as the judge and the attorneys for both sides meet and just get a status update on what exactly where exactly the case stands right now, which is something that's pretty typical that happens for new york cases. meanwhile, outside of the courtroom, we are seeing more protesters and demonstrators showing up right now. ali, i'm seeing a lot of people. are a few people rather wearing these green hats with the l on it, like mario and luigi, to show their support for luigi, along with a lot of signs. and they're

also billboard trucks that continue to circle, showing photos of people that say that they lost their life after their health care claims. their insurance claims were denied. so a lot of people trying to use this to get their message across about the health care industry as well. ali. >> nbc's stephen romo, thank you. and now to an nbc news exclusive. the trump administration has cleared migrants out of the notorious guantanamo bay detention center, the place where they had previously made a show of moving them, saying that's where they were sending the worst of the worst. let's bring in one of the reporters who broke that story, nbc's julia ainsley. julia, why the change and why now? >> yeah. >> ali, this is. really strange. we heard they were doing the first deportation flight from guantanamo yesterday, and my colleague courtney kube and i started getting into the numbers, and we realized, wait, that's everybody. they deported 177 out of 178 venezuelan men back to venezuela via honduras. and the one remaining ended up back in ice detention in the

united states. and so the question we've been asking dhs is, well, what's happening with guantanamo? they were building tent facilities to be able to house more people there. remember, trump wanted 30,000 migrants in guantanamo bay, cuba. and instead, after they reached 178, they cleared it all out. what we're being told now by senior dhs officials is that is that guantanamo will be used as a staging area to temporarily hold migrants and then move them out. we don't think that there are any more flights scheduled this weekend, but we're told they haven't. they haven't ruled out using it in the future, and they may have some more in the coming days. but a major shift in how this was envisioned, ali, and i'm told a lot of it has to do with not only the legal challenges they were facing, but logistical. it cost a lot of money to put people there. and if venezuela is now willing to take back more of these migrants, they might as well take them directly from the united states to venezuela. and look, the facilities there were just not up to par. and it was likely that they could get sued by federal courts about the conditions these people were going to be kept in.

>> ali. ainsley, excellent reporting. thank you. and coming up next on msnbc reports how the trump administration's purge of the irs could affect you this tax season and the outrage pouring in from the people being directly impacted. >> it's offensive to tell me that i am a lazy federal worker, and i got news for you. the federal benefits aren't as great as you all think they are. we're not here living off of the american people tax dollar. we're trying to save it. >> my friends call me sam. i naturally hold a lot of stress in my digestive system, as a lot of women do. when i started taking dscr1, i immediately noticed how much lighter i felt. vibrant, alive. it really helps me stay regular. and you're not bloated at all. i honestly bloated at all. i honestly recommelet's get started.

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picky eating with every healthy, tasty bite and the evidence wagging tails. >> in the middle of tax season and sweeping layoffs at the irs. take a look at some of the headlines nationwide. from philadelphia to kansas city, denver and parts of florida. the shock of those cuts is only just now starting to sink in. >> i'm just kind of lost because this was like my plan. heartbreaking. because we all wanted the job. yeah. it's hard. you know, we got bills. we got. kids to take care of, you. >> know, daycares and they're firing people. and i thought we were short staffed. and now you're firing us. that makes no. >> i want to bring in the chapter president for the national treasury employees union, kansas city chapter, shannon ellis. she represents irs workers there. shannon, we saw a lot of raw emotions there, a wide range. can you tell us what you're hearing from the

people that you represent? and how many of them were impacted by these cuts? >> well. >> you know. >> nationwide. >> we're being told around 6000 in this round here. locally we're somewhere around 100. we don't know the exact counts. you know, today. >> we had received. >> notice that they thought everybody that was listed. >> to be. >> terminated. today it was over. we possibly had one coming monday. and then another complete team was of new hires was brought down. so, you know, these employees are they're angry. they're scared because they don't know what they're going to do. frustrated, confused and very, very, very upset and emotional over it. this is this is nothing like i've ever seen before. >> is one of the fears on top of that, that it's happening in a

seemingly haphazard way. and you don't actually know when the end of the firings are. >> the. yes. the group that came down today, they had no idea they were in training. they they had not received any kind of a notification. they literally a manager came to their team into their training room and told them that they were being removed today. and, you know, i just want to make this clear. this is not a layoff. a layoff implies that we would be back, you know, after, you know, as work picks up this is a firing. this is termination of these employees. and without any kind of notice whatsoever it they just can't plan for it. it's totally unexpected. yesterday we watched employees set from 6 a.m. until 230 or 330 in the afternoon, told only that they were to set and wait for an email to come where that email never did come. and then later

they were told, well, we're going to mail it to you. these employees are walking out the door without anything in their hand that says that they were terminated. so even to try to go do unemployment or anything, they have nothing. >> are their severance packages being included in these firings? >> no. and that's the part that's most frustrating, is that if this was a reduction in force or a to reduce our workforce, there are procedures to be filed and followed. you know, these employees would be either moved to areas where we need them more, we would be paying severance packages. we would be doing buyouts for those that are close to retirement. none of that is being followed. and these employees are most upset about the fact that they're being tossed out as if they have done something wrong. and these employees are fully successful and or just coming in to

training. we have employees that are just within a week of being finished with this probationary period. they've completed all their training, and they are they are able to do their job. and so for you to toss them out and try to imply that these employees are being let go because of their performance, it's insulting. >> is there any recourse, any way for these folks to try to fight to get their jobs back? >> well, when they finally do receive a letter that terminates them, there are appeal rights, but they have limited reasons that they can use for the appeal. i know that nteu national, we are filing lawsuits. we're going to do everything in every avenue to try to fight this and bring these employees back. this, in our opinion, this is done

illegally and it's unconstitutional. these employees were needed, and we absolutely have been underfunded and understaffed for over 15 years. with the internal revenue service. these employees are needed to do the job. >> and they're needed at the height of tax season, which is right now, you know, americans across the country are filing their taxes. so how could these cuts impact them at this point? >> well, i mean, it can it can definitely delay your the filing, the refunds. you know, a lot of these were answering phones. you know, we hear all the time taxpayers are upset because they can't get through to some of the phone lines. well, you're taking more and more of our workforce away. so you know it is going to impact them immediately on every avenue. you know, we just can't there's no way to say how important these jobs were. we've got areas that are working seven

days a week to keep up with what's coming in. and we're not even in the middle of the tax season yet. >> impacting the workers, impacting the taxpayers. shannon ellis, thank you for joining us today. >> thank you. >> coming up next, how an anti white house celebrated black history month. while other history month. while other agencies were forced to skip it want a next level clean? swish with the whoa of listerine. it kills 99.9% of bad breath germs for five times more cleaning power than brushing and flossing alone. get a next level clean... ahhhhh with listerine. feel the whoa! new projects means new project managers. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. when you sponsor a job on indeed, it's easier for talented candidates to find it. which makes it easier for you to hire them. visit indeed.com/hire

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today. >> president trump marked black history month at the white house, all without any mention of his sweeping campaign to terminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs in his federal government. >> this is a very special time. it's black history month. we love you all. we're going to work with you. we're going to make america greater than ever before. together, we're going to be fighting long and hard for black americans and all americans. we're going to be fighting for all americans. >> so that was the president at the white house. but due to the president's executive order, multiple federal agencies have had to stand down on any of their observances to recognize black history month. eddie glaude is back with us. eddie, maybe you can help me understand here where the line is between the white house's anti die push and what we saw at the white house yesterday. >> he's gaslighting us, ali. he's lying. you know, i can't

believe what you say because i see what you do. that's james baldwin. so, you know, he could have his his his celebration or reception where they can serve lamb chops and collard greens. but we know what the assistant acting assistant secretary for civil rights in the department of education. we know what the letter was just sent out. we know what he's doing across agencies. we know how dei has been a catch all phrase for race in this country. they are engaged in an all out assault on the revolutions of the mid 20th century in the united states. they're engaged in an assault on the black freedom struggle and the assault on the gay liberation movement and the assault on the women's liberation movement. they're literally trying to rip out the infrastructure of what fundamentally changed the social fabric of this country, to mix my metaphor. and so he can have the reception, he can trot out tiger woods, he can talk about statues of aretha franklin and muhammad ali. but we know what they're doing. donald trump is the avatar, the face of a white nationalist project that has a

hold on our national government right now. >> you talk about dei as the stand in for race and gender. certainly, you see it borne out in many of the conversations that are had around this topic. but the president at one point commented on the crowd in comparison to his first term. take a listen to that. >> i remember the first time i did this. my first administration, one of my first meetings. it wasn't this large a crowd, tiger. this. we had about five people in the front. we had maybe five, five black people right in the front, right about there. i said, i said, is anybody else coming? is this it? are we open? i don't even think. tim scott. i know turner wasn't there. i don't think tim scott was there either. i'm not sure. but that's all changed. and we got the highest vote. and one of the big reasons i'm president today is because of the black vote. >> and his electoral gains were

evident in the room, which included several high profile black americans from tiger woods, who trump referenced there, to alveda king, a niece of martin luther king. he did improve his standing among black voters in the 2024 election. how do you square that? >> well, let's say let's be clear. the slight improvement among black men male voters did not elect donald trump. we can we need to understand how he got into office. and let's be also clear that black voters are complicated. you know, they're we're just like every other human being. you have folks who don't want to pay large taxes. you have folks who are who are invested in patriarchy. you have folks who have an idea of government that aligns with donald trump. and so that room was full of folks who are in agreement ideologically with donald trump. and it has nothing to do with the fact that those policies will disproportionately impact the communities that they purportedly care for. and i think it's important for us not to read black voters as somehow a homogeneous kind of group.

their various interests and competing concerns. and so you can represent it as a i mean, not you per se, ali, but donald trump can represent it in the way that he's trying to do. but we know what the policy positions are. we know what's coming out of stephen miller's mouth. we know what's coming out of steve bannon's mouth. we know what's coming out of this administration, and we have to be clear about that. >> eddie, as always, you bring such illuminating points to the conversation because you're so right. when we talk about black voters, women voters, hispanic voters, none of these demographics are monoliths, despite past voting patterns that they may have had. and certainly that's definitely true. when we look at 2024, even the minor realignments where trump was able to make some gains. eddie glaude, as always, thank you. we've got another jam packed hour straight ahead, including elon musk's public spat with an astronaut. and now his calls to deorbit the international space station. international space station. stay right there. with fatigue and light-headedness, i knew something was wrong. then i saw my doctor and found out i have afib,

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