luxury resale. shop now with code tr20 for 20% off. terms apply. >> there's a lot going on. >> there's a lot going. >> on every day. >> you are the only. >> person. >> who has the power to. >> effectively fire mayor. >> eric adams and. >> remove him from this position. are you feeling differently about that responsibility? >> what are you expecting. >> from the trump administration on ukraine?

>> what do. >> you. >> make of this. >> existential question about whether or not court rulings are going to be treated as optional? why do you think the u.s. government is sending immigrants to guantanamo? watch what's happening in the country and watch what effect it's happening on politics, because politics is how this will turn around. >> hi there everyone. >> it's 4:00. >> in new york. >> a post. >> hosted on the social media network owned by the. >> world's richest. >> man, who, as. >> an aside, is. >> on. >> a crusade to. >> slash and burn the government down on behalf of donald trump. >> that post. basically sums. >> up where we are right now. the complete transformation of the united states justice department better than anything or anyone else. it's a post from the u.s. attorney's office in washington, dc, currently held by election denier and trump super ally ed martin. and it's about the associated press lawsuit seeking press access to

the white house. it says this, quote, as president trump's lawyers, we are proud to fight to protect his leadership as our president, and we are vigilant in standing against entities like the associated press that refuse to put america first. end quote. now, grammatical errors aside, the whole thing is truly amazing from start to finish. but it's the first few words that have caught everyone's attention because prosecutors paid by the taxpayers who work at the u.s. attorney's office in washington, dc are not donald trump's lawyers. u.s. attorneys work for us. they take an oath to the constitution, not to donald trump or any specific president. senator chris murphy said this, quote, this is insane. if you wonder why some of us think the rule of law is about to fall, it is this. it's that attitude that anyone in the justice department is a personal attorney for donald trump there

only to push his agenda and not the interests of the country or justice. that attitude now defines the top of the institutions currently responsible for upholding the rule of law in the world's oldest democracy, full stop. new york times has brand new reporting on the number two person now running the fbi. he's a podcaster and media personality named dan bongino. from that reporting, quote, mr. bongino's rise in the world of conservative news media was fueled by what critics describe as a penchant for spreading misinformation about the pandemic, about the 2020 election, and about the fbi in 2022. he was banned by youtube for repeatedly violating that platform's rules about coronavirus misinformation, including for a video that claimed that masks were useless. when rudy giuliani, the former mayor of new york, appeared on bongino's show in november 2020,

he made an outlandish claim asserting that voting software from dominion voting systems was secretly being misused. last week, he reprised a pet topic, the fbi investigation into whether the 2016 trump campaign conspired with russia in its efforts to influence the presidential election. quote, i don't want to move on from that case, bongino insisted last week. quote, i want to find out what happened so it can never happen again. you should ask one of his colleagues. a bipartisan senate intelligence report authored by now america's secretary of state, a guy named marco rubio, found that the trump campaign's ties to russia posed a, quote, grave counterintelligence threat and, quote, and a special counsel investigation into the origins of the russia probe failed to find any criminal wrongdoing by high level fbi or intelligence officials. but the facts have always been, you know, not that

interesting. completely secondary, if of note at all for trump allies. people like bongino, whose claims of weaponization have fueled an alarming distrust among the maga voters, and a purge of the justice department and the fbi workforces. here's former federal prosecutor brendan belew on the hill today. >> the actions of the past month should concern us all. >> largely ending foreign bribery and corruption. cases and threatening to fire. >> public corruption. >> prosecutors investigating political enemies. >> while putting political friends above the law. these are all efforts to return. >> us to the time of. >> watergate. >> and it harms you no matter your political beliefs. the only people who. will benefit. >> from these actions will. >> be billionaire criminals, and for them, this will be a golden age. >> so are we. start today with some of our favorite experts and friends. former acting attorney general under george w bush, peter keisler, joins us with us

at the table. former top official at the department of justice. msnbc legal analyst andrew weissmann is here. also joining us, former republican congressman. msnbc political analyst david jolly is here. peter, i start with you. i saw your your really powerful make me stop in my tracks comments on on 60 minutes. and i just wanted to expand on your analysis about where we are right now and how it differs, even from where trump tried to take the justice department when he was first there. >> well. >> we've seen a whole series. >> of actions over the past four weeks that are really unprecedented. >> i mean, it started on. >> day one of. >> the new administration when the president. >> pardoned everyone who had stormed the capitol on january. >> 6th, including. >> people who had. >> engaged in. >> really brutal acts of violence against the law enforcement. >> officers that. >> were just trying to protect the capitol. it went on. >> when they. >> fired more than.

>> two dozen. career prosecutors. >> some who had worked on the cases against president trump himself and some who had worked on cases against the january. >> 6th defendants. >> again, in that instance, there was no suggestion that any of them had were individually poor performers or had committed any individual act of misconduct. it was just that as a group, they weren't seen as sufficiently politically reliable. and then after that, we had the effort to drop the corruption case against mayor eric adams, because he said that he would assist the president in implementing the president's immigration agenda. and the justice department said that they wanted to better enable him to do that. those are all distinct actions, but there's a common through line that connects them all, which is all of them. treat law enforcement as just another tool of politics, where a president's friends and political allies get special favors and his perceived political opponents get special scrutiny and harsher treatment. and that's just the opposite of

the equal and impartial justice that we've always thought of as a core value of the system. >> and so what happens when the system becomes something else? i mean, i want to play the devil's advocate a little bit and say that donald trump ran on doing this and he installed people in pam bondi, todd blanche and kash patel, and then the u.s. attorney. those are all senate confirmed positions that the department of justice. right? >> that's correct. >> and none of them denied that they would pursue the president's agenda at the department. so i wonder what you make of the whole conspiracy to turn the department of justice. that includes every republican senator who voted for all those people who said they would do this. how do you evaluate this moment when the republicans in the senate are complicit in turning it into what you just described? >> well, that's part of the problem. you know, at the end of the day, a president has vast powers. i mean, sometimes he can

cross the legal lines, but even when he's staying within the legal lines, there is an enormous amount that he can do for good or for bad. and when he has the congress on his side, there are going to be very, very few restraints. and as to whether the people chose this, i really doubt that there were many people who voted for donald trump for any number of reasons who said, what i want is a justice department that favors his political friends and turns us an especially harsh spotlight and scrutiny on his political enemies. nobody voted for that. >> i agree with you. i guess my point is, a lot of people were warning that this is what he would do, because this is what he tried to do in the first term. and my, my, my wonder is not really with donald trump 2.0. it's with why men like john thune and john cornyn confirm people from bondi to blanche to patel who didn't say, i'm going to get there and try to stop him from turning the world's

preeminent department of justice. the people who helped make sure nine over 11 never happened again. the people who help other countries prevent terrorist attacks and stop child sex trafficking and stop drug cartels. why do you think those men and women in the senate on the republican side didn't stop the department from heading this direction? >> well, look, i think there are political scientists who could opine on that more effectively than i can. but i guess what i would just say is that i think there are a lot of people there who privately understand the problems this creates, but are concerned about the political consequences for themselves. i don't think we have had a president in my lifetime who so completely dominated his party and who so much wanted at the same time to take the justice department and the fbi in this political direction. and i think that combination has been really toxic. >> can you just explain what happens inside the department, how it impacts? i mean, i think people at the highest level of the department probably make a

thousand decisions before lunchtime, and it's their judgment that keeps us safe, that keeps the bad guys, you know, running from u.s. department of justice offices all over the country and all over the world, how does it change how career folks do their job or approach their job when the weaponization is so publicly stated as the new mission? >> well, i think i think the fact that it's publicly stated is really part of the design. i mean, everything we've been talking about so far, the pardons, the firings, the dropping of the charges against mayor adams, the statement by ed martin that you put on the screen earlier that says he's the president's lawyer. i mean, all of those were very deliberately done publicly and transparently. and i think what they're designed to do is to send a message to the whole workforce that people, if they want to keep their jobs, need to be perceived as being part of the president's team. and that, of course, foreshadows attempts

to use the department more aggressively as an instrument of politics, as just another part of the president's political apparatus. now, the people at the department are really dedicated to the notion that justice needs to be impartial and apolitical. they know that to be fair and effective and credible, the law enforcement system has to be nonpartisan. but it is extremely difficult to work in an environment in which all the signals around you are saying that if you want to keep a job, you've got to play on our team. >> and what is left at the department? if prosecutors who brought the cases against january 6th, insurrectionists have been purged and threatened with retribution, and if prosecutors who refuse to drop the case against eric adams without a basis in law or fact

are run out of the department, what's what's left right now, today? >> well, look, there's still an extremely important core of prosecutors and fbi agents who are going to try to do the right thing. but if you establish an incentive structure that rewards doing the wrong thing, you will get more of the wrong thing. >> one thing that i hear a lot from national security folks is that after nine over 11, it was robert mueller and george tenet who appeared on capitol hill to testify before congress more than any other cabinet officials in the history of the country, and that the fbi for period was as known for never again failing to connect the dots. what happens to the national security functions of the fbi under what the new york times describes at the fbi, at least the two least experienced men to ever lead that department. >> right. well, it's a combination of two things.

they've put in two very inexperienced people, neither of whom have spent a day at the fbi. and they're the ones who will be leading this organization. and at the same time, they've removed about half a dozen or so of the senior leaders at the fbi, the people who had decades of experience and expertise on matters like counterterrorism and national security and domestic crimes. and there's also something of a brewing war against the rank and file. one of the things that the new justice department leadership did a couple of weeks ago is demand that every one of the fbi agents who worked in any way on the january 6th investigation and prosecutions, provide information about what role they exactly played and the memorandum which directed this, which had the subject line terminations, said this information was being collected specifically in order to review the data for possible personnel

actions. now, the january 6th investigation, that was the largest investigation in the bureau's history. it touched thousands and thousands of agents across the country. they're all now swept up in this process, too. so you are simultaneously bringing in highly inexperienced people at the top and removing the senior leadership, and at least threatening to remove some of the core rank and file. and look, you know, the fbi has an extraordinarily important mission. you know, they are the lead investigative agency in our government that protects against all sorts of violence, bomb threats, organized crime, gang violence, as well as fraud and public corruption and other white collar crime. i mean, you could go on and on and on. and if you put people at the top who have no real experience in leading fbi, federal law

enforcement, then you're going to systematically degrade the capability of the government to perform those functions. and that's something we're all going to suffer from over the course of the next few years. >> i mean, i think that's the most ominous piece of this, that there are no winners. when the department of justice and the fbi become political weapons to be used to be wielded on behalf of anybody, but on behalf of someone who is promising to, to purge the department of all this talent and all of these individuals who were part of, as peter said, the largest investigation in the department's history. >> so just to add to. >> more bad. >> news. >> the people who are assigned to have some sort of checking oversight function. are all being fired or have. >> been fired. the inspector general's a. >> group called the. >> privacy and civil liberties oversight board. >> i remember. when i was at the bureau, i. >> thought they were just phenomenal. >> bipartisan, so important to

have them. it was. >> an oversight, functioning. >> the office of special counsel. there were there. was in the process of trying to. >> remove mr. dellinger. >> who heads that. that's not to be confused. >> with. >> the special counsel. >> the special. >> it's a separate agency. >> you then can have the same. conversation that we just had about the department. >> of justice. >> sort of my home of like, you know, main justice and the fbi. you can have that exact conversation of the hollowing out of that in terms of wanting to have the people who lead it be just loyal to a person, a king, and have that conversation in an area that's, i think, equally, if not more terrifying, which is the military. and you have the leaders also being removed and you have the lawyers, the lead lawyers there being removed. and that is, you know, as a lawyer, that is so important because what you know,

when you are at the department or if you're at the jag, is that you actually owe your loyalty to the constitution, and it's completely bipartisan, and that military justice is a really strong thing, in the same way that at the fbi and at main justice, it is about the rule of law. and so you are seeing this in so many areas. but just to take two, it's the department of justice and the military. if you are planning on running a fascist regime, that's what you attack. >> well, to put an end to andrew's point, that is not what people thought they were getting and it did not have to happen. i mean, the reason it happened is because republicans agreed to let it happen. why? >> that's right. so look at the voter level. >> 90% of. >> politics happens in the low information space. it's not the most flattering term. but i. >> don't think most. >> people, even. >> today, fully. >> would. >> understand what we're. >> talking about here. but certainly republicans on the

hill did. and the reason they've allowed it is because they're followers, not leaders. the one ability to rush to a crisis. and i think we are in a crisis. this is not just words by ed martin. this is this is the ethos of donald trump and the administration. the one ability to immediately rush to a crisis is the power of impeachment. i mean, that's it. we can go through all the mechanics of hearings and so forth, but it's power of impeachment. and republicans have said they're not going to do that. so what does it leave us with? it leaves us with relying on an informed citizenry. and citizenship requires a diligence. patriotism requires a commitment. and we know there is likely more damage to occur before we can use the democratic tools of citizenry to push back and to fight back. and but i do think it's there. we know it's there. we're seeing it in town halls this week. we're seeing in the coverage you provide. and, you know, i think we discussed this before in these very dark days, i, i kind of focus on what is the offense that we can be playing as a

country. and i always break it down to three things oppose, propose and prepare. we have to give voice to the opposition against all of this, because if we don't imagine a vacuum where the concerns are not being shared among the electorate, and i think we have to propose a way forward that honors the constitution and looks different, what would happen if we're able to change the presidency or the congress in two years? what does that look like? does it mean an impeachment? does it mean hearings? does it mean censure? what does it mean? and then preparing? i mean, the one tool we have are elections. that is that is the most basic of our democratic tools. and we have to prepare what should be a groundswell of opposition to what we're seeing that shows up next november. >> i think there is an the only thing i disagree with is i don't think the 90% of the public had no information. i think they didn't believe it, and i think they had too much faith in checks and balances. i think they nominated, you know, a drunk uncle, but they didn't want him to drive. you know,

they wanted they wanted him in the back of the limo, you know, being a lunatic, the people that voted for him, they didn't think he would, you know, put on his blindfold. but his equally insane cousin from south africa, you know, in the seat next to him and drive the car off the cliff. and i think that you can't call the citizens of this country low information. if you watch any of those town halls, they are saying things that if you only watch fox news, you have worked to find out that trump is destroying the constitution. if you're a maga voter, you voted for trump and you like some of what he was saying and he scared you enough about immigration or whatever else he was ranting and raving about. and you listen to these and they only watch fox news. they know that elon musk is and not, you know, not abiding by the constitution. they know that people are suffering from the things that his effort to cut costs. i'm not going to call it a name because it's fake. they know that donald trump is totally unchecked, and 81% of all americans still think that putin is the bad guy. you didn't learn that on fox. i mean, people aren't hostage to low information. they just didn't

think that the congress would collapse. they didn't think they'd hand the drunk uncle the keys. >> sure. or maybe they didn't care. i mean, i personally, i think it's somewhere in between here, but i think donald trump speaks to a certain baseline of politics that is often incorrect, which is the economy was bad. i'm going to make it better where we we're going to be stronger. and most most voters say, yeah, that's the direction i want to go. and they don't understand the dismantling of the department of justice. i think there are a lot of informed voters, and i certainly don't mean that nobody's paying attention. people are. yeah, we're seeing it. >> it had to get this bad, though. >> it had to get. >> this bad. yeah. okay. all right. we're taking a break. no one's going anywhere. still ahead from us. a directive from the white house today, drawing comparisons to what vladimir putin did early in his dictatorship. when it comes to the trump administration, our friend tim snyder argues, maybe there are cracks in the facade. plus, elon musk might be wearing out his welcome not just for democrats, but with donald trump's own cabinet. there's considerable new evidence

supporting that conclusion in today's reporting. we'll share it with you. and later in the broadcast, a formidable voice from the inside on the topic of donald trump's military purge. all those stories and more when deadline. white house continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. >> kids. i'm sure you're wondering why your mother and i asked you. >> here tonight. >> it's because it's a. >> buffet of all you can eat butterfly. shrimp and sirloin steak? >> yeah, that. >> is the reason. >> i thought it's. >> because i made varsity. >> you did? >> of course. >> you did. >> of course you did. >> my eyes. they're dry, uncomfortable. looking for extra hydration. now there's blink neutral tears. it works differently than drops. blink neutral tears is a once daily supplement clinically proven to hydrate from within, helping your eyes produce more of their own tears to promote lasting, continuous relief you'll feel day after day. try blink neutral day after day. try blink neutral tears a different way when emergency strikes, first responders rely on the latest technology.

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some of the biggest names in. democratic politics, with the biggest ideas for how democrats can win again. the blueprint with. jen psaki. >> listen now. >> what we do is. try to cut right to the bone of what we're seeing in washington that day. peter, i work really hard in all the hours before i'm on the air to see if there are any silver linings without ever gaslighting my viewers. this is the one that i found on this topic today, and a poll conducted and published on january 18th of this year by the new york times, 73% of all respondents said they opposed donald trump using the

department of justice to bring any charges against his political opponents. it seems that with the team that's there, the gun is loaded. but if they actually sort of do anything in terms of political prosecutions or political weaponization before they even start, 73% of all americans would oppose that. does that in your reading of these individuals in their early public moves and the way the department functions, do you think that provides enough friction, or do you think that that trumps commitment? and the kinds of people that are there will pursue political prosecutions anyway? >> well, look, i think it's important and i think it's, you know, to just to give you another silver lining, i think we've seen some encouraging signs of, you know, great courage and resistance to unethical and improper directives coming from inside

the department and the fbi, the interim leadership of the fbi, as well as the head of its probably most important field office in new york, took very significant stands, which the rank and file rallied around against this process of investigating the january 6th agents for possible terminations. you saw obviously, the resignations in the manhattan federal prosecutor's office over the directive to seek dismissal of the charges against mayor adams. and i think all of those actions, i mean, extremely difficult for the people involved and required, you know, a great deal of personal bravery and principle. but i think things like that help call into attention the kinds of things we're talking about and help the public understand so that people can respond in the way that polls suggest and that david suggested before the break. so i think all of that is part of the silver

lining. we're only four weeks in, and i think people will have time to respond and try to deal with this. i would also say that if you talk about actual political prosecutions, you know, the other silver lining is that we have judges and, you know, judges of all stripes are extremely zealous about protecting the rights of the criminal defendants before them, and particularly when you have an administration that's essentially saying the quiet part out loud. i think there would be careful scrutiny about an actual prosecution that was motivated by political reasons. having said that, there's so much the department and the fbi can do short of a prosecution that can have profound effects on people's lives. you know, the government's authority to conduct criminal investigations and prosecutions is a source of extraordinary power. if it's used properly, it helps ensure public safety and order and

justice and fairness if misused. it's the power to coerce. it's the power to destroy reputations, to turn people's lives upside down and potentially to take away their liberty. and so that's why it's so important that it be exercised in a nonpartisan way. because while prosecutions go before judges, investigations don't. and the department deciding simply to conduct an investigation to interview somebody's business associates and friends and neighbors, to seek their documents, to potentially leak to the press that they're under investigation for some potentially spurious criminal charge. that's itself an enormous power that judges can't do much about. and so there is a great deal of power and peril in all of this. but i do think the poll you read and the response by people in the department and at the fbi is showing that there's still some fight left.

>> andrew. >> so to follow up on this point of the enormous power before you get to court, we're already seeing signs of that. denise chung, who is the chief of the criminal division in the dc u.s. attorney's office, in her resignation letter. and again, we don't have the other side. but what she has said and just full disclosure, i know her. i think the world of her, she is, you know, a career person. so zero reason to doubt what she said has said just that, that she was asked to go forward and to seize a bank account. right. that was sort of viewed as sort of biden's right. exactly. which is a seizure. and she said the facts are not there. and the fbi said, we're not willing to do it unless you tell us it's lawful. she was like, i cannot do it. she talked to career people. she was asked to resign by ed martin, the same person who in the last segment, you showed that she was the chief of criminal division. so that prospect of what's happening before you get to court is

something we already have evidence that that is happening. and then with respect to the courts, the one thing that may also be a silver lining, and we're seeing it play out in the eric adams case, is those are public. you know, when donald trump wanted to say there was fraud in the election, he lost over and over and over again. those are public proceedings. and if you bring a sort of, you know, an unwarranted, unfounded, factual and legal case, if you take a position that is just not meritorious. you see judge ho in the eric adams case saying, well, first i'm going to appoint somebody to see the other side of it. he could easily have a factual hearing there and hear from all sorts of people. and so i do think this administration has to be careful, because that's the kind of thing that donald trump has spent years trying to avoid. is that sort of accountability in court. and if they use it as a weapon, that's going to be out of their

control. >> you know, i spent a lot of the first term wondering if trump was getting into sort of a posture, right, to, to sort of line everything up for weaponization, and then maybe people get to these departments and they're awed by the enormous power that that andrew and peter are talking about. and, and i and i guess the reason that that would be foolish the second time is because trump did try to do this. i mean, the durham investigation dragged everyone of trump's sort of publicly named or targeted political foes before it and resulted in nothing. he brought two cases. he failed to achieve any convictions in either of them. there was an extraordinarily invasive audit done of jim comey and andrew mccabe. so the irs is a question mark about whether they were weaponized, the desire to investigate comey permeated the entire first term. bill barr

writes in his book that, you know, in the final hours as attorney general, that was something trump was still mad about. i mean, he tried so hard the first time with less compliant people around him that it would seem foolish to hope that folks get to the fbi and are awed by the power and awed by the threats facing the country from outside enemies. >> and if they act with patriotism, they'll be dismissed. and donald trump is a lawless president and we have a crisis on our shores. and that's not hyperbole, and that's not trying to scare people. that's the reality. that's everything we're talking about right now. and i think what makes it even more dangerous is everything he learned in the first term and the willingness now in a second term to just take the hits. as we were discussing at the break, the polls are fantastic. people are waking up and saying, wait a minute, this isn't the country i want, but donald trump doesn't care. he doesn't care. he's not going to be on the ballot again. he's already written his own political epitaph. he's the best president in the history of the world. it doesn't matter if he

gets impeached because democrats take over the house or what happens next. in donald trump's mind, he's already the best president this nation has ever had. he doesn't care about polls anymore, but that doesn't mean that we have to stop working towards change, because the people who will care are house republicans. get that, get thrown out of office next november. that's within reach. and that is about the only mechanism. but i'm afraid, very afraid. i know a lot of people are. this gets a lot worse before it gets better. yeah, because donald trump is fundamentally lawless. >> peter, thank you for speaking out and for spending so much time with us. we hope we can continue to call on you. >> it's a pleasure to be here. when our when we come back, our next guest says something is indeed shifting. donald trump's quest for power may be the only thing real that his presidency right now. tim snyder will be here on the cracks he sees here on the cracks he sees beginning to emerge. much baby: liberty! mom: liberty mutual is all she talks about since we saved hundreds by bundling our home and auto insurance. baby: liberty!

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biden, stood by president zelensky, recognizing that the defense of democracy there strengthens and protects democracy here and all around the globe. but now, with donald trump's realignment of the united states toward vladimir putin's russia and the abandonment of so many traditions and norms and security. things thought to be normal and never to be touched. our friend tim snyder writes that people are starting to see through the fake and facade of trump's power. he writes this quote, something is shifting. they are still breaking things and stealing things, and they will keep trying to break and to steal. but the propaganda magic around the oligarchical coup is fading. nervous, musk, trump, vance have all been outclassed in public arguments these last few days. government failure. stock market crash and dictatorial alliances are not popular. people are starting to realize that there is no truth here beyond the desire for

personal wealth and power. joining us now, someone we quote all the time and think of every hour of every day we're on the air. yale university history professor tim snyder, author of the best selling books on tyranny and on freedom. i'm so happy you're here. i, i look for what you have written, and so much of it has been about ukraine's fight for their freedom and their democracy. and i'm just dying to hear your thoughts on this moment. >> well. >> with respect. >> to ukraine. >> what we're seeing is how much ukraine is an independent actor. you know, so much of the discussion about this war has been, well, who is ukraine? what is ukraine? and now we see the ukrainians have to deal with perhaps 2 or 3 of the worst people on the surface of the planet, and nevertheless, they're doing their best to defend their country, and they're doing a pretty good job of it. it is, of course. >> shocking. >> if not surprising, that under the trump administration, american power is being thrown

on the side of the russians rather than ukrainians, at least rhetorically so far. it represents, in my view, a policy which is designed to tilt the world towards a kind of transactional sphere in which oligarchs make. >> deals one with. >> the other. in that world, though. >> and many people are. >> starting to realize this, and this is one of the cracks that's emerging in that world, the united states is not stronger. it's actually a lot weaker because other countries are better at that than than we are. and when we throw aside habits, predictability, law, reputation, friendships, and alliances, we actually find ourselves in a much worse position than we were before. >> one of the things that's amazing is that, to your point about cracks in the facade, there was never even a facade. america 81% of all americans distrust vladimir putin. 74% of all americans believe that

ukraine is the ally, and understand that russia is the adversary. what does it say that donald trump would like to align himself, as you said at this point rhetorically, but if he proceeds to switch sides, what would that mean for the country? >> yeah. first of all, i just want to note those are really striking numbers. it's hard to get those kinds of numbers on any question in the united states at the moment. and so it's worth pausing on the fact that the american public really does understand the fundamentals of these of these issues. the second thing i would say is that mr. trump is not somebody who believes in truth. this is this is a this is a way he and mr. putin are very much alike. so when trump uses the word dictator, affirmative or negative, he's just using it because he thinks it's setting up some kind of transaction that will be in his personal interest. and that's the third part of the answer. fundamentally, the reason why somebody like trump admires someone like putin is that putin doesn't care about broader

things like the national interest. putin cares about himself. and that's the kind of person that trump wants to be. so the fundamental shift here is that we have an administration which doesn't actually have the notion of what the american national interest might be. the things that we do are going to be in the service of the interests of a few people in and around the white house. >> what does it mean when a man like marco rubio, who, as a united states senator, authored the most brutal? no offense to my friend andrew weissman, who worked for mr. mueller, but the most brutal investigation, the most detailed and salacious details about donald trump when it came to the question of russia were produced by the marco rubio led senate intelligence committee. marco rubio has recently, as weeks ago, was talking about vladimir putin in the same way that 81% of americans see vladimir putin as the aggressor, as the dictator, as a brutal murderer, of the person who awarded the soldiers, who carried out atrocities and war crimes in

bucha in the early days of the war in ukraine. what does it mean when he falls in line behind donald trump's efforts to appease vladimir putin? >> yeah, i mean, you're reminding us of something really important, which is there is a 30 plus year record of donald trump doing things that moscow wants him to do. he uses the word hoax as a kind of deterrent. he doesn't want anyone to talk about this. he wants us all to think that it's a hoax. but his use of the word hoax is part of the problem. he tries to scare people away from the thing, which is quite obviously true, which is that for whatever reason and people can disagree about the reasons, but not about the fact. for whatever reason, he has a very strong affinity for vladimir putin and a very strong tendency to say exactly the same things that is said that are said on russian television or said by mr. putin himself. when secretary of state rubio switches the way that he does, it's in pursuit of a policy which i think is bound to fail. you can lie to dictators about

dictators in the hopes of getting a better deal from them. but the russians play this game better than marco rubio does, even if we're trying to negotiate with the russians, which i'm not sure about, i'm we're not going to win with their tricks against them. what i fear is going to happen is that we're going to end up with, with arrangements in which we are not only unprincipled, but in which we actually lose everything that we might have gained. the fact that rubio and waltz and trump and hegseth and that team have already conceded essentially every major point to russia in ukraine negotiations, suggests that either they're incredibly incompetent or that these negotiations are meant to fail. but fundamentally, what it shows is that the united states is just not going to be very good at a game which is based on lying. if we lie about everything all the time, we're not going to be able to stop this war. >> it's incredibly sobering to i'm going to ask you to stick i'm going to ask you to stick around. we'll all be here i am—field trip chaperone! before preventing migraine with qulipta,

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baker of the new york times and white house correspondents association wrote this quote. having served as a moscow correspondent in the early days of putin's reign, this reminds me of how the kremlin took over its own press pool and made sure that only compliant journalists were given access. tim. your thoughts? >> yeah, i'm going to start with the heretical one, especially given your own trajectory. it seems to me that there will be a moment where the white house press pool will cease to be what it has been, and that journalists should probably adapt to that and in some way regard it as liberating. when we're not hanging on trump's every word, we may have more leverage and a better angle to talk about how he's lying and what he's actually doing. so there will come a point where it may be time to let go of the press pool as a central way to actually try to cover the trump administration. >> yeah, i mean, this is so important, david. i've talked to journalists who said if trump isn't covered, he doesn't exist because he's not there to do the

work. he's only there to be covered, exerting power and dominance. >> yeah, this is a tricky one because i don't think this is about access. it's about content control. right. the reason that he wants to sideline ap and msnbc and nbc news and all these others is because he wants to put breitbart and all the right wing stuff up there that tells a story of history. and when you lose access, then only those outlets get to report on what the truth supposedly was. but what we always find is the truth ultimately catches up with donald trump, because the press has access to him. look, this weaves together with the narrative over his his changing u.s. foreign policy with russia. if there's not a free media to cover the why behind that, then he gets away with it, even in a greater way than what we're already seeing. >> quick, last word. >> to be clear, this is because there was clearly content control and want

and is saying we're going to have an expedited hearing. so we have a white house that is going to be found to have violated the first amendment, in my view. so this is going down that road. and so it is going to be an issue, as tim said, for the press to figure out how are they going to deal with this because they're going to weaponize the access. >> andrew, david, tim, thank you all so much for being here, for bearing witness with us. we are bearing witness with us. we are grateful to all when emergency strikes, first responders are the first ones in... but on outdated networks, the crucial technology they depend on, is limited. that's why t-mobile created t-priority... ...the only solution built for the 5g era, that can dynamically dedicate up to 10 times the capacity for first responders. t-priority. built for tomorrow's emergencies. ready today. (♪♪) (vo) what happens when one of the most famous dunkers of all time goes to the greatest lobsterfest of all time? ready today.

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if sparks are right for you at sparks. >> elon musk is. >> ignoring a. >> bunch of financial stuff. he is in the treasury. he is trying to get access to our tax returns. are you going to subpoena him at some point?

>> the first generation of americans who failed to. >> no, one, not know more. no more. just two more months to your job. your job? to your job. to your job, to your job, to your job, to your job, to your job, to your job. do your job. it's not up to musk surrendering to billionaires, you coward. >> my concern right now, and i think i speak for a lot of americans, is we want. yes. >> hi again everybody. it's now 5:00 in new york. the opposition on the outside of government to elon musk is growing louder by the hour. elon musk is, of

course, slashing our federal government. proudly wielding a chainsaw. the south african immigrant whose brazen cost cutting has so far resulted in thousands of federal workers being fired or put on leave, and the brutality of those firings has been the point. but as more and more. slashing continues. americans are voicing their disapproval loudly. even some republicans in congress are now pushing back against elon musk. and now, new reporting in the new york times shows there is resistance to elon musk within the trump administration, within trump's cabinet, to the efforts by his unelected co-president. elon musk over the weekend sent an email to more than 2 million federal workers demanding that every one of them justify their roles in their jobs. he threatened them with firing if they did not respond to his email. the new york times reports what follows. quote, by monday, just 48 hours after an email from musk with the subject

line quote, what did you do last week? landed in the email boxes of millions of federal workers personnel officials proclaimed the request to be voluntary, even as musk renewed his demand for the first time since the beginning of trump's return to power. government employees appear to be fending off, at least for now, an ambush in their war with the world's richest man. after musk's email, several agencies quickly sent out emails telling their employees they did not need to provide the five bullet points about their activity that he wanted. remarkable display of pushback to elon musk's overreach, as a new, stunning resignation letter shows that even those working inside musk's pet project have had enough of musk. from a letter of 21 civil service employees. quote, we will not use our skills as technologists to compromise core government systems, jeopardize americans sensitive data, or dismantle critical public

services. we will not lend our expertise to carry out or legitimize doj's actions. these employees were originally part of what was once known as the united states digital service. it's an office established during president barack obama's administration. more from their letter. quote, we swore to serve the american people and uphold our oath to the constitution across presidential administrations. however, it has become clear that we can no longer honor those commitments. that's where we start the hour. some of our favorite reporters and friends, new york times investigative reporter david fahrenthold is here. also joining us, president of media matters for america, angelo carusone is here. and the host of the bulwark podcast. msnbc political analyst tim miller joins us as well. david, you have some incredible reporting on the lies being told by elon musk's efforts to justify sort of the brutality of the cuts, lies or mistakes. take us

through that reporting. >> well, we're looking. >> at is what dodge calls the wall of receipts they posted this last week. it was supposed to be a list of contracts they canceled from within the federal government, and they were going to show you how much they had saved for each of them. what we found was that the five biggest savings, the five biggest cuts on their initial list, were all wrong. they were full of mistakes, and the mistakes made the actual savings much, much higher than they actually were. now, i'm not saying this because i want to say that that dodge isn't cutting things or there aren't cuts going on. this, just to me, is a really powerful example of dodge not really understanding what it's doing and being sloppy with its data, even in the data it shows to the public. >> and what is the what is your understanding of the resignation of some of musk's own workforce after just four weeks? >> well, so these are folks that were at the us digital service when trump came into office. this is, as you said, it's been

around since president obama was there to make government websites and other technology processes work further. so these are not you know, musk's the sort of, you know, whatever you want to call them, the dodge bros. these are not the people he brought in with him. these are people that were already in this agency and were sort of tasked with helping musk. so they're not the true believers originally, but to me, it's still striking that they've seen this up close and they don't want to be part of it. >> you've seen it up close. they don't want to be part of it. let me show you what four republicans had to say about elon musk. >> if i could say one thing to elon musk, it's like, please put a dose of compassion in in this. these are real people. these are real lives. >> look, i think i think they need to be more targeted and they need to be more thoughtful. things are happening a little bit too fast and furiously. >> just a little bit of humanity and dignity to the process, i think, is what many of the alaskan federal employees are asking for. and i don't think that that's asking for too much. >> i think that any process you undergo where you're trying to find efficiencies, and if that

involves some reductions in force, it needs to be done in a respectful way. >> tim miller, i want to bring you in on this, because the lack of courage from republicans, i feel like is something that we could have a phd in. and those were not full throated condemnations of musk, but they count as rebukes. in this age of scaredy cat republicans. and i wonder what you make of republicans who, because of their own cowardice, are now in a vise between their own voters who hate what is happening. i mean, make no mistake, people may have thought that the american people didn't understand usaid. i don't buy that. i actually think they know what it is. they they understand that it does a lot of good things. but i think the people whose peanut farms were subsidized by giant usaid contracts for their peanuts, people whose other, i mean, slash the whole agency is gone. and that wasn't a i mean, that wasn't a scalpel. that was just

a sledgehammer. i mean, i think that what republicans have done to themselves is both deserved and incredibly revealing. >> yeah. for sure. and you're just listening to that and you're hearing these republicans. thune and murkowski has has acted pretty well in some of her votes. it's worth saying, but but some of the others who voted for everything, thune and curtis like almost begging the administration to show even a little bit of humanity or compassion or respect, individual dignity of these workers. you know, it does make you want to say, what did you guys think you were signing up for, right? like, i mean, central to donald trump for a decade now is that he does not care at all about the humanity of anyone besides donald trump. and elon musk certainly has not shown one shred of evidence that he cares about the humanity and dignity of the little people

that that, you know, he doesn't know or care to learn about what it is that they did in the government. and so, like, this is the program that you all signed up for. and if you don't, if you want to show compassion and humanity and dignity, then you're going to have to take power back from them because these guys aren't going to do it. and like begging them to or indicating that you wish they would. and an interview is just is not up for the challenge. and we all have enough evidence of that now. and so, you know, and like when i listen to that, like that is really where i land, which is, you know, this what you're doing is nothing like you might as well do nothing. right. because asking donald trump and elon musk to show humanity is a fool's errand. so if you want people to have humanity shown to them, then you're going to need to do it. and i don't i don't expect that they will take power back from elon musk, but maybe they will if they start to feel

political pain from people in their districts, like you showed at the at the beginning of the segment. >> i mean, angelo, i wanted to send all them copies of project 2025 because if they read a page of it, they would have known that this was the plan. and the plan on no page has an ounce of humanity. and to your point, your warnings that you've been sharing on this show for a year, the lack of humanity and the brutality is the plan. >> yeah, it is. i mean, and you know, when i said i'm usually not so much fun in social gatherings these days, but i think that i constantly remind people is that, you know, we're only through the first portion of project 2025. wait till we get to the part where literally, they would call for mass slaughtering of our herds of wild horses in the country. i mean, the entire document is riddled with needless cruelty that is designed to either enrich a few, transform our culture, and transform our country, and we shouldn't sort of discount the significance of

that. and that's where, you know, it was wildly unpopular for a reason, because every time somebody learned something about it, they would say, well, wait a minute, that would affect me. and the thing that i remind especially, you know, fellow liberals these days is it's okay to be selfish. in fact, i encourage people to i encourage them to look at their plans because they're very transparent about what they're planning on doing and what they intend on doing, and finding the thing that's going to affect you and your loved ones the most, because they're going to execute and implement it. and to tim's point earlier, it's not going to be appeals to, you know, their better natures or to consideration or kindness that is going to prevent them from implementing project 2025. it is actually going to be the sort of the raw political power pressed on the very slim margin that they have. and this is where david's reporting comes in, because a lot of what they're doing and what gets lost is that when they put out those false stats, you know, doge is sort of like an accelerant. it's sort of grease in the project 2025

machine. but it's not it is not a vision for how they transform things. it is just a mechanism by which they help deliver it. but when you put out these stats, what we have to recognize is that even though they can disappear it from their website, the report about, for instance, that there were millions of dead people receiving social security checks that was repeated 43 times in a single day on fox news. you know, there are other claims that they put out there, like the idea that it's been saved $55 billion, again, totally debunked. fox repeated that 87 times in less than a week. they did multiple segments about it. so that's where the accelerant comes in with that provides is not just them to do it at the government level. then they put out these stats that make their way through the right wing media echo chamber. and that sort of helps be a little bit of a bulwark and a stop gap against the political pressure that to build the political pressure needed to overcome that sort of coefficient of friction, of cruelty that they have there. >> i, you i'm not going to let this slide. they plan to

slaughter the wild horses in the west. i love those wild horses. what's that? i didn't get to that page. >> yeah, it's totally in there. and i it is a thing that they are absolutely committed to doing. it is it is very explicit. it is part of this larger push of sort of not just deregulation, but they actually frame it as an act of kindness, because a lot of it requires a lot of, you know, some investment to make, you know, to maintain them. it's part of this big push for conservation. in fact, there's republicans that really helped drive this through decades ago that this is a new model of conservation, but it'll cost a little bit of money and thought. and part of their rollback is to say, yeah, let's just it's much easier to humanely dispose of them. as project 2025 describes it, which is slaughter. >> oh my god. i want to ask you something else, angelo. i mean, we've talked so much about the information silos. and when you listen to the sound of the voters, republican voters, and i think one of the first ones i saw was the one in georgia of congressman mccormick. rich

mccormick, who is now urging the trump administration and elon musk to take more caution after being booed and really roasted in his in his very red district. it says something interesting about information, right? it's not. it may be a little more nuanced than not knowing what's happening. it's maybe not trusting some of the messengers, but it feels like what trump is doing is so out of step with what even maga republicans thought they were getting, that the accomplices and the enablers are getting tea party caliber rage from republicans. >> yeah, yeah, i'm actually really glad you said that, because there is this disconnect between what's happening online in terms of the distribution and the narratives, and even sort of like the centers of gravity, like fox news. and then what's happening and i'm going to believe i'm saying this, but if you want to know what they really think, you have to listen to talk radio. because if you listen to right wing talk radio, the callers are calling in. that's true. and their, you

know, their, their regular audience saying, wait, i'm i'm all for doge. i'm all for all these cuts. but my friend, my cousin, my neighbor, i'm a veteran. and i just got indiscriminately fired or. no, no, no, no, they shouldn't be cutting the bureau of land management people in my area. we're actually really needed here. this is part of our community and our country. they're not lazy workers. they work really hard. if you listen to the callers on talk radio, it validates the very observation that you're making. you know, if you're entirely online, obviously the disinformation and the larger ecosystem is going to push those narratives, but it's so much damage that they're causing in such a scale that it's unavoidable. and even those callers are sort of bewildered. in fact, they're appealing to hannity in particular to say, look, we're on your side, but please explain to them that that it's too it's too, too much recklessness. we love it, but it's too much. they're not being careful enough. and that's only going to escalate as they continue to bulldoze through. >> tim, i have a visceral reaction to that. you know, on the one hand, it's like trump ran on destroying our democracy,

and you're only mad because it hurts you and your neighbor and friends. but on the other, this is why everybody from liz cheney to adam kinzinger to jeff duncan to kamala harris to joe biden, this is this is why the pro democracy coalition warned about what do you think of this moment politically? >> yeah, i mean, look, i everybody maybe not everybody. maybe there's some people with the better angels than me out there. many of us could have can understand the schadenfreude element to some of what angela was talking about, people kind of getting what they voted for and what they were warned would happen. but like once you move past that, i think the more important insight that angela is offering is that there really is tangible political consequences to the stuff that they want to do, right? like a lot of what is in project 2025 is unpopular, their whole agenda isn't unpopular. there's some elements of their immigration agenda that i don't particularly like that is popular. you know, like there are some things that they want to do that are popular, but much

of their agenda is unpopular. and i've always thought that the sweet spot for trump politically, if he wanted to, you know, just get his face on mount rushmore and stay out of jail and golf and send tweets and like, have the government not really do a whole lot. but that was going to be his sweet spot this time, you know, because he could control the media environment, as you just discussed, or at least his echo chambers, and people wouldn't actually feel anything tangible that would make them not like him. and that's where the elon musk thing, i think, is creating a real problem for him, because these guys are indiscriminately firing people. it is hitting red areas, people, people that voted for him, people that that were that didn't vote for him. but no, those who did are experiencing either job displacement or they know somebody who's lost their job, or they know somebody who's uncertain about their job now, or they had a contract with the government that was canceled. you know, there are a lot of things that are happening out there in red america that are damaging. and i think that that is going to lead to political

consequences. it's going to take a little bit of time to show up in the polls to happen at scale. but, you know, you're seeing the little embers of it at these town halls. and apparently on the talk radio call, i guess i need to be listening to more talk radio call in shows. >> i'll put it on my to do list, too. david, i want to come back to the inaccuracies in their own accounting. is it does the reporting reveal why? is it sloppiness and carelessness and not accustomed to being sort of having the oversight or the scrutiny? or is it a desire to show more savings than are actually there? >> that's what i'm trying to figure out this week. what it looks like is that they've gathered a huge amount of data on government contracting, and they don't know how to read it. government contracting is complicated. there are lots of weird terminologies and conventions that are not immediately apparent. but this is the job they took on. they took on this job of saying, hey, we're going to look at all government contracts and weed out the ones that are bad. and

what these errors show, these errors, like, you know, mistaking millions for billions or triple counting the same contract or, you know, counting a contract as canceled that actually had been canceled under joe biden. it just shows they don't really know what they're looking at. and that's what i think a lot of people are worried about, is that they're they're not just looking at this. they're looking at all kinds of complicated government systems. both. you know, we talked about, you know, the federal jobs, but also social security information, treasury payment information, irs information. and if they don't know what they're looking at here and they don't understand it well enough to see when they when they're wrong, you know, it doesn't give you a lot of confidence that they're applying any more rigor or expertise to the other sets of data they have where we can't see what they've done with them. >> i want to go deeper into david's reporting. i also want to show you what federal workers are, the stories they're telling in their own words. and these are, as tim said, people who live all across the country, some of them in red states, blue states all over. no one's going anywhere. we'll have more on the mistake riddled accounting of elon musk and the growing opposition to what he's doing.

also ahead, the ongoing fallout from donald trump's pentagon purge, rising fears among members of the military about what they're going to be asked to do now, now that so many of the roadblocks have been removed, legally and otherwise, the former secretary of the air force will be our guest later in the hour deadline. white house continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. >> sadly. windshield chips can turn into windshield cracks. >> but at least you can go to safe flight.com and schedule a fix in minutes. >> sweet. >> safe flight can come to you for free, and our highly trained techs can replace your windshield right at your home. >> they flight safe. >> flight don't wait. go to safe flight.com and schedule now. >> safe flight safe flight place. >> as a cardiologist, when i put my patients on a statin to reduce cholesterol, i also tell them it can deplete their coq10

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looking at him and thinking, well, what's this country that we're now living in? we're here for safety and we're patriots. we love our country. that's why we're taking these jobs that don't pay us in the private sector. i'm an accountant. i could get a private sector job tomorrow, but i care about this country and i want to be here. >> you know, there's no jobs. >> for us here in dc. i don't know if there are jobs for us, period. a lot of people's professional lives have just been completely ruined. and i want to know how the senators are going to support us. how are they going to give us resources? how are they going to make sure that people's families are taken care of? >> so, tim miller, a lot of federal workers live in dc. a lot of them live in virginia and maryland. a lot of them are constituents. governor youngkin of virginia. and this is another angle of this, right? one is, is the members of congress being booed by republican voters in ruby red gerrymandered to hell districts? the other is that

these are these are people living in towns that own homes and go to businesses and go to restaurants and take flights and have had the rug ripped out from under them for no reason. i mean, right. conservative republican andrew natsios was george w bush's head of usaid, and he said on this program it took him one month to change the policy direction of usaid from the clinton years to the bush years. there was no there was no ideological reason these people could have pursued conservative policies around the world. this was arbitrary. and now these people are without jobs. and i wonder what you think the republican response will be from folks like glenn youngkin. >> we've already seen some of it. my colleagues of the bulwark, andrew edgar, wrote about this this morning in the newsletter that glenn youngkin had some press conference yesterday. and the new website, i think it's virginia's got jobs or something cheesy like that. i don't remember it off the top of my head, but he showed, again, no empathy for these folks and it was out there. it was

condescending, frankly, talking about how, oh, well, they can find jobs in the private sector. we're going to have a job fair. we're going to put a website up that helps them learn how to write resumes. and it's like these, those people in these interviews don't need that kind of help. folks that are working in the federal government that are serving this country, a lot of them have expertise in certain areas. you know, it's like what somebody that's a scientist at nih that is that is, you know, working on how to stop the next infectious disease or how to help people that have, you know, communicable diseases. like that person is, you know, is interested in a job fair where glenn youngkin wants to, you know, make them a, you know, a bank teller or something. it's just crazy. it just doesn't make any sense. the whole thing is nonsensical. and i think that there there will be a backlash. there's an election in virginia this year. abigail spanberger is likely to be the democrat nominee. and i think it's really going to hurt republicans in the state. one other thing, just about these firings and how stupid they are. i was talking

to ben wittes on the podcast today from lawfare. these these firings are almost all illegal. and so all of these folks are going to get lawyers in d.c, they're going to sue the government. and you know what? the net result of all this is going to be? most likely more money from the government being cost the we're going to have to pay back pay, we being the federal government, the taxpayers going to have to pay back pay to the people that are fired. they're going to have to pay lawyers to defend their illegal orders. they're going to waste government time with people going into court defending their illegal orders. and the net result of all this is going to be is harm to individual people, cruelty, loss of jobs and the government having to spend money on a bunch of lawsuits, like the whole thing is just, is just preposterous. it doesn't even make sense under the rubric of efficiency. >> i mean, i guess, david, this is this is where i wonder on the musk story, and maybe i'm getting ahead of where the reporting is on it. why? you know, a white house with a completely subservient

republican majority in both houses could have presented a budget document and done whatever they wanted to, whatever agency they wanted. there would have been no chafe. there would have been no friction, and there probably wouldn't have been this amount of catastrophic press or errors. do you have any understanding about why this wasn't a budgetary process of achieving these cuts, as opposed to musk's either incompetent or nefarious effort to do so? >> i think it's a matter of focus. donald trump does not have the focus in the past, has not shown the focus to focus on one area long enough to really make this kind of drastic change. elon musk is different. musk has really focused on this, and it's focused on making cuts wherever he can make them. and trump has sort of let him go rather than trying to fight him, to rein him in. as one of my fellow guests said earlier today. that's what's so interesting to me from a political point of view, is that from the lesson trump could have learned from the first administration was that, yeah, there was a lot of drama in dc that we all talked about. but

for people living in the rest of the country who didn't interact with the federal government, not that much change. in fact, trump sent them money. and, you know, the economy went up, their life was stable to better. and that's why in many ways, that's why he got reelected and why the arguments about him being a threat to democracy fell flat because people said, well, i was there last time and nothing bad happened. rightly or wrongly. but that's why it's so interesting that he's making such a huge changes that people will notice in their lives. now. they'll notice in longer lines in national parks, bad service in the irs, you know, lost jobs for them and people they know. that's why i don't get it. why is trump making these huge changes that will affect people in the country, when that was sort of the secret sauce for him last time, was that not much changed for average americans? >> i it's such an interesting point. i mean, it's like the existential question of trump 2.0, right? like like the reason he was reelected, angelo, is because and i said this in the last hour, he might have seemed like a, you know, a drunk uncle who shouldn't have been driving, but he was going to have the keys. congress would be a check. the cabinet wouldn't let him do anything too crazy. but there

would be all these guardrails, what he ran on. if you read project 2025 or listen to any of his speeches, was burning them all down before he got there. that's what we're saying. >> yeah. that's right. and, you know, a big part of it was that people, you know, that they ignore the policy because they said, well, some of that stuff is so bad, it's certainly not going to do it. and they went for the vibes. and you know, some of the vibes were cool. a lot of them were. and authoritarian and anti-democratic anti-democracy. but one of the other vibes that was very clear, though, was that i am going to break the status quo, that the establishment, that the entrenchment, that the inertia that exists in any sort of major structural change, i can break it. and that was the thing that was genuinely appealing to people, that people said, look, whatever the system is right now, it's not moving enough. it's not fixing enough, it's not nimble enough, it's not adaptable enough. it doesn't feel like it's responsive to me. now, unfortunately, that lack of responsiveness is based on a lot of those economic inequality, a lack of service to those audiences. and they just said, well, surely when it breaks, it's going to come. it has to come back in a way that supports

me in some way. that party has been right about he's going to get the vibes, he is going to break it. but that's but people didn't want a lot of this other stuff. they just thought it was, you know, oh, that's just politics. people make promises to win elections, but certainly they're not going to do those things. but i mean, 30% of the federal workforce are veterans. the, you know, the biggest states that have, you know, the top ten states, the majority of them are red states, not blue states that have that, where the federal workers are sort of have the largest concentration of federal workers. i mean, georgia's one of the top ten states that employs federal workers, for example, you know, and texas being another one. and i think when you start to add up these cuts and it's not just the employees, it's also the cascade of cutting off all these grants and slowing down all this money and creating all this chaos. as russ votes said, they're going to traumatize the federal workforce, but also imply that then there is traumatized anything sort of connected to government, which then forces people to automatically sever their ties as they naturally start to adapt to what seems like an unpredictable landscape. and that is what nobody voted for. it will be deeply

unpopular. and this is where the risk is. the risk is that they seem to know that and don't care and are going to forge ahead. some of it is because they're high on their own supply, and some of them because they think they can brute force their way through. look at some of these appointments in the justice department and elsewhere. we shouldn't underlie the fact that they are making genuine, insincere, authoritarian moves and that this popular pushback is significant and important and necessary. but it's not going to be the only thing. it's not sufficient to get us to where we need to go. it's the first major step. and they they know that. and they're making themselves and girding themselves to disregard that as well. and that's why these republican congress people, that very slim majority, are really a key pivot in whether or not we get through this with a real functioning democracy on the other end. >> so amazing the stakes couldn't be higher. thank you so much for such a smart and informed conversation. david fahrenthold, tim miller, and angelo carusone, thank you so much for spending time with us. when we come back, the former secretary of the air force, who spent 55 years working in national security, says donald

trump is a rogue president right now. and his friday night massacre of top pentagon leaders and jag officers is disturbing, destabilizing and dangerous. secretary frank kendall will be our guest. don't go anywhere. >> i told you, i don't need these anymore. i have sling. >> okay, warden. i only let sling deliver the news. i need to stay informed. thank you very much. nice one. >> nope. sling gives us all the news we want in a quick and reliable manner. >> and at a wonderful price. >> this critical time calls for the critical news coverage that sling provides. sling provides. >> okay. see you i used to struggle with dandruff and scalp issues, but then i started using head & shoulders every wash. cause the active ingredient in head & shoulders fights off the microbes that cause dandruff. microbes are on everyone's scalp and can cause irritation. but when you use head & shoulders every wash... it keeps these rascals at bay

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we've been able to reduce wildfire risk from our equipment by over 90%. that's something i want to believe. [skateboard sounds] start reinventing your business at. >> donald trump's sudden dismissal late friday evening of senior military leaders is a disturbing and clear sign of his goal and intention to put loyalty to him over the

constitution. even in the united states military. on friday, trump and his new defense secretary, pete hegseth, fired the chairman of the joint chiefs as well as the highest ranking officer in the u.s. navy and the vice chief of staff for the air force, as well as three judge advocates general or jags. they are the lawyers for the army, the navy and the air force, and the most senior uniformed legal authorities in the defense department. the possible consequences of their firings are what secretary frank kendall finds most disturbing. he served as the secretary of the united states air force until five weeks ago. he calls donald trump a rogue president and explains in an op ed in the new york times like this that jags are, quote, the senior military professionals who interpret and enforce the uniform code of military justice, the rules that guide troops in the field. quote, they have the independent legal authority to tell any military commander or political appointee that an order from the president or the secretary of

defense is unlawful cannot be given and should not be obeyed. trump and hegseth will now get to choose the jag leadership for all three military departments. one has to ask why? why? jag leadership was singled out for replacement. this is part of a much larger pattern of disrespect, even disdain for the rule of law. we do not need jag leaders who fit this pattern. joining us now is the author of that op-ed, frank kendall. he was the secretary of the air force during the biden administration. mr. secretary, thank you for being here. thank you. nicole. i want to go back to the first trump presidency to try to understand maybe what he's reverse engineering. there's some incredible reporting and some books that were written about how trump wanted the insurrection act, used against american citizens protesting the murder of george floyd. and he met some resistance from then secretary of defense mark esper and then chairman of the joint chiefs, mark milley. is this the sort of reverse engineering that would have avoided that?

>> i think that's a reasonable description. i know those individuals reasonably well, and they've talked to me about their experiences. what seems to be happening here is the desire to put people in place that will be much more compliant with the desires of the secretary of defense and the president, president trump. i know of no reason to fire any of these people. occasionally a senior person is fired for cause. i mean that there's a reason they've done something that reflects either poor conduct or bad judgment. that's not the case here. and i was really struck when, in addition to the senior people, the jags were, as a group of people removed that. that's a very dangerous thing in my mind. >> what would you need to want to do to get rid of them. >> i think secretary hagel has been reasonably clear about this. he wants jags who will agree that the law is what he and the president want it to be. he's looking for basically

acquiescence to whatever they decide their interpretation of law should be. and i don't think he's been ambiguous about this at all. >> when you look at how hegseth and trump's paths crossed, it was hegseth advocacy as an on air presence on fox news for individuals working their way through the military system of justice. explain how the very nature of their engagement with one another may explain some of these moves. >> well, in his previous administration, when president trump was here, he he embraced people who had either been convicted of or were charged with war crimes. americans. secretary hegseth was a proponent for some of these people. i found that very, very disturbing. the military justice system works very effectively. people are tried by, you know, appropriate panels. and if they're found guilty, there's a reason for that. there's evidence and there's criminal

statutes essentially under the uniform code of military justice that have been applied and people have been found to have committed war crimes. that's a very serious offense. i'm very proud of our ability as americans to police ourselves. and for some reason, i don't understand that, frankly, secretary hegseth and president trump seem to think that this is not important, that the kind of conduct that was being punished is acceptable to them. and again, that's very disturbing. >> and to your point, this was all very public at the time. i wonder what you think of the republicans who voted to confirm mr. hegseth after seeing what his early moves suggest. >> i've talked to some of those people. they were under intense pressure. some of them did so very reluctantly. this is true not just of secretary hegseth, but some of the other people that have been nominated as well. i, i wish there were more profiles in courage. and people had stood up and said what they what they what they actually felt about him and voted accordingly. but unfortunately, that didn't happen.

>> and the. purge and the firing of general cq brown, my colleague courtney kube is reporting that around the pentagon, quote, it's fair to say there were people who were upset who worked for the joint staff. just talk about the implications inside the pentagon for his abrupt firing. >> he was very admired. he is very admired. he worked for me essentially as chief of staff of the air force for two years. i know him extremely well. he was my partner in running the air force. and i watched him perform as chairman of the joint chiefs for about a year and a half. he is a steadying officer as there is. he is strategically wise. he understands the military profession and the joint force incredibly well. i don't know of anyone who would give better, more objective and more professional advice to the secretary of defense and the president. it was a shock, i think, to everybody in the institution, not entirely unexpected, because secretary had said some things previously

about about general brown, but very disappointing that this would occur. and i can say the same about the other people that were removed as well. i know them, they're very capable professionals. >> so i want to ask you about a warning that the country heard from general john kelly in the days before the election about the dangers in terms of just what trump was saying out loud, of what he intended to use the of what he intended to use the military for, how to sneak your record label is taking off. but so is your sound engineer. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. our advanced matching helps find talented candidates, so you can connect with them fast. visit indeed.com/hire as americans, there's one thing we can all agree on. the promise of our constitution and the hope that liberty and justice is for all people. but here's the truth. attacks on our constitutional rights, yours and mine are greater than they've ever been. the right for all to vote.

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op-ed. this. i'm going to read it. our country is in uncharted territory. we have an administration that is waging war against the rule of law. the evidence is everywhere. the replacement of the military jag leadership is one skirmish in that war. but it's time for the american people across the political spectrum to recognize what is happening. can we fix can we fix the secretary's audio? we're going to we're going to fix secretary kendall's audio. i can see him. i know he's still up, but he can't hear us. we're going to take care of that, and we'll be right back with him. >> safelite repair. safelite replace. >> nobody likes a cracked windshield. i but at least you can go to safelite.com and schedule a fix in minutes. go to schedule a fix in minutes. go to safelite today, i chooseth how to screen for colon cancer! give me cologuard, or— excuse me. you just need a prescription.

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yep. as many butterfly shrimp as i want. you got it, kate. >> you can take home everything. >> those tongs, ice cream machines, dessert bar tray, that guy's hat. >> we're gonna let that guy keep his hat, but wants more broccoli. >> no, thanks. i'm good. >> here's your secretary. can you hear us now? >> i can, thank you. >> i'm so sorry about that. live tv is not immune from the gremlins i was reading to our viewers. more from your extraordinary op ed, and i'm going to do that now. you write this. our country is in uncharted territory. we have an administration that is waging war against the rule of law. the evidence is everywhere. the replacement of the military jag leadership is one skirmish in that war. but it's time for the american people across the political spectrum to recognize what is happening. america has a rogue president and a rogue administration, and we need to acknowledge that and respond. it has echoes of the warning from from general john kelly ahead of the election, his concerns that he did an extraordinary interview to articulate to the

american people, and warnings from stan mcchrystal, jim mattis, mark milley and others. saying that trump is fascistic to his core was the quote, what do you think it is that people had to see this before they would believe those warnings? >> no, i, i that's a hard question. i don't know what it will take to get people's attention. i think the media has had a very hard time covering donald trump, because he's so far outside the normal range of behaviors. yeah. and i and i don't mean to criticize the media. no, that's that's true. i, i think that's very much a part of this that and there's so much going on right now. there's so much chaos being generated that it's very hard to raise alarm about every single thing that's happening. but you have to step back a little bit and look at the pattern, look at the people that are being put in charge of our law enforcement, federal law enforcement organizations. look at the, you know, the lack of respect for

things like the 30 day notice of the congress on firing inspector generals. there's a long, long list of things that demonstrate what i said in the op ed that this this administration does not feel constrained by the law, and it's doing everything it can to avoid those constraints. and this removal of the jags i felt in the early coverage of this, the focus was too much on the senior officer, general brown and so on. and people hadn't picked up enough on the implications of replacing the jags, which people who agree with you about whatever you say the law is, i think that's very dangerous. the jags have a very good history of being assertive and independent and respecting the law and, and supporting the law and the desire to replace that with people who are more compliant. the jags, for example, are the people that would indicate whether the military in its use against u.s. citizens within the united states is lawful or not. there are a number of constraints on that. the insurrection act, the

posse comitatus doctrine, which says that you cannot use the military to assist law enforcement in general. all of these things that i think are guardrails can be in some way, perhaps maneuvered aside by the by placing more compliant people into these positions. >> what do you think the american people should be bracing for with the removal of any of those legal checks on crossing all those lines and using the military on u.s. soil? >> i think that's very, very hard to say. and he asked me to predict something that's unknown. there are some indicators in president trump's first term, you know, such as his reaction to some of the protesters and his attempt to get general milley, for example, to go to portland to put down a protest, to use the military to do that. i think those are indicators of what might be in store for us. what i think is necessary now is for people to appreciate what is happening here and react to it. we have a lot of freedom of the constitution to let the government know how we feel

about things, and let our representatives know how we feel about things. and i think the evidence is, to some degree, that this administration even will react to that kind of pressure if it's loud enough and firm enough. and i think that's what we need to do at this time. >> i take your note about the press. i agree with you. how can the military is a difficult institution to cover? my colleague courtney covey does it better than just about anybody else. but mr. hegseth is working to make it difficult. he's removed nbc from from the pentagon workspace. what is your advice on on how to cover the military? >> i think there are formal or informal access, as i've worked with the press a lot through my entire tenure. right now in the pentagon, people are scared. the career civilians are scared, the military people are scared. they're not happy about a lot of the things that are happening. they don't like what they're seeing happen to senior people they respect, and they're worried about what they're going to be asked to do. i think to

some extent, i think the press has contacts that can help them tell think you need to tell them. >> what what is the thing you hear most often fromeoe right now who, as you said, are scared and are not able to speak? >> they're just worried. there's the, the, the sort of irrationality of what's happening. the you know, it's as if they're waiting for a sword to drop on them. the what what elon musk is doing with firing people, for example, is a good example of that. and it's very chaotic. it's, you know, people on probation who haven't been working there very long, people may have been just promoted, and that's why they're on probation. new hires that are coming in to give us fresh, new, you know, new people that bring a lot of capability with them having their plans disrupted. just a question of where does it stop, when does it end? and who else is going to be vulnerable? and importantly, what do i have to be careful to not do so that i

don't cross paths with some of these these things that they're concerned about? >> you hear i heard today in my own round of reporting, the same concerns inside the intelligence agencies and the same concerns inside the department of justice. it's really it's really amazing. we're we're just four weeks in. secretary frank kendall, i'm going to ask if we can continue to call on you and your expertise. >> happy to do so. this is very important. important. >> thank you very much, if you're living with dry amd, you may be at risk for developing geographic atrophy, or ga. ga can be unpredictable—and progress rapidly—leading to irreversible vision loss. now there's something you can do to... ♪ ( slow. it. down.) ♪ ♪ ( get it goin' slower.)♪ ask your doctor about izervay. ♪ (i. zer. vay.) ♪ ♪ ( gets ga goin' slower.) ♪ izervay is an eye injection. don't take it if you have an infection or active swelling in or around your eye. izervay can cause eye infection, retinal detachment, or increased risk of wet amd. izervay may temporarily increase eye pressure.

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each week, she talks to some of the biggest names in democratic politics, with the biggest ideas for how democrats can win again. the blueprint with jen psaki. listen now. >> 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. the beat with ari melber starts right now. hi, ari. >> hi, nicole. >> always good to see you. welcome to the beat,