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00:00Thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. All right. She was born in Texas, in El Paso.
00:05She went to the University of Maryland. She joined the Air Force. In the Air Force, she studied languages and
00:10intelligence. She ended up spending more than a decade in U.S. military intelligence. And then she left the military
00:18for the private sector. In the private sector, she continued military intelligence work, including very sensitive stuff, while she worked
00:27as a U.S. defense contractor.
00:30And then in the midst of that very highly sensitive U.S. military intelligence career, she defected to Iran. She
00:44had converted to Islam. She learned Farsi. She had reportedly become enthralled with the Iranian regime and in particular with
00:54their anti-American propaganda, despite the fact that she was a U.S. service member who was born in Texas.
01:01In 2019, she was indicted in federal court in the United States for allegedly revealing details to the Iranian government
01:09of a highly classified U.S. intelligence program.
01:13She was charged with allegedly also outing one particular U.S. spy to the Iranian government. She was also accused
01:21of helping the Iranian government's intelligence agencies target the United States.
01:27Specifically, the indictment said she conducted research about people in the U.S. intelligence community she had previously known and
01:35worked with.
01:36She used that information on her former colleagues to draft target packages against these U.S. agents for the Iranians.
01:46And then using that information that she gave them, the Iranian security services launched cyber attacks specifically targeting those Americans,
01:55those American personnel from the U.S. intelligence community.
01:59She was indicted in 2019. Her name is Monica Witt. She was indicted, but she was never arrested. She's still
02:06at large today.
02:08They never caught her because she defected to Iran. But they were able to figure out what she had done.
02:16They were able to expose the plot she was part of. They were able to bring this indictment against her.
02:21They were able to do all of that thanks to the counterintelligence unit at the FBI that specializes in threats
02:30emanating from Iran.
02:33So that was that was 2019. They had that pretty spectacular indictment of that former U.S. military intelligence officer.
02:44Less than a year later, January 2020, the United States used a drone strike to assassinate a very high profile
02:50general in Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, Qasem Soleimani.
02:54You'll remember that. The Iranians in response, you might recall, attacked two U.S. military bases, two U.S. bases
03:01in Iraq.
03:02Dozens of American service members were injured in that retaliatory attack.
03:08You might remember the U.S. president at the time, Donald Trump, during his first term.
03:12You might remember him mocking and deriding the injuries of those American troops, saying U.S. troops who had traumatic
03:20brain injuries because of that Iranian retaliatory attack.
03:24They weren't really injured because he didn't think traumatic brain injury was real.
03:29He didn't think it was serious, at least. Wasn't anything serious, you know, like, you know, bone spurs or something.
03:36At the time, U.S. forces killed Soleimani and there was that retaliatory attack.
03:42We didn't exactly know if Iran was going to do anything further to retaliate for that very high profile assassination
03:50of a very high profile figure in their government.
03:54It soon became clear, though, what the Iranians plan was.
03:59It was that retaliatory attack on those U.S. bases.
04:04And Iran also decided that the way they would retaliate for the U.S. assassinating that high profile general from
04:12the Revolutionary Guard, what they were going to do in response was they were going to kill U.S.
04:17government officials. They were going to get their own high profile assassinations of American public officials.
04:24And this was not just Iran boasting that they would like to kill American government officials in response.
04:32This is something they have they have real capability in.
04:36This is a field of specialty for them.
04:39I mean, Trump's State Department at the time, in Trump's first term, they released a big report at the time
04:44warning about how the Iranians are really good at this.
04:48They're really known for this kind of thing.
04:49Quote, the Iranian regime has been implicated in assassinations, terrorist plots and terrorist attacks in more than 40 countries.
04:57Iran's global campaign of terror has included as many as 360 targeted assassinations in other countries.
05:04Quote, Iran engaged in these assassinations and other attacks, primarily through the Revolutionary Guard Quds Force and the Ministry of
05:12Intelligence and Security, but also via third parties and proxies like Hezbollah.
05:17Quote, Iranian diplomatic personnel have repeatedly been implicated in assassinations abroad.
05:24In other words, they're really good at this.
05:27They can reach all around the globe to kill people when they want to, and they have done it.
05:32And so the U.S. government was aware that Iran wanted to kill U.S. officials.
05:36They knew Iran was capable of doing that kind of thing.
05:40They knew Iran is very experienced in that sort of thing.
05:43They've killed or tried to kill their own dissidents and whistleblowers and political opponents, not only just all over the
05:50Middle East, but throughout Europe they have killed people.
05:53They've even tried to kill people here in the United States before.
05:56Their security services have reached all around the world to kill people.
06:01And they have done it sometimes by finding turncoats, like that Air Force intelligence officer.
06:08They've done it sometimes by just sending out their own agents into the world.
06:13They have done it even by partnering with just straight-up criminals, by partnering with mobsters and drug gangs in
06:20order to carry out targeted killings for the Iranian regime.
06:26And they have done it for decades.
06:28I mean, you think Russia is good at, you know, flinging people out of windows and dosing people with exotic
06:34poisons all over the world?
06:35The Russians are pikers at this sort of thing compared to the Iranians, who have not only been doing it
06:40for decades, they have been very good at it for decades.
06:43And so in the wake of that 2020 U.S. drone strike that killed Qasem Soleimani, the U.S. government
06:50soon became aware that the Iranians were plotting to assassinate U.S. government officials in response.
06:56And who exactly were they going to assassinate?
06:59Turns out they were going to assassinate President Donald Trump's national security advisor at the time, John Bolton.
07:05The Iranians also tried to assassinate Trump's secretary of state at the time, Mike Pompeo, and Pompeo's senior advisor, a
07:12man named Brian Hook.
07:15But the U.S. government, at least, was on it.
07:18They were aware of it.
07:19They knew about these plots and these specific threats and who was being targeted.
07:23Bolton and Pompeo and Hook, among other things, were all given round-the-clock security details to protect them from
07:30these very live assassination plots.
07:34In 2022, a member of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps was formally charged in the United States with the assassination attempt
07:40against John Bolton.
07:42It also emerged that the Iranians had put together an assassination plot targeting President Donald Trump himself.
07:50They were able to bring criminal charges, the federal criminal trial in that case, in the Trump assassination case.
07:57That trial actually just started last week in federal court in New York.
08:04For everything else, Iran is, Iran is a big country, more than 90 million people, and they are a powerful
08:12country, with a sophisticated, intensively resourced, world-class, ruthless set of intelligence and security services, which, of course, target their
08:23own people at home to disastrous, murderous effect, particularly recently.
08:29But those security services and intelligence services also have tentacles all around the world, and they have used them to
08:36target the regime's perceived enemies all over the world, including in the United States of America.
08:42Luckily, the U.S. government has been all over them on this.
08:46They know what the Iranians are capable of.
08:49They know what they've been trying to do.
08:50Among other things, the United States government has specialist counterintelligence agents in the FBI who specialize in these kinds of
08:58threats, specifically emanating from Iran.
09:02Right?
09:03We know what we are up against with Iran.
09:05And, you know, obviously, China and Russia, they also pose major threats along these same lines.
09:12Russia and China have their own dedicated counterintelligence specialists inside the United States government.
09:18But those, the China and Russia specialists are separate from the Iran specialist FBI counterintelligence team that works on this
09:26specifically, that guards against this particularly pointed threat from this particularly capable adversary.
09:35It's a group at the FBI, it's a unit called CI-12, CI for counterintelligence, CI-12.
09:41And thank God we've got them now, right?
09:43Now that we just killed Iran's supreme leader and started a huge new war with Iran, with apparently no idea
09:49what the consequences would be of us doing that, at least here at home, even if we're just going to
09:53be selfish in terms of the risk to us.
09:55Well, thank God we've got a unit like CI-12 that really uniquely knows this stuff that's on it, right?
10:03The group that got that Air Force intelligence spy who defected to Iran, that got the people who tried to
10:10assassinate John Bolton and discovered the plots to kill Mike Pompeo and Brian Hook, and even the plot to kill
10:17Donald Trump.
10:17Thank God we've got this group, CI-12, right?
10:22Last week, FBI Director Kash Patel, while he was coming off a wave of terrible press about U.S. taxpayers
10:28paying him to fly to Italy so he could go to a hockey game and chug beer in a locker
10:33room,
10:33while he was heading into a whole new round of fresh reporting about how he has ordered an elite FBI
10:39SWAT team to be personal bodyguards and basically a chauffeur service for his girlfriend.
10:44In the middle of that bittersweet symphony of competence, last week, FBI Director Kash Patel fired a dozen FBI agents
10:53and staff in the elite counterespionage and counterintelligence unit CI-12.
11:00The unit specifically that specializes in international threats from Iran, including their potential reach here in the United States.
11:12Kash Patel just fired his way through that unit.
11:17Last week, MSNOW's Carol Lennig reporting tonight, quote,
11:22on Monday, meaning today, people inside the FBI are bracing for the possibility that Patel will fire more agents and
11:30staff on CI-12.
11:32Carol Lennig is going to join us live here in just a moment on that new story.
11:39You might also recall that right after Trump was sworn in for his second term, one of the first things
11:43he did was take away the security details that had been assigned to Mike Pompeo and Brian Hook and John
11:49Bolton,
11:50because, yeah, sure, maybe the Iranian plans to assassinate them were still live.
11:54But, you know, if you're Trump, who cares?
11:58I mean, the Iranians targeted Trump, too, but he has Secret Service protection.
12:02What does he care if they knock off anybody else?
12:04He'll be fine.
12:08We don't know why Donald Trump just started this war in Iran.
12:14Washington Post reported this weekend and The New York Times reported today that Trump did it basically as a favor,
12:22that there was no U.S. intelligence, that Iran posed any imminent threat to us.
12:27But Saudi Arabia and Israel told Trump to do it, and so he did it.
12:32Because, hey, you know, America first.
12:37Strong man.
12:39We're just going to put our military at the disposal of other countries because they can tell Trump what to
12:45do with it?
12:47Quote,
12:57But he did it anyway because Israel and Saudi Arabia told him to, and he apparently does what they say.
13:04And now six American service members are known to have been killed and many more injured.
13:10There's also new reporting tonight that the U.S. embassy in Riyadh in Saudi Arabia has been hit by two
13:16drones.
13:16The Washington Post is now also reporting that two Defense Department employees,
13:21U.S. Defense Department employees, have been wounded in an Iranian drone attack on a hotel in Bahrain.
13:28And, I mean, in terms of what we are heading into and the kind of risk we're heading into,
13:31these are the sort of headlines that we're seeing tonight.
13:33Quote,
13:34Earthquake in the Gulf.
13:36Iran war expands to a dozen countries in 72 hours.
13:40Just 72 hours after the U.S. and Israel began bombing Iran,
13:43the war has already consumed nearly the entire Middle East,
13:47reached the gates of Europe, and raised new fears of attacks on American soil.
13:52This was the front page of the New York Times that we woke up to today.
13:55U.S. troops killed as blasts jolted Mideast.
13:58Fear of wider war after Iran's response.
14:05Reuters.
14:06Dueling headlines here.
14:08Iran conflict widens to Lebanon.
14:11Kuwait mistakenly downs U.S. jets.
14:13That's there right next to Iran says Strait of Hormuz closed.
14:18Warns it will attack ships trying to pass.
14:20And, indeed, just on the global energy front,
14:23we have seen natural gas prices spike by 50 percent in Europe.
14:27One of the world's largest exporters of natural gas is Qatar.
14:31Qatar now says they have stopped all production of natural gas.
14:34And, indeed, Iran says it has closed the Strait of Hormuz,
14:37through which passes 30 percent of the world's oil and 20 percent of the world's natural gas.
14:44They say it is closed.
14:48Here's the headline at The Washington Post.
14:50Quote,
14:51Trump pursues Iranian decapitation without a plan for what comes next.
14:55Quote,
14:56Security officials in the Middle East and in Europe have raised concerns that the U.S.
14:59is unleashing forces that could spill across borders, disrupt global trade,
15:04and lead to asymmetric terrorist attack reprisals.
15:22Given those kinds of threats that Trump has just unleashed with this war that he started for reasons he still
15:31cannot clearly articulate.
15:32I mean, given those kinds of threats, given that Pandora's box that has just been opened.
15:38Do you feel like we've got all our national security ducks in a row here in this country now that
15:43we've started this thing?
15:45Do you feel like our leaders in the U.S. government are really on the ball right now when it
15:50comes to national security,
15:52when it comes even just to domestic national security,
15:55when it comes to managing potential fallout from this thing that Donald Trump has just unleashed?
16:01I mean, you can start with our Secretary of Defense, right?
16:04I mean, his immediate previous job before Donald Trump gave him the keys to the U.S. Defense Department
16:09was that he was the weekend co-host on the cable news show Fox & Friends.
16:14Now we're at war with Iran.
16:17Six U.S. service members killed so far, many more wounded.
16:22Hegseth also apparently just lost three F-15 fighter jets to friendly fire
16:27because the U.S. military did not de-conflict with our allies in Kuwait.
16:31So Kuwait shot down our planes.
16:36Great.
16:38Here at home, we're, of course, protected by the FBI.
16:41Yeah, about that.
16:42Again, we'll have more on that with Carol Lenning in just a moment.
16:44We're also protected by the Department of Homeland Security, which is run by this person.
16:50Kristi Noem, who you will remember, took the Coast Guard Commandant's house for herself,
16:56who has been mostly focused, who's been focused most intently during her time in office
17:01on sending militarized mask federal troops all over the United States to kill and terrorize
17:08people here at home.
17:09Kristi Noem is currently trying to stand up a huge new network of prison camps for Donald Trump
17:14to send people to without trial.
17:17So far, that effort is not going great.
17:21Here's a thousand people that turned out in Romulus, Michigan just a few days ago,
17:26vowing to do whatever it takes to stop Kristi Noem and Trump from putting one of their prison
17:30camps in Romulus, Michigan.
17:31Everybody from the Romulus mayor to the unanimous city council there, to the local congressman
17:36there, to their state reps, to their state senators, to the Michigan attorney general,
17:40to both Michigan U.S. senators, all saying they will fight Trump tooth and nail.
17:45On him and Kristi Noem trying to put a prison camp in Romulus, Michigan, here's hundreds
17:50and hundreds of people turning out for the same reason in Roxbury, New Jersey, this weekend.
17:57Roxbury, New Jersey, where they are rabidly opposed to the Trump prison camp that they're
18:01trying to put in that community.
18:02It's a company called DALFEN, D-A-L-F-E-N, that owns the warehouse where they want to put
18:07that Trump prison camp in Roxbury, New Jersey.
18:09DALFEN is headquartered in Dallas, Texas.
18:13And so this is really tactically interesting.
18:15Now people are protesting not only in Roxbury, New Jersey, where they want to open up that
18:19prison camp, but also in Dallas, Texas, where the DALFEN company is headquartered.
18:25That's why you're seeing signs like this in Dallas, quote,
18:28coming soon, concentration camp DALFEN in Roxbury, New Jersey.
18:35People working together in two states to stop that.
18:40More protests against Kristi Noem and Trump's planned prison camps this weekend in Lindenworld,
18:46New Jersey, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in East Lansing, Michigan.
18:50Salt Lake City, Utah, is one of the places where locals were successful in blocking Kristi
18:55Noem and Donald Trump from building one of their prison camps there.
18:57Salt Lake City, as of the last few days, they've just started doing trainings there to try to
19:03help other communities around the country replicate their success in stopping Trump prison camps
19:08wherever they are trying to build them.
19:10So yeah, Kristi Noem at the Department of Homeland Security has at least succeeded
19:14in galvanizing and mobilizing and organizing huge swaths of the country against her department
19:20and against her and against Donald Trump.
19:23She has succeeded in making, for example, the people of Minneapolis national heroes for the way
19:28they stood up against Kristi Noem and Donald Trump and, in fact, turned back homeland security
19:34agents from their city.
19:36So yeah, Kristi Noem already doing great.
19:38She is in charge of our homeland security right now at this incredibly fraught, stupid, dangerous time
19:46now that Trump has started this war.
19:49Specifically, I should mention that also means that Kristi Noem is in charge of our cyber defense.
19:54I mentioned that Iran's security services and intelligence services are pretty sophisticated
19:59and well-resourced, and they're thought of as having a pretty wide international reach.
20:05One of the things they're best at and most ambitious at is cyber warfare.
20:09Well, Kristi Noem, in her infinite wisdom, put who in charge of America's cyber defense?
20:17It's this gentleman.
20:19Politico just profiled him.
20:22You see the headline there.
20:23Canceled contracts, a failed polygraph, and personal disputes inside the turbulent tenure
20:28of Kristi Noem's former cyber czar.
20:31It's former.
20:32He's only been former since Thursday because they finally kicked him out of that job on Thursday.
20:37The nation's top cyber security official lost his job on Thursday, less than 48 hours before
20:45the Trump administration started a war with Iran, a particularly adept cyber rival.
20:53I mean, this is the Homeland Security Department's premier cyber security division.
20:57And who is this guy?
20:58Quote, he had no prior experience in the federal government before Kristi Noem appointed him
21:04to leave the agency last May, but he had served a 10-month stint under then-Governor Noem
21:10as South Dakota's chief information officer.
21:13Okay.
21:14Quote, in August, he triggered a DHS-wide damage assessment by uploading sensitive agency contracting
21:21documents into a public version of ChatGPT, information that other staff at the agency weren't
21:29permitted to use for security reasons.
21:31He also failed a counterintelligence polygraph exam last July.
21:36He failed the polygraph?
21:38Yes.
21:39Homeland Security later dismissed the polygraph as, quote, unsanctioned and accused staff
21:44of, quote, misleading him about the need for the test.
21:47So to be clear, Kristi Noem put this guy in charge of counter, in charge of cyber security
21:54for the country.
21:55He then failed a counterintelligence polygraph exam.
22:00And Kristi Noem's response to that was, well, you shouldn't have made him take that test.
22:05And she kept him on in the job.
22:09Well, he was fine in South Dakota.
22:13So you can just imagine the kind of brilliance we have had at the helm of the nation's top
22:19cyber security agency in the United States, a particularly key job now that Trump has started
22:25a war with Iran.
22:26What else do you need to know about him?
22:27Well, there's this.
22:28Well, last summer, he temporarily suspended a CISA employee who had flashed a middle finger
22:34at his Tesla cyber truck while it sat unoccupied in an agency parking lot.
22:39Footage of the incident was captured by the car's onboard camera.
22:43The director had the CISA security office identify the employee.
22:46The employee did not appear to know whose car it was at the time.
22:49He or she flipped off the vehicle.
22:52The employee was frustrated because the truck had been left in a shared electric vehicle
22:57charging port four days at a time.
23:01So this employee gives the cyber truck the finger in the parking lot.
23:06And this guy goes into his dash cam footage and figures out who gave his truck the finger
23:11and then has that employee who works at the nation's premier cyber security agency suspended
23:17from his or her job because that person had the temerity to flip off his truck while he
23:22was not in it.
23:24That's who Kristi Noem put in charge of America's cyber security.
23:29And he only got relieved of his responsibilities in that job on Thursday.
23:36How did he last so long in that job?
23:38According to Politico's reporting today, quote,
23:42Noem was hesitant to remove him until recently because she and Homeland Security Department
23:46Special Advisor Corey Lewandowski feared that firing him would, quote,
23:51reflect poorly on her.
23:58Homeland Security also oversees Customs and Border Patrol, which accidentally shut down the airspace
24:04over El Paso a couple of weeks ago because Customs and Border Patrol used a military laser
24:09to shoot down Happy Valentine's Day Mylar party balloons.
24:16Oops.
24:17Then last week, some other Texas airspace had to be shut down because this time it was Pete
24:22Hegseth's Fox and Friends Defense Department also using a laser gun to shoot down a drone
24:28this time.
24:29Who whose drone was it?
24:30Oh, it was a drone from Customs and Border Protection.
24:33Because this punch yourself in the face staggering genius is the level of talent we have handling
24:42our national security right now.
24:46As President Donald Trump, for no reason he can articulate,
24:51sets off what may end up being a worldwide conflagration with one of the most capable
24:55and unpredictable adversaries the United States has faced off against in generations.
25:00Yeah, it's a good thing we've got people of the caliber of Kristi Noem attacking,
25:04I mean defending the homeland, and geniuses like Kash Patel at the FBI.
25:10Instead of the experienced Iran specialist counterintelligence agents who Kash Patel just
25:16fired literally last week right before we started bombing Iran.
25:24They are not sending their best.
25:29But we have a lot to get to tonight.
25:31Carol Lennig is here with her new reporting.
25:33Iraq war combat veteran and Democratic U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth is here with us live tonight.
25:37Stay with us.
25:42About 12 hours after President Donald Trump started this new war with Iran,
25:48his FBI director, Kash Patel, took to social media to reassure the American public about safety here at home.
25:55He said, quote,
25:55Last night I instructed our counterterrorism and intelligence teams to be on high alert
26:01and mobilize all assisting security assets needed.
26:05While the military handles force protection overseas,
26:08the FBI remains at the forefront of deterring attacks here at home.
26:12At the forefront, he says, at the forefront.
26:15That is the idea.
26:16That said, new reporting from MS Now's Carol Lennig tonight says this,
26:21Quote, when FBI Director Kash Patel fired a dozen FBI agents and staff last week,
26:25he targeted an elite counterespionage unit that investigates threats from foreign adversaries
26:31and specializes in Iran.
26:35According to more than a half dozen sources with knowledge of the firings,
26:39the unit that Patel gutted, known as CI-12,
26:42conducts investigations of illegal media leaks and mishandling of classified documents
26:47and also has veteran agents trained on threats and spy operations
26:51with a special focus on the Middle East, including Iran and its proxies.
26:57Some of this was first reported by the New York Sun.
26:59I will tell you that Carol Lennig is also reporting tonight that at the FBI today and tonight,
27:04people there are bracing for potentially more firings in this unit.
27:08The FBI is denying that it has done anything to hamper the agency's counterintelligence capabilities.
27:13But as I said, Carol Lennig reporting tonight that people inside the FBI are, quote,
27:17bracing for the possibility that Patel will fire more agents and staff, specifically on CI-12.
27:25Joining us now is Carol Lennig, MS Now Senior Investigative Correspondent.
27:28Carol, I really appreciate you making time to be here.
27:30I know it's a really busy time for you.
27:32Thanks for focusing on this. It's really important.
27:35What does CI-12 do?
27:39CI-12 is casually known, that's its kind of code name, but it's casually known as a global espionage squad
27:46of the FBI.
27:47It's got a combination of agents, analysts, and also support staff based out of the Washington field office.
27:56It's been involved in a really interesting panorama of cases, Rachel, some of which you've covered extensively here.
28:04It worked on the case involving classified documents involving Donald Trump hoarding and concealing hundreds and hundreds of top secret
28:13records at his home in Mar-a-Lago.
28:16It also investigated leak investigations.
28:19It investigated John Bolton, even, and classified records that were found at his home or classified information, forgive me, that
28:25was found at his home.
28:26And it also, with the exception of Russia and China, looks at espionage and other threat information from foreign adversaries
28:38in other countries.
28:39This is important when it comes to their specialty in the Middle East because they've been involved in essentially catching
28:47people on U.S. soil who are operatives of foreign governments, and that includes Iran.
28:55Iran has a long and terrible history of assassinating people in other countries, not just in the Middle East, but
29:04throughout Europe, even making attempts here in the United States.
29:08I mean, going back decades, you look at, in the 80s and 90s, what they call the chain murders, where
29:13there were literally dozens of Iranian dissidents and opposition figures who were killed mysteriously all over the world.
29:20It turned out to be an Iranian intelligence and security services plot that did that.
29:25It does seem like this is, for everything else that Iran is and isn't, it does seem like they've invested
29:32a lot in their ability to kind of reach around the world and affect the kind of change that the
29:38regime wants,
29:39specifically with assassinations and other kinds of sabotage plots.
29:43Is that why the FBI sort of has this unit that works on it from Iran and they separate it
29:50from, for example, what China and Russia do and some of the other big adversaries that we've got along those
29:54lines?
29:56You're on the right track.
29:57The reason Russia and China are separate is because they're so, such behemoths, right, that they need their own teams,
30:04essentially, their own specialists.
30:06But the Middle East is a great concern and Iran is chief among them.
30:10I mean, we all have, I hope, are all aware that when Donald Trump, in his first presidency, ordered the
30:19drone strike that killed a Revolutionary Guard general, a very beloved one there, Qasem Soleimani,
30:26when that happened, it spurred literally multiple murder-for-hire operations.
30:32One that I wrote a lot about involved a fellow named Asif Merchant, who the FBI found here in Houston
30:40and also in New York, offering to meet former convicts, former releasees from prison,
30:47and saying that he had up to a million dollars to offer people if they would help him kill Donald
30:53Trump.
30:53And let's put that in some scary context.
30:57He had done so much reconnaissance, the FBI discovered, that he had basically reviewed the Secret Service protocol for Donald
31:05Trump,
31:06and he reported back with pictures how many agents surrounded Donald Trump at a time on the campaign trail after
31:13he'd left the presidency and was running again for re-election,
31:17and had tracked, you know, how could you pierce, essentially, that circle, that bubble around Donald Trump?
31:24Wow.
31:25And that, again, the trial in that case, the trial, you know, that's ongoing.
31:30I mean, the federal prosecution around this is something that we owe to the counterintelligence work and the Justice Department
31:38work to bring those things into federal court and air them out.
31:44And firing the FBI agents who work on this kind of stuff at this time, it's just hard to get
31:49our head around.
31:51MSNOW Senior Investigative.
31:52Yeah, go ahead, Carol.
31:53I was just going to say one more line, which is, I mean, this is only the latest, right?
31:58We know of dozens of FBI agents who've been removed from the field, either forced out or resigning in, you
32:08know, disconsolate at what they've been ordered to do and uncomfortable doing it.
32:13But we have lost, you know, centuries.
32:14As Americans, we have lost centuries' worth of experience in the FBI to protect us from this threat and many,
32:23many others.
32:24Yeah, heck of a time for it.
32:26MSNOW Senior Investigative Correspondent Carol Lennig, so grateful for your time tonight and for your reporting.
32:31Carol, thank you.
32:31It's great to have you here.
32:32Thank you, Rachel.
32:34Much more news ahead.
32:35Stay with us.
33:05Senator Tammy Duckworth lost most of her right leg and much of her left one when her Blackhawk helicopter was
33:12hit by enemy fire in Iraq.
33:14Tonight, Senator Duckworth issued a stark assessment of what she has heard so far from the Trump administration and from
33:21the president himself about Trump's somewhat inexplicable new war in Iran.
33:29You know, I am proud of every mission that I completed in Iraq.
33:34But I would never wish another needless, endless, unjustified war like the one that I served in on anyone else.
33:42For no real reason he can explain, Trump is marching us closer and closer to another costly, bloody, protracted conflict.
33:50A war without any defined end state and even without a concept of a plan for how to prevent the
33:58chaos and instability that will come next.
34:00Look, I believe there are certain solemn, urgent times when our military must be caught on to defend us.
34:07There are certain moments when the threat in question is significant and imminent.
34:12Instances when military force is the most effective tool at hand and that using it is necessary to protect America
34:18and her interests.
34:19The thing is, from what little information Trump has shared publicly so far, this is not one of those times.
34:28Joining us now live is Senator Tammy Duckworth, a Democrat of Illinois, member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and
34:34the Foreign Relations Committee.
34:35She's the recipient of a Purple Heart.
34:37Senator Duckworth, thank you so much for joining us.
34:39I really appreciate having you here tonight of all nights.
34:42Thanks for having me on, Rachel.
34:45Do you understand tonight, as we're sitting here talking live, do you understand why the president started this war?
34:53Do you understand what the rationale for starting this war was?
34:56Are you asking me if I understand what they're telling me or what I think they're doing?
35:01Yes, the answer is yes.
35:03There's two different things, right?
35:05What they're telling me makes absolutely no sense.
35:07I mean, in the briefing that Rubio gave today, basically he said, well, we knew that they would hit us
35:13if somebody else hit them,
35:14so we're going to hit them first so that they don't hit us second.
35:17I mean, it's just a circular logic.
35:19And remember that earlier, just a couple of days ago, Trump said, oh, they're going to develop their nuclear weapons.
35:25And this was just a couple of weeks after he said, oh, no, we destroyed their nuclear program.
35:30We annihilated it.
35:31So what is it?
35:32What is the imminent threat under Article 1 of our Constitution that justifies him doing this?
35:37What do I think he's trying to do?
35:39This is Trump bumping his chest.
35:41I think this is him playing to his oil interests.
35:45And I think this is him trying to distract the American people from the economy and from the Epstein files.
35:50That's what he's doing.
35:51And he's using the lives of our brave men and women in uniform to do it.
35:56What is your sense of your colleagues in the Senate, both on the Democratic side but also across the aisle,
36:02in terms of whether or not people are buying one of the self-contradictory rationales that they've offered for this
36:12fight,
36:13whether they believe that this is something that the Congress should retroactively authorize if and when there's a vote on
36:20it?
36:22Well, Richard, I don't know if my Republican colleagues are going to grow a spine anytime soon.
36:26They've all become invertebrates.
36:28You know, they're hiding in their shells.
36:29I hope they do in this case.
36:30We've already lost six American service members' lives, and so many more are in harm's way right now.
36:37I hope that they hold their oath of office dearer to their hearts than they do Donald Trump.
36:44I will talk to as many of my colleagues as possible to say, hey, bring them to the – you
36:50know, let's have this debate on the floor.
36:51Let's talk about what are the reasons.
36:53And then we'll have that vote.
36:55The least we can do is our job.
36:57We certainly are expecting our servicemen and women to do their job.
37:00Then we in Congress should have that debate, and then let's take the vote.
37:05In terms of what has been set off already here, we are seeing Iran making retaliatory strikes throughout the region
37:11in multiple countries.
37:13Saudi Arabia is reporting tonight that the U.S. embassy in Riyadh in Saudi Arabia has been hit by two
37:18Iranian drones.
37:20The headlines tonight are just stark in terms of this having spread already to a dozen countries,
37:24to nobody really understanding the reach that this might have or what the ricochet effects of this might be,
37:32both in terms of direct military action but also in terms of economic consequences,
37:38refugee flows, energy availability.
37:44What is your sense, just in a national security sense, in terms of how big this conflagration might become
37:52and whether or not the Trump administration understands the scope of what they might have set in motion?
37:59Well, you know, Rachel, we have the least qualified security defense in our nation's history.
38:03I don't think they understand what they have done here.
38:05They've created a power vacuum in Iran.
38:08They have now basically enabled our adversaries like the PRC and Russia.
38:14And, you know, all of these organized terrorist organizations now have an opening the way we created a power vacuum
38:23for ISIS to rise in Iraq.
38:26Now we're at a place where Iran has lost its leadership.
38:31You know, I don't mourn Khomeini at all.
38:33I'm glad he's dead.
38:34But now there's this instability in leadership there and there's a power vacuum.
38:39Unfortunately, the democracy protesters are not an organized group.
38:43And so this is, as you're seeing, spreading very, very quickly.
38:46Our friends and allies in the region are being hit.
38:50Now we've got oil tankers being hit.
38:52But this is going to and has already started spiraling out of out of control.
38:59Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois.
39:01Senator, it's a it's a real pleasure to have you anytime we can get you here on the show, but
39:05particularly tonight in the midst of all this.
39:06Thank you so much for making time to be with us.
39:10All right. We'll be right back. Stay with us.
39:14This is the Los Cactus restaurant, which is in the Minneapolis area.
39:18It's a local immigrant owned Mexican restaurant, really popular place.
39:23Owners of that restaurant were forced to close their doors for two weeks after the Trump administration's immigration raids in
39:32Minneapolis made workers there.
39:35And a lot of people who eat there too afraid to come to work and too afraid to show up
39:39at a restaurant like that.
39:40Well, this week, local members of the Minneapolis community decided they would pack into Los Cactus and four other immigrant
39:49owned restaurants affected by the ICE attack on that city.
39:53People just made a big concerted effort to come out to patronize immigrant owned businesses and restaurants.
39:58At Los Cactus, they got a nice hot meal in their bellies and then they headed right back out into
40:03the cold Minneapolis weather that same day to protest what the Trump administration has been doing to their city and
40:11others.
40:12When it comes to the backlash against ICE, we obviously on this show have been keeping a close eye on
40:17protests, particularly on protests now against the new Trump prison camps, which they are trying to build all over the
40:23country.
40:24Our reporting on that continues.
40:25Even when we're not on the air talking about it, we're working on it.
40:29But I also want to tell you about something to keep an eye on tomorrow morning.
40:33We've been watching what really feels like a sort of growing revolt in the judiciary against the Trump administration, particularly
40:40against the Trump administration defying court orders when it comes to the way they are treating immigrants.
40:46We've seen judge after judge of all different ideological stripes repeatedly now lambasting the administration for breaking court orders, specifically
40:55in the way they are treating immigrants and the tactics of their federal immigration agents.
41:00We've seen it from liberal and conservative judges in states all over the country, including really conservative places like West
41:07Virginia.
41:08But now here's something to watch for specifically tomorrow morning.
41:12This is fascinating.
41:14A federal judge in Minnesota has demanded that tomorrow morning the Trump appointed U.S. attorney for Minneapolis and the
41:23civil division chief from that office and a representative from ICE all need to show up in court in person
41:28to explain why Trump administration
41:30officials shouldn't be held in contempt for violating that judge's orders and the case here is not just a general
41:38case about ICE tactics and how they've been treating people this past year.
41:41It's really specific.
41:42This case is where they're being told to show up in person and they're facing contempt charges.
41:47This case is about ICE stealing stuff.
41:51It's about ICE's repeated tactic of essentially stealing property from immigrants when they detain them, taking cash, cell phones, jewelry,
42:02driver's licenses, IDs, passports, and then never giving them back.
42:06What is ICE doing with these people's jewelry?
42:09The judge in this case says the U.S. government has until 9 a.m. Central Time tomorrow to return
42:14all of that stolen property that ICE has taken from immigrants they have arrested.
42:19Or the judge says he will consider holding those Trump administration officials in contempt and he wants them in his
42:24courtroom tomorrow to look him in the eye when he does it.
42:28That hearing expected to happen at 9 a.m. Central Time tomorrow.
42:31We will be watching.
42:33Watch this space.
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