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00:01Tonight on All In.
00:04This is common sense cooperation that allows to draw down on the number of people we have here.
00:10Yes, I said it. Draw down the number of people here.
00:13The Trump administration signals de-escalation.
00:17Are we hopeful that there will be a drawdown?
00:20What I will say is I will believe it when I see it.
00:22Tonight, will the backlash to Trump's toxic policy be enough to stop it in Minnesota and beyond?
00:28Then, the fight to stop Stephen Miller and ICE in Congress.
00:32Plus, Maryland Governor Westmore on his pushback to Trump's attack on democracy.
00:36And what on earth is happening in Fulton County, Georgia?
00:41This is a seismic event.
00:44This should have people across the country absolutely shook.
00:48But All In starts right now.
00:55Good evening from New York. I'm Chris Hayes.
00:57Donald Trump's masked agents are still terrorizing Americans.
01:01I just got back from Minneapolis, where I encountered a city in a kind of standstill,
01:06as if laid siege to during a war.
01:09I mean, I cannot overstate the degree to which ICE has completely altered the texture of daily life there.
01:16There are 3,000 agents on the streets of Minnesota.
01:21They outnumber Minneapolis-St. Paul police there three to one.
01:24And they are spending every day hunting immigrants and American citizens alike.
01:29I mean, folks are leaving their businesses closed.
01:31There's entire strips where the doors are closed and locked because they don't want ICE coming in
01:36to avoid being harassed or raided.
01:39Here's one thing that I was learning about today.
01:42Patients are forgoing medical care, lest they be violently detained on their way to the doctor's office or ER.
01:49I mean, we're talking about hundreds, if not thousands, of folks who are scared about getting picked up by ICE
01:53and so are staying inside, even if they have urgent medical issues.
01:56I talked to a doctor who described women giving birth at home for fear of being nabbed by ICE if
02:03they went to the hospital.
02:05Parents are keeping their kids home from school, hundreds, maybe thousands of kids doing remote learning
02:10for fear they might be abducted at a bus stop.
02:12ICE is circling around schools in the local area, and every school now has a patrol with folks in green
02:18vests trying to spot ICE.
02:21So the question is, when will this madness end?
02:25Will it really end?
02:26Or is the administration just playing political games?
02:29Well, today, the big development was that Trump's so-called border czar, Tom Homan,
02:33who has been overseeing the campaign of terror in Minnesota for the last few days since CBP official Greg Bovino
02:39was reassigned,
02:40signaled there may be an opportunity to wind down operations there.
02:45No agency organization is perfect.
02:48President Trump and I, along with others in the administration, have recognized that certain improvements could and should be made.
02:55That's exactly what I'm doing here.
02:57The withdrawal of law enforcement resources here is dependent upon cooperation.
03:03Like I said, one agent arresting one bad guy in the jail means less agents on the street.
03:08We have some agreements.
03:09We've got more to talk about how we're going to implement these agreements.
03:12But as we see that cooperation happen, then the redeployment will happen.
03:20OK, I mean, bad guy.
03:22Is the five-year-old Liam Ramos a bad guy?
03:25Is that what you mean by bad guy?
03:27Here's the problem.
03:28This administration, of course, has zero credibility.
03:30They lie like they breathe.
03:31We can't trust anything they say, whether it's an excuse for the use of deadly force against American citizens
03:36or pledges to draw down their campaign of menace on American streets.
03:40At the sort of point of a gun, as it were, right?
03:43I mean, the sort of coercion.
03:46Just in the last hour, Trump himself said there would be no drawdown in Minnesota.
03:51So also earlier today, Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine announced that Homeland Security Kristi Noem
03:57confirmed to her ICE would end its surge targeting immigrants in her state.
04:01And we've heard stories in the last week or so coming out of Maine that are very similar to Minnesota,
04:05including cars left by the side of the road after an abduction with the keys still in it and the
04:10hazards on.
04:11But who knows if what Noem told Collins is actually true.
04:15We don't even know if Kristi Noem is the one calling shots anymore.
04:19In fact, it seems increasingly likely she could be Trump's scapegoat for this entire debacle
04:23amid bipartisan calls for her removal and or impeachment.
04:27Notably, Noem was not called to speak at today's televised cabinet meeting.
04:32We don't know why.
04:33A number of other cabinet secretaries did speak.
04:36We also know, interestingly, President Trump, who managed to appear to doze off only once,
04:42also refused to take questions.
04:45The most likely reason for that is that they understand they're in damage control mode.
04:49They see that people across the country don't like this.
04:52But even if all that were true, and even if Noem is telling the truth about ICE leaving Maine,
04:56there is no indication this larger Trump immigration campaign of terror is ending, right?
05:00I mean, the intent appears to be to play kind of whack-a-mole with American cities.
05:06Because those 3,000 Asians can simply be deployed somewhere else where they would start doing
05:10the exact same things they've been doing in Minnesota, as they did similarly in Chicago
05:14and Los Angeles and other places.
05:17Tom Homan, in that respect, gave away the game.
05:19He said something today that I have been shocked at from the moment it left his lips
05:24and I've been thinking about all day.
05:26Today, when he's there to presumably kind of tamp down the temperature,
05:30he spoke about DHS federal agents' presence in our cities, in American cities, in terms of war.
05:42Another thing I witnessed when I came here, I'll share this with you.
05:45I've met with a lot of people, a lot of the agents.
05:48They've been in theater.
05:49Some of these people have been in theater for eight months.
05:52So there's going to be rotations of personnel.
05:55They've been in theater a long time.
05:56And so, you know, there's rotations happen all the time to get people out of here
05:59and go home, get some rest and see their families.
06:03They've been in theater?
06:05They've been in theater, like in Normandy or Kaysan?
06:09That's how you talk about a war zone theater.
06:11They've actually been in Minneapolis, Minnesota, or Los Angeles, California, or Chicago, Illinois,
06:18a Midwestern American city.
06:20The Trump administration has decided to wage this conflict as invaders making war on American population.
06:27I cannot tell you how many times Minnesotans said,
06:30we feel like we're having a war waged upon us.
06:34And they're waging it on citizens and non-citizens alike.
06:36And they now have a casualty count.
06:39The only defense that has had any effect is this remarkable, widespread mass resistance
06:46to this federal occupation.
06:48Because public opinion is not on his side.
06:51New Pew poll today has Donald Trump's approval rating at just 37%.
06:55Now, that's a high-quality poll.
06:56That's the lowest of his term.
07:00And it's pretty clear what's driving it recently is what's been happening in Minneapolis.
07:04Large part because folks don't like what they're seeing.
07:06The politics of it are toxic.
07:08And the question is, will there be enough backlash to force Trump to back down?
07:14Donald Trump cannot be shamed.
07:15But he does care about his own ego and vanity.
07:18He does understand optics.
07:20He does understand when things look bad enough for him personally that it's easier to just cut his losses.
07:25Remember, this has happened once before.
07:27I said it last night, but it's really worth repeating.
07:29It's exactly what happened during the family separation crisis during Trump's first term.
07:34Enough people were shocked and repulsed by the images of migrant children being ripped from the arms of their parents
07:40that Trump was forced to reverse course on his own policy.
07:44And it's worth remembering the guy behind that entire debacle was none other than Tom Holm and the Borders are.
07:51The guy that Trump sent to Minneapolis today to talk about a so-called drawdown from the theater.
07:57So the question now is, can that same political pressure be mobilized to stop this?
08:01Today, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Fry, who's been on the front lines of this political fight,
08:05called on his fellow mayors to step up and resist.
08:09We recognize that one great American city is experiencing an invasion.
08:16That is an invasion on our democracy, on our republic, and on each and every one of us.
08:22And the fact that you all are standing up means the world.
08:25We are on the front lines of a very important battle.
08:29And it's important that we aren't silenced, that we aren't put down.
08:34This is not a time to bend our heads in despair or out of fear that we may be next.
08:39Because if we do not speak up, if we do not step out, it will be your city that is
08:46next.
08:48Joining me now is Senator Tammy Duckworth, a Democrat from Illinois, of course, sort of Chicago,
08:53experienced something somewhat similar to this, not quite on the scale of what we've seen in the Twin Cities.
08:59Senator, it's good to have you.
08:59I mean, first, just your how what you saw in Chicago up close and what you're seeing out of Minnesota
09:05is informing what your approach to this is as a legislator, as a politician, as a citizen.
09:13Well, what we saw in Chicago led me to actually put out an announcement last week
09:18that I was not going to vote for this budget.
09:20I'm not there's not another day that's going to go by that I'm going to vote to fund ICE any
09:25further.
09:26In Chicago, they shot and killed one person.
09:28They shot another one, another woman who survived, but she was shot something like six or seven times.
09:34They pepper sprayed children.
09:38They shot a priest who was praying for them in the head with pepper bullets from a sniper position,
09:44three floors above three, three stories above the priest.
09:47And now you see that they are out there murdering people in Minneapolis.
09:50So we have to rein ICE in.
09:53And this simply is not acceptable on the streets of our cities.
09:57So currently, just in the last few hours, it's a little complicated.
10:00There's a bunch there's basically a number of funding bills that unlike I want to just set the table for
10:05people.
10:05So people understand the last shutdown were these basically continuing resolution that was entirely negotiated by Republicans.
10:11They just came up with it.
10:13And that's where they didn't extend the subsidies.
10:15There's a big shutdown fight.
10:16This time's a bit different.
10:18These appropriations bills have gone through what's called regular order.
10:21They've come through committees.
10:22They have been negotiated in a bipartisan fashion.
10:25They restore some funding in some of these agencies that have been cut that have been important to Democrats.
10:31There's a number of them.
10:33My understanding right now is a deal has been cut to vote on five of them and to keep the
10:38DHS one separate and vote for a two week.
10:42Basically, continuation of that DHS funding is that do I have that right?
10:47That's my understanding of the deal, Chris.
10:50But as of right now, I have not seen the final text of it.
10:54Leadership has worked out a deal.
10:57But I'm waiting to see exactly what that what it actually says.
11:01And remember, two weeks extension of the funding for DHS is a time for us to be able to negotiate
11:07for several things, which Democrats have made it clear.
11:10There are three main things we want.
11:11We want to get Border Patrol out of our cities and back on the border.
11:15You know, did you know that right now they're allowed to range 100 air miles from the border and Lake
11:19Michigan is considered a border?
11:21We want to make sure that there are independent investigations of ICE and also no more masks and no more
11:28body cams.
11:30Those are three very simple things that Democrats have asked for.
11:34You know, the one thing I've been thinking about this because in some ways, even if you get that written
11:39into law, will they obey it seems unlikely.
11:42I mean, I keep saying this, but the Epstein files law got passed with essentially unanimously and signed by Donald
11:48Trump.
11:48And they're now 40 days into completely ignoring it.
11:51It does seem to me the central thing, though, if I could just say what people in Minnesota were saying.
11:56And I think you would agree in Chicago is that this notion of the combination of the masks with the
12:02kind of roving violation of basic constitutional protections.
12:08The Fourth Amendment, the Fourth Amendment, to name just one, where they just roll up on a car because they
12:12see someone who they think is brown or black or, you know, not white.
12:17Right. And they grab people in parking lots or that that that aspect of it feels like the both the
12:26most different and the most vicious and the thing that's most important to stop, if that makes sense.
12:31Do you agree? Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.
12:34This is they're doing it based on the Kavanaugh.
12:36We're calling those Kavanaugh stops. Right.
12:38It's a Justice Kavanaugh ruling that DHS is allowed to target individuals based solely on their accents or ethnicities.
12:45And by the way, a recent memo, a secret memo from acting ICE director Todd Lyons was recently leaked that
12:53says that they've decided on their own that they may now enter homes and residences without consent to conduct arrests
13:01based solely on these administrative warrants that are just signed by an ICE official, not a judicial warrant.
13:06So absolutely. The Trump administration just ignores the Constitution, ignores the law, and they try to establish new precedents. Right.
13:13And we can't allow them to do that.
13:16So that memo, by the way, you just noted, was, I think, drafted in May, recently leaked just so people
13:21have the timeline on that.
13:23Are you I guess you haven't looked at it yet, but I mean, I guess there's some argument that in
13:28moving the DHS out of the other bundle, it increases leverage for Senate Democrats because it would be very hard
13:34to hold the caucus together.
13:34If there was a full shutdown of all the other agencies, would you are you going to vote for this
13:39deal?
13:40Do you think the president is endorsing it right now? Leadership seems to be behind it.
13:44Yeah, I'm going to wait for the text and see what it says.
13:47But I will tell you that I was a no vote on Friday when it was the whole package still,
13:52despite, you know,
13:54I have concerns also with the DOD funding piece because I feel like they have completely abused our nation's military,
14:01our military men and women and the really egregious use of the National Guard against governors' consent into our cities.
14:09They occupied Chicago. And so I'm going to take a long, hard look at whether or not I can be
14:14a yes vote on any of this.
14:15You just used the word occupied Chicago, the use of the National Guard.
14:19I want to ask you as someone who served our country and served in a theater, in theater of war,
14:24like to hear an American federal official describe agents of the government as being in theater in Minneapolis or other
14:32cities, how that struck your ears?
14:35Well, it sickened me because this is the Midwest. This is our cities. And listen, if it's Chicago, if it's
14:45Minneapolis, it could be your city next.
14:47And literally, you know, what struck me, Chris, I had more stringent rules of engagement when I was in Iraq
14:55about what I could do to civilians there than ICE does with the citizens on the streets of our cities
15:00today.
15:01Well, Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, thank you so much for making some time with us. I really appreciate it.
15:08Thanks for having me on.
15:10Coming up, how Donald Trump's toxic agenda is costing him dearly with the American people. That's next.
15:19One of the big things we're seeing coming out of the tragedies in Minnesota is that people across the country
15:23are turning away from Trump's immigration policies in a big way.
15:26And we saw this firsthand in the streets of Minneapolis. I mean, the city there is just the twin cities
15:32are incredibly united against what they view as an invasion.
15:35I mean, the public opinion, public sentiment there really feels like the kind you would encounter among people who are
15:41at war. Right.
15:43But we're also seeing it in polling more broadly. Here's one example.
15:47New Fox News poll finds that 59 percent of voters think ICE is being too aggressive.
15:51That's up 10 percent from July. You see that 24 percent. Right. 17, not aggressive enough.
15:57Patrick Gaspard serves the executive director of the DNC. He's now a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.
16:01John Rawlson is the founder and CEO of the Nevada Independent.
16:04The author of a new book, which just came out last week, The Game Changer, How Howie Reed Remade the
16:09Rules and Showed Democrats How to Fight.
16:10And they join me now. First, just, you know, there's something happening right now with people's revulsion to what we
16:17saw.
16:17I mean, it's being registered. I think you don't have to be like particularly insightful to see that.
16:22I think they particularly to people shot dead in the streets by their government and then basically slandered and lied
16:29about immediately.
16:32The question before, you know, the Democratic Party, progressives, all this is like, OK, well, what do we do with
16:38this public opinion changing?
16:41What is the message here?
16:42What do you think? So we live in a time, Chris, where and when it's absolutely impossible to get anybody's
16:47attention and to hold that attention right now,
16:49for the first time in a long time, people who had shut off politics are looking in and saying, what
16:54the heck is going on in my country?
16:56So this is a moment if you're a Democrat and you want to regain power, but make that power durable,
17:02that you lean in hard.
17:03You lean in with values, stories, you foreground people on average people who are doing extraordinary things on the ground
17:10in Minnesota that are about small d Democratic values.
17:13And then you make it very clear the demands that you're making to this administration and Republicans and leadership.
17:19And then you make certain, as Harry Reid once did, that you are braiding together your Democratic values with also
17:27the need to carry on real enforcement at the border in the future.
17:30You can't disaggregate those two things.
17:32I mean, this is the thing that I think here's my theory of this.
17:35And I want to hear what you say about Reid, because Reid was a really interesting case study.
17:39Right. I think what basically happened is that Democrats kind of guts.
17:44They just stopped talking about it. They were like, that's a bad issue for us.
17:48Let's just not let's change the topic. And it doesn't that didn't work.
17:52It doesn't work. You got to have a vision for people.
17:54And I think personally we try to do on the show is like, I think immigrants are great.
17:58I think immigration is good for this country.
17:59You know, like I'm real glad that my great grandparents came from Sicily.
18:03Like that's it's also the case that people have all sorts of conflicting impulses about this.
18:10Right. There's compassion. There's also like I don't want to be overrun.
18:14This toughness instinct. And those instincts go across all sorts of lines, ethnicity, race and class in a really interesting
18:19way.
18:20Reid had a journey in his own career that sort of mirrored the Democratic Party.
18:25Tell me about that, because I think it informs where we are right now.
18:28I think you're right, Chris.
18:29I have done a lot of thinking during this time about what Harry Reid would have said and done during
18:34this time in our country's history.
18:35Back in the 90s, he was almost a nativist.
18:38He was saying they're taking American jobs.
18:40He was against birthright citizenship.
18:43And then his wife had a talking to with a kind of a come to Jesus.
18:47Her parents had escaped from Eastern Europe and come to this country probably illegally.
18:52The Hispanic population grew and became a force.
18:55And he became a huge advocate for immigration, for the DREAM Act.
18:59In fact, during a very contentious race in 2010, his advisers told him not to bring up the DREAM Act.
19:05And he said, it's the right thing to do.
19:07I don't care what the political consequences are.
19:10And he did it.
19:10Mark Melman, his poster, who just recently passed away, told him, don't do this.
19:14You're going to lose the race.
19:16And he eked out that victory that year.
19:17He eked out the victory that year.
19:19And so, as Patrick said, he did believe in enforcement and secure the border.
19:23Listen, the Democrats have been terrible about their messaging on this for a long time, I think, Chris.
19:28And I think that part of the reason that Latinos, especially young Latinos, turned against Democrats in 24 was the
19:36feeling of being taken for granted for a long time.
19:39That people like Harry Reid, frankly, used comprehensive immigration reform just to try to win elections, to try to pander
19:46to the Hispanic vote.
19:49This is a completely different case, though, Chris.
19:51And you were just in Minneapolis, and you know this.
19:53People are being told not to believe what they see with their own eyes.
19:58And just imagine if we were still in an era where there were no cell phones.
20:02Well, I think there's two things that are being exposed here.
20:04One is the credibility issue, right?
20:06Like, people don't.
20:06There's also just the fact that, like, I think people do.
20:10There's a little bit.
20:11Sometimes you'll see this about, you know, people's approval of Congress or their member of Congress, right?
20:16They hate Congress, but they like their member.
20:17It's like, what do you think about immigration border security?
20:21Well, we've got to get tough.
20:23What do you think about that guy down the street who, like, is, you know, is working at a construction
20:29site?
20:30Or that mom there who you bought lunch from?
20:33Who's stuck on the shelf at your local New Orleans.
20:34Yeah, so it's like that.
20:36And what has happened is the abstract has been made tangible, right?
20:41So the abstract is, like, on the streets of Minnesota, it's like, that guy that you know just got grabbed
20:46out of a car.
20:47And now his kid is at home alone.
20:50And that is, I think, wildly toxic.
20:53A hundred percent.
20:54But here's what else has been made tangible for folks, Chris.
20:57Usually people can't get caught up in the budget discussions in Washington, D.C.
21:01But we've seen this in poll after poll, focus group after focus group.
21:05If you tell the average American that the United States right now is spending more money on immigration enforcement than
21:12every other nation on the planet is spending on their militaries, with the exception of China,
21:16they're shocked and appalled by that.
21:18And they realize something's wrong here.
21:20Not only is something out of whack on our priorities, but I am looking at television and I'm seeing five
21:25-year-olds who are out being taken off to camps.
21:28I see women being shot in the street.
21:31I see Alex Peretti, who's a VA nurse, not only being shot and killed, but I see the secretary talking
21:37about him as if he's a domestic terrorist.
21:39Something is off on those optics, but something's way off on the process in Washington, D.C., and that's what
21:46we're going to blame and hold Donald Trump accountable for.
21:48But to me, the big thing here, though, is you've got to have, and this comes back to Reid, and
21:52I think Barack Obama, I think, did an interesting job with this,
21:56although there's obviously a lot of critiques about particularly that first-term agenda, is that there's got to be some
22:01comprehensive, affirmative message about what do you stand for when it comes to immigration, right?
22:05I think that's right. And first, if you look at the prism through which Donald Trump is seeing everything right
22:10now, and you mentioned some of the adjustments,
22:13and nobody knows, most Americans don't know the difference between Tom Homan and Christine Noem or Bravino or any of
22:20these guys.
22:20But what they do know is they don't want these marauders on their streets pulling people from houses and leaving
22:26kids alone.
22:27So, you know, there's some thought, I'm sure, among Democrats, if your enemy's committing suicide, just stay out of the
22:32way.
22:32But that's not enough. And so they do need to say something. And I think it's okay to say, we
22:37think the border should be secure.
22:39We think criminals should be deported if they're here illegally.
22:43In fact, that's what they were saying in Minnesota, even the last few days.
22:46It's okay to say the obvious.
22:48No, that's exactly, but sometimes Democrats have missed that, Patrick, I'd have to say.
22:52But it's exactly what you said. Now that the abstract has become real, people who supported Donald Trump and what
22:59he was saying about illegal immigrants during the campaign say,
23:01wait a second, yeah, we should secure the border, but we don't want our cities to look like Minneapolis.
23:07And who knows where he goes next?
23:09Yeah, and this is just pulling from Pew today. I mean, here's people who say they support all or most
23:13of Donald Trump's plans and policies,
23:16has declined by 11 points among Republicans. Among Republicans.
23:21Like, he's losing on Republicans. His job approval is at 37 percent, which is low.
23:26And this is all happening against the backdrop.
23:27In the first term and throughout the first year of the second term, Trump's approval on immigration has always run
23:33ahead of his overall approval.
23:35Now that number is down at the exact same level.
23:37So it's clearly cratering with not just Democrats, but Republicans and independents as well, who are going to be critical
23:44in November for midterms.
23:45But what do all politicians do? And Trump is especially skilled at this, I would say, when they're in trouble
23:51on an issue.
23:51They try to change the subject.
23:53Yes. Right. So he's going to announce a new Fed chair.
23:55Yes. I hope people will focus on it.
23:56And he has done this flooding the zone that Steve Bannon told him to do so the media won't pay.
24:01No, don't don't look over here. Look, look over here.
24:04And I think the media has a responsibility here, too, Chris, to keep focused on this because of how outrageous
24:10the behavior of vice has been.
24:12And not to just report that he's made a pivot when there is no change in policy.
24:14This is the most important. And we have to be careful that Democrats don't compromise in the House and Senate
24:19and simply allow a slight shift without real reforms,
24:24real investigation, real accountability of what ICE is doing in these streets and the demilitarization of these enforcement policies.
24:30Also, I mean, as an American who whose tax dollars are part of the public good that we all collectively
24:36pay for, we are owed the information about who the agents are that shot and killed Al Fredis and and
24:43what is being done and how an investigation.
24:45I mean, it's insane to me. And we're owed the information of who pulled back the FBI from investigating the
24:50assassination of these two.
24:52Patrick Gasparge, John Walston. Thank you both.
24:55Still ahead, new reporting on the FBI raid in Fulton County, Georgia, and the just truly insane conspiracy theories that
25:05are driving it.
25:10The director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, has for months apparently been almost exclusively focused on Georgia, not the country
25:17of Georgia, the American state of Georgia.
25:19And that's because the president of the United States has been fixated on Georgia ever since he lost the election
25:23there in 2020.
25:25The Wall Street Journal reporting today that Tulsi Gabbard, director of national intelligence, has spent months investigating the results of
25:31the 2020 election that Donald Trump lost, according to White House officials.
25:34Gabbard is leading the administration's effort to reexamine the election and look for, excuse me, potential crimes, a priority for
25:42the president, the officials said.
25:44And so yesterday, pictures emerged of Gabbard and all black entering the election hub for Fulton County, Georgia, the director
25:51of national intelligence.
25:53Fulton County, you'll remember, was one of the many places Trump accused of voter fraud.
25:57There was no voter fraud. The ballots were counted like five times.
26:00But Gabbard was there at the election office with the FBI as they executed a search warrant.
26:05And Fulton County officials tell him is now that during that search, FBI agents took, quote, pallets of ballots from
26:12the county clerk offices, 700 boxes of them.
26:15Today, top Democrats in the Congressional Intelligence Committees are demanding answers.
26:21What the heck is she doing on the FBI serving a domestic warrant?
26:29If this doesn't concern the heck out of every American, it sure as hell should.
26:35This is a person who's got no business interfering in elections.
26:41Asha Ranggap is a lawyer, former FBI agent, senior lecturer at Yale University School of Global Affairs.
26:45She's been following the story closely and she joins me now.
26:49All right. First, Asha, like what on earth is going on here?
26:54So first, to begin with, the director of national intelligence.
26:58I mean, the DNI is not an investigative agency.
27:02It's an overseeing and coordinating role among all the intelligence agencies.
27:07So as soon as I saw that Tulsi Gabbard was there, a lot of bells started going off in my
27:12head.
27:13I have the memory of an elephant, which in the Trump era is kind of a curse.
27:18But it made me remember some, you know, some reporting from Trump's first administration
27:26where his team had looked into the seizing of ballots and voting machines.
27:34This was all part of the, you know, election conspiracies.
27:38One of the things that he had tried to do, he went to DHS.
27:41He wanted to see if DHS could seize voting machines.
27:44The acting director then said no.
27:46He went to DOJ, asked them.
27:49Bill Barr, attorney general at the time, said no.
27:52And so, you know, he was looking into the military seizing these voting machines.
27:56And one of the things that came up was that he would need some sort of pretext of foreign interference
28:04in order to do this.
28:07Because obviously, I mean, I don't think that he would even have any legitimate basis to do it then.
28:12But his lawyers were advising him that, you know, since this, so that would make it into some sort of
28:17national security issue.
28:18And I don't know if you remember, there were, this is where, like, these theories of Italian satellites.
28:24Oh, yeah.
28:24The ghost of Hugo Chavez with the Italian satellite.
28:27Yeah, exactly.
28:29So, you know, to me, Tulsi Gabbard being there suggests to me that there is some theory of foreign interference
28:37intertwined with, you know, this reprise of election fraud that, you know, is justifying that.
28:46Now, what's odd here is they clearly went to a magistrate judge and showed probable cause that a crime was
28:54committed.
28:55So, I think the big question is, and I mean, this is a normal federal magistrate judge.
29:00So, they presented some probable cause.
29:03The question is, what is that probable cause after all of this time?
29:08So, I mean, there's two ways I'm thinking about this.
29:11I mean, one is, it seems pretty clear that Tulsi Gabbard has been essentially completely sidelined from her actual day
29:18job at DNI.
29:20We know from reporting she was basically cut out of the entire Venezuela operation, which would be something that DNI
29:24would be intensely involved in.
29:27And so, this seems a little bit like when you're, like, cooking in the kitchen with a young child and
29:31they're getting in your way and you're like, oh, you can cook something.
29:34And, like, you give them a little dish that they can, like, mash around so they don't get in your
29:38way that, like, this is that version for Tulsi Gabbard.
29:41Like, oh, go get the ballots down in Fulton County, Tulsi.
29:45So, at one level, it's sort of absurd.
29:47Another level, it's like what John Ossoff said yesterday on Jen's show.
29:51I mean, this, like, the chief spy chief being involved in domestic law enforcement and the possible coercion or seizing
30:01of ballots feels like really, like, worst-case scenario kind of stuff.
30:07Well, let's also remember that we now have the former head of state of Venezuela in our custody.
30:17So, you know, I don't know whether that, you know, there is, I think, some timing coincidence.
30:24I had not thought of that.
30:27Right.
30:27Yeah.
30:28Yeah, he's sitting in a jail right now.
30:31And as far as I can tell, he probably doesn't have a lot to lose.
30:34I don't know.
30:36But, you know, if you wanted to validate some sort of theory, that could be there.
30:43And, you know, Tulsi Gabbard herself, I think, has spun previous intelligence that, you know, she downplayed or, I guess,
30:51even said that Russia didn't interfere, you know, in the 2016 election.
30:56So I think, you know, there is something clearly afoot with regard to some sort of foreign interference theory is
31:08where I'm paying my money.
31:11Yeah, that's interesting.
31:12I want to just say that the play with the Fulton County commissioner had to say about just, like, not
31:17having possession of the ballots and then being in the hands now of the Trump administration.
31:21Take a listen.
31:24As long as those documents were here in Fulton County, in our elections hub, under our care, I was confident,
31:31confident that they were safe and secure.
31:34Once they left that facility last night in those FBI trucks, I don't know where they are now.
31:40I don't know who has them.
31:42I don't know what they're doing with them.
31:44Are they opening the boxes?
31:45Are they stuffing other ballots in there?
31:47I have no clue.
31:49And on top of that, Asha, we have reporting our own that Kash Patel had ousted a senior FBI official
31:54in that bureau in Atlanta just a week or two ago.
31:59So Lord knows, like, what they are getting up to in that office right now.
32:05That's right.
32:06So the special agent in charge was removed six days ago.
32:09Not clear if it had to do with this particular case, but, you know, the Atlanta field office would be
32:17normally the one that's overseeing this.
32:20And it's not sure if, you know, where where this is being run out of, whether it's from headquarters or
32:26the Atlanta field office.
32:27It's also not the Atlanta U.S. attorney that's involved in this either.
32:33It's a Missouri.
32:34It's a Missouri Trump appointee U.S. attorney who apparently has been deputized for, like, nationwide fraud investigation.
32:40So they have they have kind of stovepiped this the way they tend to do with all these really sketchy
32:45cases where they're running an end around the bureaucracy.
32:48So we're going to keep following this.
32:50Asha Rangappa, thank you as always for your time.
32:52Appreciate it.
32:54Thanks.
32:55So to come, Maryland, Governor Wes Moore joins me right here on what the ice threat means for his state.
33:00That's next.
33:04They are not going after the worst of the worst.
33:07They are terrorizing us.
33:09And that is essentially because this is about retribution.
33:14This is about the fact that we didn't vote for him.
33:16This is the fact that we are a community that is strong, that is resilient, that is strong, that shows
33:22the best of America.
33:23Something I heard over and over from people in Minneapolis, ordinary folks and elected officials this week.
33:29Yes, the ice occupation is about mass deportations.
33:32It's about purging immigrants from the national fabric.
33:35But also on a deeper level, it's about this retribution that Ilhan Omar described, that Donald Trump views states where
33:41large majorities did not support him as enemy territory in theater, places that have to be subdued, that have to
33:47be punished by his federal government.
33:48And it has meant that governors in those states have had to manage tense standoffs with the federal government that
33:53they depend upon for resources and everything else, from the National Guard deployment in Los Angeles to Operation, quote, Midway
33:59Blitz in Illinois to what's happening right now in Minnesota.
34:01And that's only likely to continue, even as Trump's poll numbers decline and he gets more desperate.
34:06Governors across the country have to find ways to protect their constituents and resist him.
34:11Joining me now is one such governor, Wes Moore, Democrat of Maryland.
34:14It's good to have you here.
34:15It's great to be back with you.
34:17What is your perspective watching all this play out?
34:21There has been this kind of, you know, they've moved through different places.
34:23Maine also in the last week.
34:25As a governor of a state, that is the kind of one that could end up in the crosshairs of
34:30Tom Holman or Donald Trump.
34:31Well, the thing that we know is that this is a realization of all of our worst fears when we
34:36saw this starting to happen.
34:38And it is true.
34:39It could be Minnesota today, but it could be any of our Democratic or Republican states tomorrow.
34:45I'm the vice chair of the National Governors Association, and I know that we're standing with Democratic and Republican governors
34:50who are saying what we are seeing from ICE is not just in many cases illegal.
34:55It is silly that we are watching an organization that is now the largest military law enforcement force in the
35:02country, an organization that in 2024 had a budget of $10 million.
35:06Now its budget is $10 billion.
35:08Now its budget is $85 billion, a 750 percent increase to deploy people to our neighborhoods who are untrained, unqualified,
35:17and unaccountable.
35:19And so there's a reason why governors, Democratic and Republican governors, are saying enough, and we cannot allow this type
35:27of tragedy to continue to happen inside of our communities.
35:30You know, Jacob Solaroff did a great interview with Governor Walz yesterday.
35:33And, you know, governors talk to the president sometimes, right?
35:38And the states have to interact with, partner in the federal government, national emergencies, a million things.
35:45And this real palpable sense, I mean, Walz had this amazing line last night where he said Trump was like,
35:48we've done such a good job.
35:50And then he was bragging about the Venezuela operation as if, like, those are two of the same category, like
35:55what we did in Minnesota and what we did in Venezuela, which is unnerving.
35:59As a governor, what has your experience of that been like with this administration, particularly compared to the Biden administration,
36:05where you, because of the bridge, had to do a lot of interaction as well?
36:08Well, we saw that it's not just that the relationship between the state and the feds in many ways have
36:14been altered.
36:15Actually, in many ways, it's been severed.
36:16Now, so I've been clear with the people of my state, you know, I will work with anyone, that we
36:22are currently working with the administration on everything from the key bridge and making sure the key bridge can continue
36:28to be the fastest moving large project in the country, ensuring that we can work on things like the American
36:34Legion Bridge.
36:35So we will work with the administration.
36:37But I'm clear with them.
36:38I will work with anybody, but I will bow down to nobody.
36:42And we have a solemn obligation and responsibility to protect the people of our states, to make sure that we
36:48are doing things that they want us to do, make life more affordable for them, making our states more competitive,
36:52but also protecting them, even if the people that are going after them are the federal government, like we have
36:58seen in so many cases, what they're doing to the people of Maryland.
37:01One of the other things that you're doing in your state is looking at redistricting.
37:05Yes.
37:05The state's congressional delegations.
37:07I believe there's one Republican district right now in Maryland.
37:10Am I right?
37:10Um, there's a big fight over this, uh, Democrats in your state who don't want to redistrict, um, and are
37:16quite angry at you and like a little bit of a civil war breaking out over this.
37:19You're pushing for redistricting.
37:21Uh, why?
37:22Well, I'm not pushing, uh, because I want to see I'm pushing because I believe in democracy that Donald Trump
37:29started by asking Texas to say, well, I need you to find me seats.
37:33And then he continued and went to North Carolina and Florida and Missouri and Ohio because Donald Trump knew that
37:41he had to try to manipulate the results in order to try to get an election.
37:45This has been deeply painful to the people of my state.
37:48Donald Trump and J.D. Vance have now fired over 25,000 Marylanders, federal workers, that we've not received a
37:55dollar of federal disaster aid or disaster relief.
37:58In fact, no state that did not vote for Donald Trump has, and that we are watching.
38:02Is that true?
38:03That is absolutely true.
38:04Not a single state that did not vote for Donald Trump has received a dollar of federal disaster relief.
38:09And I know that because when we had flooding in Western Maryland, historic flooding in Western Maryland.
38:14And by the way, that's an area that voted for Donald Trump.
38:17You know, seven out of 10 people voted for Donald Trump in that area.
38:19And then they looked at us and said, well, support for Maryland is not warranted, despite having tens of millions
38:24of dollars of disaster, of flooding.
38:28And they looked at us and said, you are on your own.
38:30And so this is deeply personal for me, as deeply personal for me as the country's only black governor when
38:36I'm watching this political redlining that's taking place.
38:38And so I'm proud of the fact that our House of Repra, that our House of Delegates right now, who's
38:43led by a fantastic speaker named Justin Pena Melnick, who is the first Afro-Latina speaker in our state's history,
38:50is pushing legislation to get it passed.
38:53And when it goes on to the Maryland Senate, the ask is very simple.
38:56Call the vote.
38:57Respect democracy.
38:58That's the only ask we have.
38:59And that is where there is some resistance in that Senate.
39:02Well, I would hope that they believe in democracy in the same way that the House of Delegates believe in
39:09democracy, because the House of Delegates are basically saying this, debate the maps, make adjustments if you see fit, but
39:15then call the vote.
39:17Earlier today, the governor of Louisiana, Mr. Landry, who is also now the special envoy to Greenland, which is an
39:23incredible hybrid position, I think probably the first in American history, said something along the lines of, you know,
39:30I don't understand why Democrats don't want to have a safe environment for their kids.
39:35They could walk to school and not worry about being victims of crime.
39:37And we've heard this sort of like crime is the justification for the immigration purge, even though everyone will tell
39:43you Minnesota has absolutely nothing to do with that.
39:46That's right.
39:46But it's also the case that in city after city with democratic government governance and state after state, we have
39:52seen historic, essentially historically unparalleled, at least since the early 90s.
39:59And in some cases, record setting crime decreases.
40:01And the epicenter of that has been in Maryland, particularly in the city of Baltimore.
40:05That's right.
40:05If you look at if you look at the year before I became the governor and the seven years before
40:09I became the governor, the homicide rate in the state of Maryland had nearly doubled.
40:13Right.
40:14Baltimore City was averaging about a homicide a day in 2022.
40:18And we decided to do something really unique.
40:20We decided to start working together, started working with the mayor, started working with the state's attorney, started working with
40:25law, local law enforcement.
40:26But most importantly, started working with the community and our community violence interrupters and giving historic funding to them and
40:33also making Maryland one of the only states that actually helps to fund the U.S. attorney out of balance
40:37sheet and being very clear with violent offenders.
40:40If you are a violent offender, particularly with a firearm, we will have you in handcuffs in 24 hours.
40:44But also let's create opportunities for our young people at the same time.
40:47And we have now seen how Maryland has had the fastest drops in violent crime anywhere in the United States
40:53of America over the past two and a half years that that the last time the homicide rate was this
40:58low in the state of Maryland was 40 years ago.
41:01And in Baltimore City, I wasn't even born yet the last time the homicide rates were this low.
41:05And so the truth is, I don't need a lecture from any governor.
41:08And I definitely don't need a lecture from the president of the United States about what it means to keep
41:12your people safe, but also focusing on opportunity for your people as well.
41:15Brandon Scott, of course, the mayor of Baltimore, a really interesting guy, did a podcast with him on why this
41:20was happening.
41:21We talked for an hour about his approach to this.
41:22And just to hammer home this point, because I do think this has been really I think this would be
41:27a national story if there were different people involved.
41:31I think this year's the number of homicides was the record low for Baltimore.
41:37Is that correct?
41:37The record.
41:38Never on record have we seen a homicide rate this low.
41:41And they started keeping records in 1970.
41:44But it's a 56 year record low.
41:46And the thing that I why I love working with the mayor and love working with our local law enforcement
41:52and and our community groups important is we all know that while that's important, there's still more work to do.
41:59Yeah, that we still have.
42:01You want to stay on the trajectory.
42:02But you want to stay on the trajectory.
42:03And we can show that you do not have to compromise.
42:05You don't have to choose between making sure that people are safe, but also making sure that people's constitutional rights
42:11are protected.
42:12Maryland Governor Westmore, great to have you here in the studio.
42:14Really appreciate it.
42:15Thanks a lot.
42:15Come back.
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