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00:00And thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. Really happy to have you here.
00:03Do you remember that there was a gigantic oil spill in our country that happened in 2010?
00:08It was in the Gulf of Mexico off the Louisiana coast. And it was just apocalyptic. You will
00:16remember these images, right? The explosion, the plumes of fire and smoke, just this massive,
00:23massive, completely out of control fire on board this drilling rig out there 40 miles off the coast
00:28in Louisiana. 11 men died when that rig blew up. And then after it blew up and burned for a
00:37solid day,
00:38that huge oil rig, that drilling rig sunk to the bottom of the sea. But that was only the start
00:45of the disaster because they couldn't stop the oil spewing out of the well that rig had been
00:50drilling. Remember, there was literally a live feed we could all watch from the broken wellhead.
00:55You could watch the oil spewing out from this hole in the seafloor, this hole they had drilled and then
01:03they couldn't handle it. And that oil spewed for three months. Millions of barrels of oil spewed out
01:13of that well and into the sea. And they just had no plan for how to stop it. You might
01:19remember they
01:19tried something called junk shots, which sounds dirty, and it was, but different than how you're
01:26thinking about it. The junk shot was where they literally shot junk into the top of the well to
01:33try to clog it up with anything they could find. They used, I'm not kidding, golf balls and pieces of
01:40plastic and pieces of old tires and knotted up hunks of rope. They just flung them at the spewing oil
01:48well.
01:48Thinking that might stop it. When nobody could believe that this was the big idea, that this was the
01:54level of technological prowess the most profitable industry on earth was bringing to bear on this
02:00ongoing disaster they had caused and couldn't stop. When people were like, seriously, golf balls is your
02:07idea? Torn up bits of tire?
02:12The company then changed the language they were using to talk about their efforts to stop
02:17the spewing oil well. They stopped talking so much about the junk shots. They instead started
02:22insisting they would do something they called a top kill, which sounds way cooler, way more
02:28technologically advanced, way less desperate and random than a junk shot. But it was still the same
02:34result. Still the same kind of strategy that like, you know, the characters from South Park might dream
02:40up to try to stop an oil spill. But the junk shots and the top kills did not work. They
02:47tried a whole
02:47bunch of times. It did not work. Then they decided they would just dump tons of chemicals in the water.
02:53They wouldn't say what the chemicals were. They called them dispersants, though. And the idea was that
02:58they would just dump these mystery chemicals into the ocean in huge amounts, these dispersants,
03:04and hopefully that would make the oil disperse. Go away, oil, disperse. And that didn't much work
03:15either. It was just disgusting and toxic. And it wreaked havoc on not just everything in the ocean,
03:23but in the whole fishery and those coastal Louisiana towns and the whole region of southeast Louisiana
03:29and Barataria Bay. I remember reporting down there in 2010 and being nauseous from breathing the sea
03:37breeze, which is a thing that will mess up your head both in the moment when it happens and for
03:42a very
03:43long time after. That disaster happened, as I said, in 2010. That was the worst oil spill disaster in U
03:50.S.
03:50history. There was supposed to be a blowout preventer to prevent this underwater blowout.
03:56Turns out the blowout preventer did not work to prevent blowouts. There was supposed to be a
04:01bulletproof, foolproof, multiple redundancies, comprehensive emergency plan in case of any type
04:07of accident. But the emergency plan was ridiculous. This was, again, in the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast
04:13of Louisiana. But the emergency response plan specifically for a spill at that site called for
04:21rescuing the walruses. Okay, walruses live on sea ice like polar bears. There are no walruses in
04:29Louisiana. But nevertheless, that was part of their emergency response plan that was supposedly
04:33specifically designed for this location. You might also remember that that emergency response plan
04:40had a call list, like who to call in case of a disaster, in case of a spill. And the
04:44call list was
04:45like people who had died years prior to that emergency response plan being produced. It was just an utter
04:52failure, just a comprehensive disaster. Remember what that disaster was called? What the rig was called
05:02that blew up? It was the Deepwater Horizon. It was called that because that drilling disaster happened in
05:10really deep water, in 5,000 feet of water. 5,000 feet of water. The pressure is incredible. The
05:17temperatures are incredible. We as humans have basically as little experience operating in that
05:23kind of an extreme environment as we do operating in space. I mean, that Deepwater Horizon disaster,
05:305,000 feet down, it was sort of living proof, living, terrifying, toxic, fatal proof that even though
05:37the oil companies say they're great at doing stuff like that, they're actually not. The overall cleanup and
05:44compensation costs for Deepwater Horizon topped out at something like 65 billion dollars. BP was held
05:51responsible for the disaster not only in court, but also in Congress, where they basically had to prostrate
05:57themselves and apologize for all they had done. Deepwater Horizon, Deepwater Horizon, worst oil spill
06:03disaster in U.S. history. Happened in 5,000 feet of water. This past Friday, late in the day, very
06:13quietly, the Trump administration announced that it has approved a new ultra-deepwater drilling project.
06:21Unlike the Deepwater Horizon, which was at 5,000 feet, this new ultra-deepwater project that they just
06:28approved will be at more like 6,000 feet. But don't worry, the Deepwater Horizon company that botched the
06:355,000-foot drilling and killed all those people and ravaged that whole part of Louisiana, and they
06:41couldn't shut it off for three months, and it made us at least, thank God, Barack Obama was in charge,
06:46and he had a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, Stephen Chu, his energy secretary, because at least that energy
06:51secretary could personally do the calculations and the scientific work to try to help get the blowout shut
06:56down. No, the bad guy in that story, the totally reckless company that said it could do that drilling
07:01safely, but they absolutely couldn't, that said they had an emergency plan, but they didn't really, that said
07:06they had a cleanup plan, but I saw it with my own eyes that they did not, that had a
07:10blowout preventer that did
07:12not prevent blowouts. That company, you'll remember, was BP. BP, right? Well, this time, don't worry. The
07:21company that the Trump administration has just given permission to do ultra-deepwater drilling
07:25in the same place off the coast of Louisiana, don't worry. This time, the company doing it is going
07:31to be BP. They've given these drilling rights to BP, same company, because it worked out great last
07:43time. Also, don't worry, as the New York Times notes in its reporting on this new award from the
07:50Trump administration, don't worry. The emergency plan this time from BP for the ultra-deepwater
07:57drilling, their emergency plan this time is still basically the same emergency plan that they had
08:02when the Deepwater Horizon blew up in 2010. The plan is still, as the New York Times notes, quote,
08:08dispersants, chemical dispersants. Once again, that'll be the plan. It'll be fine. It'll all be fine.
08:17No word on if they're still going to focus on, you know, finding tropical walruses
08:25in case anything goes wrong. No word on if they're still going to try to call the old dead guys
08:30as
08:31their emergency contacts. The other reason not to worry, of course, is that this time, instead of
08:38Barack Obama being president and this being the Obama administration responding, this time,
08:44the president and the administration telling BP to go for it. Watch out, Louisiana. Here they come.
08:49This time, it's not Barack Obama and the Obama administration. It's Donald Trump and the Trump
08:54administration, where, needless to say, the energy secretary is not Nobel Prize-winning physicist
09:00Steven Chu. This time, under Donald Trump, it's this guy, who last week announced on Twitter that,
09:08hey, great news, everybody. The U.S. Navy has started escorting oil tankers through the Strait of
09:13Hormuz. He announced that publicly when the U.S. Navy was absolutely not doing that.
09:21And the markets went up, up, up, up, up. And the price of oil went down, down, down, down, down.
09:26And then Trump's genius energy secretary deleted that tweet with no comment. And so then the markets
09:31went down, down, down. And the oil price went up, up, up, because this is the level of genius
09:35and competence we are dealing with at the helm as an arsonist, mad king president sets the world on fire.
09:44That same energy secretary also, on Friday, announced that, thanks to the emergency President
09:50Donald Trump has declared, the Trump administration has also ordered, in addition to the ultra-deep
09:56water drilling contract, or permission given to BP, the Trump administration has also ordered the
10:05restarting of a particular pipeline in Southern California. This is a pipeline that has not been
10:11operational for more than a decade. And why has it not been operational for more than a decade?
10:15Well, because this is what it looked like the last time that pipeline was operational,
10:19when it broke open and was spewing oil uncontrollably in one of the worst California oil spills of all
10:26time, affecting roughly 100 miles of the state's coastline and ocean.
10:32The Trump administration is now trying to force the reopening of that pipeline. The last time it was in
10:39operation, it barfed oil all over Southern California. They say it's fully repaired now.
10:47So we'll see, I guess. And the Trump administration has just told BP, of all companies, they've told BP
10:55to go right ahead with a new ultra-deep water horizon, because nobody remembers what happened
11:01last time, right? That was fine. Worked out okay? Walruses seem okay?
11:08When Trump's Energy Secretary, Chris Wright, tweeted out that the U.S. Navy was escorting ships through
11:14the Strait of Hormuz when, in fact, we weren't. Did he think they were? Did somebody tell him
11:20that we were? Did he have a good reason to believe it? When he did that, that wasn't even the
11:28start of
11:29how well the Trump administration is handling this teensy little problem Trump reportedly thought
11:33would be no big deal when he decided to launch an unprovoked war on Iran. Trump reportedly told his
11:38advisers that he did not believe Iran would close the Strait of Hormuz if he attacked Iran. Of course,
11:44Iran did. Then Trump's Defense Secretary said the Strait of Hormuz was open for transit,
11:52except for the small matter of the Iranians attacking ships that tried to pass through it.
11:56Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln. Then Trump told Fox News that ship captains should, quote,
12:03show some guts and just sail through the Strait because they had nothing to fear, because Iran was
12:07defeated and wouldn't attack any more ships in the Strait of Hormuz. And then Iran attacked more
12:12ships in the Strait of Hormuz. And then Trump said that the U.S. Navy would be happy soon, very
12:18soon
12:18to start escorting ships through the Strait of Hormuz. And then the Navy was like, no, my lord,
12:24no, we cannot do that. The memorable phrase there was that it would be a, quote, kill box for the
12:30United
12:30States Navy if they even tried to do that. Then in advance of a presidential press conference today,
12:35Trump administration sources apparently told reporters that very soon, very soon the U.S.
12:40government would be announcing a coalition of allies who would be working together to escort
12:46ships through the Strait of Hormuz. We were about to announce who our allies were going to be in this
12:52joint collective effort. And everybody printed it like that meant it was going to happen.
12:59When will you learn? Watch what they do, not what they say. Because then the president held that
13:06presidential press conference and he announced, quote, we don't need anybody to help us in the
13:13Strait of Hormuz. We don't need anybody. We can do it ourselves. Then he said that he'd be announcing
13:18very soon who, nevertheless, was going to be helping us in the Strait of Hormuz. Then he berated and
13:23insulted our allies for not doing anything to help us in the Strait of Hormuz. And then reporters all
13:29over the world started checking with their own governments. And indeed, whatever he thought he
13:34was announcing about other countries coming to help us in the Strait of Hormuz, nobody is coming to
13:38help. And in fact, he can't do it alone. And so what do we got? I mean, maybe we'll get
13:50a ballroom?
13:52Russia is doing really well out of all this as the skyrocketing price of oil fills up the Kremlin's
13:58coffers and makes them solvent again after all these years of dictatorship and corruption and
14:04foregoing on five years of their disastrous war in Ukraine. Russia now is not just getting rich
14:10off of Trump's war in Iran. Russia is outright helping Iran kill U.S. troops and target U.S.
14:17facilities in the Middle East. Trump's U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Mike Waltz,
14:21says Russia has a wartime, quote, strategic partnership with Iran. Iranian officials have
14:28publicly confirmed that they have Russia's, quote, military cooperation.
14:34We reported last week here on this show that Trump had responded
14:38to that by really making Russia pay. Oh, I'm sorry. No, by relaxing U.S. sanctions
14:46on Russia. Since then, he's done so again. He has further relieved Russia of the burden of U.S.
14:54sanctions while Russia is helping kill American troops. But it doesn't stop there. David Korn at
15:01Mother Jones magazine reports that Trump's DOJ has also very quietly just chosen this auspicious time
15:08while we're at war with Iran. They've just chosen now to ask the courts to withdraw a guilty plea and
15:15reverse a prison sentence that was given to a guy who the FBI said is linked to Russian intelligence.
15:21The guy has been in jail because he pled guilty to lying to the FBI, specifically to bringing the FBI
15:27fake stories about President Biden supposedly taking bribes. The FBI concluded not only that
15:33those stories were false, but that this guy deliberately lied in bringing that stuff to the
15:38FBI and that he was linked to Russian intelligence at the time he was doing this.
15:45Now, Trump's Justice Department is trying to get the guy sprung and get his guilty plea reversed.
15:51The court filing in this guy's case has been signed by Todd Blanche, Trump's handpicked number two
15:56official at the Justice Department. Trying to help Russia and reportedly Russian intelligence
16:04while Russia is using Russian intelligence to help Iran kill American troops and target American
16:12facilities in the Middle East. And, you know, maybe maybe our president just can't stop himself
16:18from acting to help Russia, even when Russia is acting to kill Americans. Maybe he just can't
16:23stop himself. It just feels so good. He can't stop. But doesn't it seem like in the middle of this
16:30war,
16:30he should be able to stop himself from at least helping Iran? From helping the Iranian regime,
16:37which he has just declared war on? Because also, quietly, amid this inexplicable war on Iran,
16:45Trump's Justice Department has also just moved to drop the largest Iranian sanctions case ever in history.
16:53This is a case involving a bank, a bank called Hawk Bank. They're being prosecuted for, again,
16:58the largest ever known violation of sanctions on the Iranian regime for illegally sending tens of
17:05billions of dollars to Iran. That's what that prosecution is about. And in the middle of Trump
17:12waging war on Iran, bombing Iran supposedly because he's so opposed to the Iranian regime,
17:18Trump now simultaneously has had his Justice Department drop that case, the largest Iranian
17:23sanctions case ever, because now suddenly he wants to let all that slide. It's almost like he's not
17:30really doing things for the reason he says he's doing them, right? So the Saudis paid $2 billion to Trump's
17:41son-in-law, his son-in-law, Jared. And now Jared is the U.S. government's point person in the
17:49Middle East.
17:50The New York Times now reports that while Jared is serving as the U.S. government's point person in the
17:55Middle East,
17:56Jared is simultaneously asking the Saudis for yet more billions of dollars for his private business.
18:03More than $2 billion they've already given him. Now he wants more. You know what? Why would they say no?
18:09For the low, low price of what they've already given him, the Saudis have apparently discovered the price
18:13of renting out something called the Armed Forces of the United States of America to attack their rival nation, Iran,
18:23for a war that makes a lot of sense for the leaders of Saudi Arabia and Israel,
18:27but makes no sense at all for the United States. The New York Times reports this weekend that the
18:35Saudi crown prince, MBS, Mohammed bin Salman, has been on the phone frequently with President Trump
18:40since the war started, telling him to keep bombing, keep, quote, hitting the Iranians hard. Keep up.
18:46Keep it up. More of this war, right? We paid for it. We're going to get what we paid for.
18:54However, I got to say, I don't know why this isn't more of a showstopping scandal in our country,
18:58right? Is it that hard to see what this is? I mean, here's this guy actively asking X country for
19:05money. They've already given him billions of dollars. He's asking for billions more dollars
19:10for his personal business, his private business. He's asking X country for money. At the same time,
19:17he's asking them for money. He is also making U.S. government policy toward that country.
19:23That's it, right? Those are all the dots you have to connect. I mean, this is not like string
19:29theory, right? The result, I mean, if this guy's asking this country for money for himself while
19:36also making U.S. government policy toward that country, the resultant policy is likely to be
19:44whatever that country wants it to be. Because if it isn't, then Jared's going to be less likely to
19:48get the money that he is asking them for, right? The interests of the United States are being
19:53exchanged for private income for the president's son-in-law. Is this hard to see? Is this hard to
20:01grasp? Right? While we're all wondering why it is really that we're fighting this war, they can't
20:08explain? I mean, for his part, the president's son-in-law says he's following the law and following
20:15ethics rules. But how would we know? They also they also aren't even making him file financial
20:19disclosures. And Russia helps kill American service members and gets paid for it by the
20:25Trump administration. And don't worry, BP will get new oil for us from the molten center of the earth
20:31because, look, they built something with duct tape. They say we'll work to drill it all up
20:35and the tropical walruses will junk shot the thing for us if anything goes wrong.
20:40So we'll all be fine. Meanwhile, this is the most unpopular war in modern American history.
20:47The president is trying to manage that by today, threatening to execute, threatening to kill
20:52reporters who don't report on the war the way he wants them to. That'll fix it. That'll fix it.
20:57Maybe he'll take a page from Putin and tell us we're no longer allowed to call it a war. We
21:02all have
21:02to start calling it an excursion like he does or or we'll all go to jail or he'll kill us
21:07all.
21:09Well, sure, that'll do it. The war is unlikely to get more popular in days ahead as Trump's
21:15repeated declarations of victory have not proven to be enough to protect U.S. forces and facilities
21:23that have come under fire from Iran and their proxies. A U.S. facility in Bahrain,
21:29the U.S. facility in Kuwait, the U.S. embassy in Iraq, the U.S. facilities in Saudi Arabia. We
21:35weren't
21:36even capable of keeping our ally Kuwait from accidentally shooting down not one, not two,
21:40but three of our F-15 fighter jets on the first full day of the war. How was Kuwait able
21:46to shoot
21:47down three F-15s? Now we're sending in a marine expeditionary force as the president refuses to
21:56rule out boots on the ground, refuses to rule out ground troops. That's how he's doing internationally.
22:04How's he doing here at home? Well, he's on a remarkable, remarkable, hot, hot, hot losing
22:11streak in the courts right now. Just tonight, a federal court in Massachusetts has blocked
22:15all the changes that Trump Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made to the childhood
22:20immunization schedule. All the stuff that RFK tried to do to vaccines, the judge has blocked it.
22:26RFK fired, you'll recall, all the experts on the vaccine advisory panel and replaced them with
22:31everybody in the Star Wars bar scene. The judge tonight blocked those appointments and then
22:37blocked the implementation of all the votes taken by that group, by that actively quacking collection
22:43of odd ducks that RFK put in that crucial, crucial panel. This comes on the heels of another federal
22:51judge ordering Trump's VA secretary to restore union rights. The union rights he just stripped from more
22:57than 300,000 people who work at the VA. This comes as another federal judge has just blocked
23:03Trump from stripping Somali Americans of their right to be in this country under temporary protected
23:08status. This comes as Trump's Justice Department has just had to tuck its tail between its legs
23:14and drop their effort to prosecute a U.S. Army veteran who burned a flag in protest of Trump's
23:20unconstitutional executive order that says he decrees you are no longer allowed to build a flag,
23:25burn a flag in this country, First Amendment be damned. This comes as another court has just
23:30blocked the Trump administration's unlawful attempt to dismantle the U.S. African Development
23:34Foundation. This comes as just another court has blocked the Trump administration's unlawful
23:41attempt to dismantle the U.S. Agency for Global Media and Voice of America and to appoint election
23:46denier Carrie Lake to tear it all down. This comes as Trump tries to shut down and potentially tear down
23:53the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. But Congresswoman Joyce Beatty, Democratic
23:58Congresswoman Joyce Beatty, has pledged to defend that institution with all she's got.
24:06Trump can brag all he wants about what he is going to do to the Kennedy Center, but Congresswoman Joyce
24:10Beatty has gone to the courts to block Trump from closing it or demolishing it or changing it,
24:15and those motions are pending, and we shall see. We're going to talk tonight about the disaster
24:23that is unfolding at the Department of Homeland Security on everything from tornado monitoring
24:27to the TSA. But The Atlantic reports tonight that the whole plan, the whole Trump administration plan
24:33to open a big new network of massive Trump prison camps all over the country to hold tens of thousands
24:38of people indefinitely without trial. That whole plan may now be in jeopardy as Trump has now fired
24:45Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem because apparently it was her plan. And on top of that,
24:52we've got another federal court, this one in Maryland, which has now issued a restraining order
24:56stopping all work on one of these warehouse Trump prison camps, this one in Williamsport, Maryland,
25:02near Hagerstown, a site where Trump wanted to start locking people up as soon as next month.
25:07But construction there now is shut down by court order. And the whole warehouse mass Trump prison
25:14prison camp plan may be circling the drain anyway. One plucky Homeland Security official
25:23telling The Atlantic tonight that if they can't get these Trump black site prisons open at any of these
25:28warehouse sites they've bought, those sites might, quote, remain useful as federal properties that can be
25:34converted into office space or training facilities. Sure, office space. Sure. Excellent.
25:46It is 14 months since Donald Trump has been back in office. It is 17 days since he started this
25:52catastrophic war in Iran. Democratic U.S. Senator Cory Booker is here next live to talk about plans in
25:58Congress, plans in the Senate to stop him in this war. We've got lots to get to tonight. Stay with
26:05us.
26:10Since the beginning of President Donald Trump's unprovoked war of choice against Iran,
26:16a group of Democratic senators have been calling for a vote that would force the president to get
26:20sign off from Congress for what he's doing. And they've now filed not one, but a whole wave
26:26of war powers resolutions. Even if these resolutions fail one by one, these Senate Democrats say
26:32they're going to force the whole Senate, including Republicans in the Senate, to vote on this wildly
26:38unpopular, inexplicable war over and over and over again. Implicitly, that means they will grind down
26:45the business of the Senate in the meantime in order to force these votes. They want a public accounting
26:50of why this war was supposedly necessary, what its objectives supposedly are, and when it will end.
26:57Joining us now is Senator Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey. He's a member of the Senate Foreign
27:01Relations Committee. He's one of the Democrats demanding the Senate vote on the war, calling for
27:06public hearings with top Trump officials. Senator, it's really nice of you to take time to be here
27:09tonight. Thank you. Thanks for having me on. Appreciate you, Rachel. So tell our audience what
27:15a war powers resolution is functionally, especially now that Trump is on his own terms unilaterally
27:23started this war 18 days ago. Well, going to war is a really significant act constitutionally.
27:32And because it's so significant, years passed. They put in a lot of laws and levers to make sure that
27:38no president could do what Donald Trump is doing. And so it's what's called a privilege resolution,
27:44which we have the right to bring it to the floor. And to me, it's absolutely astounding and absurd
27:50that this Senate is not doing its job of providing checks and balances, oversight and accountability
27:56to an out of control executive who already has made American lives in such crisis, reckless tariffs,
28:04driving up costs, cutting trillions, excuse me, hundreds of billions of dollars from our health
28:08care, driving millions of Americans off of health care. Americans are seeing a cost crisis like you
28:13wouldn't believe. And then what does Donald Trump do after cutting school lunches and cutting veterans
28:19benefits? He begins to spend a billion dollars a day on his war of choice. And not only those costs,
28:27but he's driving up energy and oil costs and perhaps the most tragic cost of all, 200 Americans injured,
28:3413 Americans dead. And so how could the Senate be doing nothing? We want to force the debate,
28:40the discussion and the hearings. So when you say these are these are privileged resolutions,
28:45that means that effectively, regardless of what the Republican leadership in the Senate wants,
28:50these have to come up. These have to be put to the floor. There has to be these things have
28:55to be contended with. You and Senator Cain, Senator Murphy, Senator Baldwin, Senator Schiff have all
29:01filed these war powers resolutions. Why do multiple of them? Is the idea to take up lots of Senate time?
29:08What should we expect in terms of what this does with the other business of the Senate when this
29:12will all unfold? When are they going to have to contend with you guys? Yeah, look, I've been having
29:18just trying to make it clear to my colleagues and to others who will listen to me that we can
29:24no
29:24longer have a Senate that is acting as if nothing is wrong, that we're not in a constitutional crisis,
29:30that Americans aren't struggling with out of control costs. We have to do something different.
29:35This war adds not only to the costs, but it also makes us less safe at home and abroad.
29:42And so this to me was an obvious lever after talking to a lot of my colleagues about Tim Kaine
29:47doing
29:47this repeatedly. We all agree that this is the very time that we should be driving Americans focus
29:54really what they want us to be debating and what they want us to be discussing are the issues that
29:58are directly impacting them, which is a war obviously driving up their costs, taking billions
30:04of dollars of taxpayer money and frankly, not focusing on the crises that Americans are having
30:09right now with harder to make ends meet and losing millions, losing their health care, losing
30:14their hospitals, losing their health clinics.
30:17What's your reaction to the president today? Insulting, denigrating, mocking, sort of dragging
30:27our allies for not joining some sort of effort that he wants to lead or something that he wants
30:35to do in the Strait of Hormuz. He's simultaneously saying, literally, we don't need anybody and also
30:41saying that U.S. allies are terrible and untrustworthy and we don't need them because they should be
30:48joining us in the Strait of Hormuz. What's your reaction to the president's remarks on that today?
30:53I think what we're witnessing here is the most monumental strategic stupidity exhibited by any
30:59president in our lifetime. I mean, utterly outrageous that he is at one time begging people
31:05to come help him with the mess that he created, causing the worst oil shock we have seen in our
31:11lifetime, begging people to help. And then when they're not racing to help him after he's already
31:16unleashed chaotic tariffs on them, after he's already insulted them before, demeaned and degrained
31:21them, didn't go America first, went America alone and really undermined all of our alliances.
31:27Now he's even going further. This is a president says, I don't need your help. Please help me.
31:31I don't need your help. Please help me. All the while, we're seeing this whole world really
31:37feeling the shocks of this war. And from regions, as I talked to ambassadors and other leaders from
31:43Asia to Europe, they can't believe that we're making these strategic blunders in the war in
31:48Ukraine. We're making Russia stronger, pouring literally millions and millions of dollars into
31:53their coffers as they're getting stronger in their fight against Ukraine, as they help Iran
31:59target their missiles and their drones. We have crises in Asia and concerns in Asia, like China
32:05and their possible intervention in Taiwan. And now we see our Asian allies saying, wait a minute,
32:11we're pulling resources away from that region, all for Donald Trump's folly and his going to war
32:17in a war that does not have an end game, especially not one without American troops, which he won't pull
32:24off the table. That is what's crazy about this man right now is that he's out of control.
32:29But what is worse, the strategic blunder after blunder that he's making or Republicans in the
32:36United States Senate who watch him and don't even call his administration in for hearings? No checks,
32:43no balances, no accountability. This is outrageous and it has to stop.
32:49Senator Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey, sir, it's really kind of you to make time to be here
32:54tonight. Thank you so much. Thank you, Rachel, for focusing everybody on this outrage. Thanks.
32:59Yeah, absolutely. I've got to say, I hear when the senator says, talking about this as a strategic
33:03blunder, it really does feel like somebody who has, like, burnt the bridge, right? Burnt the bridge to
33:11where he lives and is now angrily standing on the far side of where the bridge used to be, like,
33:16angrily demanding a ride home. Like, my dude, you're the one who blew up the bridge.
33:21Anyway, we've got much more news ahead here tonight. Stay with us.
33:29Dozens of tornadoes hit the Midwest and the plains starting about 10 days ago. At least
33:33eight people were killed. Homes and buildings were destroyed across multiple states.
33:38We then learned that chaos and incompetence inside the Trump administration, specifically inside the
33:44Department of Homeland Security, may have hampered the federal response to those terrible and fatal
33:49storms. Here's some remarkable reporting on this from CNN. Headline, rescuers were flying blind.
33:57Inside the crucial $200,000 contract, Kristi Noem's team let lapse, quote, as deadly tornadoes tore through
34:04the Midwest and plains. Last weekend, state and local search and rescue crews rushed to the devastated areas
34:10to look for survivors. It wasn't until the teams deployed that they realized they were operating
34:15without a critical tornado tracking tool that's typically provided by FEMA. That mapping tool
34:21pinpoints a tornado's path of destruction within minutes of touchdown. That helps responders focus
34:27on the hardest hit neighborhoods as quickly as possible. Even in storms where FEMA itself doesn't
34:31respond, state and local rescuers rely on this mapping tool, which is provided to them through FEMA.
34:37But it wasn't available this time for the storms last week because FEMA's roughly $200,000 contract
34:44with the company that provides that data, that contract expired last month. And the agency's
34:51request to renew that contract was still moving through Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem's
34:56strict spending approval process. Again, that reporting from CNN. I will tell you that we contacted
35:03the Department of Homeland Security about this tonight. A FEMA spokesperson tells us that
35:07that tornado mapping tool is up and running now. Oh, now it is. Now.
35:18A well-oiled machine, our current Department of Homeland Security.
35:22But Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has been fired. She's out of the agency by the end of this month.
35:28President Trump fired her one day after she testified in front of Congress earlier this month.
35:32On the basis of that testimony, congressional Democrats say Kristi Noem repeatedly lied to the
35:39House and Senate Judiciary Committees. Democrats, as of today, have asked Trump's Justice Department
35:44to investigate her for perjury based on that testimony. After all, even President Trump has said
35:49her testimony under oath was false. We will not be holding our breath for Trump's Justice Department
35:55to be leaping on that prosecution, but the request has been made. We also learned today that another
36:01person exiting the Department of Homeland Security this month will be this man, Greg Bovino, the small
36:07man, big truck complex border patrol commander who was relieved of his role leading Trump's immigration
36:13crackdown after two U.S. citizens were shot to death by immigration agents in Minneapolis
36:18in an operation that he led. Those killings sparked such outrage that Democrats in Congress actually
36:26put their foot down and demanded reforms to Homeland Security federal agents. Republicans have refused
36:32those reforms. That has led to a funding shutdown at the Department of Homeland Security, which,
36:36among other things, is causing long and unpredictable security lines and chaos at America's airports.
36:42It is now worsening every day. And if you are excited by what the Trump Homeland Security
36:48Department has been able to do with, I don't know, immigration enforcement and disaster response and
36:54air travel, just wait till you see what they're going to do with our elections. The Atlantic first
37:00reported and that must now has confirmed that in Arizona, it's not just the Justice Department
37:06that has been following Trump's lead and menacing and investigating elections officials and elections
37:12results from 2020. It is now the Department of Homeland Security that has done that. Homeland Security
37:19Investigations, under the purview of DHS, is now bothering elections officials and saying they're
37:25investigating the 2020 election in Arizona because they're handling so much else so well. Why not put them
37:31on the election's beat as well? Right? What could possibly go wrong? We've got more ahead on this.
37:37Stay with us today. Hold that thought.
37:44Stateline, El Paso, Texas. Guards at Camp East Montana developed a pattern of driving detainees to the
37:50Mexico border, telling them to walk across and allegedly beating those who refused. Some detainees were also
37:57able to escape the facility, which faced a host of other challenges, including a cluster of three
38:03deaths in a 45-day period. The issues plaguing this camp, the nation's largest immigration detention
38:09center, have gotten so bad that they have contributed to a strategic pivot the Trump administration has
38:13made away from relying on similar facilities. That's reporting from the Wall Street Journal under
38:20the headline, How ICE's Largest Detention Facility Unraveled. It comes amid news that this chaos at the
38:27largest prison camp the Trump administration has already been operating might be a sort of canary
38:32in a coal mine for the overall effort the Trump administration has been working on to try to
38:38build Trump a new network of huge Trump prison camps to imprison people without trial all over the
38:46country. Joining us now is Wall Street Journal reporter Michelle Hackman. She at the Journal has really
38:51been at the forefront of reporting out the pandemonium of various kinds at the Department of Homeland
38:56Security. Ms. Hackman, I really appreciate you making time to be here with us tonight. Thank you.
39:01Of course. Thanks for having me.
39:03First, I want to ask you just a big picture question about what's been happening at Homeland
39:07Security. It's obviously a bit of a bear structurally and has been since it was created. It's such a large,
39:13sprawling agency with so many different functions wrapped up in all the myriad agencies that are under
39:20its umbrella. Why did Trump fire Kristi Noem? Is there something about her tenure that has been
39:28particularly difficult for an agency this complex and important? Yeah, we've been hearing for months
39:34that the White House has been increasingly frustrated with Kristi Noem because she was kind of running her
39:40own fiefdom there. And this White House, we know, is very controlling over cabinet secretaries. They want
39:46to have ultimate control over policy, over personnel. And they felt like she was being uncooperative with
39:52them. And in addition to that, that she was starting to be embarrassing to them when stories like ours
39:57about her, you know, firing a pilot over a blanket or trying to purchase a $70 million luxury jet for
40:04herself started to come out. There's also been sort of, I guess you just sort of politely call
40:11the management issues that have been described that seem to have had really serious real world
40:16consequences. This policy that she's had where anything over $100,000 has to come through her
40:21personally, and it sits on her desk until she has time to get to it. CNN had this dramatic reporting
40:27this weekend that that has resulted, that resulted, among other things, in tornado mapping technology
40:33not being available to FEMA responders who were actively responding to tornadoes that had been
40:38fatal on the ground in multiple states. Those kinds of problems, were those unique to Kristi Noem? Is
40:44that something that she and Corey Lewandowski presumably invented? Or is that something that
40:48predated her at DHS? No, this $100,000 sign-off is definitely a Kristi Noem-Corey Lewandowski special.
40:57They, you know, instituted it a couple months into their tenure, no explanation why. And it really
41:02created this huge backlog. That CNN story, you know, showing that FEMA didn't have this sort of,
41:08like, tornado spotting technology is a really stark example. But there were ways that they
41:13were actually getting in the way of the Trump agenda, too. I mean, they were holding up wall
41:18contracts, actually slowing down the building of Trump's border wall, which was extremely embarrassing
41:24for them when that came out. They actually, for months, held up by accident, totally by accident,
41:29held up a contract that basically processes all of Trump's tariff payments, another huge
41:35Trump policy. That almost lapsed. She signed it basically a day before it expired.
41:40Wow. We've pretty intensely covered on this show the vociferous reaction around the country,
41:49even in very conservative parts of the country, to these plans to put these huge Trump prison
41:54camps, these big warehouse sites converted into prisons to hold, you know, 8,000, 10,000,
42:00potentially even more people. Opposition to that all over the country, including from otherwise
42:05Trump-supporting Republicans. Is this another policy that the administration broadly or that
42:10the White House sees as a Kristi Noem-Corey Lewandowski special? It seems like it's causing them a lot of
42:16political problems. It also seems like it's logistically way more than they might have thought
42:22they were contending with. It's interesting, Rachel. I think the administration actually
42:27is in favor of this warehouse strategy of buying these massive warehouses that are sort of meant
42:32for Amazon packages and instead turning them into places to hold, you know, 8,000 or 10,000 immigrants.
42:39The problem in the view of the White House and people at DHS was basically the way that Kristi Noem
42:45and Corey Lewandowski were trying to implement it, that they basically went to ICE and said,
42:50you have 30 days, go buy, you know, 30-something warehouses and completely turn over, you know,
42:57our detention strategy in a month, basically buy these things in a few days, retrofit them.
43:02That sort of speed is what we saw. I mean, you referenced my reporting on Camp East Montana,
43:08the tent camp detention center in El Paso. They put that camp detention center up with surprising
43:15speed over the summer, and that really contributed to a lot of the really, really severe issues there.
43:21And so I think we were headed in the same direction.
43:25Wall Street Journal reporter Michelle Hackman, it's really invaluable service to the country to
43:30have you on this beat, breaking so many stories here, you and your colleagues at the Journal.
43:34Thank you. Keep it up. And we really appreciate you talking about your reporting here tonight.
43:38Thanks so much.
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