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00:00And thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. Really happy to have you here. We are having
00:03a moment of sort of unbelievably dramatic news. News that's like if you were pitching a movie, the people you
00:12were pitching it to would say, no, that's too over the top. We can't do that.
00:17Denmark reportedly sent soldiers just a few weeks ago. They sent soldiers to Greenland armed with explosives and blood supplies.
00:27The explosives were to blow up the runways at airports in Greenland.
00:32And the blood supplies were in anticipation of combat casualties in a conflict with the United States.
00:39That is, if the U.S. could find a way to put U.S. troops on the ground in Greenland
00:44without landing on the blown up airfields.
00:48Think about that for a second. I mean, Denmark, it's freaking Denmark.
00:52They are literally and officially our ally, but they had to send troops out with live ammunition and blood supplies
00:59and live explosives, not for an exercise.
01:02Not for training, but on a real deployment on which they planned to disable the airfields in Greenland to protect
01:09their territory against us, against the United States.
01:13You may also recall that Denmark is in NATO. So if Trump actually does try to use military force to
01:20take Greenland, we will be at war with all of NATO.
01:25But now I guess we know how it would start. Too dramatic? Too far fetched?
01:31Oh, wait, there's more. Consider Hungary right now. The authoritarian leader in Hungary, Viktor Orban, keeps getting visits from top
01:37U.S. officials.
01:38He just got one from Secretary of State Marco Rubio. He's supposed to host Vice President J.D. Vance very
01:43soon.
01:43Trump did a creepy video endorsement for Viktor Orban this weekend.
01:47Our government is doing everything they can to try to sort of fluff Viktor Orban right now to prop him
01:54up,
01:54because Hungary is having elections next month. And if Viktor Orban allows those elections to go forward, it really looks
02:00like he's going to lose.
02:03So our authoritarian government is trying to prop up his authoritarian government with these big public shows of support.
02:11But because the news is the way it is right now, I also have to tell you that Russia is
02:16approaching this same task with a bit more style.
02:19New reporting from The Washington Post this weekend.
02:22Headline, to tilt Hungarian election, Russians proposed staging assassination attempt.
02:29Quote, in the run-up to Hungary's pivotal election in April, Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service last month began sounding the
02:36alarm over plummeting public support
02:37for Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, whose friendly ties to Moscow have long given the Kremlin a strategic foothold inside
02:45NATO and the European Union.
02:47Officers from the SVR, Russian military intelligence, suggested that drastic action might be necessary to help Orban,
02:54a strategy they called the game-changer. SVR operatives said the game-changer would, quote,
03:02fundamentally alter the entire paradigm of the election campaign.
03:06And what was the game-changer? The game-changer was, quote,
03:09the staging of an assassination attempt on Viktor Orban.
03:14Washington Post reporting that to try to help Orban in his election,
03:18the Russians have already mounted social media campaigns to boost Orban, much as they did for Donald Trump.
03:24They've used fake allegations against Orban's political enemies.
03:28They've used fake AI-generated videos to spread wild smears against opposition candidates.
03:34But they also apparently were plotting to fake an assassination attempt against Viktor Orban
03:39in order to get people to rally behind him.
03:44Too dramatic? Too over-the-top? Not believable enough?
03:48Oh, but wait. We've also still got the Strait of Hormuz shutdown choked off
03:52as a result of the U.S. president, Donald Trump, inexplicably starting a war with Iran
03:58for reasons he has yet to explain and with goals he has yet to credibly articulate.
04:03This weekend, President Trump announced a no-ifs, ands, or buts ultimatum
04:07that if Iran doesn't open up the shipping lanes in the Strait of Hormuz by today, by Monday,
04:12Trump promised he would commit a capital-W, capital-C war crime.
04:16He said he would bomb Iran's civilian power plants, starting, quote, with the biggest
04:22one first. That was the ultimatum as of Saturday. He would do that today, unless the Strait of
04:28Hormuz opened up, today rolled around. And even though it's not even yet Taco Tuesday,
04:35Trump nevertheless backed down. He announced that he has delayed his planned war crime
04:40because there are now new talks, he says, happening between us and the Iranians.
04:45The Iranians say, no, there aren't any new talks going on. Suspiciously, Trump won't say who these
04:52supposed talks are with, but he says they're definitely going great. And even though he says
04:57they're going great, now he's also sending 4,500 sailors and Marines over there, and the New York
05:02Times is reporting that he's considering calling up the 82nd Airborne as well.
05:07How well are the talks going? However well Trump says these phantom supposed talks are going,
05:14watch what he does, not what he says. And if you do that in this inexplicable war,
05:19it really seems like Donald Trump has started something he has absolutely no idea how to
05:24finish. And aside from everything else this war is doing, there is a very real prospect. It is going
05:30to crater not only our own economy, but the world economy, with Trump having no plan for that
05:36whatsoever. To put it lightly, we are having some drama at the moment. I mean, because of the
05:46president and his Republican Party's policies in Washington, 2 million Americans have lost their
05:51health insurance. Just since the beginning of the year, for millions more, health care has become
05:55dramatically, dramatically more expensive, specifically because of Republican policies.
06:00The Federal Reserve just announced that there has been, quote, zero net job creation in the private
06:06sector over the past six months. Zero jobs created in six months in the private sector.
06:15One Trump-supporting Republican sheriff in California has just seized the ballots from the last statewide
06:21California election in his county, not because the sheriff's office has anything to do with election
06:27administration in Riverside County or anywhere else, but because that sheriff and his deputies have
06:31guns and badges and they say they heard something was wrong with the election. So in Riverside County,
06:36California, that MAGA sheriff just seized a thousand boxes of elections material, including more than 650,000
06:43ballots. As American air travel absolutely melts down, not only because the price of jet fuel is
06:51skyrocketing thanks to Trump's war of choice in Iran. No, as American air travel today absorbs not only that,
06:57but also yet another Trump-era fatal collision at yet another airport, this time a runway collision at LaGuardia
07:04in New York, which killed two pilots and sent 41 people to the hospital. As TSA security lines tonight
07:11exceed four hours just to get through security at Houston's airport, as Atlanta advises travelers on domestic
07:17flights that they're going to need at least four hours lead time at that airport before just domestic
07:24flights. Today, in the midst of that meltdown, President Trump told Republicans at a campaign
07:30event in Tennessee that he did not want the TSA crisis to be solved. He said he did not want
07:36there
07:36to be any talks about resolving the TSA crisis and funding TSA agents until Democrats agreed to pass new
07:45restrictions on voting rights. He said Republicans had to get this done, quote, for Jesus.
07:52OK. MS Now is reporting tonight that the ICE agents Trump has sent to the airport supposedly to help
08:00with the TSA disaster, the ICE enforcement and removal operations officers, the ERO officers that
08:07they've sent, they, quote, do not have the ability to check travelers' identification or screen passengers.
08:15So what are they there for? Other than to creep everyone out and crowd the food court and, you know,
08:23remind the poor beleaguered TSA agents who actually are trained to do this job that they're not being
08:28paid to be at work right now while these random bros from ICE who can't actually do anything are being
08:34paid their full salaries to stand around and creep everyone out and add to how crowded it is in the
08:40terminal without actually doing anything to help at all. So the news right now is dramatic.
08:49You might even call it melodramatic. Everything seems to be just happening on this grand scale.
08:55But here's also part of what's going on that is unfolding more quietly without melodrama.
09:01It's definitely got moral drama. And it's the kind of story we can only get from people who are
09:05watching very, very closely. This story starts with a guy in Minnesota, a man named Nick Benson,
09:12who would not mind if I described him to you as a plane spotter. He's a plane buff. He's an
09:20aviation
09:20geek. He studies planes. He looks at flight data. You know, at some airports, there are little places set
09:25aside for people to view the takeoffs and landings. Those are for people like Nick Benson. In the
09:31Minneapolis area where he lives, whenever he gets the chance, he goes to the Minneapolis airport
09:35and he takes photographs of interesting planes coming and going. This is his passion.
09:42And like most people who live in and near Minneapolis, Nick Benson has also been horrified by
09:47what Trump's federal agents, Trump's ICE agents and Border Patrol agents have done in Minneapolis
09:54and their attack on that city. And as part of Nick Benson's contributions to his community's fight
10:01against ICE, their fight back against this attack by the federal government, Mr. Benson has been
10:06documenting ICE flights out of Minneapolis's airport. He's been doing it ever since ICE surged into
10:12Minnesota in December, along with other local plane spotters. Nick has watched and kept count. He's
10:17kept a record. He's documented it as people made their way from the tarmac up the steps into one of
10:24these deportation planes over and over and over again. He says many of the people he's seen put
10:29on these planes are put on in shackles, both men and women. The long hours that he's put in waiting
10:36at
10:36the airport, going through flight data, mean that Nick Benson has been in almost a unique position,
10:42not just to document those disappearances, those flights, but specifically to follow up on a story
10:51that absolutely tore people up all across this country. The story of five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos.
11:00You'll remember the story of Liam Ramos, right? Nick Benson was able to follow that up and uncover
11:06something about that story that nobody else in the public has been able to see.
11:10When I said the name Liam Ramos, you instantly pictured him, right? This is Liam Conejo Ramos
11:16standing in his neighborhood, blue bunny hat, black and white check coat, Spider-Man backpack,
11:21and one of Trump's federal agents standing behind him with his hands on the backpack
11:26on a snowy street in Columbia Heights, Minnesota. This happened while Trump was crowing about how
11:32the people being taken by his masked agents are all terrible criminals and monsters,
11:37the worst of the worst. And there's little five-year-old Liam and his bunny hat in his
11:42backpack, the real picture of who they're picking up. The day after school officials took that photo,
11:49they announced that Liam and three other local kids from the same school had been grabbed by ICE
11:54agents along with their families. And then we learned that within one day of them snatching
11:59him off the street, ICE had already taken Liam and his father all the way from Minnesota to Texas.
12:05They'd taken them to a notorious prison, the Dilley Detention Center just outside San Antonio,
12:11a place where they lock up men and women and children, where prisoners have testified to horrific
12:16conditions. And if you've followed this story of little five-year-old Liam, you might remember
12:22that we know how Liam and his dad got out of Dilley, right? You remember this? A week after they
12:27were
12:27taken, Texas Congressman Joaquin Castro visited Liam and his dad at Dilley. He sent out this heartbreaking
12:33picture of Liam not looking well in his father's arms. There was continuing national uproar over
12:41this case over what had happened to this little kid and his family. And then just days after that
12:47visit from the congressman, on February 1st, the Trump administration decided that they were going to
12:52release Liam and his father from Dilley. And the government flew Liam back to Minnesota.
12:58And you might have seen the images from that, right? Liam getting to visit the cockpit of this
13:04Delta flight he was flying on, his flight home to Minnesota. A crew from ABC News was there as the
13:09very, very nice pilots, who were very kind to him, gave him a lot of attention and let him sit
13:14in the
13:14pilot's seat and gave him his own little pilot's wings. In the case of little five-year-old Liam,
13:20the public pressure worked in a way. Instead of being stuck in Dilley for weeks or months or longer,
13:27things moved faster for him and his family. Liam was taken off the street in Minneapolis,
13:32flown across the country, imprisoned, then freed from the prison and flown back home all in less
13:38than two weeks. It went fast because of the national uproar. But back home in Minneapolis,
13:44that plane spotter, that activist, Nick Benson, he had this nagging question. Because in all of his weeks
13:49and weeks of watching ICE flights leave the Minneapolis airport, watching the men and women
13:54in shackles go up those tarmac stairs, Nick said he'd never once seen a kid boarding one of those
13:59flights. He'd never seen a little kid like a five-year-old like Liam. So then how did they do
14:05it? How exactly did ICE ship Liam and his dad from Minneapolis to Texas and so quickly within 24 hours
14:13after they grabbed him off the street? We know they sent this little boy to prison in Texas.
14:19How did he get there? How did he get from standing in his bunny hat and his black and white
14:24coat and
14:24his Spider-Man backpack in Minnesota to a Trump prison camp one day later? How did they do it?
14:32Well, now, thanks to Nick Benson, we can see that part of the story. We can have a
14:37view now into the machinery of Trump's system for locking up little kids, for locking up families,
14:43a view that we've not had before. And it's because Nick Benson knows the Minneapolis airport like the
14:49inside of his own car, right? Because he knows the flight schedules. He knows the layout of the gates.
14:54He knows roughly when Liam had had to have traveled. And because of all that, because of what he's been
15:01doing, Nick Benson was able to tear this thing open. Quote, pursuant to the Minnesota open records
15:09law, I request copies of video footage of the following areas of the Minneapolis-St. Paul
15:13International Airport. January 21st, 2026, 5.30 a.m. to 10 a.m. Any footage of or that would show
15:20vehicular traffic entering or exiting gates 222 or 269, exterior ramp areas, interior gate areas,
15:28jet bridges near gates F-11, F-13 or F-15. Nick Benson filed his open records law request under
15:35Minnesota state law. He paid his $359.04 in processing costs. And what did he get? He got
15:44dozens of hours of footage from half a dozen different surveillance cameras, all showing
15:52the Delta Airlines passenger terminal or the operations going on just outside the terminal's windows
15:57in the hours leading up to that morning's nonstop flight from Minneapolis to San Antonio.
16:04He went through all of that footage and look, there he is. Recognize the jacket?
16:12Heading for gate F-13, the Delta flight to San Antonio in his black and white checked coat.
16:17That's Liam Conejo Ramos and his dad. There's no sound with this footage, but you will see three
16:22people with Liam and his dad, three people who seem to be taking them through the airport. To
16:27be clear, we don't know whether they're federal agents or contractors or something else, but there
16:32they are with Liam and his father. They're checking in before the flight. They're waiting in the terminal
16:36with all the other travelers. At one point in the background, you can see Liam laying his blanket
16:41down on the floor. I think it's so he can lie down on the blanket. Sometimes he gets up to
16:46look out the
16:47window with his dad. Liam's like any other kid at the airport except for where he's going, except for
16:52the fact that U.S. President Donald Trump is sending him to prison at age five. Finally, Liam and his
17:01dad
17:01and these minders line up with the other passengers and they head off for their flight. A boy, his dad,
17:08his Spider-Man backpack, a nonstop Delta Airlines flight from Minneapolis to San Antonio on the way to
17:15family immigration prison. Nick Benson went through that footage. He shared it with an excellent
17:21aviation journalist named Gillian Burkell who broke this story last week. Gillian Burkell has tracked
17:27apparent ice flights all around the world to places like Eswatini in Ireland, Eswatini in Africa and
17:34Ireland and Egypt. She told us this was the first time she had seen this other part of what they
17:39call
17:40ice air, not the flights on on charter aircraft or contract aircraft that load up people in shackles,
17:47right? But this other part that is happening quietly around all the rest of us unsuspecting passengers
17:55on passenger airlines in regular airports, flying prisoners to Trump prison camps to be held without
18:03trial, including little kids. We contacted Delta Airlines for comment. They told us what they told
18:12Gillian Burkell, that that government air travel is often booked via third parties like travel agencies.
18:18They said airlines may not have advance notice or or detail as to who may be flying and for what
18:23reason.
18:25Delta also, and we should have seen this coming, they pointed us back to that happy ABC News report
18:30about Liam and his dad being flown home from Dilley on a Delta flight. That's the one where the pilots
18:35were so nice and they gave Liam his little wings. Delta was very happy to promote its involvement in
18:41Liam's homecoming, but not so much their involvement with sending him to prison.
18:49We also reached out to the Department of Homeland Security with a number of questions about the video
18:53from the Minneapolis airport and how the government manages commercial airline travel with federal agents
18:59transporting prisoners against their will, including minors.
19:05We haven't heard back. We'll let you know if we do.
19:08What we do know is that what we can see in that video of Liam and his dad at the
19:12Minneapolis airport,
19:14we know that that is not an isolated incident. We know that ICE is moving immigrant families and
19:20little kids on domestic commercial flights. And we know that because many of the families
19:26imprisoned at that hellhole facility in Dilley, Texas have described in legal declarations that
19:31that's how they got there. And one long running legal case about conditions for kids in these
19:37immigration prisons, there were declarations filed just this past Friday. Families imprisoned at Dilley.
19:44They don't say what airline they were brought there on, but they describe being brought to the regular
19:48commercial airport alongside other passengers. But they're being forced onto flights by mysterious
19:55escorts, two or three escorts. And who knows who those escorts are? They generally don't identify
20:00themselves, nor will they tell the families where they are going. They just force them onto the planes.
20:06In one declaration from December, a woman describes being locked up with her nine-year-old daughter for
20:12nearly two full days in a room in the Miami airport. And then three unidentified people escorted the woman
20:20and her daughter through two different airports and two different flights. These were regular
20:24commercial flights on regular commercial airlines with other passengers. And on one of those flights,
20:28the woman said she desperately handed a flight attendant a vomit bag on which she had written a plea
20:34to call her husband and tell him that she and her daughter had been taken and they were headed to
20:40San
20:40Antonio. She hadn't been allowed to make any phone calls for two days. This was her last desperate
20:45attempt. And the flight attendant mercifully did it, called the woman's husband. Even if the airlines
20:53don't want to talk about it, the families being shipped to Dilley on these flights are talking about it.
20:59And now this new footage of Liam in the Delta terminal at Minneapolis-St. Paul airport makes it just
21:04impossible to ignore. You may remember we have covered a lot on this show, pressure campaigns that have been
21:11brought to bear on commercial airlines and airports that were facilitating these ICE flights, these deportation
21:18flights for Trump's federal agents. People were pretty upset to discover, for example, that a Velo Airlines,
21:25you know, an a Velo Airlines plane they might have been taking on vacation, might be used on a different
21:31day to fly out a
21:32plane full of people in chains who Trump's agents had snatched off the streets or rammed off the road or
21:38pulled
21:38out of their car windows. People were also upset that an aviation company called Daedalus was going to lease
21:46airplane hangar space at their local airport in Delaware. They were upset about that because Daedalus was also
21:52flying these flights, these deportation flights for ICE. And in both of those cases, public outcry worked.
21:58A Velo got out of the deportation business. They sold all their planes, many of them to ICE. Now they're
22:04back to trying
22:04to be a normal passenger airline again, trying to wash that moral stench off themselves. Daedalus, as far as we
22:11know,
22:11they still fly for ICE as well, but they don't also try to fly retail passengers. And after the pushback
22:18from the public,
22:19they backed off their plans at Wilmington Airport as well.
22:24And the Trump administration may no longer care what voters think of them. They may think that Donald
22:29Trump and his ilk are never, ever going to be subject again to elections that control whether
22:34or not they still hold power. But commercial, public-facing companies, they very much care what
22:40their customers think of them. They have to. Back in the first Trump term, 2018, commercial airlines
22:46discovered that that first Trump administration was using their flights to transport immigrant kids
22:52who had been separated from their moms and dads. And a bunch of airlines, when they discovered that
22:56their flights were being used for that purpose, they told the Trump administration that they wouldn't
23:00do it anymore. They asked the Trump administration to stop doing that. Delta, at the time, said that
23:05family separation policy did, quote, not align with Delta's core values.
23:12Well, that was then. How about now? Delta, are your core values, are your customers OK with this
23:18second-term Trump policy of family incarceration? Delta, with the help of your planes.
23:28How about the other big airlines? Are your customers OK knowing they could be flying on one
23:32of your planes, right, headed to a beach or a wedding or to visit their family? And in the next
23:38row,
23:38there's the five-year-old and his dad that ICE just grabbed from outside their home and are
23:42transporting to a hellish Texas prison against their will. Everybody OK with this?
23:49In addition to Delta Airlines, we reached out to United and American Airlines as well to ask whether
23:54ICE is also moving migrant families on their planes as well, whether the companies have a position on it.
24:01We have not heard back. As for Liam Ramos and his family, last week, lawyers for the family said
24:08they're appealing a deportation order. Their lawyer tells us the appeal of that deportation order could
24:14take months or even years. She says the government does appear to be moving with remarkable speed on
24:19this case in particular. She tells us that if the Trump administration follows the law, Liam and his
24:24family cannot be deported while their appeal is pending. But that's a big if, if they follow the law.
24:33One other thing Liam's family lawyer tells us today, she says that in addition to Liam and his father still
24:38coping with the trauma of this ordeal, contending with anxiety and trouble sleeping and all the rest of it,
24:45she says Liam no longer wants to wear his bunny hat when he's out in public because it's now recognizable
24:51and he does not want the attention that it draws.
24:57This weekend, this Saturday,
25:00Liam's hometown of Minneapolis will be the flagship protest and what is expected potentially to be the
25:06largest single day of protest in American history. June of last year, that was the first No Kings
25:12protest that drew an astonishing 5 million people across the country. You might remember that was June 14th,
25:19the first No Kings Day. That was the day Trump tried to throw himself a weird North Korea style
25:25military parade for his own birthday. That sad low turnout event was wildly overshadowed by 5 million
25:33Americans turning out at protests against Trump all over the country. And then there was the second
25:39No Kings Day in October. That one did not draw 5 million people. That one drew 7 million people.
25:44The flagship protest in October was in Philadelphia, the birthplace of the Constitution.
25:49Seven million people turned out on No Kings Day in October.
25:54And that was before Trump bulldozed the East Wing of the White House and before he tried to arrest six
26:01Democratic members of Congress. And before we learned that in addition to bombing random boats in the
26:06Caribbean, he was also deliberately killing the survivors of those bombings, which is a war crime.
26:12It was before he invaded Venezuela and announced he was taking their oil. It was before he started
26:17an apocalyptic war with Iran. It was before he renamed the Kennedy Center for himself and then
26:23announced that he would close it. It's before he blew up health insurance for millions of American
26:29families. It's before he effectively made the Nobel Peace Prize winner give him her prize. It's before he
26:35sent the FBI to seize the ballots from Atlanta, Georgia. It's before he posted a video online
26:41depicting President Obama and his wife, Michelle Obama, as if they were apes. It's before they killed
26:49Renee Nicole Good. It's before they killed Alex Preddy. It's before they took Liam.
26:57This Saturday, it will be Minneapolis as the flagship. But there are more than 3,000 separate protests planned
27:06all over the country. This Saturday, no kinks. More ahead. Stay with us.
27:15So this is just about 45 seconds. Just watch this. This is part of how they are promoting it.
27:22Our demonstration of moral strength is in opposition to the tyranny that threatens our
27:30very existence as a country. And this kind of gathering can unite us in a moral movement
27:36to save America. And we will not stand down. Not now. Not ever.
27:43I've got a question for you. Are we free?
27:46No!
27:47Does this scare us all?
27:49No!
27:49Are we going to go down now?
27:51No!
27:52That's right. Because what we are doing here today is as American as apple pie,
27:56we are standing up for our rights, we are standing up for our neighbors.
28:00No!
28:07That is a video put out by the Indivisible Movement promoting the No Kings Day protest
28:13this Saturday, this weekend. This is going to be the third one. And all across the country,
28:19people have been doing kind of guerrilla promotion about that protest this weekend.
28:24In Chippewa Valley, Wisconsin, local organizers there showed up with shovels and dye and made this
28:29very cool sign in the snow. No Kings 3, March 28th. Quote, we ain't afraid of no stinking blizzard.
28:37Wisconsin is ready for No Kings 3.0. Bundle up and get your bunnies out here.
28:42We'll be waiting for you. In Sunnyvale, California, they're advertising Saturday's protests
28:48with this sign over a local highway overpass. This is Waterville, Maine this weekend. People
28:54promoting this everywhere. At the first No Kings Day protest last June,
28:59organizers say more than five million people showed up at marches and rallies all across the
29:04country. Then the second No Kings was in October. Just four months later, organizers said more than
29:10seven million people showed up. How many people do you think are going to show up for the third one
29:14this Saturday? Each of the dots on this map marks where an individual No Kings protest is being held
29:22in the United States. There are so many protests that from a distance, the map is basically useless.
29:27The only thing you can see is areas where no one lives, a couple of them.
29:32There were 2,500 protests at the first No Kings. There were 2,700 protests at the second No Kings.
29:38Organizers say for this one, there are already more than 3,100 protests planned all over the country.
29:44The flagship one will be in Minneapolis, the place that has spent the last four months showing the rest of
29:50the
29:50country what it looks like to stand up and fight back. Tonight, Bruce Springsteen announced that he
29:55will be performing at that flagship protest. Joining us now is Ezra Levin. He's the co-founder of
30:02Indivisible, one of the grassroots groups that has helped lead the organizing for the No Kings
30:06protest. Ezra, it's nice to see you. Thanks for being here.
30:09Great to see you, Rachel.
30:12Indivisible does lots of different kinds of organizing. How do these large, very decentralized
30:19No Kings protests, we'll now have the third one of them this Saturday, how do they fit into the
30:24overall movement to oppose Trump and to limit his freedom of movement as president?
30:31Rachel, that's a great question because I think actually people tend to both underplay and overplay
30:36the role of massive one-day protests like this. I would say No Kings is a tactic, an extremely
30:43important tactic that can accomplish a couple of things. One, it can bust through that bubble,
30:49that air of inevitability that Trump, that this regime is invincible, is unstoppable, is all-powerful.
30:56You don't look all-powerful when you're facing the largest non-violent protests in American history
31:03in every nook and cranny in the country. So sending that message is great, is key, is why I'm excited
31:09that there are more than 3,100 protests already planned for Saturday. But the second thing it does,
31:14the second thing it does that I think is just as important, is it doesn't just gather millions of
31:20people in one place. I love that Springsteen is playing in the Twin Cities. I love we're going to
31:24have a big New York event and Chicago event and San Francisco event. That's great. I'm from rural Texas.
31:30I love that Kyle, Texas has an event. I love that the reddest and most rural parts of the country
31:36also have protests because the day after No Kings, democracy won't suddenly be saved.
31:42Trump will still be in the White House. This illegal and unconstitutional war will still be going on.
31:47His secret police force, Goon Squad, will still be terrorizing American communities. So we need to
31:54build. This is why it's important to be organizing where you are and why we recommend if there is not
32:01a No Kings protest within 30 minutes or so of where you live, you should probably be organizing
32:07your own, both to make the point on March 28th, but also to start organizing your own community for
32:13what comes next. In terms of the sort of atmosphere in the country, I will say that it's
32:19it's two different but related feelings that it creates in me to see a gigantic protest of a
32:24million people, you know, in New York or someplace where there's lots of people have come together
32:28and also to see five people out on a street corner in a rural place where it doesn't have a
32:33lot of
32:33population. It's kind of the same feeling in terms of the import of it. Ezra, I wanted to ask you,
32:39you know, one of the things that's happened between the last huge No Kings Day protest and this one
32:42this Saturday is, of course, the killing of two protesters in Minneapolis and the brutalizing of
32:48protesters in some other places. Do you think that's affected the way people are thinking about
32:51showing up for this kind of event? Oh, absolutely. But I don't think the way that Trump and his
32:58folks all across the country who are launching these campaigns of terror in communities thought
33:02it would. Two days after Alex Freddie was murdered in the Twin Cities, you could imagine people all over
33:07the country said, oh, my gosh, that that's sad. I'm mad about that. But I've got to protect myself.
33:12I'm not going to show up. I've got to hide. I've got to not be targeted by this regime.
33:17Instead, we saw the exact opposite, Rachel, the exact opposite. Two days after Alex Freddie was
33:22murdered, we saw more than 200,000 people join a No Kings Eyes on Eyes training to get trained up
33:29on
33:29exactly what Alex Freddie was doing, exactly what Renee Good was doing. If there is a shift,
33:34though, that I've seen is how the Republicans are responding to No Kings. It's really interesting
33:39because in the lead up to No Kings 2, they spent two, three weeks talking all about No Kings,
33:46how this is going to be a violent protest. We're going to demolish the country. They had to call
33:50out the National Guard. And of course, that's not what we saw. We saw powerful joy from millions of
33:56people around the country. But you'll see right now, I challenge you, find one national elected
34:02Republican who has said the phrase No Kings in the last month. I don't think you'll find that person
34:08because the word has gone out. Do not talk about this because if we don't talk about it,
34:12then there's no conflict. And if there's no conflict, press won't cover it. If press doesn't
34:15cover it, then people won't find out about it. If people don't find out about it, they won't show
34:20up. That's a smart strategy on their part. I think we've got to adapt our tactics to recruit folks
34:26ourselves. So I do hope people will text No Kings to 59798, find out where your event is, and then
34:34text
34:35three people who never attended a protest before. They're not activists. They're not organizers.
34:39They might not even be political, but they don't like what's happening in this country.
34:43Text them and recruit them to No Kings on Saturday. Invite them to join you.
34:48Ezra Levin, co-founder of Indivisible. Ezra, good luck this weekend. Keep us apprised. We'll have
34:53you back soon to talk about it. Thank you. Thanks, Rachel.
34:57All right. Much more news ahead. Stay with us.
35:03Tonight, the U.S. Senate has confirmed as the new Secretary of Homeland Security,
35:07former Oklahoma Senator Mark Wayne Mullen. He replaces Kristi Noem, whom President Trump
35:12fired earlier this month. Noem's top advisor, Corey Lewandowski, is at the center of new reporting
35:18alleging what sure looks like a series of proposed kickbacks and other kinds of financial corruption
35:23within the Homeland Security Department. NBC News reports that some Homeland Security contractors
35:28have told the White House that Corey Lewandowski told them he wanted to be paid in exchange for helping
35:35them get Homeland Security contracts. When the companies refused, they say Lewandowski then
35:40blocked them from being granted government contracts. Lewandowski has denied these claims
35:46roundly and adamantly. A statement on his behalf says in part, quote, Mr. Lewandowski adamantly denies
35:53ever demanding any payment or compensation from any potential former or current government contractor.
35:58The statement says the allegations are, quote, not supported by a single piece of evidence
36:02because there is none. I should tell you, these reports have nonetheless spurred a congressional
36:08inquiry by Democrats on House oversight. But alongside those allegations, there's a second
36:14sort of mysterious financial update we have for you about the Homeland Security Department and
36:19specifically how the Trump administration has been buying up warehouses all over the country
36:23to use as Trump prison camps to hold people without trial. Well, now, in at least two of the places
36:30where they are trying to do that, in Utah and Georgia, local press are reporting that the Trump
36:34administration agreed to purchase these warehouses to turn into Trump prison camps. But they appear to
36:40have purchased these facilities for way, way, way more than the facilities are worth. In Georgia,
36:47for example, the Trump administration has agreed to pay $129 million for a vacant warehouse.
36:52Just a little over a year ago, that same property was valued at just $26 million, a fraction of what
37:01the
37:01Trump administration just paid for it. Same thing over in Utah. The Trump administration agreed to pay
37:05more than $145 million for a warehouse there. According to local property records, that warehouse is
37:12only worth around $97 million, meaning the Trump administration potentially overpaid for that one
37:17by, oh, say, $48 million. Why the overpaying? These proposed Trump prison camps have been wildly
37:28unpopular in the communities where Trump has been buying up these warehouses. As you see here in Utah,
37:33there have been multiple protests against the planned conversion of this Salt Lake City warehouse,
37:38which the White House appears to have massively overpaid for, at a time when the agency that paid for them
37:43is being accused of rank corruption and self-dealing at the highest levels.
37:49What's going on here? And do these two dots connect? More on this in just a moment. Stay with us.
37:58Nate Bluen is a state senator from the great state of Utah. His South Salt Lake City constituents
38:04are wildly against the Trump administration's efforts to put a massive Trump prison camp
38:10in a warehouse in Salt Lake City, a prison camp to hold thousands of people indefinitely and without
38:15trial. Senator Bluen is one of the local officials who's attended protests against that facility.
38:21And last week at one of those protests, he specifically called out the inexplicable
38:26$150 million price tag the Trump administration agreed to pay for an empty warehouse in Salt Lake City,
38:33which appears to be tens of millions of dollars more than the property is worth. He said, quote,
38:38out there, someone is making a whole bunch of money profiteering off the suffering of human lives.
38:45Joining us now is Utah State Senator Nate Bluen, who is also a candidate for Congress
38:48this year. Senator Bluen, thank you very much for being here. I appreciate you taking the time.
38:53Thank you, Rachel. Appreciate it.
38:56So what do your constituents think about this proposed facility? I know that Salt Lake City
39:01felt like it dodged a bullet. There had been an original plan to buy a warehouse. That had then
39:05been scuttled after the owner was sort of talked out of it. But then ICE came in and bought a
39:09second
39:10facility. How do your constituents feel about it? People feel betrayed. This happened out of nowhere.
39:16We saw overnight this transaction for, as you called out earlier, $50 million over the appraised
39:21value of this site. And people are so frustrated. They want leaders who are going to step up and be
39:27accountable for the decisions that they're getting made. And we have not had any of that accountability here
39:31in Utah. Our governor recently invited this in and said that he supports having such a facility. But
39:37we have had strong local leaders in Salt Lake City and Salt Lake County standing up and speaking out
39:42against this and really making sure that our constituents feel heard and that we have the
39:46opportunity to get involved in this process and to actually make a difference. As you also mentioned,
39:51we did shut down a similar facility months ago. And for this to come out of nowhere and, again,
39:56for someone to be making tens of millions of dollars off of it is just so unconscionable
40:01in the current environment. Well, let me ask you about that price tag part of it.
40:07It does seem unusual that they seem to be wildly overpaying for a facility like this, but it is also
40:14a pattern that we're starting to see emerge with other facilities that they're buying around the
40:19country. Certainly, there's been reporting similar to what you found in Utah, in Georgia just over the
40:24past few days, and we've seen it in other places as well. Do you, as a state senator, or does
40:28anybody
40:29acting locally in Utah have any recourse to try to figure out how the price was arrived at, who,
40:37in your words, might be profiteering off of this type of planned facility? Is there any way to
40:43follow the money here? Well, you know, I am running for Congress, and I think that's where we're going to
40:48make this difference, is we need to lean in with the power that Democrats are going to take back in
40:53November and to hold hearings and to hold everyone accountable to abolish ICE and to make sure that
40:59we are actually going after the people who have made these decisions and establishing where this
41:05money is coming from, because this is taxpayer dollars that are getting spent far over the
41:09budgets of what we should be spending. And frankly, we shouldn't be spending any money on these sorts of
41:13internment camps. Utah has a history with internment camps, and we don't need more of them in our
41:18backyard. So I think we need to be exercising every single option here. We need our local governments to
41:24step in and say no to permits and, you know, for infrastructure, for water, for the safety needs
41:29that these are going to bring along. At the protest I was at just last week, we saw people lining
41:33the
41:33streets, and trucks were having a hard time getting by. This is, frankly, bad for business. That's the
41:38least of my concerns here. But that sort of disruption needs to become the norm as long as
41:43we see the Trump administration and folks playing along. My opponent in this race has taken tens of
41:49thousands of dollars from private prison corporations. You know, we need to elect leaders who do notâwho
41:54are not going to be accountable to these corporations that are making money, the billionaire class, and
41:59splitting us up and really driving us apart. So it's important that we do have these strong people to
42:04speak up for our communities, for South Salt Lake and others in particular, that are going to be
42:09targeted here. This is happening in one of the more diverse neighborhoods in Salt Lake City. And I think
42:14everything I've heard from my constituents that I represent right now, from the folks that I'm speaking
42:19with as I'm running for Congress, are speaking out loudly against this. They see ICE's overreach. They see
42:24all of the things that are happening and believe that this is an agency that has lost its social license
42:29to
42:29operate. And so to move forward with something that would lock up 7,500 people, 800,000 square feet,
42:37I've walked around this thing. I mean, it takes time to just get around one side of the building and
42:42to
42:42imagine what's happening in there is just so criminal to me. Utah State Senator and Congressional
42:49candidate Nate Bluen, thank you very much for being here. Keep us surprised. We'd love to have you
42:54back to talk about this again. Thank you. Check out NateForUtah.com if you want to learn more.
43:00We'll be right back. Stay with us.
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