The Rachel Maddow Show 4/4/26 | MSNBC Breaking News Today April 4, 2026 - video Dailymotion

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Transcript

00:00And thanks to you at home for sticking with us for this hour. The president has a 33% approval

00:05rating and a 62% disapproval rating. The president is now sending American ground troops, thousands

00:12of them, and special forces as well to join his inexplicable war in Iran, which is now entering

00:19its second month. That war is even less popular than the president himself is, specifically the

00:26idea of U.S. troops having boots on the ground in that war. That is even less popular than the

00:32overall

00:33war. There is now a 10-foot-tall golden toilet on the National Mall at the Lincoln Memorial.

00:40It says, quote, a throne fit for a king. In a time of unprecedented division, escalating conflict,

00:46and economic turmoil, President Donald Trump focused on what truly mattered, remodeling the

00:51Lincoln bathroom in the White House. The plaque next to the 10-foot-tall gold toilet says Trump

00:56is, quote, an unwavering visionary who looked down, saw a problem, and painted it gold.

01:04The gold toilet president this weekend was also the target of one of the largest

01:08single-day nationwide demonstrations in American history. Organizers say more than 8 million

01:16Americans protested against President Donald Trump this weekend. These were the third

01:22no-kings protests against Donald Trump in 10 months. And there were more than 3,000 separate

01:29protests all over the country, which, if I went one by one, it's too many for me to show you

01:34all in

01:34one sitting. But, you know, the organizers in advance of this weekend's protests had said

01:39that they were noticing a little bit of a theme, sort of a trend. They were noticing not only that

01:45there

01:45were going to be more no-kings protests against Trump in more places than there ever had been

01:52before. But they said specifically they'd noticed kind of a red state spring happening. More sign-ups,

02:01more planned protests against Trump in red states. And in places specifically, even within red states,

02:07that voted for Trump. They had said to expect that based on what they'd seen from sign-ups. And then

02:13that's what happened this weekend. Look, this is what no-kings protests looked like this weekend

02:17in northern Alabama, in Huntsville, Alabama, also in red state Alaska, in Anchorage, in the villages

02:24in Florida, which is the biggest retirement community in the country. It's famously a nest of

02:30Republican votes for Republican politicians. But this was the villages' huge no-kings anti-Trump

02:36protest this weekend. Also check out Jonesboro, Arkansas. The county where Jonesboro, Arkansas is,

02:42Trump won that in 2024 by a 37-point margin. But now look, this weekend, Jonesboro, Arkansas is

02:50no-kings. This is Nebraska. Hastings, Nebraska, up there in the upper left. Adams County is where

02:59Hastings, Nebraska is. Trump won there in the last election by 40 points. But now here's Hastings,

03:05Nebraska, no-kings. Look at North Dakota. In the last election, Trump won that state by the largest

03:11margin in that state in a presidential election in more than 70 years. But you're looking in the

03:16upper right there, you're looking at Minot, North Dakota, where Trump won by nearly 50 points.

03:22Well, yeah, that was then. This was Minot, North Dakota this weekend. No kings. This is not some,

03:28you know, caricature of liberal America. Lower left there, that's Topeka, Kansas. Lower right there,

03:34that's Rapid City, South Dakota this weekend. I mean, behold, famously liberal Wyoming. Lower

03:42left there. Wyomingnews.com says there were at least 20 different no-kings protests this weekend

03:47in Wyoming, including this one in Cheyenne at the state capitol. The local press reported that Cheyenne

03:53protest was significantly larger than previous no-kings protests at that site. Up in the upper left,

03:59that's Tupelo, Mississippi. In the upper right, that's Bluefield, West Virginia. Lower right,

04:04that's Southern Indiana. That's Evansville, Indiana, where Trump won by 13 points in that county. But

04:09this weekend, that was Evansville, Indiana. No kings. Some of the biggest protests in the whole

04:15country were in red states this weekend. Look at the upper left there. That's Boise, Idaho. Look at

04:20the turnout there. In the upper right, look at Salt Lake City, Utah. Louisville, Kentucky in the lower

04:26left there. Lower right, that huge protest in the lower right. That's Louisiana. That's New Orleans,

04:31Louisiana. Missoula, Montana, which is the upper left here. Look how big that is. They had pretty big

04:37crowds for the previous no-kings protests in Missoula. But this weekend, Missoula organizers

04:42said the turnout was double or possibly triple the turnout they had previously had on previous no-kings

04:48protests. Up in the upper right there, that's Charlotte, North Carolina. You will remember that

04:52locals in Charlotte stood up mightily and protested and protested and protested against the attack on

04:58their city from Trump's federal ICE agents. Well, this was no-kings in Charlotte this weekend,

05:03a really big turnout. Lower left, that's Dallas, Texas. Lower right, that's Columbus, Ohio.

05:10The great state of Tennessee saw big protests for no-kings. Up in the upper left, that's Chattanooga,

05:16Tennessee. In the upper right, that's Nashville, Tennessee. Lower left, that's the state capital in

05:22Texas. That's Austin, Texas. Lower right, that big protest there is Columbia, South Carolina. Check

05:28that out. Here's Mississippi. Here's Hattiesburg, Mississippi in the lower right there. Look how big

05:34that is. Upper left, that's Little Rock, Arkansas. Upper right, that's Wichita, Kansas. Lower left,

05:43that's beloved Oklahoma City. So three times in 10 months now, we've had this big tent peaceful

05:52protest movement against Trump, against this president trying to assume the powers of a king

05:57and the breadth of what people have been able to build, the geographic spread of where people are

06:03organized, the sheer number of protests at each of these just goes up and up and up. But even in

06:09a

06:10deliberately decentralized, far-flung thing like this, where there's, you know, we got 50 states,

06:14but we had more than 3,300 protests, even in a decentralized, far-flung thing like this,

06:20there are still the places where just the sheer number of people in one place is overwhelming.

06:25Organizers say this weekend's flagship no-kings protest in St. Paul, do you see there on the

06:30lower left? They say that was the largest demonstration of any kind in the history of

06:35the state of Minnesota. Biggest protest of any kind ever in that state. Los Angeles in the upper

06:41left there was huge. Boston, upper right there, that was huge, which was all the more impressive

06:46because there were more than 160 different no-kings protests in Massachusetts all at the same time.

06:53And Massachusetts isn't that big a state, but Boston still had nearly 200,000 people turnout

06:58at that one no-kings protest alone. Boulder, Colorado, lower right there, that was big as well.

07:04Boulder, Colorado was big, as was Denver, Colorado, which you see in the upper right there. And again,

07:11that is particularly impressive given that Denver and Boulder are only 30 miles apart.

07:15But both kings simultaneously, both cities simultaneously had huge no-kings protests.

07:20Upper left there, look at that sea of people in Chicago, Illinois. Chicago, you would expect them

07:25to turn out numbers like that after that city fought back so hard against the attack on that city

07:30by Trump's ICE agents this year. San Francisco in the lower left there was huge. Lower right there,

07:37that's Minneapolis. And again, the size of the turnout in Minneapolis and on the other side of

07:43the river in St. Paul, where they had the largest demonstration in state history, both of those

07:47things happening on the same day. It's just very impressive. Philadelphia was really big.

07:55Philadelphia had been the flagship protest at an earlier no-kings, but look at how many people

07:59turned out in Philly for this one. San Diego was really big. Look at that lower right. Look how

08:04many people in San Diego. Washington, D.C. is lower left there. That was big. In D.C., some people

08:10from the no-kings protest marched to a military base where Trump administration officials,

08:16Trump cabinet officials, have been taking over military housing for themselves. So people at no-kings

08:21in D.C. made some noise there this weekend, reminding those folks in Trump's cabinet that even

08:27though they have looted those houses for themselves from the military, those are not their houses.

08:32Upper left, you're looking at New York City. The crowd was so large in New York City this weekend,

08:37even the New York Times had to begrudgingly concede that the New York City protest stretched

08:44for more than a mile on either side of Times Square.

08:50But again, it's not just that there were some really large protests and that the collective

08:55number of people protesting was one of the largest protests in American history ever.

09:01It's also the sheer number of places in which Americans were willing to turn out. So like in New

09:08York, for example, yes, there was that massive protest in New York City. But you know what?

09:11There were 150 no-kings protests all over New York State. I mean, here, just as a sampling,

09:19here's Albany in the lower right and Rochester in the lower left and Plattsburgh in the upper right

09:25and Buffalo, New York. In the great state of Georgia, there was a huge protest and march in

09:30Atlanta, which you might expect. But would you expect that there'd be 62 different no-kings protests

09:36all over the state of Georgia? In addition to Atlanta, here's Savannah and Sandy Springs and

09:41Decatur. In Arizona, there were surprisingly gigantic no-kings protests in Scottsdale,

09:49for example, but there were more than 70 protests statewide in Arizona. In some of these places,

09:53it was 95 degrees on Saturday. But here was Scottsdale and Mesa and Phoenix and Tempe and Tucson

09:59and Surprise, Arizona, which is one of the places they've been trying to put a huge Trump prison camp.

10:05The great state of Wisconsin had over 100 no-kings protests, including really big ones in Madison

10:13and in Milwaukee, but also in places like Greenfield and Shorewood and Brookfield and Eau Claire and the

10:18famously conservative city of Waukesha, Wisconsin. And the town of Dodgeville, which is west of Madison,

10:25Wisconsin. Dodgeville has about 4,000 people. In Dodgeville, more than 10 percent of the whole town

10:30showed up for the Dodgeville no-kings. And it was cold. New Jersey had more than 65 no-kings protests.

10:38Here's a look at Camden and Newton and Trenton and Toms River. Indiana, I mentioned Evansville before

10:46in southern Indiana. Indiana had more than 65 no-kings protests. Here's Indianapolis and Henderson

10:52and South Bend and Bloomington and Valparaiso and Zionsville. Virginia had more than 100 no-kings

11:00protests. Here's a look at Blacksburg and Charlottesville and Harrisonburg and Roanoke and

11:06Alexandria and Richmond. Pennsylvania also had more than 100 no-kings protests. Here was Bloomsburg,

11:15Pennsylvania and Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh was huge. And Lancaster, Pennsylvania and Pottstown, PA.

11:22There was a lot of attention this weekend to the no-kings protests that happened near the

11:26president's weird, like, gilded Florida palace where he both lives and also charges strangers

11:35money to be members at his house. Very weird. But that Palm Beach no-kings protest in Florida

11:41was dramatic because it's the site of the president's home. But, you know, the no-kings protests were also

11:47pretty dramatic in Miami and in Naples and in Cocoa and in Orlando and in Fort Lauderdale. I mean,

11:52there were more than 120 no-kings protests across red state Florida this weekend.

12:00One of the places where the local press reported a steep increase in participation compared to

12:05previous anti-Trump and no-kings protests was in Hagerstown, Maryland. Look at this turnout in

12:12Hagerstown. They got something like 3,000 people at the public square in Hagerstown on Saturday.

12:17And in Hagerstown, the banner for their protest wasn't just no-kings. It was no-kings, no-camps.

12:24And that's because it's just outside Hagerstown where the Trump administration is trying to put

12:29one of their giant Trump prison camps to hold thousands of people indefinitely and without trial.

12:36And Hagerstown has been, and the rest of Maryland has been, been trying as hard as they can to stop

12:41it. So, and that led to kind of an interesting local dynamic. And in Maryland, unlike in every

12:47other state where people were just expected to go to whatever no-kings protest was nearest to them,

12:52in Maryland, a grassroots group called the Maryland Coalition to Stop the Camps

12:58asked people in Maryland, Maryland residents, to come from all over the state, specifically to

13:04Hagerstown to show opposition to this particular prison camp that Trump is trying to put just

13:10outside that town. So it's, it was no-kings, no-camps in Hagerstown, Maryland. And I got to say,

13:18there's a, there's a piece of that story that is worth watching right now, now that Kristi Noem has

13:22been ousted as Trump's Homeland Security Secretary, and this new guy, the former Oklahoma Senator Mark

13:27Wayne Mullen is taking over. One of the things that has emerged about these warehouse purchases

13:34they're making for the Trump prison camps is that for some reason, the Trump administration appears

13:41to be eager to wildly overpay for these warehouses that they're buying even before they start spending

13:48to convert them into prison camps. So like in Salt Lake City, they paid nearly 50% more than the

13:54property appeared to be worth. This warehouse facility was assessed at roughly $97 million. For some reason,

14:00the Trump administration decided they wanted to pay over $145 million for it. Why is that?

14:08Roxbury, New Jersey, the warehouse they bought there was assessed at $62 million. The Trump

14:13administration came in and offered them $129 million. More than double what you'd expect to pay

14:21for it. One of the warehouses they bought in Georgia was valued just last year at $26 million.

14:28The Trump administration came in and bought it for $129 million. Assessed at $26 million. They came in and

14:36paid $129 million. What's going on there? What's going on there? Well, I will just point out two other

14:44things that are going on that might shed a little bit of light on this ultimately. Number one, Washington

14:49Post obtained an internal memo that apparently circulated last week, the day after Mark Wayne Mullen was

14:54sworn in as the new head of Homeland Security. That memo reportedly said that the process of

15:00turning these warehouses into Trump prison camps is going to be slowed down. That the proposals for

15:06these facilities are going to be revised. That they're going to start incorporating feedback from

15:12stakeholders, whatever that means, before they move ahead with these Trump prison camps. Why is that?

15:18Why are they slowing down? What's up with that? Well, turns out simultaneously, we have learned

15:23that there's a new inspector general investigation into alleged corruption at the Department of Homeland

15:29Security. The soliciting and handling of contracts, quote, including the involvement of former Secretary

15:35Kristi Noem and her de facto chief of staff, Corey Lewandowski. There was already an internal audit that had

15:41been sparked in the department for some reason. But now on top of that, there's a new and apparently quite

15:47urgent, quite aggressive investigation, which apparently included investigators searching the

15:52offices of one Homeland Security official last week, an official who had been reportedly placed in her

15:58DHS job by Corey Lewandowski and Kristi Noem. After NBC News recently reported that Corey Lewandowski

16:06reportedly sought multi-million dollar payments from companies that were contracting with Homeland Security,

16:13including specifically companies that operate immigration prisons. He was seeking multi-million

16:20dollar payments for himself from those companies as he was acting as the de facto chief of staff

16:28at that agency, including an unusual degree of oversight of contracts. I mean, Mr. Lewandowski denies

16:35this, but Democratic members of Congress have now opened their own investigation into what may have been

16:40going on there. So I'm just, you know, you put these things together. I'm just going to say,

16:46hey, you guys, anybody wondering why it is that they slapped an extra 60, 80, 100 million dollars

16:55on top of the price tag for these Trump prison camp warehouses they're buying in multiple states

17:01through totally opaque processes that make no financial sense whatsoever on their face?

17:08Yeah, you guys maybe want to slow that down a sec? 3,000 people in the Hagerstown,

17:13Maryland public square would like you to slow that down for sure. Social Circle Georgia town

17:18officials put a lock on the water meter at the warehouse the Trump administration is trying to

17:22turn into a prison there. I think they'd like you to slow it down a little bit. Take another look.

17:27The city council in Salt Lake City, Utah just voted to cap the amount of water they'd be allowed to

17:32use

17:32at the warehouse. They want to be a huge prison there as well. That's one where they appear to have

17:37overpaid 48 million dollars for that warehouse for no explicable reason. Yeah, maybe they'd like you

17:44to slow that down. Take another look at that one as well. Why'd they overpay for all these things

17:49in such a rush? Why'd they overpay by tens of millions of dollars at one of these things after

17:57another? Who made off with all of that money? Whose pockets just got stuffed with the tens of millions

18:03of dollars in taxpayer money that is unaccounted for in almost all of these transactions?

18:10Yeah, you think you might want to slow it down a little bit?

18:14That stink is what you think it is. It smells like corruption, which you know what? Kings and

18:21dictators on their golden toilets are quite famous for. And here's something else to keep an eye on

18:29in coming days. This week, the Trump administration is going to try to make its most radical move yet

18:36against immigrants and against the Constitution in order to get at immigrants. This week, they're

18:43going to argue before the Supreme Court that when the Constitution says anyone born in this country is

18:47an American, they're going to argue this week at the Supreme Court that the Constitution doesn't

18:51really mean that, even though that's what it plainly says. And you'll see this headlines as

18:57the birthright citizenship case. In my experience, nobody who's not a lawyer instinctively knows what

19:02the words birthright citizenship mean. What this case is, what they're going to be arguing this week,

19:10the whole idea of birthright citizenship is that from the beginning in this country, anybody born in

19:16this country has been an American by virtue of the fact that they were born here. It's a core part

19:21of

19:22what makes America, America, and it's in the Constitution. The Trump administration is trying

19:26to change that, and they're going to try to change it this week. What they want instead is for you

19:32not

19:32to be an American by virtue of the fact that you were born here. Instead, they want a new test.

19:37They

19:37want to assess the allegiance, the loyalty of a person's parents before they decide if that person

19:45who was born here in this country can be considered really an American, really a citizen.

19:54I mean, before, just to put this in perspective, before this current experience we are having right

20:00now with the Trump administration trying to build, you know, in Hagerstown, Maryland,

20:04and Social Circle, Georgia, and Salt Lake City, and all these other places, before this experience

20:09we're having now, where they're trying to build these huge Trump prison camps to hold people without

20:14trial indefinitely. Before this, the last time we had massive domestic prison camps in this country

20:18to hold people indefinitely and without trial, the last time we did something like this was in World

20:23War II, when the U.S. government locked up Japanese Americans for years, regardless of their

20:29citizenship, on the theory that their race alone made them dangerous and justified putting them in what

20:36were, effectively, concentration camps, even though they weren't called that.

20:41Well, now today, Japanese American groups and experts on Japanese American incarceration during

20:46World War II, they've been filing friend of the court briefs in this Supreme Court case ahead of

20:51the oral arguments in the birthright citizenship case this week. Law professor Eric Muller of the

20:57University of North Carolina is a nationally recognized expert on what happened to Japanese

21:01Americans during the war. He has written four books on the incarceration of Japanese Americans during

21:06World War II. He has submitted a friend of the court brief in which he explains sort of patiently

21:12that even in World War II, even when we were so panicked about the loyalties and the allegiances of

21:18whole huge swaths of our population, so much so that we effectively created a concentration camp system

21:25to lock up an entire ethnic group for years on the basis of how scared we were about their supposed

21:30loyalties and loyalties and allegiances. Even then, even when citizens of Japan, who we had locked up in

21:41those camps, had babies here inside those camps, even then there was no controversy at all about the fact

21:46that those babies born in American concentration camps to citizens of another country, those babies born here

21:53were definitely American. Even beyond that, even when people had renounced their American citizenship during

22:01World War II, and as people who had renounced their citizenship, we had them locked up in prison camps

22:07here. If those people who renounced their citizenship had babies here while they were in prison here, there was

22:13no question, no controversy at all that their babies born here in prison were Americans by virtue of the fact

22:19that

22:20they were born here. And as Professor Mueller points out to the court in this friend of the court brief,

22:25even beyond that, it gets even worse and weirder. Because in World War II, the United States went so far

22:33as to go out into the world to grab a whole bunch of people who had no ties to the

22:40United States of

22:40America whatsoever. We were at war with Japan. Japan had lots of American prisoners of war.

22:46And the United States went to Latin America and seized people of Japanese descent from Peru.

22:55It forced these people to come to the United States to be put in prison here so that these

23:00people could potentially be used in prisoner swaps with Japan. These people had no connection to the

23:07United States of America. They were Peruvians of Japanese descent. They were only in this country

23:12because they were taken here. They were forced against their will to be here. But still, even

23:17them, those people with no connection to America, when they inevitably had babies in American prison

23:25camps during World War II, even their babies, uncontroversially, were considered to be American

23:32citizens. Because those little kids were born in American prisons, which means they were born in

23:39America. So they were American, even then, without controversy and without question.

23:47But right now, under Donald Trump, Donald Trump, who has entrusted the wise and prudent stewardship of

23:55immigration matters to geniuses like Corey Lewandowski and Kristi Noem and now Mark Wayne

24:00Mullen, who's maybe having to pull up a bit on the new Trump prison camp archipelago for immigrants

24:05because, wait a second, aren't we missing hundreds of millions of dollars somewhere? And has anybody

24:11seen Corey? I mean, now, right now, under these geniuses this week, they are going to try to tell

24:19the United States Supreme Court that the Constitution has been wrong all this time.

24:25And even though people born to Peruvians who were being held in U.S. prison camps against their will

24:35because they were of Japanese descent, because we wanted to use them as chits in a prisoner exchange,

24:39even though their babies were considered to be American because they were born in America,

24:46the whole history of this has all just been gotten wrong all along.

24:50And they're going to try to tell the Supreme Court this week that Donald Trump is actually the only

24:56one who really understands the way this is supposed to be done. And so now, from here on out, regardless

25:01of what we've done in the past, regardless of what we did even during World War II, when we were

25:05really

25:05stressed out about this issue, regardless of how we have handled this through the entire history of

25:11our nation back to its founding, that's all been wrong. And Donald Trump is the only one who knows

25:17how to do it right. And from here on out, it will be Donald Trump who will neutrally and with

25:21an even

25:22hand assess your loyalties and your allegiances before he decides if you're really an American.

25:29Because it doesn't matter if you're born here, he's going to pick who's an American and who's not.

25:35It is just incredible that they are dragging that stinking heap up to the door of the Supreme Court this

25:46very week. The same week that more than 8 million Americans from every single corner of this country

25:53came out full tilt and at full volume to say no kinks. No kinks, no thrones, no golden toilets,

26:01no crowns, no kings, no camps. That's where we are. That's where we stand. Game on.

26:14The military calls them AWACS, A-W-A-C-S. A-W-A-C-S. It stands for Airborne Warning

26:22and Control Systems.

26:24This is one. It's called the E-3 Sentry. It costs about $300 million. It's called a Sentry because

26:32it functions basically as eyes in the sky, that big dome on top, that thing that sits on top of

26:39the plane that makes it look like not a normal plane. That's a 30-foot long rotating radar.

26:45It can detect anything airborne within 250 miles from the surface of the Earth all the way up to

26:50the stratosphere. We do not have a ton of planes like these, and they are very, very, very expensive.

26:59But AWACS are just key to American air dominance in faraway war zones.

27:07Well, on Friday, Iran blew one up. Iran carried out a targeted attack on the Prince Sultan air base

27:14in Saudi Arabia. That attack wounded a dozen U.S. troops. It also destroyed this vital and rare and

27:21expensive and strategically critical radar aircraft that we don't have very many of.

27:29How did it know how to find it? Why wasn't it protected? Why was it out in the open?

27:35Over the weekend, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told NBC News that it wasn't Iran that

27:40figured out where that vital U.S. aircraft was sitting there unprotected. It was Russia.

27:46In an interview with NBC, Zelenskyy shared his own briefing from Ukraine intelligence. It showed

27:52that Russian satellites had taken images of that air base in Saudi Arabia, not once, not twice,

27:57but three times in the week leading up to the strike that injured all those American troops and

28:03destroyed that critical plane. Since the start of this war in Iran, we have seen report after report

28:09citing U.S. officials and British officials, even German officials, all saying that Russia is helping

28:16Iran target U.S. assets, helping Iran target and attack and kill and wound U.S. troops.

28:23So how is the United States roaring back at Russia for that? How are we getting them to back off?

28:29How

28:29are we making them pay for doing that? Not at all. We're not doing anything quite the opposite.

28:34President Donald Trump has instead inexplicably twice cut sanctions on Russian oil. And then this

28:42weekend, Trump decided to additionally give Russia a big new gift. The U.S. has imposed a blockade on

28:50all sorts of fuel to the island nation of Cuba for a couple of months now. But this weekend, for

28:57some

28:57reason, who knows why, Trump decided to let a Russian oil tanker go right through the blockade,

29:04sail on through, unmolested, to bring oil to Cuba anyway. I mean, Trump's war on Iran has been one

29:11question mark after another about the most serious stuff in the world. Tonight, not only is the Strait

29:17of Hormuz still unsafe for shipping, but Iran appears to have hit a fully loaded Kuwaiti oil tanker in the

29:23port of Dubai. The crew were reportedly unharmed, but they hit the tanker. Meanwhile, this weekend,

29:29thousands of troops from the U.S. Army's elite 82nd Airborne Division, the paratroopers,

29:33arrived in the Middle East, which means there are more than 50,000 American troops in the region.

29:38In the region, Trump reportedly wants to send 10,000 more. The latest deployments include large

29:43numbers of special operators, including Navy SEALs. What are they there for? What is Trump going to tell

29:51them to do? What is the point of this war at this time? Joining us now is Ben Rhodes, former

29:55Deputy

29:56National Security Advisor for President Obama. Ben, it's nice to see you. Thanks very much for being

30:00with us tonight. Hey, Rachel. So a lot is happening all at once. I feel like there's a few different

30:08things I want to ask you about. One is what is going on with the weird favorable treatment to Russia

30:14when the intelligence and the open source reporting seems to be getting stronger and stronger about Russia

30:19really playing a pivotal role in Iran's ability to hurt American assets and American personnel.

30:28But also what's happening, and I'll ask you this first, just with the strategic rationale for what

30:33we're doing, the president's incoherence in terms of being able to explain what he's trying to do

30:39and how that matches up with what he's actually doing, which is sending lots more troops.

30:44Well, the reality is, I just don't think he knows what he's doing. It seems like he launched this

30:49war thinking that Iran would capitulate quickly and he'd have some quick win like he did when

30:54he took out and abducted Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela. And anybody that has done any war games or looked

31:01at Iran would know that that would not be the case, that this is a deep regime that would resist

31:06and it would lash out across the region as they have. And the war thus far has been a strategic

31:11disaster. Rachel, I mean, let's just talk about Russia since you teed it up in your introduction

31:17there. Vladimir Putin benefits because the price of oil is up. That is money in his pocket because

31:22that's what Russia relies on for revenue. Russia has been given a waiver from U.S. sanctions so they can

31:29sell more oil at a higher price and make even more money. The Ukrainians, in an effort to be good

31:34citizens, are sharing some of their own drone defenses with the Gulf Arabs because they're

31:39getting bombarded by the same Iranian drones that were used in Ukraine. That's not good for Ukraine.

31:45That lessens their defenses. The U.S. has become completely disinterested in pursuing a peace

31:50settlement in Ukraine, certainly one that is on any kind of favorable terms to the Ukrainians,

31:54because we're consumed by this war. And then meanwhile, Vladimir Putin can now point to the rest of the

31:59world and say, what's the difference? The U.S. also attacks countries in illegal wars of aggression

32:05that are unprovoked. So kind of across the board, economically in Ukraine and geopolitically,

32:11Vladimir Putin is winning this war in Iran, and the U.S. is getting really no benefit.

32:16We've replaced one supreme leader with a younger one who's probably even more radical than his father.

32:22We've convinced the Iranians that their only survival is probably to try to pursue a nuclear weapon on the

32:28back end of this war. And the Iranians are currently running the Strait of Hormuz, which is 20 percent of

32:34the world's fossil fuel energy, like a toll road, and are charging to get oil out and gas out. So

32:40you tell me where the strategic benefit is for the United States.

32:45Ben, the Wall Street Journal is reporting tonight that President Trump has told—again, this is a thing

32:50that Trump has reportedly said. So as far as I'm concerned, things he says have no value. The only reason

32:57to talk about them is to try to figure out how they match up with things he's actually doing.

33:01While he is sending thousands of troops to the region, including now not only paratroopers,

33:08but special forces, including Navy SEALs, Trump has also reportedly, according to the Wall Street

33:13Journal, told aides tonight that he is willing to end the war in Iran, even if the Strait of Hormuz

33:20remains largely closed. So the Strait of Hormuz was open before the war. It will now stay closed

33:27and be operated, as you put it, I guess, as the kind of toll road that you were just describing.

33:32Trump is willing to have that be the outcome of his war. But there are these thousands of Americans

33:38that he has put over there. And my sense of watching Trump in various national security crises

33:45that have erupted since—in both of his terms—is that he doesn't tend to send troop places

33:50without using them. He doesn't tend to use them as a bluff to just put them there and then take

33:55them

33:55out without having them do something. Do you have any sense of what he's planning on having them do?

34:02There's really two or three things that those ground troops could be doing. One, they could be

34:06trying to secure the remaining nuclear stockpile, the nuclear fuel, the enriched uranium that the

34:13Iranians have. That's in a—largely in a place called Isfahan that is in the center of Iran.

34:17So not a simple mission to go in there and get highly enriched uranium. Two, they could be a part

34:23of

34:23some effort to open the Strait of Hormuz. That's incredibly difficult, right? This is mountainous,

34:28difficult terrain. The Iranians would contest it. And then third, they could try to seize

34:34Karg Island that Trump has talked about, which is key to Iranians' ability to export

34:39its energy resources, or some of these other islands in the Strait of Hormuz. But then they're

34:43also sitting ducks, too. It's not like the Iranians wouldn't be firing missiles and drones at them.

34:48So all three of these missions carry great risk. Like you, Rachel, this reminds me of the buildup in

34:53Iran, where as he's sending all these troops, he's saying, oh, no, we want to negotiate. Well,

34:57actually, he was sending troops for the purpose of launching this war. We saw the same thing in

35:01Venezuela. So I just don't know why you would be sending the 82nd Airborne, all these special

35:06forces, if you weren't going to use them. I guess you could say it's par for leverage in some

35:11negotiation. But the Iranians don't seem intent on negotiating with Trump. They've been bombed twice

35:16in the middle of negotiations. If he were somehow to leave the Strait of Hormuz closed,

35:21then we suffer all the global economic impacts, the potential catastrophe to our own economy.

35:26He doesn't seem to understand that either. He keeps saying that we don't use the Strait of

35:30Hormuz. That fundamentally misunderstands energy markets. It may be that more of that oil and gas

35:36goes to Europe and Asia. But look at the price of the pump, right? It impacts us, too. So we're

35:42dealing with either an escalatory cycle that he can't get out of or just a tremendous amount of

35:47incompetence because he should be trying to negotiate the reopening of the Strait as the pathway to ending

35:53the war. Ben Rhodes, former Deputy National Security Advisor. Ben, really helpful to have

36:00you here tonight. This is a seriously muddy situation, but your clarity is really helpful.

36:04Thank you. Thanks, Rachel. All right. Much more news ahead. Stay with us.

36:11The first No Kings was June last year. More than five million people took part. The second No Kings

36:17four months later was October. More than seven million people showed up. This weekend was the

36:22third No Kings. Organizers say the count was more than eight million people. Now, the organizers of

36:28No Kings have already announced what they're planning to do next. After those three gargantuan

36:33events in 10 months, the next one's going to be something very different. And it is set for May 1st.

36:39Instead of another day of record-breaking protests and marches, this time, No Kings organizers and hundreds

36:45of unions and other groups nationwide are planning what they're calling a nationwide general strike on May 1st.

36:53A general strike as in no work, no school, no shopping. Friday, May 1st. Joining us now is Ezra Levin,

37:01a co-founder of Indivisible, one of the No Kings organizers. Ezra, I know you have not slept

37:06enough. And so you are forgiven for rambling or not making sense at this point. But I know it was

37:12a ton of work. How do you think things went on Saturday? Rachel, I can't hardly imagine how it

37:17could have gone better. I mean, you covered it earlier in this program, the joy and the power on

37:23display in thousands of communities across this country, patriotic Americans showing up for their

37:28constitutional rights and demonstrating that democracy will reassert itself. It was incredible.

37:34And that was half the goal, was to get as many people there on one day in an unexpected number

37:40of places. But the other half of the goal you're covering here, which is what comes next.

37:45In terms of what comes next, you guys are getting very specific about it. I understand that you guys

37:49have a mass call, a nationwide call scheduled for tomorrow, talking about what's next after this

37:56weekend's No Kings Day protests before what's going to happen on May 1st. What's the point of that call?

38:04What are you asking people to do between now and the May 1st general strike?

38:08That's right. So if you go to indivisible.org, you can go and register for this call to get up

38:12to

38:12speed on what's coming next. But as you mentioned, this isn't just another protest. As important as

38:17protest is, this is modeled on what we learned in the Twin Cities. They had a day of truth and

38:22action

38:23in January when they were pushing back against the ICE goons who were terrorizing their city.

38:28And the Day of Truth of Action in the Twin Cities saw thousands of clergy and teachers and nurses

38:34and community leaders linking arms with no school, no business, no shopping. Because as important as

38:41it is to show up on a Saturday in millions, exercising your economic mind is a key tactic that successful

38:49anti-authoritarian movements use. And when we get to the midterms, I think we're going to get out the

38:54vote. I think we're going to crush the regime in the midterms. And I also believe Donald Trump will

38:58not go quietly. He will try to sabotage those election results. And when that happens, we have

39:04to be prepared to use that economic might. And so May Day is a chance for us to replicate what

39:10we saw in

39:10the Twin Cities nationwide to match the breadth of mobilizing that we saw through No Kings with the

39:18depth of organizing that we've seen in the Twin Cities. I think this is an important tactical

39:22escalation that is going to grow our power and allow us to actually win and protect the results

39:28of the midterm elections. May 1st, general strike, mass call tomorrow, talking about what's next and

39:36planning for that. Ezra Levin, co-founder of Indivisible. I hope you get some sleep this

39:40week. I know sort of no rest for the wicked, but thanks very much for joining us tonight,

39:43Ezra. It's good to see you. Thank you, Rachel. We'll be right back. Stay with us.

The Rachel Maddow Show 4/4/26 | MSNBC Breaking News Today April 4, 2026

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