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