'Impetuous Manchild'

0:00Subscribe to MSNow Premium on Apple Podcasts for early access, ad-free listening and bonus content to all of MSNow's original podcasts, including the Char Topping series The Best People with Nicole Wallace. Why is this happening? Main Justice and more! Plus new episodes of all your favorite MSNow shows ad-free and ad-free listening to all of Rachel Maddo's original series, including Rachel Maddo Presents Burn Order. Subscribe to MSNow Premium on Apple Podcasts. Good evening and welcome to the weeknight. I'm Michael Steele with Simone Sanders, Townsend and Luke Russell in for Alicia Menendez, breaking tonight the president. Desperate to change the narrative on the Iran War fails miserably. Instead, raising more questions about his ability to lead the country as this precarious moment continues. And soon we'll speak with one of the Democrats who earned service members refuse illegal

1:01orders. Congresswoman Maggie Goodlander and asked her about Trump's threats that could amount to war crimes, if carried out. Literally, it's their duty to refuse. Also ahead, the search for a new attorney general is even more committed to the president, willing to do whatever it takes and Trump's quest for retribution. Michael Feinberg is with us soon. Breaking tonight, Donald Trump is trying and failing to control the narrative of his war of choice with Iran. Today, the president produced a news conference with military leaders, treating the moment more like reality television than an opportunity to explain why his war is now stretching into its six-week. It was his moment to tout the amazing rescue of a missing airman who was shot down Friday in Iran. But, you know, the president failed to offer anything of substance about the days and weeks ahead. The one piece of new information, he threatened to jail journalists who reported on that missing airman. Over the weekend, he once again ramped up threats over Iran, against Iran, over the straight of Hormuz. This is what the president said,

2:04that the time is running out for Iran to reopen the key shipping route, adding, quote, 48 hours before all hell will rain down. That made up deadline. It's now 25 hours away. Here's Trump at today's news conference. The entire country could be taken out in one night, and that night might be tomorrow night. We're giving them till tomorrow, eight o'clock, eastern time, and after that, they're going to have no bridges, they're going to have no power plants, stone ages, yeah. I can tell you they're negotiating. We think in good faith, we're going to find out. There's a lot there, but there's also the president's unhinged Easter message, where he said, quote, Tuesday will be power plant day and bridge day all wrapped up in one. There will be nothing like it. Open the fucking straight, you crazy bastards. A reporter asked Trump about that shameful post this afternoon.

3:07Yesterday in your two social, you called the Iranians crazy bastards. What is your response to critics who say that your mental health should perhaps be examined as this war continued? I haven't heard that, but in the best case, you're going to have to have more people like me because our country was being ripped off on trade or everything for many years until I came along. Okay, so the post this weekend, America, was disrespectful to say the least. But on Easter Sunday, in which you go after an embarrass and in many respects, defame the Christian community on this day of days, but then to humiliate and embarrass the Muslim community, you know, to go after Islam the way he did with that, with

4:08praise be to Allah. At the end, it says a lot about the depravity of the man, the lack of a core. There was a time when it was very normal for a president during Holy Week, also Passover was around this time, where you put out message of unity, may faith, and God bless America, and may you find your faith in all reigns of premiums, etc. Sunday morning, I'm going to pick up my mom to go to Easter Mass. I could have text messages from a friend of mine who sends me this and goes, is this real? I go, uh, yeah, oh my gosh, it absolutely is. And it was the trifecta of offending people who are friends, Christians and friends Muslim, but also it offends the sensibilities of anybody who's waking up on a Sunday morning just trying to go through the day. And it gets me to this point of, what are we doing here? What are we doing here to have something that unhinged while men and women are in harm's way in Iran? If you're the parent of one of those soldiers right now,

5:08what are you thinking? Who is at the controls? This is the guy with the nuclear codes. Not to mention, he's now treating Iran like it's some reality TV show, like it's WWE, you know, Smackdown 8 pm, Tuesday night, while. Here's the thing y'all, this is whose Donald Trump has always been. You know why we use the F4, we get one F4 to hour according to the idea. You know why we use the F4 in the intro because that's what the president wrote. And I think it is high past time people are editing for the president. We have to put out there what he said to the American people so that maybe people finally absorb that this is who the president is. The same man that sent out that unhinged tweet on Easter Sunday is the same man that had that crazy press conference today where we didn't really learn anything new except he wanted to jail a journalist is the same man that people elected, not the 92% but the other people elected in the last presidential election. He has not changed, he has been wildly and radically consistent and transparent with who he is. And it's high time

6:14that folks just, again, what did that, what did Dr. Maya Angelou say y'all when somebody shows you who they are? Believe them the first time. Perhaps people should start believing. Perhaps. Let's bring in some other folks into this conversation. Retired Army Brigadier General Steven Anderson is with us. And Angelou Corsone who is the president of Media Matters is also here. All right folks. General, I want to start with you on this one because I want to play for you a little bit of sound regarding the Straits of Hormuz. And what the president said today April, I said on April 1st about this. Are you willing to end this conflict with Iran charging tools for passage through the street? Us charging tools? Iran. What about us charging tools? Is that something you're considering? I'd rather do that than let them have them run. Why shouldn't we with the winner? We won. We have to have a deal. That's acceptable to me. And part of that deal is

7:15going to be we want free traffic of oil and everything else. The hard part is done so it should be easy. And in any event when this conflict is over the street will open up naturally. It'll just open up naturally. So that was a mash between April 1st of the day. That's what's the day? The day is the 6th. 6th. 6th. Y'all heard it. So, you know, and the day he comes out he goes, you know, no bridges, no, you know, power plants, no scrubs. Oh, wait a minute. That's the song of the song. Sorry, I don't know any of that. That's the song. Let's go and talk about that. You're take general on the man who doesn't have a plan that is committing more and more of our servicemen and women that you once commanded into this theater of war. His discretion, his choice, his war. Michael, I'm very scared and everyone should be scared. All Americans should be scared because our leadership is letting us down. This man is truly lost it. He does not understand

8:19the enemy that he's fighting. And, you know, the will of the Iranian people to resist, to fight has only been intensified by virtue of this bombing. Sure, we're blowing them to smithereens. We're doing a lot of damage to their infrastructure. We're winning tactically every day. Case in point, this fabulous rescue that was executed the other day, which was great. Oh, by the way, though, we lost $250 million in aircraft during that, during their rescue. But, hey, we did the right thing. We got the guy. But, you know, we are losing every single day. And losing strategically, the United States is in the diminished state right now. Our allies don't trust us. We're showing ourselves not to be a trustworthy ally. The GCC doesn't trust us. They say you put all these bases here to keep us safe. We're now we're getting attacked. The American people are paying more money at the gas pump. You know, the Strait of Hormuz is still closed. Oh, excuse me, it's open. It's open to the Iranians, okay? The Iranians are getting

9:22out plenty of oil. In fact, they're their revenues have increased. Russia is happy. Our enemies are happy. The Chinese are happy. Everybody's happy. The United States is in serious trouble. We're having to divert now munitions from South Korea to fight this war. Lord knows how much I mean, we shot up in one month about four years of of GPMs of Tomahawk missiles. Four years we did in one month in one month. That's the kind of thing that we're doing right now. What are we doing to ourselves? Geopolitically across the the the world, we're hurting ourselves tremendously. America is going down. Iran is going up. We're in big trouble. I think we shot up four years of the Tomahawks in one month. I'm concerned. 850 we shot up and it's about 200 a year that we're making. So do the math. I mean, it's not that hard. It's it's it's a terrible thing that we're doing. We're shooting up way too much munitions. We're doing it. Shooting up a lot of picture missiles. And by the way, we're using it to take out $20,000 drones. Okay. Million dollar missiles. That's how

10:28guerrilla warfare works out this modern day and age. They overexpand you. This is like, look, this is just like a video game where you just get an unlimited supply of weapons. You just keep going through. You don't think about exactly how much you use it. And that's the defense secretary often treats these things like a video game with his rhetoric. Angela, something that you've studied extensively that I think we've seen come out through this administration. There's little bits of I would say an undercurrent of Christian nationalism. I want to place a video of Pete Heggs of today that that struck struck me in a troubling way. Shot down on a Friday. Good Friday. Hidden in a cave. A crevice all of Saturday and rescued on Sunday. Flown out of Iran is the sun was rising on Easter Sunday. A pilot reborn, all home and accounted for you said glory be to God in this conflict. Do you believe that God

11:28supports the United States actions? I do because God is good because God is good and God wants to see people taking care of God doesn't like what's happening. Now we should say that the Pope and a bunch of other bishops and religious leaders from many different many different base of all said that this is an unjust war that there's no justification for it. But in terms of the messaging here, Angela, it seems like they're setting themselves up in this existential holy war in a way. And the rhetoric to say a pilot is reborn on Easter. I mean, that is getting into a very dangerous space. Yeah, they are. And I, you know, that was very scary. The general sort of gave us the reality of what's happening here. And the undercurrent that's taking place is that this is in fact a holy war that is biblical. And what the rhetoric that you pointed to is the most mild examples of that. I mean, Trump has posted a video tapping into a notion that he is the prophecy come to life that part of what he is doing now was prophesized in the Bible. And that lit up Christian

12:31nationalist communities. I mean, Pete Hegseth is seized the military as essentially a flaming sword for Christ. I mean, he has advocated for the using the military to project Christianity when he was a Fox News host. Not only was he pushing for war against Iran, but I think it's worth pointing out the things that he was advocating for, which was to destroy their cultural heritage sites in the process of doing it, even though it had no purpose whatsoever, because it was going to serve God's purpose. And so there was a larger biblical benefit of it. So one of the things that's happening to sort of intensify the feedback loop here is a notion that this is God's war. He's on our side. So it doesn't matter if we're burning through all these supplies or wasting all this money, because God is going to be our sort of our shield. And the scariest piece of it is that they're starting to tee up a notion. It would talk or did a whole show on Friday about demons. Vice President Vance talked about the fact that demons are among us with all these UFO flying. So one of the things that's also happening is they're making, they're adding in new villains that somehow these demons have come into this dimension. And this is not lunatic

13:33saying it with a theory, but these are people with power that are out there saying that demons are among us. And we need to start using our weapons and every all of our military might, not only to execute God's will, but so that we can attack you. Do they know who the demons are? No, the demons are the main street. The zip code or a phone number that we could all dial in to someone. Well, I guess I mean, I don't I'm scared by this entire conversation to be honest from we're out of business. We got demons. We got demons. And I'm just kind of like, first of all, I will note the Christian Nationalist stuff was all throughout Project 2025. People should literally look it up. And a very one of the, I think most flaming Christian Nationalists in this administration is in fact the OMB director Russell vote who was very much so involved in Project 2025. Just one follow up for you on that. Can you just, it's not just the rhetoric about the Christian Nationalist rhetoric. People are believing what they're saying. That's part of the problem. Without a doubt. I mean, when, you know, the reason why Trump is tapping into that is because there's been, you know, there's been a lot of coverage about the fractures within the right wing about

14:35over this war. The one thing that has been growing in popularity and support for this war is the evangelical communities, the Christian space. All of that part of their media ecosystem is excited about this. So not only are people believing it, but they're getting impassioned because he's making these very explicit calls to their religion. General, I want to talk a little bit about war crimes and the bombings. I want to get into the sound of it so far because I don't know how much time we have, but I just want to get your thoughts on a president who talks about we have the power of our military to burn down every bridge to take out every power plant to create the kind of humanitarian crisis in Iran that the rest of the globe would look at and go, Oh hell no, you can't do that. That is against every, every civilian law that we can think of to protect people who are not military personnel. Well, Secretary Hexeth needs to rename his office

15:40from the Secretary of War to the Secretary of War crimes because that's exactly what they're advocating right here. And any soldier that would obey the war crime that's being directed by the President and the Secretary of Defense would be committing their own war crime. They would be illegal. They would be essentially executing in illegal order. And that's exactly what Senator Kelly and his colleagues talked about warned us about a couple of months ago. You know, we cannot let that happen. It's terrible that there's gotten into the situation. And the chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff pushed back a little bit on Donald Trump today, but he needs to push back more because our soldiers that execute these missions that are being directed by the President may one day have to answer to the hagg or some other international tribunal figure the Nuremberg trials. Okay, 12 senior leaders from the German military were executed. We're hung as a result of their actions during World War II. Would we like to see that same thing happen to our American

16:44soldiers? Of course not. Senior leaders need to understand that what they are being directed to to do to execute would be an illegal order and they cannot in good conscience allow their soldiers to execute those. All right, Brigadier General Steven Anderson and Angela Corson, thank you guys very much for kicking us off here on our conversation. In just a moment, we'll continue this conversation with Congresswoman Maggie Goodlander. One of the Democrats who urged service numbers to refuse illegal orders. We're just talking about that. Mr. President considers asking troops to commit what could amount to war crimes. And later folks, the Trump Justice Department wants to throw out a warrigate era law designed to maintain presidential records. We'll have the details on that as well, ahead right here on the weeknight. As President Trump continues implementing his ambitious agenda, follow along with the MSNOW newsletter Project 47. You'll get weekly updates sent straight to your inbox with expert

17:50analysis on the administration's latest actions and how they're affecting the American people. The American people are basically telling the president that they are not okay with any of this. Sign up for the Project 47 newsletter at ms.now-slash-project-47. So let's get back to that breaking news. Donald Trump claims the U.S. will start attacking Iran's infrastructure if they don't reopen the state of Hormuz by tomorrow night. Here's the president today in his own words. Every bridge in Iran will be decimated by 12 o'clock tomorrow night, where every power plant in Iran will be out of business, burning, exploding, and never to be used again. And it'll happen over a period of four hours if we wanted to. We don't want that to happen. Keep in mind, military and law experts say bombing power plants that Iranian civilians rely on could

18:53amount to war crimes. Joining us now on Congressman Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire, she is one of six Democratic lawmakers who recorded this video last fall, reminding troops they can refuse illegal orders. We have we have a plan because of the power of our military, where every bridge in Iran will be decimated. Are you going to serve that your threat to bomb power plants and bridges amount to war? No, no, no, no, no. I hope I don't have to do it. People like you who I know are fake, you're fake. The second reporter there was Zolan from The New York Times.

19:56I'm wondering, Congressman, when your thoughts, we just had General retired Brigadier General Stephen Anderson on. And he noted, and I'm going to quote him a little bit here, he said, any soldier obeying the orders that the president was talking about in those clips would essentially be executing an illegal order. Do you agree with that sentiment? Well, thanks so much for having me. Here's what I'd say. Look, the president is clearly unhinged and he's doing what we've seen him do many times before, which is to speak off the cuff and on a whim and to degrade the basic rule of law. He is a president who has said again and again that he has checked only by his own morality. Well, here's the real check as I see it. We have the greatest military that the world has ever known and we have service members who raised their right hand and they swear a note to our constitution. They above all operate under the law. We made a decision as a country after the Second World War

20:59that we wanted to be a country in which our military doesn't blindly follow orders. They follow the law. And that is exactly why I came together with five of my colleagues to repeat this basic principle under the uniform code of military justice. And it has been important every day since we've said it the first time and that is why I will not be intimidated or silenced in doing my job and saying what I believe the law is because that's the uniform code of military justice that Congress writes. I was going to use the word unhinge to describe what the president has said over the last few days and I want to talk about something that your colleague on the Senate side, Chris Murphy said. He said in a post yesterday quote, if I were in Trump's cabinet, I would spend Easter calling constitutional lawyers about the 25th amendment. This is completely utterly unhinged. She's already killed thousands. He's going to kill thousands more. Of course, that's in response to the open up the epit-straight. So you see that Congresswoman and I wonder,

22:00there is no authorization for the use of military force for this war. His Republican colleagues, the president's Republican colleagues have stopped a real open debate about it in a real vote on it. Do you think that this moves the needle at all to where members of Congress on the Republican side will hear from concerned parents that, hey, my son or daughter could be in a very serious war. We haven't debated this. Oh, and by the way, the commander-in-chief who is sending them into danger does not appear to be all with it. Do you think this moves it at all? Well, what I can tell you is I am hearing from parents of service members who are overseas right now putting their lives on the line from military families who have been put in an incredibly painful situation where very suddenly their loved ones were sent overseas and we have a commander-in-chief who is unprecedented in the cavalier and downright dangerous way that he is executing his

23:05constitutional responsibilities. You know, when I take a look at the cabinet, the 25th amendment really turns on people of good faith who mean their oaths to our constitution when they took them who are willing to hold this president accountable and so far we don't see that kind of courage from the president's cabinet. In Congress, I continue to believe that every member of the United States Congress should be forced to vote on this war every day as long as it's being waged. And we're 37 days in and with no real end in sight. And this is our most basic constitutional responsibility. The Speaker of the House continues to do his job in a way that he is serving at the pleasure of the president. And that is just absolutely upside down and truly dangerous in this moment when we have a president who is making us less safe overseas, who has created a global energy crisis that is jacking up costs right here at home. In the state of New Hampshire alone,

24:07we've seen $40 million more in spending at the gas at the gas pump as a direct result of this war. And that's just the beginning of the cost that people are feeling because of this president. He's now saying we can't afford Medicare or Medicaid in this country because he wants to fund this war of choice. We need people of good faith who love this country and who believe in their responsibilities under their under our constitution to step up and do their jobs. Congresswoman, you are not alone in with your colleagues in making it very clear. The opportunity that our service men and women have to stay in the right lane when it comes to the orders they receive. In other words, not following an illegal order. We had headlines this weekend and in the past few days from the Archbishop of the military, Timothy Broglio, who is the head of the Catechar Stysies for the military, who noted very clearly it's morally acceptable for troops not

25:13to follow illegal orders. You also had a contrast in Easter messages to put it politely this weekend between the Pope and the president. The Pope, the Pope noting that we should not be engaged in military action right now. Not a piece imposed by force, but through dialogue, not with the desire to dominate others, but to encounter them where they are and to work through negotiation. The president, as Simone noted in our first block, responded to what's going on in Iran that there will be nothing like the hell that he intends to open and open the F and straight, you crazy bastards, ending that tweet with praise B to Allah. With that is the backdrop. As a member of Congress, when you encounter men and women in the

26:16military, what is their response to you and the stance that you've taken to reassure them that the Congress has your back or it should in this regard. But the American people also from everyday moms and dads to the Pope, to the Archbishop of the Military, understand the moral code that we should be anchored by, that this president is not for the record, is not. And yet here we are. We have the greatest military that the world is ever known. And part of what makes us truly extraordinary is that we made a decision as a country. After the Second World War, we decided to be a country in which our military follows the law, upholds the law, doesn't just blindly follow orders. This was Robert Jackson, who served as Attorney General, who was a Supreme Court

27:17Justice, and who was the Chief Prosecutor at Nuremberg. He was a critical part of crafting the Department of Defense's law of war manual. And what he said about that decision we made, he said it was the greatest tribute that power ever paid to reason. And part of why he said that and why I believe that's deeply true is that this is not only who we are as Americans, it is strategically sound. It does not make us safer to indiscriminately kill civilians. It doesn't make us safer to make these empty threats. You know, the president so far has been, the outcomes for the American people have been really terrible. This war at bottom, this war of choice has cost us in lives, in dollars, and it has emboldened our adversaries. It has been a true gift to Vladimir Putin. We are funding his war machine because of the big break that Donald Trump gave to Vladimir Putin on sanctions relief. This has been a gift to Xi Jinping and the Chinese

28:20Communist Party. This is what we're dealing with, the president who is totally detached from who our real friends are. And by the way, again, today, we hear him threatening our NATO allies. You know, the upshot of this is that we've seen damage to one of the most important alliances in human history. And we've seen the hands of our adversaries strengthened enormously. Well, Congresswoman Maggie Goodlando, we're going to leave it there. Thank you very much for your time. When we come back, folks, new reporting on the president's search for a permanent attorney general. One of the top contenders in his former personal lawyer. You are watching the weeknight. As President Trump continues implementing his ambitious agenda, follow along with the MSNOW newsletter, Project 47. You'll get weekly updates and straight to your inbox with expert analysis on the administration's latest actions and how they're affecting the American people.

29:21The American people are basically telling the president that they are not okay with any of this. Sign up for the Project 47 newsletter at ms.nowslashproject47. Well, Donald Trump's Justice Department is now arguing that the law governing presidential records is actually unconstitutional. According to Politico, a new DOJ memo challenging the 48-year-old law appears intended to give Trump the legal leeway to destroy White House records from his current term and to refuse to hand over any remaining records when he leaves office. The Presidential Records Act was created in the wake of the Watergate scandal as a check on corruption, making clear that presidential records belong to the country, not the president. Why do y'all think he wants the ability to destroy records? Yeah, that's a very good question. So let's read a little bit from the memo from the DOJ's office of legal counsel noting the Presidential Records Act is unconstitutional because it exceeds Congress's enumerated and implied powers and aggrandizes the legislative branch

30:25that they expensive the constitutional independence and autonomy of the executive one should note that that is not legally binding, that the next president or the next head of DOJ could come back with a very different reading. 40 plus years in the making, it is sound public policy. Period. But it is something that I think a lot of administrations have taken very seriously. I mean, Simone, we spoke earlier about this, about how when you were in the White House, this was something that was front and center that people saw really as a public service. Yeah, the same attitude. And remember, the president works for the American people. He works for the American people and it's important for the American people to have the ability to review what went on in the people's house. By the way, there's about fencing that pushes you back hundreds of yards ahead of family come in this weekend. You can even get near the people's house anymore of the White House with all the fencing they put up. But the bottom line as you see things like this is it feels like they're just trying to legalize something they're already doing. Correct. I don't believe they're taking the acts the way they're supposed to. We saw that when

31:26they ended up in the Mar-a-Lago bathroom. And remember, we now know, we don't know exactly what was in the documents, what was the map, but we now know because of a memo that was accidentally released by Congress that there was some highly sensitive information that was released in those marbles that the president had. Macro, they're trying to undo the biggest reform after water gate. That's a lot. And we have to ask why. Where do you hide it? I didn't stop that. Where do you hide it? No one is doing that's illegal. Well, nobody, how about this? Nobody go anywhere, okay? Because there's another hour of the weeknight coming right up. We're going to discuss the economic chaos Trump has unleashed with his war and refuses to address frankly. The other cabinet officials who could be fired by the president and we will seek with Sean Harris, the Georgia Democrat hoping to fill Marjorie Taylor green's old house seat. Keep it right here on MS now. People act like the culture wars started five minutes ago. Meanwhile, adults have been panicking about books since forever. Bandcamp, our top ranked podcast about banned books, is back for its

32:3310th season. This time around, we're reading JD Salinger's classic The Catcher in the Rye. We're reading the book out loud, covered to cover one chapter per episode. By the way, we have no clue what's going to happen. We should have read this book in school. I don't know why neither of us did. So you're basically going to hear us dumbling over words, trying to figure it out as we go. It's going to be embarrassing. It's going to be cash. So if you've never read it before but always wanted to, or you want to experience it again through a set of new eyes, now's your chance. That sounds like you're kind of show you already know where to find us. That's banned camp. Band, like in banned books. Not banned like tubas and snare drums.