Maddow: Trump Cabinet too rife with scandal to designate a 'survivor'

Thanks to you at home for joining us this hour really happy to have you here.

So who's going to be the designated survivor?

Right, it's the most morbid thing, but it's a real thing.

They do it every year, every state of the union, they pick somebody, some lucky stiff from the

administration, from the cabinet, to be a designated survivor, to not go to the state of the union

address. It feels like it's left over like from the mutually assured destruction days of the

Cold War or something. But the logic of it really is apocalyptic. The logic of it is that if some

catastrophe physically happens at that event at the state of the union, while all of Congress

and the president and the vice president and the joint chiefs and the Supreme Court and everybody

are all in that same physical place. If something God forbid terrible happened there during that

event, the designated survivor by virtue of the fact that that person didn't attend the event,

that designated survivor would be the one, would be the person who would reconstitute the government

of the United States and keep the government going after the president and the vice president

and the whole rest of the cabinet and the whole Congress were all swallowed up in a hell mouth

or something. It's very weird. The whole idea of it is very dystopian and weird, but they do it every

year. And you know, you think given the responsibility associated with being the designated survivor,

you think they pick like the most widely respected person. They pick the person who everybody

agrees would be the best choice to take over the country in the wake of an unimaginable disaster.

You think it would be like a really high profile person they picked every year. They don't do that,

actually kind of the opposite. The person does get some attention for being picked as the designated

survivor every year, but usually the person is kind of not well known. And so like in this cabinet,

you might expect that they'd pick maybe the labor secretary, right? Labor is not a particular area

of interest for this president or really for any Republican president. So maybe they just,

you know, keep things quiet, pick somebody low key, make the labor secretary the designated

survivor this year. Could they do that? Oh no, no, no, no, no, can't do that. Trump's labor secretary

is Lori Chavez-Deremer. And if they pick Lori Chavez-Deremer as the designated survivor,

then people will Google Lori Chavez-Deremer. And this is what they will find.

headline labor secretary Lori Chavez-Deremer under investigation for quote,

inappropriate relationship with employee. These are reports that started with a complaint that was

reportedly filed with the inspector general of the labor department. Trump labor secretary

quote, accused of drinking in her office during the work day and committing travel fraud by having

her chief of staff and deputy chief of staff, both of whom are now on leave, quote, make up official

trips to destinations where Chavez-Deremer can spend time with family or friends on the taxpayers'

dime. headline Trump's married labor boss accused of booze-filled fling with staffer headline

Chavez-Deremer's security staffer placed on leave amid scandal investigation. The labor secretary

has been accused of engaging in a romantic relationship with said security staffer. headline

Lori Chavez-Deremer reportedly under investigation for misusing funds headline Trump labor secretary

accused of taking staff off taking staff to to a to a strip club on an official trip. That's a real

headline. I mean, now amid everything else, you are probably a nice person, an empathetic person.

Perhaps you're not just a dog by looking at those headlines about that scandal. Perhaps you

were thinking, oh, wow, this must be really hard on her family. headline husband of labor secretary

Lori Chavez-Deremer accused of sexually assaulting two staffers headline labor secretary's husband

barred from labor department headquarters amid staffers sexual assault allegations headline DC police

search labor secretary's office in sexual assault investigation. The Metropolitan Police Department

searched Lori Chavez-Deremer's office as it looks into allegations against her husband.

Since then, we've had further news that the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney in Washington

has decided that there won't be any criminal charges brought against the labor secretary's husband

for the alleged sexual assaults inside the labor department's headquarters building.

But does that mean they're going to let him back in? I don't know.

So, yeah, in a normal administration, even a normal Republican administration,

maybe somebody like the labor secretary would be the designated survivor at the state of the union,

but do you want to put a spotlight on that hot mess right now? That absolutely radioactive

scandal engulfing everything related to Trump's labor secretary? Yeah, maybe it's not going to be

maybe instead you go with another, you know, low profile department. One of those departments where

only real government geeks even know what the department does, like maybe you'd go with something

really obscure like the commerce department. Whose Trump secretary of commerce again?

headline, new details from Epstein files reveal Trump Commerce Secretary Howard Letnik had years

long business tie with sex offender. Oh, yeah, that's the commerce secretary. So maybe we

can't have the commerce secretary be the designated survivor either. Not when today, the day before

the state of the union, we had the former British ambassador to the U.S. Peter Mendelssohn

arrested and perp walked out of his home because of his Epstein ties. That's right after former

Prince Andrew was arrested as well. Both of those arrests are not just because of their Epstein

links, but because of their Epstein links and their government jobs. Peter Mendelssohn, it's for

when he had the exact same job as Howard Letnik, but in the British government rather than the U.S.

government, right? Meanwhile, here, all the Trump connected people like Trump himself and like

Howard Letnik Trump's commerce secretary, they are apparently in no trouble at all, but maybe

you wouldn't want to highlight that at the state of the union. I mean, will Dr. Oz be at the state

of the union? Trump's Medicare guy? Dr. Oz personally invited Jeffrey Epstein to a Valentine's

Day party in 2016, not like a million years ago before Epstein had ever been arrested or served

jail time, but in 2016 he invited him. Because, you know, what adult Valentine's Day party is not

complete without the presence of one of the most notorious convicted sex offenders and child

sex traffickers of all time. Dr. Oz. Is Dr. Oz going to be there at the state of the union?

Maybe they'll sit him alongside the survivors of Epstein's trafficking ring who are going to be

brought to the speech by Democratic lawmakers. Will Dr. Oz shake their hand? Will Howard Letnik shake

their hand? Will Trump? Will Trump? All of those guys, of course, deny any wrongdoing when it comes to

their long, creepy, seemingly kind of intense relationships with Jeffrey Epstein about which they

have not been particularly forthcoming? Maybe Trump will have to go with a more high profile

department, a more mainstream department for the designated survivor this year. Maybe like

head of the Department of Justice, right? That's always a prestigious job. The Attorney General

could be the designated survivor. It's happened a couple of times in the past. Would you want it to be

Pam Bondi this year? Would you want to shine a light on Pam Bondi's department right now?

Give people a reason to Google. Oh, yeah. What's she in charge of? What's been happening with her

department? Headline FBI director Cash Patel during what his spokesman said was an official trip

to Milan for security meetings was filmed guzzling from a beer bottle and celebrating in the locker room

with US Olympic hockey players on Sunday. Quote, eight former FBI and Justice Department officials

sent MSNOW a copy of that video, which they said was drawing outrage as it rocketed around FBI

and DOJ circles. Quote, FBI spokesman Ben Williamson told MSNOW on Thursday that Cash Patel was going

to Milan for a series of, quote, business meetings. And he said it was unfair to describe Patel's

trip as having to do with hockey or pleasure of any kind. Quote, your rag outlet wrote that he

went to hang out at the Olympics on the taxpayer dime. Williamson posted Saturday on Twitter.

Then on Sunday, several videos emerged on social media. In fact, showing Patel in the locker room

after the hockey game with one in particular drawing outrage from current and former FBI agents

at depicted Patel pouring what appeared to be beer down his throat, spraying some of it in the air

and screaming in celebration. The FBI spokesman did not respond to a request for comment about the video.

NBC News is also reporting tonight that the Justice Department has just had to drop

their humiliating total debacle of an effort to bring criminal charges against six Democratic

Senators and members of Congress that comes after the geniuses over at Pam Bondy's department

reportedly couldn't get a single grand juror to agree to the indictment of those members of Congress.

Not a single grand juror. Not that they couldn't get the grand jury to agree to the indictment.

They couldn't get a single grand juror, meaning they couldn't get one person. They couldn't even get one vote.

In the last few days at Pam Bondy's Justice Department, we've had Justice Department lawyers

abjectly apologizing to judges in three different states, essentially begging not to be held in contempt.

At least one Justice Department lawyer has just been held in contempt in Minnesota. Things are

really seemingly breaking down there. We're going to talk tonight about a novel effort to try to

document and try to sort of wall off and preserve evidence of all the abuses and authoritarian

misuses of the Justice Department under Donald Trump and Pam Bondy. This is something I don't

think you've necessarily heard about anywhere else. I hope you'll stick with us for that little

later on in the show tonight. But what would you, I mean, would you pick Pam Bondy to be a designated

survivor given what's going on at the Justice Department right now? Would you want to put a little

extra spotlight on her? I'm not sure that you would, but who else could you choose? Maybe Kristi

know could be designated survivor from Homeland Security. You want to give the American people

reason to focus on her for an extra minute? Do you think?

Headline Homeland Security Reversus Course on TSA Precheck Suspension After Confusion.

Yes, Kristi know I'm announced with great solemnity this weekend that she would be shutting down

TSA Precheck and Global Entry at all airports because she can, honestly. She said,

had something to do with the shutdown, shutting down TSA Precheck. Let's bring total chaos to

airport TSA checkpoints all around the country. She announced that and then basically immediately

we were told, oh no, that's not actually happening. Who decided it's not happening? And did she

decide it was happening? Why did she decide that? And if she had a reason to decide it, then why was

it undone? Who's running things? Who's making these decisions? What's going on there? It's like when

they announced that the El Paso Airport and all airspace over El Paso would be closed for 10 days

and then a few hours later. No, no, sorry, didn't mean that and then we learned it was because

they had let the border patrol under Kristi Known's leadership play with a military laser weapon,

which they used to shut down mylar, excuse me, to shoot down mylar party balloons over El Paso

without infertelling the FAA that they were doing that. And so the FAA closed the airspace

and then the White House said, no, you can't close the airspace. And so yeah, maybe things aren't

being all that well run right now. Do you get that sense?

Today at whistleblower, testified in Congress, he just resigned as a lawyer at ICE,

the guy who's been a big part of the training that ICE officers get. He resigned and went public

today saying, quote, on my first day, I received secretive orders to teach new cadets to violate

the Constitution by entering homes without a judicial warrant. He said, quote, ICE is teaching cadets

to violate the Constitution. He provided documents to Congress today that show that ICE has cut

hundreds of hours from their training, including classes that teach, quote, the Constitution,

our legal system, firearms training, the use of force, lawful arrests, proper detention,

and the limits of officer's authority. The agency that's doing that, you want the head of that

agency to be the designated survivor? You want Christy Nome to be the designated survivor? If you

did, people might Google her name, Christy Nome. One of the things they would come up with

are these recently published photos. Isn't this nice? This is a plane that Christy Nome wants

taxpayers to buy for her. This is Trump's Homeland Security Secretary who already took over for

herself the house that's supposed to belong to the Commandant of the Coast Guard. This is after

the Wall Street Journal reported that Christy Nome's alleged boyfriend slash chief of staff,

slash fixer in the Homeland Security Department fired a Coast Guard pilot in the middle of a flight

because someone forgot to bring Christy Nome's personal favorite blanket onto a flight that she was

on. Reuters reports today that Cory Lewandowski actually stormed into the cockpit of that plane

to fire the pilot mid-flight because of the pilot's quote, well, because of the pilot's insufficient

attention to Christy Nome's blanket. We have not confirmed this, but this is Reuters is reporting

today, quote, the pilots in the cockpit asked Lewandowski to return to the cabin until they had

reached cruising altitude. But now she wants you to buy her this plane. Look at this plane. NBC

news reporting that Christy Nome and Cory Lewandowski have had the taxpayers lease this jet for their

use already a Boeing 737 MAX-8 on paper. They say they need this particular plane for, quote,

immigrant deportation flights. They have been leasing it already. You have been paying for them

to use this plane on a lease. But now Cory Lewandowski and Christy Nome want you to buy this plane for

them. I'm sorry, not for them, but for deportation flights and also occasionally they say perhaps

for cabinet officials travel. Christy Nome being the relevant cabinet official. This particular

plane they want, again, mostly for deportations, but maybe occasionally for Christy Nome, it looks

like it's really outfitted for deportations, right? It has a bedroom with a queen bed. Sure,

that's normal for deportation flights. It also has a bar. That's nice. I'm sure that deportees

have come to expect that. Quote, no expense has been spared and every detail has been meticulously

executed with, quote, exceptional interior design by renowned New York designer Peter Marino.

This is the plane she is leasing right now on the taxpayer dime for her own use,

saying it is for deportations. And now she wants you to stop leasing it and just buy it for her.

And Corey has a queen bed. So yeah, I doubt they're going to pick Christy Nome for designated

survivor. But if they do, what are the odds that she'll be enjoying the heck out of her special

blanket on her special plane that you're paying for? The interior design is impeccable.

Today you know there's this this huge blizzard on the East Coast.

Today for some reason, Christy Nome's department decided to fly a real deportation flight into

New Hampshire. They flew it into Portsmouth, New Hampshire at 1 a.m. today, right at the height

of the blizzard. The airport in Portsmouth said they had no idea this flight was coming.

Had they known they would have told them don't come. It's not safe. But Christy Nome's department

in its infinite wisdom flew this plain full of people there, presumably shackled if it's like a

normal deportation flight. And then they left the people on that plane on the tarmac for more

than 12 hours in the middle of that blizzard. According to WMUR, New Hampshire, some genius at

Christy Nome's department decided that that plane should take off from Harlingen, Texas.

Last night, Sunday night, flying right into the biggest blizzard in the northeast in years.

Portsmouth International Airport officials said they were not told the flight was inbound until

15 minutes before it arrived at 1 a.m. Quote, had we been informed in advance of their

intent to land here during the blizzard, we would have strongly advised against it.

And then they let the people there on the tarmac for 12 hours.

The day before the storm hit on Saturday, this was a big protest that erupted in small town

Merrimack, New Hampshire. Christy Nome's department is trying to force that town to have a huge

new Trump prison camp that clearly the people of Merrimack and the people of New Hampshire do not want.

Regular people, every local official, basically everyone in New Hampshire

is telling the Trump administration they do not want a Trump prison camp in this New Hampshire town.

Everybody expressing opposition to it, except for a Republican governor, Kelly Aot,

who bravely, bravely, bravely is still refusing to say whether she's for it or against it.

Because courage. The entire New Hampshire congressional delegation, both the state's U.S. Senators,

both their members of the House, the whole congressional district from the state of New Hampshire

are co-sponsoring now a bill that would not let Trump put a new prison camp in any community

anywhere in the country without the state and local authorities they're formally signing off on it.

We shall see. I will say this thing in Merrimack stinks to everybody anywhere near it.

A few days ago, the Boston Globe started asking questions of a health care company that it started

to post job listings that were apparently for this new prison camp. I would guess that it is not

easy to answer questions about why you'd want your company to be involved in trying to make money

off of something like that. The company Aspen Medical Group at first didn't give any comment

to the Globe in response to their questions, but then the president of the company eventually

told them, quote, it's not looking likely that we will ever bid on any of these facilities,

meaning on any of Trump's prison camps. It's hard to answer questions about that. Hard to defend

the idea of doing that kind of business, right? In social circle Georgia, officials there are

fighting the Trump prison camp that Trump's trying to put there as well. Local officials in social

circle Georgia say they refused a demand from Christine Ohm's department to turn on the water

at a warehouse facility there that they want to turn into a prison camp. Local officials in social

circle Georgia just posted online a whole bunch of information they got from Christine Ohm's

department about the plans for the prison camp in their town. Look at this. Look at this.

This is the supposed blueprint they were sent by Christine Ohm's department by DHS.

For blueprints for a warehouse filled with up to 10,000 people, two and a half times the size

of the largest federal prison in the United States. What does this document remind you of?

Each little tiny dot there is a human.

Social circle Georgia local officials also published the truly insane documents

that Christine Ohm's department sent them about water supply and issues like that for this

proposed facility. The city of social circle responded, quote, documents provided by Homeland

Security indicate this detention facility alone would have a sewage demand of 1,1683 gallons per day.

The city's current wastewater system processes 660,000 gallons per day and is already operating

at capacity. It cannot accommodate an increase in usage of this magnitude.

That's for wastewater. How about the water supply, fresh water to the facility? This is absolute

genius from Christine Ohm. Look at this. The Homeland Security Analysis references a, quote,

sister based, sister based approach in which tanks would be filled from local municipal systems

during off peak hours. Regardless of time of day, the city's infrastructure cannot accommodate

this level of demand. While the proposal is certainly creative, it does not resolve the

fundamental issue. The total additional water demand required for a facility of the scale simply

exceeds what the city's system is capable of providing. I mean, this, I feel like this is the

genius of the Trump administration as effectuated by Christine Ohm. This is a town that does not have

enough water to support a massive prison camp for up to 10,000 people.

Christine Ohm's proposed solution to that is to say, it's okay. We'll build big tanks and

we'll fill them only at night. So that means there'll be enough water because you said you're only

using ex-Galens per day. We'll take our water per night. So bingo, problem solves.

And the great state of Maryland, the Attorney General of that state, as of today, is

suing the Trump administration to stop one of these massive prison camps from being built in

Maryland in Washington County. This is a protest this weekend in North Carolina and conquered

North Carolina where locals there are worried that they're going to have one of these Trump prison

camps too. We've been monitoring protests and local anger about potential Trump prison camps

all over among other places in Chester, New York and Lebanon, Tennessee and Roxbury, New Jersey.

I single out those three places in particular because in just the past few days,

Christine Ohm's Schembolic Department has reversed itself and in some cases double reversed itself,

confusing everyone in those three places about whether they really are still trying to put prison

camps in those towns. In Chester, New York, for example, we got an official statement from

Homeland Security that they purchased a warehouse in Chester, New York to turn into a Trump prison camp

there. Then five days later, they reversed that, an announcement that no actually they hadn't

bought anything and there's not going to be a prison camp there after all. Really? We're going to

talk with the local congressman, Democrat Pat Ryan about that in just a moment. But that's not

the only place where they've been changing their minds. In Tennessee, here's the Homeland Security

announcement that they had bought a warehouse there, followed by four days later, a retraction

from the Homeland Security Department saying, nope, actually we haven't bought a warehouse there at all.

We put out that statement in error. That's false. No prison camp is going into Lebanon,

Tennessee. Well, now today, a few days later, they've reversed again. News in Lebanon,

Tennessee, that actually, yes, there might still be one. And if it is going to be one there,

it's going to be bigger than ever. It's not going to be 10,000 people. It's going to be a mega prison,

14,000 to 16,000 people in Lebanon, Tennessee, which would make Lebanon, Tennessee,

home to one of the largest prisons in the world. But maybe it won't be there at all?

Who knows? It's Christi Nome's department. So there's literally no way to know.

And if they do put it there, presumably they'll mine the water for it on the moon.

Or something. If you get it at night, it doesn't count as daily water a lot, because it's dark.

Roxbury, New Jersey has also been on a roller coaster. Christi Nome's department telling

the news outlet Gothamist that they had bought a site for a Trump prison camp in Roxbury,

New Jersey. Then they followed it up with a statement that, no, that was a mistake. That was wrong.

They haven't bought anything in Roxbury, New Jersey. Now the town says they've just gotten word

that officially, yes, they have bought a facility in Roxbury, New Jersey.

We saw protests against ICE this weekend in Bloomfield, New Jersey. Those protests

detracted among others. Democratic Senator Andy Kim of New Jersey. In Rochester, New York,

we saw protests this weekend in the snow outside the federal building there. In Bellevue,

Washington, we saw protests there this weekend in the rain. In Little Rock, Arkansas, we saw protests

in Little Rock. Good sign there. We saw will trade racists for refugees. In Portland, Oregon,

Japanese Americans let a protest march to the ICE facility there. The local NBC station channel

eight asked this local woman, Joni Komoto, why she in particular had decided to be there.

I was interned in 1942. I spent four months at the Portland Assembly Center and then I was sent

to Minidoka, Idaho, an internment camp. And we were there for two, three years.

That lived experience informing her position today denouncing the actions of ICE.

It is parallel. It is exactly the same. Our government is forcibly taking people away

from their lives and putting them without due process of law into places that they shouldn't be

into detention. Trump's state of the union is tomorrow. Since his last one, his approval ratings

have dropped 15 points with independence, 16 points with young people, 19 points with Latinos,

his approval ratings have never been lower. The number of Americans who strongly approve

of Donald Trump right now is dropped into the teens. His approval rating with Americans overall

is 27 points underwater. His approval rating with independence overall is 47 points underwater.

That is a portrait of a country that is repulsed by their president while his cabinet is

convulsed in scandal. Each one more repulsive than the next. I mean, the only saving grace for

some of these cabinet members is that the president himself is so awash in scandal. It's kind of

hard to share the spotlight with him. But amid this smoking mess, what's he trying to do? He's

trying to build himself a huge new archipelago of mega prisons to lock up huge, huge, huge numbers

of people without due process effectively outside the legal system. Because he seems like the

trustworthy leader we should give that kind of power. I don't know who the designated survivor is

going to be tomorrow night. I don't know. In many ways, though, it does feel like the unimaginable

calamity is already here, regardless of who they pick. Let's stay with us.

The village of Chester, New York is about 60 miles north of New York City. It's owned about

4,000 people. On Christmas Eve, the people of Chester read for the first time in the Washington

post of all places that the Trump administration was planning on sticking a huge new prison camp

in their little town. They're planning on doing it here in this warehouse that used to belong to

pet boys. Local officials from the village of Chester saw this in the Washington post and they

immediately wrote to the Trump administration to say, hey, nobody's told us anything about this.

What's going on here? When they got no response, the village of Chester wrote to the administration

again. This time, they sent a 59-page letter spelling out why it was a terrible idea for the village

of Chester, New York, to get a prison camp like this. Since then, bipartisan groups of New York

lawmakers have written letters to oppose any such prison camp being built there. The county executive

is a Republican. He says he hasn't talked to a single elected official in the whole state.

No Democrat, no Republican who is in favor of this thing. Of course, the opposition is coming from

the people, too. After the news broke, so many people showed up to the next village meeting that

this was the overflow outside. There weren't nearly enough chairs. There almost was enough space

in the town. There have been protests almost every week since in Chester and in the surrounding areas

outside in the frigid cold in this cold winter. The local congressman from Chester stood up at one of

those protests and spoke for his constituents. Congressman Pat Ryan said, I should stay the f

out of the Hudson Valley. He didn't say f. Congressman Ryan started a petition against the prison

in less than a month. It got more than 20,000 signatures. Again, this is a town of 4,000 people.

It's been one big, loud, unified no from Chester, New York. We do not want your

prison camp in our little village. For now, it seems like the people of Chester might have won this

fight. A little over a week ago, an ice spokesperson said the Trump administration officially had bought

that old pet boy's warehouse in Chester, and their plan to turn it into a prison camp was a go.

But then just a few days after that, a spokesman for ice said, actually, never mind that was a

mistake. The Trump administration hasn't bought that warehouse. Our bad, we didn't mean it. We

accidentally sent out that statement in error. So now maybe it's not happening. All around the

country, this plan to buy up warehouses, to turn them into massive Trump prison camps.

It has been more than chaotic. It has been filled with chaos and disinformation and misinformation

and reversals from the administration. But maybe Chester really has won this. Weird late breaking

detail in this story. On Friday, just a few days ago, a Republican New York state assemblyman

says he talked to a senior advisor at ice about this. What were the circumstances of that

conversation? Well, he said he randomly bumped into the person on an overseas military deployment.

Okay. After that happenstance meeting, the assemblyman says he got confirmation from ice that,

in fact, Trump will not build that prison camp in Chester, New York after all.

What kind of process is that? I have no idea. But for now, it seems like the people of Chester,

New York and their elected officials might have won this. They might have stopped this prison

camp from being built in their town. You don't win every fight, but you can't win any of them

without fighting. And sometimes, sometimes you do win. Joining us now is Democratic Congressman

Pat Ryan. He represents the village of Chester. He started that petition against the prison camp

that has more than 20,000 signatures. Congressman, it's nice to see you. Thank you for being here.

Thanks for having me. First of all, I just have to ask you with the blizzard. How's your district doing?

Oh, we're good. We love this known upstate New York. So we're tough. And it has been a tough year,

though. So we're ready for spring. Yeah. I live in Western Massachusetts. And I feel like people

don't understand that we already had a couple of feet of snow on the ground before this new

couple of feet came down. It feels different. But I know you guys are tough. So let me ask you about

this process. Do you actually believe that the prison camp isn't coming to Chester? Do you think

this is settled now? Look, I don't trust this administration at all. I think any of the

what you could chalk up to confusion, I think is just them being straight up to seatful, straight

up lying to the American people, which we've seen from day one of this administration. So we are

going to fight this until the very last, until we're certain. And I mean, quite literally myself and

others have said if we have to like chain ourselves to the perimeter of this, we are not going to let

this happen in our community. We're not going to let this happen in our country. And it has been a

righteous fight. I'm really proud of our community. And it's a wide, it's a wide coalition too,

which is so encouraging to me in a really obviously dark and tough moment. Yeah, I wanted to ask you

about that because your district sort of famously is a real swing district. And it's very,

ideologically diverse in terms of your constituents, town to town and county to county.

Has it been a unified no from all those different types of people in your district? It kind of

seems like it's been a really wide swath of people, certainly a bipartisan swath of people

that has all got the same idea that this shouldn't come in.

Yes, I mean, remember, this is a county, Orange County, New York. President Trump has won

every time he's run in this county. He won this in 2016 by five and a half six points.

He even won it in 2020. And then in 2024, he won this county by nine percent. So,

this is one of three counties I represent and it's the most conservative part of my district.

With that context, it is incredibly, I think, patriotic that we're seeing a very wide set of

elected officials, community leaders, immigrants rights activists. I mean, we've had everybody out there.

You asked about this. No, I mean, we were out one night. I think it was near or at zero,

and there were hundreds of people out there. And it makes me proud. And it does give me hope

that as you just said, I mean, we pick righteous fights. We fight them smartly. We build the coalition

as we fight them. And to see every local Republican at every level on side for this, it gives me

at least a sliver of optimism. Do you have any advice having been through this for all the other

communities around the country that are trying to fight these same kind of fights?

Well, this is what's encouraging too. I've been talking to my colleagues. I know you covered

earlier in New Hampshire. I've been working with my colleagues, their colleagues in New Jersey.

That Northern New Jersey facility talks about in Roxbury. That's only an hour or so from my

district. And they're building this kind of concentric circle essentially around New York City,

which is incredibly concerning in terms of what that might portend or probably does

or tend for New York City and the greater metro area. So all of us in the House and the Senate

are working together on this and it has been a unifying piece. The main thing I would say is we

started this petition early and often. And we now have actually almost 30,000 signatures.

As you said, it's a village of just a few thousand people. And everywhere I go in my district,

people say, what's going on with this? What can we do to be in the fight? We've had towns,

counties and others all passing memorializing resolutions at their town and village level.

So we've really created a place for everybody to get involved in this and say, look,

regardless of party identification, if you believe, I mean, look, I served 27 months in combat

to not to come home and see my fellow Americans being rounded up. It's as un-American as

you could possibly imagine. And so I think creating a broadest possible 10 for people to reject

this un-American behavior and say, we might not agree on everything. But man, we agree that these

detention camps are not what we can or should be doing. Congressman Pat Ryan, Democrat of New

York, sir. Thank you for being here. I know it's a busy time right now in your district,

especially. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. All right. Much more news ahead. Stay with us.

Just in the last few hours tonight, a federal judge in Minnesota, a Trump appointee, has issued

an order holding the administration in contempt for disobeying a court order in an immigration case.

A federal judge finding that the federal government is in contempt that is notable and unusual enough.

But this is the second time the Trump administration has been found in contempt in the space of a

week. Just a few days ago, another federal judge in Minnesota held a DOJ prosecutor in contempt

in a different immigration case. She actually ordered the prosecutor to pay a $500 daily fine.

Until the Justice Department started complying with her orders in that case, which they finally did

the next day. That sort of thing has a way of getting their attention. But this is becoming a theme.

And I think this is really important. Everybody said at the outset of Trump's second term

that it would be a bright red line in terms of a slide into authoritarian rule in this country.

If the Trump administration started defying orders from the courts, right? You remember all those

discussions? Well, the Trump administration is now routinely and frequently defying orders from

judges, specifically on cases relating to immigrants. And the courts have not only figured out

that that's happening. The courts have now decided to stand up and fight for themselves.

We've seen the Chief Judge in Minnesota compile a list of nearly 100 violations of court orders

in immigration cases just in that state. In New Jersey, the Trump Justice Department was just

forced to apologize in court for violating more than 50 orders from federal judges in immigration

cases. They were essentially pleading to not be held in contempt in that state as well.

Another DOJ prosecutor also had to apologize to a judge in Virginia. This time,

the judge had rebuked the Justice Department for keeping relevant information from him

when they sought a search warrant for the search of a home of a Washington Post reporter.

In another case in West Virginia, before a judge named Joseph Goodwin last week, this is a case

where massed ICE agents arrested a man and jailed him without a bond hearing, Judge Goodwin wrote

this. He wrote, quote, antiseptic judicial rhetoric cannot do justice to what is happening across

the interior of the United States agents of the federal government, massed anonymous armed with

military weapons operating from unmarked vehicles acting without warrants of any kind are seizing

persons for civil immigration violations and imprisoning them without any semblance of due

process. The systematic character of this practice and its deliberate elimination of every

structural feature that distinguishes constitutional authority from raw force place it beyond the

reach of ordinary legal description. It is an assault on the constitutional order.

Judges standing up for themselves, standing up for the court system, standing up for the constitution.

The Justice Department is not just any other among the many failing parts of the government

under Donald Trump's misrule. The Justice Department, to a large extent, kind of is our legal

system. It has a qualitatively different amount of responsibility at least for keeping us going

as a constitutional republic. So one of the things that's going to be really important for when we

come out the other side of this, which we will, is that the behavior of this agency in particular,

DOJ in particular, it's going to have to be sort of walled off and bracketed as not normal.

The things that happened in the Justice Department are going to be, need to be labeled as not normal,

something that can't be precedent, as things that we can never do again just because they were done

now. We are not going to evolve in a direction in which this is the kind of stuff that our

Justice Department and our government tries to get away with. Right now, federal judges from one

end of the country to the other are starting to draw bright lines around this behavior saying this

is not okay and we're going to punish you for it until you fix it. We're going to need that

because one day we are going to need to remember how to have a real functioning Justice Department again.

This tomorrow's state of the union gets closer. The list of ways Democrats are going to respond

keeps getting longer and more interesting. This year, a few Democrats say they're going to bring some

of the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking and abuse as their guests to the state of the

union address. Other Democrats say they're bringing people affected by Trump's attacks on immigrants.

Congressman Chewy Garcia has invited Merrim Martinis. She's the 30-year-old teacher and US citizen

who was shot five times in Chicago by a federal agent who then bragged about it to his colleagues.

This year also a growing number of Democrats say they're going to skip Trump's speech altogether

and hold their own state of the union event outside the Capitol on the national mall. They're calling

it the people's state of the union. It's hosted by the progressive media company Midas Touch also

by move on. Organizers say they're counting about 30 Democratic lawmakers among their lineup

and that list keeps growing. Some other Democratic members are planning to attend a different

counter-programming event at the National Press Club in DC. Us here at MSNOW, we're going to cover all

of it as best we can. Our coverage begins tomorrow night at seven o'clock Eastern with Jen Saki at

the helm and our many friends here at MSNOW. I'm going to be part of our coverage here starting at

eight o'clock. You're not going to want to miss any of it. It's proofs, it's going to prove to be

well an interesting night. MSNOW's full coverage of the state of the union again starting

tomorrow night at seven Eastern. We'll be right back. Stay with us.

All right, there's one other piece from tonight's show that we're going to post on YouTube tomorrow

morning. It's more on the effort to document and wall off and kind of preserve evidence of the

abuses and misuses of the Justice Department under Donald Trump. You know, the bogus charges against

protesters and politicians, the weird terrorism references they're inserting everywhere, the lying

to judges, the misconduct and unprofessional behavior with grand juries. None of that should become

precedent for how the Justice Department behaves in the future and the legal profession knows that.

So we're going to have more to come on the on the effort to wall those things off. Again,

we're going to be posting that on YouTube tomorrow morning. We're also put it up on nattoblog.com.

I hope you check it out. Meanwhile, I'll be back tomorrow night for the state of the union.

Our coverage kicks off here at MSNOW 7 p.m. Eastern. I'll be here at eight.

State of the union tomorrow night should be weird.