“The fight for control over American elections”

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No mail-in ballots, you know, corrupt mail-in ballots. We're the only country in the world that does it that way. Corrupt as hell. We're the only country that does mail-in voting. Mail-in voting means mail-in cheating. I call it mail-in cheating. That's what they're good at. They're professional. Cheaters. No mail-in ballots. Right? We don't want to have mail-in ballots where they're mailed in from all parts of the place. Mail-in ballots are crooked as hell. Mail-in ballots, make it automatically corrupt. If you have mail-in ballots, automatically it's correct. Hi again, everybody. It is 5 o'clock now in Washington, D.C. I'm Alicia Menendez in today for Nicole Wallace. You know, you don't have to squint to recognize that Donald Trump what he ultimately wants, the endgame, complete and unfettered control over American election systems. The real question is what is he prepared to do? How far is he willing to go in order to make that a reality? You just heard him over the course of months? Hammer home a conspiracy theory he's repeated over the course of years. that mail-in ballots are somehow a vehicle for widespread voter fraud. And yet, Trump is in the process of tightening his grip around that, along with voter ID and voter registration, by virtue of the so-called Save America Act, something Trump insisted should be the number one priority right now for Republican lawmakers. Again, there's no mystery associated with where this is all headed. Trump is seeking full control over American elections, an effort that extends well beyond legislation. Remember, yesterday we told you about a case currently before the U.S. Supreme Court having to do with the legality of a Mississippi law allowing mail-in ballots postmarked by election day to be counted within five business days of the election. If those nine justices decide in favor of the Republican National Committee and insist such a rule is unconstitutional, the sweeping aftershock of would ripple through at least 18 other states and territories, potentially disenfranchised scores of voters, Republicans, Democrat, independents alike. Then there's Trump's effort to rest control of sensitive voter data from states across the country. There were those raids on county election offices in Georgia and Arizona. And now, There's this. Take it away, Steve Bannon. Mike, one question. I want the mainstream media's head to blow up today. We can use what's happening with these ICE helping out at the airports. We can use this as a test run as a test case to get really perfect ICE's involvement in the 26 midterm election, sir. Yeah, I think we should have ICE agents at the polling places because if you're an illegal alien, you can't vote, right? It's against the law. It's a federal crime for you to vote in federal elections. And so if you're an American citizen, you should be happy that ICE is there because you're not going to have illegal aliens canceling on your vote.

All right. I mean, there are already laws in the books to prevent that undocumented people don't vote in elections, but federal agents of Donald Trump at polling places, another one of those small steps towards complete control over American elections, just like the war on mail-in ballots, which brings us back to where we began. Donald Trump, who started this hour with a month's long crusade on the quote-unquote sheeting associated with mail-in voting, evidently voted. by mail this week in Tuesday's special election in Palm Beach County, Florida. Go figure. And that is where we begin this hour. Director of the Brennan Center's Voting Rights and Elections Program. Sean Morales Doyle is here. Also with us, former assistant special agent in charge at the FBI and national security and intelligence analyst Michael Feinberg. And Angela Corrason is still with me at the table. Sean, your reaction to that ban on exchange. Well, as you said, there are already multiple laws that make the idea of deploying ICE or any other armed federal agents or the troops or any of that to polling places. It is a federal crime to do that. It's a federal crime for any federal employees to interfere in our elections. I understand that people hear that something is illegal and that doesn't necessarily convince them that this administration won't try it. That's fair. But I think there are a lot of legal tools available to stop this kind of thing if it should happen. But I think... More importantly, we need to all have a consensus that not only is this illegal, whether this is just so far out of step with what is okay in our democracy, that the administration knows that if they were to cross this line, the people would not stand for it. That this is, you know, like what we just saw in Minneapolis, a line that we're just not okay with the administration crossing. This is not how we run elections in this country. Michael Feinberg, former assistant special agent in charge at the FBI, tell me as we build that consensus around what is and isn't legal. Is it legal for the president of the United States to deploy ICE to polling places? No, it is not. There are extensive federal regulations prohibiting armed agents and officers the United States government from conducting official business at polling places. When I was still in the FBI and we used to go vote, we were explicitly instructed to obfuscate any weaponry or identification we had marking us as law enforcement officers. So there would not even be the appearance of impropriety. And it's important to note, like, these aren't ambiguous laws. They're very clear cut. And they're clear cut because our nation has...

an unfortunate history in some parts of the country of using police officers and armed agents, specifically to dissuade people from going to polling places and to depress voter outturn. So this isn't something that was cooked up in order to thwart Trump or the MAGA movement. This is a longstanding series of statutes. based on unpleasant events from American history that we need to endeavor forever not to repeat. Angela, I always turn to you to help me understand sort of the context in which these things are said by the amplifiers, the extent to which they are stress testing, just the environment trying to chip away at the consensus that Sean referenced. Consider how it is that the president of the United States got to the idea that we're talking about yesterday of ICE at airports. I know media managed a lot of research on this, but I'm going to read from Semaphore on Friday. Linda from Arizona called into the Clay and Buck Show to volunteer that, I think I have a solution to the TSA problem. We need to bring in ICE agents. Host Clay Travis replied, Linda, I have to say, that's kind of a brilliant idea. That evening, Travis, the founder of the right-leaning Fox-owned sports site Outkick, floated the idea on Fox News to host Charlie Hurt the next morning. Trump posted a truth social that he would... move our brilliant and patriotic ice agents to the airports where they will do security like no one has ever seen before, including the immediate arrest of all illegal immigrants who have come into our country with heavy emphasis on those from Somalia. So this is how you get the president's attention. Is Steve Bannon messaging to the president or is he messaging to the base? He's messaging to the base. He's trying to get to the bottom of that food chain so that it works its way up and sort of becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. And so it's sort of a two-for there because he's also talking to Mike Davis, who, you know, the Wall Street Journal recently reported about the influence that he has over DOJ and also that he regularly talks to Trump. So he's trying to hit key influencers, the peer-to-peer that he can directly influence Trump, and then more importantly, seed the bottom of the base so that idea can incubate and then work its way up so that there are other Lindas. but maybe from Minnesota or New York that are calling into Sean Hannity's show and to other places and espousing similar ideas and moving the narrative along so that it then makes its way up to a show that Trump does watch and then can be turned into policy. That is the Fox feedback loop with Trump in action. Sean, from ICE at airports to ICE at polling places, Steve Bannon floated it, and then you have this from Fox News. Take a listen. Now, the Democrats are saying we're going to make Americans wait in line to get on a flight to protect the illegals who cut the line to get into the country. Why? What's the demand? Well, what are the demands? They say no ICE agents can be at a polling station. What's the trouble with that, Jessica? What's the problem if the illegals aren't voting? Why can't ICE agents be at a polling station? What is the problem with that, Sean? Talk us through it.

Why would Isations be at a polling station? This is our immigration enforcement, right? There is no place in which I could see them being less relevant to legitimate government behavior than at polling places where citizens are casting their ballots. Let's start, take a step back. The federal government does not run our elections. The executive branch has no legitimate role in setting the rules that govern our elections and running our elections. The only legitimate role they have is in law enforcement in enforcing our voting laws. That is not ICE's job, right? That is maybe the FBI and parts of the Department of Justice that can enforce our rules that are meant to protect voters, like the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which, by the way, is one of the things that makes it illegal for ICE to be at the polls. But it is not... It is not ICE's job. There is no law that ICE is enforcing that they need to be at polling places to enforce. And as was said earlier, there's a reason why there are statutes on the books that were passed during the Civil War in 1865 that say, actually, we can't think of a legitimate reason why there would ever be any kind of armed federal agent at polling places, any kind. That is a criminal offense because there's just no role. for armed federal agents at the places where we are voting. And there is a real concern that having them at places where we are voting is going to chill the constitutionally protected rights of voters to participate in our democracy. And the idea that only non-citizens, that only people who are here without lawful presence, have reason to be scared of ICE. is absurd in the wake of the kinds of things that we have seen happen in Minneapolis and in Chicago, in L.A. We all have reason to worry about that. And the idea that that wouldn't chill American citizens from participating in our elections is just ignoring reality. Michael, when I see those ICE agents... unmasked, notably, inside American airports. It reminds me of when I started to see National Guard troops here in Washington, D.C., like kids on corners, not exactly knowing what it was they were supposed to do, which is part of the point is to socialize all of us to this idea that it is somehow normal to see federal agents everywhere that we go, everywhere that we interact with civic life. And you have the New York Times. Describing Trump's relationship with ICE like this, Mr. Trump has increasingly used ICE to try to achieve personal and political objectives, deploying a force with a quasi-military bearing around the country with a message that he intends to not just carry out his anti-immigration agenda, but to also enforce his views on constituencies and states that have opposed him. Last year, he sent officers into large, Democratic-run cities as part of a highly visible immigration enforcement operation. He rushed teams to Minneapolis to pursue Somali immigrants accused of fraud in viral videos. Now he is pushing agents to airports to help the Transportation Security Administration and pressure Democrats into folding in the weeks-long shutdown fight. I would say that any of those TSA agents who are not getting paid but have an ICE agent over their shoulder who's not actually able to look through people's personal identification would quabble with this idea that they are actually there to help.

But it does seem that all of this amounts to the president believing at least that he has a private police force. What is to stop him from deploying them as such? Well, look, DHS of which ICE is a part is one of the newest and least established in terms of having an institutional culture, law enforcement agencies in the United States. And as a result, it doesn't have the sort of informal guardrails that the Drug Enforcement Administration or the Federal Bureau of Investigation has where its personnel... just intuitively know their oath is to the Constitution and not an individual. We've seen some of the unions that represent people in DHS make explicit presidential endorsements in election years, oftentimes for President Trump. So the fact that he would use them as his sort of private army really shouldn't surprise any of us. But that doesn't mean they belong any of the places they are. Ice belongs at a polling place or in an airport as much as it belongs on stage at a Broadway musical, which is to say, not at all. I bet some of those guys can dance and saying, I mean, you see my point about the socialization that begins to happen when you were accustomed to seeing these guys in their uniforms, basically everywhere you go. That's right. And that is a big, and that is what Steve Bannon is trying to say. is that they're trying, and there's an important thing that sort of tie in here with the question you just have with Michael. Because one, they're trying to make it much more acceptable in all. And that's not only going to be in these big displays like we saw in Minnesota, where it's scary and they're coming with masks and it's overwhelming force, it's a normal part of life. And if they're picking a few people off the line, and that's one of the things that they've been saying in talk radio as they continue to pull it in bad and stride is that they're getting used to sniffing out. individuals that are suspicious on these lines. It's practice and training. Sounds a lot like racial profiling. It sure does. And that this is all part of it, that it starts to become even more normal and acceptable in places you don't expect. But in the lead-up to your question with Michael, one of the things you said is that ICE was sent in a response to viral videos. Now, let's play this out. There's an entire phalanx of investigative creators, just like that Nick Shirley guy, that are about to be deployed around election misinformation. So now what happens when you have a video that sort of totally based off of nonsense, gets uplifted in the right-wing media, makes its way to Fox News, it's a new big story, then Trump has a pretext to sort of send these now figures that have been socialized to be more present into these areas where these videos prop up. That's the scenario that we're playing out. It's not just going to be out of nowhere. Right now, it's the crisis at airports because of TSA and it seems dispersed, but it'll be much more targeted and focused.

as we get closer and closer to the election. That's the real threat. And so when it's more normal, it's going to be hard to amount to kind of resistance to just their sheer presence alone. Sean, we have about 60 seconds left, but I just want to layer on to Angelo's analysis there about the predicate that they are setting that they've also now sown doubt about ID. They've also sown doubt about mail-in voting such that, you heard the conservative justices. questioning yesterday. It does not look like they're going to uphold Mississippi's law, but let's say somehow they did. The doubt is already there. The doubt is there on every voter that goes to the poll. Some of their work, Sean, is already done. That's undoubtedly true. And I think it's important to know that that is a big goal of this concerted campaign from the administration and to undermine our elections is just to undermine public faith in our elections to cede that doubt and make people have a reason to question the outcome of elections so that they can attempt to subvert those outcomes after the fact. And that is why I understand that it can sound odd when I say when I'm here to talk about the threats to our democracy and the problems we're facing to tell people that. The only way to save this is to actually invest in that democracy and participate in it. But that's the reality. We cannot let them win this battle by just undermining people's faith and trust to the point where people throw up their hands and walk away. This is the moment, the most important moment for people to engage in all of the ways that it is appropriate for citizens to engage in our democracy. That means go vote. You have to go vote. But it also means, you know. participating in talking to your your representatives in congress about the safe america act it means volunteering to be a poll worker it might mean engaging in peaceful protest um but it means engaging in democracy it's more important now than ever You have to overpower them by engaging in democracy. Sean Morales Doyle, Angela Corsohn, thank you both so much for being with us today. Michael Feinberg, you are sticking with me when we return. A stunning admission by a Justice Department prosecutor who admitted behind closed doors that the DOJ had no evidence of wrongdoing by federal chairman Jerome Powell. When it unsuccessfully tried to indict him that new reporting is next. Also ahead for us, harrowing testimony from parents, from teachers, from young people themselves, speaking about how the Trump administration's cruel immigration policies are doing serious damage to children. They're chilling stories and the prospects that will lead to change later in the hour. And some breaking news to bring you, the House Oversight Committee has just released the videos from the closed-door depositions of two of Jeffrey Epstein's longtime confidants, his longtime lawyer, Darren Indyke, and his accountant Richard Kahn. What we are learning from those two depositions ahead, Deadline One House continues after a quick break. Stay with us.

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There is more evidence today that Donald Trump's retribution campaign carried out by his Justice Department is going pretty poorly. Brand new reporting in the Washington Post reveals just how weak a Justice Department prosecutor admitted their case against Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell really is. From the Washington Post, quote, a top deputy to U.S. attorney Janine Piro, acknowledged in a closed-door hearing this month, that the Justice Department did not have evidence of wrongdoing in its criminal investigation of the Federal Reserve for the cost of its building renovations, according to a transcript of the court proceedings. The case was opened after Jerome Powell gave testimony about the cost of renovations at the Fed's headquarters. Prosecutors were weighing whether to bring fraud or misconduct charges against the Fed chair based on that testimony. But according to the Washington Post, quote, Chief of the Criminal Division of the U.S. Attorney's Office in D.C. said at the March 3rd hearing that Justice Department lawyers did not know at this time what evidence there is a fraud or criminal misconduct, arguing only that the project was $1.2 billion over budget and that it doesn't seem right. Just days after that admission of no evidence, federal judge James Bosberg quashed the DOJ subpoenas targeting Jerome Powell. According to MS Now's reporting, he found the case, quote, so thin and unsubstantiated that the court can only conclude that they are pretextual. I want to bring in senior investigative reporter Carol Letting. Michael is still with us. All right, Carol, take us through this. You reported, Judge Bosberg, found that this case was not based on evidence. Now we know that the DOJ admitted that they did not have the evidence. Tell us more. That's right, Alicia. I mean, what the, my former employer, the Washington Post is rightfully reporting is additional transcript information from that Q&A, essentially, between Chief Judge Bosberg and the prosecutors who were trying to keep their subpoenas alive, while Jerome Powell, through his attorneys, was trying to quash them. And in that back and forth, the lead prosecutor on the case, said, no judge, I'm paraphrasing, of course, no judge, we don't have evidence at this time. And that kind of, you know, screams out that you don't have an articulable basis to conclude a crime has committed, has been committed. As we reported an MS now first, about a week and a few days ago, if my memory serves, Judge Bosberg ruled very, very unusually, by the way, he was going to quash these subpoenas and release the decision to quash because there was essentially no evidence of any crime. And that made him uncomfortable, very uncomfortable, based on Donald Trump's previous pattern of telling the Justice Department who to prosecute, who he didn't like. And that's really not the way the law in this country works. It's not how the Department of Justice works. It's not how investigations are supposed to open, and it's not how subpoenas are issued. Michael Feinberg, a judge looking for evidence. I mean, what does it do to the level of trust between DOJ prosecutors and judges to have this admission that they themselves knew there was no there there?

So look, I think that level of trust has been destroyed across the country with the exception of a slim majority on the Supreme Court at this point. And the reason for that is in making this admission, DOJ has essentially copped to violating its own regulations and policies. To the extent that there is a Bible of prosecutorial guidelines and ethics, it's something called the Justice Manual. And the Justice Manual explicitly states, you do not try and bring charges to a grand jury unless you think you can actually obtain an indictment. To do so otherwise is to ignore your ethical duties as an officer of the United States government. And what the testimony that you and Carol just spoke about clearly demonstrates is that they knew they had no chance of getting an indictment, but they brought this to the grand jury anyway, presumably to simply please their political overlords. Right, Carol, I want to pivot to another U.S. attorney's office. Federal judges appointed a career prosecutor to be the U.S. attorney in New Jersey. They seem to have ended just this long standoff with the DOJ. What more can you tell us? Yes, this is a pretty significant impasse that has now been, I guess, patched up, so to speak. The chief judge in this case previously had said that the US Department of Justice and the Trump administration seemed to be more concerned about who was running this office than whether or not the office was properly running. Robert Frazier is now the fourth U.S. attorney to have this job since Donald Trump took the presidency for the second time in January of 2025. And this piece essentially was brokered when the federal court conferred with senior Justice Department officials about who they might all agree would be a good, at least temporary choice for a U.S. attorney in this position solely for the goal of moving forward with cases. Alicia, I want to underscore something about how serious it is to not have this position properly and legally filled. I mean, it meant that judges were kicking prosecutors out of the courtroom for sentencing and for other key decisions in cases because they couldn't, in their view, accept what was being presented by this office without legally appointed leaders. Most famously, Alina Habab, a close Trump ally and one of his former attorneys had been serving in that office and she was removed by the federal court. It is the total authority of the federal court to appoint a U.S. attorney in these jobs as they have tried to do or come close to doing in four other cases around the country. It is their authority to do that when a nominee

has either stayed in the job past 120 days and has not been but confirmed by the Senate. And that's what has happened in the Eastern District of Virginia. That's what has happened in upstate New York. That is what has happened in New Jersey. And here we are in this situation where the judges have finally met with senior justice officials just to get the office kind of rolling forward and have. criminal prosecutions and law enforcement handled ably and legally. I appreciate you reminding us of the stakes of not having that position filled. Carol Lenin, thank you, as always, so much for joining us and sharing your reporting. Michael Feinberg sticks with me when we return. We're getting our first look at the depositions of two of Jeffrey Epstein's closest confidants, what they told the House Oversight Committee about Epstein and his crimes. We'll have that after a quick break. For moi? Claude, you can talk? I've always had the gift of gab, Nancy. But now, you can understand. With pretty litter, the odor-neutralizing, long-lasting health indicating kitty litter, that's simply the most luxurious way to bury my poopies and my pee-pies. Pretty litter was developed with veterinarians. It helps me monitor potential health problems just by changing color. Go to prettylitter.com today. Pretty litter. Not just a pretty litter. Monday.com AI agents took over my work. And I absolutely love it. Chasing deadlines, writing status reports, updating stakeholders. Agents handle the daily grind now. I stay in the loop only when it matters. Create your own AI agent in minutes on Monday.com. There's a lot of news to cover. Money. The economic fallout from the war. Is it temporary? Power. Is this White House for sale? Politics. What is your message to the country right now? Money power politics with Stephanie Rule. Weekdays at 9 a.m. Eastern on MS. Now. Some breaking news, news we have been waiting for. The House Oversight Committee has just released the videos and transcripts of their questioning of two members of Jeffrey Epstein's inner circle. Both Richard Kahn, Epstein's longtime accountant, and Darren Indyke, Epstein's lawyer, both reportedly told the committee they had absolutely no knowledge of the heinous crimes their client was committee. Kahn and Indyke are now the co-executors of Epstein's estate. I want to bring in MS Now senior legal reporter Lisa Rubin. Michael Feinberg is still with us. All right, Lisa, I know that you have been combing through all of this. What can you tell us? Well, Lisa, we don't have transcripts of either one of these depositions, so I and others here at MS Now have been trying to watch these videos, which were released approximately a half an hour ago. That being said, in the last half hour, we've made some really interesting discoveries about the testimony of both Darren Kahn. I'm sorry, Darren Indyke and Richard Kahn, the co-executors of the Epstein estate, who also served as his attorney and accountant, respectively, during their lives. And in particular, one thing that really caught my attention was a question that Mr. Endyke was asked about whether he had any contact with the Epstein victims. Here, take a listen.

During the previous hour, I believe the minority had asked you if you ever had any contact with victims. I believe you answered no. Is that right? I think so, yes. I think that's when you say contact other than assistance, right? So for the record, you never told victims not to contact or speak with law enforcement. Is that right? I can, so the answer is, Yes, I never told anybody not to speak with law enforcement. I remember one or two occasions, and I don't know when, and I think this was in the early investigation or the later investigation, that there were people who were concerned that law enforcement was calling them and the defense counsel who they didn't know. asked me to call them and tell them that they could have a lawyer if they want, that they didn't have to speak to them if they didn't want. But I never told them not to speak to one. I simply told, they related the statement from the defense counsel that if they wanted a lawyer, they could have one provided.

And Alicia, one of the reasons that response caught my attention is because I and others at MS Now did some reporting about what people had to say about Darren Endyke when they themselves were interviewed by law enforcement. You, of course, know that literally hundreds of witnesses were interviewed by the FBI and the Department of Justice in the course of their two Epstein-related investigations, the first in Florida in 2006 through 2008, and then again in the Southern District, beginning in... 2019 and lasting through Ghislaine Maxwell's conviction in December of 2021. And we discovered that at least Two victims told the FBI specifically that Darren Indyke had instructed them not to talk to law enforcement, not that he said to them that it was their option and that a lawyer would be provided for them if they wanted one. There was also a former personal chef of Jeffrey Epstein's who also spoke to law enforcement and gave them a very similar narrative. That he remembers an interaction with Darren Indyke during which he was told, do not speak to law enforcement if you were approached. That was during a period of time where they were concerned. that this particular gentleman might be served with papers. And Darren Endyke, according to this man, the former personal chef, told him, if somebody tries to approach you with something, do not accept it. Is there the possibility then, Lisa, of perjury here? You know, it's not clear. And one of the reasons it's not clear is because Darren Indyke himself was never interviewed by law enforcement during either of those investigations, something that I still find flummoxing Alicia. And that's true of Richard Kahn as well. As far as I understand it, nobody associated with the federal government. neither the FBI nor the Department of Justice ever sat down with either of these people. And yet, if you talk to people close to the victims or you talk to the victims themselves, it's clear that these were not exactly people that they didn't know to exist. That's particularly true with respect to Mr. Andyke. I'm struck, Michael, by some of the reporting that Lisa referenced that she's done for MS now. One of the survivors that she referenced a Polish X model talks about the fact that Indyke called her into his office. told her not to talk to law enforcement. That same woman spoke again to the FBI and prosecutors two months later. She mentioned that Epstein encouraged her to seek Indyke's assistance with her immigration status, but that Indyke was unable to help. She reiterated that Indyke had directed her to contact him if she ever needed help and, quote, never talked to the police. All of that reporting to me, Michael Feinberg, sort of a reminder of just the vulnerable state.

that a lot of these women found themselves in, right? Go to this guy to help you with your immigration paperwork, but don't talk to the police. You know, one of the things that keeps coming up in the course of these files is the fact there are not perfect victims, there are not perfect survivors, and yet we are reminded that the power dynamics over and over again were not in these women's favors. No, of course not. And look, I worked in American law enforcement for the majority of my adult life, and I will be the first to admit it has not often treated survivors or victims of sexual abuse or sexual assault in a way that we can always be proud of. Now, I will note, though, that if any of these individuals were representing Jeffrey Epstein as they were, There is a very high bar to overcome, both under case law and under DOJ policy that would allow investigators or prosecutors to interview them as a potential witness. The only way that that could be done is if you could show that somebody acting in a legal capacity for a defendant was engaging in crime or fraud themselves to help that defendant. Now, that case... could certainly be made here. If they were attempting to dissuade people from cooperating with a federal investigation, you might have a potential obstruction charge. But it's important to note, as we just saw in that video clip, these are individuals who choose their words very carefully and played things very close to the edge. And it's not clear to me based on what we've seen or what's been reported thus far that investigators or prosecutors would have been able to overcome that hurdle even to just speak with them. Lisa Rubin, thank you so much for going through that Indyke and Khan video. I know you're waiting for the transcripts once you have that. We'd love to have you back. Michael Feinberg, thank you so much for being with us when we return, even in an administration for which cruelty is so often the point. The testimony we heard today from children on the brutality they are suffering at the hands of immigration agents was extraordinary. I'm going to share some of their stories after a short break.

The situation is a nightmare that I can't wake up from, that my family can't wake up from. My baby sister needs to see her doctors, but she needs to get the care alongside her family. I need my family to come home. I'm 18 years old. I still need to support my parents. I need to be around my siblings. I've been dreaming of going to college, but that isn't something I can do without the support of my... of support system both financially or emotionally. You can say whatever, you can say all you want about these awful immigration policies don't impact U.S. citizens, but that's a lie. My family was raped apart from me and my future along with him. My baby sister could die as a result of this mess. That was 18-year-old, an 18-year-old who testified in a hearing today under a pseudanin due to fears of ICE retribution about what his life has been like since ICE deported his family. including his little sister who has brain cancer, after they were detained by ICE on their way to the hospital to get her care. Comes on the heels of the ProPublica reporting we brought you yesterday, showing the scale of the impact of mass deportation on American children. ProPublica writes this, quote, in the first seven months of Trump's second term, authorities arrested and detained parents of at least 11,000 U.S. citizen children, a number that if the pace held up, will have roughly doubled by now. That's an average of more than 50 U.S. citizen kids a day with a parent pulled into detention. Joining me at the table, former DHS official and White House advisor, founder of America's Promise, and senior fellow at forward.us, Andrea Flores, also with us, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, Dara Lind. In some ways, we've been here before. where we have seen what the American immigration system can do to children. And yet, this moment feels different for the sheer volume, the sheer cruelty, and the fact that there are so many American citizen children who are being swept up in this. I think you're totally right to say that the difference is in the numbers. And, like, it's not, that's, that's not an academic difference, right? That's 11,000 families like the one we just heard from. That's a lot of U.S. citizen kids. And, of course, everyone in their communities, everyone whose parents are afraid to send them to school because they don't want to be the next headline. The thing is that... there's no law saying you can't deport parents of U.S. citizen children, to the contrary, right? We've had this situation where, you know, almost 6 million U.S. citizen kids have at least one parent who's unauthorized. And when you have a situation where kids can grow up, families can grow up in an environment where there's just never a chance for them to render themselves fully safe from deportation, this has always been a risk. The difference is, of course, that this administration has decided that it's just not going to consider having a U.S. citizen child to... like be a factor in maybe we shouldn't go after this family. Maybe we should direct our resources somewhere else instead. Those are decisions that, you know, most law enforcement agents might make, geez, there, you know, is there something that we should maybe be considering that maybe we shouldn't do this for prudence sake because it would hurt someone? That's not a consideration that they have.

Tell me about how what we just heard and the reporting that I just shared connects to the fight that is happening right now in Capitol Hill. So as Dara said, one thing that's different is that there's no time and there's no interest in thinking about who they are picking up and why. They're just trying to hit daily quotas and they're doing these indiscriminate roving patrols, which is exactly what Democrats are focused on ending. Now, there are rumors that the White House is offered to... suspend funding for one part of ICE enforcement removal operations. That's one small piece of the agency. But they still have delegated authority for other federal agents, whether that's Border Patrol, whether that's drug enforcement administration, to continue to do these types of arrests where they're even less trained to think about family interest factors. And so if Dems can hold the line on that piece and say, we still need to end the indiscriminate roving patrols, that would at least reduce some of these impacts because a lot of these cases we hear, you know, a parent is getting picked up just going back and forth to work. That is a type of patrolling we don't need. You need to go back to targeted investigations and that will reduce some of these impacts. That point about this really operating more like a rogue police force was echoed in today's hearing. I want to play just a little bit more sound. They were so brutal that you needed medical attention, as you can see here. A nurse at the hospital where you were taken, actually called 911 to report to the police that you had been choked and beaten, and you were repeatedly called slurs by the officers. Is that correct? Yes, sir. You were told the agents, you told that you had filmed this on their cell phone. Is that right? Yes, sir. And that's when they took your phone away. Yes, sir. These agents didn't just take your phone. They sold it. They pawned at a kiosk for $250 cash. Is that correct? Yes, sir. If you have a force, like I said, has basically been told they have carte Todd Blanche and they will be protected by this president, as we saw with both the killings of Alex Preddy and Renee Good in Minneapolis, what is to stop them from treating American children this way? The levels of accountability that have to have been torn apart in order to get to a point where you can have these sort of things happen and be reported, and there not even be any kind of fig leaf, oh, we're looking into this, oh, this shouldn't have happened, any apology statement. There are... just so many like boring bureaucratic things that Andre and I could identify like, oh, there's no internal affairs worth noting here. Oh, clearly no one's afraid that the DOJ is going to investigate them for criminal behavior. That's, we've really expected the federal government to be able to police itself because traditionally, federal law enforcement has been more professional than its state and local equivalents in many ways. And without any of that, we're finding that there aren't external means to hold the government accountable. And this is why Congress is trying to kind of step in and fill that vacuum. They're using what power they do have to say you at least have to follow the Fourth Amendment. I mean, their requests are not big here.

Like, this isn't an immigration reform negotiation. Trump is sort of treating it, and some Republicans are treating it. Like, they're asking for a lot. They're saying, please stop the enforcement at schools, at churches, at other, you know, communities, places. That's basic. And so I think Republicans are uncomfortable. I mean, Senator Ted Cruz, Senator Robert F. Kennedy Jr., say. They're like, let's take the TSA funding, right? This is uncomfortable for them. And I think Democrats should not give in, even with the spectacle, vice at airports and other pieces, because it comes down not just to these kids, but to our communities. Do we want to still have, like, Border Patrol and other agents in our community just racially profiling everywhere? I don't. And so I want Dems to keep fighting. It should be an easy question to answer Andrea Flores, Darrylind. Thank you both so much for being with here. I'm going to take a quick break. We'll be right back. Nicole's guest on this week's episode of The Best People, the Miami Herald's Julie K. Brown, is the reporter who broke the Jeffrey Epstein scandal wide open and kept it in the public eye for years before any push for accountability from government. Listen to what she told Nicole about Ghislaine Maxwell. I'm sure early on she started saving all that material because, for one thing, Epstein was starting to hang her out to dry a little bit toward the end. And I'm sure she was smart enough to start getting some material together as protection for herself. Quite frankly, I'm surprised it took them this long to put her into a cushy prison. You know, I think she really does know everything. There's a little bit of a big question mark there about what Trump is going to do. And I think depending on what he does, it will show whether he is implicated, to be honest, because I think there's a very good chance that he's going to pardon her. To watch the rest of Nicole's conversation with Julie out now on YouTube, just scan the QR code on your screen or listen by downloading wherever you get your podcast. One more break for us. We'll be right back.

Thank you for spending part of this Tuesday with us. I will be back in one hour alongside Simone Bernie Sanders Townsend and Michael Steele for the weeknight. Watch Disclosure Day at Home Now with exclusive bonus features. If you found out we weren't alone, if someone showed you, proved it to you? Would that frighten you? While now the truth belongs to 7 billion people in an original event film directed by Steven Spielberg from a screenplay by David Kep starring Emily Blunt, Josh O'Connor, Colin Firth, Eve Hewson, and Coleman Domingo. Find Disclosure Day on major digital platforms now with no subscription required, also in theaters.