"An avalanche of revelations"

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Hi there, everyone. It's now 4 o'clock in New York. The Trump administration today finding itself buried under an avalanche of new revelations surrounding what it is they're doing in the Caribbean. News that only fuels the questions and calls for oversight. The latest blockbuster new reporting by the Washington Post based on the accounts of 10 people. either briefed on or familiar with the September 2nd boat strikes. It reads like a detailed TikTok of exactly what went down. From that new report, quote, a laser-guided bomb had killed nine of the 11 people on board. sunk the boat's motor and capsized the vessel's front end. As smoke from the blast cleared, a live surveillance feed provided by a U.S. aircraft high overhead showed two men had survived and were attempting to flip the wreckage. The video feed showed that the two men were struggling to stay atop the flotsam, which people who've seen the footage described as roughly the size of a dining room table. Admiral Frank M. Bradley turned to the military lawyer advising him and requested input. Under the law of armed conflict, were the men now shipwrecked and therefore out of the fight, rendering them unlawful targets. He ordered a second strike, killing both men. Moments earlier, the video feed had shown them waving their arms and looking skyward, people who saw the footage said. It was unclear, they added, why they were doing so. Washington Post goes on to report that Admiral Bradley defended his actions to members of Congress, but the central question, of whether that second strike was legal remains. Washington Post reports this, quote, there was dissent in the operations room over whether the survivors were viable targets after the first strike. What the lawyer advised, though, and whether they rendered a definitive opinion remains unclear. This new reporting in the Washington Post, like everything else we've learned about the boat strikes over the last few days, underscores why there needs to be an investigation into what happened on September 2nd and in boat strikes since then and with the Trump administration plans to do in Venezuela going forward, especially since the administration appears to be. either ready to or in the process of upping the ante. Regarding that tanker seized yesterday, sources telling the New York Times today that the ship was carrying oil from Venezuela and that there were no casualties in the operation. New York Times adding this, quote, U.S. officials said they expected additional seizures in the coming weeks as part of the administration's efforts to weaken Mr. Maduro's government by undermining its oil market.

ongoing questions about just what happened in the Caribbean and what the Trump administration plans to do next is where we start today. Democratic Congressman Adam Smith joins us. He represents the state of Washington as the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me. I appreciate the chance. Since a small universe of people have seen the video, would you mind just taking us through what you saw and describing for us? What is on the video? Well, I think you described it very accurately. In The Washington Post described it very accurately. You see the initial strike, a lot of smoke. Once it clears, you see that the boat has been substantially destroyed and capsized. So they're clinging to what appears to be the bow of the boat. Now, some of the boat is underwater. How much of it? Is it split in half or is the entire boat underwater? It's impossible to tell. And you've got two people basically clinging to that portion of the boat. And, you know, that's basically what you see until you finally see the video, I think it's some 40 minutes after the first strike. When the second strike hits, kills the two men and destroys the boat. And it is clear that there is enough time in the Washington Post reports this today for them to assess. The impact of the first strike, assess and see, make eye contact and see that there are two survivors. Is there anything in the video that explains to you why what is the textbook example of where the line is and the laws of war doesn't seem to have been abided by? Yeah, there's two big issues here. One is the second strike itself and the basic definition of shipwrecked, which is ensconced in international law. If you're shipwrecked, you're not supposed to be able to kill the survivors. And I understand the explanation that Admiral Bradley has given as to why he didn't think they were. But you look at that video, it's pretty tough to have reached that conclusion. But the second bigger question is what was the targeting instruction in the first place? And this is where people need to be aware of just how much President Trump and Secretary Pete Hegseth are expanding their right to strike targets. They've identified these 25 so-called narco-terrorist groups. And if you are part of or affiliated to one of those narco-terrorist groups, you are now a legitimate target in the same way that Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda. Zohiri were back in the day, presuming that you are about to attack and try to kill Americans. Further, if you have any drugs with you, if you are in the active transmitting cocaine in this case, you're a legitimate target. That dramatically expands the legitimate target list here. And is somebody on a boat with cocaine shipping it to some transshipment point probably headed to West Africa or Europe, by the way, not even headed to the U.S.? Is that the same? As somebody trying to plot flying airplanes into buildings in the United States, I don't think it is. The legal opinions from the Department of Defense have said that it is. And that dramatically expands the targeting. The 11 people on this boat were targeted to be killed. I know a lot of people have taken issue with the Washington Post saying that Secretary Higgs-Said, kill everybody as if it was dramatic. Well,

He did say kill all 11 people on the boat. So kill them all, maybe doesn't adequately describe it, but it's also accurate. He said kill them all, all 11 of them. Was that really justified? So you've got the authority and then you have how it was specifically used. And more than anything, this investigation is far from over. There are way too many questions that haven't been answered. And that video needs to be made public. Let the public see it. There is no reason. Not. to allow that video to be seen. And I think if it is seen, you'll see a huge increase in the calls for further investigation on this issue. The Washington Post report today describes Admiral Bradley as turning to someone in the room. And it's my understanding that he testified to this and asking for legal advice. Do you have any insight into who gave that advice or what it was? We don't. And that's another question that needs to be answered here. The whole chain of command and the chain of decision making, and it would be great if some of this was written down. I mean, this is pretty serious stuff. You'd want to have a clear understanding of what a decision was. So we need to know about it. We don't. know exactly who gave what advice. We don't know if there was dissenting opinions. We don't even have a clear sense of the chain of command because in theory, Admiral Halsey, who was the Southern Command commander, he is in charge of the AOR, the area of responsibility. Anything that happens within his area is supposed to be his call first and foremost. Was he involved in that decision making? And if not, why not? The TikTok is coming together, and I just want to put a few dates in front of you that the public is just learning about. So the first and second strike take place on September 2nd. A legal opinion, it's been reported, doesn't exist anywhere for Admiral Bradley or anybody. It doesn't exist until September 5th. But I've also seen reported that Admiral Holsey don't see it until November. Is that right? And can you flesh that out in terms of what you understand? Yes, that is absolutely. Yeah, you described it 100% accurately. That is how it played out, how it was explained to us by Admiral Bradley. And also, let's remember that the decision to move forward with these attacks on the boats was made in late July. The way presidents normally run these operations is once they've made that decision, they have an obligation to brief the committees of jurisdiction in Congress, and it depends on exactly what's happening. But the Armed Services Committee and the Intel Committee are supposed to be briefed on these operations. And of course, we didn't find out about any of this until the first boat strike became public. So they didn't even follow that. And even after the first boat strike became public, it was several weeks. before they briefed us. And to date, they still haven't briefed Congress on the intelligence behind these decisions. So they say they know who these 11 people were. They know they were affiliated with a specific narco-terrorist group. How do they know that? Show us your work. That's what the intelligence committees, the permanent select committees on intelligence in the House and the Senate, are supposed to be for, and yet they haven't been briefed with that information. And when you have that lack of accountability,

It just undermines any confidence in the decision making and whether or not it's legitimate in the correct decision making. Well, and if it's a designation of narco-terrorism, are you aware of any broader counter-narcotic strategy that includes the largest sources of illegal drugs to America like China's fentanyl? Yeah. Yeah, no, look, this is all kinds of problematic. I mean, you point out two big problems with it. One I alluded to earlier, we have now expanded the definition of what a terrorist is and therefore a legitimate target way beyond what the post-9-11 world did to include anyone engaged in narco-trafficking, crucially also, without congressional approval. Say what you want about the global war on terror after 9-11. It did at least have congressional authorization. Now we don't have that, and we've seen this huge expansion. And then second, if the point of all of this is to protect Americans from drugs, which is important and needs to be done, is this really accomplishing that? I mean, there are all kinds of things that go in to the problem we have with drug abuse in this country. Does a couple dozen votes in the Caribbean really lead to a significant change in that, particularly since, as you also pointed out, there's no fentanyl involved in this. No fentanyl involved in this. The drugs they're interdicting seem to more likely be headed to West Africa or Europe. So it just doesn't seem to even connect if you're focused on the drug problem. And then, of course, there's the fact that Donald Trump keeps pardoning drug dealers. So if drugs were really the problem, why is he doing that? To me, it's more about Donald Trump wanting to assert his dominance in the Western Hemisphere than it is about really getting after the very real problem we have in this country with drug abuse. Are any Republicans interested in the answers to any of the questions you just posed? Not as interested as they should be. I mean, we did this. You know, we had the hearing. Sorry, we had the briefing. Mike Rogers and I talked to Admiral Holsey a couple days ago, I think. You know, but there is not that interest to really get after the answers. Just ask a couple cursory questions, accept the answer and move on. I don't think that's enough. Congress really needs to be involved in this and to exercise oversight. We're talking about launching yet another forever war. Remember how Donald Trump ran for president saying, I'm going to stop the forever wars? He's starting them. And we should be far more interested in the implications of that, the legality behind it, and where it's going. Let me ask you about that briefing with Admiral Holsey. What was he able to fill in in terms of the chain of command and his understanding of any strategy or legal rationale for the orders?

Yeah, not a lot. He did on the chain of command piece, and this is a little bit confusing. Who has the actual targeting authority? Apparently has moved around a little bit. Originally, it was the J-Soc commander. That's not supposed to be the way it works. Again, the Southern Command Commander, Admiral Halsey, should have had it. In some instances, they will designate that to the SOCOM Commander, Special Operations Command. J-Socq is one step below SOCOM. ironically, or unusually, I guess, the J-Soc commander, Admiral Bradley, is now the Socom commander. But typically, that would have been the person who would have had the authority. But also, Admiral Halsey told us, sometimes he did have the authority, sometimes the sect deaf had the authority, and sometimes one of the Marine Expeditionary Force commanders had the authority. So that doesn't really make sense and doesn't seem to be a fairly disciplined approach to making sure that these decisions are... following a clear chain of command. So there was that. And then Admiral Halsey did say he felt that he was following legal orders. But in the questioning, it seemed like he really didn't question that very deeply. It was more like, I got the orders, I assumed them to be legal, and I went about implementing them. In terms of trying to suss out what is really going on, I don't want to stare at the tree and ignore the forest. And I know I just have another minute with you here. What do you think they're... And again, I hate to ascribe too much more strategy or motive to them than they deserve. But is there a larger strategy? And if there is, what do you think it is? Well, here's what I'm worried about. Number one, I think the larger strategy is what I said earlier. Trump wants power. He wants power for himself. He wants power for the United States under his command. I think it's really about asserting control in the Western Hemisphere. And this is a way to do that. I think Trump also wants to be as free of Congress as he possibly can be. So he wants to do this and say, I'm the executive, I can do this. Congress doesn't have a say. And I think the final piece of this and something I think is a through line throughout all of the Trump administration's actions is he wants to make it clear, the law doesn't apply to him. Secretary Pete Hegseth feels the same way. On issue after issue, on the tariffs, on sending troops to U.S. cities, on ice, he has just blatantly disobeyed the law. I always like to use this example. It's not the Department of War. It's the Department of Defense because that's what the law says and the law hasn't been changed. And yet Secretary Hagsath insists on calling himself the Secretary of War. They don't think they have to follow the law. They want to be unbound by that so that they have greater freedom. To me, that undermines our representative democracy and our Constitution. Are we a nation of laws? Or are we a totalitarian government being ruled by a monarch? I think we're still a nation of laws. I think they're trying to undermine that to enhance Trump's power. Do you believe war crimes were committed? I'm not going to reach that conclusion. I think we should absolutely investigate it. I don't like sort of, you know, I don't like Trump being judge, jury, an executioner for any drug trafficker in the world. I'm not going to play that role in assessing the actions here. But they should be investigated. We should find out whether or not the answer to that question is close enough to yes to warrant a prosecution and warrant a further investigation. We shouldn't just sweep it under the rug and walk away.

Congressman Adam Smith, thank you for being so generous with your time today. We really appreciate it. Thank you. I want to bring into our coverage senior political analysts contributing host on Pod Save America, the host of the podcast, Runaway Country, Alex Wagner's back, and Puck News, senior political columnist, national affairs analyst John Heilman is also back. Alex, sometimes things are what they appear to be. And a strike that was first reported in the Washington Post to have been a restrike or second strike on shipwreck survivors of the first strike is what these briefings have borne out. So. Where do we go from here? Well, I mean, I think one thing we need to do, both as journalists and the American public, is to sort of reframe the terms of the scenario, if you will. I mean, I think we're ceding meaningful ground to the Trump administration calling these people narco-terrorists, as Representative Smith lays out. That's a very broad definition of terrorism that allows for use of deadly force, which is very convenient for the Trump administration in whatever this operation is. Secondly, calling it a war crime presumes that the people that we killed knew that we were at war with them, which remains totally unclear. We have no idea who they were. We don't know exactly... what they even had after the first strike. They were floating on what sounds like a dining room, an overturned piece of wood the size of a dining room table without shirts on and then were annihilated to become bloody stains on the water. Did they know that they were at war with the United States? Osama bin Laden did. I'm not sure these two guys did. So the idea that this wasn't just plain old murder ordered by the president and his surrogates is something that I think should still very much be considered up for debate. I think the thing to focus on... beyond the terms of how we talk about this is also. Why are we doing this? The idea that we have no idea why the president of the United States has killed over 87 people and 20 boat strikes has seized tankers off of Venezuela is now threatening boots on the ground and the assumption that this may be a forever war and nobody has any idea why he's doing this. The idea that representatives in Congress, who are the people that are supposed to authorize this in the first place. are just guessing that it's probably a bid for American hegemony a la Trump's Greenland invasion. I mean, this is absolutely crazy. What it looks like to me, Nicole, is a murderous man out there to serve his ego and trying to rebuild government institutions around that. And it is shocking and is shameful. And I think we need to rethink the entire conception of what is happening here. It would be trickier.

It was part of a broad historic counter drug policy. And they were doing innovative things to stop the flow of fentanyl in China and Mexico, the two places from which the most fentanyl makes its way onto American streets, killing Americans. But they're not. And so to Alex's point, where are we right now in this? And there's so much to talk about here. Just starting with the last thing you just said. We've been fighting the war on drugs in America since, you know, the early 1980s. So we've got a fair number of decades here. We've never had, it's never been in the case in any of those cases. We've had, this is your brain, this is your brain on drugs. We've had the Bush administration, the Reagan administration, the Bush administration, the Clinton administration, and then the Second Bush administration. All of them have said that they were in one or another fighting a war on drugs. That war has been fought in different ways. It's never... been the case that anybody, any of those presidents from the right to the left, have ever said that if you were involved in the narcotics trade, you are a terrorist and therefore an enemy combatant. No one has ever made that assertion before. We don't have, we've not seen the OLC, the opposite legal counsel documents that lay out the rationale for that. Many people think that that is a bogus claim. Pete Hegseth said that the Reagan library, when he laid out, when he taught, when he gave a speech last weekend about the national security strategy, said two things, both of which are. both wildly misleading and totally untrue, one of which is that narco-traffickers are the equivalent of al-Qaeda. You can think whatever you want to think about narco-traffickers. They do not have a political agenda. Al-Qaeda did. Terrorists have a political agenda. Narco-traffickers have an economic agenda. They want to make as much money as possible. That's the first thing. He then said that the drugs that they bring into the country are the equivalent of chemical weapons. That is also ridiculous in the sense that we are complicit. In the drug trade, we, I don't mean you and me, although, you know, in some cases I might be. But look, like in the country. we consume fentanyl ravenously. That is, we're not, that's not dropping a bomb in someone's neighborhood. That is the thing that we're a codependent on cocaine, on all of these drugs. There are things where we have a demand problem and a supply problem. And if you think the drugs are bad, the one thing we know is that all of the effective drug strategies start with demand reduction. The reason that the most successful drug policy in the history of the country is the surgeon general declaring cigarettes to be deadly. We have seen cigarette smoke can go down over the course of six decades now because people were convinced by the surgeon general and advertising and cultural opprobrium that you will get cancer if you smoke cigarettes. Yeah, and alcohol, since people have been talking about the alcohol. Exactly. And this, we're not talking about that at all. That's the ultimate thing that's missing in this supposed anti-drug strategy. This administration doesn't talk about that. In the least, you cannot win this war. You would be doing all the things. You would be doing all those things. All we know from all these decades, the drug war is that just focusing on supply and trying to interdict drugs does not work. But let me just, let me just, I mean, because I take Alex's note about the way we talk about as important, just focusing on the supply that isn't the largest flow and that may or may not be coming here. Of course. And look, I know I told you guys we have to wrap this block, but Trump says goes on television and says things like,

Every time we take out one of these boats, we save 25,000 American lives. He said that the other day on television, right? 72,000 people died of fentanyl overdoses last year. On Trump's reasoning, We should be done with this problem. We've taken out 23 boats. The numbers, it's just that make any sense. There is no fentanyl on these boats. And if there was fentanyl on those boats, we've already apparently solved the problem. Because there's 72,000 is way too many people dying of fendol overdoses. But it's not the scale of what they're trying to describe here. And on top of that, the fendil comes through the ports all over the country. We have 100,000 containers a day moving through ports. 2% get inspected. We're not serious about this problem. This is not a serious approach to that problem if you believe that's really what this is all about, which is probably not. It's probably all about oil. All right. No one's going anywhere. When we come back, breaking late this afternoon, Donald Trump's Justice Department dead set on political retaliation against his perceived political enemies, has failed once again to indict Letitia James, one of his so-called... political enemies. Plus, Kristi Noem was confronted with her own lies about just who the United States has deported. We'll show you that dramatic exchange where she's forced to face one of those deportees. And later in the broadcast, Donald Trump's handling of the economy is at another historic low point, as his Fed chairman lays a lot of that blame on Trump's key economic policy. All those stories and much more when Deadline White House continues after a quick break. Don't go anywhere. This is a Monday.com ad. The same Monday.com designed for every team. The same Monday.com with built-in AI, scaling your work from day one. The same Monday.com with an easy and intuitive setup. Go to Monday.com and try it for free. Ever since I was young, I've watched people working hard, chasing opportunity, making sacrifices, doing everything they can to build a better life. And now we're shining a light on what matters most. Our economy, our national identity, our democracy, our future. The stakes have never been higher. It's all on the line. On the line with Alicia Menendez. Weekdays at 12 p.m. Eastern on MS now.

Well, good news, bad news, I guess. The blows keep coming for Donald Trump's retribution campaign. For the second time in two weeks, a grand jury refused to indict New York Attorney General Letitia James for mortgage fraud. That news, according to two sources familiar with the presentation of evidence in this case. The DOJ has been trying to refile this case against Letitia James after it was dismissed by a federal judge who ruled that the appointment of Donald Trump's handpicked U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan was unlawful. A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment. An attorney for Letitia James, Abby Loll, told MS now in a statement this, quote, this unprecedented rejection makes even clearer that this case should never have seen the light of... day. Career prosecutors who knew better refused to bring it, and now two different grand juries in two different cities have refused to allow these baseless charges to be brought. In addition, a federal judge threw out the first indictment, pointing to the illegal appointment of a prosecutor put in place to carry out the president's revenge. This case already has been a stain on the department's reputation and raises troubling questions about its integrity. Any further attempt to revive these discredited charges would be a mock of our system of justice. I want to bring in senior investigative reporter Carol Lennox, who's been breaking news on the story for weeks now. Alex and John are still here. Carol, I guess the only question I have about Abby Lowell's statement there, the lawyer for Titus James, is it's not just career prosecutors who refused to bring this. The political appointee, the original U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Eric Seiberd, also refused to bring this case, right? That's absolutely right, Nicole. In fact, Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche really privately stood up for Eric Siebert, who was Donald Trump's choice, a person he nominated, you know, a Republican-leaning. prosecutor who he believed would be a great leader of this office. But once Cybert said, hey, there aren't enough facts to sufficiently bring a charge against Letitia James or former FBI director James Comey. For some reason, he was no longer acceptable to Donald Trump. Trump threatened to fire him. Seabert resigned on the night that Trump publicly threatened to fire him or professed that he would fire him and named Lindsey Halligan as the new U.S. attorney. Unfortunately, a judge found for Donald Trump anyway that his appointment of her... didn't meet the standards of the law for an acting U.S. attorney, and anything she prosecuted was not authorized and not legal. So they went to the grand jury again after getting through the illegality of Lindsey Halligan's appointment, and there was no true bill. The grand jury said they refused to indict, even though people think that a grand jury will indict a ham sandwich. This is the...

DOJ manual on trying to re-indite after you've been rejected by a grand jury. It says this, quote, once a grand jury returns a no bill or otherwise acts on the merits in declining to return an indictment, the same manner, the same transaction or event, and the same period of defendant should not be presented to another grand jury or resubmitted to the same grand jury without first securing the approval of the responsible United States attorney. So. ostensibly, if anyone is following a manual, and this may be a dumb question as I'm hearing it come out of my mouth, they went back to someone who can make that decision to be rejected again today. That's right. And, you know, I'm so glad you read from the manual because it seems so quaint now, the way things should have been done and the way they're being done now. I mean, these calls are being directed from the White House, and there is no... embarrassment about that, despite the Department of Justice's integrity and credibility, relying on it being independent from the White House and from the president. In this case, I guess what's most important to emphasize is it's a massive humiliation for prosecutors when they fail to get one, grand jury indictment, one. And to go back and do it a second time, Well, it just is, I don't know how you say doubly humiliating. I don't know how it could be worse. To lose a second time, you know, there are a lot of lawyers I've been talking to in the last 24 minutes since all of this broke and we were able to publish on our site at MS now. And so many of them are either independently reaching out, calling, texting to say. you know, essentially a version of good God, it's so clear that the facts don't add up. If in a one-sided presentation, Nicole, where only the assistant U.S. attorney is presenting the facts, there is no pushback from defense, there is no opportunity for the other side to say their point of view, their defense, their claims, their disputes with this information, if in that one-sided location where a... office that generally leans pro-government in a heavy way because it has a lot of defense folks, military folks that work there. If twice, this group of, this body of grand jurors have said, this does not compute. That is a stunning rebuke. Well, you use the word humiliation. I mean, is it clear to you in covering this Justice Department that Pam Bondi and Todd Blanche have that range of emotion? Have you seen them humiliated since you've been covering them?

Sensitive question, Nicole, as usual, thanks a lot. Privately, we know from sources that they are embarrassed by what's happening here. In particular, Todd Blanche has been concerned about the weakness of these mortgage fraud cases in particular. And, you know, they just don't look good for the Department of Justice, and he has served in it before and knows how this works. And although Pambandi has not, she has been a prosecutor on the state level. But what I've heard mostly from sources is that Todd Blanche is basically privately mortified, but not at all buckling publicly from what his commander-in-chief, his president wants. Well, it's amazing. I mean, and I guess I asked because if people had shame, we wouldn't be destroying the rule of law in America. So it just, it feels like an important part of the story. And I'm really grateful to you for pulling the curtain back on that. It's fascinating. Carol, thank you, as always, for breaking this news with us. After the break, Kristi Noem pushed by a congressman today to face a U.S. veteran who was deported by her agency in a dramatic hearing on Capitol Hill. We'll bring it to you next.

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Earlier today, the lies that have largely propped up, Donald Trump's rather brutal mass deportation campaign, were revealed. They were laid bare in public. As his DHS secretary, Kristi Noem, was confronted with the impact of mass deportation, not on the worst of the worst. that they claim they are targeting. But on the people, the best of the best, the people we are, by and large, as Americans, proud to call our fellow Americans. In a congressional hearing today, Kristi Noem was asked about DHS under her watch, deporting the very people who have given the most to our country, our country's veterans. Watch this. How many United States military veterans have you deported? Sir, we have not deported US citizens or military veterans. I don't believe you served in the military. I haven't either, but I think you and I can agree that as Americans, we owe everything to those who have served our country in uniform, particularly those who have served in combat. Do you agree with that? Sir, I believe that people that are in this United States, that are citizens, have legal status here. Madam Secretary, we are joined on Zoom by a gentleman named Sejeune Park. He is a United States Army combat veteran who was shot twice while serving our country in Panama. He is a combat veteran. a Purple Heart recipient. He has sacrificed more for this country than most people ever have. Earlier this year, you deported him to Korea, a country he hasn't lived in since he was seven years old. Will you join me in thanking Mr. Park for his service to our country? Sir, I'm grateful for every single person that has served our country and follows our laws. And can you please tell Mr. Park why you deported him? Every one of them needs to be enforced. So she's actually articulating a fascinating and wildly unpopular policy there. Kristi Noem, they're saying on camera in front of Congress that she does intend to deport veterans if at any point they came to this country illegally. She does eventually break down and agree to look at the case. And then she ducked out of the hearing early. We're back with Alex and John. Alex, I think we're all of like mind about the heinous nature of how they're going about mass deportation of human beings, the terror that they're intentionally creating in communities all over our country. And what she made clear today is the intentional deportation of veterans of the United States military. Yeah, because that veteran happened to be brown. And the target list is people who are people of color. I mean, I think there's, I read into it two things, Nicole. One is there is, you know, Trump says this is about taking out the garbage, getting the worst of the worst out of the country. That, it doesn't matter if you're a Purple Heart recipient. If you happen, if you happen to be brown.

And you happen to have at one point not legal status, you're gone. It doesn't matter if you have fought for this country and sacrificed for this country and have a purple heart, you're gone. There are no exceptions. The second piece of it is, I actually don't think they have, they have no hands on this. They have no, they have no eyes on the scope of these deportations. They know they're happening. There's hundreds of thousands of people who've been taken out of this country. But I think it's incredibly chaotic by design. I mean, for my podcast, I talk to an immigration judge who just been fired because part of the agenda here is to diminish the resources that have been allocated in years prior to make sure the system of deportation or granting asylum is orderly and lawful. There is no due process. People don't know what they're doing. They're firing immigration judges who, by the way, have caseloads numbering into the tens of thousands. The Trump administration is act. actively firing them. So there are fewer resources for the legal process. They're bringing in, in some cases, military lawyers to expedite the process. But ultimately, the chaos is the point. Sweeping people up, asking for forgiveness and not permission, figuring out the law later. figuring out whether you've deported a Purple Heart recipient. These are the details. The point is to inflict terror and to get as many brown and black people out of the country as possible while simultaneously letting in a handful of white Afrikaners and saying publicly, as President Trump did in Pennsylvania on Tuesday, he'd rather have people from white Western countries like Norway and Scandinavia better places, not the garbage people who fight and sacrifice to this country and win Purple Hearts in the process. Let me show you some more of what the people who have fought and sacrificed for this country are enduring under Donald Trump. This is Alejandro Barranco.

You've already heard the story of Lance Corporal Alejandro Barranco. The United States Marine veteran who is behind you, who also has two brothers who are United States Marines, will you thank Lance Corporal Barranco for his service? Thank you for your service. His father, Narcisco Barranco, is a landscaper in California who has lived peacefully in our country for 30 years and has no criminal record. Will you consider Lance Corporal Bronco's father for parole in place to stay in our country owing to the fact that he has contributed to our country by raising three United States Marines? This is an opportunity to remind everybody that every person that's in this country illegally has an opportunity to voluntarily go home and come back the right way. Again, another nephew and the three Marines he wrote in on. Unbelievable, not, first of all, unbelievable that she was confronted with the monstrosity of what they're doing, but that she would not say that someone whose three sons have given their life in service of the United States of America. It's the person who, when you think who would shoot a puppy. I mean, Kristi Noem wrote in her own book that she shot her puppy. That's who she is. I think that, first of all, congratulations to Congressman Magizena there. It's awesome, yeah. As a piece of, you know, we often talk about how Democrats don't know how to, you know, do the theater of this night. I say theater who are not to demean it, but to praise it. I mean, that's the totally legit function, and they went out and found some people that really made Christine Holmes squirm there. But her performance is so bad that it does... call into question, or not call into question, it suggests the following thing, which is that, you know, this isn't one of these obvious places where the constituency of one, the Donald Trump of it all, has taken people, whatever you think of Christenome as a human being or as a sentient being on planet Earth, you know, she's not about, she has some political skills that she had exhibited in the past. You know, she'd won some offices, statewide offices. Any sane politician in that moment would do the calculation in their head. At the worst case. Donald Trump wouldn't have answered the question the way she did. Right. Donald Trump, I've been exactly right. You would think to yourself, even if you were a complete thug, you would think, how many veterans have we actually swept up? It's probably not that many, right? What would it cost me in this moment to say, you know, our veterans are the greatest heroes we have in America. We owe a huge debt to them. If someone has been mistakenly swept up, if someone has been swept up in these raids, obviously we owe a lot to them and we should look into this. And if she had said that from the very beginning, just graciously expressed her gratitude for their service and said she was willing to look in to any case like this to see if something had gone wrong and they had done something that could be...

remedied, the whole, all of the energy of that of that piece of theatrics that the congressman did so successfully there, all of it would have gone away. But she's lost her political compass because she's thinking, what will Donald Trump say if I give an inch? What will Donald Trump say if I admit that we might have made a small mistake? Obviously the right thing to do just in terms of the politics here would have been to just cut that thing off quickly and say, we'll look into any of these cases involving veterans. Thank you. Let's move on. Right, or you know what, I'll call the president, you know. And you know, exactly, Trump in his non-diminished state, Trump would have done that in a heartbeat. Correct. He would have gone over to give him the guy a hug and said, oh, I'm sorry, ma'am. Yeah, if we screwed this up, it's on me. Right over the White House, yeah. No one's going anywhere. There's more that I want to show you. Also ahead, after the break, Indiana Republicans facing down public threats of extortion and threats of primaries made a call on redistricting, and we're going to tell you about bringing it to you next. Then he also voted for President Trump. Yes, sir. Why did you vote for him? Because I was an idiot. A percent of the evangelical Christian people were lied to, if you really want to know the truth, and that's exactly what happened. They said criminal, you know, and I believe criminals need to be off the street. I just want to make sure people watching this understand who you are. My wife and I, when we don't work, we're ministers. We help the needy. That's what we do. And that's who they're arresting. That's a United States veteran describing dramatically the experience of watching his wife, who had been in the U.S. for decades, be arrested by ICE after he voted for Trump in this last election. We're back with Alex and John. Alex, I feel like we need to see more of that and give space and grace to people who say, look, I was an idiot. But it is important to understand that even his supporters didn't think he'd do what he's doing. Yeah, and if you look at the bottom of the screen, it's a panel about the cost of rising health care costs, which is like the double whammy. He's debasing Americans. He is a... tearing families apart. And the central premise of his reelection, which was to make America more affordable, is a complete fallacy, complete lie. In two weeks where thereabouts, Americans are going to see their health care costs skyrocket. I talk to someone whose health care premiums are going to go from $100 to $800 a month. I mean, the center can't hold on this stuff. It is one thing to just not deliver, but to act in the way that he has, which is so dehumanizing, so cruel, and such. such an insult to not only the Americans who didn't vote for the Americans who did, who believed in something, anything about this man. It's just, you know, I mean, and this is why Nicole, we are seeing, I think, this week and in weeks prior, the beginnings of real cracks with this president and his base. I think that he is in significant trouble and it is only, the stress is only going to increase in the coming month.

One more break. We'll all be right back. There's some news to tell you about. The Indiana State Senate moments ago decided not to bow to Donald Trump and redraw their state's congressional districts as he wanted them to in a vote of 19 to 31. For reference, there are 50 members of the Senate, 40 Republicans, 10 Democrats. It is a sharp rebuke of Donald Trump who pushed for Indiana to redraw its congressional map so that Republicans would gain two more seats in the House of Representatives when Democrats only need three to flip the House. JD Vance even visited the state twice on this issue. Lawmakers also face swattings and pipe bomb threats and unsolicited pizza deliveries. As for Donald Trump, he continued his pressure campaign as late as last night, threatening Senate leader Rod Bray, a Republican who does not support redistricting with a primary challenge. Looks like that did not work. Bray was a no. We'll stay on top of that story for you. I want to thank John Heilman and Alex Wagner for joining me today to be continued friends. Up next for us, Trump's burgeoning political problems is previewed by John and Alex, just how expensive everything is and his complete denial about all of it, saying it's a democratic hoax. The next hour of Deadline White House starts after a quick break.

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