Secret Service balks as Vance seeks helicopter for son’s golf lessons

A morning walk, some bird watching. It's another easy Sunday. United Health Group makes these ordinary days possible with partners like the University of Tennessee Health Sciences, helping communities manage their health closer to home. 54% of participants have lowered their blood pressure, meaning fewer heart attacks and more Sundays at the park. This might feel like an ordinary day. To United Health Group, it's the health care system working better for everyone. Learn more at UnitedHealthgroup.com slash commitment. Your morning starts, your coffee pours, the city moves. But beneath it all, something else is moving. It's energy transfer, one of America's largest pipeline companies, transporting oil, natural gas, and refined products across the U.S. These products keep homes warm, businesses running, and everyday life on track. People rely on energy transfer to safely deliver oil and gas whenever and wherever it's needed. Learn more at energy transfer.com. Good evening from New York. I'm Jacob Soberoff in for Chris Hayes. As Donald Trump's approval ratings decline, it could not be clearer that he has zero interest in using his office to win over voters. Instead, his chief concerns seem to be using the presidency to enrich himself and to enrich his family, to try to rig the midterm elections for Republicans, and to weaponize the Department of Justice against his critics. To that end, his one-time personal lawyer, Todd Blanche, appeared before the Senate today, ahead of a confirmation vote to install him as the Attorney General of the United States. And there was no ambiguity that Todd Blanche, if confirmed, would not work on behalf of the American people, but rather on behalf of the man who paid his bills. Are you in President Trump, France? I'm his lawyer, was his lawyer, and now I'm the Deputy Attorney General. So I met him as his criminal defense attorney. I'm not sure there's very many people who have ever had a criminal defense attorney who calls that person their friend. I'm his lawyer. Over and over again. Todd Blanche played to an audience of one, Donald Trump. Just listen to him, run defense for the president's decision to pardon January 6th insurrectionists. Do you think that blanket pardoned by the president of January 6 rioters was the right thing to do? I think that the Constitution gives the President the full power to pardon anybody for any reason he wants. And so I don't question President Trump's authority or is a decision to do so on January 20th. You don't question his decision? As I said, President Trump, under our Constitution, just like President Biden, has the authority to pardon anybody for any federal crime. Of course, the president does have absolute pardon power for federal crimes. The question was whether or not he should have pardoned folks who assaulted police officers. Apparently, the man who wants to be the next attorney general has no issue with that. Todd Blanche also went a step further and refused to answer if those insurrectionists should be rewarded. Rewarded with your tax dollars.

Coming back to January 6th, there have been several of my colleagues who have asked about the, quote-unquote, slush fund. Do you personally believe that someone who forcibly entered the U.S. Capitol assaulted law enforcement should be rewarded with taxpayer money? Yes or no? I can't answer it yes or no. But if you want the answer, I think that the fund that doesn't exist anymore, set up parameters where, no, somebody that you just described would likely not recover funds. So this is crucial. Todd Blanche likes to insist that the slush fund for January 6th rioters no longer exists. But the Department of Justice, they will not actually commit to ending it because, again, he cannot risk upsetting the boss, which is also presumably why Todd Blanche insists that Donald Trump the most openly... corrupt president that I have seen in my lifetime would never, ever ask his attorney general to do something illegal or weaponize the Justice Department against his foes. It is my impression, sir, that you are here rather than your predecessor because the president was unhappy with her failures to actually secure convictions of folks like Attorney General Letitia James or former FBI director James Comey. If you're confirmed and you're asked to take an action you believe to be illegal or unethical, would you resign? That will never happen, but yes, if it were to happen, I'm not going to violate my oath to the Constitution. That will never happen. Remember, Donald Trump publicly ordered his last attorney general, Pam Bondi, to investigate his critics. He posted it on social media. He posted it for the entire world to see. And reporting indicates that Pam Bondi was ousted in part because she was not aggressive enough in those prosecutions. So it seems pretty unlikely that Trump would stop that behavior now. But of course, Todd Blanche needs to say, whatever it takes to get confirmed, which might be why he threw out some red meat to the right wingers in the Senate by pledging to restrict access to the abortion pill Mithopristone. And it's not only what the Department of Justice can do, but it's what the FDA is doing right now for the first time in a decade, actually doing real studies about the safety and the appropriateness of these drugs. And I've seen video myself of what appears to be pills coming even from overseas to young women. Doesn't matter who applies for it. Anybody can get it. There's no instructions. They just come dumped out of a little plastic bag. And it's wrong. And I very much commit our resources to stopping this. Finally, when it comes to November's midterm elections, Todd Blanche did not sound particularly convincing at all when he was pressed about the idea of sending armed federal agents to intimidate voters at polling places across the country.

Federal law has made it clear that the president does not have the authority to deploy armed federal officials to election sites. Will you commit to following clear federal law and not deploying federal agents to polling locations? I will commit to following the law center, of course. Does that include not deploying federal agents to polling places? I will absolutely follow the law no matter what it includes, so yes. Do you understand why voters, U.S. citizens, are concerned about armed agents at polling places? I'm not aware of armed agents being at polling places. Thank you. I'm not aware of that concern, but I will tell you we will follow the law, Senator. I know the concern every governor that I talk to in every state where Trump sent immigration officials told me that they were concerned about those very agents showing up at polling places. And Donald Trump will push the boundaries of the law wherever he can. And he wants an attorney general who will roll over and let him do it. And that is why he is trying to install his own lawyer in the top job. Harry Littman is a former deputy assistant attorney general. He is also the host and author of The Talking Fed's podcast on Substack. Joyce Fan served as the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama. She is now a professor of law at the University of Alabama and the author of Civil Discourse on Substack, and they join me now. Harry, well, I was pretty uncomfortable watching that. How did you feel watching Todd Lynch today? Well, look, my side he gave an unflinching defense of the attorney general that he has been. And several senators, like Senator Cory Booker, made the point. This isn't a normal confirmation. This is a performance review. We have a record to go through. And he seemed to defend himself in every particular down to that colloquy with Senator Schiff where he said, oh, I haven't changed at all. I'm the same good old Todd Blanche. Point that nobody of any party who knows what the department was before and what it is now would say is accurate. He's changed it violently and for the worst, but he just blandly said, oh, it's me, good old Todd, but they now have a record to go after. It's not just a matter of hoping for the best. Yeah, exactly. And Joyce Todd Blanche insisted, twisted himself in Brussels to say that the slush fund for January 6th rioters, is dead. Is that something, did he convince you? Well, you know, there are different factions that work on this issue. There's a federal judge in the Southern District of Florida who, in effect, has pronounced it dead. And that's what makes Todd Blanche's answers today all the more disingenuous. He never talked about her decision. He only dismissed it when he was asked about the part of it that involved sending a bar referral based on his own conduct in that case. But as to the slush fund itself, frankly,

Jacob, I found his effort to disengage from it to be very disingenuous. It's clear that his job today was to avoid losing votes on senators on the committee while at the same time remaining on Donald Trump's good side. Donald Trump clearly wants to have a continued commitment to this slush fund. And that was the view that guided Todd Blanche's answers. This is a Justice Department. that declined to participate in that case. You know, it's a complicated legal situation, but the whole reason we have the slush fund is because Donald Trump sued the IRS. And instead of defending the IRS, the Justice Department just failed to participate. That, I think, is what we can expect to see from this Justice Department if it's led by Todd Blanche, a DOJ that will not do anything to counter this president's ambitions. To hear Harry Todd Blanche say that he hadn't heard the concerns about ICE agents showing up at polling places means he's not following anything going on in this country because it's been said time and time and time again, particularly, as I said, when I was out covering all of these immigration agents all across the country, he said he would follow the law. He didn't explicitly say, unless I missed it, that he would block them from going there. Yeah, you didn't miss it. I thought he was very flat-footed on that. It wasn't even clear to me that he knew the law, which was passed in reconstruction, and we've had forever, but he seemed to try to just substitute for a general, oh, I will follow the law. I just want to quickly amplify one thing that Joyce said. There are now two court rulings. One says this case is not moot, so its ugly head could rear again. He says it is, but it doesn't matter. He's ignoring it. The other case says it was a bogus settlement agreement. And yet again and again, he justified especially the tax provision based on settlement agreements. In other words, he went right up there and said, we are not following. We don't listen to. We don't care about federal court rulings in the Department of Justice. That I found pretty staggering. Joyce, Todd Blanche was Donald Trump's personal attorney. He said, I'm his lawyer, was his lawyer, a pretty revealing slip about how he thinks of himself today. There is no way he can claim he would be an independent voice given what he said today or what we all know about him. How did you interpret his defense of being his personal lawyer by skirting around saying, you know, I'm not his friend? Yeah, I mean, there's no avoiding the facts in this regard. Todd Blanche is for all effects Donald Trump's personal lawyer. He has continued to behave like Donald Trump's lawyer. He has prosecuted cases that no sane prosecutor would bring that can only be justified as an exercise of Donald Trump's will. And of course, we all saw Donald Trump's, I guess it was an inadvertent text message that became a social media post. directing Pam Bondi to go after James Comey and others. Those cases were so deficient. Some of them didn't make it past grand juries. The one against James Comey was subsequently dismissed. The only reason as a Justice Department leader that you would permit cases like that to move forward is because you are in effect Donald Trump's lawyer. But, you know, there's an interesting aspect to this situation that Harry and I discussed earlier today.

which is that Todd Blanche actually has some ongoing obligations to Trump. The judge in Southern Florida in the tax case pointed this out once the lawyer always obligated to ensure that his interests are protected. And so the logical answer here would be for Todd Blanche to recuse from any of these cases. He, in fact, committed that he would seek advice from the career Justice Department official who gave advice about conflicts of interests. once he was confirmed it. And he didn't do that. Instead, he fired that official. He participates in these cases. Clearly, he shouldn't be doing it. If that's not an indictment of his candidacy to be the attorney general, I don't know what is. So much, I mean, there was so much today, including the Todd Lynch-Dodge meeting with Epstein survivors in the next 30 days, Harry. What did you hear there? I found that really confusing and muddled. These survivors have been so brave and forthright. They've said again and again that the DOJ won't give us the time of day. And as he's done repeatedly, he did today, just making it seem like, oh, no, we do everything we're supposed to and always have. And I heard him assert, we have had an open door all these months, which in effect is calling them liars. So, you know, there was also an aspect of him a kind of. Chin's kind of out defiant posture toward people that were questioning him to whom he was asking, you know, to be confirmed. And this was one aspect that I thought really showed it. He was just saying stuff that the record seems flatly to contradict and just not blinking. And then there's this whole red meat to the right with the Mitha Pristone sort of tap dance that he was doing. Joyce, what could he do if he wanted to do something about Mitha Pristone? Yeah, so, you know, one of the issues that I think is lurking here, and so many of the Republican senators raised the Mitha-Pristone situation. Katie Britt, my home state senator from Alabama, was one of them. It happened five or six times. So Senate Republicans are coming from Mitha-Pristone. And it's interesting how they're doing it. They're telling stories that aren't indictments of the drugs. They're indictment of other behavior. The boyfriend who forced an abortion. allegedly by putting Mithopristone into his pregnant girlfriend's mouth. If true horrific, absolutely should be prosecuted as an assault. That has to do with him and his attitude and not with the drug itself. And so what Todd Blanche was trying to do was insinuate a more subtle attack claiming that the drug wasn't safe. I think we could see him try to resurrect old laws that permit restrictions, for instance, on mailing Mitha Pristone. That seemed to be

a real turning point here for many of the senators. Above all, this was a red flag for what's coming next, and it's a war on Mitha Prista. Harry Littman, Joyce, fans, thank you so much for starting the show with us, and I appreciate it. Thanks. Thanks, Jess. Coming up, exclusive MS now reporting on the vice president's misuse of military hardware. Carol Lenig broke the story, and she will be right here right after this break. Join MS Now Live in Texas for our biggest event yet with Rachel Maddo, Chenzaki, Michael Steele, and more. MS Now Live Together in Texas. September 26th. Get tickets today at MS. Dot Now slash Together. All right, tonight MS Now has exclusive new reporting on Vice President JD Vance's questionable use of the Secret Service. Check this out. Quote. JD Vance's security detail fed up with hastily arranged personal and family travel requests. Sources familiar with the agent's frustration tell MS now the JD Vance family frequently presses the Secret Service staff for perks and for last minute personal travel. Just last Thursday, the family demanded that agents join a military helicopter crew to fly his young son to his golf lesson across town. Turns out that flight was later canceled due to weather, but they have also used the choppers to house hunt in Virginia. Operating that helicopter costs taxpayers between $16,000 and $24,000 an hour. Agents have also shared concerns internally about, quote, trips and assignments that some agents consider as inappropriate or even unprecedented use of government resources. Carol Lennig is the Pulitzer Prize winning MS Now, senior investigative reporter who broke this story with colleague Von Hilliard. She also literally wrote the book on The Secret Service called Zero Fail, by the way. She is the co-author of the recent book, Injustice, How Politics and Fear Vanquished America's Justice Department, and she joins me now. Hi. Hey, Jacob. Wow. So this is a wild one. And I'm not surprised that people are looking at this in huge numbers online right now because the story about JD Vance's son's golf lesson being canceled because of the weather. Yet it reveals such a larger pattern about how the vice president evidently is using the Secret Service. Is that right? You nailed it. You know, I think Secret Service agents are tireless. public servants, patriots really, I've been covering them for a long time. And they don't cry, uncle, very often. They don't complain. They don't... I was going to use a curse word, but I stopped myself. They just don't whine about their assignment. But the fact that they flagged me and other sources flagged me about this was the beginning of a red flag about their concern about the way they're treated by JD Vance and his family and how it's overwhelming and burdening them. But really, the golf lesson story is what started all of this, Jacob. A source told me that...

this flight on a military helicopter, what's called Marine 2, and is reserved for JD Vance's official trips and also some personal trips, that this was going to be used to take his younger son to a golf lesson at Andrew's Joint Base, and that was gobsmacking even to Secret Service agents. And then that kind of unlocked those folks telling me, more stories of concerns they have. There's an amazing detail in the story about how it sounds like they made like a challenge coin of sorts using his Secret Service codename, which is what? Bobcat. Bobcat. Bobcat. Explain that part of the story. So you should know, and I'm sure your viewers want to know too, Jacob. Bobcat is a code name for JD Vance that the Secret Service use. It's supposed to allude to his roots in Kentucky because it's a mascot for the high school where he lived and writes a lot about his grandmother. Here's the coin. It says, as you can see, TBD, TBD, advance, OTR, repeat. OTR, meaning off the record, like basically an unscheduled movement, right? Yeah. So Bobcat, OTR Survivors Club is the most important of those coins. These coins are kind of like an inside joke for the Secret Service. They make them often to celebrate some arduous assignment they shared together. In this one, they're basically saying, The vice president is really putting us out. These off-the-record movements are basically last-minute travel requests. It means two things. They have to cancel their time off. They cancel their days off. They rush to a location, and they also don't have the security plan in place that makes them comfortable. They have to rush through everything. So days off and bad security. does not make a Secret Service agent happy. Before I was a reporter, I was an advanced man to Mayor Bloomberg down at City Hall when I was in college, and our counterparts in the Intelligence Division of the NYPD, similar thing. The idea of changing something at the very last minute is the worst nightmare of law enforcement. How unusual is it, or how often did something like this happen with previous vice presidents or precedents? So what we heard from Secret Service sources over the last, say, 48 hours was Carol. Previous vice presidents tried to take seriously our time. Our time off. We're already giving so much of our lives to the protection of them and their family. And so they would try to give us a day's warning if something was going to change or a days or more warning about a new trip that was coming up out of nowhere. The vice president's office, I want to tell you. basically said they, in their formal comment to us, we thank the Secret Service. Oh, I'll read it. Yeah, I just want to make sure we get it in. Yeah. While protecting a vice president with a large policy portfolio and a young and growing family presents a unique challenge, agents of the Secret Service do so with excellence. But it doesn't sound like it addresses the complaints at all. No, it doesn't address it. Some administration officials talked to us on background about this and basically said, look, some changes are going to be... You know, our last-minute changes in travel are just part of the job, and the Secret Service is going to have to basically suck it up. But agents we spoke to, to your really smart question, say this is beyond the pale in terms of the repetitiveness of the off-the-record movements, and then, you know, these extra perks like the golf lesson helicopter trip. I don't know when he said this, and I'll double check, but he talked about the perks of his job recently. He was talking about his grandmother and how concerned she would be.

For safety, we have the clip. Let's watch the clip. Think that what Mamaw would be worried about, and it's something I worry about too is, like, my life is, dude, totally transformed. I don't go to the grocery store anymore. People go to the grocery store for me. I don't have to cook anymore because I've got an army of people who are willing to, like, cook me my food. My life is so weird. I fly around on a 757. No more TSA lines for me and the kids. It's pretty braggadocious. It was about a week ago, by the way, that he said this. What do you hear there? You know, I want to give JD Vance credit. The vice president acknowledges that he is getting a different kind of life. His creature comforts are off the hook. But he says later in that interview something pretty important too, which is you have to be careful in this kind of job or you're going to end up. And I'm going to use his words, end up an entitled asshole. So he's cognizant of what's happening here. I think that the Secret Service is basically telling him through me, Watch it, buddy. This is too much for us. We are now, crying uncle. The administration, especially in the early days, we did a whole special on it here with fired federal workers, was so adamant about how they were rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse. But in light of this, obviously, in this narrow lane, at least in particular, it certainly doesn't seem that way. This helicopter costs $16,000 to $24,000 an hour. An hour. to operate, including when it's sitting still. And so to take that for a golf lesson is going to take, what, minimum three hours, two and a half hours to get this kid back and forth and also be there for the lesson. Most children, grown or young, of a vice president, are ferried around locally. in an SUV, which is a little bit cheaper. I don't know, what is that, 358 a gallon? Something like that. At my neck of the woods in California, it's about seven bucks for a car like that. Sorry. You wrote the book about the Secret Service, Zero Fail. You've documented scandals around the country and around the world and things that have been big hits to the morale of the Secret Service. After Butler in particular, you talked a lot about this. What does this do for the morale of the Secret Service? This agency has been overworked and under-resourced for more than a decade, and nothing has really turned the tide dramatically in that fashion. They're still providing security and stability for our democracy with duct tape and sweat. And so why is it important for us to write about a golf lesson helicopter trip? Why is it important for us to write about all these last-minute trips and the damage or... burden that places on the service because they're already burdened. An amazing story and an amazing reporter. Caroline, my friend, thank you. Good to see you. Thanks for coming in. Great to be with you, Jacob. Appreciate it. Still ahead, the man Donald Trump picked to run national intelligence as a very painful job interview in the United States Senate. We'll have more of that coming up next.

It's not exactly clear what the president plans to reveal in his big election denialism speech scheduled for tomorrow night. But according to MS Now reporting, even people inside Donald Trump's administration, they seem pretty freaked out about it. One former senior intelligence official described the mood inside the intelligence community as white-knuckled, the reporting says. What we know for sure is that Donald Trump is committed to not winning votes, but blocking them. One of the people helping Trump advance that project is current Acting Director of National Intelligence Bill Pulte, a man with absolutely no prior experience in national security at all, but a high degree of loyalty to Donald Trump. Today, the man looking to permanently fill the role, Jay Clayton, who has served as a U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, appeared before the Senate for his job interview. But when the simple factual matter... Of who won the 2020 election came up, Jay Clayton showed more interest in performing for Trump than just answering truthfully. Who won the 2020 election? Like I said, I'm not going to get into that with you. But you do have an obligation to be honest and forthright with the committee. Is anything that I just said, not honest or forthright? Yes, you're not being honest or forthright. Who won the election? I think I've answered the question. We can keep doing this. Well, we're going to keep doing it because you're not being honest and forthright. I'm not going to engage in the theater. It's a simple question, Mr. Jay Clayton. And I've answered. Who won the 2020 presidential election? I've answered it. You're here asking for the support of senators to lead America's intelligence community. We've established that you have an obligation to be honest and forthright with this committee and with the American public, but you refuse to answer a simple matter of fact about the 2020 election. Isn't it humiliating to be unable to answer this question, to have to indulge the president's delusions? We know, you know, everybody in this room knows the truthful answer to that question. Why can you not give it? I think I gave you the answer. Norm Eisen is the co-founder and executive chair of Democracy Defenders Fund, and he joins me now. Oof, Norm, that was painful to watch. What was your impression watching Jay Clayton today? Jacob, I'm alarmed that the Trump administration's nominee to be the head of the ODNI, the office of the director of national intelligence, was unable to exhibit the basic intelligence to admit that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. You know, it is more like watching North Korean state television than it is an American Senate testimony. Trump nominees know that they can't say he lost the 2020 election. And tomorrow night we'll have a speech from the president rehashing this. And it reminds me of the grassy-null theory of...

Jacob. We alone have over 300 cases and matters, including many election cases. And we're winning. Donald Trump is failing in the courts. We'll take him on if we have to. That includes he just tried to subpoena election materials in Georgia in Fulton County. The judge, a Trump-appointed judge quashed the subpoena. So voters should be confident that despite this nonsense, it'll be work, but we will make sure. that all votes are counted and that we have free and fair elections in our country and not this propaganda. There was an administration source that talked to us at MS now about Bill Pulte in his efforts to appease Trump, and this is what the source said, quote, it's that network of people that is the real effing problem. They try to put bits and pieces together and they make these conclusions. Everything I've seen is not what's there. I guess my question is, if he keeps losing in the courts, How worried are you that even if that happens, it just becomes a slow erosion of the faith of our elections and that people decide to stay home because of all of this talk that the system is rigged? Well, the good news is since Trump started attacking the elections, the voters, the elections officials, the judges, litigators like us, everybody involved in the system has stood up to this. So yes, of course, you're concerned. I've had Republicans tell me that Trump is hitting his own boats because some of his older members of his base, rural members of his base use mail-in. voting. Exactly. He would stop attacking mail-in voting. So Jacob, no wonder the president's approval rating is that Nixonian lows. He was not elected to pursue these bizarre tinfoil hat conspiracy theories. He was elected to bring costs down for the American people to drain the swamp, to achieve basic competence. He's done none of those things. While voting by mail himself, Norm, while voting by mail himself. Norm Eisen, thank you so much for being here. Appreciate it. Thanks, Jacob. Still to come, the backlash to the latest ice killings in Texas and Maine continues to swell. We'll talk about that next.

Hey, everyone, it's Chris Hayes. This week on my podcast, Why is this happening? What really happened with the border during the Biden administration? Asylum at the border needs to be changed. And that was part of the legislation supported by President Biden. And that's what got killed by Donald Trump because he wanted the crisis to live for political benefit. So what has happened? is there are many fewer migrants presenting themselves at the border. The Supreme Court just basically shut that down and allowed the administration to do what it wants. That's this week on Why Is This Happening? Search for Wise is Happening wherever listening right now and follow. Exactly two years ago this month, I was on the floor of the Republican National Convention where Donald Trump got his third presidential nomination, and I will never, ever forget walking amongst all of those signs calling for mass deportations now as part of the Trump agenda. And honestly, it was not difficult then to know how terrible actually executing that policy would be for this country. And I said as much to Rachel Madam moments after Donald Trump accepted the nomination. He's talking about removing more than 10 million people from this country who have been here, many of them since they were little children, contribute to this society, contribute to this economy, live in all of our neighborhoods and communities, and now we're throwing balloons around as if this is a party. This is what they wanted, and now we are living through it. In just the last week alone, two people. have been killed by ICE agents, Lorenzo Salgado O'Rajo, in Houston, and Joan Sebastian Guerrero in Maine. And so naturally, those ICE shootings and Trump's mass deportation policy were a point of contention today in acting Attorney General Todd Blanche's confirmation hearing. Should state and local law enforcement be involved in ensuring that there's an independent investigation of these incidents? It depends. I think there's a lot of times when state and locals should definitely be involved, but I don't think unequivocally state and local have to be involved for independence. Of course not. Here's the bottom line why I'm asking these two questions. Because in prior incidents, referenced Minnesota earlier in your testimony, Alex Preddy and Renee Good, were also fatally shot. And as far as we can tell, it's been months and months, there's been no justice in these cases. As far as I can tell, those officers were not fired. They have not faced any charges. So it does undermine any confidence anybody should have in the Department of Homeland Security's ability through the Inspector General or otherwise to investigate its own. All of this comes as Trump announced this morning that ICE agents actually will not suspend their vehicle stop operations, just a day after officials did announce a temporary pause. And tonight the Atlantic is reporting that Trump reverse course on stopping ice traffic stops because it would, quote, make them all look weak, according to one official. Now, you might be saying this reversal sounds familiar.

You know why? It is. Trump did the exact same thing last June when he very briefly ordered ICE agents to pause immigration raids at farms and at restaurants and at hotels, only for him to reverse course just days later telling agents to keep it up. Keep up those raids at farms and hotels. Senator Jeff Merkley, Democrat of Oregon, has long been a fierce opponent of Donald Trump's immigration policies, exposing Trump's infamous zero-tolerance policy, separation policy in 2018. He joins us now. Senator, it's good to see you. Thanks for being there. Good to see you, Jacob. Thanks. You have led the charge by Democrats to block funding for ICE and for CBP in this second term. I'm not surprised by the president's reversal. What do you think about it? What do you see going on with ICE? Well, we see these flip-flops happen all the time. But the bottom line is this, the president has no reservations about continuing this secret police strategy, unmarked vans, unmarked uniforms, detaining people without access to lawyers or family, creating a mystery about where they're located, and proceeding to just terrorize our communities. at times said, I'm going after those who have done violent acts, but in fact, he's creating violent acts against our communities. And Senator Alex Padilla was right on. There is no competent investigation of any of these horrific acts by the ICE and CBP agents. Despite numerous pleas, not just in Maine and in Houston, but from all, yeah, from all of these states all across the country over and over again. The sort of line that the administration continues to put out is the same one that Tom Homan just talked about tonight on Fox in the past hour, saying it goes back to Democrats' rhetoric against ICE, why this is happening. We should watch that together. Let's watch. All goes back to the Dems who want to continually attack ICE and tell people to evade them, tell people don't comply, tell people to resist, and tell people ICE isn't real law enforcement safety. You and I talked about this year and a half ago, Laura. I said if the hateful rhetoric didn't stop, there will be bloodshed. And I'm saying it right now. There's still going to be more bloodshed unless they shut their mouth and let ICE enforce the laws that they enacted. He didn't just, Senator Merkel, he didn't just say it to her a year and a half ago. He said it to me, standing in a loading dock in Long Beach on the second day of the raids in L.A. He said, someone's going to die if this level of confrontation continues. But isn't what he's saying, if you're going to oppose ICE, you're going to stand up and exercise your First Amendment rights? There's a risk of you. getting killed by ICE? Well, certainly he's saying all of you who are pointing out and putting a spotlight on the violent behavior by these agents are causing the violent behavior. And of course, that's absolutely absurd. And I must say it's so frustrating to have now 17 times people have been shot.

You know, the day after Renee Good and Petty proceeded to be shot in Minneapolis, the day after... Two individuals were shot by ICBP agents just blocks from my house in Oregon. And no accountability, high secrecy, no transparency, no reforms. I had hoped that the new director of Homeland Security, Mark Mullen, would proceed to enact some reforms. I thought there's some hope there. We've seen no such improvement on the conduct of these agents in our communities. This weekend on my show, I spoke to the son of Lorenzo Sagato Arajo, Ronaldo. His father was the man that was killed by ICE agents in Houston last week. I want to just play a little bit of what Ronaldo told me. We're left without a father. My mom is left without a husband. No matter how anyone puts it, a life was lost, and it was unfortunately someone who did not deserve it. of course, want to continue pressuring for independent investigation and for all the evidence to be released. What do you see as the impact on all of these communities across the country? I mean, Ronaldo is acutely feeling it. His family is acutely feeling it. They have lost their father. But how does it extend to the broader communities that have all been a part of this? Well, in the broader community, there's enormous stress. Children are often not going to school. Individuals are not going to work. Parents are worried their children will be detained. Children are worried their parents will be detained. And if Trump was, in fact, going after those who have come... committed violent acts and saying those people will be held accountable and deported, all Americans would agree with that. But that's not what he's doing at all. And it's having an impact that just kind of keeps radiating out through the community. We are seeing companies that are saying our workers are unable to show up for work. It's damaging the American economy. It's damaging our American communities. You know, there's hardly a person in any room Trump goes into that isn't an immigrant or a dissent of an immigrant. And yet, here he is carrying on this campaign against what, you know, he refers. First, it was the enemy within. And I understand this is a standard tactic of authoritarian who want to dismantle a Democratic Republic. Identify an enemy within. Put police in the street. Yes. It's part of a huge challenge we have between now and November to save our republic. I had wanted to ask you about your legislation that you're going to reintroduce on family separations because mass deportation is family separation. That's what's happening. We're at a time.

Come on my show this weekend, if you want, Senator Merkel. It's good to see you. Thank you for being here. Very good to see you. Take care now. Thank you. Stay tuned in just a few minutes. Jen Saki is going to be speaking with California Senator Adam Schiff about it. It was a pretty epic confrontation with Todd Wanch in the Senate today. You're not going to want to miss that either. Stick around. We'll be right back. All right, that is all in on this Thursday night. Listen to your favorite MS Now shows anytime as a podcast. Enjoying new episodes of Morning Joe, Deadline White House, and the Rachel Maddo Show. Every small D democratic muscle that we have is flexing. Plus the last word with Lawrence O'Donnell, the beat with Ari Melburgh, the weeknight, and more. On the Go, wherever you get your podcasts. For ad-free listening to all of your favorite shows, subscribe to MS Now Premium on Apple Podcasts.