Trump admin moves to curb dissent

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? Well, 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. Need a lesson in savings? Who doesn't? That's where Burlington comes in for back-to-school style. Because those school lists get long, but your receipts shouldn't. Find backpacks and sneakers to sweatshirts and jeans. Burlington has them all from the brands your kids keep begging for. Why choose just a few looks? With our prices, just get them all. Burlington, deals, brands, wow. Tonight on All-in. Pam Bondi's saying she's going to go after hate speech. You'd probably go after people like you because you treat me so unfairly. It's hate. The president picks up where his attorney general left off. You have a lot of hate in your heart. Maybe they'll have to go after you. Tonight, the White House versus the First Amendment in the wake of Charlie Kirk's murder. We will absolutely target you, go after you if you are targeting anyone with hate speech. Then Senator Adam Schiff on his day with Kash Patel. You're telling the American people today that the Epstein list is a single name and it's Jeffrey Epstein. That's what we're to believe? That's not what I'm saying. That's what you're saying. Plus, my interview with the attorney for the fired officials suing the Trump administration for a campaign of retribution. Why there's new damage control from the White House after a stunning immigration rate on a Georgia car plan. How good does it feel to be home? How much do you feel how much? Very happy. Very happy. What all in starts right now. Good evening from New York. I'm Chris Hayes. The Trump administration is announcing their intention, loud and clear, that they want to use every tool of the state at their disposal to suppress domestic political dissent. The president himself said as much today, bullying reporters and telling one, maybe we'll come after you too. What do you make Pam Bondi saying she's going to go after hate speech? Is that, I mean, a lot of your allies say hate speech is free speech. You probably go after people like you because you treat me so unfairly. It's hate. You have a lot of hate in your heart. Maybe they'll come after ABC. Well, ABC paid me $16 million recently for a form of hate speech, right? Your company paid me $16 million for a form of hate speech. So maybe they'll have to go after you.

But it's not just Donald Trump and JD Vance. I mean, the top law enforcement official in the country, Attorney General Pam Bondi is out there talking about putting cuffs on people whose speech she finds offensive. Do you see more law enforcement going after these groups who are using hate speech and putting cuffs on people? So we show them that some action is better than no action. We will absolutely target you, go after you if you are targeting anyone with hate speech. I mean, again, we're talking about speech here, right? I mean, even the most odious examples are speech, and the stuff they're going after tends to be stuff that is criticizing the person who was very, very tragically slain. Now, that is all what is happening on the higher frequencies. On the lower frequencies, there's a kind of general frenzy being whipped up online by MAGA supporters to find and target everyday people who posted things online that conservatives find objectionable to get those ordinary regular people fired. A campaign that reached an absurd crescendo Monday when Pam Bondi threatened federal legal action against an office depot where an employee reportedly refused to make copies of a poster for a Charlie Kirk vigil. Employers, you have an obligation to get rid of people. You need to look at people who are saying horrible things. And they shouldn't be working with you. Businesses cannot discriminate. If you want to go in and print posters with Charlie's pictures on them for a vigil, you have to let them do that. We can prosecute you for that. I have Harmeet Dillon right now in our civil rights unit looking at that immediately that Office Depot had done that. The overrage here, becoming so obvious and absurd, even some far-right conservatives are uneasy with implications. Right-wing personality Matt Walsh posting today, get rid of her. Today, this is insane. Conservatives have fought for decades, he's right, for the right to refuse service to anyone. We won that fight. Now Pan Boney wants to roll it all back for no reason. Of course, Pam Bondi still has her job, unlike a growing list of columnists and professors, teachers, medical professionals, even store clerks and football coaches who have been fired or bullied or threatened for their posts in the past week. Posts that sometimes are just quoting things that Charlie Kirk, a public figure, a very unabashed, a proud activist, said in his life, in the course of his work. Keep in mind, all this pressure to speak and act the right way comes from the same political movement that attempted a, well, violent insurrection at the Capitol on January 6th. An anti-democratic coup in which at least 174 law enforcement officials were assaulted. One ultimately died.

And it's hard to recall now, but absolutely critical remember that even the most loyal supporters of Donald Trump knew at the time what January 6 was. And they also took pains to distinguish between nonviolent protesters who showed up at the Capitol that day and the violent folks who actually assaulted cops. Look, if you protested peacefully on January the 6th and you've had Merrick Garland's Department of Justice treat you like a gang member, you should be pardoned. If you committed violence on that day, obviously you shouldn't be pardoned. That was JD Vance this year, this calendar year. Now, of course, he has changed his tune when Trump pardoned all the insurrectionists, even the violent ones on his first day in office. The first signal he sent to the American people about his feelings about political violence was approval and encouragement. And now Trump advanced and the rest administration since this moment is an opportunity in which they can quash dissent and the freedoms that we cherish. Michael Fanon is a former Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police officer who was brutally attacked while defending the Capitol on January 6th. He's now a spokesman advisory board member, Home of the Brave, an organization highlighting the harms of Trump's second term. Congressman Greg Kassar is a Democrat of Texas and chair of the Progressive Caucus, and they joined me now. Michael, I immediately thought of you when I saw among the things that JD Vance said was, He said, look, there is no both sides issue here. The left supports political violence more than the right does. That's just a fact. And again, this can get into a sort of perverse kind of accounting that's in some ways impossible. There's hundreds of millions of people in America, all of whom have access to social media and can say whatever. But when you're talking about political leadership, I thought of you because you were on the receiving end of political violence. You know how toxic and Did that to you were pardoned by the president. So what do you think? I'll tell you what I think. I think that no American politician has done more to normalize political violence in this country other than Donald J. Trump. He has used insightful language. dehumanizing language to describe his dissenters or his political opponents. And I would argue that in pardoning at least the 530-some-od insurrectionists who violently assaulted police officers on January 6, 2021, he is advocating for the use of political violence in furtherance of his administration. He has told his supporters that if you commit acts of violence, I've got your back. And this administration will absolve you of any criminal culpability. And that message has resonated with his supporters.

Congressman, those comments by Pam Bondi today and JD Vance and others, particularly Pam Bondi, I've seen them sort of reverberate around the Capitol. And I've seen some mixed reaction. And there's been some reporting in the New York Times and semaphore of Republicans saying, well, wait a second, wait a second. Maybe we're not on board with this. What is your reaction to the words coming from Pam Bondi, Miller, and JD Vance, and how seriously to take this as essentially a concerted effort to suppress political dissent, normal political speech? Look, Donald Trump said very early on that he wants to go after his political opponents crush free speech and use the full power of the state to try to stop those people that criticize him. And so in this moment where political violence is on the rise, and this is very serious, instead of actually trying to quell political violence, you see Donald Trump sending out Pam Bondi and JD Vance to start going after magazines, independent press, independent foundations. Instead of actually trying to address the crisis of political violence, they're trying to weaponize this crisis in order to... crush free speech. And as we've seen throughout all of Trump's first term, when people say, no, no, he doesn't really mean that. That's not really going to happen. We see that they go ahead and do it and do even worse than we imagine. So we have to take this very seriously and make sure that the American people know about and hear about these attacks on free speech because it's telling that JD Vance and others are trying to lie about what they're trying to do because the vast majority of the American people do not support the full weight of the states being used. to crush people's peaceful free speech. You know, Michael, I think that the vast majority of Americans saw what happened on January 6th recoiled in horror. The vast majority of Americans saw the murder of Charlie Kirk recoiled in horror. I think there's, I mean, I think this is a probably 80, 85% issue in the moment that people are absorbing it, right? Before it gets refracted through politics and propaganda, that basic recoiling at political violence. I mean, As someone who has sort of lived through it and understands just how toxic it is, how are you feeling in the last few days as the country's been sort of processing this? I mean, I'm disgusted. I'm disgusted that, you know, we as Americans. reelected this president who has been so divisive and so destructive, you know, within our communities, somebody who, you know, in the aftermath of yet another tragic act of political violence in the murdering of Charlie Kirk uses that moment not to, you know, unite the country. but to sow more seeds of division and, again, advocate for violence against his political opponents. You know, it struck me in the aftermath of this that...

Very few Republicans. I think Thom Tillis today had a very poignant statement. And, you know, the governor of Utah in trying to unite the country, joined every other Democrat that I've seen, you know, have a microphone put in front of their face calling for, you know. a toning down of this rhetoric. But again, it's, you know, it's screaming into the void when you have Donald Trump, when you have Pam Bondi, when you have Kash Patel, all of these other officials who are. pointing the finger, creating this, you know, the enemy from within, and doing everything that they can do to, you know, drive this country further, you know, further down the whole of division. Congressman, to Michael's point, I mean, I saw, you know, I do think it has been a welcome unanimous message from every Democratic elected leader about how abhorrent and vile that act was, how totally it must be rejected by all factions and all stripes of any center-left political coalition. How important, I mean, messages from leadership do matter and how important do you think that is? Well, Again, I'll be very clear here that the murder of Charlie Kirk is heinous. Political violence is a rising crisis in this country. And the way to address it is by leaders of both political parties trying to tamp it down and saying we're against it. But instead, Donald Trump, to be clear here, you know, we've got to tell the truth. Donald Trump has done more to mainstream political violence than any other. politician in modern American history. He told a bunch of his supporters to go and storm the Capitol, then pardoned those that attacked police officers. He joked about the attack on Paul Nancy Pelosi that nearly killed him. And so what is so important is for the people to speak out against this and to not be drawn into the propaganda. that Trump is trying to push out there to weaponize this situation in order to crush free speech. And we also can't be silenced by this intimidation because the only way to beat this back is through truth and speaking out. Michael Fennell, Congressman Greg Cesar, thank you both. Coming up after a fiery exchange with Trump's flailing FBI Director, Senator Adam Schiff on what's gone wrong at the Hoover Building. That's next.

It was clearly a rough day for FBI director Kash Patel in his first oversight appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee since his confirmation. I think this might be your last oversight hearing. Because as much as you supplicate yourself to the will of Donald Trump and not the Constitution of the United States of America, Donald Trump has shown us in his first term and in this term, he is not loyal to people like you. He will cut you loose. That moment was followed by a lot of yelling and fighting and it pretty much sunned up the tone of the day, Kash Patel lashing out at senators who were trying to get information, very obviously in hopes that Donald Trump was watching. Let me ask you one last question. And that is, right after she gives this testimony in front of an FBI agent among others, she's transferred to a minimum security prison not suitable for a sex offender like herself. Who made that decision and why? The Bureau of Prisons. The Bureau of Decisions made it in prisons. The Bureau of Prisons decided on their own, without any consultation with Todd Blanche or anyone else, that they were going to suddenly, after this interview, completely unrelated to this interview, completely unrelated to anything she said. move her to a prison not suitable for a sex offender. You want the American people to believe that? Do you think they're stupid? No, I think the American people believe the truth, that I'm not in the weeds on the everyday movements of inmates. What I am doing is protecting this country, providing historic reform. and combating the weaponization of intelligence by the likes of you. And we have countlessly proven you to be a liar in Russia, in January 6th. You are the biggest fraud to ever sit in the United States Senate. You're disgraced. I'm joined now by Senator Adam Schiff, Democratic, California, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Well, how you think that went? Well, clearly I struck a nerve. I think he realized just how absurd the idea is that, oh, Todd Blanche, the president's former criminal defense lawyer, our current deputy attorney general, meets with this sex offender, the most important witness in the Jeffrey Epstein case, and then has suddenly transferred to a minimum security prison not suitable for a sex offender like her, and we're supposed to believe the administration had nothing to do with that. It's preposterous. So I think it was a combination of realizing that what he said was just stupid and not credible, but also he's at risk of losing his job. And he thinks by attacking me, by attacking Cory Booker, by attacking Democrats, maybe he can salvage his job. But, you know, my feeling is, look, if he continues to be so incompetent, if he continues to say in a high profile, horrible assassination case that the subject is in custody when the shooter is not in custody, he continues to embarrass the FBI and the president. He's not going to last long in that job, no matter how much he tax me or anyone else.

I want to ask about an exchange you had about the Epstein case and specifically what the evidence that the FBI has or DOJ has indicates about the sort of scope of people that were associated with Epstein, particularly the most egregious crimes he committed. Take a listen. Who, if anyone, did Epstein traffic these young women too besides himself? Himself, there is no credible information. None. If there were, I would bring the case yesterday that he trafficked to other individuals. Is it your testimony today that in all the Epstein files? that Jeffrey Epstein trafficked no one to anyone but himself. Is that your testimony? I never said Jeffrey Epstein didn't traffic anyone else. You're telling the American people today that the Epstein list is a single name and it's Jeffrey Epstein. That's what we're to believe? That's not what I'm saying. That's what you're saying. Now, I will admit to being confused because I watched a bunch of the hearing. I was looking back over the transcripts. He seemed to answer that to Senator Robert F. Kennedy Jr.. I mean, again, I'm not saying, I don't know the truth here, to be honest. I don't necessarily believe that Kach Kash Patel's a credible messenger, but maybe that is the case. But he seemed to answer, yes, to Senator Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and not to you, and then get mad at you and said the same. So do you understand what his testimony was today? His testimony was, and it was hard to understand because it was so far-fetched that Jeffrey Epstein only trafficked women to himself, not to anyone else. Basically, the client list, this celebrated Epstein list, only has one name on it, and it's Jeffrey Epstein. That was the import of his testimony. I was struck by it, I think Senator Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and others were struck by it. Of course, there's no one who's, I think, going to be more struck by it than the victims. of Jeffrey Epstein's trafficking. But apparently Kash Patel and the FBI now on the American people and Trump's own base to believe, hey, there's only one name on Epstein's list, and that's Jeffrey Epstein. I also asked him about Maxwell in that interview with Todd Blanche, says that there are Trump cabinet members who are associated with Epstein, and Todd Blanche doesn't even bother to ask who they are. So I asked him, who are they? And he refused to answer. There's obviously been a lot of focus, both in the Epstein case, on the director of the FBI sort of live tweeting through the investigation to the aftermath of the killing of Charlie Kirk and appearing to get it wrong in a highly embarrassing fashion while he was having dinner at a New York City restaurant. You know, one thing struck me today, and you just mentioned competency, like... It really does matter a lot if the FBI is doing a good job at what they should do. I mean, we just commemorated the 24th anniversary of 9-11, and I remember reading the field memos that came from FBI agents in places like Minneapolis that had identified the fact that there were these individuals taking these flight lessons, and ultimately and tragically those dots were not put together. Like, do you have confidence that this institution is being run at the sort of just blocking and tackling day-to-day counterterrorism?

You know, stopping big plots, big bad things that might happen that it's functioning. No, I don't know how any of us can have that confidence for a number of reasons. One is not only is Kash Patel incompetent, but he is firing all the competent people. A lot of the questioning today, including my own, was focused on his firing senior leaders at the FBI for no other reason than the fact they were assigned cases investigating Donald Trump. Now, he, I think, lied about that clearly today. He's being sued by three senior FBI agents. who will take him to court and depose him, and I think reveal those lies. But he's firing the experienced people. And more than that, he's taking agents off of these important investigations. like sex trafficking, like counterterrorism, like malicious foreign interference. And what is he doing with them? He's putting them on immigration raids. So it's the diversion of resources, the incompetence at the very top, and the getting rid of people who are the true professionals. And I have to imagine morale at the bureau is just at a all-time low because how can you respect someone like Kash Patel? My concluding comments to him after our back and forth is you can take an internet troll and make him FBI director, but he's still not going to be anything more than an internet troll. And that just makes us a lot less safe. Senator Adam Schiff, thank you for your time tonight. Thank you. Still ahead, quoting the lawsuit, Senator Schiff just mentioned, quote, the FBI tried to put the president in jail and he hasn't forgotten it. The attorney for the fired FBI officials just mentioned that are suing the Trump administration joins me. Next. Hey, everybody. It's Rob Lowe here. If you haven't heard, I have a podcast. That's called Literally with Roblo. And basically, it's conversations I've had that really make you feel like you're pulling up a chair at an intimate dinner between myself and people that I admire, like Aaron Sorkin or Tiffany Haddish, Demi Moore, Chris Pratt, Michael J. Fox. There are new episodes out every Thursday. So subscribe, please, and listen, wherever you get your podcasts. 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? Well, now the truth belongs to seven 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. I like things my way, my coffee, my schedule, and my treatment. So I talked to my doctor about self-injecting with the Vivgard-Hitrilo-pre-filled syringe, which contains F-Gar-Tegamide's QVC. It's injected under your skin subcutaneously. It means I can inject in my space on my time. It's my treatment, my way. Visit Vivgardmyway.com. That's v-y-V-G-A-R-T-Myway.com. And talk to your doctor about Vivgard Hytrullo, brought to you by Argenics. One line of inquiry for FBI director Kash Patel at today's Senate hearing, one that he wouldn't really directly answer, was a new federal lawsuit filed by three FBI leaders who were fired. Those three fired agents claimed that they were targets of a, quote, campaign of retribution. One of them is this guy, Brian Driscoll, remember him. He served briefly as actually the acting director of the FBI at the beginning of the Trump administration. And the lawsuit claims that Kash Patel told Driscoll directly to his face, quote, Kash Patel's ability to keep his own job depended on removal of the agents who worked on cases involving the president. Kash Patel explained that there was nothing he or Driscoll could do to stop these or any other firings because the FBI tried to put the president in jail and he hasn't forgotten. Chris Maddie is one of the attorneys representing the three fired FBI agents. He previously served as a federal prosecutor himself, and he joins me now. It's good to have a new program. Thanks for joining us. Thank you. First, just describe why what Kash Patel did, if he, in fact, fired these men based on their involvement in these cases, would be an illegal firing, why they should have grounds for reinstatement or some recompense. Well, the first and most significant and troubling reason I would say is because... It is unlawful for any government official in a position of power to fire a government employee because of a perception of their politics. It's a violation of the First Amendment. It obviously was a misperception here. The three individuals who brought this lawsuit are the most apolitical, nonpartisan career law enforcement officials you can imagine, but they were perceived by Kash Patel and his superiors to be unwilling to carry out the political duties that the president and others wanted. And so they were fired for that reason. They were also fired without any process at all, without any opportunity to challenge whatever allegations there were against them. They obviously weren't notified of what those were. And that is a violation of their protections as members of the senior executive service. We also claim that Kash Patel actually lacked any authority under Article 2 to do what he did. So there are a variety of grounds that these firings were unlawful. But the heart of the case is exactly what Kash Patel admitted to Brian Driscoll, which is... is that these firings were being carried out for political reasons because the FBI was considered by the president to have launched cases against him and all of the agents who worked on those cases were to be fired.

You say in the lawsuit, and I'm quoting from it here, that when Brian Driscoll explained that firing employees based on case assignments, meaning in this case that people had been assigned to cases that involved President Trump when he was out of office, would be in direct violation of internal FBI processes, Kash Patel said he understood that, and he knew the nature of the summary of firings were likely illegal and that he could be sued and later deposed. It's your contention that he literally admitted to these being illegal and told the man that he was illegally firing that they were illegal. Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't say it's a contention. I would say it is a fact that we will prove. We have substantial evidence to support that. We are more than willing to go into court with the word of Brian Driscoll and his colleagues and the evidence we have corroborating what happened to show that Kash Patel absolutely knew what he was doing was illegal and that he was willing to do it anyway because it was what he had been directed to do. This is... exactly the opposite of what Brian Driscoll and others had tried to do during their short period of time in leading the FBI, which was to protect the FBI workforce from political attacks and retribution to defend the safety of FBI agents. And for that, he and others were fired. One of the sort of bizarre wrinkles in the facts as stated in your complaint is that there were sort of people outside the White House, including an ex-FBI kind of podcaster, influencer, who was essentially sort of appears kind of fabricating, creating, or just lobbying accusations of political bias at certain agents that were getting into Kash Patel's hands somehow and leaning. to action over and above whatever case assignments, like they were specific targeting from the sort of kind of random outside guy, is that right? That's accurate. And it's in keeping with other reporting here that people outside the FBI and podcaster world were making allegations which were false and inaccurate, but which put pressure on Kash Patel and Dan Bongino to show that they were addressing these types of concerns. It's shocking, actually, that career FBI agents who've exercised... important authority in protecting the American people would then have their careers stripped from them on the word of a podcaster that somehow made its way to the FBI director's ear, who then felt that there might be some political advantage in ridding the FBI of these agents. And I just want to make the point that there is a cost. to disabling the upper echelons of the FBI. There is a significant cost to our national security. Every American is at greater risk because people like Brian Driscoll and Steve Jensen and Spencer Evans and others have been purged from the FBI. They were the best of what the FBI had to offer, and it is a national shame at what has happened. Chris Bally, the lawyer for those three men who are suing the FBI for their dismissal. Thank you for your time tonight. Thank you.

Still to come, the White House is performing international damage control after the strange, curious rate of a Hyundai factory in Georgia, that wild story ahead. Hey, everybody, it's Rob Lowe here. If you haven't heard, I have a podcast. That's called Literally with Roblo. And basically, it's conversations I've had that really make you feel like you're pulling up a chair at an intimate dinner between myself and people that I admire, like Aaron Sorkin or Tiffany Haddish, Demi Moore, Chris Pratt, Michael J. Fox. There are new episodes out every Thursday. So subscribe, please, and listen, wherever you get your podcasts. I like things my way, my coffee, my schedule, and my treatment. So I talked to my doctor about self-injecting with the Vivgard-Hitrilo-pre-filled syringe, which contains F-Gar-Tigamudafa and High Loranidase QVC. It's injected under your skin, subcutaneously. It means I can inject in my space on my time. It's my treatment, my way. Visit Vivgardmyway.com. That's V-Y-V-G-A-R-T-May.com. And talk to your doctor about Vivgard Hytrullo, brought to you by Argenics. What's going on? I'm Archmanning, Viori athlete, and college quarterback. Whether I'm running, training, traveling, or just unwinding at home, I love it in my core shorts from Viori. With a breathable box of brief liner, they're quick to dry, super versatile, and stand up to even my most intense training sessions. Plus, they come in three in seams and a ton of colors. Ready to try pair, go to Viori.com slash Arch and get 20% off at checkout. I think you're going to love them as much as I do. That's vURI.com slash ARCH and get 20% off your first order. Exclusions apply. Visit the website for full terms and conditions. Not only will you receive 20% off your first purchase, but enjoy free shipping on any U.S. orders over $75 and free returns. Have a great day. Republican Susan Collins has served as a senator from Maine for 28 years now, and she is up for re-election in 2026. And for the first time in a long time, there is real excitement about her Democratic opponents. One of them in the primary is a man named Graham Platner. He jumped into the race with this explosively viral announcement video showing him working on his oyster farm and swinging kettlebells. He's a veteran who's endorsed by Senator Bernie Sanders at a Labor Day rally in Portland, Maine, where Graham Platner spoke to voters' frustrations in this moment. Our taxpayer dollars can build schools and hospitals in America, not bombs to destroy them in Gaza.

That line, among many others, got a huge standing ovation. I got a chance to talk to Graham Platner on my podcast. We discussed how he got into this race. I was approached by some friends I've made over the years through community organizing, some friends in labor. And they essentially pitched me on this idea that this race is this unique opening to inject a kind of like working class. populism back into both main politics and because of the visibility of this race, national politics. And I was like, yeah, that sounds like a great idea. I have those exact same thoughts. You guys should find somebody to do it. And they were like, yeah, we think we have. And my wife and I were effectively like, well, this is impossible. We work very hard. We don't make a lot of money. I mean, we very much are just pretty normal working class folks. In Senate campaigns are, as you probably know, they require lots of resources and they require lots of time and energy, and we were afraid that we didn't have that. But they were like, well, they connected me. And then also through just the way my life has been, I had some friends who've worked campaigns elsewhere. And I began to think about it a little bit more seriously, talk to some other people about what it might look like. And at that point, I had a few conversations with a few folks who were like, no, we think this actually has legs. We also have. some friends who might be able to come in and help early on on building out the structure that I've never run for office before, as the New York Times likes to point out. We also got into what shaped his political views, the current deployment of troops to American streets. Perhaps the trickiest question after serving in both the Marine Corps in the Army, which branch does you like better? You can watch the whole thing right now on MSNBC's YouTube channel where you can listen to it. Just search for Chris Hayes wherever you get your podcasts.

Missed all the chaos over the last couple weeks. There's a story out of Georgia that hasn't gotten that much attention here in the U.S. but has received a ton of attention in South Korea. It all started a couple of weeks ago when the Trump administration raided a new electric vehicle battery plant that Hyundai and LG are building in Georgia. The drama started September 4th, when armed agents with ice stormed a $4.3 billion battery factory being built by Hyundai and LG. Security, we have a search warrant for the whole site. 475 people were rounded up there. Keep coming this wetland. accused by immigration officials of working illegally in the U.S. What type of visas they were on or if they had visas at all still isn't clear. The images of Korean workers carted off in handcuffs were on news channels everywhere, sparking outrage here over their treatment. No one is illegal. Last week, those workers were finally freed from U.S. detention with most returning to South Korea on Friday. Crowds of onlookers and loved ones greeted him to the airport along with reporters in a scene. The kind of thing you generally see of like freed hostages finally returning home? And this story, understandably, has consumed Korean media for weeks now. It's clear our relationship with a key ally has been strained, so much so that this administration, which never apologized for anything, is kind of backtracking. Trump announcing that he welcomes forum workers, adding, quote, I don't want to frighten off or disincentivize investment into America by outside countries or companies. A little late for that. And don't think that's going to be enough to placate our allies in the South Korean government who are now announcing they're going to investigate the raid for potential human rights abuses. Jasmine Garz is an immigration correspondent for NPR has been covering the story, and she joins me now. Good to have you here. Thanks for having me. First, we saw some of the news footage here. Just to start with like the scope of this raid. I mean, you were just telling me off air that this is, we think, the largest. single site workplace rate in decades. Yes, it is. And what we have is a warrant for four Hispanic men. Most of the people who were detained were South Koreans. Oh, so ICE comes in with this warrant for four Hispanic men. That is the warrant that we have seen. And they show up at this plant. They show up at this plant, and everyone is questioned, taken in for detention. I have spoken to lawyers for several of the South Korean men who told me these people were here with work permits. They are here with work authorization. I mean, it's almost 500 people. They're also being let out in like these kind of almost like medieval looking chains, like the chains around your waist and connecting your wrists and feet.

It's interesting the amount of attention this has gotten. These are highly skilled workers that came into contact with what is the new reality in the United States about how we treat immigrants. The conditions that they are reporting to local South Korean media, which have everyone in outrage, those conditions are conditions we have been hearing about for months in the U.S. from immigrants in detention. This is a detained worker speaking in New York Times. English, I just followed where others went. My superiors were scattered, too. We got on a bus while camp cuffed. He said the conditions of the detention center were poor. We drank tap water. We were put in a room with 80 people, the move for questioning interviews. Processing took hours in a cramped space. This has captivated attention in South Korea, a country with very fractious and polarized politics, not unlike ours, where it seems like there's been real unanimity across the political spectrum about the outrage over this. Absolutely. I mean, we're hearing of an anti-American sentiment in South Korea. I mean, this happened, right before this happened, the South Korean government had pledged to invest $350 billion in the U.S. This is terrible PR for skilled workers who were trying to come here. And it should be said, set up a plant. This was proprietary technology that they were setting up. This wasn't this narrative of that they're coming to steal American jobs. Okay, so there's two things about this that are particularly bizarre. So one of them is, and you see this a little bit in the backtracking, that I think it was a deputy undersecretary for Asian Affairs and the State Department apologized for it. And then Donald Trump didn't quite apologize but said, hey, one of the things that's weird is there's a huge amount of foreign investment to build this factory here and eventually it will hire American workers after it's sort of been stood up. And it seems like you're punishing precisely the kind of foreign investment the Trump administration says it wants. Well, Chris, I think what we're starting to see is this immigration policy really have economic effects. I think Americans are starting to see and will start to see the economic effect of an immigration policy that doesn't seem entirely thought out. And so this is a perfect case. You know, this had been hailed by local Georgia government as just something that was going to really bring Georgia up. it was going to be a huge boost to the economy. Foreign direct investment to create 21st century jobs of the future, cutting edge, batteries, and we're going to have American workers making. Yes, and hence the blue sky message that the president sent, which said, you know, we don't want to scare workers away. We do want them to come here and train American workers and beat them at their own game. So that's one part of it. That's very weird. It's foreign direct investment, right? The other part that seems weird from an enforcement perspective is like, It seems unlikely that anyone was trying to get one over on immigration authorities. Like, all these Korean workers, they're not like, they're not being smuggled in. It's not like some underground human trafficking operation. Like, presumably a lot of these people had paperwork. I don't know if they were outer status or not, but it wasn't some huge subterfuge by the Korean businesses, was it?

No, I mean, listen, what the lawyer I spoke to for many of these workers told me is these were workers with visas. I will say this. Something interesting that has been brought up by this incident is the failure of the American visa system and the American immigration system. It is broken. Everyone has agreed that it is broken. And companies have said, and even the South Korean government has said. We need to fix this visa system. We're trying to go in the right way and do it the right way. And this backlog means that people basically say, screw it and send people over. Right. And also this kind of, there's a specific kind of skilled worker visa that has a cap. It's a lottery system. And so it's very frustrating to companies. But I think it is important to say that these were workers who were here to set up this major technology that was going to boost the Georgia economy. And it was going to create. jobs for American workers. That was the promise. The sort of unexplained part at the heart of this, and I don't think we have reporting, is like, why did this happen? Like, it seems someone told someone to go to this facility and round up 500 people, and it seems to me that we do not know the answer to that yet. We don't know the answer yet, but we do know that we are seeing this widespread crackdown on immigration. We're seeing quotas. We've been seeing quotas for months. That's a good point. And, you know, we've also been hearing a lot from DHS and from ICE officials about what's called collateral damage. If you happen to be there, you know, you might go down in the sting. Jasmine Garson has been reporting this for NBR. Thanks so much for sharing. Thank you for having me. Appreciate it. That does it for All In. You can catch us every weeknight at 8 o'clock on MSNBC. Don't forget to like us on Facebook. That's facebook.com slash all in with Chris. Real talent is defined by what people can do, not where they learn to do it. So by stopping at the education section of a resume, you might throw away the perfect hire. Skills first hiring helps you see talent others miss, like more than 70 million stars, skilled through alternative routes. Let their story unfold and gain a competitive advantage. Because hiring managers who start with skills are 60% more likely to find a successful hire. Higher skills first. Learn why at tear the paper ceiling.org. Brought to you by Opportunity at Work and the Ad Council.