"Donald Trump's retribution campaign against public servants"

0:00Hey, everyone, it's Rachel Maddo here to tell you about the MSNOW membership. You can connect directly with your favorite hosts and other MSNOW fans to constream live TV and much more. Visit MS.nailslashmembership to join. Hi, everyone. It's For Clark in New York, Donald Trump's Retribution campaign against public servants who adhere to the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law instead of, say, Trump's wins, that Retribution campaign targeted members of the federal judiciary today. This morning, Trump's Justice Department filed a judicial misconduct complaint against all but one of the federal judges serving in Minnesota. They did that because those judges, they alleged, spoke to the New York Times earlier this month about the Trump administration's draconian immigration crackdown and defiance of court orders. The complaint announces afternoon by Trump's AG Todd Blanche as a rather shocking read.

1:01DOJ is demanding that an appeals court force the recusal of nearly the entire active federal bench in the state of Minnesota from ruling on any cases, civil or criminal, involving the Department of Homeland Security because, quote, the public reasonably questions their impartiality and cases involving immigration. DOJ is also demanding an investigation into what it calls the, quote, improper conduct by judges in the district of Minnesota who covet publicity rather than adhering to the rule of law. The New York Times article on question does not reflect that any of the judges interviewed discussed any particular case that had come before them at any time. The allegations DOJ is making against some arcs, extremely serious and rather extraordinary, they're making them against all but one active judge in the state that has been overrun by Trump's immigration enforcement campaign and by litigation around it. It's also where the people who live there have shown up for massive protests over and over

2:04and over again over the continued deadly violence by federal agents deployed at the direction of the Trump White House and the Trump administration in their state. It also, of course, follows the deaths of two U.S. citizens, mother of three, Renanical Good and ICU nurse Alex Freddie. The New York Times article at the center of the complaint questioned the legality of the Trump administration's push to flood Minneapolis with armed agents to deliver on Trump's promise of mass deportations, which it called Operation Metro Surge. In a rare interview, Patrick Schledz, who served as the federal court's chief judge, last winter called the operation, quote, a grave threat to the rule of law. The Trump administration's actions have been challenged over and over and over again in federal lawsuits for its detention of hundreds of non-citizens with lawful status, the indictments of activists and journalists, and more often than not, the result was a major blow to Trump's Operation Metro Surge.

3:08An MSNOW review found that in just one week earlier this year, there were 61 challenges to immigrant detentions and Trump's Justice Department lost all but one. That would be 60 losses. That's where we start today. The former top DOJ official and General Counsel for the FBI are legal analysts, Andrew Weissman is here and our Justice and Intelligence reporter, Kendalini, joins us as well. Andrew Weissman, there may be other things you can call it. It's a filing, it's a threat. It reads like a mobbed up campaign against judges threatening them for doing their jobs. I don't know how you can see it as anything else. I couldn't agree with you more. Remind me, by the way, in a call to tell you about something that in the filing that I think is an absolute false statement. But before we get to that, this to me is an attack on the First Amendment saying if you

4:08dare to criticize this administration, we are coming after you. It doesn't matter whether you're Jack Smith. It doesn't matter if you're MSNOW, Politico, and CNN. It doesn't matter if you're a judge. We are going to go after you. The allegations here that these judges were speaking out because they said that the rule of law was under attack and in general, we're talking about the defiance of court orders, is no different than when the Chief Justice of the United States openly criticized attacking Judge Bozberg, the DC Federal Judge, saying, you know, you don't criticize and threaten to impeach a judge. If you disagree with your ruling, you can appeal it. You can ask to be rehered, but you don't threaten them. That was no more improper than what these judges appear to have done when they spoke to the New York Times. And so I couldn't agree to you more that this is such an attack on the headgemony of this

5:14administration and the fact that they really do not understand what the First Amendment is about. I mean, well, you choose me. Where's the false statement to bury that fire? Yes. So on page one of the filing that is made by the Department of Justice, it is signed by the number two and the number three official in the Department of Justice. They are asked whether they are a party or whether they are a lawyer for the party and they check that they are neither. But the entire theory of their filing is that they were counseled in these cases and that the judges were speaking about these cases where they were a party. That is a, to me, is a completely false filing that is giving the impression that somehow this filing is made by some innocent bystander. The reason they ask those questions, whether you're a party or whether you're a lawyer

6:17for the party, is to know that you have invested interest in this. How could they have, given their position here, how could they have checked that off and written down to an ethics association that they want a judge to review the conduct of all of these federal judges and they begin on page one with, to my mind, is a clear false statement. What is the remedy for their clear false statement, Andrew? Well, so the, the, the discipline committee that gets this can take them to task and they can reject it and they could say, you know, how are you, you know, how is it that you are writing this? Have you made a false statement? It is also one that if they stand by this and they say, you know what, we are not, in fact, a lawyer for any of the parties. It actually cuts against, if they are going to say this is a true filing, it actually cuts

7:20against the merits of the filing. It's a little technical, but they're, the gist of their complaint is that the judges are weighing in on a pending case before them. But their filing says, no, no, no, we are not lawyers in a pending case. So it's something that the body that hears this has a lot of different things they could do. The irony of all of this, and I know Nicole, you say that all of the, the irony in hypocrisy are dead in this day and age, and it's true. But, you know, we have seen this department of justice go after people for filings that are, are true and they claim their false. Here, this is one where I don't understand how this is true, but there's no way that DOJ is going to look at their own conduct and say that this was intentionally false. So there is like this enormous, you know, hypocrisy in terms of what's going on here. Yeah, I mean, Ken, it's sort of, Alice, through the looking glass, upside down and backwards.

8:24I interviewed Judge Esther Solis today from my podcast, and she reminded me of the things Trump in his second term is said about federal judges. He's called them monsters. He's called them radical America hating judges. He's called them leftists. The General Counsel of the Department of Homeland Security right now has a website of called the worst of the worst, where they smear and malign judges. That's the call, if you will, the response has been, I think, upwards of 200 pizzas, sent to federal judges, a clear sign that people who wish to menace them are in still fear, know where their homes are, know where their families are. Thousands of them have been sent in the name of Judge Esther Solis's murdered son. Federal judges have been swatted. They've been intimidated. They've been threatened. And in Judge Esther Solis's word, this is in large part because of the rhetoric coming from Donald Trump and his attorney general. Yeah, Nicole, this is remarkable on so many levels. Judge Patrick Schill, who is the lead figure in this New York Times article, who posed

9:29for a picture and spoke for 90 minutes. He was a George W. Bush appointee who clerked for Chief Justice, or Justice Antonin Scalia, one of the most conservative jurists ever to sit on the Supreme Court. So he has no bomb throwing leftists. And when you read that article, it's almost a cry for help from these judges who basically say they were under siege by this massive surge of this immigration crackdown that buried and clogged their courts. And they talked about not being able to go to dinner without having their phones on because habeas corpus petitions were coming in at any moment. And they knew that they were the only thing standing between some guy, some hapless person being deported without a hearing or sent to some facility in Texas. And so, and they accused ICE of rampantly violating court orders. And what's also interesting is the New York Times story is very careful to say that none of these judges were talking about pending cases. And that's the issue because they're prohibited by the canon of judicial ethics.

10:29I'm talking about pending cases. They said they were not. They also said that they are allowed to speak about the rule of law and threats to the rule of law and judicial independence. But what Todd Blanche got up there today and said is that by doing that, they had violated their code of ethics. It was totally inappropriate. And he was asked at this news conference that I attended, what's the difference between why are you allowed to criticize judges? You at one point said there was a war between conservatives and certain sitting federal judges. And then said simply, well, I'm not a judge. And I don't have to abide by their code of ethics. They do and they're under a stricter code. But it's a real question here whether they actually did violate the code. I mean, it is rare, of course, for federal judges, sitting federal judges to give interviews on the record or off the record to reporters. But in this case, they felt compelled to do so. And I was also reminded today about the speech that Todd Blanche gave to Justice Department employees in the Great Hall when he first became, when he was first confirmed as Attorney

11:31General. One of the things he said is that we won't, we won't essentially mount ad hominem attacks on judges. We think that it's inappropriate to attack judges, but they've done nothing but do that. And today he stood up before the Justice Department Press Corps and essentially endorsed the idea of going after federal judges who criticized the administration. Nicole. Well, as you said, Judge Schelz is a Bush appointee Judge Bozberg who they are in a full on reputational assault campaign one-sided. He's not a sale, the reputation of anyone in the Trump administration, but they're smearing him. They've rendered him a target for their own political retribution. The idea that this is somehow judges acting at a partisanship is knocked out by the Trump voting in her own description, mother of Renée Nicole Good in this congressional testimony. Right. And it's torture that as her mom and as her family, we could not protect Renée, but no

12:36one can protect against others who are determined to disrequire our country's constitutional rules and values. That is what happened on January 7th. Our family is a very American blend. We vote differently, but we love each other deeply. I'm a registered Republican. I voted for President Trump under the impression that these agents were here to protect the citizens of the United States, innocents like our family and the others here against terrorists, certainly not to accuse those of us here of being terrorists and take precious lives. This is madness. Ken. Yeah, that is powerful testimony. And I just wanted to say that I look today to see whether there was any precedent for the Justice Department ever filing a complaint like this. And I couldn't find any. Over the years, the Justice Department has filed ethics complaints against judges in cases

13:39of corruption or misconduct or clearly inappropriate behavior, but there is no precedent for filing a complaint against judges for simply speaking out and criticizing the actions of the executive branch. And yet this is only the latest. There have been a number of other complaints that this Justice Department has filed. And going back to the first Trump administration against various sitting judges, you mentioned Judge Bozberg. He was the subject of the Justice Department complaint. So this appears to be a tactic that they are carrying out as part of an attempt to try to intimidate judges that are speaking out against them. And that's happening a lot because judges are finding that Justice Department lawyers are going into court spouting misinformation, violating court orders, not getting the information that they need from their clients and the agencies. And the so-called presumption of regularity, which simply means relying on the Justice Department to follow the rules until the truth has fallen by the wayside in federal courts today. And that is an incredible tragedy that has far reaching implications for the rule of law,

14:42Nicole. If you look at where Trump and the White House are locked into fiery heated battles right now, it's the Kennedy Center. It's CIA analysts. It's FBI officials. It's DOJ officials. It's Sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln. It's generals. It's election workers. It's people with no known partisan affiliation for their public service. It's people with absolutely zero muscle fibers designed to engage in partisan fights. And the reason Trump is so ferociously trying to silence all those kinds of people is because they're people that the public holds up and believes more than the rest of us. And I wonder, Andrew Weissman, what do you think the stakes are for the Todd Blanche attack on basically the entire federal banchen Minnesota?

15:45So I'm going to turn to something that Jack Smith testified about yesterday that has not gotten a lot of attention, understandably given the actions of the senator from Missouri that deserved so much attention. One of the things that Jack Smith said was that in looking back at his tenure as special counsel, one thing that he thought he could have done differently and that it's going to be important for people to do at a future law-biting justice department is to speak out and to explain themselves publicly and to not be cowed into silence. And I think you can translate that to what you're seeing judges do here and as can correctly notes, this is a very unusual situation, but they're in a very unusual situation to have the chief just to speak out, to have the chief judge in Minnesota speak out, to have

16:50other judges speaking out tells you where we are. But I think that Jack Smith has it exactly right that people need to be doing that, need to be talking about what's going on. And it's especially in the face of an administration that knows how important it is to silence them and very much in the same way that they are trying to silence media organizations. I think it's all a bit piece and it is a real challenge to the rule of law and to a democratic society. I mean, I think Andrew, just to follow on your point, it would be a good news cycle for all the law firms that capitulated and did deals with Donald Trump and Boris Epstein and signed away their brilliant young lawyers time to work for the Trump Commerce Department to reverse course and go defend the judges because I don't know what law they think they're going to be practicing. If they succeed in destroying the judiciary, what do you make of all the capitulation that

17:52happened in the early months of the Trump year? Well, I was on this program with you when the media ban came out and I think it is a stark contrast how we saw media organizations of different sort of, let's say, bence and persuasion standing up together, understanding a principle of the First Amendment and the professionalism of journalists and understanding that they have to stand together. It's all for one and one for all. And that is a lesson that we don't see at law firms. It's certainly big law. We don't see it in universities and in businesses. So I think you and your colleagues have led the way. Our hope springs eternal here. Andrew, I've been a kind of lenient. Thank you for starting us off today on this story. When we come back, the Trump administration's vendetta's keep blowing up spectacularly

18:54for all of us to see as we all watched in jaw dropping fashion together yesterday. People bring in the top Democrat. I'm a House Oversight Committee, Robert Garcia, on Trump's continuing weaponization of our federal government and how he's seeming to want to bring the entire Republican party down with him. Plus, not even Trump's hand-picked loyalist or buying what he's feeding them lately, Ken Paxton caught on a hot mic complaining about Trump and how his political toxicity is dragging down the most politically toxic Senate candidate in the country. That really happened and later in the broadcast, Pete Hegsess remaking the U.S. military in his own image. Pete Hegsess announced today a wholesale slashing of top generals is a war in Iran, passes the seven-month mark. We'll have all those stories in much more when Deva White House continues after a quick break. Don't go anywhere. Money. The economic fallout from the war.

19:55Is it temporary? What is your message to the country right now? Money powered politics with Stephanie Rule weekdays at 9 a.m. Eastern on FS now. And find more on the MS now app. Did you go to an NBA game between the Golden State Warriors and the Atlanta Hawks on February 3rd, 2024? What city would that be in Atlanta? No. What would you say if I had a series of text messages from your team that said you were in Atlanta at a warrior hawks game on February 3rd, 2024, the day after Willis and Wade announced their fair? Mr. Chairman, can we give the witness a copy so he can see what's being read to him? Well, I think you've already sufficiently. And so I want to run through. We'll put it in a file if you can respond. You've I think you've already perjured yourself. I recall going to a university of Maryland basketball game where Caitlin Clark was playing. Could it then be that university if I was the hawk eyes? That might be the confusion over the names of the team, but perhaps you should have looked

20:56at it more carefully. Come on. You knew I was going to find a way to show that to you again. I can't believe anyone that Moronic is in the Senate. Just amazing. That important and instructive. And when they look at this moment in 100 and 200 years and they wanted it to happen to the Republican Party, they'll play that clip. Because that is exactly what it looks like. And one of the two political parties, rots from the inside and becomes hell-bent on fabricating some sort of buffoonish, orgery trap that isn't even perjury because it isn't even accurate to try to play gacha to their perceived political enemies, people who probably don't spend any time thinking about them at all. That was of course the now famous Missouri Senator Eric Schmidt becoming a national embarrassment with his inability to discern between the NBA franchise, the Atlanta Hawks, and their game against the Golden State Warriors, pretty unforgettable in my biased opinion.

21:59And the Women's College Basketball team, the Iowa Hawkeyes. Our friends at the Bullwork summed it up like this with our headline this morning, Eric Schmidt's the bad. The moment was best captured by Schmidt's colleague, Alabama Senator Katie Britt, who watched Schmidt's train wreck of a line of questioning play out in real time. Democratic Congressman Robert Garcia of California joins us now. He's the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee. Look, I don't even know what to ask you about this, but I guess it points to their deep and unhealthy obsession with Jack Smith. Obsession, I mean first that was so idiotic, also, yeah, cringe worthy to watch. It's like a car crash because you keep going back to just see just where the modern Republican party is today. It's idiotic. It's not ready for prime time, it's horrific staff work.

22:59He should be embarrassed of himself. His state should be embarrassed of Senator Schmidt. I think broadly, what I think just the worst it worst about it is you have this experienced well respected, a DOJ leader and prosecutor that's there to answer real questions to talk about real corruption by the president of the United States, legal actions, and they're trying to make a joke of it. They're trying to attack his character in a completely backfire. Once again, the Republican party proves that they're just not ready or have the maturity to actually govern. What's amazing too is that they went and made a poster board. He wasn't just reading some printout from, I don't know, some right-wing website. He gave someone the assignment, looks like it was done the day before. They got some art on there, got a smear against funny willis on there, and they've got a text message that is disembodied from anything that came out of the Senator's mouth. It speaks to a real perversion of what it means to draw your salary from a taxpayer.

24:06It does look, I'll be the first to tell you that we prepare. When you have a hearing, this is serious work. This is the work of the Congress, the work of the Senate, and you prepare, you do your homework, you got great people around you, checking all the facts, and the fact that this was just done so in a way that was so sloppy for a United States Senator. It's just an embarrassment. But beyond that, it just goes and shows that they are obsessed with attacks. They don't really care about facts, they don't care about getting to the truth, they don't care that Donald Trump clearly was involved in crimes as it relates to January 6th and the direction of what happened to our Capitol and the mob that attacked our Capitol. They're just obsessed with creating narratives to damage the credibility of an incredible prosecutor. And one that was not given the opportunity to really make his case to the American public. And so I think it's clearly a day that shows us to the core what has happened to the Republican Party. And I hope they do some introspection because they're about to lose a big time of come November.

25:07How do you prioritize all the work that you're going to be able to do in the majority on the oversight front when you look at sort of the sea of corruption? Well, I just had the senior oversight team. I'm here back in my home state of California, the senior oversight team actually has been with me for a couple of days. We have been planning hearings, our investigations, the cadence of what comes first. Here's the reality. The amount of corruption is unprecedented. But I've told folks that we're focused on four main areas. The first is Trump family corruption, whether it's Don Jr.'s red wedding, whether it's the boards he sits on getting contracts, the Pentagon, the crypto schemes, the buying of islands by the customers, the affinity partners, $2 billion from the Saudis. Trump family corruption is going to be key. And we're going to take on as you all know, the abuses of ICE and DHS, Coralow and Dowsky, pay to play, Kristie Neuwen. Third, we're going to focus on corporate corruption, people that are abusing and hurting the American public. And finally, we're going to get justice for the Epsian survivors.

26:08Those four investigations, as it relates to Trump family corruption, ICE and DHS, corporate corruption and the Jeffrey Epsian investigation, will be what you see from us really early in oversight. We are going to go in hard. And so to the Trump family, especially, they better be prepared to hear a lot from the oversight committee in those first days when we win the majority. I view their assaults and taglanches on precedent and assault on essentially the entire federal banjo Minnesota as a reaction to what you just said, that the only way to sort of blunt what's incoming, I mean, they know that you're going to be in the majority in November, is to sort of take out or intimidate the judicial branch. Are you talking about or thinking about any sort of added protections or security for the judiciary? That's something that's actually we've been discussing a lot. I think ensuring that our judiciary and our system is safe and secure is really important.

27:10And I will also tell you that my partner in this oversight work, Jamie Raskin, over at the Judiciary Committee, we're speaking constantly. This is going to be a teamwork approach. I think the two of us are going to focus on the work that he is planning for the judiciary and to Mr. Blanche. And with that, we're going to support and vice versa. I got to tell you, I think people are going to see this Democratic Party taking aggressive stance that they have not seen before. I think that they had done to this country, they are going to be held accountable for, and the work and planning is happening now. I don't think I've ever seen you smile before. Ben, you're talking about accountability. Let me ask you one more question. One of the targets for Donald Trump's retribution was a drone powell. And an independent watchdog found that while it was, I think, somewhat bureaucratic and maybe not cost-efficient, there was absolutely no criminality, no violations in the renovation. That was something Trump sought to waved in front of drone powell, standing there next

28:14to him, but he also sought to have his justice department prosecute drone powell. It was one of the places where a judge intervened very early in the investigation. And so there wasn't even enough evidence for the normal investigative steps that are just rubber stamped by judges. What do you make of sort of the slow pace of the independent watchdog work, but all point the same answer that there are never any facts to their allegations and there's always corruption on their side? I mean, this is clearly the Trump playbook, right? It's to attack his enemies, weaponize the government, send the DOJ after people, try to just get the courts to hurt people. And he finds unsuitable to worshiping him. People that aren't bending the knee to him every single day that aren't doing exactly as he would like. In this case, Mr. Powell, I mean, someone that was actually standing up to try to do the right thing. And there's Donald Trump trying to find a reason to attack him. And Trump does this over and over again. He commits crimes.

29:15He's out there doing what he wants to do. And he tries to find a reason to back those up. And I'm glad the court ruled clearly slower, the process of slower than we would like. But it's important to know what the courts continue to stand up against this administration and truly a government that has shown that it wants to be this authoritarian government. The court continue generally to do the right thing. I think that will continue in the year ahead. Congressman Norbert Garcia, so much going on. Thank you for taking the time to talk to us today. Anytime. Up next for us, Donald Trump gave Texas a convention that nobody even in Texas apparently wanted, including his hand-selected magick candidate running for Senate there. New leaked audio of him saying that. We'll tell you all about it. Thanks.

30:29He has some incredibly juicy reporting. They write that Donald Trump's hand-picked guy to run for the Senate in Texas over the guy that was more popular in Texas was caught on tape admitting that Donald Trump's midterm convention in Texas actually dragged him down and other candidates. Times reports this quote, the recording which is muffled at times captures Paxton being asked, quote, do you feel like he's a little bit of a drag? He's not clear from the audio who the questioner is referring to, but Paxton responds, quote, so to be honest with you, the numbers, when we did that convention, it dropped our numbers. Everybody's numbers dropped right now. Yeah, not good end quote. Donald Trump always wanted to put his own show and his own ego and his own desire to have a party for himself in a battleground state before his country and even his party insisting on campaigning for Republican candidates whether they want him to campaign for them or not. Take a look.

31:30What's your reaction to Republican candidates who are breaking with you openly distancing themselves from you on issues like data centers, like immigration? Just so you understand, they all want me to go, I'm one person, they all want me to go campaign. I'm starting in about two days, I'm starting a literally a 32 day tour going to all the Texas, I'm going to Ohio, I'm going to all different places. That convention was unbelievable, it was really successful. But look, I would say generally speaking, the Republican party is as united as maybe I've ever seen. But is it a Republican? They love me and I love them. You know, for $1 million, you can have a seat at my bubble too. I want to bring in managing editor at the Bullwirt, contributor Sam Stein, and joining me at the table, Democratic strategist, Liz Smith. She's an advisor for majority Democrats and the bench. Sam Stein, I only heard like every third word because it wasn't his best look.

32:32But it is clear denial that what was caught on tape, so again, this isn't really a matter of investigative reporting or even incredible source work, which is a time so plenty of, this was Ken Paxton, viewed by most Republicans as the most, an all-quote Trump, the most sort of, Trump has called him unattractive and badly dressed candidate, saying that Trump was a drag on him, one of the most unattractive candidates on the menu. Well, yeah, I mean, Trump in front of a national audience of several million repeatedly said he thought Ken Paxton was ugly. I mean, how is that not going to be a drag on Ken Paxton at some point? You have the head of your party saying, you might not like how this guy looks, but you should vote for him anyway. That's not great. And then obviously in the macro elements, just having Trump in the limelight so much is not a positive thing, even in a state like Texas, you can see it in the following numbers. As long as it's a referendum on Trump, voters are tired of Trump, voters are trained against

33:32Trump, voters are, even Republican voters are checked out, uninfosiescimal voting. That's why you're sort of, it's perplexing, although not because it's all about ego, that he's doing these national ad campaigns paid for by our taxpayer funds, because they ads themselves. If you look at them, they're all about Trump, he's centralizing the election around himself and it's having pretty bad results. Yeah, I mean, Trump right now is toxic personally, more than he's ever been, his people to this point liked him. And the Iran War is incredibly politically toxic. The economy is a hardship for absolutely everyone, the ballroom, which he can't stop talking about. The slab that he wants to land the helicopter on, which is now installed, is something that he talks about and shows everyone. I mean, everything he points to and talks about is either politically toxic or represents a grip and a theft from the taxpayer. Yeah, and to your point, it's a real wake-up call when Ken Paxing of all people is calling you too toxic.

34:35This is a guy who has been described as having the morals of a lizard. He was impeached by a Republican House for bribery and abusive power. He was reported to the FBI by his senior staff, but he's not alone. We're seeing Republicans all across the country start to distance themselves and you just brought up the Iran War in Michigan, in Iowa. They're Senate candidates right now who are running out saying we need to end the war immediately. And what it says to me is, you know, Nicole, we've both worked on campaigns. There's a moment in every cycle in the damn breaks. And when you start to see the candidates act less out of towing the party line and more out of self-preservation, that's what it feels like we're seeing right now is Republicans acting like rats jumping off a sinking ship and we'll probably see more of this going into November. It's funny, and I'm usually on the receiving end of the damn breaking in my time in politics. But what you see is people doing things that don't even look like they're trying to win, but to position themselves for two or four years down the road.

35:39These look like self-preservation political moves. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I think they add from Florida recently of the congressman. That certainly struck me that way. It's shaping up with a generic ballot to look like a brutal November for Republicans. Yeah. All right, no one's going anywhere. I know our audience gets nervous when we talk like that. So we'll be more specific on the other side. There's no way it's traveling to Republicans, strongholds, for red areas, not to battlegrounds. How is that health pool for Republicans' chances of keeping the majority up? He's coming. Was it come again? Question. He's traveling to red states, to red areas, places where he's going to get a friendly reception. He's not going to battleground areas. How is that health pool? Well, I think that the president and his team, as they look at the electoral map, are figuring out where they think he can make the biggest difference. Sam, this is my favorite thing.

36:41I have a map and he is a map and his team has a map and they look at the map and they decide what the map says about the map. What? It's weird. There's only a couple explanations that make sense. None of them are particularly great. One is that they realize the map is really bad and that they are now in these districts that should not be in competitive, but they are and they need Trump to go out there and gin up support to save whatever he can. Two is that they just want to send him to places that he won't disrupt a close election, right, where it's like it's kind of a borderline race and they know that if he goes there, people will turn against him. That would be counterproductive. And three is they just need to find place where he is adoring Browse. And that might be the more compelling reason, right? Is that they need to find places that they can sell out where Donald Trump will be sure like the hero that he wants to be. None of those are great explanations, but it does underscore the predicament that they're in. In sort of the poopoo platter of Republicans speaking out against Donald Trump,

37:46today Jim Justice is on that list, Politico interviewed him and he said this, quote before you know it, you get people that get carried away in their job and whatever it may be. And all of a sudden, then you're dragging people away that have lived on your street corner for 15 years. And I don't know that we need to be doing that stuff just as told Politico. To get better, the first thing you've got to do is admit you're doing something wrong. And he said, and in this situation with all that's going on and all the stuff, we probably got to step back from it and say maybe we're doing something wrong here there and then adjust to that. I'm not a therapist and I'm not, but like Trump is incapable of doing any of those things. So what is their plan B? Well, what's fascinating to me about this issue is that immigration was their strongest issue, maybe going into the upside down on it now. And upside down because of how much the Trump administration and DHS has overreached. And you know, I don't want to give anyone false hope. I don't want to be overconfident. So let's just look at who in the Republican coalition is criticizing Donald Trump on immigration,

38:52Senator Justice. You've got conservative faith leaders. You've got Hispanic Republicans. You've got the business community. And then in the last week, you have cattlemen's associations from Kansas, from Texas, from Oklahoma doing that. And what are those states having common? What are two of those states having common besides being deep red states that Donald Trump won by double digits? They have very competitive center races. And the fact that we're talking about competitive center races in Texas and Kansas. It's crazy. It's crazy. Yeah. And so I don't think Republicans in their worst nightmare thought that we would be talking about that they would be sending JD Vance to Kansas in September of 2026. So again, this is an issue where they're overreached. And we are seeing Republicans across the board, all across that coalition, distancing themselves from the president. From Donald Trump. And what is Trump doing? He keeps, he keeps tacking gold things onto things and building stuff.

39:52To be continued, I'm sure. Sam Steinlisma, thank you so much for spending time with us today. After a very short break, what we know about a terrifying flight headed for Israel today, one pilot stabbed another one right inside the cockpit. We'll bring you that story next. We're monitoring a harrowing situation in the Middle East today. After a pilot aboard a fly Dubai flight headed toward Israel, stabbed his co-pilot, causing the plane to plunge more than 14,000 feet in just 30 seconds. According to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, passengers and crew, won a fight to regain control of that plane. A video from inside the flight shows some of the struggle. But we would have warned you the footage is disturbing. After the attacker was subdued, the flight was diverted to Saudi Arabia and landed safely. Netanyahu was set to face his first election since the Hamas led October 7th, terrorist attack almost three years ago. I said the pilot appears to have been trying to crash the plane.

40:55The cause of the struggle and the motive remain unclear and right now under investigation. Thankfully, all of the passengers have now arrived safely in Israel after a replacement aircraft was sent to retreat them. We'll stand top of this investigation and story and bring you any updates as we learn more. Up next for us, Pete Hegseth, putting American service members and American security at risk, his latest remaking of the U.S. military in his own image, when Deadly White House continues after a quick break. 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 12pm Eastern, on MSNow.