Maddow: Trump Cabinet too rife with scandal to designate a 'survivor'

Thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. Really happy to have you here. So who's going to be the designated survivor? It is the most morbid thing, but it's a real thing. They do it every year. Every State of the Union, they pick somebody, some lucky stiff from the administration, from the cabinet, to be a designated survivor, to not go to the State of the Union address. It feels like it's left over from the mutually assured destruction days of the Cold War or something. But the logic of it really is apocalyptic. The logic of it is that if some catastrophe physically happens at that event, at the State of the Union, while all of Congress and the President and the Vice President and the Joint Chiefs and the Supreme Court and everybody are all in that same physical place. If something, God forbid, terrible happened there. During that event, the designated survivor, by virtue of the fact that that person didn't attend the event, that designated survivor would be the one, would be the person who would reconstitute the government of the United States and keep the government going after the President and the Vice President and the whole rest of the cabinet and the whole Congress were all, you know, swallowed up in a hell mouth or something. It's very weird. The whole idea of it is very dystopian and weird. But they do it every year. And, you know, you'd think, given the responsibility associated with being the designated survivor, you'd think they'd pick, like, the most widely respected person. They'd pick the person who everybody agrees would be the best choice to take over the country in the wake of an unimaginable disaster. You'd think it would be, like, a really high-profile person they picked every year. They don't do that. It's the opposite. The person does get some attention for being picked as the designated survivor every year, but usually the person is kind of not well-known. And so, like, in this cabinet, you might expect that they'd pick maybe the labor secretary, right? Labor is not a particular area of interest for this president or really for any Republican president. So maybe they just, you know, keep things quiet, pick somebody low-key, make the labor secretary. Could they do that? Oh, no, no, no, no, no, can't do that. Trump's labor secretary is Lori Chavez de Riemer. And if they pick Lori Chavez de Riemer as the designated survivor, then people will Google Lori Chavez de Riemer, and this is what they will find. Headline, Labor Secretary Lori Chavez de Riemer under investigation for, quote, inappropriate relationship with employee. These are reports that started with a complaint that was reportedly filed with the inspector general of the Labor Department. Trump Labor Secretary, quote, accused of drinking in her office during the workday and committing travel fraud by having her chief of staff and deputy chief of staff, both of whom are now on leave, quote, make up official trips to destinations where Chavez de Riemer can spend time with family or friends on the taxpayer's dime. Headline, Trump's married labor boss accused of booze-filled fling. Headline, Chavez de Riemer's security staffer placed on leave amid scandal investigation. The Labor Secretary has been accused of engaging in a romantic relationship with said security staffer. Headline, Lori Chavez de Riemer reportedly under investigation for misusing funds. Headline, Trump Labor Secretary accused of taking staff off, taking staff to a strip club on an official trip. That's a real headline. Now, amid everything else, you are probably a nice person, an empathetic person. Perhaps you're not just agog by looking at those headlines about that scandal. Perhaps you are thinking, oh, wow, this must be really hard on her family. Headline, husband of Labor Secretary Lori Chavez de Riemer accused of sexually assaulting two staffers. Headline, Labor Secretary's husband barred from Labor Department headquarters amid staffers' sexual assault. Hedline, D.C. police searched Labor Secretary's office in sexual assault investigation. The Metropolitan Police Department searched Lori Chavez de Riemer's office as it looks into allegations against her husband. Since then, we've had further news that the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney in Washington has decided that there won't be any criminal charges brought against the Labor Secretary's husband for the alleged sexual assaults inside the Labor Department's headquarters building. But does that mean they're going to let him back in? I don't know. So, yeah, in a normal administration, even a normal Republican administration, maybe somebody like the Labor Secretary would be the designated survivor at the State of the Union. But do you want to put a spotlight on that hot mess right now? That absolutely radioactive scandal engulfing everything related to Trump's Labor Secretary? Yeah, maybe it's not going to be her. Instead, you go with another, you know, low-profile department. One of those departments where only real government geeks even know what the department does. Like, maybe you'd go with something really obscure like the Commerce Department. Who's Trump's Secretary of Commerce again? Headline, new details from Epstein files reveal Trump Commerce Secretary Howard Letnick had years-long business tie with sex offender. Oh, yeah, that's the Commerce Secretary. So maybe we can't have the Commerce Secretary be the designated survivor either. Not when today, the day before the State of the Union, we had the former British ambassador to the U.S., Peter Mandelson, arrested and perp-walked out of his home because of his Epstein ties. That's right after former Prince Andrew was arrested as well. Both of those arrests are not just because of their Epstein links, but because of their Epstein links and their government jobs. Peter Mandelson, it's for when he had the job. He had the exact same job as Howard Letnick, but in the British government rather than the U.S. government. Right? Meanwhile, here, all the Trump-connected people, like Trump himself and like Howard Letnick, Trump's Commerce Secretary, they are apparently in no trouble at all. But maybe you wouldn't want to highlight that at the State of the Union. I mean, will Dr. Oz be at the State of the Union? Trump's Medicare guy? Dr. Oz personally invited Jeffrey Epstein to. a Valentine's Day party in 2016, not like a million years ago before Epstein had ever been arrested or served jail time, but in 2016, he invited him. Because, you know, what adult Valentine's Day party is not complete without the presence of one of the most notorious convicted sex offenders and child sex traffickers of all time, Dr. Oz? Is Dr. Oz going to be there at the State of the Union? Maybe they'll sit him along. Maybe they'll sit him alongside the survivors of Epstein's trafficking ring who are going to be brought to the speech by Democratic lawmakers. Will Dr. Oz shake their hand? Will Howard Letnick shake their hand? Will Trump? Will Trump? All of those guys, of course, deny any wrongdoing when it comes to their long, creepy, seemingly kind of intense relationships with Jeffrey Epstein, about which they have not been particularly forthcoming. Maybe Trump will have to go with a more high-profile department, a more mainstream department. For the designated survivor this year, maybe like head of the Department of Justice, right? That's always a prestigious job. The attorney general could be the designated survivor. It's happened a couple of times in the past. Would you want it to be Pam Bondi this year? Would you want to shine a light on Pam Bondi's department right now? Give people a reason to Google, oh, yeah, what's she in charge of? What's been happening with her department? Headline, FBI Director Kash Patel, during what his spokesman said was an official trip to Milan for security meetings, was filmed guzzling from a beer bottle and celebrating in the locker room with U.S. Olympic hockey players on Sunday. Quote, Quote, FBI spokesman Ben Williamson told MSNOW on Thursday that Kash Patel was going to Milan for a series of, quote, business meetings. And he said it was, It's unfair to describe Patel's trip as having to do with hockey or pleasure of any kind. Quote, Then on Sunday, several videos emerged on social media, in fact, showing Patel in the locker room after the hockey game, with one in particular drawing outrage from current and former FBI agents. It depicted Patel pouring what appeared to be beer down his throat, spraying some of it in the air, and screaming in celebration. The FBI spokesman did not respond to a request for comment about the video. NBC News is also reporting tonight that the Justice Department has just had to drop their humiliating total debacle of an effort to bring criminal charges against six Democratic senators and members of Congress. That comes after the geniuses over at Pam Bondi's department reportedly couldn't get a single grand juror to agree to the indictment of those members. single grand juror, meaning they couldn't get one person. They couldn't even get one vote. In the last few days, at Pam Bondi's Justice Department, we've had Justice Department lawyers abjectly apologizing to judges in three different states, essentially begging not to be held in contempt. At least one Justice Department lawyer has just been held in contempt in Minnesota. Things are really seemingly breaking down there. We're going to talk tonight about a novel effort to try to document and try to sort of wall off and preserve evidence of all the abuses and authoritarian misuses of the Justice Department under Donald Trump and Pam Bondi. This is something I don't think you've necessarily heard about anywhere else. I hope you'll stick with us for that a little later on in the show tonight. But what would you, I mean, you know, would you pick Pam Bondi to be? Would you pick Pam Bondi to be a designated survivor given what's going on at the Justice Department right now? Would you want to put a little extra spotlight on her? I'm not sure that you, I'm not sure that you would. But who else could you choose? Maybe, maybe Kristi Noem could be designated survivor from Homeland Security. You want to give the American people reason to focus on her for an extra minute? Do you think? Headline, Homeland Security reverses course on TSA pre-check suspension after confusion. Yes, Kristi Noem. Kristi Noem announced with great solemnity this weekend that she would be shutting down TSA pre-check and global entry at all airports because, because she can, honestly. She said it had something to do with the shutdown, shutting down TSA pre-check. Let's bring total chaos to airport TSA checkpoints all around the country. She announced that and then basically immediately we were told, oh no, that's not actually happening. Who decided it's not happening? And did she decide it was happening? Why did she decide that? And if she had a reason to decide it, then why was it undone? Who's running things? Who's making these decisions? What's going on there? It's like when they announced that the El Paso airport and all airspace over El Paso would be closed for 10 days. And then a few hours later, nope, no, sorry, didn't mean that. And then we learned it was because they had let the border patrol under Kristi Noem's leadership play with a military laser weapon, which they used to shut down Mylar, excuse me, to shoot down Mylar party balloons over the airport. And then they announced over El Paso without ever telling the FAA that they were doing that. And so the FAA closed the airspace. And then the White House said, no, you can't close the airspace. And so, yeah, maybe things aren't being all that well run right now. Do you get that sense? Today, a whistleblower testified in Congress. He just resigned as a lawyer at ICE. He's a guy who's been a big part of the training that ICE officers get. He resigned and went public today saying, quote, on my first day, I received secretive orders. He said, quote, ICE is teaching cadets to violate the Constitution. He provided documents to Congress today that show that ICE has cut hundreds of hours from their training, including classes that teach, quote, the Constitution, our legal system, firearms training, the use of force, lawful arrests, proper detention, and the limits of officers' authority. The agency that's doing that, you want the head of that agency to be the designated survivor? You want Kristi Noem to be the designated survivor? If you did, people might Google her name, Kristi Noem. One of the things they would come up with are these recently published photos. Isn't this nice? This is a plane that Kristi Noem wants taxpayers to buy for her. This is Trump's Homeland Security Service plane. This is a plane that Kristi Noem wants taxpayers who already took over for herself the house that's supposed to belong to the commandant of the Coast Guard. This is after the Wall Street Journal reported that Kristi Noem's alleged boyfriend slash chief of staff slash fixer in the Homeland Security Department fired a Coast Guard pilot in the middle of a flight because someone forgot to bring Kristi Noem's personal favorite blanket onto a flight that she was on. Reuters reports today that Corey Lewandowski actually stormed into the cockpit of that plane to fire the pilot mid-flight because of the pilot's, quote, well, because of the pilot's insufficient attention to Kristi Noem's blanket. We have not confirmed this, but this is Reuters' reporting today, quote, the pilots in the cockpit asked Lewandowski to return to the cabin until they had reached cruising altitude. But now she wants you to buy her this plane. Look at this plane. NBC News reporting that Kristi Noem and Corey Lewandowski have had the taxpayers lease this jet for their use only. Already a Boeing 737 MAX 8. On paper, they say they need this particular plane for, quote, immigrant deportation flights. They have been leasing it already. You have been paying for them to use this plane on a lease. But now Corey Lewandowski and Kristi Noem want you to buy this plane for them. I'm sorry, not for them, but for deportation flights. And also, occasionally, they say perhaps for cabinet officials travel. Kristi Noem being the relevant cabinet official This particular plane they want, again, mostly for deportations, but maybe occasionally for Kristi Noem. It looks like it's really outfitted for deportations, right? It has a bedroom with a queen bed. Sure, that's normal for deportation flights. Also has a bar. That's nice. I'm sure the deportees have come to expect that. Quote, no expense has been spared and every detail has been meticulously executed with, quote, exceptional interior design by renowned New York designer Peter Lee. So this is the plane she is leasing right now on the taxpayer dime for her own use, saying it is for deportations. And now she wants you to stop leasing it and just buy it for her and Corey. It has a queen bed. So yeah, I doubt they're going to pick Kristi Noem for designated survivor. But if they do, what are the odds that she'll be enjoying the heck out of her special blanket on her special plane that you're paying for? The interior design is impeccable. Today, you know, there's this this huge blizzard on the East Coast. Today, for some reason, Kristi Noem's department decided to fly a real deportation flight into New Hampshire. They flew it into Portsmouth, New Hampshire at 1 a.m. today, right at the height of the blizzard. The airport in Portsmouth said they had no idea this flight was coming. Had they known, they would have told them, don't come. It's not safe. But Kristi Noem's department, in its infinite wisdom, flew this plane full of people there, presumably shackled, if it's like a normal deportation flight. And then they left the people on that plane on the tarmac for more than 12 hours in the middle of that blizzard. According to WMUR in New Hampshire, some genius at Kristi Noem's department decided that that plane should take off from Heartland in Texas last night, Sunday night, flying right into the biggest blizzard in the Northeast in years. Portsmouth International Airport officials said, they were not told the flight was inbound until 15 minutes before it arrived at 1 a.m. Quote, had we been informed in advance of their intent to land here during the blizzard, we would have strongly advised against it. And then they left the people there on the tarmac for 12 hours. The day before the storm hit on Saturday, this was a big protest that erupted in small-town Merrimack, New Hampshire. Kristi Noem's department is trying to force that town to have a huge new Trump prison. Kristi Noem's department is trying to force that town to The entire New Hampshire congressional delegation, both the state's U.S. senators, both their members of the House, the whole congressional district from the state of New Hampshire are co-sponsoring now a bill that would not let Trump put a new prison camp in any community anywhere in the country without the state and local authorities there formally signing off on it. We shall see. I will say this thing in Merrimack stinks to everybody anywhere near it. A few days ago, the Boston Globe started asking questions of, a healthcare company, that it started to post job listings that were apparently for this new prison camp. I would guess that it is not easy to answer questions about why you'd want your company to be involved in trying to make money off of something like that. The company, Aspen Medical Group, at first didn't give any comment to the Globe in response to their questions, but then the president of the company eventually told them, quote, it's not looking likely that we will ever bid on any of these facilities, meaning on any of these facilities. So, I would guess that it's not looking likely that we will ever bid on any of these facilities, meaning on any of these facilities. So, I would guess that it's not In Social Circle, Georgia, officials there are fighting the Trump prison camp that Trump's trying to put there as well. Local officials in Social Circle, Georgia, say they refused a demand from Kristi Noem's department to turn on the water at a warehouse facility there that they want to turn into a prison camp. Local officials in Social Circle, Georgia, just posted online a whole bunch of information they got from Kristi Noem's department about the plan. plans for the prison camp in their town. Look at this. Look at this. This is the supposed blueprint they were sent by Christine Ohm's department, by DHS. Blueprints for a warehouse filled with up to 10,000 people, two and a half times the size of the largest federal prison in the United States. What does this document remind you of? Each little tiny dot there is a human. Social Circle Georgia local officials also published the truly insane documents that Christine Ohm's department sent them about water supply and issues like that for this proposed facility. The city of Social Circle responded, quote, documents provided by Homeland Security indicate this detention facility alone would have a sewage demand of 1,001,683 gallons per day. The city's current wastewater system processes 660,000 gallons per day, is already operating at capacity. It cannot accommodate an increase in usage of this magnitude. That's for wastewater. How about the water supply, fresh water to the facility? This is absolute genius from Christine Ohm. Look at this. The Homeland Security analysis references a, quote, cistern-based, cistern-based approach, in which tanks would be filled from local municipal systems during off-peak hours. Regardless of time of day, the city's infrastructure cannot accommodate this level of demand. While the proposal is certainly creative, it does not resolve the fundamental issue. The total additional water demand required for a facility of this scale simply exceeds what the city's system is capable of providing. I mean, this, I feel like this is the genius of the Trump administration as effectuated by Christine Ohm. This is a town that does not have enough water to support a massive prison camp for up to 10,000 people. Christine Ohm's proposed solution to that is to say, it's okay, we'll build big tanks, and we'll fill them only at night. So that means there'll be enough water because you said you're only using, you know, x gallons per day. Well, we'll take our water per night. So bingo, problem solved. In the great state of Maryland, the attorney general of that state as of today is suing the Trump administration to stop one of these massive prison camps from being built in Maryland in Washington County. This was a protest this weekend in North Carolina in Concord, North Carolina, where locals there are worried that they're going to have one of these Trump prison camps too. We've been monitoring protests and local anger about potential Trump prison camps all over, among other places in Chester, New York, and Lebanon, Tennessee, and Roxbury, New Jersey. I single out those three places in particular because in just the past few days, Christine Ohm's shambolic department has reversed itself and in some cases double reversed itself, confusing everyone in those three places about whether they really are still trying to put prison camps in those towns. In Chester, New York, for example, we got an official statement from Homeland Security that they purchased a warehouse in Chester, New York, to turn into a Trump prison camp there. Then five days later, they reversed that. An announcement that, no, actually, they hadn't bought anything and there's not going to be a prison camp there after all. Really? We're going to talk with local congressman, Democrat Pat Ryan, about that in just a moment. But that's not the only place where they've been changing their minds. In Tennessee, here's the Homeland Security announcement that they had bought a warehouse there, followed by, four days later, a retraction from the Homeland Security Department saying, nope, actually, we haven't bought a warehouse there at all. We put out that statement in error. That's false. No prison camp is going into Lebanon, Tennessee. Well, now today, a few days later, they've reversed again. News in Lebanon, Tennessee, that actually, yes, there might still be one. And if it is going to be one there, it's going to be bigger than ever. It's not going to be 10,000 people. It's going to be a mega prison, 14,000 to 16,000 people in Lebanon, Tennessee, which would make Lebanon, Tennessee, home to one of the largest prisons in the world. But maybe it won't be there at all. Who knows? It's Kristi Noem's department, so there's literally no way to know. And if they do put it there, presumably they'll mine the water for it on the moon or something. If you get it at night, it doesn't count as daily water allotment because it's dark. Roxbury, New Jersey has also been on a roller coaster. Kristi Noem's department telling the news outlet Gothamist that they had bought a site for a Trump prison camp in Roxbury, New Jersey. Then they followed it up with a statement, no, that was a mistake. That was wrong. They haven't bought anything in Roxbury, New Jersey. Now the town says they've just gotten word that officially, yes, they have bought a facility in Roxbury, New Jersey. We saw protests against ICE this weekend in Bloomfield, New Jersey. Those protests attracted, among others, Democratic Senator Andy Kim of New Jersey. In Rochester, New York, we saw protests this weekend in the snow outside the federal building there. In Bellevue, Washington, we saw protests there this weekend in the rain. In Little Rock, Arkansas, we saw protests in Little Rock. Good sign there. We saw, will trade racists for refugees? In Portland, Oregon, Japanese Americans led a protest march to the ICE facility there. The local NBC station, Channel 8, asked this local woman, Joni Komoto, why she in particular had decided to be there. I was interned in 1942. I spent, uh, four months at the Portland Assembly Center, and then I was sent to Minidoka, Idaho, an internment camp. And we were there for two, three years. That lived experience, informing her position today, denouncing the actions of ICE. It is parallel. It is exactly the same. Our government is forcibly taking people away from their lives and putting them, without due process of law, into places that they shouldn't be, into detention. Trump's State of the Union is tomorrow. Since his last one, his approval ratings have dropped 15 points with independents, 16 points with young people, 19 points with Latinos. His approval ratings have never been lower. The number of Americans who strongly approve of Donald Trump right now is dropped into the teens. His approval rating with Americans overall is 27 points underwater. His approval rating with independents is 27 points underwater. That is a portrait of a country that is repulsed by their president. While his cabinet is convulsed in scandal. Each one more repulsive than the next. I mean, the only saving grace for some of these cabinet members is that the president himself is so awash in scandal, it's kind of hard to share the spotlight with him. But amid this smoking mess, what's he trying to do? He's trying to build himself a huge new archipelago of mega prisons to lock up huge, huge, huge numbers of people without due process effectively outside the legal system. Because he seems like the trustworthy leader, we should give that kind of power. I don't know who the designated survivor is going to be tomorrow night. I don't know. In many ways, though, it does feel like the unimaginable calamity is already here. Regardless of who they pick. Stay with us. The village of Chester, New York. It's about 60 miles north of New York City. It's home to about 4,000 people. On Christmas Eve, the people of Chester read for the first time in the Washington Post, of all places, that the Trump administration was planning on sticking a huge new prison camp in their little town. They were planning on doing it here in this warehouse that used to belong to a Pep Boys. Local officials from the village of Chester saw this in the Washington Post, and they immediately wrote to the Trump administration to say, hey, nobody's told us anything about this. What's going on here? When they got no response, the village of Chester wrote to the administration again. This time they sent a 59-page letter spelling out why it was a terrible idea for the village of Chester, New York, to get a prison camp like this. Since then, bipartisan groups of New York lawmakers have written letters to oppose any kind of prison camp. Any such prison camp being built there. The county executive is a Republican. He says he hasn't talked to a single elected official in the whole state. No Democrat, no Republican who is in favor of this thing. And of course, the opposition is coming from the people, too. After the news broke, so many people showed up to the next village meeting. Look, this was the overflow outside. There weren't nearly enough chairs. There almost wasn't enough space in the town. There have been protests almost every week since in Chester. And in the surrounding area, there have been protests every week since. The local congressman from Chester stood up at one of those protests and spoke for his constituents. Congressman Pat Ryan said ICE should, quote, stay the F out of the Hudson Valley. He didn't say F. Congressman Ryan started a petition against the prison. In less than a month, it got more than 20,000 signatures. Again, this is a town of 4,000 people. It's been one big, loud, unified no, from Chester, New York. We do not want your Trump prison camp in our little village. For now, it seems like the people of Chester might have won this fight. A little over a week ago, an ICE spokesperson said the Trump administration officially had bought that old Pep Boys warehouse in Chester. And their plan to turn it into a prison camp was a go. But then just a few days after that, a spokesman for ICE said, actually, never mind, that was a mistake. The Trump administration hasn't bought that warehouse. Our bad. We didn't mean it. We accidentally sent out that statement in error. So now maybe it's not happening? All around the country, this plan to buy up warehouses, to turn them into massive Trump prison camps, it has been more than chaotic. It has been filled with chaos and disinformation and misinformation and reversals from the administration. But maybe Chester really has won this. Weird, late-breaking detail in this story. On Friday, just a few days ago, a Republican New York State assemblyman says he talked to a senior advisor at ICE about this. What were the circumstances of that conversation? Well, he said he randomly bumped into the person on an overseas military deployment. Okay. After that happenstance meeting, the assemblyman says he got confirmation from ICE that, in fact, Trump will not build that prison camp in Chester, New York, after all. What kind of process is that? I have no idea. I have no idea. I have no idea. I have no idea. I have no idea. But for now, it seems like the people of Chester, New York, and their elected officials might have won this. They might have stopped this prison camp from being built in their town. You don't win every fight, but you can't win any of them without fighting. And sometimes, sometimes you do win. Joining us now is Democratic Congressman Pat Ryan. He represents the village of Chester. He started that petition against the prison camp that has more than 20,000 signatures. Congressman, it's nice to see you. Thank you for being here. Thanks for having me. First of all, I just have to ask you, with the blizzard, how's your district doing? We're good. We love the snow in upstate New York, so we're tough. And it has been a tough year, though, so we're ready for spring. Yeah, I live in western Massachusetts, and I feel like people don't understand that we already had a couple of feet of snow on the ground before this new couple of feet came down. It feels different, but I know you guys are tough. So let me ask you about this. This process, do you actually believe that this, that the prison camp isn't coming to Chester? Do you think this is settled now? Look, I don't trust this administration at all. I think any of the, what you could chalk up to confusion, I think is just them being straight up deceitful, straight up lying to the American people, which we've seen from day one of this administration. So we are going to fight this until the very last, until we're, until we're, until we're certain. And I mean, quite literally, myself and others have said, if we have to like chain ourself to the perimeter of this, we are not going to let this happen in our community. We're not going to let this happen in our country. And it has been a righteous fight. I'm really proud of our community. And it's a wide, it's a wide coalition too, which is so encouraging to me in a really obviously dark and tough moment. Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that because your district sort of famously is a real swing district. And it's a really, really strong district. And it's very, very ideologically diverse in terms of your constituents, town to town and county to county. Has it been a unified no from all those different types of people in your district? It kind of seems like it's been a really wide swath of people, certainly a bipartisan swath of people that has all got the same idea that this shouldn't come in. Yes. I mean, remember, this is a county, Orange County, New York. President Trump has won every time he's run in this county. He won this election. He won this in 2016 by five and a half, six points. He even won it in 2020. And then in 2024, he won this county by 9%. So, you know, this is one of three counties I represent and it's the most conservative part of my district. With that context, it is incredibly, I think, patriotic that we're seeing a very wide set of elected officials, community leaders, immigrants rights activists. I mean, we've had everybody out there. I mean, we were out one night. I think it was near or at zero and there were hundreds of people out there. And it makes me proud. And it does give me hope that, as you just said, I mean, we pick righteous fights. We fight them smartly. We build the coalition as we fight them. And to see every local Republican at every level on side for this, it gives me at least a sliver of optimism. Do you have any advice? Having been through this for all the other communities around the country that are trying to fight these same kind of fights? Well, this is what's encouraging too. I've been talking to my colleagues. I know you covered earlier in New Hampshire. I've been working with my colleagues, their colleagues in New Jersey, that Northern New Jersey facility you talked about in Roxbury. That's only an hour or so from my district. And they're building this kind of concentric circle, essentially around New York City, which is incredibly concerning in terms of what that might portend or probably does portend for New York City and the greater metro area. So all of us in the House and the Senate are working together on this and it has been a unifying piece. The main thing I would say is we started this petition early and often, and we now have actually almost 30,000 signatures. As you said, it's a village of just a few thousand people. And everywhere I go in my district, people say, what's going on with this? What can we do to be in the fight? We've had towns, counties, and others all passing memorializing resolutions at their town, and village level. So we've really created a place for everybody to get involved in this and say, look, regardless of party identification, if you believe, I mean, look, I served 27 months in combat not to come home and see my fellow Americans being rounded up. It's as un-American as you could possibly imagine. And so I think creating the broadest possible tent for people to reject this un-American behavior and say, we might not agree on everything, but man, we, we, we agree that these detention camps are not what we can or should be doing. Congressman Pat Ryan, Democrat of New York, sir. I know it's a busy time right now in your district, especially. Thank you so much. All right, much more news ahead. Stay with us. Just in the last few hours tonight, a federal judge in Minnesota, a Trump appointee, has issued an order holding the administration in power in contempt for disobeying a court order in an immigration case. A federal judge finding that the federal government is in contempt. That is notable and unusual enough. But this is the second time the Trump administration has been found in contempt in the space of a week. Just a few days ago, another federal judge in Minnesota held a DOJ prosecutor in contempt in a different immigration case. She actually ordered the prosecutor to pay a $500 daily fine until the Justice Department started talking about it. She was complying with her orders in that case, which they finally did the next day. That sort of thing has a way of getting their attention. But this is becoming a theme. And I think this is really important. Everybody said at the outset of Trump's second term that it would be a bright red line in terms of a slide into authoritarian rule in this country if the Trump administration started defying orders from the courts, right? You remember all those discussions? Well, the Trump administration is now routinely and frequently defying orders from the courts. And the Trump administration is now routinely and frequently defying orders from judges, specifically on cases relating to immigrants. And the courts have not only figured out that that's happening, the courts have now decided to stand up and fight for themselves. We've seen the chief judge in Minnesota compile a list of nearly 100 violations of court orders in immigration cases just in that state. In New Jersey, the Trump Justice Department was just forced to apologize in court for violating more than 50 orders from federal judges and immigrants. They were essentially pleading to not be held in contempt in that state as well. Another DOJ prosecutor also had to apologize to a judge in Virginia. This time, the judge had rebuked the Justice Department for keeping relevant information from him when they sought a search warrant for the search of a home of a Washington Post reporter. In another case in West Virginia before a judge named Joseph Goodwin last week, this is a case where masked ICE agents arrested a man and jailed him without a warrant. This is a case where masked ICE agents arrested a man and jailed him without a warrant. In a bond hearing, Judge Goodwin wrote this. He wrote, quote, antiseptic judicial rhetoric cannot do justice to what is happening. Across the interior of the United States, agents of the federal government, masked, anonymous, armed with military weapons, operating from unmarked vehicles, acting without warrants of any kind, are seizing persons for civil immigration violations and imprisoning them without any semblance of due process. The systematic character of this practice and its deliberate elimination of every structural force feature that distinguishes constitutional authority from raw force place it beyond the reach of ordinary legal description. It is an assault on the constitutional order. Judges standing up for themselves, standing up for the court system, standing up for the Constitution. The Justice Department is not just any other among the many failing parts of the government under Donald Trump's misrule. The Justice Department, to a large extent, kind of is our legal system. Thank you. It has a qualitatively different amount of responsibility, at least, for keeping us going as a constitutional republic. So one of the things that's going to be really important for when we come out the other side of this, which we will, is that the behavior of this agency in particular, of DOJ in particular, it's going to have to be sort of walled off and bracketed as not normal. The things that happened in the Trump Justice Department are going to need to be labeled as not normal, as something that can't be precedent, as things that we can never do again just because they were done now. We are not going to evolve in a direction in which this is the kind of stuff that our Justice Department and our government tries to get away with. Well, right now, federal judges from one end of the country to the other are starting to draw bright lines around this behavior, saying this is not okay. And we're going to punish you for it until you fix it. We're going to need that because one day we are going to need to remember how to have a real functioning Justice Department again. As tomorrow's State of the Union gets closer, the list of ways Democrats are going to respond keeps getting longer and more interesting. This year, a few Democrats say they're going to bring some of the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking and abuse as their guests to the State of the Union address. Other Democrats say they're bringing people affected by Trump's attacks on immigrants. Congressman Chuy Garcia has invited Marimar Martinez. She's the 30-year-old teacher and U.S. citizen who was shot five times in Chicago by a federal agent who then bragged about it to his colleagues. This year, also, a growing number of Democrats say they're going to skip Trump's speech altogether and hold their own State of the Union event outside the Capitol on the National Mall. They're calling it the People's State of the Union. It's hosted by the progressive media company Midas Touch. Also, by MoveOn, organizers say they're counting about 30 Democratic lawmakers among their lineup, and that list keeps growing. Some other Democratic members are planning to attend a different counter-programming event at the National Press Club in D.C. Us here at MSNOW, we're going to cover all of it as best we can. Our coverage begins tomorrow night at 7 o'clock Eastern with Jen Psaki at the helm and our many friends here at MSNOW. I'm going to be part of our coverage here starting at 8 o'clock. You're not going to want to miss any of it. It's going to prove to be, well, an interesting night. MSNOW's full coverage of the State of the Union, again, starting tomorrow night at 7 Eastern. We'll be right back. Stay with us. All right, there's one other piece from tonight's show that we're going to post on YouTube tomorrow morning. It's more on the effort to document and wall off and kind of preserve evidence of the abuses and misuses of the Justice Department under Donald Trump. You know, the bogus charges against protesters and politicians, the weird terrorism references they're inserting everywhere, the lying to judges, the misconduct and unprofessional behavior with grand juries. None of that should become precedent for how the Justice Department behaves in the future. And the legal profession knows that. So we're going to have more to come on the effort to wall those things off. Again, we're going to be posting that on YouTube tomorrow morning. We'll also put it up on matoblog.com. I hope you check it out. Meanwhile, I'll be back tomorrow night for the State of the Union. Our coverage kicks off here at MSNOW, 7 p.m. Eastern. I'll be here at 8. State of the Union, tomorrow night. Should be weird.