Maddow: Trump learns the hard way, 'incompetence has consequences'

Hey everybody, it's Rachel Maddow here. Forgive me popping into your feed like this, but I wanted to tell you that more than a dozen of us from MSNOW are gonna be in Texas on Saturday, September 26th. I'm gonna be there, Lawrence O'Donnell will be there, so will Jen Psaki and Stephanie Ruhl and Ali Velshi and Chris Hayes and Jacob Soboroff and Simone Sanders-Townsend and, and, and. A whole bunch of us are all gonna be there in Texas. Tickets start at just over 30 bucks each. It's in Arlington, just outside Dallas. There's a ton to do there. If you come, you'll get to meet all of us. You'll also get to meet everybody else there, all these other great people from our great MSNOW community. We'd love to see you. And if you buy a ticket to the Texas event, you will get access to our new MSNOW membership free for a year. We're really excited about it. It launches later this summer. You'll be able to talk with me, talk with some of the other hosts, but tickets for Texas are on sale now. You can learn more at ms.now slash together. Hope to see you in Texas. Thanks to at home for joining us here this hour. Really, really. Happy to have you here. So on January 25th last year, a Fox News weekend co-host named Pete, Pete Hegseth was sworn in as Secretary of Defense January 25th last year. Four days later, an Army Blackhawk helicopter flew off course and crashed into a commercial passenger jet at Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C. Both of those aircraft crashed into the Potomac River. All 64. people on board the passenger plane and all three crew members on board the Blackhawk helicopter were killed. Just a few weeks later, another military Blackhawk helicopter, actually from the same battalion, flew off course again in the same region and forced two passenger planes heading into Reagan National to abort their landings at the last second. Then earlier this year, Pete Hegseth's Defense Department surprised everyone when they gave military landings and lasers to the Border Patrol and told the Border Patrol that they were cleared to go ahead and start shooting stuff down out of the sky near the US-Mexico border. The passenger airport at El Paso, Texas then had to be shut down entirely by the FAA while the FAA tried to figure out who had given this order and how passenger planes flying in and out of El Paso's airport were supposed to avoid being shot down now that this order had been given, and the technology had been transferred. A couple weeks after that, Pete Hegseth's Defense Department used its own lasers to shoot down a Border Patrol drone. Again, surprising everyone that they were using anti-aircraft weapons inside the United States without letting anyone know, and so again, the whole airspace there had to be shut down. Then in May, there was a Medevac flight taking off at night from Roswell, New Mexico, heading out in good conditions, but at night, to go pick up a patient about 60 miles away at the beautiful Sierra Blanca Regional Airport, which is at like 6,800 feet elevation. It's on top of a mesa amid the mountains in Lincoln County, New Mexico. And while that four-person Medevac crew was mid-flight, their GPS went black. They had no satellite navigation. It all went dark. Turns out, Pete Hegseth's military was running an exercise where they purposely jammed all the GPS signals for hundreds of miles. That Medevac flight ended up slamming into a ridge in the Capitan Mountains. It took them hours to find the wreckage, by which point not only were all four crew members dead, but that wreckage had started a wildfire that burned thousands of acres. In July, the Navy's Blue Angels fly over at Pennsylvania, New York, and New York. When one of the Blue Angels' jets came in at an angle way lower than it was supposed to, oops, led to chaos on that beach. Supposed safety review by the U.S. military. That wasn't supposed to go like that. Just a couple of weeks ago, the President of the United States got on board Marine One, the helicopter that is piloted for him by U.S. Marine Corps pilots. That chopper lifted off from the White House with the President in it, and took off. Flew toward Reagan National Airport in Washington. And even though there is a protocol for air traffic controllers to get notice whenever Marine One is heading up into the crowded skies in Washington, that day, earlier this month, August 4th, the tower at Reagan National didn't get the notice. No one apparently confirmed whether or not they had received notice that Marine One was taking off. And so Marine One, with the President on board, flew into the air traffic scrum for Washington with no warning. One regional jet just taking off from Reagan National ended up coming way closer to Marine One than any aircraft is ever supposed to. A second regional passenger jet was coming in for a landing at Reagan National at the same time. As Marine One flew into the airspace, that passenger jet had to abort their landing in order to avoid it. In the middle of all of this, of course, President Trump started a war of choice with Iran. A large country of more than 90 million people with pretty well-established military and terrorist reach, not only throughout the Middle East, but beyond. And, you know, that war may have been a surprise to the Iranians, it may have been a surprise to lots of people around the world, but it really was a war of choice started on Donald Trump's timetable. And so the people for whom it definitely was not a surprise were the Trump administration and Pete Hegseth's Defense Department, right? They started it on their own timetable. So they chose the start which means they had all the time they wanted to prepare U.S. bases and U.S. forces for the inevitable and totally foreseeable consequences of the United States starting a war with a pretty well-armed, powerful adversary. Nevertheless, the Trump administration and Pete Hegseth's Defense Department apparently did not make those preparations. Or at least they didn't at America's Shuaiba base in Kuwait when the U.S. troops there sat in full, easy range of Iranian drones and missiles inside unfortified trailers that had no protection whatsoever from any aerial attack. When Shuaiba was hit, six Americans died, dozens more Americans were injured, many of them seriously, when an Iranian kamikaze drone smashed into that undefended space. Reportedly, no warning sirens at all, and again, basically no protection for those troops. Not long after that, the U.S. lost a rare AWACS E-3 Sentry radar aircraft at a U.S. base in Saudi Arabia. We apparently lost that plane there because we left it sitting out in the open on an unprotected and uncamouflaged taxiway for days, even though we had just started a war with Iran. And this is a strategically crucial and rare and really exciting story. It was a very expensive airplane, and the place it was parked was quite obviously well within the range of Iranian weapons. We just left it sitting out for them, for them to come pick off. By that point, the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet headquarters in Bahrain had already been attacked and seriously hurt by Iran as well. Apparently, we didn't see that coming either. And the consequences of that are still being felt, as the 5th Fleet headquarters damage in Bahrain, as well as the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, also forced. Foreseeably caused by Trump's war, those two things have apparently led to a cascading series of failures in U.S. military supply lines. Failures that have rendered multiple major U.S. Navy vessels quite nearly unfit to fight, including, notably, the USS Lincoln aircraft carrier, which is only just now heading ashore for the first time since Pete Hegseth kept them out on this deployment for over 200 days without a port call. But it also includes, multiple other carriers and destroyers and other large Navy ships affected deleteriously by this supply line crisis caused by the obvious and foreseeable consequences of Trump starting this war, which Pete Hegseth and the Defense Department apparently did not prepare for. It's almost like, hear me out here, it is almost like the Fox & Friends weekend co-host has not been able to do anything but do a great job actually running the U.S. military, you know, supplying and supporting the troops, winning wars, that basic kind of stuff. That said, while losing this war of choice with Iran, Mr. Hegseth has nevertheless found time to organize a whole bunch of stuff that takes a whole lot of military resources that the president enjoys for himself personally. Mr. Hegseth organized, for example, this big military, a military flyover for the president to enjoy on his birthday in Washington, D.C. That was the day he got his UFC cage match that destroyed the White House lawn. Pete Hegseth got him a big military flyover for his birthday, too. Mr. Hegseth then organized another big military flyover for Trump to enjoy at the start of the fantastically underwhelming spectacle that was Trump's sad, failed Great American State Fair. Mr. Hegseth then organized nine straight hours, HOURS OF MILITARY flyovers for the president to enjoy on the 4th of July. Nine straight hours of military flyovers. This weekend, Mr. Hegseth organized seven more military flyovers for the president to enjoy for his car race that he held in Washington. And, you know, thinking about the allocation of resources and support for the troops and support for the mission, okay. I mean, just broadly speaking, the treatment of the military by this administration, by this president, has just turned out to really be something. I mean, this weekend we learned that as the USS Lincoln finally turns toward home after this insane, record-breaking deployment with undersupplied and underfed troops working in atrocious conditions because Pete Hegseth's military couldn't keep the supply lines open to them. As they finally now turn toward home, the Trump administration has just arrested the father of one of the sailors on board the USS Lincoln and has locked him up in one of Trump's immigrant prisons and said they're going to deport him while his son is on active duty working 12-hour shifts for 200-plus straight days on the USS Lincoln. Thank you for your service from the Trump administration. Thank you for your service from Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump. The president is also now insisting that the Navy spend billions of dollars refitting all of its aircraft carriers with steam catapults to launch planes off their decks. He insists that they must rip out their existing electromagnetic systems for launching planes and replace them instead with old-fashioned steam systems. Even though the Navy does not want this, and even though it will cost billions of dollars to do it, Trump is personally insisting that they must do this on his orders because apparently someone once told him steam is better. And so now the Navy has to go back to steam. President Trump and Pete Hegseth are also reportedly telling the Navy now that they must rename one of its new aircraft carriers. Headline, Navy moles stripping black war hero's name from aircraft carrier for Trump. This is a new aircraft carrier that is currently under construction in Virginia. It is named for a hero from the attack on Pearl Harbor, a black enlisted sailor who was working in the kitchen on board one of the ships that was attacked at Pearl Harbor. His name was Doris Miller. When the attack started, Miller dragged the mortally wounded captain of his ship to safety and then himself manned an anti-aircraft gun and started shooting at the incoming aircraft, taking down at least one Japanese plane, despite the fact that he was not a Japanese. He was a Japanese. He was a Japanese. He was a Japanese. So he was not trained for that gun. He was not trained for any of it. He's one of the great American heroes of Pearl Harbor. Trump and Pete Hegseth have reportedly now decided that Doris Miller does not deserve having that aircraft carrier named for him anymore. So they are telling the Navy to take Doris Miller's name off the carrier and instead put Trump's name on it. So when that's how things are going in the U.S. military, when that's how Donald Trump and a Fox News host named Pete Hegseth are handling the U.S. military, turns out there aren't many military options anymore. There aren't any good ones, at least, for this ongoing war that they have been losing. And so today, instead of any new military options unveiled or tried out when it comes to the Iran war, today we got them proclaiming an economic D-Day against Iran. Given what the real D-Day is, it's a D-Day against Iran. It's a D-Day against Iran. D-Day actually was. You might be forgiven for telling these guys to get the name D-Day out of their mouth altogether. But with viable military options essentially unavailable, thanks to the geniuses they've installed at the Pentagon, instead they're announcing vaguely this economic D-Day as some kind of vague announcement of new economic initiatives targeting Iran. But you know, the real D-Day was all about us supporting our allies to defeat a common enemy. This administration has no real allies anymore. So they may want to call it D-Day, but there's no one to ask to help us storm these proverbial beaches, even though they want to call this D-Day. Without anyone essentially on our side, Trump and his Treasury Secretary, Scott Besson, are insisting that they're going to pull off some big new economic thing against Iran. And how are they going to do it? We don't know. But they say they'll punish any nations who help Iran. We don't have any allies to bring into this fight anymore, but we'll punish anybody who helps the other side. This doesn't make much sense to anybody either, because, I mean, look at the basics of what we know about who is helping Iran. This is the headline last week at NBC News. Russia is shipping explosives to Iran to bolster its missile and drone arsenal in U.S. war. Okay, we're going to go after a country that's helping Iran. Does that mean we're going after Russia? Are we going to try to rally other countries to go after Russia, crack down on Russia for the way they're helping Iran? Of course not. Of course not. Of course we'd never go after Russia, because Trump is beholden somehow, or in the spell somehow, of Russia's dictator. And so, of course, even as Russia helps Iran, not just financially, not just in terms of oil exports and things like that, but literally shipping them explode. Are we going to do anything about that? No, of course not. Well, how about the sanctions, though? How about countries that have been helping Iran evade U.S. sanctions? Will we go after them? Will we be able to persuade other countries to help us go after anybody who helps Iran evade sanctions? Again, this doesn't make sense to anybody else in the world. Evasion of U.S. sanctions on Iran is a crime under U.S. law. The sanctions on Iran are a crime under U.S. law. The sanctions on single largest case ever brought against anyone for helping Iran evade sanctions was brought in federal court in New York against a big bank, a bank from Turkey. Huge case. Biggest sanctions case ever. The biggest case ever about an entity helping Iran evade sanctions. And what happened to that case? Donald Trump insisted that that case be dropped as a favor to another dictator he likes, as a favor to the authoritarian leader of Turkey. So we need to crack down on people that are helping Iran? How are we leading by example there? I mean, they're calling for a D-Day against Iran, us leading the world against Iran, right? Except A, we have nobody to lead because under Trump we have no allies anymore. B, we're the ones actually supporting one of the countries giving Iran its weapons because Trump likes the dictator of that country. And C, we're the ones letting Iran get around these supposed sanctions. In that Turkish bank case, the biggest Iran sanctions case ever, it's apparently because Trump likes that dictator too. The guy who's letting that happen. So it's not weird that nobody's jumping up to help. I mean, now that Trump has neutered us in all of these ways, now that this is his big unveiling of the big new fight against Iran as he's losing this war, what has he decided to do to sort of distract us from the catastrophe in this Iran war of choice? Now he's decided that he'll pick another fight. One that maybe he feels like he'll have a better chance of winning. See if he can get something else going with another. You know, vaunted enemy of the United States. In this case, Canada. Started a trade war with Canada. But unlike other countries that have tried to appease Trump when he has picked inane performative trade fights with them, countries like the UK or the EU, right? Canada's prime minister, Mark Carney, is not going along with it. He clearly will not be bullied and the Canadian people have never been more unified behind him. As Stephen March put it at the New York Times on the op-ed page today, quote, for Canada, the choice came down to either accepting severe but temporary economic instability or binding itself to a pseudo-democratic fiscal basket case of a nation, that's us, whose only apparent foreign policy objective has become domination for the gratification of the president's slapdash vanity. But Mr. Carney did not simply reject a trade war. On Friday, he was openly defiant of the new breed of American aggression. Mr. Trump's world, a world of transaction and submission, is not the only world we all have to live in. Mr. Carney did what Canadians elected him to do, stand up for Canada. It's funny to wake up relieved that you're about to take a beating, but we will not go along to get along. The American president clearly did not know whom he was dealing with. He's following in the grand tradition of American leaders starting wars with people they don't know. They don't understand, then wondering what went wrong. This is the country that ought to be, and that almost always has been, our best friend in the world. And I would say we've torpedoed our relationship with our closest ally, our closest friend, one of our two closest trading partners in the whole world. But, you know, if an actual torpedo were involved here, that would have to involve Pete Hegseth. And so I'm not sure we would worry that much about it because clearly it wouldn't work. The lesson that Prime Minister Mark Carney in Canada clearly learned before this fight, the stance for which his own people, left, right, and center, are now cheering him on, it's not just a performative thing. It's not just a political style thing. What he's doing is what has been shown since time immemorial to work. When it comes to an incompetent bully, giving in and letting them dominate you does not get you treated better in the long run. It just invites frustration. Further displays of dominance from the bully and further humiliation for you. On the other hand, standing up to the bully and refusing his demands makes you an annoyance to the bully, makes you a harder target. And the last thing an incompetent bully wants to do is anything that smells like hard work. Also, bonus, if you do stand up to the bully, you get to look yourself in the eye and your kids and your constituents will still love you no matter how it turns out. Donald Trump has a negative approval rating right now in 47 out of 50 U.S. states. There are only three states in the whole country in which he is more popular than unpopular right now. Those three are West Virginia, Idaho, and most of all, Wyoming. But even in Wyoming, the state where he is more popular than any other state in the country, Trump-style politics are. are losing hand over fist right now. This didn't get a lot of attention nationwide last week, and I know there's a lot of other news, but this struck me as important. In Wyoming last week, the ultra-conservative MAGA Freedom Caucus thought that in last week's elections, last week's Republican primaries in Wyoming, they would extend the hold they already have on the Wyoming State House, and they thought they would actually take over the Wyoming State Senate as well. This is the MAGA. MAGA Freedom Caucus in Wyoming, and Wyoming is the most pro-Trump state in the whole country. But instead, look at what happened last week. Last week in Wyoming, the Freedom Caucus not only didn't take over the State Senate, which they thought they would do, they also lost control of the State House. The MAGA Freedom Caucus had 36 seats in the Wyoming House. Last week, 13 of their incumbents were voted out in the primaries. Cowboy State Daily. He called it a, quote, In that same primary, Trump had an endorsed candidate for governor who also lost. Just like his endorsed candidate for governor lost in Minnesota. That was Mike Lindell. Just like his endorsed candidate for governor in Iowa lost as well. That was Randy Feenstra. Just like his endorsed candidate for governor in Georgia lost as well. That was Burt Jones. Plus, the first candidate he endorsed for governor in South Carolina. She lost, too. Pamela Yvette. Incompetence has consequences. And people choosing to fight has consequences, too. Tonight, we're going to talk with a candidate who just won back a school board seat in Red State, Florida, in a district that had previously suffered a complete MAGA takeover. She decided to fight it in her red state, and she won. We're going to talk to her tonight. Tonight, we're going to talk with a journalist from the Wyoming. Washington Post, who fought her firing from that paper in the midst of its billionaire MAGA makeover. And today, she just won as well. She's been ordered reinstated to her job, plus back pay. In Canada, in Wyoming, in red state Florida, in the billionaire-controlled fourth estate, we are learning the same lesson over and over and over again. You don't always win every fight you pick. But the only way to win. is to fight. To not be afraid to fight, or even if you are afraid, to do it anyway. It's the only thing that works. We've got much more on that ahead for you this hour. It's really good to have you here. Stay with us. Karen Atiyah worked at the Washington Post for 11 years. She was a big name at the paper. She was the founding editor for Global Opinions. She was recognized repeatedly by the bosses at the Post, for her performance. Part of what she did was make the Washington Post a pretty much unparalleled U.S. newspaper source for commentary on international affairs. Karen Atiyah, for example, was the editor for Jamal Khashoggi, when Jamal Khashoggi was murdered by the Saudi government. For her relentless and brave commentary on Khashoggi's murder, Karen Atiyah was given the prestigious George Polk Award. Karen Atiyah was a really high-profile, really accomplished, really successful, marquee talent at the Washington Post. Which is why it was a shock when the Washington Post fired her last year in September, and they didn't even have the, choose your noun, to do it in person. They did it by email. They said in the email that she was being terminated for gross misconduct, specifically for her social media posts about the killing of. of activist Charlie Kirk. Karen Atiyah posted these messages on social media about Charlie Kirk's death. At the time, she was paid by the Washington Post to offer opinions and analysis on current events. That is what she did after Charlie Kirk was murdered, including decrying what she described as essentially mandatory performative mourning, also decrying our unwillingness to address gun violence in America, particularly gun violence by white assailants. Her bosses accused her of violating company policy because they said her posts were disrespectful to white people, and they said she put other journalists at the paper in danger. And they fired her. At the time, Karen Atiyah was the last remaining black full-time opinion columnist at the Washington Post. Now, Karen Atiyah was not the only person to lose a job over comments about Charlie Kirk's death. At our very own network, one of our contributors was fired over something that he said on the air. A Reuters investigation estimates that at least 600 people all over the country and all kinds of industries lost their jobs for things they said after Charlie Kirk was killed. Like a lot of those people, Karen Atiyah did not accept her firing. Along with her labor union, she filed a grievance with the Washington Post. After months of legal wrangling, the matter went to arbitration, and now the arbitrator has ruled. The arbitrator has ruled that there was no evidence to substantiate any of the reasons the Washington Post cited to fire Karen Atiyah. The arbitrator has ruled that the Post must not only pay Karen Atiyah lost wages and benefits, they not only have to give her all her back pay, but they must also give her back her job. The Post says it respects the arbitration process. Ms. Atiyah says she is ready to get back to work. Joining us now is Karen Atiyah, along with her lawyer, Norm Eisen, who co-founded the Democracy Defender Fund to help represent her in this arbitration. I want to thank you both so much for being here. Karen, I know it's been an ordeal. Thank you in particular for being here with us tonight. Thank you, Rachel. I'm really glad to be here. What's your reaction to the arbitrator saying the Post has to give you your job back? And I feel excited, exhausted, vindicated, proud. Of course, sure, I'm happy to get my job back, but this is a job that I'm going to have to do. This is more than me. It's more than just a job. I know that this is a huge win for journalists everywhere, for people who dare to have an opinion, for anyone who wanted to express themselves. I recognize that this win is bigger than just me. It's bigger than just The Washington Post. It stands as a proxy for our rights and freedom of speech here in America. So this is a big win for freedom of speech and democracy in America. It's a big win for freedom of speech here in America. Noren, let me just ask you, as part of Democracy Defenders Fund, you're involved in a lot of cases involving this administration. In this case, this is not an administration case. This is about The Washington Post as it made its MAGA turn. There's been a lot of turmoil at the paper. It's been remade sort of in a more right-wing cast. Tell me about your decision to devote resources from your firm toward working on this case. Well, Rachel, we know that authoritarianism can't take hold without enablers of Donald Trump in and outside of the government. And that's why it's so important because the First Amendment is foundational to protect our journalists. And when Karen asked if we were willing to support here, we felt it was imperative that we protect our journalists. And we think that this win, the ruling repudiating the phony bases for letting Karen go, calling out what in our view was anticipatory obedience, is a huge win. And for her, that's so, so important. But it protects journalists everywhere. It shows that the purpose of journalism, to stand up to the regime, is alive and well. And that's why it was important to us in our over 300 legal cases and matters. This is one of the biggies. Karen, I wanted to ask you, you know, when I saw that you won this arbitration and that you were ordered, the arbitrator ordered not only that you got back pay, but that you got your job back, I thought to myself, if it were me, I don't know if I'd go back, not only because of how you were treated, but because of the way the post has been made over in your absence, remaking the opinion section, in many ways hollowing it out. Can you talk a little bit about your decision to go back and how you're feeling about that, given the changes at the paper and the way they have sort of set themselves opposite the administration? Yeah, I said, I've said this even from the beginning, even in arbitration, I stayed true to my values. I stayed true to journalism. I stayed true to speaking truth to power and giving other people a platform at the post. It is very obvious that the post has taken, has changed, has taken a very, very different and, dare I say, darker turn. That is true. However, the way I feel about how I feel about this is. I'm ready to get back. I'm willing and ready to get back to that work. And for me, that work is about serving readers. That work is about serving democracy. It's about representing communities. And that is the work I was doing at the post. And that's the work I fully expect to to be able to do. And so, hey, The Washington Post has got some marching orders. I'm waiting on them to hear from them. They said they're going to respect the decision, which means reinstating me. I'm back to my full position and my full duty. So that's the deal on the table. The ball is in their court. We'll be watching and we'll be reading. When you're back at your desk, Karen Atiyah, columnist, who's now been reordered, reinstated at The Washington Post, Norm Eisen, co-founder of Democracy Defenders Fund. Thank you both for being here. I really appreciate you doing your first interview here. Thank you. Of course. Thank you. Thanks. All right. Much more news ahead here tonight. Stay with us. At the height of the pandemic in 2021, a right wing group called Moms for Liberty bolted into Florida politics. Moms for Liberty. They fought against covid vaccines and mask requirements to slow the spread of covid. They campaigned for book banning, banning certain books from school libraries. They worked with other right wing groups to rewrite the rules about the history that Florida students were allowed to learn. Because with slavery. Really so bad. Moms for Liberty, Lombs for Liberty expanded to other states, but their center of power was always Florida and in particular school boards in Florida, where they ran for office repeatedly and won. Moms for Liberty dominated, for example, the school board in Sarasota County, Florida. They held three of the five seats and it showed on the Sarasota County school board. Moms for Liberty accomplished a string of conservative culture. Moms for Liberty was a great party. They stood up for their war goals. Bizarrely, that all taking place even as the board chair and her husband, who was the chair of the Florida Republican Party at the time, they were fighting a long series of startling headlines about alleged sexual misconduct themselves. But no matter how weird it all got at a personal level and at a hypocrisy level, with their majority on the school board in Sarasota County, Moms for Liberty managed to pass book bans. They rejected protections. For LGBT students, they pledged support for ICE agents in deporting students in Sarasota County schools. And it turns out what Moms for Liberty has been pushing for all this time turns out to be sort of unpopular with actual voters when people get a say on it. Last week, voters picked two Democratic endorsed candidates over conservatives on the Sarasota County school board. It is worth. Noting that registered Republicans outnumber registered Democrats by more than double in Sarasota County, Florida. But nevertheless, voters have now elected two candidates endorsed by Democrats and sent a third into a runoff right at the heart of Moms for Liberty, Florida. As a columnist for USA Today put it, quote, this win is a great sign for Democrats. While the party often loses sight of the fact that all politics are local, the news that something has shifted. This news, that something has shifted, is a sign that voters are tired of the Republican-led culture wars and could be looking for a return to some sort of normalcy. Or as winning candidate Megan Tineman told supporters on election night, quote, we made history today. Joining me now is Megan Tineman. She's one of the Democratic-backed candidates who won her Sarasota County school board race this past week. Ms. Tineman, congratulations on your win. Thanks very much for being here tonight. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. It's really an honor to represent Sarasota. Oh, great. I just gave a little thumbnail sketch about what you just won and the context there. First of all, did I get any of that wrong? And is there anything else that our viewer should understand about what's been happening in Sarasota County and how big a deal it is that you won this seat? Yes. So really for the past 10 years, we have been under a conservative board majority. And this has been years in the making. So many organizations in our town support our schools, see alliance, have really, really been educating voters and encouraging them to look past party lines. And I think it's also important to note I'm actually an NPA. So we in Sarasota are primarily Republican. And this just shows this gives hope to the rest of the nation that across all sides, of the aisle, Republican, Democrat, Independents, all came together for the common good of education. And I think that speaks volumes. You won by a lot. You won by double digits in this race. I know that you campaigned on needing to get away from things like book bans and condemning the compliance with ICE resolutions and stuff. Do you think that there was a specific one of these culture war issues? That you were really explicit on in your campaign? Do you think one of them in particular was what motivated your voters the most that you think voters sort of wanted to reject the most from the other side? Or was it everything altogether? I really think at the end of the day, our voters just wanted an end to the culture wars and the political theater. We were known nationwide for all the wrong reasons. Hmm. One of the things that I noted in five minutes. Following your candidacy and in particular, looking at what happened on election night was seeing how many how many kids were involved in the campaign, how many high school students, people who've literally got skin in the game in terms of who is on the school board and what decisions the school board is making, seeing kids door knocking, volunteering for the campaign, seeing the election night watch parties and your celebration surrounded by high school students who had been involved with trying to oust that conservative majority. Get in people like yourself. Did that just happen organically or was that you specifically trying to reach out to young people to get involved? It really happened organically. I actually I have two high school students and when their friends found out that I was running for school board, I also have a lot of LGBTQ students who volunteered on my campaign and for a very long time they felt scared, not safe at school, unheard. So. I really think once they saw a candidate who respected their voices and wanted to be on the school board as a voice for students, so many, so many students came and supported all three of us. There was another woman running Beth Mayberry and Jimmy Glover who didn't win the majority, but he's going on to a runoff in November and all three of us just had so many students. So I think it's really important for us to step up and really want to protect their rights. Kids are all right, and they're all really all right with people who are listening to them. Megan Tineman, winning candidate for school board in Sarasota County, Florida, which, as you say, nationwide famous for all the wrong reasons. But you're really part personally of turning that around. Thank you for your time tonight. Congratulations on your win and good luck. Thank you so much. All right. We'll be right back. Stay with us. If you ever get put in charge of starting a car race, if you ever are responsible for waving the green flag to start like an IndyCar race, I have only one piece of advice for you. Sort out in advance how to hold the flag. Because here's the president of the United States getting ready to start the race at the Freedom 250 Grand Prix held yesterday in Washington. Whoops, wrong end. oops, what is, um, it's a flag on a stick. How hard can it be? Once he figured it out with some help, though, he could not be stopped with the waggling and the waving. Off to the races, as they say. That race yesterday was the end of the America 250th stuff, the final event planned by the federal government for the nation's 250th anniversary. So what did we do for the 250th? We had the Trump birthday cage match, uh, which did a lot of things, but the longest lasting consequence of that will probably be that it destroyed the grass on the ellipse. Uh, 4th of July itself, the president threw the, um, sad Great American State Fair with its hoopty, fall-down, staple-gunned wooden model of the arch he wants to build for himself. It really was sad and underwhelming, and nobody came. It was supposed to feature musical stylings of people like one half of the world. Millie Vanilli and Brett Michaels. Um, but even those artists realized it would be headlining a Trump event, and so they started dropping out. I mean, you have to think about the fact that the lip-sync guy from Millie Vanilli apparently thought he could not stand that kind of a reputational hit. And so he dropped out, too. It also ended up being kind of dangerous. The Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy dancers on Trump's National Mall stage were nearly killed by a huge gold piece of the stage. And so they were able to get out of the stage, and they were able to get out of the stage, falling down on them. But that's it. That's kind of all we did for turning 250 years old. That's it. The performance of the federal government under this administration has generally not been awesome. But there is a specific reason it didn't feel like we did enough to commemorate our nation turning 250. And it may be because we really only did federal government stuff. Cities and towns. Cities and localities could very well have done great stuff for the 250th. And in fact, cities and localities had been told in advance that they were going to get federal funding to hold their own local celebrations all over the country. But then at the last minute, Trump took all that funding away. He axed funding for local historical societies and local community groups to hold their own 250th stuff. Last year, just as they were starting to yank their money. And then the Trump administration redirected tens of millions of dollars from those cuts toward things like, quote, the president's plans for a triumphal arch and a statuary garden of American heroes in Washington, D.C. So we could have actually maybe done something awesome for the 250th. And we might have. Except Trump had to stomp on it with both feet and take it all for himself. Hey, there's always three hundred, though, right? That's coming up. That's going to do it for me tonight.