Trump frantic over Iran mess as rival nations take advantage of his poor planning

I'm really happy to have you here. Do you remember that there was a gigantic oil spill in our country that happened in 2010? It was in the Gulf of Mexico off the Louisiana coast. And it was just apocalyptic. You will remember these images, right? The explosion, the plumes of fire and smoke, just this massive, massive, completely out of control fire on board this drilling rig out there 40 miles off the coast in Louisiana. 11 men died when that rig blew up. And then after it blew up and burned for a solid day, that huge oil rig, that drilling rig sunk to the bottom of the sea. But that was only the start of the disaster because they couldn't stop the oil spewing out of the well that rig had been drilling. Remember, there was literally a live feed. We could all watch from the broken wellhead. You could watch the oil spewing out from this hole in the sea floor. This hole they had drilled and then they couldn't handle it. And that oil spewed for three months, millions of barrels of oil spewed out of that well and into the sea. And they just had no plan for how to stop it. You might remember, they tried something called junk shots, which sounds dirty. And it was, but different than how you're thinking about it. The junk shot was where they literally shot junk into the top of the well to try to clog it up with anything they could find. They used, I'm not kidding, golf balls and pieces of plastic and pieces of old tires and knotted up hunks of rope. They just flung them at the spewing oil well. Thinking that might stop it. When nobody could believe that this was the big idea, that this was the level of technological prowess, the most profitable industry on earth was bringing to bear on this ongoing disaster. They had caused and couldn't stop. When people were like, seriously, golf balls is your idea? Torn up bits of tire? The company then changed the language. They were using to talk about their efforts to stop the spewing oil well. They stopped talking so much about the junk shots. They instead started insisting they would do something they called a top kill, which sounds way cooler, way more technologically advanced, way less desperate and random than a junk shot. But it was still the same result. Still the same kind of strategy that the character from South Park might dream up to try to stop an oil spill. But the junk shots and the top kills did not work. They tried a whole bunch of times. It did not work. Then they decided they would just dump tons of chemicals in the water. They wouldn't say what the chemicals were. They called them dispersants, though. And the idea was that they would just dump these mystery chemicals into the ocean in huge amounts, these dispersants. And hopefully, that would make the oil dispers. Go away, oil, disperse. And that didn't much work either. It was just disgusting and toxic. And it wreaked havoc. Not just everything in the ocean, but in the whole fishery and those coastal Louisiana towns and that whole region of Southeast Louisiana and Barataria Bay. I remember reporting down there in 2010 and being nauseous from breathing the sea breeze, which is a thing that will mess up your head both in the moment when it happens and for a very long time after. That disaster happened, as I said in 2010, that was the worst oil spill disaster in US history. There was supposed to be a blowout preventer to prevent this underwater blowout. Turns out the blowout preventer did not work to prevent blowouts. There was supposed to be a bulletproof, foolproof, multiple redundancies, comprehensive emergency plan in case of any type of accident. But the emergency plan was ridiculous. This was, again, in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana. But the emergency response plan, specifically for a spill at that site called for rescuing the walruses. OK, walruses live on sea ice, like polar bears. There are no walruses in Louisiana. But nevertheless, that was part of their emergency response plan that was supposedly specifically designed for this location. You might also remember that that emergency response plan had a call list, like who to call in case of a disaster in case of a spill. And the call list was like people who had died years prior to that emergency response plan being produced. It was just an utter failure, just a comprehensive disaster. You remember what that disaster was called? What the rig was called that blew up? It was the deep water horizon. It was called that because that drilling disaster happened in really deep water and 5,000 feet of water. 5,000 feet of water, the pressure is incredible. The temperatures are incredible. We, as humans, have basically as little experience operating in that kind of an extreme environment as we do operating in space. I mean, that deep water horizon disaster, 5,000 feet down, it was sort of living proof, living, terrifying, toxic, fatal proof that even though the oil companies say they're great at doing stuff like that, they're actually not. The overall cleanup and compensation cost for deep water horizon topped out at something like $65 billion. BP was held responsible for the disaster not only in court, but also in Congress, where they basically had to prostrate themselves and apologize for all they had done. Deep water horizon, deep water horizon, worst oil spill disaster in US history happened in 5,000 feet of water. This past Friday, late in the day, very quietly, the Trump administration announced that it has approved a new ultra deep water drilling project. Unlike the deep water horizon, which was at 5,000 feet, this new ultra deep water project that they just approved will be at more like 6,000 feet. But don't worry, the deep water horizon company that botched the 5,000 foot drilling and killed all those people and ravaged that whole part of Louisiana. And they couldn't shut it off for three months. And it made us at least thank God Barack Obama was in charge. And he had a Nobel Prize winning physicist, Stephen Shoe, his energy secretary. Because at least that energy secretary could personally do the calculations and the scientific work to try to help get the blowout shut down. No, the bad guy in that story, the totally reckless company that said it could do that drilling safely, but they absolutely couldn't. That said, they had an emergency plan. But they didn't really. That said, they had a cleanup plan. But I saw it with my own eyes that they did not. That had a blowout preventer that did not prevent blowouts. That company, you'll remember, was BP, BP, right? Well, this time, don't worry. The company that the Trump administration has just given permission to do ultra deep water drilling in the same place off the coast of Louisiana. Don't worry. This time, the company doing it is going to be BP. They've given the drilling rights to BP, same company. Because it worked out great last time. Also, don't worry. As the New York Times notes, and it's reporting on this new award from the Trump administration, don't worry the emergency plan this time from BP for the ultra deep water drilling. The emergency plan this time is still basically the same emergency plan that they had when the deep water horizon blew up in 2010. The plan is still, as the New York Times notes, quote, dispersants, chemical dispersants. Once again, that'll be the plan. It'll be fine. It'll all be fine. No word on if they're still going to focus on finding tropical walruses in case anything goes wrong. No word on if they're still going to try to call the old dead guys as their emergency contacts. The other reason not to worry, of course, is that this time, instead of Barack Obama being president and this being the Obama administration responding, this time, the president and the administration telling BP to go for it, watch out Louisiana, here they come. This time, it's not Barack Obama. In the Obama administration, it's Donald Trump and the Trump administration. Where needless to say, the energy secretary is not Nobel Prize-winning physicist Stephen Chu. This time, under Donald Trump, it's this guy, who last week announced on Twitter that, hey, great news everybody. The US Navy has started escorting oil tankers through the straight of hormones. He announced that publicly. When the US Navy was absolutely not doing that. And the markets went up, up, up, up, up. And the price of oil went down, down, down, down, down. And then Trump's genius energy secretary deleted that tweet with no comment. And so then the markets went down, down, down. And the oil price went up, up, up. Because this is the level of genius and competence we are dealing with at the helm as an arsonist mad king president sets the world on fire. That same energy secretary also on Friday announced that, thanks to the emergency, President Donald Trump has declared. Trump administration has also ordered, in addition to the ultra deep water drilling contract given, or permission given to BP. The Trump administration has also ordered the restarting of a particular pipeline in Southern California. This is a pipeline that has not been operational for more than a decade. And why has it not been operational for more than a decade? Well, because this is what it looked like the last time that pipeline was operational. When it broke open and was spewing oil uncontrollably in one of the worst California oil spills of all time, affecting roughly 100 miles of the state's coastline and ocean. Trump administration is now trying to force the re-opening of that pipeline. The last time it was an operation, it barfed oil all over Southern California. They say it's fully repaired now, so we'll see, I guess. When the Trump administration has just told BP of all companies, they've told BP to go right ahead with the new ultra-deep water horizon because nobody remembers what happened last time, right? That was fine. Worked out, okay? Walters seem okay. When Trump's energy secretary Chris Wright tweeted out that the US Navy was escorting ships through the Strait of Hormuz when in fact we weren't, did he think they were? Did somebody tell him that we were? Did he have a good reason to believe it? When he did that, that wasn't even the start of how well the Trump administration is handling this teensy little problem, Trump reportedly thought would be no big deal when he decided to launch an unprovoked war on Iran. Trump reportedly told his advisors that he did not believe Iran would close the Strait of Hormuz if he attacked Iran, of course Iran did. When Trump's defense secretary said the Strait of Hormuz was open for transit, except for the small matter of the Iranians attacking ships that tried to pass through it, other than that Mrs. Lincoln, then Trump told Fox News that ship captain should, quote, show some guts and just sail through the Strait because they had nothing to fear because Iran was defeated and wouldn't attack any more ships in the Strait of Hormuz and then Iran attacked more ships in the Strait of Hormuz. And then Trump said that the U.S. Navy would be happy soon, very soon, to start escorting ships through the Strait of Hormuz and then the Navy was like, no, my Lord, no, we cannot do that. The memorable phrase there was that it would be a, quote, "kill box" for the United States Navy if they even tried to do that. Then in advance of a presidential press conference today, Trump administration sources apparently told reporters that very soon, very soon, the U.S. government would be announcing a coalition of allies who would be working together to escort ships through the Strait of Hormuz. We were about to announce who our allies were going to be in this joint collective effort. And everybody printed it like that meant it was going to happen. When will you learn? Watch what they do, not what they say. Because then the president held that presidential press conference and he announced, quote, "We don't need anybody to help us in the Strait of Hormuz. We don't need anybody. We can do it ourselves." Then he said that he'd be announcing very soon who, nevertheless, was going to be helping us in the Strait of Hormuz. Then he berated and insulted our allies for not doing anything to help us in the Strait of Hormuz. And then reporters all over the world started checking with their own governments and indeed whatever he thought he was announcing about other countries coming to help us in the Strait of Hormuz, nobody is coming to help. And in fact, he can't do it alone. And so what do we got? I mean, maybe we'll get a ballroom? Russia's doing really well out of all this. As the skyrocketing price of oil fills up the Kremlin's coffers and makes them solvent again after all these years of dictatorship and corruption and foregoing on five years of their disastrous war in Ukraine, Russia now is not just getting rich off of Trump's war in Iran. Russia is outright helping Iran kill U.S. troops and target U.S. facilities in the Middle East. Trump's U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Mike Waltz, says Russia has a wartime "strategic partnership" with Iran. Iranian officials have publicly confirmed that they have Russia's "military cooperation". He reported last week here on this show that Trump had responded to that by really making Russia pay. Oh, I'm sorry, no, by relaxing U.S. sanctions on Russia. Since then, he's done so again. He has further relieved Russia of the burden of U.S. sanctions while Russia is helping kill American troops. But it doesn't stop there. David Korn at Mother Jones Magazine reports that Trump's DOJ has also, very quietly, just chosen this auspicious time while we're at war with Iran, they've just chosen now. To ask the courts to withdraw a guilty plea and reverse a prison sentence that was given to a guy who the FBI said is linked to Russian intelligence. The guy has been in jail because he pled guilty to lying to the FBI, specifically to bringing the FBI fake stories about President Biden supposedly taking bribes. The FBI concluded not only that those stories were false, but that this guy deliberately lied in bringing that stuff to the FBI and that he was linked to Russian intelligence at the time he was doing this. Now Trump's Justice Department is trying to get the guys sprung and get his guilty plea reversed. The core filing in this guy's case has been signed by Todd Blanche. Trump's hand picked number two official at the Justice Department, trying to help Russia and reportedly Russian intelligence while Russia is using Russian intelligence to help Iran kill American troops and target American facilities in the Middle East. And you know, maybe our president just can't stop himself from acting to help Russia. Even when Russia is acting to kill Americans, maybe just can't stop himself. It just feels so good he can't stop. But doesn't it seem like in the middle of this war he should be able to stop himself from at least helping Iran from helping the Iranian regime, which he has just declared war on? Because also, quietly amid this inexplicable war on Iran, Trump's Justice Department has also just moved to drop the largest Iranian sanctions case ever in history. This is a case involving a bank, a bank called Hawk Bank there, being prosecuted for, again, the largest ever known violation of sanctions on the Iranian regime for illegally sending tens of billions of dollars to Iran. That's what that prosecution is about. And in the middle of Trump waging war on Iran, bombing Iran supposedly because he's so opposed to the Iranian regime, Trump now simultaneously has had his Justice Department dropped that case, the largest Iranian sanctions case ever. Because now suddenly he wants to let all that slide. It's almost like he's not really doing things for the reason he says he's doing them, right? So the Saudis paid $2 billion to Trump's son-in-law, Jared. And now Jared is the U.S. government's point person in the Middle East. The New York Times now reports that while Jared is serving as the U.S. government's point person in the Middle East, Jared is simultaneously asking the Saudis for yet more billions of dollars for his private business. More than $2 billion they've already given him, now he wants more. You know what? Why would they say no? For the low, low price of what they've already given him, the Saudis have apparently discovered the price of renting out something called the armed forces of the United States of America to attack their rival nation, Iran. For a war that makes a lot of sense for the leaders of Saudi Arabia and Israel, but makes no sense at all for the United States. The New York Times reports this weekend that the Saudi crown prince, MBS, Mohammed bin Salman, has been on the phone frequently with President Trump since the war started, telling him to keep bombing, keep, quote, hitting the Iranians heart, keep up, keep it up. More of this war, right? We paid for it, we're going to get what we paid for. I kind of say, I don't know why this isn't more of a show stopping scandal in our country, right? Is it that hard to see what this is? I mean, here's this guy, actively asking ex-country for money, they've already given him billions of dollars. Billions more dollars for his personal business, his private business. He's asking ex-country for money. At the same time, he's asking them for money, he is also making US government policy toward that country. That's it, right? Those are all the dots you have to connect. I mean, this is not like string theory, right? The result, I mean, if this guy's asking this country for money for himself while also making US government policy toward that country, the resultant policy is likely to be whatever that country wants it to be, because if it isn't, then Jared's going to be less likely to get the money that he is asking them for, right? The interests of the United States are being exchanged for private income for the President's son-in-law. Is this hard to see? Is this hard to grasp? to grasp, right, while we're all wondering why it is really that we're fighting this war they can't explain. I mean, for his part, the president's son-in-law says he's following the law and following ethics rules, but how would we know? They also aren't even making him file financial disclosures. And Russia helps Kill American service members and gets paid for it by the Trump administration. And don't worry, BP will get new oil for us from the molten center of the earth. Because look, they built something with duct tape. They say it will work to drill it all up, and the tropical walruses will junk shop the thing for us if anything goes wrong, so we'll all be fine. Meanwhile, this is the most unpopular war in modern American history. The president is trying to manage that by today threatening to execute, threatening to kill reporters who don't report on the war the way he wants them to. That'll fix it. That'll fix it. Maybe he'll take a page from Putin and tell us we're no longer allowed to call it a war. We all have to start calling it an excursion like he does, or we'll all go to jail, or he'll kill us all. Sure, that'll do it. The war is unlikely to get more popular in days ahead as Trump's repeated declarations of victory have not proven to be enough to protect U.S. forces and facilities that have come under fire from Iran and their proxies, a U.S. facility in Bahrain, the U.S. facility in Kuwait, the U.S. Embassy in Iraq, the U.S. facilities in Saudi Arabia. We weren't even capable of keeping our ally Kuwait from accidentally shooting down, not one, not two, but three of our F-15 fighter jets on the first full day of the war. How was Kuwait able to shoot down three F-15s? Now we're sending in a Marine Expeditionary Force, as the president refuses to rule out boots on the ground, refuses to rule out ground troops. That's how he's doing internationally. How's he doing here at home? Well, he's on a remarkable, remarkable, hot, hot, losing streak in the courts right now. Just tonight, a federal court in Massachusetts has blocked all the changes that Trump Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made to the childhood immunization schedule. All the stuff that RFK tried to do to vaccines, the judge has blocked it. RFK fired, you'll recall, all the experts on the vaccine advisory panel and replaced them with everybody in the in the Star Wars bar scene. The judge tonight blocked those appointments and then blocked the implementation of all the votes taken by that group, by that actively quacking collection of odd ducks that RFK put in that crucial panel. This comes on the heels of another federal judge ordering Trump's VA secretary to restore union rights. The union rights, he just stripped from more than 300,000 people who work at the VA. This comes as another federal judge has just blocked Trump from stripping Somali Americans of their right to be in this country under temporary protected status. This comes as Trump's justice department has just had to tuck its tail between its legs and drop their effort to prosecute a U.S. Army veteran who burned a flag in protest of Trump's unconstitutional executive order that says he decrees you are no longer allowed to build a flag in this country. First amendment be damned. This comes as another court has just blocked the Trump administration's unlawful attempt to dismantle the U.S. African Development Foundation. This comes as just another court has blocked the Trump administration's unlawful attempt to dismantle the U.S. agency for global media and voice of America and to appoint election denier Carrie Lake to tear it all down. This comes as Trump tries to shut down and potentially tear down the John F. Kennedy Center for the performing arts, but Congresswoman Joyce Beatty, Democratic Congresswoman Joyce Beatty has pledged to defend that institution with all she's got. Trump can brag all he wants about what he is going to do to the Kennedy Center, but Congresswoman Joyce Beatty has gone to the courts to block Trump from closing it or demolishing it or changing it and those motions are pending and we shall see. We're going to talk tonight about the disaster that is unfolding at the Department of Homeland Security on everything from tornado monitoring to the TSA, but the Atlantic reports tonight that the whole plan, the whole Trump administration plan to open a big new network of massive Trump prison camps all over the country to hold tens of thousands of people indefinitely without trial. That whole plan may now be in jeopardy as Trump has now fired Homeland Security Secretary Christine Ohm because apparently it was her plan. And on top of that, we've got another federal court, this one in Maryland, which has now issued every straining order stopping all work on one of these warehouse Trump prison camps. This one in Williamsport, Maryland near Hagristown, a site where Trump wanted to start locking people up as soon as next month, but construction there now is shut down by court order and the whole warehouse mass Trump prison prison camp plan may be circling the drain anyway. One plucky Homeland Security official telling the Atlantic tonight that if they can't get these Trump black site prisons open and any of these warehouse sites they've bought, those sites might quote remain useful as federal properties that can be converted into office space or training facilities. Sure, office space. Sure, excellent. It is 14 months since Donald Trump has been back in office. It is 17 days since he started this catastrophic war in Iran. Democratic U.S. Senator Cory Booker is here next live to talk about plans in Congress, plans in the Senate to stop him in this war. We got lots to get to tonight. Stay with us. Since the beginning of President Donald Trump's unprovoked war of choice against Iran, a group of Democratic senators have been calling for a vote that would force the president to get sign off from Congress for what he's doing. They've now filed not one, but a whole wave of war powers resolutions. Even if these resolutions fail one by one, these Senate Democrats say they're going to force the whole Senate, including Republicans in the Senate to vote on this wildly unpopular inexplicable war over and over and over again. Implicitly, that means they will grind down the business of the Senate in the meantime in order to force these votes. They want a public accounting of why this war was supposedly necessary, what its objectives supposedly are, and when it will end. Joining us now is Senator Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey. Remember the Senate Foreign Relations Committee? It's one of the Democrats demanding the Senate vote on the war, calling for public hearings with top Trump officials. Senator, it's really nice you to take time to be here tonight. Thank you. Thanks for having me on. Appreciate you. So tell our audience what a war powers resolution is functionally, especially now that Trump is on his own terms, unilaterally, started this war 18 days ago. Well, going to war is a really significant act constitutionally, and because it's so significant, years past, they put in a lot of laws and levers to make sure that no president could do what Donald Trump is doing. And so it's what's called a privilege resolution, which we have the right to bring it to the floor. And to me, it's absolutely astounding and absurd that this Senate is not doing its job of providing checks and balances, oversight and accountability to an out of control executive, who already has made American lives in such crisis, reckless tariffs, driving up costs, cutting trillions, excuse me, hundreds of billions of dollars from our health care, driving millions of Americans off of health care. Americans are seeing a cost crisis like you wouldn't believe. And then what does Donald Trump do after cutting school lunches and cutting veterans benefits, he begins to spend a billion dollars a day on his war of choice. And not only those costs, but he's driving up energy and oil costs and perhaps the most tragic cost of all, 200 Americans injured, 13 Americans dead. And so how could the Senate be doing nothing? We want to force the debate, the discussion and the hearings. So when you say these are these are privilege resolutions, that means that effectively regardless of what the Republican leadership in the Senate wants, these have to come up, these have to be put to the floor, there has to be, these things have to be contended with. You and Senator Kane, Senator Murphy, Senator Baldwin, Senator Schiff have all filed these war power resolutions. Why do multiple of them is the idea to take up lots of Senate time? What should we expect in terms of what this does with the other business of the Senate when this will all unfold? What are they going to have to contend with you guys? Yeah, look, I've been having just trying to make it clear to my colleagues and to others who will listen to me that we can no longer have a Senate that is acting as if nothing is wrong, that we're not in a constitutional crisis, that Americans aren't struggling with out of control costs. We have to do something different. This war adds not only to the costs, but it also makes us less safe at home and abroad. And so this to me was an obvious lever after talking to a lot of my colleagues about Tim Kane doing this repeatedly. We all agree that this is the very time that we should be driving Americans to focus. Really, what they want us to be debating and what they want us to be discussing are the issues that are directly impacting them, which is a war obviously driving up their costs, taking billions of dollars of taxpayer money, and frankly not focusing on the crises that Americans are having right now with harder to make ends meet and losing millions, losing their health care, losing their hospitals, losing their health clinics. What's your reaction to the president today, insulting, denigrating, mocking, sort of dragging our allies for not joining some sort of effort that he wants to lead or something that he wants to do in the straight-of-farmose. He's simultaneously saying, literally, we don't need anybody, and also saying that U.S. allies are terrible and untrustworthy, and we don't need them, because they should be joining us in the straight-of-farmose. What's your reaction to the president's remarks on that today? >> I think what we're witnessing here is the most monumental, strategic stupidity exhibited by any president in our lifetime. I mean, utterly outrageous that he is. At one time begging people to come help him with the mess that he created, causing the worst oil shock we have seen in our lifetime. Begging people to help, and then when they're not racing to help him, after he's already unleashed chaotic tariffs on them, after he's already insulted them before, demeaned and degraded them, didn't go America first went America alone and really undermined all of our alliances. Now he's even going further. This is a president that says, I don't need your help, please help me. I don't need your help, please help me. All the while we're seeing this whole world really, feeling the shocks of this war, and from regions as I talk to, ambassadors and other leaders from Asia to Europe, they can't believe that we're making these strategic blunders. In the war in Ukraine, we're making Russia stronger, pouring literally millions and millions of dollars into their coffers, as they're getting stronger in their fight against Ukraine, as they help Iran target their missiles and their drones. We have crises in Asia, and concerns in Asia like China and their possible intervention in Taiwan. And now we see our Asian allies saying, wait a minute, we're pulling resources away from that region, all for Donald Trump's folly in his going to war, in a war that does not have an end game, especially not one without American troops, which he won't pull off the table. That is what's crazy about this man right now, is that he's out of control. But what is worse, the strategic blunder after blunder that he's making, or Republicans in the United States Senate who watch him and don't even call his administration in for hearings. No checks, no balances, no accountability. This is outrageous, and it has to stop. Senator Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey, sir, it's really kind of you to make time to be here tonight. Thank you so much. Thank you, Rachel, for focusing everybody on this outrage. Thanks. Absolutely. I've got to say, I hear when the senator says, talking about this as a strategic blunder, it really does feel like somebody who has burnt the bridge. Right? Burnt the bridge to where he lives and is now angrily standing on the far side of where the bridge used to be, like angrily demanding a ride home. Like, my dude, you're the one who blew up the bridge. Anyway, we got much more news ahead here tonight's day with us. Dozens of tornadoes hit the Midwest and the plains starting about 10 days ago, at least eight people were killed, homes and buildings were destroyed across multiple states. We then learned that chaos and incompetence inside the Trump administration, specifically inside the Department of Homeland Security, may have hampered the federal response to those terrible and fatal storms. Here's some remarkable reporting on this from CNN. Headline, rescuers were flying blind. Inside the crucial $200,000 contract, Christie Nome's team let laps, quote, as deadly tornadoes tore through the Midwest and plains. Last weekend, state and local search and rescue crews rushed to the devastated areas to look for survivors. It wasn't until the teams deployed that they realized they were operating without a critical tornado tracking tool that's typically provided by FEMA. That mapping tool pinpoints a tornado's path of destruction within minutes of touchdown. That helps responders focus on the hardest hit neighborhoods as quickly as possible. Even in storms where FEMA itself doesn't respond, state and local rescuers rely on this mapping tool, which is provided to them through FEMA. But it wasn't available this time for the storms last week, because FEMA's roughly $200,000 contract with a company that provides that data, that contract expired last month. And the agency's request to renew that contract was still moving through Homeland Security Secretary Christie Nome's strict spending approval process. Again, that reporting from CNN, I will tell you that we contacted the Department of Homeland Security about this tonight. A FEMA spokesperson tells us that that tornado mapping tool is up and running now. Oh, now it is now. A well-oiled machine, our current Department of Homeland Security. But Homeland Security Secretary Christie Nome has been fired. She's out of the agency, by the end of this month, President Trump fired her one day after she testified in front of Congress earlier this month. The basis of that testimony, congressional 10 Democrats say, Christie Nome repeatedly lied to the House and Senate Judiciary Committee's Democrats, as of today, have asked Trump's Justice Department to investigate her for perjury based on that testimony. After all, even President Trump has said her testimony under oath was false. We will not be holding our breath for Trump's Justice Department to be leaping on that prosecution, but the request has been made. We also learned today that another person exiting the Department of Homeland Security this month will be this man, Greg Bavino, the small man, big truck complex border patrol commander, who was relieved of his role leading Trump's immigration crackdown. After two U.S. citizens were shot to death by immigration agents in Minneapolis, and an operation that he led, those killings sparked such outrage. Democrats in Congress actually put their foot down and demanded reforms to Homeland Security federal agents. Republicans have refused those reforms that has led to a funding shutdown at the Department of Homeland Security, which among other things is causing long and unpredictable security lines and chaos out of America's airports. It is now worsening every day. And if you are excited by what the Trump Homeland Security Department has been able to do with, I don't know, immigration enforcement and disaster response and air travel, just wait till you see what they're going to do with our elections. The Atlantic first reported, and MSNOW has confirmed that in Arizona, it's not just the Justice Department that has been following Trump's lead in menacing and investigating elections officials and elections results from 2020, it is now the Department of Homeland Security that has done that. Homeland Security investigations under the purview of DHS is now bothering elections officials and saying they're investigating the 2020 election in Arizona, because they're handling so much else so well. Why not? Put them on the elections beat as well, right? What could possibly go wrong? I've got more ahead on this. Stay with us tonight. Hold that thought. Dateline, El Paso, Texas. Guards at Camp East Montana developed a pattern of driving detainees to the Mexico border, telling them to walk across and allegedly beading those who refused. Some detainees were also able to escape the facility, which faced a host of other challenges, including a cluster of three deaths in a 45-day period. The issues plaguing this camp, the nation's largest immigration detention center, have gotten so bad that they've contributed to a strategic pivot. The Trump administration has made a way from relying on similar facilities. That's reporting from the Wall Street Journal under the headline, how ISIS largest detention facility unraveled. It comes amid news that this chaos at the largest prison camp, the Trump administration has already been operating, might be a sort of canary in a coal mine. For the overall effort, the Trump administration has been working on to try to build Trump a new network of huge Trump prison camps to imprison people without trial all over the country. Joining us now is Wall Street Journal reporter Michelle Hackman. She, at the journal, has really been at the forefront of reporting out the pandemonium of various kinds at the Department of Homeland Security. Ms. Hackman, I really appreciate you. You're making time to be here with us tonight. Thank you. Of course, thanks for having me. First, I want to ask you just a big picture question about what's been happening at Homeland Security. It's obviously a bit of a bear structurally and has been since it was created. It's such a large sprawling agency with so many different functions wrapped up in all the myriad agencies that are under its umbrella. Why did Trump fire Kristi Nome? Is there something about her tenure that has been particularly difficult for an agency this complex and important? Yeah. We've been hearing for months that the White House has been increasingly frustrated with Kristi Nome because she was kind of running her own fiefdom there. And this White House, we know, is very controlling over cabinet secretaries. They want to have ultimate control over policy, over personnel. And they felt like she was being uncooperative with them. And in addition to that, that she was starting to be embarrassing to them when stories like hours about her, you know, firing a pilot over a blanket or trying to purchase a 70 million dollar luxury jet for herself started to come out. There's also been sort of, I guess you just sort of politely call the management issues that have been described that seem to have had really serious real world consequences. This policy that she said where anything over $100,000 has to come through her personally and it sits on her desk until she has time to get to it. CNN had this dramatic reporting this weekend that that has resulted, that resulted among other things in tornado mapping technology, not being available to FEMA responders who were actively responding to tornadoes that had been fatal on the ground in multiple states. Those kinds of problems, were those unique to Kristino, is that something that she and Corey Lewandowski presumably invented or is that something that predated her at DHS? No, this $100,000 sign-off is definitely a Kristino and Corey Lewandowski special. They instituted it a couple months into their tenure, no explanation why, and it really created this huge backlog that CNN's story showing that FEMA didn't have this sort of like tornado spotting technology as a really stark example, but there were ways that they were actually getting in the way of the Trump agenda too. I mean, they were holding up wall contracts, actually slowing down the building of Trump's border wall, which was extremely embarrassing for them when that came out. They actually, for months, held up by accident, totally by accident, held up a contract that basically processes all of Trump's tariff payments and other huge Trump policy. That almost laughed. She signed it basically a day before it expired. Wow. We've pretty intensely covered on this show the vociferous reaction around the country, even in very conservative parts of the country, to these plans to put these huge Trump prison camps, these big warehouse sites converted into prisons to hold 8,000, 10,000, potentially even more people, opposition to that all over the country, including from otherwise Trump's supporting Republicans. Is this another policy that the administration broadly or that the White House sees as a Kristino and Corey Lewandowski special? It seems like it's causing them a lot of political problems. It also seems like it's logistically way more than they might have thought they were contending with. Is interesting, Rachel, I think the administration actually is in favor of this warehouse strategy of buying these massive warehouses that are sort of meant for Amazon packages, and instead turning them into places to hold, you know, 8 or 10,000 immigrants. The problem in the view of the White House and people at DHS was basically the way that Kristino and Corey Lewandowski were trying to implement it, that they basically went to ICE and said, you have 30 days, go buy, you know, 30 something warehouses and completely turned over, you know, our detention strategy in a month, basically buy these things in a few days, retrofit them. That sort of speed is what we saw. I mean, you referenced my reporting on campus Montana, the Tent Camp Detention Center in El Paso. They put that camp detention center up with surprising speed over the summer, and that really contributed to a lot of the really, really severe issues there. And so I think we were headed in the same direction. All Street Journal reporter Michelle Hackman, it's really invaluable service to the country to have you on this beat, breaking so many stories here and your colleagues at the journal. Thank you. Keep it up, and we really appreciate you talking about your reporting here tonight. Thank you. Thanks so much. We'll be right back. All right, that's going to do it for me for now.