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Rachel Maddow

Really good to have you here. So at 7:17am 7:17 this morning there was the gunfire. You can hear the sound of the gunfire on this home security camera footage. You can see the cat reacting there to those sharp sounds. You hear what sounds like five, maybe six gunshots. That's home security camera video from a neighbor who lives just adjacent to where this shooting happened today in Maine. The Bangor Daily News newspaper and the Portland Press Herald newspaper were also able to obtain this footage of a car right around that same time slowly rolling, seemingly unhelmed, slowly rolling in a circle at an intersection where this happened in a town called Biddeford, Maine. The Bangor Daily News then published video which I'm telling you, you may not want to see this. So if you this is not the kind of thing that you want to see. You can look away now if you don't want to see it. But the newspaper published this video on their website of what appears to be ICE agents pulling what appears to be the lifeless body of a young man out of that white Kia sedan that you just saw in that other footage going around in a circle in that intersect. I should mention that as they pull this young man out of the vehicle, it appears that they kind of bounce his head on the ground a couple of times and then they appear to handcuff what again appears to be his lifeless body. All right, I will not show you that video again. So if you did not want to see it, you can reopen your eyes. But the man in that footage is a 26 year old man. He's identified by neighbors as Juan Sebastian Guerrero. He's described by people who know him in Maine as somebody who was 26 years old, fully legally employed, legally working in the United States. He had legal permission to be here and to work here. But this morning at 7:17am he was shot and killed by Trump's federal agents on the street in Biddeford, Maine. Maine's independent US Senator Angus King told reporters today that there was not a warrant for Mr. Guerrero's arrest, that he was not the target of ICE operations in Videford, Maine, but still ICE agents for some reason killed him. Maine state authorities say the officer who killed him this morning is with ero, the Enforcement and Removal Operations division of ice, and reportedly that agent has been put on leave pending an investigation into the shooting. Will there be a real investigation into the shooting? Senator Angus King and Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins and Maine Democratic Governor Janet Mills and most of the other sort of powers that be that have reacted to the shooting in Maine, they all keep saying the same thing, which is that they demand or they at least want, or at least they might expect a full and independent investigation into what happened. A full and independent investigation. They all say the same thing. You know what happens typically when there's a full and independent investigation into something? I mean, I'm no expert, but seems to me like if you really got a full and independent investigation into a fatal shooting, one of the things you get is a crime scene, right? A cordoned off crime scene where you get law enforcement protecting the scene, keeping people away, keeping anyone or anything from contaminating the crime scene so they can do a full investigation in Biddeford, Maine today. Instead, what we got was this. See what's in the gutter there? That's this man's blood all over the street. And that's a concerned local resident overlooking that local residents today in Biddeford remarking upon that, remarking on the fact that this young man's blood is all over the street and flowing through their gutters, writing right next to it on the street in chalk, in big letters, this is blood. And the reason that is so shocking to see is because that is blood. And you don't see this at a typical crime scene because typically when there's a full and independent investigation of a crime, the scene where the crime happened is treated like a crime scene and protected. But this was today in Maine, by the 3 o' clock hour. This afternoon, again, still the same day as the killing, the Bangor Daily News published this photo of a street sweeper coming by, cleaning up around all that blood because, ooh, what a mess. Got to take care of that, get rid of that. A full and complete investigation. Again, the killing happened after 7am this morning. Within just a few hours before 10:30 this morning, the people of Biddeford, Maine had started to protest this killing. By noon, not even five hours after those fatal shots were fired by one of Trump's agents, there were hundreds of people out in the streets of Biddeford just yelling their guts out about Trump's agents killing their neighbor. Again, he's 26 years old, reportedly has a wife and a young daughter, was reportedly here working legally. ICE tonight put out a statement finally saying the federal agent shot this young man because the young man attempted to, quote, flee the scene and the agent, quote, feared for public safety. So five, maybe six shots fired through the window of the moving vehicle, killing this young man. Then they drag his lifeless body onto the street to handcuff it after bouncing his head off the ground a few times, leaving his blood to run in the gutters. After gathering to protest at a downtown park, the enraged residents of Biddeford, Maine today march themselves down to the Biddeford district office of Republican US Senator Susan Collins. Susan Collins, among the many things she's famous for in Maine, she is famous this year for having cast the deciding vote in the U.S. senate for ICE to get a massive, massive infusion of cash, literally tens of billions of dollars in unprecedented, record breaking strings, free funding. And she cast that vote for ICE to get $70 billion after the killings in Minneapolis of Renee Goode and Alex Preddy. Biddeford, Maine protesters today surged into Susan Collis's Biddeford office shouting, vote her out. Vote her out. Vot. The signs people were carrying, I have to tell you, were in some cases less polite than that, which is why we have to blur some of them. But the chant, as you can hear, is vote her out again. This is Susan Collins district office the day of this killing today in Maine. We had word today that after the protest that sprung up pretty spontaneously in Bidenford today, there was going to be another one, a Vigil tonight at 7pm in response to the killing. And indeed there was. But honestly, it wasn't like the early protests stopped and then the late protests started because people never stopped protesting all day long Today, all day long people have been out at Mechanics park and Main street in Biddeford and otherwise in the vicinity of that killing all day long, demanding justice, demanding that ICE get out and demanding justice for this young man killed by Trump's federal agents. There are also protests and vigils happening tonight in Bridgeton, Maine and in Portland, Maine tomorrow morning at 11am local time. We're expecting a demonstration calling for an end to ICE killings that's going to take place at the ICE facility that's located in Scarborough, Maine. Again, that's 11 o' clock tomorrow morning. I think people are expecting there to be quite a lot of mainers at that ICE facility tomorrow morning at 11am but that's what's happening in Maine today and tonight and what will be happening in Maine tomorrow morning. This was yesterday in Virginia. Suffolk, Virginia, another community really mad just up in arms because of what Trump's federal agents did there last week. Suffolk, Virginia, is in the Hampton Roads part of Virginia. And just last week, passersby caught this video of Trump's federal agents just, forgive me, just beating the hell out of another young man on the side of the road. This young man, you can see, is alone. He's not in a vehicle or anything. He does not appear to be armed. But here's one, and then two, and then three, and then ultimately four federal agents just beating and beating and beating him and punching him in the kidneys and in the spine and kneeing him over and over and over again, even as they're holding him down. The administration later put out a statement saying that this was justified because the man was resisting arrest. This happened a few days ago in Suffolk, Virginia. And here this weekend was Suffolk, Virginia, responding. Big protest there this weekend. Justice for Victor Perez Martin, which is the name of the young man who was beaten in that footage. Free Victor. ICE doesn't make us safe, it makes us ashamed. Also, this all stops when enough of us say, no. ICE out of Suffolk. Again, this is Suffolk, Virginia. Also, this one showing that these people are protesting at the exact site where that attack took place. Monday, July 6, ice beat a man right here. And this one, very simply, ICE beat a man here on Monday. Again, the protests this weekend taking place at the site where that footage happened, where that young man was beaten. The local paper, the Suffolk News Herald, interviewed two local residents, two women who decided to organize the protest after they saw that video, realized it had happened right there in their own town. The two women told the paper that the turnout for the protest, quote, exceeded any expectations, largely because they said they had none. One of the women telling the paper, quote, we didn't care, honestly, if it was just two people holding a damn sign, we would have stood out here, just the two of us, with our signs in the middle of a hurricane and been perfectly fine to do so, because I can't make other people care about what's happening every day in our cities. But I care and I can't not care. But again, a lot of people turned out in Suffolk, Virginia this weekend to protest what they had seen. This is Memphis, Tennessee, where Trump has also sent in a huge tide of federal agents. They've also used the National Guard in Memphis. In Memphis last weekend, National Guard troops shot and killed a 20 year old man in the streets. Then three days later, on Wednesday, federal DEA agents killed another man. Two people killed in Memphis by National Guard and federal agents within four days. Trump's federal agent shot and killed two other people in Memphis in May, including one man who was in the midst of a mental health crisis and threatening suicide. Inexplicably, one of Trump's federal HSI agents turned up in the response to that. Again, a young man threatening suicide and a HSI agent shows up. HSI is Homeland Security Investigations. What is he doing? But once he arrived, he killed the guy who was having the crisis. The young man was 25 years old. His name was Jonah Neal. The administration, of course, says all those killings were justified. How many more is Memphis going to get? But that's Maine today, Virginia this weekend, Memphis last week. There's also Texas, where Trump's federal agents are busy killing people right now. There's been a huge community response in Houston, Texas, after Trump's ICE agents killed yet another man Tuesday. Last week, that man in Houston once again was not the target of an ICE operation. But nevertheless, Trump's ICE agents shot into a moving vehicle and killed him. His name was Lorenzo Salgado Araujo. The three other people in the vehicle they shot into all witnessed the killing. Their lawyer says they have contested the ICE account, that that shooting was somehow justified. There have been marches and protests in Houston ever since, including on the steps of Houston City Hall. And now, as outrage has spread about that particular ICE killing, there have been protests all over the country, from Houston to San Antonio to Washington, D.C. to Bend, Oregon to Milwaukee, Wisconsin to Birmingham, Alabama to Tampa, Florida to Los Angeles to Eugene, Oregon. Protests all over the country about that ICE killing in Houston, Trump's Department of Homeland Security and ICE have been scaling up their arrests of immigrants really fast in the past few weeks. They have tried, it seems, to keep it out of the headlines, in contrast to the Kristi Noem era at Homeland Security. But according to public records, they've been arresting something on the order of 2,000 people per day, which is a massive number of arrests per day. And we know from very painful experience that when these guys try to scale up the numbers of people they're arresting every day. They really do seem to get more violent and more reckless and more people get killed as they are scaling up these numbers right now. We are now seeing an unmistakable trail of bodies in the streets of American cities and towns. And what happens when they do that? Well, Americans are revolted and they react, including in the streets all over the country. But the Trump administration, consistently in the Kristi Noem era at Homeland Security and now in the Mark Wayne Mullen era, they seem to consistently try to do everything they can to make sure they never have to answer legally for all the people they're killing, no matter what kind of protests they face. No one, for example, has ever been arrested for the killing of Renee Goode in Minneapolis or for the killing of Alex Preddy there. It's been nearly six months since those killings. No arrests, no charges. When it became clear that the federal government was just going to basically pretend like those killings didn't really happen, that in fact they wanted to investigate the victims of those killings, not the fact that those people were killed, it was local authorities in Minnesota who decided they would have to try to launch their own investigations as best they could. For months, federal officials refused to release any evidence in those killings, even the names of the people involved. They refused to release that evidence to the state investigators, who appear to have been the only people conducting any substantive investigation of those killings. And again, I'm not a law enforcement expert, but I know enough to understand that if you're not allowed access to physical evidence, if you're not allowed to even know the names of the people involved in the case of the Alex Preddy killing, they weren't even allowed to access the scene of the crime. Well, all of that makes it hard to mount a substantial investigation and gather evidence and work toward bringing charges. But state prosecutors, the Hennepin County District Attorney's office in Minnesota has been nevertheless working away at it as best they can. It was only today, today in a press conference in Minnesota, that those prosecutors were able to announce that finally, more than six months after those two killings, they've at last now been given access to Renee Nicole Goode's car and some of the other physical evidence from those killings that until now, they had been prevented from examining while the Trump administration covered up for their agents who killed those Americans in the streets. And while we now know their agents were going to continue week after week, month after month, to kill more and more of us in the streets in Maine, right in Memphis, right in Texas, as I mentioned, the protests in Biddeford Maine continued all day today after Trump's agents killed yet another man in the street this morning in that small main city. Protests today there instantly and all day long. And they have continued into tonight. We will keep eyes on what's happening in Maine over the course of this hour. We will keep you apprised as we learn more. And you know, I'm cognizant of sort of how this sounds. I can hear myself just as well as you can doing this broadcast. And I know it sort of feels like a time warp, right? Like we are having one of the circles, one of these cycles in the news where things seem to be kind of circling around and chewing on their own tails a bit, right? All these feel like very familiar headlines or at least very familiar themes, right? Violent, poorly trained, poorly led. Trump ICE agents killing people in American streets. American people in large numbers instinctively and instantly protesting against those killings. We've got the, frankly, the Strait of Hormuz closed again. And Trump once again promising that, oh yeah, it won't be Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz from here on out. It will be us closing the Strait of Hormuz. And somehow that will be better again yet again, right today on the National Mall. Remember the secret handshake people, the people who've done like the Trump Epstein gold statues today, they put up a new one of those statues, this one commemorating Trump losing the Iran war. It's called Participation Trophy. It has a big number one embossed on the side of it. The word participant is on it in all caps and then the plaque on it says Iran War Participation Trophy. We hereby award President Donald J. Trump this participation trophy for his enthusiastic involvement in the Iran war. While some concern themselves with military strategy, diplomacy or measurable outcomes, President Trump demonstrated the courage to participate regardless of the final score. President Trump joins the ranks of children everywhere who receive recognition for simply showing up. We join you in celebrating this remarkable achievement. The Iran war participation trophy for Donald Trump that's on the, on the National Mall as of today. It's right near the reflecting pool that Trump has apparently destroyed and now fenced off. And the reflecting pool has again just been drained and they are again having, having work done on it in a no bid contract by the same Trump connected firm that did such a great job on the reflecting pool the first time around. I mean these headlines, they recur. We've also today got another federal judge just ripping Trump for one of his most outlandish schemes. Federal judge in Florida today just ruled that Trump's ham handed effort to back up the truck into the treasury, to take $1.8 billion in taxpayer money and call it a settlement with his own administration and his effort to proclaim himself and his family to have forever immunity from all tax crimes and also call it some sort of settlement. According to a federal judge in Florida today, those things are not legal settlements of any kind. They will neither be allowed to happen, nor will they be allowed to stand as effectively an attempted fraud on the court. The judge's 56 page ruling today was just super blunt. Quote, this action was never about a party seeking judicial resolution of a legal issue or a factual dispute. The nature of the suit itself, the conduct of the parties and counsel make plain that this was an attempt to use the court to provide some legitimacy to an agreement to confer immunity to people and entities affiliated with the president and to earmark billions of dollars from American taxpayers to redress grievances not defined in the law. An attempt to use the court to provide some legitimacy to this otherwise totally not legal scheme. The judge also referred Trump's lawyers in this matter to their respective bar associations for potential discipline in the bar or other ethics proceedings. And that includes Trump's acting Attorney General, Todd Blanche. Todd Blanche, who incidentally is supposed to have his confirmation hearing this week to be the actual Attorney General of the United States. With the sudden death of Republican Senator Lindsey Graham this weekend and the extended hospitalization of Republican Senator Mitch McCon, Todd Blanche's confirmation prospects are on somewhat thin ice already. But Todd Blanche today being referred to the bar by a federal judge for this kind of misconduct on behalf of what the judge describes as one of the president's illegal schemes. Well, this can't help his chances. And I recognize even as I'm saying these things that I sound like I'm skipping. I'm a record that keeps skipping back, right? A lot of these things feel like familiar headlines. Trump's agents killing people in the streets. Americans protesting about it at the top of their lungs. Trump blowing it in Iran. Trump getting laughed at for blowing it in Iran. Trump's lawyers getting laughed out of court and then getting in legal trouble themselves for his latest illegal shenanigans. It's like these things are static categories of news in the Trump era. And of course, you can add to that the fact that this week we apparently are going to suffer through once again, Trump trying to get people exercised over the the fact that he lost to the 2020 election, which he lost. The president is apparently planning some kind of primetime speech on Thursday to talk again about how wrong it is, what a scandal it is that he lost the 2020 election. His desperation ramping up on this subject, right? In recent days, his effort to subpoena information about election workers in Fulton County, Georgia, in 2020 was thrown out out in court. He's now taken hundreds of FBI personnel and taken them off whatever else they were working on to assign them instead to work in Fulton County, Georgia, on something. We don't know what exactly that something is, but it's apparently required them to push out the special agent in charge at the FBI field office in Atlanta. And now at least two FBI intelligence analysts who refused to be part of these reindeer games and had to be fired so that they could go forward. Trump's DOJ within the past week has now threatened in writing to jail all these senior elected election officials in all the states. On top of all that, he's now fired everyone on the Federal Election Assistance Commission, which helps states with election security and certifies voting machines. And so while the 2020 election fixation is a static category of Trump nonsense, tonight we're going to be talk with one of the commissioners from the Election Assistance Commission who has just been fired. We'll talk with him about what this means, that he and his fellow commissioners have been removed, and what he thinks we should be doing to keep the election safe. But tonight, we're also going to be talking with one of the best First Amendment lawyers ever in this country about something else that Trump likes to rant about all the time. And it can therefore seem like static news. But again, he is at least now getting more and more desperate about it and therefore more reckless about it. And the pushback against it is stronger than ever. We're going to be talking with superstar attorney Ted Boutros tonight about the reporters who are fighting back hard against Trump's effort to put them in jail if they don't give up their sources. This is something that's going to come to a head over the next 48 hours. Donald Trump is someone who does the same stuff over and over and over again, right from the Reflecting Pool to Iran to attacking the Free press, to sending his thugs out to kill people in the streets and then covering up for them when they do it. Trump does the same things over and over again. But you know what changes over time? The response changes, our understanding of his fixations changes, the pushback changes, the fight back changes and appears to be getting stronger and more fearless over time. And that in turn pushes him to more and more and more desperate actions on these same things that he keeps acting on over and over again. As the push back against him gets stronger, he gets more desperate and more reckless in the way he acts out. And that desperation does not make him more effective. Quite the contrary. But it does mean that the real story right now, the determinative thing to watch right now in our country is not him because he is eminently predictable. The real thing to watch right now is Americans fighting back and saying no everywhere. They're doing it in the streets, in the states, in the courts, occasionally even in Congress. That is what we're talking about tonight, here, this hour. Stay with us. We got a big show tonight.

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Rachel Maddow

On Friday night, this past Friday night, federal agents showed up on the doorstep of several reporters for the New York Times showed up at their homes. The agents served the reporters with subpoenas, subpoenas that ordered them to testify to a federal grand jury this week, the day after tomorrow, on Wednesday, about their sources. According to the Times, the subpoenas demand that the reporters testify, quote, in regard to an alleged violation of federal criminal law. Now, what's this about? I do not in any way want to diminish the importance of or the quality of the New York Times coverage that sent the White House into this Freakout, subpoena, mandatory testimony, give up your sources or go to jail mode. But this whole thing appears to be about something the Times reported, that doesn't exactly appear to be the world's most tightly held state secret. Again, not diminishing at all what the Times has accomplished with this story. But this is what it was. On Thursday, the Times reported on the new plane. The government of Qatar gave President Trump the plane he is now using as Air Force One. Officials who have been briefed on the retrofitting of that plane told the Times that the new plane lacks some of the defensive countermeasures found on the other Air Force One aircraft. Specifically, stuff like this. This is the directional infrared countermeasure system, which jams any incoming heat seeking missiles to divert them away so they don't hit the plane. This system is not a big secret. This animation that I'm showing you here, this little Pew Pew laser animation, this is on Northrop Grumman's publicly accessible YouTube page, which, which tells you all about it, including where exactly on the plane you should look. If you want to see the parts of this system that tell you whether or not the plane is equipped with this thing. They show you where the Simpson, where the, the sensors and stuff are and, and what they look like. This is publicly available, commercially advertised information. The Times reported that while while different parts of that defensive system were visible to the sort of trained eye on the old Air Force One, on the new Air Force One, you can't see those parts. Photographs of the new plane indicate that those same sensors and things aren't there. It's a visible to the naked eye anti missile system. You can see it on the old plane, you can't see it on the new plane. And that is great reporting from the New York Times, but it is also not exactly, you know, cracking the Enigma code. It's like one of these things is not like the other. That said, Trump has freaked out about this reporting. And so reporters from the New York Times got subpoenas at their homes late on Friday night. They're being told they must effectively give up their sources by Wednesday to a grand jury. Or else the top lawyer for the Times saying in response, quote, the appearance of federal law enforcement agents on the doorstep of news reporters should shock the conscience of any American who believes in the Constitution and the press freedom that it protects should shock the conscience. Well, now the question becomes how to defend these reporters, how to keep them out of jail and how to keep them from having to give up their sources. How best to fight this. Joining us now is one of America's legendary First Amendment lawyers, who, full disclosure, is also my lawyer. Ted Boutros does not represent the New York Times in this matter, although he does represent the Times and a number of other media organizations in several suits against the Trump administration and their attacks on the Free Press. Ted Mr. Boutros, thank you so much for making time to be here tonight. I know how busy you are.

Ted Boutros

Thank you so much for having me, Rachel, to talk about these important issues. They really are important.

Rachel Maddow

How out of bounds are these subpoenas? Will the Times be able likely be able at least to challenge them effectively in court, or do you think that this is going to come to a head before a grand jury on Wednesday?

Ted Boutros

They have the Times has many, many strong arguments. These subpoenas are way out of bounds. They depart from basically every norm, every practice. The Justice Department has had guidelines in place since the Nixon administration. John Mitchell put them in place to protect journalists and to make sure the Justice Department didn't do what they just did on Friday, which is to subpoena reporters for their source information before investigating further. And the famous case of Bransburg vs. Hayes from the Supreme Court said there wasn't some automatic First Amendment protection of sources, but it said harassment, bad faith, use of subpoenas to try to intimidate reporters, to try to intimidate sources, and that's what's going on here. So I think the Times will likely go in with a motion to quash before Wednesday and the judge will let them brief those issues and and I think we'll quash these subpoenas. The other thing, Rachel, the Justice Department doesn't usually send the FBI to reporters homes. There was no need to do a gratuitous, vindictive, intimidation retaliatory for reporting on important public issues. So I think they've got great arguments and they should win.

Rachel Maddow

You know, the way they served the subpoenas struck me as sort of an obvious intimidation effort. Also, the fact that the FBI director was sort of bragging on social media about, you know, what he was about to do to the news media, it all seemed to me to be sort of gratuitous and intimidating on purpose. But the other part of this that kind of got my hackles up was the short time frame, right, that they got these subpoenas on Friday night. They're told they have to be in front of the grand jury on Wednesday morning. It raised the question for me as to whether we're sure that the courts can act quickly enough if they do have a chance of getting these subpoenas, quote, squashed. Can the courts act quickly enough to do it?

Ted Boutros

You were absolutely right that that was another red flashing red light, that something's wrong here, that things have gone off the rails, that the testimony was is supposed to happen Wednesday. There's no need for that. This wasn't some emergency. I do think the court will be able to act quickly enough. The court can step in and say we're postponing or the subpoenas are not going to be enforced. We're going to hear briefing on this. But that was their tactic. They're hoping to try to rush it through. I don't think that the, the district judges in the Southern District of New York will let that happen. It's just too over the top. And you know, the Supreme Court in recent years, including in this first choice decision this year, talked about the First Amendment right to publish, the First Amendment right to associate. And the and the subpoenas can interfere with that in much different contexts. But those principles apply here. What they're trying to do is dry up information to the American people so the American people can figure out what's happening and to serve as a check on abuse of power. And also here, Rachel, the reporting is supportive of national security and safety. They're reporting about a potential security problem that needs to be fixed to protect the president of the United States. So it's really just a transparent effort to intimidate and harass, rush it through as you're suggesting.

Rachel Maddow

That transparency of it, I think, is actually one of the things that I guess makes me feel not confident, but I guess reassured that this can be quashed, that this can be stopped. I will say I'm also heartened to see the times punching back so hard, not giving an inch and saying that there's no way they're going to let their reporters go through this. Having you to talk to about this is also very comforting to me. First Amendment lawyer TED but gross. Ted, thank you for your time tonight. We'll check back in with you as this case proceeds. I really appreciate you making time.

Ted Boutros

Thanks so much, Rachel.

Rachel Maddow

All right. Good to see you. More news ahead here tonight. Stay with us.

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Rachel Maddow

I'll come back up for you.

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Rachel Maddow

You know how Republicans like to talk about election security all the time? Trump likes to talk about election Republicans election security since being back in office, Trump has worked overtime to systematically dismantle all the things the US Government actually does to keep elections secure. They have gutted the agency that handles election cybersecurity. They have eliminated the FBI task force that combats foreign influence in our elections. They have ended the program that shared intelligence with state and local officials on potential threats. Threats to elections. For somebody who seems to be so concerned about election security, he's been taking down all the defenses we have against potential threats to our elections. And after taking down those defenses, taking down as many of them as he can, we've also had Trump kicking into high gear his false assertions about previous elections, his efforts to convince his followers that no election is a real election if the result of that election was that he lost. Last week, a federal judge in Atlanta quashed subpoenas from Trump's Justice Department that were trying to get the personal information of thousands of election workers in Fulton County, Georgia, where Trump claims non existent fraud cost him that election in 2020. The FBI has surged hundreds of agents into Fulton county in the last few weeks to investigate the 2020 election somehow. But in order to do that, they had to force out the special agent in charge of the Atlanta field office reportedly because was not on board with that investigation. And according to new reporting from msnow, at least two FBI analysts who refused to have anything to do with this nonsense also had to be fired last week. The Justice Department has also now sent out a threat that they will jail state and local elections officials all over the country if non citizens vote in elections in those states, which is something that basically never happens. And now Trump has cleared out all four members of the Election Assistance Commission. He fired the two Democrats and he allowed the remaining Republican to resign. The Election Assistance Commission is a federal agency that exists to help states safely administer elections. It certifies voting machines, it helps them with election security. Why would you want to get rid of them? All of these things smack of the same kind of desperation and fact free failure as Republicans, at least by the polls, appear headed toward a shellacking this fall. But it is also up to us to be really clear eyed about how dangerous each of these actions is. Well, to that end. Joining us now for his first TV interview since he was fired is Thomas Hicks. He served on the Election Assistance Commission for over a decade. He was appointed to the commission by President Obama. He was unanimously confirmed by the U.S. senate in 2014. He was serving as chair of the commission when he was removed last week. Mr. Hicks, thank you so much for being here. I know this has been a pretty intense few days.

Thomas Hicks

Thank you for having me. The firing was very troubling, but I will be okay. I'm very upset that it happened on the fifth anniversary of my dad's passing, but that's just, you know, here, here, nor there. I am very proud of the work that I've done with the agency and I'm super proud of the work that would continue to happen with the remaining people who are there, the remaining staff who are there.

Rachel Maddow

Well, at a personal level, I'm really sorry about your father and about the coincidence of this news and that anniversary. Were you given any reason for your dismissal? Did you have any communication with the Trump administration about why they wanted you out?

Thomas Hicks

I have not had one contact from the Trump administration since I've been since they came back into office in 2025. So I have no idea why this happened.

Rachel Maddow

Can you just explain in layman's terms what the Election Assistance Commission does, what can't be done now that all the commissioners have been removed?

Thomas Hicks

Well, I want to make sure that folks know that they are still going to be able to vote. And so the one thing that they should do as voters, as American citizens, is make sure you cast your ball. So if you have any doubt that because the three of us have been let go right now that you should not be able to participate in the process that is not true. The states run the elections. And so you should get out there and do your best to cast your vote and express your opinion on who you feel should be a part of this. As election administrators, as the commissioners at the agency, we didn't care who won. Our job was to make sure that the states had the resource that they deserve and to ensure that the states could get as much information from us to do the jobs to make sure that the American people could cast their votes.

Rachel Maddow

I don't want to again, I don't want to engage in hypotheticals that are more scary than useful. But I think people are trying to figure out what's the realm of possibility here, what's the universe of possibilities that could happen right here. If the president wanted to use the Election Assistance Commission for nefarious purposes, if he wanted to put the pillow guy and election conspiracy theorists and some QAnon influencers or whatever on the commission and use it essentially to make the election seem poorly run or to call into question the administration of the election so as to feel less bound by the results, is the EAC something that he could abuse in that way?

Thomas Hicks

I want to make sure that this is perfectly clear. The US Congress is the ones who put those commissioners on the commission. The president nominates those folks, but they still have to go through the process. It's the same thing that would happen if a Supreme Court justice left. You still have to go through the process, have hearings be vetted and then the US Senate has to confirm those people. So I don't know why the president decided to let us go. At this particular moment. It seems like another anti voter move. But like I said before, I am proud of the work that I've done over the last 11 years and over the last 30 years as a federal employee, in the last 25 years working in elections overall.

Rachel Maddow

Thomas Hicks, chairman of the Election Assistance Commission until he was removed from that position along with all the other commissioners last week by President Trump. Mr. Hicks, thank you so much for your time tonight. I know you haven't done other interviews before this. I appreciate your trust in being here. I'm sorry about that personal connection to what happened here. Yes, go ahead.

Thomas Hicks

Sir, can I just give one more thing? If you have any doubt of what you of the system not working for you serve as a poll worker, see it from within. We worked with this group called Vet the Vote, which is a group of veterans who serve as poll workers. And they've done a great job of being able to be out there and giving reassurance that the system is working. So serve as a poll worker, Americans. That's all I ask.

Rachel Maddow

That is. That is.

Thomas Hicks

And to vote. And to vote.

Rachel Maddow

That is a great, great postscript. Thank you, sir. I appreciate you being here tonight. Thank you.

Sponsor/Announcer

All right.

Thomas Hicks

Thank you.

Rachel Maddow

We'll be right back. Stay with us. Okay. Picture this for a second. You just touched down after a long international flight. You're exhausted. You get off the plane, you open your bag, and you just got discover that unbeknownst to you, surprise, inside your bag for the entire flight was this. A revolver, a giant gun, a.357 Magnum, and six live rounds of ammunition. You had no idea. Travel nightmare, right? What do you do? This is exactly what happened to the prime minister of Belgium last week on his return home from the NATO summit that was just held in Turkey.

Ted Boutros

Turkey.

Rachel Maddow

Turns out that Turkey's somewhat eccentric prime minister decided to give all the world leaders who came to the NATO summit a gift bag to take home. But he did not mention that in the gift bag there was a fully functional gun and live ammunition. That led to all sorts of complications for the departing NATO leaders with this very awkward party favor. Belgium's prime minister, he's the one who had no idea he was traveling with the gun. He apparently handed it off to airport security in Brussels and then just walked away. The prime ministers of Sweden and the Netherlands apparently both thought to check their gift bags before they got on their flights home. They both then left the guns at their respective embassies in Turkey. The gift to the leader of the Netherlands. That one's going to be disabled per Dutch law. Canada announced that their gift gun will also be decommissioned. They say they transferred Prime Minister Mark Carney, personalized Turkish six shooter, to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in case the Mounties want to play with it. But they left the ammunition in Turkey. He didn't take the bullets. For some unexplained reason, the British government says Prime Minister Keir Starmer's personalized gun came not with just six bullets, but with 500. Why did he get 500 bullets? The British government says that Keir Starmer left both the gun and the boxes of courtesy bullets internally. We reached out to the White House tonight to ask whether President Trump also got one of these guns and if so, what did he do with it? We haven't heard back. I'll tell you a little bet I made with the staff. If it turns out he left it on the wrong Air Force One, I'm going to have to buy everybody tacos. Watch this space.

Sponsor/Announcer

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