Even Republicans object as Trump DOJ nominees are disturbingly noncommittal on obeying courts

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Speaker 3 At the end of last night's show, you might remember we were counting down to a midnight deadline that had been given to the Trump administration by a federal judge.

Speaker 3 A judge had ordered the Trump administration to restart funding on foreign aid. Now, this is a judge who had previously ordered the Trump administration to restart that funding, and they had not.

Speaker 3 He had then brought Trump administration lawyers back into his courtroom this week and said, It doesn't seem like you're complying with my earlier order.

Speaker 3 Can you tell me what steps are being taken to comply with my order? The Trump administration lawyer then responded by basically going,

Speaker 3 the judge at that point, we got the transcript actually, the judge at that point said, quote, hey, I guess I'm not sure why I can't get a straight answer from you on this.

Speaker 3 Hey.

Speaker 3 After that just humiliation of the Trump administration's lawyer unable to explain why the Trump administration was defying this lawful order, that judge issued what's called a motion to enforce.

Speaker 3 And he set this midnight deadline for midnight last night by which the Trump administration had to do what he said, had to restart that aid funding.

Speaker 3 So that's what we were talking about last night at the top of the show. And then just as we were going off the air at the end of the show last night, the Trump administration ran to the U.S.

Speaker 3 Supreme Court. And just before we went off the air, just before the end of last night's show, the Trump administration obtained an order from the Supreme Court saving them from that midnight deadline.

Speaker 3 So they're less than three hours away from that deadline.

Speaker 3 And the Supreme Court at the very last second steps in and says, no, no, no, Trump administration, you don't have to release that funding by midnight after all.

Speaker 3 And we want briefing on this by noon on Friday. So we'll see what happens by noon on Friday, by tomorrow noon at the U.S.
Supreme Court.

Speaker 3 But But because of the Supreme Court's intervention, that USAID funding did not start flowing last night at midnight.

Speaker 3 And this confrontation and this series of events raises like a whole Niagara Falls of issues and consequences. I mean, first of all, and most importantly, is the substance of it, right?

Speaker 3 I mean, what's that funding for? Well, among other things, it's for the magnificently successful world-renowned U.S. AIDS treatment programs that have been interrupted.

Speaker 3 That puts tens of millions of lives at risk. With that funding not flowing, those programs aren't restarting.

Speaker 3 The new work that is not being done

Speaker 3 because that funding hasn't restarted includes little things like, I don't know, work on the previously unknown brand new hemorrhagic fever that has just broken out in Congo.

Speaker 3 It killed three little kids in Congo over the course of three days, and then immediately within like 10 more days, the death toll was 53.

Speaker 3 And now it's in at least two different locations in Congo, and they don't know what it is or how it spreads. It is a disease they have never seen before.

Speaker 3 It does seem to have an alarmingly high death rate, something like a 12% death rate, which

Speaker 3 for a hemorrhagic fever and infectious disease is a massive death rate.

Speaker 3 And even scarier than that, those it kills, it seems to kill within 48 hours right this is bad an outbreak spreading fast of a previously undiscovered unknown hemorrhagic fever that is already killing humans by the dozens

Speaker 3 that's the kind of thing that United States global health programs would be all over usually to identify this thing to contain it to treat people and keep them alive to stop this thing from spreading among other things to make sure that it does not come here to the United States.

Speaker 3 But we're not doing the foreign aid funding anymore. Stopping USAID means stopping efforts to combat things like that.
It also means, you know,

Speaker 3 stopping America's traditional and leading and totally irreplaceable work to help and contain the damage when not just hemorrhagic fevers break out, like Ebola in Uganda and Marburg in Tanzania, both of which are happening right now, but also to stop things like tuberculosis and malaria.

Speaker 3 Domestically, here in this country, this confrontation, this drama with the Supreme Court getting involved means that we are about to have the U.S. Supreme Court meaningfully weigh in

Speaker 3 on this sledgehammer that Trump and his top campaign donor have taken to the U.S. government thus far, with no seeming regard for either the law or the Constitution.
So we will see,

Speaker 3 probably for for the first time, how the Supreme Court is oriented toward this radical change that has happened over the last five and a half weeks in our country.

Speaker 3 And honestly, this is also important because of the way this came up.

Speaker 3 That midnight deadline we were looking at last night was set so firmly and so urgently by the federal judge who was hearing this case.

Speaker 3 Because he had to do it by motion to enforce. He had to do a motion to enforce because Trump really was ignoring that that court's previous orders.

Speaker 3 Right? And so when we look to see how the Supreme Court handles this tomorrow at noon, we're going to be looking to see how the Supreme Court handles that very scary issue.

Speaker 3 How this Supreme Court is going to treat the prospect of this president, this administration, potentially ignoring the courts.

Speaker 3 They have been joking about this and making, you know, macho sounding bluffs about this for for a long time now, particularly from the vice president, J.D. Vance.

Speaker 3 How is the Supreme Court going to deal with it now that it's real? Do they try to give him what he wants from the courts so that Trump doesn't break that glass, doesn't

Speaker 3 smash through the brightest bright line that we have and effectively end the republic? Do they appease him because they, oh, he's so scary. We better not make him defy a court order.

Speaker 3 We better make sure all court orders go his way. Or do they make clear to him that his powers as president actually don't allow him to defy the courts?

Speaker 3 To tell him that he's not always going to get what he wants from the courts. And when the courts tell him something he doesn't like, he has to obey the courts anyway.

Speaker 3 Do they tell him that if he does try to defy the courts, he is effectively declaring war on the United States of America?

Speaker 3 We'll see.

Speaker 3 We don't know how the U.S. Supreme Court is going to handle this.
And we don't know how directly they're going to get at this key issue, but this case moves to them tomorrow at noon Eastern time.

Speaker 3 So eyes wide open on that and take it with all the seriousness it deserves. We've got the top Senate Democrat on the

Speaker 3 Judiciary Committee here tonight to talk about

Speaker 3 what happened yesterday in the Senate when Trump nominees for senior Justice Department positions

Speaker 3 told him and other members of the Judiciary Committee that they weren't sure that Trump should always obey court rulings.

Speaker 3 That happened in the Senate yesterday.

Speaker 3 The leading Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee is going to be here talking with us about it in just a moment, ahead of tomorrow's Supreme Court actions on this case.

Speaker 3 It's a very chilling subject. It's one I take very seriously.
It is absolutely the endgame discussion for us as a republic. It is as serious as it gets.

Speaker 3 Meanwhile, this is what it looked like in Washington, D.C.

Speaker 3 today as workers from that agency, from USAID, were each given a grand total of 15 minutes by the Trump administration to come into USAID headquarters and retrieve their belongings from their offices.

Speaker 3 While they were doing that, people showed up in big numbers to support them and clap for them and to say thank you.

Speaker 5 Oh, there's so many emotions. I already cried this morning when I arrived.

Speaker 5 You know, someone said, you know, thanks for being here, and I just burst into tears.

Speaker 5 Thank you.

Speaker 5 We're here.

Speaker 3 We thank you. This is not happening in the dark.

Speaker 3 That was Washington, D.C. today, as people showed up to support and thank USAID workers.

Speaker 3 who the Trump administration is trying to fire as they try to shut down that agency, even though they pretty clearly are just legally not allowed to do that.

Speaker 3 People turning out to protest, but also support the people who are at the sharp end of this stick.

Speaker 3 One of the tools the Trump administration has been using to try to destroy USAID and to disassemble so many other agencies is

Speaker 3 wholesale firing, en mas firing, everybody who's considered a probationary employee.

Speaker 3 And you've heard that term over this last couple of weeks when they have been using using this as the basis for firing people.

Speaker 3 Being a probationary employee, it usually means you're in your first year or two on the job.

Speaker 3 It can also mean that you've transferred into a new job or you've been promoted within the last year or two. Probationary makes it sound like you've been in trouble, right?

Speaker 3 And you're like, you're on probation. We're watching you because you did something wrong.
It's not that at all.

Speaker 3 It is a meaningless category in terms of the importance of the work that's being done by that employee, their skill level, their performance, their value to the government and to their agency.

Speaker 3 But nevertheless, the Trump administration has ordered mass firings of people based purely on that classification, just because they thought it would be easy to get away with that, legally speaking.

Speaker 3 Turns out, not so fast. Tonight, a federal judge on the West Coast, a federal judge in California, has just ruled that the Trump administration's instructions to agencies

Speaker 3 about indiscriminately firing all these people, thousands and thousands of probationary employees thus far.

Speaker 3 A judge just ruled tonight that the instruction from the Trump administration to all the agencies about firing these people is, quote, illegal, and quote, should be stopped, rescinded.

Speaker 3 Federal Judge William Alsop said from the bench in his ruling tonight, quote, the Office of Personnel Management does not have any authority whatsoever under any statute in the history of the universe to hire and fire employees within another agency.

Speaker 3 He said, quote, it can hire its own employees, yes, can fire them, but it cannot order or direct some other agency to do so.

Speaker 3 Judge Elsa further ordered tonight from the bench that the rescinding of the Trump administration directive

Speaker 3 to fire probationary employees, he ordered that the rescinding of that directive should be conveyed tonight to the Pentagon, to the U.S. Defense Department.

Speaker 3 And I think that's because tomorrow is the day on which the Pentagon was otherwise expected to march more than 5,000 fired employees out the door.

Speaker 3 Well, again, the judge said the Defense Department needs to be informed of my ruling tonight. Not tomorrow, tonight.

Speaker 3 So whether or not they still try to fire those 5,000 plus employees tomorrow at Defense Department, it may not happen because of this judge's order. We shall see.

Speaker 3 We don't think that this order from this judge tonight means that all the other probationary employees who have already been fired are going to be reinstated.

Speaker 3 We don't think that's the implication of this ruling, but we're going to have to wait to see his written order in this case, which we expect tomorrow. Again, he ruled from the bench tonight.

Speaker 3 He ordered that his ruling from the bench be conveyed to the Pentagon, but we expect his written ruling tomorrow.

Speaker 3 Today, NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which, among other things, gives us, you know, the weather forecast,

Speaker 3 They sent out notices today that they are indiscriminately firing hundreds of employees from that agency.

Speaker 3 The Trump administration also today announced plans to close hundreds of help centers, places people can go to get free help and advice on their taxes.

Speaker 3 Oh, good.

Speaker 3 These are the so-called taxpayer assistance centers. They're going to close 110 of those all around the country.
Yeah, can't possibly have taxpayer assistance.

Speaker 3 That announcement comes as the IRS was told to fire more than 6,000 people this past week, just as tax filing season is getting underway.

Speaker 3 We're also going to be talking tonight with a reporter on VA issues tonight. Trump has just fired more than 2,000 people.

Speaker 3 from the VA, from the agency that serves our nation's veterans, including people who work to support the Veterans Crisis Line.

Speaker 3 Yeah, there's a lot of fraud, waste, and abuse there, huh? Got to cut that.

Speaker 3 Trump also cut funding for veterans' cancer care. Seriously?

Speaker 3 And for veterans' cemeteries.

Speaker 3 Seriously.

Speaker 3 Before good journalism about those cuts and a resulting huge outcry yesterday forced them to reinstate some of those things, but they did try to cut them.

Speaker 3 We'll have more on that coming up tonight.

Speaker 3 But these cuts cuts that I'm talking about, the impact of these cuts that I'm talking about, the legal fight over these cuts, but also the pushback against these cuts and what they're doing,

Speaker 3 it's not at all a Washington story by now. It really is by now everywhere.

Speaker 6 One of the places where we've already seen impacts from those federal cuts is right here at the Detroit VA. On a day that would have been his one-year work anniversary at the Detroit VA.

Speaker 3 When I first got that email, I was shocked, you know, quite frankly, shocked.

Speaker 6 Elliot Spray is instead unemployed.

Speaker 6 The 10-point veteran, one of the thousands of federal employees, terminated in the last few weeks as the Trump administration and the Department of Government Efficiency worked to slash what they say is government waste.

Speaker 6 A rally in Livonia Tuesday bringing out dozens of seniors concerned about Social Security and Medicare.

Speaker 3 I'm terrified.

Speaker 3 My life would change drastically without Social Security. And that's our money.
We put that in. Nobody gave us that money.
We loaned it to the government.

Speaker 7 Everything that is happening right now is impacting so many people.

Speaker 6 Delia Sharp in the crowd after losing her job on Friday when the Department of Education grant she was hired under was terminated.

Speaker 3 Department of Education cuts, the potential elimination of the Department of Education is one of sort of two categories of actions the Trump administration and Republicans in Washington are taking that have potentially catastrophic effects, not just on the people

Speaker 3 who are served by those agencies or the people who work there, but also on the states.

Speaker 3 If the Federal Education Department disappears, which NBC News reports is their plan to just eliminate that department and everything it does, if they kill the Federal Education Department, And if they go ahead with these massive Medicaid cuts that are slated in the budget that Republicans have just started to pass in Washington,

Speaker 3 both of those things are going to just be nuclear bombs on the state budgets of just about every state in the country.

Speaker 3 Those folks in Michigan on Tuesday, including the woman who's just lost her job because of Department of Education cuts,

Speaker 3 they were protesting, among other things, what Trump is doing to Social Security. They protested outside the Social Security Administration building.

Speaker 3 Reporters this week, including Dave Dayen at the American Prospect, have warned that Trump's cuts at the Social Security Administration might be fully 50% of the workforce at Social Security.

Speaker 3 Meanwhile, the expected cuts to Medicaid, which again would be devastating not just to the people who work to administer that, be devastating to the tens of millions of people who get Medicaid in this country.

Speaker 3 It'd be devastating to state budgets in every state in this country. The expected cuts to Medicaid specifically led to this protest yesterday in Wisconsin.

Speaker 8 Many of those who gathered on Wednesday

Speaker 8 came with stories.

Speaker 11 I have a 23-year-old son who has developmental disabilities. He has been on Medicaid since he was a toddler.

Speaker 3 And photos.

Speaker 9 I think people need to see that there are real people being impacted.

Speaker 8 Telling how Medicaid has affected their lives.

Speaker 12 We may have not been able to receive those therapies without it.

Speaker 8 They believe the budget plan approved by the House of Representatives on Tuesday means cuts to Medicaid.

Speaker 11 Medicaid is an essential program for these folks and we cannot let it be cut.

Speaker 3 They need to listen to the people.

Speaker 8 The Wisconsin Department of Health and Human Services reported 1.47 million Wisconsinites were enrolled in Medicaid in 2023.

Speaker 12 It's heartbreaking to see how many people are going to be affected.

Speaker 8 Senator Johnson did not appear in person but said in a statement, the rally has, quote, no basis in truth or fact.

Speaker 3 Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin never misses an opportunity to share how much he respects his constituents.

Speaker 3 Has no basis in truth or fact.

Speaker 3 Yeah, these dummies with their disabled children rallying at his office, he doesn't see the need to respond. They don't know anything.

Speaker 3 You might have seen the headline in the Washington Post yesterday about how the, quote, resistance is beginning to, quote, wake in earnest.

Speaker 3 Post highlighted, among other things, the fact that Senator Bernie Sanders just held a couple of town hall events

Speaker 3 in two red states, in Iowa, where he went to Iowa City, and in Nebraska, where he held an event in Omaha.

Speaker 3 You can see from some of the local news coverage and the footage we've been able to get that these events were sort of stuff to the gills and beyond.

Speaker 3 In Omaha, the organizers of that town hall event was Senator Sanders said they had an inkling that the response was going to be pretty big, so they arranged for a really big venue for his event.

Speaker 3 They planned for a thousand people to show up. They got a venue that seated a thousand people.
On the night of the event, though, the actual turnout was between 3,500 and 4,000 people

Speaker 3 in Nebraska in February to go to a meeting with Bernie Sanders.

Speaker 3 In Iowa City, his talk there was at noontime. The Des Moines Register reports that thousands of people turned up in Iowa City.
They started lining up at 7.30 a.m.

Speaker 3 for an event that wouldn't start until noon.

Speaker 3 Des Moines Register reports that lines to get in stretched multiple city blocks and they had to set up a whole separate overflow event in Iowa in February to go to a noontime meeting with Bernie Sanders.

Speaker 3 And this is not just a Bernie Sanders phenomenon.

Speaker 3 This, for example, was the no special occasion regular organizing meeting last night for the Indivisible chapter in Collingswood, New Jersey.

Speaker 3 They, again, had guessed that there might be an unusually large amount of interest given everything that's going on.

Speaker 3 So they booked a hall that could hold a huge number of people for just a regular organizing meeting on a Wednesday night.

Speaker 3 They booked a hall that could hold 450 people, but they filled that 450-seat room.

Speaker 3 And then another 200 people showed up and could not get in, and they decided they would just meet in the parking lot instead.

Speaker 3 You might have also seen recent headlines just over the past few days about how Republican members of Congress are being advised now to please stop holding town halls with their constituents because they aren't enjoying the national and local news coverage that those things are engendering.

Speaker 3 Look at this out of Mid-Lothian, Virginia.

Speaker 3 This gives you some sense of why Republicans might not want to be anywhere near their constituents right now, not when this is what it's like for them, even in Republican congressional districts.

Speaker 13 The event Whitman's office held today was called Mobile Office Hours. Congressman Whitman wasn't in attendance, nor was he ever scheduled to be.

Speaker 13 However, that didn't stop his constituents from giving his staff an earful.

Speaker 13 From angry chants.

Speaker 14 Don't patronize us when you're not sent. Shame, shave, shame.

Speaker 13 To passionate pleas.

Speaker 14 We want to know, we want to know.

Speaker 13 And even tears.

Speaker 14 Who is representing me in Congress?

Speaker 13 Constituents from across the first congressional district filed into a Midlothian American Legion post on Wednesday.

Speaker 13 That's where Republican Congressman Rob Whitman's office was holding what his team calls mobile office hours.

Speaker 14 He needs to answer to his constituents and stop hiding.

Speaker 13 His constituents saying they're concerned about the GOP budget resolution, which Whitman voted for on Tuesday, that some, including the mother of a child with lung disease, believe could lead to massive cuts to Medicaid.

Speaker 14 You take away Medicaid funds. You are saying that's okay for this child to die.

Speaker 13 Plus, cuts to other key social services like SNAP benefits.

Speaker 14 And Rob Whitman voted last night to cut that

Speaker 14 by 23%.

Speaker 13 Constituents also upset with President Donald Trump's firing of thousands of federal workers, like Chesterfield resident Ebony Turner. She says she was fired from the IRS last week.

Speaker 14 The termination was not based on my performance nor conduct.

Speaker 14 My agency's leadership will attest to that.

Speaker 13 Whitman's office turned down our interview request to address his constituents' concerns, but in a statement, the congressman said while he believes, quote, enhancing government efficiency is important,

Speaker 13 he believes that goal should be, quote, pursued with greater compassion. On potential cuts to social services, Whitman repeatedly didn't address our specific questions.

Speaker 3 The congressman repeatedly did not address our specific questions, nor did he show up in person to face that from his constituents in his Republican district last night.

Speaker 3 That report from WAVY in Virginia from last night.

Speaker 3 One of the things that does keep cropping up at these town halls and also at protests that we're seeing all over the country is just rage and expressions of disgust at the president putting his top campaign donor in charge of destroying the government.

Speaker 3 That has also led increasingly to protests that specifically target that campaign donor, Elon Musk, like this one a few days ago in Cherry Hill, New Jersey on the street outside the Tesla dealer in that town.

Speaker 3 Get a pretty considerable turnout outside that Tesla dealership in Cherry Hill.

Speaker 3 There was another protest targeting Elon Musk specifically at the SpaceX and Starlink offices in Redmond, Washington. This was yesterday.

Speaker 3 They seem to have had a pretty good turnout there up in Redmond, Washington.

Speaker 3 It'll also be interesting to see what kind of turnout there is this Saturday, March 1st, in Hawthorne, California, which is right near LAX, right near the airport in LA.

Speaker 3 They're telling people to dress up like Elon Musk for the protest at that SpaceX headquarters building on Saturday. So if nothing else, it should be funny.

Speaker 3 They specifically went out of their way to say: if you do dress up like Mr. Musk for the protest, please do not choose to express your opinion of him by dressing up as a Nazi.

Speaker 3 They do not want anybody there there in Nazi Elon Musk outfits. Thank you.
Thank you. Please, no.

Speaker 3 That protest at SpaceX Global Headquarters in LA, again, expected Saturday.

Speaker 3 As the concerns and objections to Elon Musk now are starting to extend not just to what he's doing to the rest of the government, but what he's doing for himself as he's taking apart the government.

Speaker 3 The Washington Post is now following on reporting that initiated with Bloomberg News and other outlets that Musk has now apparently just somehow engineered the overriding of an existing FAA contract with Verizon to instead install his own company in its place, to instead install Starlink at the FAA.

Speaker 3 They're just doing that. Is that legal? Aren't there rules for like contracts and conflicts of interest and stuff?

Speaker 3 As we get to that part of the definition of oligarchy already right away, one of the more unnerving things that Mr.

Speaker 3 Musk has developed an interest in in recent days appears to be the American judicial system.

Speaker 3 Now, on top of everything else he is doing in his capacity as the president's top donor, Musk has also started railing publicly that American judges and the judiciary are the real problem in this country.

Speaker 3 and that therefore we need to start, in his words, firing judges, because courts should not be allowed to stop him and to stop Donald Trump from doing whatever they want.

Speaker 3 Naturally, Republican members of Congress are obliging. They've started filing impeachment proceedings against multiple federal judges who've had the temerity to rule against Trump.

Speaker 3 And this seems sort of at the same time to be just the natural evolution of where these guys have always been heading.

Speaker 3 But it also seems to be the single brightest bright line we have as a country.

Speaker 3 When it comes to figuring out whether the authoritarian takeover they are attempting will be stopped or whether it will go all the way.

Speaker 3 Americans from Sea to Shining Sea are turning out in huge and increasing numbers to say they are not down with this. They do not want any of this.

Speaker 3 And amid this fight and amid this drama and amid the American people being so palpably mad about what they are doing,

Speaker 3 The single most important line that just cannot be crossed ever is to have a president defying the law and defying the courts, because that is the end.

Speaker 3 And on that, Senator Dick Durbin joins us next. Stay with us.

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Speaker 3 During a confirmation hearing yesterday, something happened that I don't think has ever happened before.

Speaker 3 Multiple nominees for senior Justice Department jobs said during their confirmation hearings out loud that they're not sure that presidents have to obey rulings from the courts. Not always.

Speaker 20 There is no hard and fast rule about whether in some, in every instance, a public official is bound by a court decision.

Speaker 21 Generally, if there's a direct court order that binds a federal or state official,

Speaker 21 they should follow it.

Speaker 22 Why do you say generally? Give me an exception.

Speaker 21 I suppose one could imagine hypotheticals in extreme cases.

Speaker 3 The president has now asserted that he has the right basically to do what he thinks is necessary to save the country.

Speaker 3 And I'm asking whether that includes violating a Supreme Court order.

Speaker 21 I've represented President Trump for two years. I've never been put in any situation like that.
And I don't know. No,

Speaker 3 I just got to say, Mr. Chairman, that's a little bit frustrating.

Speaker 3 That's a little bit frustrating.

Speaker 3 You may have recognized one of those nominees, the guy with the raspy voice. He's named John Sauer.

Speaker 3 He is the lawyer who told a federal appeals court that Donald Trump would be within his rights to order a team of Navy SEALs to assassinate his political opponents.

Speaker 3 That Donald Trump could not be prosecuted for giving such an order.

Speaker 3 Mr. Sauer is now up for the job of Solicitor General, which is the person who represents the United States government before the Supreme Court.

Speaker 3 The unnerving refusal by him and other Trump Justice Department nominees yesterday to say that the president must always obey the federal courts

Speaker 3 prompted a stern and somewhat unexpected admonition from one Republican senator from John Kennedy of Louisiana.

Speaker 23 You're all adults.

Speaker 3 You're all officers of the court.

Speaker 23 So I'm going to give you some advice.

Speaker 4 I may be wrong, but I doubt it.

Speaker 23 Don't ever,

Speaker 4 ever,

Speaker 23 take the position

Speaker 3 that you're not going to follow the order of a federal court.

Speaker 1 Ever.

Speaker 23 Now, you can disagree with it

Speaker 23 within the bounds of legal ethics. You can criticize it,

Speaker 6 you can appeal it,

Speaker 23 or you can resign.

Speaker 3 Joining us now is Illinois Senator Dick Durbin. He is the second highest-ranking Democrat in the Senate.
He's the ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Speaker 3 Senator Durbin, it's a rare pleasure to be able to have you here on the show tonight. Thank you so much for making time.

Speaker 22 Thanks, Rachel. Good to be with you.

Speaker 3 I know that you have had a strong reaction to those nominees playing with the idea that Donald Trump doesn't have to obey court orders. In an interview today, you called it breathtaking.

Speaker 3 You said it raises serious existential constitutional questions. We've got to step back and have an honest discussion about this.
Why do you feel so strongly about that?

Speaker 3 What can you explain to our viewers about the seriousness of this issue that

Speaker 3 you've now come across in these confirmation hearings?

Speaker 22 Rachel, you and I have heard many people use the phrase constitutional crisis and try to define exactly when it reaches a point of breaking point with our Constitution.

Speaker 22 And it seems to me that the final question is the one I raised with these witnesses.

Speaker 22 If you're given a court order that says to this president or any president for that matter, that there are certain actions that they cannot take or should not take or

Speaker 22 have to take, are you going to follow that order? And it turned out to be a a debating topic. I thought the answer was a clear yes and let's move on, but they wanted to debate it.

Speaker 22 You heard one of them qualify it, say, well, generally yes. And we had these equivocal answers.

Speaker 22 The most definitive answer came from John Kennedy, as you noted, a Republican of Louisiana, who made it clear what I think the law is.

Speaker 22 You may hate the order of the court, but you either follow it or resign, period. I can't think of an exception to that.

Speaker 22 They tried to use an illustration, Koromatsu, Dred Scott, those terrible decisions. One of the Republican senators used is an illustration of a court order that you could morally rationalize opposing.

Speaker 22 But the bottom line is you cannot take a subjective test on this issue. If you did, you'd have someone who might be a racist who says, Brown versus Board of Education, integrating our schools.

Speaker 22 I don't believe in that. That's morally reprehensible to me, and I will not enforce that order in my administration of education.
So you see, that's a slippery slope. So I think we've raised the

Speaker 22 threshold question for the Department of Justice appointments by this administration, and we'd better debate it out because it gets to the heart of our democracy.

Speaker 3 It does get to the heart of our democracy. It is the closest thing that we have to an existential question, I think,

Speaker 3 in terms of our republic.

Speaker 3 To see the wholesale destruction of the federal government, which I think they're trying to do, to see them appearing to ignore laws when it comes to doing what they're they're trying to do to the U.S.

Speaker 3 government is a bad thing as far as I'm concerned.

Speaker 3 Disobeying the law seems to be bad, but the prospect that when a court corrects that, when a court declares it to be illegal and orders them to change course, that they will not do it.

Speaker 3 We are just in a territory that

Speaker 3 that's like where the roadrunner runs off the end of the cliff and then there's nothing there and it just drops.

Speaker 3 I have to ask you, because I think you do very clearly see the seriousness of this, what sort of contingency plans elected Democrats have

Speaker 3 for further sounding the alarm and for trying to correct course and pull that roadrunner back onto the cliff

Speaker 3 if they go as far as they're signaling they might?

Speaker 22 Well, I can tell you, I think this is going to be a standard inquiry of all those appointed to serve in the administration, particularly in the Department of Justice.

Speaker 22 As I said, I was a little bit surprised,

Speaker 22 not totally, because we've seen some rather amazing things done by this administration so far, but I was surprised by the answers yesterday.

Speaker 22 We cannot take for granted that any of these nominees from the Trump administration will follow the basic tenets of our constitutional law. We have to ask the question.

Speaker 22 And if the answer comes back no, as did yesterday, or at least qualified as it did yesterday, it is right for us to continue to press the case.

Speaker 22 As the minority, it's a frustration that we don't have controlling votes on the question.

Speaker 22 But I am hopeful, and I hope John Kennedy is an illustration, that there will come a moment when Republican senators will come out of hiding and speak up clearly on something as basic as this principle of constitutional law.

Speaker 22 Because if we abandon this, I'm afraid we've abandoned our democracy.

Speaker 3 Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, senior Democrat in the Senate. Sir, thank you you for your time tonight.
I do really appreciate you being here.

Speaker 22 Thanks, Rachel.

Speaker 3 All right. Much more news ahead here tonight.
Stay with us.

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Speaker 3 Do not let anyone tell you that pushback does not matter. Look at this.
This was the headline Tuesday night at the Washington Post. Doge to cancel government contracts that help veterans records show.

Speaker 3 Quote, the 875 contracts on the chopping block help cover medical services, fund cancer programs, recruit doctors, and provide burial services to veterans, according to internal VA documents.

Speaker 3 Also a contract to, quote, safely dispose of chemical waste.

Speaker 3 Yeah, who needs that? Look, the word waste is right there. Let's cut that.

Speaker 3 So this is the VA. This is healthcare for American military veterans.
Here's Donald Trump announcing proudly as president, right, we're slashing funding for cancer care for American military veterans.

Speaker 3 Also, burial services, literally, burial services for veterans.

Speaker 3 And hey, just toss that chemical waste out back behind the shed, it'll be fine.

Speaker 3 But put that back up there.

Speaker 3 That was the headline at the Washington Post: Tuesday night. Doge to cancel government contracts that help veterans.
This was Tuesday night. But then look at this.
This was less than 24 hours later.

Speaker 3 Ding! Under pressure, VA halts contract cancellations in major reversal.

Speaker 3 After one night and one day of shock and outrage at what Trump was doing, hey, turns out they decided to reverse it. Not going to do it.

Speaker 3 Don't let anybody tell you that pushback doesn't work.

Speaker 3 That said, it's not like they're leaving veterans alone. The Trump administration fired 1,000 people who work at the VA two weeks ago.
This week, they fired 1,400 more people who work at the VA.

Speaker 3 Leo Shane, reporting at the Military Times, quote, officials said the moves did not impact any mission-critical jobs, but quote, did not provide any specifics of the types of assignments that were eliminated.

Speaker 3 One VA official telling NBC News, quote, it's leading to paralysis and nothing is getting done.

Speaker 3 The official described absolute chaos at the agency, with even Trump political appointees afraid to misstep and incur a backlash from either the White House or the public.

Speaker 3 As bad as this already is, though, heads up that the kinds of cuts we've seen this far might be an order of magnitude smaller than the cuts that Trump has coming next.

Speaker 3 The American Prospect was first to report that the Social Security Administration is preparing to slash fully 50% of its workers.

Speaker 3 That would mean filing nearly 30,000 people who work on getting people their social security checks. Social Security Administration has already lost thousands of employees in the last decade.

Speaker 3 They want to cut 30,000 people now.

Speaker 3 That kind of a mass firing called a reduction in force is reportedly being planned all across federal agencies.

Speaker 3 But slashing jobs and programs for veterans in particular is not something the Trump administration is going to be able to do quietly with no pushback. That's obvious.

Speaker 3 Military Times's Leo Shane was on a call with lawmakers this afternoon about federal workers being fired.

Speaker 3 He posted this quote from Virginia Senator Tim Kaine, quote, I think Donald Trump in six weeks has already achieved the record of having fired more veterans than any president in the history of the United States.

Speaker 3 That is not a distinction, he says, quote, that is a disgrace. Joining us now is Leo Shane.
He's deputy editor at Military Times. Mr.
Shane, Leo, it's nice to see you.

Speaker 3 Thank you very much for being back.

Speaker 27 I appreciate the invite.

Speaker 3 What's your understanding of how this 24-hour reversal went down at the VA? They announced all these cuts and then they took it all back. What happened?

Speaker 27 Yeah, I'm not sure that they have taken it all back. We've gotten an official word from VA that they're reviewing these contracts and that they will make sure that there's no impact.

Speaker 27 There's concerns about it. But I've talked to sources within the VA and some of these offices.
They haven't gotten official word that these have been rescinded.

Speaker 27 They're still working under the assumption that these will eventually go away, that at least most of the contracts they've started looking at will

Speaker 27 disappear at some point in the future here. So there's just a lot of uncertainty.
I think the VA is now realizing just how deep some of these cuts are and they're trying to claw back.

Speaker 27 Maybe some of these

Speaker 27 will be reversed, but at least officially, these offices haven't been told that they're in the clear.

Speaker 3 I mean, burial services for veterans, cancer care in terms of veterans' health care, disposal of hazardous waste and medical waste from VA facilities.

Speaker 3 I mean, this is the kind of stuff, this is, I mean,

Speaker 3 are they making a substantive case that these are legitimately things that veterans should not have?

Speaker 3 Or is the idea that some of these things were a mistake and they didn't notice they were such core services?

Speaker 27 The common theme with these contracts seems to be that they're not direct services. These aren't like doctors who are working directly with a patient or, you know, someone who's actually

Speaker 27 taking over a funeral and actually transporting a casket or doing things like that. These are support services.
So it may be a contract who, you know, helps coordinate that.

Speaker 27 I've heard from folks who are involved in benefits processing who aren't directly doing the benefits claims themselves, but what they are doing is they're helping guide veterans through that process, making it easier for them.

Speaker 27 So clearly a very valuable service, but at least in the eyes of someone in the administration, it's not a direct benefit to veterans. So that's what seems to be the trip up here.

Speaker 27 You know, the VA is insisting that they're not going to hurt anything that would benefit veterans, beneficiaries, families, but it feels like they're going after these secondary services that are still very valuable, but maybe don't directly touch veterans in connecting them to medical care or some sort of disability payout.

Speaker 3 And they fired more than 2,000 people who work there already. Leo, I have to ask you tonight about a late-breaking legal development.

Speaker 3 Tonight, there's been this ruling from a federal judge in California that the memos from the Trump administration from OPM directing the firing of employees, probationary employees,

Speaker 3 that was illegal advice. And the judge tonight has ordered that OPM should communicate this to the Defense Department right now, ahead of planned mass firings tomorrow.

Speaker 3 Do you have any sense of what impact this ruling might have on planned mass firings at the Defense Department or at the VA?

Speaker 27 Yeah,

Speaker 27 right now we're just guessing.

Speaker 27 I have heard that there were scheduled mass firings at VA tomorrow as well with the defense department so those might be on hold at this point i mean as you said the judge's ruling we've just got the the the loose uh loose uh parameters of it right now uh he does he does say that he doesn't have the power to reinstate anyone but that opm also doesn't have the power to fire anyone so it feels like this might just end up in a situation where va has to actually take the take the step of being the ones who order the dismissals, being the ones who actually accept the responsibility for it.

Speaker 27 And that's not a small task.

Speaker 27 As you referenced, there's a lot of lawmakers out there who are furious with Secretary Doug Collins for not standing up for veterans, for not doing his part to say everything in VA should be protected.

Speaker 27 So we'll see in the next

Speaker 27 few days here exactly what it means for those folks who've been dismissed.

Speaker 3 Well, I may be calling you during business hours tomorrow, Leo, to try to get a handle on what happens here and that as we try to as we try to put some specifics on this evolving story.

Speaker 3 Leo Shane, deputy editor at Military Times, thank you as always.

Speaker 3 Thank you.

Speaker 27 We'll be tracking all of it.

Speaker 3 I appreciate it. Indeed.
I know you will. We're grateful for it.

Speaker 13 We will.

Speaker 3 This is at the Iowa state capitol this week. Big crowds rallying to support trans people and their rights as the Trump administration and Republicans everywhere accelerate their efforts to,

Speaker 3 frankly, persecute and take rights away from trans people.

Speaker 3 Tonight in Iowa, after this show of force and support of the Iowa trans community,

Speaker 3 tonight Iowa Republicans nevertheless passed a radical bill to rescind state civil rights protections for transgender people in Iowa.

Speaker 3 The vote was largely along party lines, except for five Republicans who sided with the Democrats in voting no. Iowa's Republican governor is expected to sign the bill into law.

Speaker 3 It will roll back protections that have been in place in Iowa for 18 years.

Speaker 3 The Des Moines Register notes tonight that while businesses in Iowa generally supported, vocally and actively supported the LGBT rights bill that became law in the state in 2007.

Speaker 3 Major employers and business groups in Iowa have stayed silent on the anti-trans bill that's now on its way to the governor's desk.

Speaker 3 One advocate for LGBT rights tells the paper, quote, I think these groups have abdicated their responsibility to Iowans, and I think they're being penny-wise and pound-foolish with their own workforce.

Speaker 3 Or watching tonight for continued reaction in Iowa and around the country. Watch this space.

Speaker 3 All right, that's going to do it for me for now. Heads up that the new episode of Alex Wagner's podcast, Trumpland, just came out.
It's really good.

Speaker 3 She's looking in this episode at the Trump administration's strengthening ties to Russia and Russian authoritarianism

Speaker 3 as Ukrainians in the U.S. mark the third anniversary of Russia invading Ukraine.
If you want to listen to the podcast, it's great.

Speaker 3 Just scan that little circular code on your screen with your phone and it'll take you right to it. It's easy.

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