Busted: DOGE humiliated by brutal fact-checking, walks back bogus savings claims

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Thanks, Stuart Holm, for joining us this hour. Really happy to have you here.
So this did not go well for the Trump administration. This is what it looks like in a court of law when you flounder and lose and there is a court reporter there to write it all down.
The judge. Right now, the court has before it a motion to enforce.
I think there are some basic questions that have been posed here. The restraining order has been in effect for now 12 days, since February 13th, and there are just some basic questions.
The restraining order was clear, and the court has said it was clear that defendants, meaning the Trump administration, could not continue the blanket suspension of foreign aid funds pending a review. That was based on a finding that the plaintiffs had shown irreparable harm.
It sounds like there's evidence right now that that irreparable harm has deepened. Now, the plaintiffs seem to be saying that the blanket pause by the Trump administration was not lifted in any meaningful sense.
The judge then says to the lawyer for the Trump administration, quote, I'd like you to tell me in simple terms what action you are aware of that the agency has lifted the blanket pause. Are you aware of steps that the agencies here have taken to actually unpause the disbursement of funds? Trump administration lawyer response.
So let me focus on that last point, if I might. The judge.
Well, I actually want you to focus on my question. I do want to hear your full answer, but has the government begun? Has the government unfrozen disbursements as to those contracts or assistance agreements for at least that period? Trump administration lawyer.
So for the period before the restraining order, this is going back to the February 18th joint status report, the plaintiff's characterization of some of those decisions, and there's a wide variety, right, of grants and foreign assistance arrangements, contracts, was that all of them were under the same challenged authority. So there was a process.
the judge. Hey! The judge says, that's in the court transcript, hey, I guess I'm not sure why I can't get a straight answer from you on this.
Are you aware of an unfreezing of the disbursement of funds? You've acknowledged that under the restraining order, any of the terminations or suspensions that took place before February 13th are invalid and shouldn't be given effect. Are you aware of steps taken to actually release those funds? Trump administration lawyer, I'm not in a position to answer that.
The judge, well, we're 12 days into the temporary restraining order and you're here representing the government. You had represented in the initial February status report from the government, from the defendant.
And you know, made issue that it had been five days and there had been a holiday weekend. Well, now we are 12 days in.
And you can't answer me whether any funds that you've acknowledged or covered by the court's order have been unfrozen? Trump administration lawyer, all I can do really is say that the preparations are underway for the joint status report on compliance. The judge, I'm asking you right now what you are aware of.
Sounds like the answer is no. If the answer is no, you can say no.
That you're not aware of any actions to unfreeze the funds. I am asking you, this hearing is about enforcing the temporary restraining order and compliance with the temporary restraining order.
Trump administration lawyer. So I do understand that, the judge.
I want to know what actions have been taken, including whether funds have been unfrozen based on the temporary restraining order, and if so, what funds have and what funds have not? Trump administration lawyer. These would be, I think, the logical subjects of the joint status report that is underway.
I don't have the ability to recite those particular facts at this hearing. The judge.
12 days into the restraining order. You can't give me any facts about funds being unfrozen based on the restraining order? Trump administration lawyer, quote, I can.
I mean, the judge, counsel, I hope you understand why this is important as the attorney who is presumably advising your clients and you're here representing them. The court has been clear.
So if I were you, you know, I would think it would be very important to point to some sort of directive or something that indicates that the suspensions that are happening are happening under lawful authority. The judge then announces there at the hearing that he needs a 15-minute recess, but don't go far because it's only going to be 15 minutes.
And after that, he's going to rule. And he comes back after 15 minutes and he issues his ruling, which says in part, plaintiffs have submitted evidence that defendants, meaning the Trump administration, have not lifted the suspension or freeze of funds as the temporary restraining order required.
The Trump administration, the defendants, have not rebutted that evidence. And when asked today, defendants were not able to provide any specific examples of unfreezing funds pursuant to the court's order.
The very point of a temporary restraining order is to prevent irreparable harms in the course of considering a preliminary injunction. So for these reasons, the court is going to grant plaintiff's motion to enforce.
So to be clear and to give effect to the court's temporary restraining order, the court orders as follows, quote, by 1159 p.m. on February 26, 2025, that's tomorrow, the restrained defendants shall pay all invoices and letter of credit drawdown requests on all contracts for work completed prior to the entry of the court's order on February 13th.
Defendants shall take no actions to impede the prompt payment of appropriated foreign assistance funds and shall take all necessary action to ensure the prompt payment of appropriated foreign assistance funds. The parties remain under an order to file a joint status report by noon tomorrow.
That report shall confirm what steps have been taken by that time. And that report shall confirm that such disbursements will be made by 11.59 p.m.
tomorrow. And in the interest of ensuring compliance with the court's order, listen to this.
To the extent there remain any disputes as to compliance, to the extent there remain disputes as to compliance, the party shall identify agency officials, employees, or other witnesses who can testify under oath as to those disputes. And C.
Federal District Court Judge Amir Ali in Washington today telling the Trump administration, you shut down foreign aid funds, and it appears at first glance that you were not legally allowed to do that. I ordered you to immediately restart

those funds, and you have not done so. You now have until tomorrow to do it, and if you can't do it,

or you have some excuse that makes you think you still ought not do it, I want the relevant

officials in my courtroom and under oath telling me why they are not doing it. The motion to enforce is granted.
Get those funds out the door by midnight tomorrow night. This nonsense is over.
Just a humiliation for the Trump administration in court today. Not only not doing what they are legally required to do, but unable to even spit out a complete sentence justifying why they're not complying with the court's order.
Just a legal disaster and a humiliation. And that court recessed after the judge gave his order at 1.09 p.m.
today. And exactly 10 minutes later, at 1.19 p.m., 10 minutes after that legal humiliation today, this New York Times headline posted, Doge quietly deletes the five biggest spending cuts it celebrated last week.
So while we're on the theme of the Trump administration being humiliated, I mean, literally within 10 minutes of a federal judge ordering President Trump and his top campaign donor, Elon Musk, to undo the biggest thing they have yet done to the United States government, their shutdown of all foreign aid, 10 minutes after that court order to fix that by tomorrow or be prepared to be in my courtroom testifying under oath as to why you are breaking this lawful order. Ten minutes of that, within ten minutes of that, the New York Times post this story on how the five largest other things they claim to have done to the U.S.
government aren't real. And so they've had to take them down off their website and stop claiming that they did them.
Quote, last week, Elon Musk's government cost slashing initiative, which he calls the Department of Government Efficiency, posted an online, quote, wall of receipts celebrating how much it had saved by canceling federal contracts. Now, the organization has deleted all of the five biggest, quote, savings on that original list after the New York Times and other media outlets pointed out that those lists were riddled with errors.
Quote, the last of the original top five disappeared from the site in the early hours of Tuesday. The website offered no explanation for why it had removed some items.
But these were

the original five largest savings on its list. First, an $8 billion cut at ICE, at Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The actual contract in question was worth not $8 billion, but $8 million. Next, three $655 million cuts at USAID.
Quote, this was actually a single cut that was erroneously counted three times. In addition to not being $655 million three times, it's now only listed once.
And instead of being listed at $655 million, it's listed at $18 million.

So they were off there by hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars.

But wait, there's one more, a $232 million cut at the Social Security Administration,

which appears actually, according to reporting from The Intercept, to be a project that is not worth $232 million. It is worth $560,000.
So we're only off by... How big is the window on your calculator? And does it need batteries? So they're not sending their best.
I mean, to the extent that we are supposed to think of the authoritarian overthrow of the U.S. system of government as some sort of benevolent mission, because these are math geniuses who are doing it, right? To the extent that that's why we're supposed to like the dismantling of the U.S.
government, because they're so good at math, and so therefore this must be good for us. Yeah, it turns out their math doesn't work.
And even though they are having to rescind by court order the things they are most proud of doing, the biggest things they're trying to do, or they're having to rescind from their wall of receipts everything they previously said about all their other best and biggest moves, even though all of this stuff is getting wound back. Literally, all of the biggest things they said they have done are now getting undone or they never happened in the first place.
Even still, though, it's not like they're getting better or more humble or more accurate over time. Back to that New York Times article today, quote, some of the new canceled contracts Doge added to its website this week appear to make some of the same types of errors.
The largest savings on the latest version of its list is a $1.9 billion cut at the Treasury Department. But as reported in the Times last week, that contract was actually canceled last fall when Joe Biden was president and when Doge did not yet exist.
So that $1.9 billion isn't anything they did either. Even the stuff they say is their best, their biggest successes, their greatest hits, has all fallen apart under the most cursory scrutiny.
And, you know, what have they done? They have fired a lot of people. And then they've had to unfire a lot of them when they realized that they actually had no idea who they were firing.
We had the oops firings of workers at the National Nuclear Security Administration. Oops, wrong people to fire.
Those had to be rescinded. Oops, had to hire those people back.
We had the oops firings of the people who work on bird flu. Oops, wrong people to fire.
Those people have to be unfired and brought back. Now news that they're trying to unfire the people who work in really simple, really easy to replicate low productivity fields like overseeing the safety of the robots that do surgeries on humans.
And the people who work on the safety of pacemakers and implanted defibrillators. Yeah, that's a waste of time.
That's a waste of money. Who needs those things to be safe? Fire those people.

Trying to unfire those people now.

Today in Washington, there were more protests against these increasingly obviously shambolic efforts by the president's top campaign donor to try to destroy as much as he can of the U.S. government.
Hands off for research! Hands off for research! Protesters rallying against the cuts the Department of Government Efficiency made to the medical field. These cuts mean cancer patients left without hope.
Amelia Ventriglia, a researcher at the National Institutes of Health, says it's more than just people losing their jobs. We're under so many freezes right now that stop the American taxpayer from receiving the medical advancements they paid for.
This is theft. Hours earlier, workers recently laid off by the federal government took their complaints directly to the Hart Senate office building on Capitol Hill.
At that Hart Senate office building on Capitol Hill, there were a lot of fired federal workers of all stripes who essentially declared their own job fair in the atrium of the Senate office building. And then they went Senate office to Senate office, carrying copies of their resumes, giving them to Senate office staff, trying to talk to U.S.
senators about what they do and about the impact of their firings. They crowded into Senate office after Senate office after Senate office today.
This follows the National Letter Carriers Union yesterday and people who support the post office showing up yesterday to give this answer to the Trump administration's efforts to dismantle the U.S. Postal Service,

which I should mention is in the Constitution.

So what do we say today?

Hell no!

What about tomorrow?

Hell no!

What about Wednesday?

Hell no!

What about next Monday?

Hell no!

What about next month?

Hell no!

What about next year?

Hell no!

We don't stop!

Hell no! Hell no! Hell no! Hell no! What about next year? Hell no! We don't stop! Hell no! Hell no! Hell no! Hell no! The pushback against what Trump and his top campaign donor are doing to try to dismantle the government is real, and it is widespread, and it is increasingly sure-footed. It is in the courts where they are winning the overwhelming majority of court proceedings.
It is protests in the streets and at government buildings, including protests that are seemingly increasingly effective at moving members of Congress and moving U.S. senators to at least pay attention to them.
It is in pushback from federal workers themselves, including not just showing up and not just letting themselves be known and not just talking to the media and not just letting people know what they did, but we're also seeing principled resignations where people stayed as long as they could and pushed to stop what they were being told to do, and then they resigned so they could tell the public what was being done. Today, we can add to the list of principled resignations, 21 people from Doge, people who had been held over from the U.S.
Digital Service because they were expected to work with Elon Musk's team at Doge. 21 of them resigned today saying, quote, we will not use our skills as technologists to compromise core government systems, to jeopardize American sensitive data, or to dismantle critical public services.
We will not lend our expertise to carry out or legitimize Doge's actions. Again, 21 members of the Doge service resigning today.
The thing that is emerging, we're now five weeks and a day into

this thing. The thing that is emerging as the real weak card in their hand, and I don't know if we

should have known to expect this or not, but it's just becoming more and more increasingly obvious

with each passing day. Their weakness is that they kind of suck at what they're trying to do.
I'm sorry to use that phrase, but they really do appear to be terrible at their intentional actions, right? And, you know, you don't want like a surgical robot to be terrible at what it does. You don't want your letter carrier or your research scientist or your park ranger to be terrible at what they do.
We need those folks to be good at what they do, and by and large, they are. The person you actually want to be terrible at his job is the guy who thinks it's his job to destroy your country's government.
And Elon Musk is turning out to be very much up to that task. I mean, amid all the pushback of all

these various kinds, the best assistance the pushback is getting from the Trump and Elon Musk side is that Elon Musk really does appear to have no idea what he is doing, and it is showing more and more every day. And so it is really hurting what he is trying to do, which is so sad.
Just take for example a short version of this saga from the last few days of Elon Musk initiating this email to all federal workers, including, hopefully, some people who no longer have access to their email because he ordered that they be put on leave and locked out of government computer systems. Oops, but that's how he's trying to contact them now, by sending them emails to email addresses he won't allow them to check.
Awesome. But this email, as you know, told everybody that they needed to give Elon Musk a list of the things they had done in the past week or else.
If they didn't send him this list, that would be taken as a resignation. And immediately we saw multiple government agencies tell their workers, do not do this.
Do not respond to this. The Defense Department, the FBI, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the State Department, the Homeland Security Department, the Education Department, the Commerce Department, the FDIC, the IRS, the Energy Department, FEMA, the CDC, the NIH, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, our beloved NOAA.
They all told the people who work at those agencies, do not respond to this. And in that list, I just mentioned a few different components of the Department of Health and Human Services.
Just looking at that one agency for a second to get a sense of how this played in an agency that is now run by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
I mean, look at how this played there. Elon Musk sends this like middle of the night, insane email to everybody who works at HHS, everybody who works for the rest of the government.
At HHS, they initially told their employees Sunday morning that they needed to respond to this email and do what Elon Musk said. Then an hour later, an email went out from the Trump-appointed acting director of the NIH, which is part of Health and Human Services.
And that person told all NIH employees, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, do not respond to this. Then a few hours after that, HHS as an overall agency told all employees actually pause, maybe hold just a second, we're not sure.
The ultimate advice given to people who work at HHS was that they could respond to Elon Musk's threatening email if they wanted to, but they didn't have to. And if they did, quote, do not identify by name or title any other HHS employees with whom you have been working.
Do not identify by case name or otherwise matters you are working on. Do not identify any specific grants or contracts or any specific grantees or contractors.
If you are engaged in any scientific experiments, research, or reviews, do not provide information that could allow anyone to identify the precise nature of your work. The advice ended with this, quote, assume that what you write will be read by malign foreign actors and tailor your response accordingly.
That's how well this thing is going. The Office of Personal Management, which is the entity under which Musk sent out this insane, like apparent prank email, the Office of Personal Management then tried to sort of cancel Musk's threatening email, saying, oh, we can't believe anybody took that seriously.
Why did you think you had to do that? Obviously, complying with that request would be totally voluntary. You don't have to respond.
And if you don't send it back, that won't be taken as your resignation. Where did you get that idea? That forget everything we just said email from the Office of Personnel Management appeared to be a knock-on effect, sort of a side effect requirement that they didn't foresee that had been set in motion thanks to another legal entanglement the Musk gang got themselves into when they set up this dodgy government-wide email system that enabled this nonsense in the first place.
As part of setting up that email system, they apparently

promised that any email they sent on that dodgy system would never involve compelled compliance to respond from government workers. So then when they told government workers, you'll be fired if you don't respond, they had to say, just kidding.
It was a weekend. It was late.
We were a little, you know. Then Elon Musk thereafter said, no, no, no, I mean it.
You do have to respond. I mean, if you were like in a grunge band in 1977 and all of you did like a lot of drugs, if one of you tried to fire the other members of the band, the rest of the band wouldn't take you seriously trying to do it this way.
And here is the president's top campaign donor saying this is how he's firing the whole federal government. Really? Another one of the recent legal entanglements for the stuff he's already tried to do forced the Trump administration to insist to a a federal court recently that Elon Musk actually doesn't have a job of the type the president keeps describing.
The Trump administration recently told the federal court that Elon Musk is not the head of this doge service that seems to only answer to him and that the president has repeatedly said Elon Musk is running. They told a judge, no, no, no, don't pay attention to any of that.
He's not running anything. That led to an especially awkward moment at the White House press briefing today in which the White House press secretary insisted that Elon Musk, per that attestation to the court, Elon Musk is not running Doge, and somebody else is, but she said she couldn't say who it was.
She said, quote, I'm not going to reveal the name of that individual from this podium. A few hours later, the White House announced that somebody nobody ever heard of is the real head of Doge, not Elon Musk.
There is a person running this government agency. It's not Musk.
It's a person, her name is Amy Gleason, who reportedly works from Nashville, who was reportedly on, who was reportedly, quote, scheduled to be on vacation in Mexico today, and who, according to the New York Times, quote, told associates that she was not aware ahead of time that the White House planned to make public her role today before the White House announced her. So, random Tennessee resident on vacation in Mexico, phone starts blowing up.
They're saying I have what job? I have Elon Musk's job? That's what they want me to say is my job? They want me to say I'm running Tesla? No. Oh, running Doge.
That's what they want me to say is my job. In Washington? Did I mention that I live in Tennessee and I'm currently in Mexico? Okay, what do you want me to say? The word you're looking for is shimbolic.

There is a lot to get to tonight.

Republicans control the House, which means they have a majority in the House,

and a majority is all they needed to pass their budget resolution.

There were concerns all day that they wouldn't be able to get there,

but they squeaked it by two votes in the end.

Whether or not that difficulty in passing their own budget has anything to do with Republican members of Congress

absolutely getting roasted at town halls by their constituents every time they go home now. I don't know.
But we've got more of that to show you, some footage of that kind of thing that will curl your hair tonight. Honestly, though, if you were looking for a theme in today's news, it is that the pushback against these guys really does seem to be finding its footing and increasing success, while the Trump side, in meaningful ways, appears to be coming to the end of its initial spurt of energy, starting to crash out a little bit, starting to stall and sputter.
Watch this space. Lots to get to tonight.
Stay with us. HPV-related cancers can start then, too.
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Help protect them in the next.

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All loans and amounts subject to lender approval. It's President Trump's first 100 days, and MSNBC's Alex Wagner will be covering it all from the front lines.
What issue matters to you the most? Join her as she travels the country to talk to the people at the center of the president's policies and promises. Do you think now that he's pardoned everybody, he can count on this group of people again? Search for Trump Land with Alex Wagner wherever you're listening and follow.
Subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts to listen ad-free. Change of plans.
CNN is reporting today that the White House has halted plans to house thousands of migrants, the so-called worst of the worst, in a giant camp at Guantanamo in Cuba. According to CNN, they say this change of plans has come, quote, amid concerns over conditions for detainees.
Concerns over conditions. It may be true that the folks running Donald Trump's made-for-TV mass deportation operation are worried about the conditions at Guantanamo.
Could be. Or it could be that the epic logistical complications and massive expense of trying to set up a pointless diversion to Guantanamo just so they can make propaganda videos about it and post them on social media may be the embarrassment of having been caught out already, not sending the so-called worst of the worst, but instead sending people there with no criminal record at all.
I mean, whatever the complication of factors that have come together to crash this Trump plan as well, just five weeks in, apparently, per CNN's reporting tonight, they have decided that this Guantanamo gambit, this too, is just not worth the trouble. But don't worry, there is a new and even more expensive and inexplicable and morally and legally disastrous idea right behind it in line.
Politico headline today, quote, Trump allies circulate mass deportation plan calling for, quote, processing camps and a private citizen army. Quote, a group of prominent military contractors, including former Blackwater CEO Eric Prince, of course, has pitched the Trump White House on a proposal to carry out mass deportations through a network of processing camps on military bases, a private fleet of 100 airplanes, and a, quote, small army of private citizens empowered to make arrests.
The blueprint carries an estimated price tag of $25 billion and recommends a range of aggressive tactics to rapidly deport 12 million people before the 2026 midterms. Quote, It's not clear if the president has seen the plan which has been circulating among Trump allies since December.
Eric Prince's partner in the proposal tells Politico they haven't been contacted by or had discussions with the government yet. The proposal suggests deputizing 10,000 private citizens, giving them expedited training and the same federal law enforcement powers of immigration officials, including the right to arrest other people.
So, $25 billion to have Blackwater set up a private army and a private air force in the United States that answers just to Trump and that rounds up people and puts them in camps. What could possibly go wrong? This seems like a totally well thought out concept and definitely one that'll get really careful consideration if they're going to go through with it, right? Joining us now is Congressman Jason Crow of Colorado.
He's a member of the Armed Services and Intelligence Committees. Earlier this month month after the Trump administration said a military base in his district would be used to detain migrants.
Congressman Crow personally went to that base and got assurances that it would not be used for that purpose. Congressman Crow, it's a real pleasure to have you with us here tonight.
Thank you for making time. Thanks, Rachel.
I want to talk to you about some of what seems to me like some real crazy town stuff that's being proposed when it comes to immigration enforcement.

Before we get to that, though, I do just have to ask you about this vote that just happened in the House within the last hour.

It seems that your Republican colleagues very narrowly did approve their budget plan.

Are viewers watching tonight, what should people know about what it was that was voted on tonight and what the consequences of this might be? Well, the major consequence is they've passed a bill that's not paid for, that gives massive tax breaks to corporations and billionaires and does it on the backs of regular Americans, mainly by slashing their health care and gutting our Medicaid program. They are trying to use a tactic of burden shifting onto the states, saying that the states should pay for this, but they know the states can't pay for it.
So they know that much of this coverage will go belly up for folks. So it is a terrible, terrible bill.
There was, there was a lot of drama in D.C. leading up to this vote.
You know, are people going to hold out? Are people going to fight for their constituents? Never underestimate the willingness of House Republicans to fold and capitulate when Donald Trump tells them to jump. And that's exactly what happened tonight.
Do you expect that this version that just passed the House, this resolution that was adopted, will be ultimately the version that the Senate votes on and ultimately the version that the Republicans try to make law? I do think so, right? They have the votes in the House. This is the supposed one big, beautiful bill that Donald Trump wants, which of course is chock full of his giveaways to his billionaires, donors, and his cronies, and does it on the backs of everyday Americans.
I mean, listen, a couple of days ago, I went to one of my public health clinics in my district. And I sat there while I listened to people talk about how if they lose their Medicaid coverage, their ability to pay for their prescription drugs, that people will die, that their family members literally cannot afford insulin, will not be able to afford to pay their rent and their prescription drugs.
They'll lose homes. They'll lose their health.
This is absolutely catastrophic. We cannot underestimate the deep impact this is going to have.
And it's going to be the worst, actually, if you look around the country, it's going to be the worst in rural areas and red areas, right? So a lot of the people who voted for Donald Trump to make their life better are going to be impacted in a catastrophic way by this bill. What the Trump administration most wants people in rural areas and red areas to think of when they think about this new administration is immigration enforcement.
This is the thing that they want to be, the thing that they are most known for and that they have put the most effort into in terms of public-facing media. And I think some people would sort of credibly argue that they've made a lot of propaganda about what it is they are doing on immigration enforcement.
I mentioned the CNN reporting earlier that the Trump administration appears to be abandoning its plan to send people to Guantanamo after having a little flurry of activity around that, in which they used to create a bunch of propaganda. Now they're not going to do it anymore.
There's also now reporting in Politico that they're considering a $25 billion program to privatize immigration enforcement and have essentially mercenaries do it. Some of the language and the planning and the activity around this thus far seems almost surreal.
From the vantage point of your district in Colorado, what do you make of the reality of what they're doing and what they're trying to sell their voters on what they're doing? Well, there's a couple of common strands. There are a lot of things that the Trump administration is doing.
First, if there is a way to privatize something and to pad the pockets of their billionaire donors and their buddies, they will do it, right? Even if it's more expensive, they will do it in this scheme to privatize immigration enforcement to private mercenaries. And it has the added bonus for them of hiding things, right? They like to hide things.
They like to funnel money to their friends and to large corporations. So that is generally what happens in a lot of these

cases with the Trump administration. But the impact here, let's just paint a picture for Aurora and for Colorado, right? A lot of folks who I even know who voted for Donald Trump said their number one issue was the cost of living.
They couldn't afford groceries, they couldn't afford rent, and that is what they were hoping that Donald Trump would deliver for them. They are doing nothing to address that issue.

In fact, to the contrary, the two ways to... And that is what they were hoping that Donald Trump would deliver for them.
They are doing nothing to address that issue.

In fact, to the contrary, the two ways to make the cost of living to go up the quickest would be to impose unnecessary or broad tariffs into threatened deportation of vast swaths of the workforce, because we already have a labor shortage. which all of the companies and small businesses and manufacturers in my district tell me

that if this moves forward and they lose the workforce, prices will go up instantly overnight. So they're actually going to make the problem worse just from an economic perspective.
That's not even talking about the moral component of taking children and families, ripping them apart, including U.S. citizen children in some cases, according to Tom Homan, in deporting these folks.

Congressman Jason Crow of Colorado, decorated veteran, Army Ranger, somebody who knows of

what he speaks on these matters, particularly the proposal to use military force around

these things.

Congressman, I really appreciate you taking time to talk with us tonight.

Come back anytime.

I'd love to have you back.

Thanks, Rachel. All right.
Much more news ahead tonight. Stay with us.
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MSNBC presents a new original podcast hosted by Jen Psaki. Each week, she and her guests explore how the Democratic Party is facing this political moment and where it's headed next.
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No one is talking about reducing benefits to the people that depend on them. Liar! Liar! Liar! Liar! 13,000 employees at the CDC.
A lot of the work they do is duplicitous with AI. Once again, one of the problems we have.
The end result of the fraud and abuse that has been discovered already. There's absolutely no proof.
Footage from town halls in California and Georgia and Wisconsin in the last few days where Republican members of Congress are being just sandblasted by their constituents about what Trump and Musk and Republicans are doing in Washington. Seems like those have been playing out around the country over the last few weeks.
And as this pressure has been upped against Republican members of Congress, We are starting to see some of those Republicans starting to take some of the gentlest possible steps toward, if not criticizing the administration, at least asking some questions. Let's start with Georgia Republican Congressman Rich McCormick.
You just heard him there getting booed by his constituents when he told them he supports

the cuts at the CDC, the Centers for Disease Control, because he said a lot of the workers

there... just heard him there getting booed by his constituents when he told them he supports the cuts at the CDC, the Centers for Disease Control, because he said a lot of the workers there are, quote, duplicitous with AI.
I think he meant duplicative. I don't know.
But that was what he said last week. Now here is what Rich McCormick tells NBC News this week.
Quote, if we have layoffs at the CDC, some people are going to be affected. The question is, do we give people time to adjust to their lives? And I think that's my biggest concern is that we're being compassionate.
He was excited to the point of forgetting grammar last week about replacing these folks with robots. This week, he's calling for compassion.
Also consider Wisconsin Republican Congressman Scott Fitzgerald. He's the one who tried to tout all the waste and fraud that Doge has found before being shouted down by his constituents who yelled at him that he had literally no proof.
Quote, literally no proof. Well, now here's Congressman Fitzgerald this week.
Quote, it would be better, I think, for members to have real specific information because we don't have it. I don't have it.
We don't know what they're looking at and we don't know what the numbers are. I'm learning about this when I see a broadcast as much as anyone else right now because we haven't been briefed on it.
We haven't been briefed on it. It would be better to have real information.
I don't know. I bet it would be better.
Republicans are starting to feel the heat from their constituents on this. And at the edges, they are finally starting to change their tune, at least incrementally.
Not a full octave, but maybe a note or two. If I could say one thing to Elon Musk, it's like, please put a dose of compassion in this.
These are real people. These are real lives.
Some of the rash decisions that I've seen coming out of Doge, there are rash decisions being made and it needs to kind of slow down a little bit. I think they need to be more targeted and they need to be more thoughtful.
Things are happening a little bit too fast and furiously.

Just a little bit of humanity and dignity to the process,

I think is what many of the Alaskan federal employees

are asking for.

And I don't think that that's asking for too much.

If the pressure on these Republicans

is having an effect on them,

the realization, the turnaround in some of them