Exclusive: Exclusive: Senator Cory Booker reflects on his historic, record-setting speech

There are a lot of live wires tonight. Polls have just closed just now in Wisconsin, where a high stakes Supreme Court election will decide the ideological split of that court that has implications for everything from abortion rights to voting rights to gerrymandering to potentially control of the United States House in Washington, potentially to the ultimate dispensation and integrity of the next presidential election.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court race has implications far beyond Wisconsin. It's also the first statewide race since the November election, and it happens to be happening in the state that was the most closely decided among all the states that Trump won.
Again, in Wisconsin, polls have just now closed. We will bring you results in that very important Supreme Court race as we get them in over the course of this hour.
We're also watching the results from two special elections for Congress in Florida. Deep, deep, deep red districts where Florida Republicans had taken those seats by well over 30 points in both cases.
We're watching to see how far Democrats have been able to chase Republicans toward that finish line tonight as the polling numbers, excuse me, as the voting numbers, the voting totals in Florida continue to come in. New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, as I mentioned, will be joining us live in just a few moments, which itself is a miraculous thing.
He'll be joining us for his first interview after his historic all day and then some speech on the Senate floor in Washington. Tonight at 7 19 p.m.
Eastern, Senator Booker broke the record for the longest speech ever given by a United States senator. The previous record was set by arch segregationist Strom Thurmond, who tried to filibuster the Civil Rights Act in 1957.
That speech lasted 24 hours and 18 minutes, but it included things like him reading from the encyclopedia and him taking a bathroom break. Senator Cory Booker did nothing like either of those things.
Tonight, Senator Booker blew past Thurman's record. He spoke until 8.04 p.m.
for a total of 25 hours and four minutes. Would the senator yield for a question? Chuck Schumer, it's the only time in my life I can tell you no.
I just want to tell you a question. Do you know you have just broken the record? Do you know how proud this caucus is of you? Do you know how proud America is of you? That was the moment when he broke the record, but that was not the end.
He then kept going. the whole time.
Senator Booker was not allowed to sit down or use the bathroom. He did get help from his Democratic colleagues who took turns overnight and all through the day today asking Senator Booker questions.
That still did not mean Senator Booker could sit down, but it did mean that for the time they were asking their questions, he could stop talking for the length of time it took them to pose a question to him, whereupon it was time for him to start talking again. At the start of his speech at 7 p.m.
last night, Senator Booker referenced the late Congressman John Lewis, civil rights icon, a mentor to many Democratic lawmakers, including Senator Booker. Congressman John Lewis famously advised getting into what he called good trouble.
Senator Booker began his stand by saying that's what he intended to do. He began by saying he would disrupt the normal business of the Senate for as long as he was physically able because he sincerely believed the country was in crisis.
Senator Booker started last night. He talked all night.
He was still at it when we woke up today, delivering on his promise to disrupt the status quo any way he could. It's enough for me.
12 hours now I'm standing and I'm still going strong because this president is wrong. And he's violating principles that we hold dear and principles in this document that are so clear and plain.
The powers of the Article I branch are spelled out and he is violating them. The Congress that is being too complicit to an executive that is overstepping his authority and violating the Constitution and hurting people who rely on health care and social security.
When is it going to be enough? My voice is inadequate. My efforts today are inadequate to stop what they're trying to do.
But we, the people, are powerful. We are strong.
God bless America. We need you now.
God bless America. If you love her, if you love your neighbor, if you love this country, show your love.
Stop them from doing what they're trying to do for almost 20 hours. We have laid out what they're trying to do, 20 hours.
I want to stand more and I will, but I'm begging people, don't let this be another normal day in America. Please, God, please, God, don't let them take Medicaid away from 10, 20, 30, or 40 million Americans who desperately need it.
Don't let them do it. This is our moral moment.
This is when the most precious ideas of our country are being tested, where the Constitution and the question is being called, where does the Constitution live? On paper or in our hearts? It's time to heed the words of the man. I began this whole thing with John Lewis.
I beg folks to take his example of his early days where he made himself determined to show his love for his country at a time the country didn't love him, to love this country so much, to be such a patriot that he endured beatings savagely on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, at lunch counters, on freedom rides. He said he had to do something.

We need that now from all Americans.

This is a moral moment.

It's not left or right.

It's right or wrong.

It's getting good trouble.

My friend, Madam President, I yield the floor. Joining us now for his first TV interview since his record-breaking speech in the Senate, Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey, the new record holder for the Senate's longest ever speech.
Senator, how are you? I'm definitely hurting a little bit, but I'm feeling strong in spirit and grateful to so many people who allowed me to tell their stories on the Senate floor and who were there for me from the parliamentary staff to my colleagues. It was a long 25 hours, but I'm feeling a lot of gratitude.
Staying up 25 hours for any reason is a trying thing physically. What was different about the experience of it than what you anticipated? I mean, you stood by your fellow Senator Chris Murphy nine years ago when he did 15 hours.
He described that today as a solidarity or a sympathy filibuster in that you stood with him during that time. So you've experienced some of the pain of this before.
But A, you're nine years older than you were then. And B, this was a lot longer.
How was it different and how much were you prepared for? You know, I was grateful to Chris. You know, I talked about it before.
And at the end, I, uh, our balance sheet's not equal. I now owe you 10 more hours.
Uh, I, I, I stood with him and I really wanted to see if I could stand for 50 for as long as he and I were going to go. And he, um, was successful that day in getting concessions from Mitch McConnell to have votes on the Senate floor around gun safety.
Unfortunately, even common sense gun safety then failed. But, me, it was an experience that stuck in my mind.
I could do 15 hours without going to the bathroom, even though my legs really hurt over those 15 hours. Both of us talked about how our feet hurt.
And so when my team and I decided to do this, we just said, let's take some risks. Let's go out there and see how long we can last.
And to be candid, Strom Thurmond's record always kind of just just really irked me that he would be the longest speech, that the longest speech on our great Senate floor was someone who was trying to stop people like me from being in the Senate. So to surpass that was something I didn't know if we could do, but it was something that was really, once we got closer, it became more and more important to me.
You used that phrase, take risks. You said repeatedly over the course of this filibuster, this speech, that you're motivated to do this by your constituents essentially challenging you to come up with something, to do something, to do something more than you thought you comfortably could do.
Can you tell us a little bit about the decision-making process that you went through about deciding to do this? Obviously, you kind of kept it under wraps. You prepared with your staff, but nobody publicly knew you were going to do this until you started it.
No, I do really credit constituents who are impatient, who are demanding, who are scared, who are angry, and very understandably taking that anger out on Democrats who have to take some responsibility for being where we are in American history right now. And so the more I thought about it with my team, especially after the decisions we made revolving around the continuing resolution, I've been working so hard with my colleagues, trying to get them to engage in social media, put more of their heart and spirit out there.
They're doing an amazing job. They've almost quadrupled their numbers of engagement online.
I've got colleagues opening up TikTok accounts. But I suddenly realized that I've just got to do something myself.
I've got to, you know, try to prove worthy for my constituents that I'm willing to step out and step up in some way and hopefully be able to share their stories that were so hurtful. And to read from my staff, people rendering their most personal stories about their fears or what's happening to their families.
And so my staff and I said, let's try to bring those voices to the Senate floor.

Let's see how long you can last.

They're demanding something different. This will certainly be different.
And I think that a lot of that energy from the folks that I've been seeing in Jersey and across this country really helped carry me through. I don't know if you are are conscious of how much this caught the attention and caught the imagination of the American people.
I know that you're not using electronic devices on the Senate floor. You're not watching your TikTok numbers and your YouTube numbers and the C-SPAN contemporaneous viewing numbers while you're there because you can't be.
But every time that I checked any form of media by which you could be live monitored, there were no less than tens of thousands of people watching in the same place that I was in that moment. What you've done with everything else that's going on with this administration and the horrific cuts of 10,000 people fired today from the nation's health agencies and all these other things.
This is the biggest story in the country right now. You have captured people's attention for 25 hours.
And I'm wondering, for people who were moved by what you did, either among your Senate colleagues or just people who watched you from home, what do you hope they might do differently if they're moved by you and they feel the same sort of spirit that caused you to do what you did? Well, I hope that we're all served to be ignition points for each other. My constituents, the letters, the calls, the demands were definitely an ignition point for me, but we've got to continue to ignite this movement.
The only thing that stopped Donald Trump from tearing away the Affordable Care Act was the engagement of tens of thousands of Americans who didn't think they would become little lobbyists or activists or come down to the Capitol or protest in their communities. You know, Rachel, you and I have known each other a long time, and I've been listening to your show more regularly.
I'm so grateful that you're doing this first 100 days. And I love how you start every show by showing what other Americans are doing.
They're not waiting for us in Congress to lead. They've decided to take matters into their own hands and do something different.
Those people were demanding to me to catch up, to try to do like they're doing. This is really about folks leading from their hearts and deciding I'm not going to just let business as usual go on in my life.
And so I'm hoping that this is one part of a larger effort that tries to stop them from doing what they're about to do later this week or next week. I have not sort of stepped out, checked out for this 24 hours, but they're going to try to push through a bill that's going to gut $880 billion from Medicaid.
They're going to try to put forward to a bill that's going to give tax cuts to the wealthiest in our country, disproportionately trillions of dollars and all that. And they're going to still blow one of the biggest single president deficits into our national economy, into our national debt.
It's outrageous. And we have got to try to stop them in the same way that the people of this country were able to get good conscious Republicans, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, John McCain, to change their votes and stop him from doing it.
Well, we need to move three members in the House, I think, and four members in the Senate, and all of us have to be a part of that. We can't sit back and do nothing.
I'm listening to you, and I hear you, but I'm also outside my body a little bit marveling at your cogency right now. I know that, I don't know if you know that you are still making sense, but you're still making sense and your sentences are still properly structured and it's starting to feel like a super human thing.
I'm mindful of how much of your additional energy I'm taking right now. Am I right that you wear one of those rings that monitors your idols? I do.
My staff was telling me we had to look at what it says. So I opened it up and it gave me nothing on a sleep score because I didn't.
My heart rate was pretty damn high after about four or five hours, a little bit high that's concerning. So there are definitely some physical things.
I'm feeling it now. And it's the first time I ever did an interview with me where I got to sit down.
And there's a man here I've known for years, and I almost kissed him when he gave me this seat to sit down. So I'm grateful.
Well, Senator, as I said, what you've done has captured the nation's attention, and I think captured the moral imagination of this nation in a way that you were really demanding with what you did. And so I don't know what the outcome is going to be.
You never know what the outcome is going to be of these things. I do know that if you don't do it, nothing's going to happen.
And so I wish you rest. And I think you should get checked out by a doctor and I think you should hydrate.
And I hope you get people to leave you alone for the next few hours. Thank you so much, my friend.
Thank you. Thank you, sir.
Wow. Just after he hit the record tonight in the United States Senate, after he crossed that 24 hour, 19 minute threshold, you saw the applause there from the chamber.
He set the all time record for the longest anyone has ever held the floor in the United States Senate in the United States Senate. In that moment, it was a surprise, at least to me watching it live when Senator Booker announced that he would keep going.
But the very next thing he did after he broke the record is he said that he would take a question from his friend, the senator from Nevada, Catherine Cortez Masto. And in her question, she told him, you know, listen, Senator Booker, while you have been here holding the floor, there is a lot of news that has broken in the world.
And I don't know if you have heard about it because you have been holding the floor here for now 24 hours and 19 minutes. But she then told him some of the details about the absolute bloodbath of cuts that Trump forced through today at the FDA and the CDC and the NIH and the other parts of Health and Human Services.
Senator Cortez Masto told Senator Booker on the floor tonight about Trump, for example, cutting funding for something called the Healthy Aging Program at the CDC. And that, you know, sounds woo woo, right? Sounds something light, something that the Trump administration would certainly think expendable.
You want to know what the healthy aging program is at the CDC? It's all the government's Alzheimer's programs. Trump just cut them today.
Trump today fired 10,000 people who work at the FDA and the CDC and the NIH, including all the people working on Alzheimer's. They cut people working on bird flu and on measles.

They cut hundreds of people from the Center for Drug Evaluation.

And I'm sure the Trump administration thinks, well, what's the heck's that?

Why do we care about that?

Drug evaluation.

We don't need that.

We've got AI.

When they cut those hundreds of people from the Center for Drug Evaluation,

that's the people who are responsible for the approval of new drugs and also the monitoring of side effects. They also appear to have completely emptied out the part of the government that regulates tobacco because, yeah, there was nothing successful about that.
We're going to have more on all of that ahead. But you should also know, to Senator Booker's point that he just made here live, you should also know that when the news of these mass firings of the nation's health experts started getting out this morning, when the word started getting out, within hours, people were lining the streets outside the CDC in Atlanta to protest, to protest what Trump was doing, thanking the workers there for their work, telling them the value of the CDC and other health agencies, telling workers there to stay strong, saying that, you know, what madness it is to cut things like tuberculosis monitoring and prevention and treatment, the deadliest disease ever known to humankind.
Senator Booker today on the Senate floor, he got emotional when he talked about the Trump cuts to the VA. He talked about the sacrifice of his fellow U.S.
Senator Tammy Duckworth, who was wounded so grievously in combat as a helicopter pilot for the U.S. Army in Iraq.
Well, while Senator Booker was emotionally speaking about that today, we were reviewing this footage from Boise, Idaho. These Americans just outside their VA medical center in Boise protesting Trump's huge cuts to the VA in veterans care.
One sign for the many veterans who staff that VA hospital in Boise who have now just been fired. Thank you, vets.
You deserve a raise. Literally, while I was listening to Senator Booker talk about cuts to the VA and how so many of the people Trump is firing from the federal government are themselves veterans, I was simultaneously on another tab in my browser reviewing this footage of people turning out in Sacramento, California, outside the VA Medical Center there, protesting Trump's huge cuts to the VA workforce and what it's doing to veterans care there.
Senator Booker, in his Senate filibuster, talked today about the Kafkaesque nightmare of how immigrants are being treated. People literally accosted on the street by masked agents in unmarked vehicles, people whose papers have only been secretly revoked, people grabbed by masked agents and then sent off to prisons indefinitely with no opportunity to contest the government's actions or contentions about them, with no right to defend themselves, no ability to contact a lawyer.
While we were listening to Senator Booker talking about that today in his Senate filibuster, we got in this footage of hundreds of people protesting outside the so-called Chrome Detention Center in Miami, where Trump is sending so many of the people he's been arresting off the streets. People in Florida protesting what the Trump administration admits are severely overcrowded conditions there.
People crammed into cells with nothing to sleep on, nothing to sleep under. People crammed into this facility with what is allegedly inadequate and frequently spoiled food and even insufficient access to water.
In Tuscaloosa, Alabama, people turning out to protest a University of Alabama graduate student, an engineering doctoral student originally from Iran, who the Trump administration has inexplicably arrested and now jailed without explanation. He has no criminal record.
He's here on a valid student visa. we are expecting this saturday this april 5th to be one of the largest days of protest

yet by regular americans protesting against the Trump administration and what Trump is doing to the government and to the country. But we see these protests every day.
Meanwhile, elected Democrats are more and more getting up on their proverbial hind legs. and, you know, as I said to Senator Booker, again, you know, you never know what these things, you never know when you're doing these things, if they're going to work.
But you know for sure that it won't work if you don't do anything. And so now we've got Democrats trying more than they were trying before.
Now we've got news of the National Democratic Party, the DNC, suing Trump over his executive order, trying to seize national control of how states run elections, trying to force states to hand over their voter rolls to his top campaign donor, Elon Musk. The DNC is now suing Donald Trump to try to stop that executive order.
I don't know if that'll work, but won't work to do nothing. Today, we got news of a group of Democratic state attorneys general suing Trump over the other massive cuts he's already instituted to health programs.
In addition to the 20,000 people who they are firing or otherwise removing from the NIH and the CDC and the FDA, a few days ago, they cut $11 billion in public health funding that was slated for states and local governments. And the immediate effects of that $11 billion cut have been devastating already.
It has reportedly already caused hundreds of firings, particularly in local and state governments, infectious disease departments.

In Dallas, Texas, Dallas County's health director just yesterday told Dallas County commissioners that despite the ongoing out of control measles outbreak in Texas, those $11 billion in Trump cuts from last week, those cuts mean that Dallas is already having to cancel 50 planned measles vaccination events, including some in schools. And they are laying off staff from their immunization program in the middle of a highly infectious, out-of-control disease outbreak for which the only effective prevention is immunization.
Today, while Senator Booker spoke about Trump's efforts to bully the media into submission, we got word that House Democrats had announced their own investigation into Trump's FCC chair, Brendan Carr, and what they say are his efforts to corrupt and politicize the FCC to make it a tool of punishment against Trump's critics in the media and a tool to reward his allies in the media. Today, while Senator Booker spoke about Trump's cuts to social security, he spoke about what a grave breach of faith that is with the American people who have paid into those programs and who count on them to be there for them.
Today, Democratic leadership held a shadow hearing in the U.S. House of Representatives about Republicans' efforts to destroy the Social Security Administration.
And again, I don't know what any of those things will do, but it shows they're doing something. Senator Booker's marathon in the Senate today, maybe more than anything, was intended to clarify that, as he put it, this is a moral moment.

He said he had been challenged by his constituents to do more, to try to stop what Trump is doing to the country, to try to stop the authoritarian takeover and the destruction of our Constitution and our system of government. He said his constituents challenged him to think bigger about what he could do, challenged him to take risks.
And what he did in this 25 hours and four minutes of strength and endurance, he essentially tried to show the country that what's called for right now is extraordinary action, extraordinary sacrifice, trying to give people inspiration and strength that they can maybe do more themselves than they thought they could. Other Democrats in the Senate, it was interesting to see over the course of today and tonight, we're just lining up to associate themselves with him to say how proud they are to serve with him.
It's going to be hard to top what he did today, maybe ever. But by showing what he can do, he really has thrown down the gauntlet here to his fellow Democrats in elected office, but also to the country.
Just a historic day, massive, massive day. We've got lots to come tonight, this hour.
We've got election results coming in as we speak in Wisconsin. We're keeping an eye on the final tally out of those two Republican congressional races in Florida.
Those are deep, deep, deep red seats. The Republican candidate is going to win in each of those races.
But those are districts that were plus 33, plus 32 for the Republicans in November. Looks like Democrats might have closed that margin by maybe like half, which would be a disaster for the Republicans.
We're watching those vote totals as we come in. Again, results expected out of Wisconsin soon.
Stay with us tonight. You're going to want to watch this show.
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It's election night in Florida and Wisconsin. We're keeping a close eye on all of it.
In Florida, there are two special elections for Congress. One of those is for the seat formerly held by Matt Gaetz, who, yes, it wasn't a dream, really was Donald Trump's first choice for attorney general of the United States.
Matt Gaetz was forth to withdraw from consideration for that position over allegations of illicit drug use and sex with a minor, all of which he denied. The other race is for the seat formerly held by Michael Waltz, who's now Trump's embattled national security advisor.
He's the guy who accidentally added a journalist to a group chat on Signal about forthcoming U.S. military operations and didn't notice the journalist was there ever.
New reporting today from The Washington Post also reveals that Mike Waltz was also

apparently using his unsecured Gmail account for some of his official duties as national security

advisor. Wow.
NBC News has not confirmed that reporting, but we will have a little bit more

for you on that later ahead tonight. Those two Florida districts, I got to tell you, they are

deep, deep, deep red districts in Florida. Trump won each of those districts by huge margins.
He won by 37 points in the Matt Gaetz district. He won by 30 points in the Mike Waltz district.
So these are really, really, really red districts. But look at this for these special elections tonight.
Tonight, NBC News can report that the Republican candidate in Florida's first district, this is the Matt Gaetz district, his name is Jimmy Patronis, he is projected to win this race, which is not a surprise. But look at the margin.
Right now, with 98 percent of precincts reporting, he's leading by less than 15 points. That's way less than half of Trump's margin in that district just from November.
Trump won there in November by 37. And the Republican there tonight is leading by less than 15.
In the other one, Florida's 6th district, NBC News projects that Republican Randy Fine has won that race and kept that seat in Republican hands. And again, that is not a surprise given the Republican tilt of this district.
But again, take a look at the margins here. Trump won this district by 30 points.
We've now got 99 percent of precincts reporting and the Republican is leading that race again by less than 15 points. That is a huge shift in Democrats direction, even in deep, deep red districts in Florida.
Now, let's talk about Wisconsin. Wisconsin voters are heading to the polls today, are headed to the polls today for their Supreme Court election that is shaping up in some ways to be a referendum on Elon Musk.
Elon Musk dumped $26 million into this race in favor of the more conservative MAGA pro-Trump candidate. Technically, this is a nonpartisan election, but the outcome will determine whether there's a liberal or conservative majority on that Wisconsin state Supreme Court.
That could affect everything from abortion rights to voting rights to how congressional districts get drawn and therefore how many Democrats and Republicans go to the House of Representatives in Washington from Wisconsin. It's a big deal.
Democrats have lined up behind the more liberal candidate, Susan Crawford. Republicans have been supporting the MAGA candidate, Brad Schimmel.
Elon Musk has dumped, again, $26 million-ish into this race on behalf of the MAGA candidate. More money than has ever been spent by a single person on a judicial race in American history.
It's the most expensive judicial race in American history. Overall, outside spending in that race expected to reach $100 million.
At least one local news outlet in Wisconsin is reporting that there are so many voters that turned out for this race today that some polling locations in Milwaukee faced a shortage of ballots. The local elections commissioner in Milwaukee urged voters to stay in line to vote as they work to get more ballots.
Polls closed in this race just as we came on the air tonight. And so far, the vote that has been reported has come in more from Republican areas than Democratic ones.
Right now, I got to tell you, we've just got a very slim portion of the vote in. We've got 27.8 percent of the vote in.
And at this point, the Democratic backed candidate, Susan Crawford, is at 58 percent of the vote. And the Republican backed candidate, Brad Schimmel, is at just under 42 percent of the vote.
But again, this is just less than 30 percent of the vote in.

We're going to be watching this come in. There's about 100000 votes between them right now at this moment.
Talking to our elections team here, watching the results come in, they have been saying that it looks like Susan Crawford's margins have been outpacing Joe Biden's margins in Wisconsin from the 2024 election, excuse me, from the 2020 election. Joe Biden, of course, won Wisconsin in 2020.
So we shall see. But again, we've got less than 30 percent of that vote in now.
And so we'll be watching that closely as it comes in. Republicans in Wisconsin have already succeeded in making Wisconsin one of the states where you have to show a valid photo ID to vote.
Republicans are worried that if they lose control of the Wisconsin Supreme Court tonight, that voter ID law could go away. So this year, Republicans also decided to put a measure on the ballot to enshrine that voter ID law into the state constitution.
So to make it basically so as to make it harder for the state Supreme Court to take it away. Telling me NBC News projects that the voter ID requirement has passed.
Again, this is only with about 21 percent of the vote in in Wisconsin. But NBC is projecting that the voter ID requirement again, this isn't a new voter ID requirement in Wisconsin, but it is enshrining it rather than just being in state law would be in the state constitution, which would make it harder to rescind.
We're also watching the race for superintendent of public schools in Wisconsin. That race is also technically nonpartisan, but Democrats in Wisconsin have thrown their weight behind the incumbent.
Her name is Jill Underly, while Republicans have been supporting her challenger, who's a charter school advocate named Brittany Kinzer. At this hour, looking at the results that we've got thus far in that race, we've got just over 21 percent of the vote in and the Democratic backed candidate, the incumbent superintendent of public instruction, is leading the Republican backed charter schools advocate, her challenger in that race.
But again, just over 21 percent of the vote in that race. And so we'll be watching that closely.
We're going to be following all these races closely all night. We are starting to get in big chunks of vote.
We'll bring you new developments as we get them. Watch this space.
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Here's a real headline that appeared in the Washington Post today about our nation's national security advisor. Quote, Waltz and staff used Gmail for government communications, officials say.
I should tell you that MSNBC and NBC News have not verified this reporting. A National Security Council spokesman tells us tonight that Mike Waltz, quote, has never sent classified material over his personal email account or any unsecured platform.
But this, of course, follows reporting about Mr. Waltz's Signal Group texting about war plan scandal and the revelations this weekend from The Wall Street Journal that that was not the first time Mr.
Waltz had convened Trump cabinet officials in a group chat on Signal, including reportedly about other military operations, not just the airstrikes in Yemen. As this story has unfolded of top Trump administration officials discussing sensitive national security materials on group chats, I have to mention that it has gone almost unremarked upon that at least some of them have confirmed that they were participating in those chats from their personal devices, their personal phones, which are almost certainly less secure than official government issued devices for anything, let alone forthcoming military operations.
Meanwhile, today in the Senate, there was a confirmation hearing for Donald Trump's nominee to be the country's top military official, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

This nomination and confirmation hearing were only necessitated because President Trump and his defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, fired the serving chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other members of the military senior ranks. They fired everyone who was not a white man.
As for Pete Hegseth, he took a trip to the U.S. Naval Academy today.
Ahead of that trip, he ordered the Academy to purge its libraries of any books with themes ostensibly related to diversity. The AP reports today that the Academy finished removing hundreds of books from its library before Pete Hegseth arrived in accordance with his order.
The New York Times reports that among the books the Academy was considering purging were the autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr. and a biography of Jackie Robinson.
The Naval Academy also announced ahead of Hegseth's visit that it is ending the use of affirmative action in admissions at the direction of the Trump administration. Now, this is something special because you might remember a couple of years ago when the Supreme Court ruled against affirmative action and university admissions, they specifically exempted America's military academies.
They said America's military service academies were explicitly exempted from that ruling and they could continue to use affirmative action policies in order to maintain diversity in the ranks as a matter of national security. Just a few months ago, a federal judge ruled that the Naval Academy could continue considering race in admissions because a diverse officer corps is important to America's national security.
So by law, the U.S. Naval Academy can continue to consider race as one factor in admissions decision making.
An executive order from Donald Trump does not change the law. They are not required to do this.
But apparently the Naval Academy nevertheless decided to go along with Trump's order. To go along to get along.
Joining us now, I'm very pleased to say, is retired Army Lieutenant General Ben Hodges. He served nearly four decades in the United States Army.
He ultimately became head of NATO Allied Land Command and then commanding general of the United States Army in Europe until 2017. General Hodges, it's great to see you again.
Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for the privilege.
We have a lot of worrying national security headlines in the news right now. And those of us who aren't experts in these matters and who worry about the instability in the world and about our role in it, I think, are having some laying awake at night, three in the morning, staring at the ceiling kind of fears about what's happening.
I have to ask you as a professional and with all the experience that you have, if you are at all rattled about some of the things that are going on in national security and military affairs right now. I worry about the damage that's being done to relationships with allies that we have depended on for decades.
We still depend on allies for access to air bases and seaports around the world that we're allowed to use by our allies. And also worry about competence.
Our allies will look to see what happened with this signal check group scandal and would rightfully wonder about the competence of the people that are making decisions at the very highest level about where we might use force, how we might use force. And they know better.

Three of the people involved in that are former Army officers, Tulsi Gabbard, Mr. Waltz, and Mr.
Hexeth. They're all Army officers, so they know how to handle classified material.
They would have had to have been certified numerous times. So it's either willful or incompetent.
What is the material consequence for our country if our allies question the competence of our top national security officials, if they question our ability to safely handle sensitive information that could potentially implicate their own assets and interests? Well, of course, a large percentage of the intelligence that we use for what we do as a nation comes from allies. It's not all from American satellites.
I mean, there's nobody can match the United States in terms of technical capabilities, but so much of intelligence is human intelligence, signals intelligence, imagery intelligence that's combined and shared. And if other countries won't advertise that, they're going to stop, but they just won't provide as much because they'll be uncertain about what happens to it.

your leadership roles in NATO and for the U.S. Army in Europe put you in a unique perspective,

I think, to reflect and to help the American people understand what it might mean

if Trump goes ahead with one of the plans he's reportedly considering,

which is to remove the United States military from its

Thank you. to reflect and to help the American people understand what it might mean if Trump goes ahead with one of the plans he's reportedly considering, which is to remove the United States military from its military leadership role in NATO, to say that the United States, which has always had supreme command in NATO, should see that, let other allies do it as a way of essentially stepping back from NATO in lots of other ways.
Does that worry you? Is that something that the American people should understand better in terms of the consequences? I don't understand how this advances America's strategic interests to give up influence that we have with 31 other nations inside the alliance of NATO, but also the other countries with which NATO partners to include countries in the Middle East and in the Pacific. Why would we not want to have the Supreme Allied Commander being an American? I mean, you're saving, if it's about saving money, you're, you know, that's not going to be consequential.
The influence that we will be giving up, I think is, that absolutely worries me. I think that with Senator Booker's landmark, historic speech tonight in the United States Senate, set the all-time record for as long as a senator has ever spoken on any subject in the United States Senate, I think one of the things that he has activated among people who appreciate what he did is a sense that the Democrats in the Congress and hopefully the Republicans, too, will do more to try to check some of the dangerous impulses and perhaps reckless actions of this new administration.
I imagine that in the military that civilian oversight and congressional oversight is mostly frustrating. but I wonder if you could also reflect on whether or not it's also constructive and whether or not that Congress, whether or not Congress might have a role in overseeing our national security apparatus right now in a way when our policies and some of our competence issues are really scary.
So first, I have to say, I got fired up tonight listening to your interview with Senator Booker,

the back and forth, and as he described what he was doing and the impact he was trying to achieve,

not just the physical accomplishment, but the stamina.

It was impressive.

Congressional oversight is part of the Constitution. And you know that all of us take an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States.
The oath is not to the president. It's to the Constitution.
And we reinforce that every time a soldier reenlists, every time somebody gets promoted. We reinforce this oath because it is part of the fiber of who we are.

And so this congressional oversight is obviously a part of that. Of course, it's no fun to have to sit there and defend the budget.
You know, when you get asked hard questions, why are we doing this? Or when one of the services makes a mistake and you're having to answer to an oversight committee. But it's part of it.
And I have always valued the importance of the Constitution to who and what we are. It's unique in the world.
And this is why I think it is so dangerous what the administration is doing now with the removal of General Brown and Admiral Franchetti and also the Judge Advocates General, the top lawyers from all the services. I think our senior leaders today are under enormous pressure from this administration to do something, to consider things that frankly are absolutely not legal, like invading a treaty ally.
And so this will be a real test for these people.

Retired Army Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, former commander of U.S. Army in Europe.
Thank you so much for being here. I know this isn't your favorite thing to do in the world, and I really appreciate you making time to be here, sir.
Being with you is one of my favorite things. Thanks.
Very kind. All right.
We'll be right back. Stay with us.

Here's an update on that Wisconsin Supreme Court election we have been watching so closely. Democrats, of course, have lined up behind candidate Susan Crawford.
Republicans and Donald Trump and Elon Musk in particular have pulled out all the stops in supporting the MAGA conservative candidate Brad Schimmel. That has included Elon Musk pouring tens of millions of dollars into this race on behalf of Schimmel and also giving out million-dollar checks to voters.
Well, here's where we are. As of this hour, here is our latest results.
NBC News right this moment is projecting a winner in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race. NBC News projects at this hour that Susan Crawford is the projected winner in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race.
NBC News projects at this hour

that Susan Crawford is the projected winner in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race. This is a

remarkable, remarkable outcome. We've got just 47 percent of the vote in, but you see that is a

that that is what appears what appeared to me before we got the call to be a clear lead for Susan Crawford. Again, she's the Democratic backed candidate in this race.
Now, according to NBC News, she has defeated Brad Schimel. Again, the resources that were brought to bear on Brad Schimel's behalf were extraordinary.
This is the most expensive judicial race that has ever happened in the United States of America. It includes single individual funding for a judicial candidate that has never been seen before in the history of this country.
Not just the overall race, but Elon Musk's personal investment in trying to get Brad Schimmel elected to this race is something that has never been seen before by any other individual in any judicial race in American history. With Donald Trump, the sitting president of the United States, having just won in Wisconsin in November.
With Donald Trump doing teletown hauls for Brad Schimmel as recently as this weekend. With Donald Trump, again, the sitting president of the United States, explicitly endorsing Brad Schimmel, with Wisconsin being absolutely blanketed, blanketed with ads saying that a vote for Brad Schimmel is a vote for Donald Trump, again, in a state that Donald Trump just won in November.
For us to be calling this tonight before 10 p.m. Eastern, NBC News projecting that Susan Crawford will win this seat.
And we'll see if that margin tightens up as we get closer to 100 percent of the vote in. But knock me over with a feather.
Honestly, we can pair this with the results out of Florida tonight to congressional special elections in Florida in deep, deep, deep red districts that Donald Trump

won by 30 points and 37 points just in November. In those cases, we did have the Republican candidate win in both of those special congressional elections, but winning by margins that are, I think in both cases, looking to be less than half or at most half of what Donald Trump was able to pull in those

districts. So Democrats making leaps and bounds gains on Republicans, even in deep red Florida,

and outright winning this seat in Wisconsin. The first statewide election since Donald Trump won

the presidency in November, and it in a swing state that he won as well. That's got to hurt.

All right, that does it for me for now. Wow.
I'll see you again tomorrow