'How is it possible that you have this job?': RFK Jr.'s incompetence becomes too glaring to overlook

Speaker 1 This episode is presented by Planned Parenthood Federation of America. This year, lawmakers have attacked our rights, stretched the truth, and taken away access to health care.

Speaker 1 Through it all, Planned Parenthood has been on the front lines, providing care, defending patients, fighting back.

Speaker 1 But the Trump administration and Congress passed a law to defund Planned Parenthood, putting care for 1.1 million patients at risk. Planned Parenthood isn't backing down.

Speaker 1 They're still here, protecting access to birth control, cancer screenings, abortion, and more. Visit plannedparenthood.org/slash defend and donate today.

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Speaker 3 Every new Toyota hybrid comes with Toyota Care, two-year complementary scheduled maintenance, an exclusive hybrid battery warranty, and Toyota's legendary quality and reliability.

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Speaker 12 It is Friday. It feels like this week has been about 100 days long, admit it.

Speaker 12 But we have made it to Friday, and I'm very glad that you are here with us tonight. There's so much to cover.

Speaker 12 Stuck in my craw.

Speaker 12 I know, it's Friday. Tonight's going to be a little weird.
Forgive me. Here it comes.

Speaker 12 You might remember a couple of days ago we reported on the results of a new national poll from Quinnipiac. You might remember some of the details.

Speaker 12 Trump underwater and his overall approval rating by 12 points. Trump underwater on his handling of the economy by 15 points.

Speaker 12 Americans saying that Trump's tariff gamble will cause immediate harm to the U.S. economy by a 50-point margin.
Saying what he's doing will hurt the U.S. economy.

Speaker 12 You might remember we covered that Quinnipiak poll a couple of days ago.

Speaker 12 But Quinnipiak also had a couple of questions at the end of that poll that we didn't cover when we did it the other night, but they've been gnawing at me a little bit ever since.

Speaker 12 And the first one was this, quote, as you may know, the editor of the Atlantic magazine was accidentally added to a group text chat on the messaging service signal where plans to launch airstrikes against a rebel group in Yemen were discussed.

Speaker 12 The chat included President Trump's national security advisor, the defense secretary, the vice president. The question is this.

Speaker 12 This is the polling question. How serious a problem do you think it is that the messaging service signal was used to discuss these plans?

Speaker 12 Well, the proportion of Americans who said it was not a serious problem was 22%. The proportion of Americans who said it was a somewhat serious or very serious problem was 74%.

Speaker 12 So by a 52-point margin, Americans think that whole Signal thing was a big freaking deal. And indeed, in any other presidency, that would be the scandal that resulted in all the resignations, right?

Speaker 12 That would be the end. That would be the And this administration, it's like one of 50 scandals of roughly that size in this past month alone.

Speaker 12 But you know, nobody got fired for it.

Speaker 12 And nobody resigned. Nobody got dinged.
There were no consequences at all.

Speaker 12 And the American people disagree with that. The American people think at least somebody should have been fired for that signal thing, which was a big deal.

Speaker 12 This is from that Quinnipiak poll.

Speaker 12 Do you think someone in the Trump administration should lose their job over the signal group chat incident or not?

Speaker 12 Yes, somebody should have lost their job over that, says 61% of the American public.

Speaker 12 31% say no, but that means by a 30-point margin, the American people this week are like, wow, hey, yeah, that was a big deal, and somebody should have been fired for that.

Speaker 12 But no one was fired for that.

Speaker 12 Now, though, a new CBS News report gives us a little window into what it's like at the upper, upper, upper, upper echelons of this administration and what a tight ship they're running up there on their communications, especially with the people at the very, very top of the United States government.

Speaker 12 This is from CBS News.

Speaker 12 On March 3rd, several days before Atlantic magazine editor Jeffrey Goldberg was mistakenly added to a group chat with top Trump national security advisors, Retired Lieutenant General H.R.

Speaker 12 McMaster received an unexpected call on his personal cell phone. It was from the White House.

Speaker 12 And he was instructed by the voice on the other end of the line to stand by for the President of the United States.

Speaker 12 McMaster had served as National Security Advisor during President Trump's first term. He was surprised to hear from Mr.
Trump at all. But Trump opened the call by saying, Henry,

Speaker 12 before launching into conversation.

Speaker 12 It was then that General McMaster knew this familiar voice was indeed Donald Trump, but he also realized something else. Trump had not intended to call him at all.

Speaker 12 General McMaster goes by H.R., short for Herbert Raymond, not Henry.

Speaker 12 McMaster then said into the phone, Mr. President, this is H.R.
McMaster. Trump responded by saying, why the F would I talk to H.R.
McMaster?

Speaker 12 Quote, the call was brief.

Speaker 12 Two sources telling CBS News that the president had actually intended to call South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster, not his former national security advisor, who he hates, H.R. McMaster.

Speaker 12 Quote, it is unclear who bears responsibility for dialing the wrong McMaster.

Speaker 12 And

Speaker 12 putting him directly on the phone with the President of the United States.

Speaker 12 That said, the White House Communication Director did respond to CBS News by giving them a statement caustically criticizing H.R. McMaster, as as if any of this was his fault.
So

Speaker 12 this is just a few days before Trump's new national security advisor put a journalist on a group text chat about the down-to-the-minute details of forthcoming U.S. military plans.

Speaker 12 Just a few days before that, Trump himself called up H.R. McMaster when he was trying to call a totally different guy named McMaster.
And when the guy he actually called interrupted and said, Mr.

Speaker 12 President, I'm H.R. McMaster, the president responded by saying, Oh, why would I want to talk to you?

Speaker 12 Sir, you called me.

Speaker 12 Can I give you another? I'm sorry, it's Friday. I have worn through my filter.
I just cannot even with this being the government of the United States of America. Let me just give you one more.

Speaker 12 All right, this is also this week.

Speaker 12 You may recall that Trump appointed a pro-wrestling executive named Linda to be the Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon, right?

Speaker 12 Turning out to be a weird job because both she and Donald Trump say that her job as Secretary of Education is to shut down the Department of Education. Kind of a strange job.
Still though,

Speaker 12 Linda McMahon, Trump's education secretary, found time in her busy schedule to go to a conference this week, a conference on artificial intelligence and American education.

Speaker 12 It's a whole conference about AI.

Speaker 12 Artificial intelligence, AI. That's what we call it, right? AI.

Speaker 12 AI.

Speaker 12 Unless you're Trump's education secretary. In case that abbreviation, AI,

Speaker 12 turns out that's a really hard one.

Speaker 14 I heard, I think it was a letter or a report that I heard this morning.

Speaker 14 I wish I could remember the source, but that there is a school system that's going to start making sure that first graders or even pre-Ks have A1 teaching every year starting that far down in the grades.

Speaker 14 And that's just

Speaker 14 wonderful thing.

Speaker 12 You see the other people on stage with her going,

Speaker 12 she's the Secretary of Education. She's talking, wait, what is, what are we, what are we talking about here?

Speaker 14 George, that first graders or even pre-Ks have A1 teaching every year starting that far down in the grades. And that's just a, that's a wonderful thing.
Kids are sponges.

Speaker 14 you know, they just absorb everything. And so, it wasn't all that long ago that it's we're gonna have internet in our schools.

Speaker 14 Now, okay, let's do see A1 and how, and how can that be helpful

Speaker 12 now?

Speaker 12 I myself,

Speaker 12 uh, I love me some A1. It's tangy, it really brings out the best in a steak or whatever.
But A1, I mean, it's

Speaker 12 it's not like an education term of art, like K-12

Speaker 12 or something, right? Or pre-K. You know what I mean? Like, A1 is a whole different thing.

Speaker 14 In our schools.

Speaker 14 Now, okay, let's see A1 and

Speaker 14 how can that be helpful?

Speaker 12 How can that be helpful? How can that be helpful? So this is like...

Speaker 12 This is an anagram that you spell out. It's not like NASA, where you don't say N-A-S-A, you just like pronounce the anagram as if it's a word.
This is the whole anagram spelled out.

Speaker 12 It's artificial intelligence, A, and then I, A, I.

Speaker 12 And she cannot spell that.

Speaker 12 So now we've got tangy salty A1 in all the schools. And that will somehow be facilitated by abolishing the U.S.
Department of Education,

Speaker 12 which,

Speaker 12 you know, it'll be delicious.

Speaker 10 I'm just,

Speaker 12 I mean, I can't,

Speaker 12 everything they're doing is so terrible.

Speaker 10 I'm sorry.

Speaker 12 I mean, we're going to be talking tonight about Social Security.

Speaker 12 We now know that one of the reasons, apparently, that they are tanking Social Security and destroying that agency and making it unusable and no longer functional for the people who depend on Social Security every month is apparently because they're stripping it down for parts.

Speaker 12 While Social Security recipients have not been able to get through to Social Security either on the phone or online or in person, And people are starting to miss Social Security checks and they're firing thousands of people who work at Social Security.

Speaker 12 Social Security Agency has also reportedly converted the data systems from the Social Security Agency

Speaker 12 to be used as a way to target immigrants.

Speaker 12 So we can't get people their checks anymore, but Social Security Administration data systems are being used to target immigrants by having the Social Security system declare immigrants immigrants dead in order to mess with them and make it impossible for them to live.

Speaker 12 I mean, that's a thing that they're doing. In the Mahmoud Khalil case, the Trump administration has now admitted they have put in writing that the U.S.

Speaker 12 government under Donald Trump believes it has the right to target individual people and expel them from this country, not just on the basis of their speech, of the things they say, but of things they might say someday, or even that they might just secretly believe, or that they might in the future believe.

Speaker 12 Trump's Secretary of State, Market Rubio, now claims that he has the right to expel people living in the United States legally.

Speaker 12 He has the right to expel people who are legally here to make it illegal for them to stay

Speaker 12 based on, quote, past, current, or expected beliefs, statements, or associations that are otherwise lawful.

Speaker 12 Expected beliefs or statements?

Speaker 12 They're saying they can tell in advance that at some point in the future, you are going to hold a belief that they do not like.

Speaker 12 And that is enough for the government to arrest you and put you in an immigration prison indefinitely before eventually maybe flying you to some other country.

Speaker 12 Expected beliefs and expected statements. Things you have not yet said will be used against you.

Speaker 12 We've got news today that the Trump administration is planning on closing down the National Severe Storms Laboratory, which studies storms like tornadoes, and planning on closing down every other research lab and research office at NOAA and the National Weather Service.

Speaker 12 And it is seemingly because they do not understand

Speaker 12 the noun climate. They do not understand that the word climate sometimes just means the weather, doesn't always mean climate change.

Speaker 12 But because of the close association of the word weather and climate, they're planning on shutting down all weather research because they don't understand what the basic nouns involved are.

Speaker 12 Okay?

Speaker 12 And then there's Health and Human Services, run by Donald Trump's handpicked Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Speaker 12 have fired 10,000 people from the nation's health agencies in the last couple of weeks. They have cut billions and billions and billions of dollars in health research and health programs.

Speaker 12 But apparently, somebody forgot to tell Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
that that's what he was doing.

Speaker 15 You propose more than $11 billion in cuts to local and state programs addressing things like infectious disease, mental health, addiction, and childhood vaccination.

Speaker 15 Did you personally approve those cuts?

Speaker 16 I'm not familiar with those cuts.

Speaker 16 We'd have to go. We'd have to go.

Speaker 15 There's like more than 50 pages of

Speaker 16 cuts that I actually went through.

Speaker 16 These were mainly DEI cuts, which the president was.

Speaker 15 There were a lot, but I'll give you, for example, about $750,000 of a University of Michigan grant into adolescent diabetes was cut. Did you know that?

Speaker 16 I didn't know that, and that's something that we'll look at.

Speaker 12 I'm not familiar with those cuts.

Speaker 12 I'm not familiar with those cuts. Those cuts are mainly DEI cuts.
We cut infectious disease and mental health and addiction. That sounds like a terrible idea.
We cut adolescent diabetes stuff?

Speaker 12 Well, that's something that we'll look at.

Speaker 12 I thought these were all DEI cuts. As of today, all of the full-time employees at the vessel sanitation program at the CDC are off the job.
Every full-time employee.

Speaker 12 What's the vessel sanitation program? It's the thing that fights noroviruses on cruise ships. At least a dozen outbreaks have been documented on cruise ships so far this year.

Speaker 12 Sickening dozens or even hundreds of people at each one of those outbreaks. All of the full-time employees at CDC's vessel sanitation program are now off the job.
Those are all DEI cuts.

Speaker 12 Are cruises gay? Because it's cruising? I mean,

Speaker 12 how does that work?

Speaker 12 How is it possible you have this job?

Speaker 12 But while Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
claims to know nothing about the massive cuts he has made at the various agencies he runs. Or maybe it wasn't him.
Hey, if it wasn't you, who did them?

Speaker 12 One thing he does claim to be very engaged on is the ongoing measles outbreak in West Texas, right? One of the worst measles outbreaks this country has seen in decades.

Speaker 12 In fact, Kennedy this week personally visited the epicenter of the outbreak.

Speaker 12 He attended the funeral of an eight-year-old child who's died of measles there, a second kid that this measles outbreak has killed.

Speaker 12 Kennedy then posted to social media photos of him visiting with the families who lost children to the measles, as well well as two of the doctors who had been treating them.

Speaker 12 He called those doctors, quote, extraordinary healers. He claimed they had, quote, treated and healed some 300 measles-stricken children using steroids and an antibiotic.

Speaker 12 One of those doctors had touted the same steroid as a cure for COVID-19.

Speaker 12 He said he had realized the steroid's

Speaker 12 life-saving potential thanks to divine intervention. He discovered that this steroid was a cure for COVID-19.
He said, quote, while I was asleep, an answer to prayer came to me.

Speaker 12 Well, he thinks it cures COVID-19. He now also thinks it cures measles.
It's the same medication. I don't know if it was the same dream or whatever.

Speaker 12 But it's basically an asthma inhaler. that he says cures COVID and cures measles.
And not to state the obvious, but asthma inhalers do not cure COVID-19 or the measles.

Speaker 12 Dr. Paul Offutt is director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital Philadelphia.

Speaker 12 He tells NBC News that, in fact, steroids should not be given early in the course of a viral infection like measles because steroids inhibit the immune system. Quote, that's not what you want to do.

Speaker 12 Your immune system works for you to fight measles.

Speaker 12 But the, I think that inhaled steroids from an asthma inhaler cure COVID and cure the measles.

Speaker 12 That's one of the two doctors our nation's health secretary is endorsing for his miracle working in this out-of-control measles outbreak.

Speaker 12 The other doctor he's endorsing is a sort of rising star in the anti-vaccine movement who says mass infection with measles of the kind that we're seeing in this out-of-control outbreak in Texas is quote, God's version of measles immunization.

Speaker 12 From an NBC News report this week, quote, Dr.

Speaker 12 Ben Edwards, a conventionally trained doctor who has shifted to promoting natural remedies and prayer, has been operating a makeshift clinic in Seminole, Texas, offering children unproven treatments, including, according to a video posted by an anti-vaccine group, quote, while he himself said he was sick with measles.

Speaker 12 So just, I know I've just said the word measles a lot, but just focus in on this for a second. What I'm saying here is actually what you think you heard.

Speaker 12 This is a doctor who advises against the measles vaccine and who is promoting these quack treatments. There is no treatment for measles, right?

Speaker 12 They're supportive care so that you hopefully don't die from it, but there's no cure for measles. Antibiotics and steroids aren't a cure for measles.

Speaker 12 But he's saying

Speaker 12 they're not promoting vaccination, instead promoting these quack treatments. And he is treating patients in this largely unvaccinated community in Texas.

Speaker 12 And he is doing so while he himself has the measles.

Speaker 12 Activists from RFK Jr.'s anti-vaccine group, the one that he founded, went to this doctor's makeshift clinic in the middle of this measles outbreak and standing there in his clinic where he was seeing patients and their families, he told them on camera that he himself was in the midst of a measles infection.

Speaker 18 How are you feeling?

Speaker 19 You've touched measles yourself?

Speaker 13 Yeah, I was pretty anky yesterday.

Speaker 18 Did you ever not have measles as a child?

Speaker 13 No, I had MMR.

Speaker 18 How many MMRs do you have?

Speaker 13 I'd have to go back and look.

Speaker 12 I've got a few. Yeah.

Speaker 18 That doesn't work then, does it?

Speaker 13 No, apparently not.

Speaker 13 Just wear off.

Speaker 18 But you're feeling alright?

Speaker 13 Today I'm better, yeah.

Speaker 18 You've got spots here or on your body as well?

Speaker 19 Dismal spots.

Speaker 13 Yeah, they came yesterday afternoon. I was achy.
Friday afternoon, achy.

Speaker 7 Started, and yesterday was pretty achy.

Speaker 13 Little mild fever. Spots came in the afternoon.
Today I woke up feeling good.

Speaker 13 So, mild case.

Speaker 18 You're an amazing human being, you know that. You should know that.
I got for you.

Speaker 13 I know.

Speaker 18 We don't want to keep it up.

Speaker 13 We're going to keep it all back. Just

Speaker 13 doing what any doctor should be doing.

Speaker 12 Just doing what any doctor should be doing. Again, that's a video from RFK Jr.'s anti-vaccine group that he founded.

Speaker 12 I will tell you, this is what the CDC says about the contagiousness of measles. The CDC is an agency now run by RFK Jr.

Speaker 12 But if you ask them, what about the contagiousness of measles? They will tell you, quote, if you have measles, up to 90% of the people close to you who are not immune will also become infected.

Speaker 12 You can spread measles to others from four days before through four days after the rash appears.

Speaker 12 So, there is this doctor in Texas who has active measles infection, who has spots on his face. He has just come down with the rash, he says, the day before.

Speaker 12 He is asking people in this highly unvaccinated community to bring themselves and their family members in to see him while he himself has just sprung his own measles rash.

Speaker 12 So, you've got a guy who is basically a drinking fountain of measles in that very vulnerable community that is at the center of that outbreak.

Speaker 12 Dr. Edwards declined comment to NBC News, but our nation's new health and human services secretary, he says that that Texas doctor, those two Texas doctors are, quote, extraordinary healers.

Speaker 12 This is unfolding as Secretary Kennedy has forced out the nation's top vaccine regulator. You may recall that when Dr.

Speaker 12 Peter Marks quit a couple of weeks ago, he submitted a resignation letter that called out what he called RFK's misinformation and lies. In an interview with the Associated Press this week, Dr.

Speaker 12 Marks was more specific about the reason he left. There was a confrontation.

Speaker 12 Quote, shortly before he was forced to resign, the nation's top vaccine regulator says he refused to grant Health Secretary Kennedy's team unrestricted access to a tightly held vaccine safety database, fearing that the information might be manipulated or even deleted.

Speaker 12 Dr. Marks agreed to give Kennedy's associates the ability to read thousands of reports of potential vaccine-related issues sent to the government's vaccine adverse event reporting system,

Speaker 12 but he would not allow them to directly edit the data. Mark's telling the Associated Press, quote, why wouldn't we? Because frankly, we don't trust them, he said, using a profanity.

Speaker 12 He said, quote, they'd write it over or erase the whole database.

Speaker 12 So the nation's top vaccine expert says he was pushed out of the U.S. government because he was trying to stop RFK and his allies from corrupting the nation's database on vaccine safety.

Speaker 12 And now, at an all-for-show cabinet meeting in the White House this week, RFK told the cameras and told President Trump that he's going to announce to the nation the cause of autism by September of this year.

Speaker 12 Now that he's pushed out the vaccine expert and gotten access to the vaccine safety database, oh, and put an anti-vaccine crank in charge of the quote-unquote study he's going to do on the totally repeatedly debunked supposed link between vaccines and autism.

Speaker 12 Huh, I wonder what he's going to say causes autism.

Speaker 12 As for Kennedy's claim that he is going to have this whole autism thing sorted out in just a few months, the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network says in a statement that it, quote, demonstrates his disregard for scientific studies, as quote, real science does not move at that speed.

Speaker 12 They add, quote, when top officials spread misinformation about autism, autistic people suffer.

Speaker 12 And the top vaccine regulator is not the only top health official Kennedy's fired. When I spoke last week with former FDA Commissioner David Kessler, Dr.

Speaker 12 Kessler said that among the people Trump and RFK have just fired was the doctor who very well may have saved Donald Trump's life when Donald Trump got COVID during his first term.

Speaker 20 Remember that night that he was taken by helicopter to Walter Reed.

Speaker 20 He was having difficulty breathing. He had COVID.

Speaker 17 He was very sick.

Speaker 20 He was given two monoclonal antibodies.

Speaker 20 He referenced those as miracles. They were cures.
All of a sudden he got better. I mean,

Speaker 20 he could have died, but for those drugs.

Speaker 20 Dr. Peter Stein's office approved, made available those drugs to the president and to thousands of others.
Peter Peter Stein

Speaker 20 was fired, was let go.

Speaker 20 I don't think the president knows that. Someone needs to walk into the Oval Office and say, Mr.
President, we just fired the person who may have saved your life.

Speaker 12 Dr. Peter Stein, the guy who very well might have saved Donald Trump's life with those miracle cures, the real ones, the monoclonal antibodies.
He's one of about 10,000 people that Trump and Robert F.

Speaker 12 Kennedy have fired at the nation's health agencies.

Speaker 12 But, you know, don't worry, RFK said a few days ago that a whole bunch of those people were fired by mistake. They're all going to be hired back.
It was all a big misunderstanding.

Speaker 12 You might remember this, right? RFK told reporters, quote, personnel that should not have been cut were cut. We're reinstating them.
And that was always the plan. Part of the,

Speaker 12 at Doge, we talked about this from the beginning, is we're going to do 80% cuts, but 20% of those are going to have to be reinstated because we'll make mistakes.

Speaker 10 Well, that was always the plan.

Speaker 12 Kennedy said that the elimination of the CDC's entire lead poisoning prevention and surveillance branch was among the mistakes. So you might have seen the coverage of that a few days ago, right?

Speaker 12 Oh, Kennedy admits we cut the whole lead poisoning prevention office. Ooh, by mistake, that sounds bad.
That was a mistake.

Speaker 12 It was a mistake, but it was also part of the plan. Those are the kinds of people we'll be getting back.

Speaker 12 Did you assume that meant that those people were coming back? This is the part where the big narrator voice comes in and says, they did not get those folks back.

Speaker 12 Headline, RFK Jr. said HHS would rehire thousands of fired workers.
That wasn't true.

Speaker 12 A person familiar with the department's plans tells Politico that, quote, HHS has no intention of reinstating any significant number of the staffers fired, despite Kennedy's assertion that some had only mistakenly been cut.

Speaker 12 Kennedy's vow to rehire workers, quote, surprised White House and HHS officials because there were no such rehiring plans. The employees are not expected to be rehired.

Speaker 12 Instead, it became the latest disheartening episode for a workforce that had held out hope that some cuts would be reversed.

Speaker 12 So they're not bringing them back.

Speaker 12 As for the people who do remain at HHS now, how are things going for them?

Speaker 12 Quote,

Speaker 12 RFK warned Food and Drug Administration staff about the influence of the deep state on the agency in an all-hands meeting today, Friday, where he also made off-color comments about children with developmental disabilities.

Speaker 12 FDA employees gathered at the agency's headquarters for a viewing party to watch the FDA commissioner and HHS secretary who spoke from a separate room in the same building.

Speaker 12 The meeting quickly turned to warnings of the deep state and the influence of the CIA, according to audio and transcripts obtained by Bloomberg News.

Speaker 12 Kennedy told HHS staff, quote, the deep state is real. He said the FDA, like other agencies, became captured by the industries they're supposed to regulate.

Speaker 12 He said the agency turned away dissidents and people who touted alternative medicines.

Speaker 12 Like, say, people who discover miraculous cures for pandemics in their dreams, and then it turns out they think it's the cure to everything.

Speaker 12 Or people who say that instead of the historic public health victory that we've had off mass measles vaccination, we should instead go with God's version of measles immunization, which is just everybody gets measles.

Speaker 12 People like, you know, the guys who set up clinics for unvaccinated measles patients and their families and then treat them while they themselves are infected with measles, one of the most contagious viruses on the planet.

Speaker 12 Yeah, for too long, such people have been turned away by America's health agencies, but not anymore, apparently. Now they get to destroy the U.S.
government's health agencies and take over themselves.

Speaker 12 It's Friday.

Speaker 12 There's a ton to get to, I know, but

Speaker 12 Lord have mercy. Stay with us.

Speaker 21 This message comes from the International Rescue Committee. Co-founded with help from Albert Einstein, the IRC has been providing humanitarian aid for more than 90 years.

Speaker 21 The IRC helps refugees whose lives are disrupted by conflict and disaster, supporting recovery efforts in places like Gaza and Ukraine, and responding within 72 hours of crisis.

Speaker 21 Donate today by visiting rescue.org slash rebuild.

Speaker 4 Now's the time to start your next adventure behind the wheel of an exciting new Toyota hybrid.

Speaker 5 With the largest lineup of hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and electrified vehicles to choose from, Toyota has the one for you.

Speaker 3 Every new Toyota hybrid comes with Toyota Care two-year complementary scheduled maintenance, an exclusive hybrid battery warranty, and Toyota's legendary quality and reliability.

Speaker 10 Visit your local Toyota dealer today, Toyota.

Speaker 11 Let's go places. See your local Toyota dealer for hybrid battery warranty details.

Speaker 17 As President Trump continues implementing his ambitious agenda, follow along with the MS Now newsletter, Project 47.

Speaker 17 You'll get weekly updates sent straight to your inbox with expert analysis on the administration's latest actions and how they're affecting the American people.

Speaker 19 The American people are basically telling the president that they are not okay okay with any of this.

Speaker 17 Sign up for the Project 47 newsletter at ms.now slash project 47.

Speaker 12 Here's a sign of life. Today we saw a sign of life in terms of somebody fighting back for people who really need somebody to fight back for them.

Speaker 12 You might remember we reported this week on something happening in Arizona.

Speaker 12 The state attorney general's office in Arizona created this simple, easy-to-use online one-page form for anybody in Arizona who's having trouble with their Social Security.

Speaker 12 You can use this form to tell the state Attorney General's office about the trouble you're having with Social Security. That means that what you're going through is documented.

Speaker 12 It means the Attorney General's Office can potentially act on that information. It's possible you might be able to get some help.

Speaker 12 Bottom line, you are not in this alone. Your state wants to try to help.
Great.

Speaker 12 We had Arizona Attorney General Chris Mays here on the show earlier this week, and she walked us through it.

Speaker 12 I wondered on the air when I was talking with her if any other states were trying this same kind of thing.

Speaker 12 We didn't know of any that night. We have since looked this week, and we could not find any other state or any other entity really doing anything else like that.
But today, good news, that changed.

Speaker 12 Today, Michigan's Attorney General Dana Nessel launched her own page.

Speaker 12 It's an online web form for people who live in Michigan to report the disruptions that they are experiencing in trying to get their social security benefits or contact the agency.

Speaker 12 So that means Michigan and Arizona are now both doing this, and that is good news on that front today. Honestly,

Speaker 12 if the federal government is failing here, every state should try to step up and help elderly and disabled people in their states with this problem, right?

Speaker 12 For now, we've got two blue states. We've got Arizona and Michigan, Democratic officials in both of those states stepping up to try to help.
Good.

Speaker 12 Now for the bad news.

Speaker 12 In addition to the thousands of people who have been fired from from Social Security field offices across the country and from the Social Security Administration in Washington, Wired magazine reports today that at the Social Security Administration, quote, the regional office workforce will soon be cut by roughly 87%.

Speaker 12 87% on top of what they've already done. An 87% cut in the workforce at Social Security's regional offices at a time when Social Security customer service is already absolutely collapsing, right?

Speaker 12 I mean, why are Arizona and Michigan attorneys general standing up, stepping up to try to help people in their state?

Speaker 12 It's because the administration, the Trump administration, is collapsing Social Security. All of these news reports are just from the past week.
The New York Times, quote, just a mess.

Speaker 12 Staff cuts, rush changes, and anxiety at Social Security. Wall Street Journal, hours in line, cut off calls, accessing Social Security in the era of Doge.

Speaker 12 The Washington Post, Social Security website keeps crashing as Doge demands cuts to IT staff.

Speaker 12 Business Insider, AARP, sounds the alarm on Social Security's starting, startling, and sudden decline in customer service.

Speaker 12 I mean, all over the country, we're seeing example after example after example of people

Speaker 12 going to Social Security to try to solve a routine problem.

Speaker 12 And there are more and more and more routine problems as the agency collapses. But when people try to sort these things out, they're being met with just a Kafka-esque nightmare.

Speaker 12 Again, just this week, the LA Times sent reporters down to local Social Security field offices in Southern California.

Speaker 12 At one office, they found a 60-year-old woman, Camilla Sosa, who, quote, said she waited on hold over the phone for about two hours on Friday.

Speaker 12 She had not received a letter from Social Security that she needs to allow her to open a new bank account. She wasn't able to get a straight answer about why.

Speaker 12 An agency employer, excuse me, an agency employee told her that without an appointment, she would have to wait for three hours. Oh no, that's so long, she said.

Speaker 12 She decided to leave and try again another day.

Speaker 12 Social Security employees handed out a flyer with a phone number and a QR code that people could scan with their phones to make an appointment, but the website kept returning an error message.

Speaker 12 At another office, quote, security guards did not allow anyone inside the building without an appointment. One woman, leaning on a walker, approached the doors after getting out of an Uber.

Speaker 12 She said she had an appointment. The security guard looked at her paperwork and said her appointment was for a phone call, and someone from the agency was scheduled to call her.

Speaker 12 We don't have anything for you here right now, the guard said.

Speaker 12 Someone who understands what all this means and what potential interventions are possible. Joins us here next.
Stay with us.

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Speaker 22 Home to the Rachel Maddow Show, Morning Joe, the briefing with Jen Saki, and more voices you know and trust. MS Now is your source for news, opinion, and the world.

Speaker 22 Our name is new, but you'll find the same commitment to justice, progress, and the truth that you've relied on for decades.

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Speaker 12 This is from the Los Angeles Times.

Speaker 12 Quote, when Veronica Sanchez called a Social Security hotline Thursday, she waited two hours before her call was abruptly disconnected.

Speaker 12 On Friday, she was on hold for six hours and still did not get through to anyone. For Ms.
Sanchez, the stakes are high.

Speaker 12 If she does not obtain a medical letter from the agency by April 15th, her parents risk losing about $2,500 a month in medical care.

Speaker 12 That said, even if Sanchez shows up in person to contact the agency, she's not likely to speak to an agent. Field offices are no longer accepting walk-in appointments.

Speaker 12 If Sanchez did not reach someone from Social Security this week, she worried her parents, particularly her mother, who suffers from rheumatoid arthritis so severe she struggles to hold a coffee cup.

Speaker 12 She worries they could end up in the hospital.

Speaker 12 Sanchez described her parents' situation to the LA Times like this, quote, if they don't have the caregiver that's coming by to monitor their sugar in the morning, to do the blood pressure readings, she says, quote, I don't even want to think about the worst case scenario.

Speaker 12 They will definitely be in a very, very bad situation.

Speaker 12 Joining us now is Alex Lawson, Executive Director of the nonprofit Social Security Works. Mr.
Lawson, thanks very much for being with us tonight. I really appreciate it.

Speaker 23 Thanks for having me.

Speaker 12 So we've been following what we can about what the Trump administration is doing to the Social Security Administration.

Speaker 12 We've also been following these anecdotal and journalistic reports about what's happening when real people are running into regular kinds of problems that they would usually sort out by contacting the agency.

Speaker 12 And it does feel like, anecdotally, again, it feels like things are in free fall. I wanted to just sort of gut check that with you as somebody who watches this agency closely.

Speaker 23 Yeah, for 15 years, you know, I've said, you know, have confidence.

Speaker 23 Your checks are going to get into your hands. For 90 years, Social Security turns 90 this year.

Speaker 23 For 90 years, through war and peace, through boom and bust, through health and pandemic, not a single payment has been missed.

Speaker 23 Months after this billionaire gets in there, that's changed, Rachel. And I wish I had a better answer for people, but I don't.

Speaker 23 This is going to end in checks not going out, the money that we have earned not getting into our hands. And I believe strongly that that's the point.

Speaker 23 The cuts they've made have no other rhyme or reason except to literally destroy the system.

Speaker 12 We reported this week on the Attorney General's office in Arizona, led by Chris Mays, and now today today on the Attorney General's Office in Michigan led by Dana Nessel, both setting up online one-page, very simple web hubs basically, individual forms online where people who are having trouble in those states accessing their social security benefits or contacting the agency, they can at least report it to their state attorney general's office so the attorney general's office can document it so they can potentially act on that information, potentially so they can get those people some help.

Speaker 12 I feel like that's good news because somebody's trying and because they've got the resources of a government agency behind them and people can't fix these problems on their own.

Speaker 12 What else is happening to try to help people out, to try to remedy some of the failures that we're seeing because of what Trump's doing to this agency?

Speaker 23 So the truth is that unfortunately, people are going to have to take it upon themselves to protect themselves at this point.

Speaker 23 It's great that the Attorneys General in Arizona and Michigan are doing something.

Speaker 23 But, you know, you've seen Republicans in Congress, they're complicit in this. They're allowing Elon Musk and Donald Trump to destroy the Social Security Administration.

Speaker 23 So we're advising people to make sure they have a hard copy of their

Speaker 23 benefit, their Social Security file. It says their wage history and importantly, what their benefit is.
Have a hard copy of that because we're not sure if the online, the digital,

Speaker 23 is going to be there after these Doge goons are done with their chainsawing.

Speaker 23 We also advise people people to get in contact with the constituent services staff in their federal elected representatives offices, both their senators and their representative.

Speaker 23 Now, this is the constituent services side.

Speaker 23 And get a phone number, get an email, let them know that you're worried about you or your loved ones' benefits and want to be able to be in contact with them if a penny is missing or if it's late or if it doesn't show up at all.

Speaker 23 And most importantly, I think is look for the most vulnerable in your community and in whatever network you're in, a church, a book group, whatever it is.

Speaker 23 Understand that Social Security is a system that relies on us.

Speaker 23 It's there for us, but it does care for the most vulnerable, like a 102-year-old, right, or somebody who has faced a life-changing illness or injury and can no longer work due to disability.

Speaker 23 Make sure that these folks are not alone because a missed check check for some people is a death sentence. A missed check for some people is going to mean that they are out on the street.

Speaker 23 So we have to come together and understand that when this catastrophic failure happens, and I believe it will, there's no indication that they're trying to fix things, just accelerate it.

Speaker 23 73 million people rely on Social Security. Imagine the chaos that will come when those checks don't go out, Rachel.
It is going to be

Speaker 23 a scenario that's hard to imagine how catastrophic it'll be.

Speaker 12 So much attention in the media on this, on the big dollar things that have been happening around tariffs and the national economy right now.

Speaker 12 I think as much or more attention needs to be paid to the small dollar question of those individual monthly checks going to the some of the most vulnerable people in the country. This is deadly stuff.

Speaker 12 Alex Lawson, Executive Director of the Nonprofit Social Security Works. We'll have you back soon.
We'd love to keep talking to you about this.

Speaker 23 Thanks so much.

Speaker 12 All right, we'll be right back.

Speaker 12 One of the weirdest stories we covered this weird week was about Trump's new deputy FBI director, tough guy podcaster, Dan Bongino.

Speaker 12 Unlike previous deputy directors of the FBI, for some reason, Mr. Bongino is going to have bodyguards protecting him day and night, 24 hours a day.

Speaker 12 Other deputy directors of the FBI have never had this, but he's going to have full-time protection, which could require as many as 20 agents.

Speaker 12 NBC News reporting, quote, the previous deputy FBI director was assigned a single agent part-time to accompany him to certain events.

Speaker 12 But the new deputy director, The tough guy podcast host with the arms, he apparently will have bodyguards following him at all times, including inside secure FBI facilities, which yes, includes FBI headquarters in Washington.

Speaker 12 They will also be watching him while he's sleeping.

Speaker 12 Around the clock, watching Dan for some reason. But it turns out Dan is not alone.
We're paying for more inexplicable bodyguards.

Speaker 12 If you are lucky enough to still have a local paper where you live, I hope you subscribe. If so, you may have seen headlines this week about your beloved local library or local museum.

Speaker 12 Headlines like this one, quote, Mississippi libraries face cuts due to executive order, or public libraries in Georgia brace for federal cuts, or federal cuts leave Rochester museums scrambling to fund major projects.

Speaker 12 Or this one in Wisconsin, small Wisconsin libraries may be hit hard as Trump targets federal funding.

Speaker 12 In the Northwest, federal funding pulled from Washington state libraries.

Speaker 12 Among the library operations that Trump is going after are the operations at the Washington Talking Book and Braille Library in Seattle.

Speaker 12 Yeah, remember when Donald Trump campaigned for president at those big rallies when he would yell and promise that he was going to close all the local libraries. Yeah, shut down the library.

Speaker 12 You remember when he campaigned on that?

Speaker 12 Yeah, me neither. But that is the news this week because that's what he's doing.
The Trump administration abruptly terminating all federal funding for museums and libraries all across the country.

Speaker 12 So as they're doing that, you should know that this is the guy, hi, who Donald Trump put in charge of gutting the federal institute that provides funding for local libraries and museums.

Speaker 12 And the Trump administration likes to give multiple jobs to the same people.

Speaker 12 And so this one guy in charge of cutting off all libraries in the country has also been given the job of Deputy Secretary of Labor.

Speaker 12 And in that capacity, he has now decided that the Labor Department must pay for him to have a round-the-clock, 24-hour a day security detail.

Speaker 12 Him too.

Speaker 12 As Josh Marshall at Talking Points memo reports, when this guy first asked for a security detail,

Speaker 12 the only things he could point to to justify the security detail were, quote, weird looks he felt he was getting from people around the department.

Speaker 12 Also an email from another department sent to a mutual acquaintance calling him a toady who was unqualified for his job.

Speaker 12 Despite the fact that that was his claimed reason for needing bodyguards, that was apparently enough. He was provided, quote, with a security detail for a little more than a week.

Speaker 12 Then, though, the Department of Labor was not staffed to provide him with an ongoing full-time security detail.

Speaker 12 That led to the Department of Labor advertising eight new positions at its Division of Protective Operations for a rough total of about $2 million a year.

Speaker 12 Most or all of this is entirely for the purpose of protecting this one guy.

Speaker 12 So with all the tens and hundreds of thousands of people being laid off from their federal government jobs, you know, park rangers, cancer researchers, people who answer the phone at Social Security, we can afford an extra $2 million a year so this one guy can get a security detail while he goes around cutting funding off from local museums and libraries and playing the number two job in the labor department.

Speaker 12 Because you know,

Speaker 12 efficiency.

Speaker 12 All right, that's going to do it for me tonight. I will see you again Monday and every night next week at 9 p.m.
Eastern here on MSNBC. Thanks for being with us this week.

Speaker 12 It was a year, but we'll do it all again next week.

Speaker 4 Now's the time to start your next adventure behind the wheel of an exciting new Toyota hybrid.

Speaker 5 With the largest lineup of hybrid, plug-in, hybrid, and electrified vehicles to choose from, Toyota has the one for you.

Speaker 3 Every new Toyota hybrid comes with Toyota Care, two-year complimentary scheduled maintenance, an exclusive hybrid battery warranty, and Toyota's legendary quality and reliability.

Speaker 10 Visit your local Toyota dealer today, Toyota.

Speaker 11 Let's go places. See your local Toyota dealer for hybrid battery warranty details.