Maddow: Military last resort in L.A. shows a weak president with no ideas and no political skills

Did you know you can get 25 cents off per gallon on your next five visits when you download the Chevron app and join Chevron Rewards?

Head to your nearest Chevron station now to fuel up and get rewarded.

Terms apply.

See ChevronTexcoRewards.com for more details.

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

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

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.

Visit your local Toyota dealer today, Toyota.

Let's go places.

See your local Toyota dealer for hybrid battery warranty details.

Thanks, Stu at Home, for being with us tonight.

Really happy to have you here.

This time last week here on this show, we brought you the story of a high school junior.

An honor student, a standout volleyball player, the drummer in the high school band.

He goes to Milford High School in Massachusetts.

His name is Marcelo.

And we brought you the story of the most unusual graduation day at Milford High last weekend when the kids graduated, they went through the graduation ceremony, and then they all marched with their families and with all the teachers and all the rest of the kids from school, they all marched down to Milford Town Hall.

to protest for Marcelo because Trump's immigration agents had stopped him while he was driving to volleyball practice with his high school teammates.

They had pulled him over.

They arrested him.

And the whole dang town of Milford, Massachusetts turned out to defend him, to stand up for him, and to try to get him out.

We brought you that story this time last week.

And tonight, exactly one week later, we can show you these images of his homecoming.

Because Marcelo has been freed, returned to his family and to his community.

They,

as a community, as a town, as a school, challenged his arrest.

When his case was being heard, the whole town came to the courthouse, including dozens of teenagers from Milford High and the members of the volleyball teams at the school.

They all wore t-shirts with his number, number 10, on the back.

When he was released, you can see two Democratic members of Congress who were there with him.

That's Jake Auchincloss on the left and Seth Moulton on the right.

After Marcello was freed, those two members of Congress used their power as members of Congress to demand that they be allowed entry into the two ICE facilities in Massachusetts where the Trump administration has been locking people up, including this high school junior, this volleyball playing kid.

Under federal law, members of Congress are allowed to inspect any ICE immigration holding facility with no advance notice.

And frankly, because the town of Milford, Massachusetts reared up on its hind legs and roared to defend this kid,

these members of Congress who represent that part of that state were moved to go

inspect those facilities with the power vested in them under U.S.

statute.

This time last week, we also brought you the story of Carol.

a waitress in Kennett, Missouri, which is a small town, a Trump-supporting town in Missouri, where Carol was an integral part of the community.

Three kids in local schools.

She's an active member of the local Catholic Church.

She's a much-loved waitress at John's Waffle and Pancake House.

Trump's immigration agents took Carol and the town rose up to try to get her back.

The staff at John's all started wearing bring Carol home t-shirts.

They put bring Carol home petitions on every table at the restaurant where she had worked.

The Catholic church that she attended held prayer services for her and they brought meals to her family.

The town held a Carol Day fundraiser for her and to fund efforts to advocate to bring her home, they raised nearly $20,000 for her in a single day.

We brought you that story this time last week and tonight, one week later, we can show you these images of Carol's homecoming because she has been released.

She has been brought home.

Neighbors crowded into the parking lot of that pancake house where she worked to welcome her back the night that they got her out to say they would protect her and protect her family.

We've also brought you the story of a little four-year-old girl in Bakersfield, California.

She is not only obviously the cutest little girl in the world, she is a huge medical success story.

She was born with a rare condition that means basically that she can't take in any nutrients on her own.

She had her first surgery when she was only four days old.

She had seven more surgeries by the time she was two.

Because of this rare illness she was born with, she was starving.

She was not going to survive her infancy with this condition.

But under the Biden administration, on a medical humanitarian visa, this little girl was brought to California, to a children's hospital in San Diego, and then to the children's hospital in Los Angeles.

And it's been a complete success.

She is now thriving.

You see how she's wearing that little, do we have a picture of her in the backpack?

They've devised this system that they've built into a backpack where she receives intravenous nutrition 14 hours a day through this little backpack that she wears.

And then every six weeks she needs to go to the children's hospital for more extensive treatment.

But this system together is working.

She's alive.

She's thriving.

She's great.

You see her there wearing a little backpack?

President Donald Trump ordered her deported to Mexico.

Her doctors said if that happened, that would by necessity stop her treatment.

They said she would be dead within days.

Trump administration insisted she and her family must be deported.

They gave her seven days to leave.

The Los Angeles Times and other media outlets reported on this story.

There was, as you might expect, an outcry and protest.

California's Democratic U.S.

Senators got involved.

Adam Schiff and Alex Badilla both got involved.

And in response to that outcry, you know what happened?

The Trump administration gave up.

That little girl will be allowed to stay with her family.

They're going effectively to let her live.

This is footage from local news from local channel 4 in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

And from News from the States, they're print coverage of people picketing peacefully outside the immigration facility in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

And you see the signs, they're the repeated signs that all say, say, keep Antonio here.

Antonio is a local man with three kids.

He's lived locally in the Albuquerque area for more than 20 years.

He was told suddenly that he needed to appear at the local immigration office for a sudden meeting, meaning, meeting.

By this point, of course, people know exactly what that means, right?

Albuquerque residents knew what it was going to mean for him.

They turned out in force to defend him, to pick it.

to pick it outside that facility, to protest, to basically say, don't you dare take him away.

Keep Antonio here, their signs said.

Immigration officials held the man inside for three hours,

but then they let him go.

They didn't try to take him.

He walked out.

He was embraced and cheered by the local people who had turned out to protest for him.

So what is the most important story?

in our news right now, in our country, in this moment in American history.

I mean, there is clearly, I think if we're being honest, we sort of stop beating around the bush about it.

There's really no question what the United States is up against right now.

I mean, the intentions of this president are not a mystery.

There's no suspense.

There's no ambiguity, right?

We know exactly who he is.

We know exactly what he wants to do to the country, right?

No question, no mystery.

It's as plain as day.

The real question we are contending with, the real black box, the real drama, the story that really does need to be dug up and explained and told in our country because it is as yet undecided.

The real mystery is not him.

We know him.

We know what he wants and what he's trying to do.

The real mystery is, will he succeed?

Will he get what he wants?

And the answer to that will not be found

by looking at him or by watching his actions.

The answer to that question will come from the people of this country.

The most important story of our time is this one.

What is this country going to allow him to do?

This is an attempted authoritarian overthrow of the United States Constitution and the U.S.

government.

The attempted imposition of a dictatorial regime.

That is clear.

That is unambiguous.

I think it is unquestioned.

I think there are very few people on any side of American politics who would contend with that.

The question is whether it will work.

And the way we will find out whether or not it's going to work is not going to be something that happens in the White House.

It's going to be something that happens in the streets and in the courts and in the states and in Congress and in every other place that people are trying to say no.

The strength of the movement against him is what will determine our fate as a country.

And what we are seeing over and over again in what I believe is the most important story in the country, what we are seeing over and over again is that protesting against him works,

that he wants to seem strong, but he is not that strong.

Organizing against him works.

Fighting him in court works.

Pushing back works.

Protesting in the streets works.

And so Marcelo is free.

in Milford, Massachusetts, and Carol is free in Missouri.

And the four-year-old girl in Bakersfield, California is free and alive.

And in Albuquerque, the movement to keep Antonio here means that Antonio is still here.

And none of these things

are instant, right?

And they don't always work.

But pushback is the only thing that ever does work.

And so in Torrance, California right now, teachers and the PTA are advocating for this little nine-year-old boy, fourth-grade boy, who Trump has had arrested and taken away to an immigration prison in Texas.

His name is Martir.

He is nine years old.

He has been a student at Torrance Elementary since the first grade.

PTA members at Torrance Elementary in California are reaching out to federal and state and local leaders to try to intervene in his case and get him home.

And in Butler County, Ohio, this was the protest yesterday.

Look at this.

For a local kid named Emerson, who just, just this past month graduated high school in Ohio, is a a star soccer player at dater high in cincinnat

by trump's immigration agents and is so far being held at the local jail and so his soccer team and his coaches and kids from his school and his town are all out there at the local jail protesting to try to get their friend emerson out

these were Protesters at the VA Medical Center in Leeds, Massachusetts this weekend, protesting in defense of veterans and against Trump's cuts to the VA.

These are anti-Trump anti-Trump billboards that have gone up in Calhoun County, Alabama, Jacksonville, Alabama, calling Trump a wannabe dictator and saying, hands off our Social Security and saying, Trump and Musk want to cut your Medicare to give tax breaks to billionaires.

Are you okay with that?

This is Alabama, everybody.

These people in Chicopeet, Massachusetts are protesting to save their JobCorps program.

Do you have a Job Corps program near you?

Job Corps,

these amazing centers, mostly operated out of the Department of Labor, they provide training in the trades, very practical job skills training to kids aged 16 to 24.

They teach trades like plumbing and carpentry and catering and how to be a nurse's assistant.

Trump ordered all the 120 plus Job Corps programs in the country, these

wildly successful, locally beloved Job Corps centers.

He ordered them all to shut down.

But after protests like this one, a federal judge intervened and said, actually, the job course centers have to be kept open.

Trump's trying illegally to shut them down.

On Saturday in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, there was a protest again at the airport in Fort Lauderdale against the,

against Avello Airlines, which has taken a contract with Trump for deportation flights.

This time last week, you might remember, we brought you the story of a bananas, totally shambolic, like over-militarized, bizarre raid on an Italian restaurant in San Diego, where the whole community came out to say, What the heck are you doing?

And the confused and bewildered HSI officers from Homeland Security Investigations, who were dressed up like they were invading Afghanistan, they responded to the neighbors turning out and yelling at them by throwing what appeared to be flashbang grenades at all the neighbors so they could carry out a raid on busboys and waiters at this local Italian restaurant.

That was last week in San Diego.

This weekend, those same neighbors came out in that same neighborhood in San Diego to protest once again one week later against that raid.

They are still organizing there to try to get those people back, to try to get them home.

That was Saturday this weekend in San Diego.

By that day, by Saturday this weekend, we were on to a second day of large-scale protests in Los Angeles against similarly over-the-top militarized raids by Trump's immigration agents.

I mean, it started in Los Angeles this weekend, Friday and Saturday.

By Sunday, there were solidarity rallies in Bakersfield, California, and in Houston, and a big one in Phoenix, and in San Antonio, and again in San Diego, a big one in San Francisco, where dozens of people were arrested.

People in Pasadena protested outside the hotel where they learned ICE officers were staying during these immigration raids in Los Angeles.

I mean, as of Saturday night, Trump had started fulminating against the protests in Los Angeles.

He had announced that he would federalize the National Guard.

It's the first time a president has done that against the wishes of a state's governor in 60 years.

And when it was done 60 years ago, it was to protect civil rights protesters, not to threaten protesters with military force.

But, you know, Trump panicking like that.

The response of the American people to it has been exactly what you'd think.

I mean, bigger protests than ever in Los Angeles, those solidarity protests that I just listed all day Sunday in all those cities all across the country.

Today, solidary protests, solidarity protests in Atlanta, across the street from Atlanta's immigration court building, solidary protests today in Baltimore, solidary protests today in Boston, and also in Chicago, in Tampa, Florida today, there was a huge solidarity protest in Raleigh, North Carolina.

In Washington, D.C.

today, there were protests outside the Justice Department headquarters.

You know, and when people stand up and protest, what we are learning over and over again in this administration is that protest works.

And one of the ways that it works is that it puts steel in the spine of the political opposition in this country.

For elected Democrats, it clarifies things for them.

It shows them that the more they themselves push back as elected officials, the more support they will have from their own constituents.

And so it's a sort of virtuous circle, right?

Amid this primal surge of protest, this moral revulsion and rejection of what Trump is doing, I mean, you see the elected Democrats stepping up and standing up too.

Tom Holman the Borders are said to me yesterday, he did not rule out, literally arresting you, nor Mayor Bass, if you interfere in his work.

He said you hadn't yet.

He's a tough guy.

Why doesn't he do that?

He knows where to find me.

But you know what?

Lay your hands off four-year-old girls that are trying to get educated.

Lay your hands off these poor people who are just trying to live their lives, man.

Trying to live their lives, paying their taxes.

Been here 10 years.

The fear, the horror, the hell is this guy?

Come after me, arrest me.

Let's just get it over with.

Tough guy.

You know, I don't give a damn.

What are you going to do?

You're going to shoot some kid?

He's a friend of yours, one?

You're going to shoot an elected

If you shoot them, you better shoot straight.

I don't know why you're in my city.

The governor was not contacted.

This is Trump and his outrageous attempt to not only target our sanctuary city, but to frighten us and intimidate us.

This is wrong, and I hope that none of you will use those guns to shoot anybody.

There's no reason to shoot anybody.

Don't allow them to make your service and their service right here killing people.

Don't do it.

Defy in.

Don't shoot those guns.

But anyway.

Don't shoot those guns for anything.

I showed earlier the footage of those Democratic congressmen in Massachusetts, Seth Moulton and Jake Auchincloss, using their authority as members of Congress to go inspect the immigration holding facilities in Massachusetts after that kid, Marcelo, was taken in Milford, Massachusetts.

Well now this weekend with what's happening in California, you've got California Democratic members of Congress showing up and doing the same in a determined way.

Congresswoman Judy Chu, Congressman Gil Cisneros and Derek Tran, they all went to the ICE facility in Atalanto, California.

Congressman Jimmy Gomez and Congressman Lou Correa and Congressman Luz Rivas and Norma Torres went to the ICE facility at LA's federal building.

I mean those federal facilities, those ICE facilities are legally required to let in members of Congress who turn up at an ICE holding center, even if they give no notice.

Federal law says you have to let them in.

So far, those facilities are not letting in those members of Congress.

They will get in.

It's the law.

Congressman Gomez and those other members of Congress have been insisting they must be let in, and they've been going back and back and back over and over again, and they will keep going, and they will get in, as is their right under the law.

But I think it's important to recognize that there is nothing California specific about what we're seeing going on here.

In the past week, we have seen protesters confront Trump's immigration agents at courthouses in Chicago and in Phoenix and in Denver and in Vancouver, Washington.

I mean, did you see what happened this past week in Minneapolis?

This ridiculous military dress-up pageant that they put on in the streets of Minneapolis a few days ago?

I mean, this is not the National Guard.

This is agents from various federal agencies.

Seems like there's a lot of them from HSI, which is the inexplicable, not at all trained for this force inside the Department of Homeland Security that they keep deploying like this in these embarrassing banana republic shambolic shows of disorganized force.

I mean, what are you doing here in Minneapolis?

When Trump issued his order to federalize the National Guard over the issue or over the objections of California's governor this weekend, that order was not specific to Los Angeles.

It was not specific to California.

That order that he issued is something that he could use to send National Guard troops anywhere or even active duty forces.

Now he's sending 700 Marines supposedly from the Marine Corps base at 29 Palms.

And that is a portrait of weakness.

That is what you get when you have a supposed leader, a supposed strongman even,

who can't figure out how to get the support of his people.

And he knows it.

That is what you get when you have a weak president, an unpopular president who sees the people are against him, who can't defend his actions, who is losing support over time and not gaining it, even on the issues where he thinks he's supposed to be strongest.

This is a president who has no other ideas.

and no skills to get him out of this political pickle that he is in, and who has therefore rushed right to the end and has decided that if the people are against him, well, then he will bludgeon them.

He will literally bludgeon them into not protesting anymore

because the protests against him are working

and growing

and they're right.

And you ain't seen nothing yet because among other things, what is this?

This is no King's Week.

That's this week.

Remember, this upcoming weekend, Saturday, June 14th, is likely to be the largest set of protests yet against Trump and the Trump administration, and Trump knows it's coming.

You remember that really giant day of protests against Trump back on April 5th?

Remember that huge day of protests?

The hands-off protests?

There were over a thousand protests scheduled that day all over the country against Trump.

Well, this weekend, this Saturday, June 14th, there are already more than 1,800 protests scheduled against Trump all around the country.

It's going to be like twice the size of that massive day of protests that we saw on April 5th.

Trump is going to do his military parade for himself in Washington that day.

Interestingly, and I think importantly, there is not a no Kings Day protest in Washington, D.C.

this Saturday because of Trump's military parade.

They're going to do like a flagship national protest in Philadelphia, but there are more than 1,800 other protests against Trump planned all over the country.

It looks like there are going to be more and larger protests against Trump this weekend, this Saturday, than we have yet seen on any other day.

And he knows it.

He cannot handle the amount of protest against him now, and it is about to increase exponentially.

For a president who is flailing and panicking and literally calling in the troops to try to wage a physical war against his own people because the people are against him and he has no idea what to do about it, what we are seeing right now in California is a president panicking.

We have never

before in the history of the U.S.

presidency seen a president who is less popular than this one at this point in his term.

And we have never seen a president less politically skilled, less politically equipped than this one to turn that kind of problem around.

And so he has panicked.

He is trying to hit the eject button.

Somebody convinced this president that attacking immigrants would work for him politically.

Somebody convinced him that the American people would be bloodthirsty about that, that we'd love it, that the crueler he was to immigrants, the more political capital he would accrue.

Instead, what we are seeing is the opposite.

In town after town, in blue states and red states, in school after school, in parish after parish, in city after city,

it has run him into a wall.

Because the American people do not want this kind of cruelty against the immigrants who live among us and are our neighbors and friends.

and facing that kind of heart and that kind of resolve and that kind of non-violent good cheer i could do this forever kind of spirit he has no idea what to do remember in his first term when the hurricane was coming and he said he wanted to nuke it he wanted to hit the hurricane with a nuclear bomb that's the genius level that we're dealing with here right great idea genius now in his second term he is trying the equivalent.

He has no idea what to do with the sustained and growing and intractable and indomitable protest and opposition of the American people against him.

And so he has decided to try to fix it by using the army.

Sure.

Game over, big guy.

You lose.

The movement against Trump is unstoppable now more than ever.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass joins us live here next.

This podcast is supported by the Obama Foundation.

Real change doesn't happen from the top down.

It starts at the ground level with young leaders, organizers, and everyday folks who have the power to bring change home to their communities.

Because the challenges we face are real.

But with your support, the next generation is stepping up to meet them.

At the Obama Foundation, we're helping lift up young leaders with the tools, training, and support they need to make a lasting, positive change around the world.

Donate today at Obama.org slash youth.

You ever wonder how far an EV can take you on one charge?

Well, most people drive about 40 miles a day, which means you can do all daily stuff no problem.

Go to work, grab the kids at school, get the groceries, and still have enough charge to visit your in-laws in the next county.

But they don't need to know that.

And the best part, you won't have to buy gas at all.

The way forward is electric.

Explore EVs that fit your life at electricforall.org.

Thumbtack presents.

Uncertainty strikes.

I was surrounded.

The aisle and the options were closing in.

There were paint rollers, satin and matte finish, angle brushes, and natural bristles.

There were too many choices.

What if I never got my living room painted?

What if I couldn't figure out what type of paint to use?

What if

I just used Thumbtack?

I can hire a top-rated pro in the Bay Area that knows everything about interior paint, easily compare prices, and read reviews.

Thumbtack knows homes.

Download the app today.

And it makes me feel like our city is actually a test case, a test case for what happens when the federal government moves in and takes the authority away from the state or away from local government.

I don't think that our city should be used for an experiment to see what happens in the nation's second largest city.

Well, maybe we can do this to other cities.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass had a news conference just moments ago.

That news conference took place just a

few blocks, excuse me, from the LA Federal Building, where protesters are gathered outside.

National Guard troops are standing by.

Tonight, officials say President Trump has authorized sending an additional 2,000 National Guards men and women to LA beyond the 2,000 they announced this weekend.

Those National Guard troops are there under federal authority, not state, over the objections of both Mayor Bass and California's governor, Gavin Newsom.

700 active duty Marines have all now been mobilized for possible deployment for some reason.

Mayor Bass has repeatedly said that putting federal troops on the streets of L.A.

is both needless and a dangerous escalation.

She told reporters that she spoke directly with Trump's so-called border czar Tom Homan this weekend.

She says she told him, quote, if you want there to be chaos in Los Angeles, then have troops on the ground.

Joining us now for the interview is Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass in the city's Emergency Operations Center.

Madam Mayor, thank you so much for being here.

I know this is a critical time.

I appreciate you taking the time to be with us.

Thanks for having me on, Rachel.

First, what can you tell us tonight in terms of the situation in the streets of Los Angeles?

Well, let me just tell you that there was a big rally today this afternoon because, you know, as part of the action, as part of the raid that took place on Friday, one of our city's most esteemed labor leaders, David Huerta, was arrested.

He was injured during the arrests.

He was detained over the weekend, and he had an arraignment, and he was released today.

So that there was a rally denouncing the ICE actions, but also celebrating the fact that he was out.

And it was a peaceful rally.

What is going on right now?

is also peaceful.

The rally has ended.

People are lingering around the federal building, but we do not have any problems with violence taking place in our city right now.

I'm glad you raised the issue of David Huerta.

We saw not only that large turnout today in Los Angeles demanding his release and

supporting him after he was violently arrested.

I think it's fair to say, having seen the tape of that arrest, but we also saw solidarity rallies and marches all around the country for David Huerta today.

Union members and their supporters and people who are just horrified by what they saw marching today and demanding his release.

I wonder,

Mayor Bass, how you are seeing right now the sort of balance between what I think is the sort of obvious and palpable effect of an effectiveness of peaceful protest

and the federal government treating it as a national security disaster that requires these extraordinary responses from the federal government and the U.S.

military.

How do you weigh those two views of it?

Let me just say, Rachel, that on Thursday of last week, Los Angeles was peaceful.

There were no problems here.

There was nothing happening in our city that warranted raids that took place the next day that terrified and terrorized the city.

People go to work and then they have no idea that their workplace is going to be invaded and it is going to be an enforcement action.

And you remember when the administration started, he talked about violent criminals, drug dealers.

How do you go from a drug dealer to chasing people through the parking lot of a Home Depot where there's day laborers working, just trying to survive?

So this entire situation is what leaves us believing that we're being used as a test case.

So I talked to the administration.

I was trying to tell them that they didn't need to have the National Guard come here because we had a protest.

There was violence that took place.

There was vandalism that took place, primarily in the form of graffiti.

It was around 120 people.

We are a city of 3.8 million.

Our police department could take care of that.

So, what is the reason to bring the National Guard in?

Supposedly, it's to protect federal property and federal employees.

The National Guard is deployed to one building in downtown Los Angeles, another building in Westwood, where there have never been any protests in relation to ICE raids.

But we did not need this to happen.

This was a solution in search of a problem.

And it has left the city in fear.

Let me give you a couple of examples that immigrant rights organizations told me about today.

These are legal people.

They might not be citizens, but they go for their annual appointment at the immigration building.

They're showing up because they were asked to show up.

And then they get detained.

They come with their children, they come with their families, thinking that they're there for a routine appointment, and they get arrested.

What does that have to do with public safety?

It's not what he described it was going to be initially.

That's why we feel we're an experiment for the use of federal power taking over the state or taking over a city.

I saw

that the Los Angeles police chief, Jim McDonnell, put a statement out today essentially lamenting the additional troops that are now going to be sent by the Trump administration, saying that now that they're going to send active duty Marines, the police chief said the Marines arrival without coordinating with the police department would present a, quote, significant logistical and operational challenge for Los Angeles police.

I mean is there any sense in which the National Guard or now indeed these Marines are helpful or in fact are they interfering with the city and the state's ability to

They are not helpful.

There was no reason for them to be here in the first place.

If anything, it was a provocation.

And so I said, if you want to see chaos in the city, then send in troops when they are not needed.

There was nothing happening here.

There was no mass civil unrest.

I will tell you that some of the pictures that you see on the national news look like our entire city is in civil unrest.

You are talking about a handful of

streets in downtown Los Angeles.

Now, I will tell you the vandalism that has taken place is absolutely atrocious in the form of graffiti, obscene graffiti all over.

Clearly, tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of damage.

But I don't think you send out the Army or the Marines because people are writing graffiti on a wall.

And then you saw violence yesterday where they were setting cars on fire.

Let me be very clear.

To me, if you really support the rights of immigrants, you're not setting cars on fire.

You're not vandalizing buildings.

And so I don't think that that is acceptable.

You are going to be subject to arrests and prosecution to the full extent of the law, but we should not

that to say then that our city needs to be taken over by the military.

Let me just ask you, Mayor Bass, some of the rhetoric around this has been

frankly insane and definitely threatening.

We've had the members of the Trump administration threatening that the governor should be arrested, suggesting that you should be arrested, the president suggesting that California, that Los Angeles was on the verge of obliteration, as if the city was going to be wiped off the map had he not swooped in and rescued everybody.

Given that sort of level of fervor and sort of bizarre proclamation from the federal government, how do you think this ends?

How do you think this resolves in the end?

Well, I mean, I will just tell you that what we are calling for is an end to the raids.

These raids do not need to take place.

You are talking about people's places of work.

You're talking about schools.

You're talking about other things that have happened, have been completely unnecessary.

Sometimes it's not a raid.

Just seeing ICE roam around our city in their cars and all of that creates a sense of fear.

So how is it going to end?

I don't know, Rachel.

We're not sure how much longer this is going to go on.

Rumors say they're going to be doing raids for the next 30 days.

What does that mean?

How many raids in a day?

Where are they going to take place?

Who is going to be taken in?

You have a situation like we did in the last Trump administration where kids were afraid to go to school because they weren't sure their parents would be there, where people were afraid to go to work.

And you just think about the disruption in families.

You might have a father that's going into a warehouse or a plant.

You might have a mother who is serving as a child care worker on the other side of town, either in somebody's home or not.

You disrupt the entire ecosystem.

You impact our overall economy.

If people are afraid to go to work, this is a city of immigrants.

If they're afraid to go to work, you are going to hit our economy in a way that is completely unnecessary.

This is a problem that started on Friday morning when the raids happened.

This did not need to take place.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass.

Madam Mayor, I know you are right in the middle of it.

I really appreciate your taking the time to talk with us this evening.

Good luck.

Stay in touch.

Sure.

Thank you.

Much more news ahead tonight.

Stay with us.

When it tastes as good as takeout and leaves you feeling like that's Kevin's natural foods.

Protein-packed meals, clean ingredients, shockingly delicious flavor.

Get that clean eating feeling with Kevin's Natural Foods in the refrigerated aisle.

Did you know 39% of teen drivers admit to texting while driving?

Even scarier, those who text are more likely to speed and run red lights.

Shockingly, 94% know it's dangerous, but do it anyway.

As a parent, you can't always be in the car, but you can stay connected to their safety with Greenlight Infinity's driving reports.

Monitor their driving habits, see if they're using their phone, speeding, and more.

These reports provide real data for meaningful conversations about safety.

Plus, with weekly updates, you can track their progress over time.

Help keep your team safe.

Sign up for Greenlight Infinity at greenlight.com slash podcast.

Sometimes an identity threat is a ring of professional hackers.

And sometimes it's an overworked accountant who forgot to encrypt their connection while sending bank details.

I need a coffee.

And you need Life Lock because your info is in endless places.

It only takes one mistake to expose you to identity theft.

LifeLock monitors hundreds of millions of data points a second.

If your identity is stolen, we'll fix it guaranteed or your money back.

Save up to 40% your first year at lifelock.com slash special offer.

Terms apply.

This Saturday, it's Flag Day.

Happy Flag Day.

It's also President Trump's birthday.

It's also the day of his big North Korean dictator-style military parade in Washington.

More tanks and guns unloading this afternoon outside Washington, D.C.

Look at that.

Saturday is also

the day organizers are planning the next very large nationwide day of protest against Trump and what Trump is doing to the country.

Even as Trump panics and inexplicably calls in the military over protests in Los Angeles, this Saturday's protests are being organized by a large coalition of groups and grassroots organizers in all 50 states, all across the country.

They're calling it No Kings, the No Kings Day of Defiance.

They said this today, quote, the No Kings mobilizations on June 14th were already planned as a peaceful stand against authoritarian overreach and the gross abuse of power this administration has shown.

Now, this military escalation, meaning what's happening in Los Angeles, only confirms what we have known.

This government wants to rule by force.

not serve the people.

From major cities to small towns, we will rise together and say we reject political violence.

We reject fear as governance.

We reject the myth that only some deserve freedom.

On Saturday, June 14th, more than 1,800 rallies will take place across the country, peaceful, organized, and united.

The No Kings movement has posted a map online showing where those 1,800-plus rallies will be held.

I should tell you, and I think this is important, of those 1,800, more than 100 of those have been added to the map since Trump announced that he was sending the National Guard into LA.

If he was hoping to get people to not protest, it's backfiring.

Organizers are going to hold a series of online trainings this week ahead of the big day.

Tomorrow it's a know-your-rights training that they're doing nationwide by Zoom so people can better understand how to interact with law enforcement or provocateurs during the demonstrations.

Then two days later on Thursday, another big nationwide Zoom call.

They're calling it a pre-mobilization mass call.

That's for anybody who's planning to participate.

Potentially tens of thousands of people are going to be on that call.

It's basically just to talk strategy ahead of the big day Saturday.

But tonight, as the Trump administration does its best to try and turn the streets of LA into a war zone, as Trump's flop sweat and lack of political ideas is manifested in National Guardsmen and now Marines being sent to the streets of LA,

the determination of the No Kings organizers appears to be clear.

Many protests, bigger than ever, peacefully, joyfully, everywhere, and unstoppable.

There's nothing he fears more.

Joining us now is Ezra Levin.

He's co-founder of the group Indivisible, a partner organization helping to organize these protests this weekend.

Ezra, it's nice to see you.

Thank you for being here.

Great to see you, Rachel.

Has Trump's response to the protests in L.A., his panic, his calling out of the troops, has it affected any of the planning around this weekend's protests on Saturday?

Oh, you bet, Rachel, what it's done is drive so many new people to the Know Kings website, nokings.org, looking for a way to show up peacefully against this autocratic overreach.

So we've had to add more trainings on the calendar this week to respond to the overwhelming interest from Americans all over the country looking for a way to push back peacefully, forcefully, in this empowering way.

We're excited about it.

In terms of the military parade plan for Washington, I know from looking at the website today that the basic idea is that there is going to be a a no-kings protest, an anti-Trump protest everywhere in the country except Washington.

That Trump's going to have his military parade in Washington and that the rest of the country is going to essentially show strength everywhere else.

Do you expect that is how it's going to go?

Do you expect that there might be people who turn up in Washington anyway?

Is indeed the Philadelphia protest going to be sort of a flagship protest for the larger national movement on Saturday?

You're naming exactly the issue here.

We do not want to give Trump an excuse to crack down on peaceful protests, which is exactly what he wants to do.

We don't want to give him some sort of narrative excuse to say protesters are protesting the military.

When we heard that he was playing to waste tens of millions of dollars, taxpayer dollars, to fund this ridiculous birthday parade, we said we need to organize everywhere else.

So yes.

The flagship event is in Philadelphia.

There will be a big event in New York and Chicago and LA.

But this isn't only happening in city centers.

You look at that map right now.

You see Eureka, Montana.

You see Homer, Alaska.

You see Winnebago, Wisconsin.

Small towns, small cities, rural areas, suburban areas, small urban areas.

People who do not want a monarch in this country are showing up to say, look, he can engage in these fascist theatrics.

He thinks that's where power comes from.

No, this is a constitutional republic.

This is a democracy.

And in a democracy, power depends on the people.

It flows from the people.

It depends on the consent of the governed.

And on Saturday, we're going to show up to make that point very clear.

He can have his pathetic little parade in D.C.

He's going to look weak.

He's going to look small, and the people are going to look strong.

And we're going to do it in a boisterous, empowering, peaceful

parade, protest, marches all across the country.

That's the plan, and it's the plan because we know that's what works to push back against would-be authoritarians.

Ezra Levin, the co-founder of Indivisible Ezra, it's good to have you here tonight.

Stay in touch with us this week.

We'll be right back.

Thank you, Richard.

Hey, so speaking of martial law, here's a story for you.

This wasn't here.

This was somebody else.

Their president actually did declare martial law with no warning in the middle of the night, announced all political protests were banned along with any other political activities.

He sent the military to surround the nation's capital, surrounded the legislature, the National Assembly building.

The military said nobody would be allowed inside.

But if they were hoping that that would work, it really did not.

Following the declaration of martial law and the deployment of the military and the ban on protests and all the guys deployed around the capital with guns, look at the response.

Tons of people turned turned out.

Thousands of people turned out in the middle of the night in the streets to say, no, no, we are not doing this.

We had protesters nose to nose with the military outside the headquarters of their democracy.

And one of the country's elected lawmakers, a member of the National Assembly, he was on his way to the Capitol and he got on this live stream.

And on the live stream, he told his constituents how important it was that they turn out to protest.

He told them, quote, you must protect the assembly.

It is the last line of defense for our democracy.

That was while he himself was on the way to the Capitol.

Once he himself got to the Capitol, he got out of the car that he was traveling in.

And though, even though the Capitol was closed off and locked up, he climbed a fence.

to get inside, to squeeze past the armed guards who were blocking access to the building in order to get himself back inside.

And he took those extraordinary measures because inside the National Assembly, despite martial law and despite the official suspension of civilian law, there was a vote happening.

Members of the opposition and members of the president's own party had defied the martial law declaration.

They had insisted on gathering inside the Capitol and taking a vote to undo their president's declaration of martial law before things went too far.

And so the legislators, including that one who'd climbed the fence to cast his ballot, they voted to lift the state of martial law.

And the president reluctantly agreed to do so a few hours later.

And as the country reeled from that night of chaos, the president was ultimately impeached and he was driven out of office.

And it has been six months since that attempted military coup in South Korea.

And now,

as of the last few days, the country has decided to elect a new president.

He took the oath of office just a few days ago, pledging to protect South Korea's democracy.

You may recognize him from that bumpy cell phone video from the night he scaled a fence

to save his democracy.

That guy who did the live stream telling people to protest and then scaled the fence of the legislature, he is now the democratically elected president of South Korea.

At his inauguration, he said the country is entering a new chapter in the global history of democracy, one where a military coup was resisted not with force,

but with bare hands.

That's going to do it for me tonight.

A real Etsy buyer review for handmade home decor by a real Etsy seller.

I could not be happier about the quality or the wonderful personal message supplied with it describing its journey into existence.

Discover original items created by real people and loved by real people, just like you.

Special starts on Etsy.

Shop the Etsy app.