'Holy crap on steroids!': Top Trump officials exposed in shocking, sloppy military security blunder

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Thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. So 250 years ago yesterday, a man stood up in this church in Richmond, Virginia.
It's called St. John's Church.
It's still there today. It's on East Broad Street in Richmond.
250 years ago yesterday, a man named Patrick Henry stood up in that church in Richmond, Virginia, and he gave a speech that is still remembered now, not just decades or generations later, but literally centuries later. This was, give me liberty or give me death.
Now, it's not at all clear to historians if Patrick Henry actually said those exact words in that speech that day. Might have been kind of stolen from Shakespeare and later attributed to him.
I don't know. But regardless, it was a good speech.
It was important. It's credited in part with Virginia choosing to join what would become the Revolutionary War against the tyrannical King George, which is how we got our

independence as a nation. It's how ultimately we got our Constitution and our Bill of Rights.
It is how we got our democracy. And on the occasion of that 250-year anniversary of Patrick Henry's give-me-liberty-or-give-me-death speech, which again, that 250-year anniversary was yesterday, The current governor of Virginia, Republican Glenn Youngkin, went to that church in Richmond, Virginia yesterday, where they reenacted the whole dramatic speech, including the give me liberty or give me death thing, which may or may not have actually been said in that speech 250 years ago.
But still, it's a really nice, important thing to commemorate.

250 years is a big anniversary. It's a nice thing for Glenn Youngkin to have done, right?

Then he left. He walked out of the church, and this is what happened.
Let me just show you just one more minute of this here. This is from a different angle.
And I think this one is helpful because in this angle, you can see him greeting and shaking

hands with the men in wigs who have just done the reenactment, smiling and pretending like

nothing's going on around him.

And then there's kind of this big reveal when he gets down to the SUV that's waiting for him.

Watch. Move! Move! Move!

Move!

Move!

Move!

Move!

Move!

Move!

Move!

Move!

Move!

Move! Move! Move! Power! Power! Power! Power! Power! Power! Power! Power! Power! Save on you! Save on you, Coward! Coward! Coward! Coward! Save on you! Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin of Virginia hearing from his constituents in Richmond, Virginia yesterday, his peaceful and nonviolent, but very loud and very angry constituents. You know, because of where we are in the calendar, we are now starting to have lots of commemorations of things related to the 250th anniversary of the founding of our country, right? Our revolt against a tyrannical leader who ruled by fiat, the founding of our democracy and our divided system of government with its checks and balances to prevent the emergence of another king.
Lots of anniversaries, lots of historical commemorative events coming up on this theme. Just a note, if you are a politician who is going to try to associate yourself with that history, do be aware that your relationship to our current struggles along these lines in this country, to hold on to our democracy, that will undoubtedly be front of mind for many of your constituents.
One of the things that is in our original Constitution from the 1700s is the U.S. Post Office.
At the end of last week, we covered a bunch of protests all over the country related to the Post Office, people fighting to save the Post Office. Trump has said he wants to effectively abolish it.
His top campaign donor, Elon Musk, has said it should be privatized.

And when we covered this at the end of last week, I thought this was a lot in terms of

public response against Trump on the post office, people standing up to defend the post office.

That was the end of last week.

Turns out that was nothing compared to what happened this weekend.

In our production system here on this show, we can do something on screen that's called a two box that shows two pieces of tape simultaneously at once. I sometimes drive everybody nuts by asking for a four box, which shows four pieces of tape at once.
In order to cover the Postal Service protests, we've had to create something we've never done before. It's a 20 box to even start to show you how many demonstrations and protests there were this weekend just of people defending the U.S.
Post Office. This isn't even all of them, but this is as many as we can squeeze onto a screen.
I mean, we saw protests in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where the first postmaster general was Ben Franklin, and in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania as well, in St. Paul, Minnesota, in San Jose, California, in Los Angeles, California, in Providence, Rhode Island, Seattle, Washington, Buffalo, New York, Charlotte, North Carolina, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Green Bay, Wisconsin, Cleveland, Ohio, Melbourne, Florida, Newark, Delaware, Denver, Colorado, Washington, D.C., San Antonio, Texas, Omaha, Nebraska, Roanoke, Virginia, Las Vegas, Grand Rapids, Michigan, Decatur, Georgia, Fort Wayne, Indiana.
In Indianapolis, we had to put them up twice because there were two in Indianapolis. In Boise, Idaho, there was a protest to defend the post office on Sunday alongside all these other ones.
But in Boise, that followed this additional big protest in Boise on Saturday at the state capitol in Ruby Red, Idaho. At this protest at the state capitol in Idaho, people showed up to defend public lands and the national parks, including some people who showed up in Idaho to that event on horseback.
There were other protests this weekend to defend public lands and the national parks at Mount Rainier this weekend in Washington State and at the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee and in Florissant, Colorado and in Calabasas, California. See the signs there? Re-hire our rangers.
In San Luis Obispo, they were protesting for public lands and to preserve the California coast, where Trump is now demanding oil drilling off the California coast.

This sign will stick with me from San Luis Obispo this weekend.

It's got Smokey Bear and it says only you can resist fascist liars. as president trump and his attorney general and republicans of all stripes have spent the past

couple of weeks trying to intimidate americans out of specifically protesting against the car

company And his attorney general and Republicans of all stripes have spent the past couple of weeks trying to intimidate Americans out of specifically protesting against the car company owned by the president's top campaign donor. The American people this weekend showed in very large numbers that they are not going to be dissuaded from peaceful, legal, nonviolent protest for or against anything they want.
because we don't need to clear that with the government. Because we are Americans and it is our right to peacefully protest if we want to.
Look at this. This is Cherry Hill, New Jersey.
Look at the size of the protest here. This is just a passerby filming this from his own car as he drove past and he's driving like at speed, right? But the protest is so big, it goes on for so long, it ends up being kind of a long video in order to try to capture the numbers of people who are out just at this one Tesla dealership in Cherry Hill, New Jersey.
The organizers of that protest in Cherry Hill say they think there were six or 700 people out at this one protest at this one Tesla dealership just this weekend. Look, it's still going.
There were Tesla dealership protests this weekend in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and in Arlington, Virginia, and in Bartlett, Tennessee, and in Franklin, Tennessee, and in Boston, Massachusetts, and in New York. New York City has a Tesla dealership.
There's a very large protest at the Tesla dealership in New York City this weekend. In Chesterfield, Missouri, there was a protest at the Tesla dealership.
In Chicago, Illinois, in Rockville, Maryland, in Pasadena, California. There was a big one in Pasadena, California this weekend.
There has been most weekends in recent weeks in Pasadena. And Washington, D.C., their now recurring protest at their Tesla dealership regularly has a DJ.
And at the Washington, D.C. Tesla dealership, people are dancing because they are billing this as the Tesla takedown dance party weekly in Washington.
At the Tesla protest this weekend in Austin,

Texas, this sign stuck with me. Porsche, fast.
Ferrari, faster. Tesla, you can read it.
I never thought that fastest was an imperfect homophone for fascist, but I guess it is, and now I can't stop thinking about it. This weekend in Kalamazoo, Michigan, people turned out for a hands-off our Social Security protest.
In Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and in Virginia Beach, Virginia, people turned out to protest against Trump and Musk and the cuts to the federal government. Same thing in Westwood, California, where Congresswoman Maxine Waters turned out in support, as she has for many of the protests that have happened in her district.
In terms of town halls with members of Congress or without them, when people turned out anyway, even though their member of Congress wouldn't come, there's been almost too many of them happening right now to sum them all up. And they're starting to get more attention in the media.
And so you may have seen some of the coverage of these elsewhere. I will just tell you, as a person who has been watching this stuff pretty closely for pretty much eight weeks now, my impression of what's going on with the town halls in particular is that, number one, we're seeing the number of these types of events just explode, including in places you would not necessarily expect to see them.
These are definitely not like a blue state liberal area phenomenon. They are that, but they are also everywhere else in the country.
You're also, number two, seeing the numbers of people turning out for these things just go through the roof. You're seeing that when Democrats are going to Republican districts to hold town halls where the Republicans won't do it.
You're seeing it where Democrats are holding their own town halls,

and you are seeing it where they can't get a member of Congress to come to the town hall at all.

But Americans just show up.

Americans are showing up all over in big and increasing numbers. We are starting to see these numbers, both of events and of bodies,

and the number of people turning out on individual events,

I think tip over into something that's qualitatively different than what we had previously seen. I'll show you just a little bit of what I mean just from this weekend.
Mishawaka, Indiana, right? Not a place we've ever covered here on this show before, but look, hundreds of people turned out to protest against their Republican congressman, Rudy Yakim. I think that's how you say his name.
He's refusing to meet with them. And so here in Indiana are his constituents.
Ogden, Utah. Hundreds of people protesting against their Republican congressman, Blake Moore, demanding that Republican congressman Blake Moore stand up to Trump.
Look at this event, Columbus, Ohio. Jen Psaki had Sherrod Brown on her show tonight talking about organizing at Columbus.
Look at this in Columbus. A huge event demanding that Republican Ohio Senators Bernie Marino and John Husted meet with their constituents, that they find it within themselves to stand up for Trump, stand up to Trump.
Another huge event in Lexington, Kentucky. Look at this, demanding that Republican Congressman Andy Barr stand up to Trump or at least show up and talk to his constituents about why he won't.
In Lewiston, Idaho, and in Moscow, Idaho, two big empty chair town halls to which Republican Congressman Russ Fulcher would not show up to face his Idaho constituents. Nearly a thousand people turned out in Billings, Montana, demanding to meet with their Republican senators and Congressman Troy Downing.
In Cape Fear, North Carolina, they had a more than full house at a huge event for Senator Tom Tillis. 150 people turned away at the door.
Senator Tom Tillis did not show up to meet his constituents. They put a comedian on stage wearing a giant foam core cutout of Tillis's face and the face of Republican David Browser, their Republican congressman in Cape Fear, who also did not show up.
Hey, you guys, this is what your constituents are doing without you when you don't show up for constituent events. In Waterloo, Iowa, a packed house full of Republican Congresswoman Ashley Hinson's constituents.
The congresswoman herself not even answering questions from some local media about why she won't show up or talk with people in her district. Same thing with Republican Congresswoman Mary Miller, a no-show in rural Jacksonville, Illinois, where her constituents, according to local news reports of this event, they really, really want to talk with her about Medicaid cuts, which they think will be absolutely devastating in her district.
But she's a no-show. Congressman Neil Dunn is a Florida Republican.
He represents a district in Tallahassee. Veterans in his Florida district are demanding that he at least look them in the eye when he doesn't stand up to what Trump is doing and what he's allowing to happen.
Watch this local coverage. American Legion Hall at one point standing room only.
Today, I think 500 people said loud and clear, we don't want drastic cuts to federal programs. We don't want a unilateral king like president, frankly.

An invitation extended to Congressman Neal Dunn left unclaimed. Neighbors left disappointed as they say they wanted the representative to hear their long list of concerns, which include the

Department of Government Efficiency's plans to cut 83,000 jobs from the Department of Veteran

Affairs. I am extremely disappointed in the way things are going, and I don't look for any easy time ahead for the country.
13,000 veterans in Leon County, hundreds of them doing different things to get Dunn's attention, including a silent protest bright and early outside City Hall, where the congressman himself hosted a U.S. Military Service Academy Day.
We're introducing the high school students, and actually some middle school students, to a program that my office sponsors that prepares them to be better candidates for the military academies. All of us here that we're serving are using the VA in one way or another.

So the dichotomy of him wanting to sign people up at the same time as throwing the rest of us away is repugnant to me.

Representative Dunn and his team declined to comment on either of Saturday's movements.

We're brothers and sisters and we honor one another. Sorry.
A sensitive subject for many local veterans who fear the idea of reduced benefits, support and honor not only for themselves, but for future veterans as well. Thank you for serving.
You know, if you decide to join at this point, but it is certainly within the realm of possibilities if someone say i i can't see joining if this is what's going to be behind me despite the va secretary's promise that benefits will not be affected by job cuts neighbors tell me they still disagree and feel threatened by recent actions from the white house what are we going to do and they're determined to use the power of community to make their voices heard. To step forward and save our democracy, save our democracy.
We can do it. That's from the ABC affiliate WTXL in Tallahassee, Florida.
This is from San Diego, California. Town hall with standing room only.
And it was called an empty chair town hall because attendees say Representative Issa refuses to engage with his constituents. Here you can see every seat filled in a venue that seats more than 300 people.
To see all these people, you know, I just felt I was overwhelmed. I just feel so good about coming here.
Tonight we met 93-year-old Betty Reeves. This town hall was organized to give people like her a chance to share their concerns about Representative Issa and the Trump administration.
The town hall was put on by a group called Indivisible. It says its mission is to combat the Trump administration's policies.
This week, they plan to hold more events, including a large rally protesting the administration's latest actions

that will be held at the Civic Center in downtown San Diego on April 5th.

Community members say they plan to continue advocating for their rights.

Everybody out there, pay attention to the way the country's going.

You just have to pay attention and listen.

Jasner Maris, CBS 8.

Thank you. to the way the country's going.
You just have to pay attention and listen. Jocelyn Ramirez, CBS 8.
And that's from San Diego. I just want to show you just one more.
I just showed you one from California, the previous one from Florida. This one is from the border, from the northern border.
Last one. Just watch this.
This was incredibly unique in the fact that on this side of the Detroit River, there were protesters. And then on the other side, there were Canadian protesters all fighting for the same cause.
From the U.S. to Canada, protesters gave their take on tariffs.
We're protesting what's happening to the United States and how we're treating our neighbor. Organizers say the demonstration is in response to President Donald Trump's tariffs against Canada.
What's happening with our allies, Canada, there's a lot of people very upset. Earlier this week, President Trump defending the tariffs.
We're going to be getting back some of the wealth that very, very foolish presidents gave away. Fuck you, Walt! Fuck you, Walt! Protesters also called out Trump for his recent remarks about making Canada part of the U.S.
Demonstrators taking pride in the turnout. By seeing this many people coming out on a cold day in Detroit, maybe it'll have some impact.
There's an awful lot of people here, and we have our friends across the river looking at us. I'm telling you, it's everywhere.
The Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez rallies in the last few days turned out just massive numbers of people.

34,000 people in Denver on Friday. More than 23,000 people came out the next day, Saturday, in Tucson.
Numbers like that are turning everyone's heads in politics, and they should. but do not sleep on the fact that there are so many americans showing up in so many places

on literally every single day of the week in every single freaking state in the country, every single one of them trying to figure out how they can most effectively oppose this president and what he's doing to the U.S. government.
And, you know, we've got a lot to cover tonight in the wake of those massive, the massive number of protests defending the U.S. Postal Service.
Trump's Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy, tonight has resigned, effective immediately. Axios is reporting tonight that Trump's acting director of Social Security told people at a meeting today that these ruinous cuts and radical policy changes that they're forcing through to Social Security right away.
He told people at a meeting today, according to Axios, that these cuts and changes are happening explicitly at the demand of the White House. These are the changes that the former Social Security director, Martin O'Malley, told us here on Friday night.
He believes bring the Social Security system 90% of the way to breaking entirely. The director, the acting director of Social Security Administration saying that those changes are happening and they're happening at this pace, specifically because the White House is demanding it.
Also today, Washington has just been rocked by this insane story of Trump's national security advisor, his secretary of defense, his intelligence director, his CIA director, his secretary of state, his treasury secretary, and apparently the guy in charge of everything at the actual White House, whose name is Stephen Miller, all participating, apparently, in a group text over Signal in which they circulated detailed war plans and apparently classified information about a military attack in Yemen. They did it in a group text.
And the reason we know is because they accidentally included the editor-in-chief of the Atlantic magazine in the group text while they were planning that military operation. We're going to talk about that with Senator Mark Warner, top downer crowd on the Intelligence Committee tonight.
And there's a lot more to get to. I will just say, though, just in closing, word to the wise.
If there are any Democratic elected officials within the sound of my voice, any Democratic senators in particular, who are watching this kind of stuff that we have been covering, right, who are watching this huge upsurge in energy and the American people getting up and getting out and showing up in person and doing everything they can as regular people to try to find a way to save this country and to fight what Trump is doing. If there are any Democrats who are watching that, who want to try to latch on to some of that, want to tap into some of that, want to do what they can with that public upsurge.
May I just note that tomorrow in the United States Senate is the confirmation hearing for Trump's nominee to permanently lead the Social Security Agency. That might be an occasion on which people would be looking to hear from you and see if you can do something to make a difference.
Tomorrow also will be the Senate Intelligence Committee's Worldwide Threats Hearing. Good time for that.
That hearing, among other things, will take testimony from at least a couple of the people who are on the group text with all the apparently classified information about the forthcoming military operations that included a journalist because they had no idea he was there. I mean, this may not be time for give me liberty or give me death, but it is time for give me something.
And tomorrow, Washington is going to afford a couple of very big opportunities for Democrats to show what they have to offer to a country that is looking for Democrats to have something to offer. We'll be right back.
Hey friends, Ted Danson here, and I want to let you know about my new podcast. It's called Where Everybody Knows Your Name.
With me, Ted Danson, and Woody Harrelson. Sometimes.
Doing this podcast is a chance for me and my good bud Woody to reconnect after Cheers wrapped 30 years ago. Plus, we're introducing each other to the friends we've met since.
Like Jane Fonda, Conan O'Brien, Eric Andre, Mary Steenburgen, my wife, and Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. And trust me, it's always a great hang when Woody's there.
So why wait? Listen to Where Everybody Knows Your Name wherever you get your podcasts. As President Donald Trump returns to the White House, what will the first 100 days of the presidency bring? Follow along as his agenda takes shape with the new MSNBC newsletter, Trump's First 100 Days.
Weekly updates send straight to your inbox and expert insight on the key issues and figures defining this second term. We're seeing a really radical effort to change the American system of government.
Sign up for Trump's first 100 days at msnbc.com slash Trump 100. Stay up to date on the biggest issues of the day with the MSNBC Daily Newsletter.
Each morning, you'll get analysis by experts you trust, video highlights from your favorite shows. I do think it's worth being very clear-eyed, very realistic about what's going on here.

So here's three proper names, proper nouns, actually. Michael Waltz is the National Security Advisor for Donald Trump.
That's one. Signal, that's two.
Signal is a free, very popular encrypted messaging app that lots of journalists and public officials use for private communication. And the third proper name, proper noun here, is Jeffrey Goldberg.
He's the editor-in-chief of the Atlantic magazine. And here is the astounding collision of those three proper names.
National Security Advisor Michael Waltz, Signal, the encrypted messaging app, and Jeffrey Goldberg, well-known journalist. Quote, the Trump administration accidentally texted me its war plans.
By Atlantic Magazine editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg. He says, quote, on Tuesday, March 11th, I received a connection request on signal from a user identified as Michael Waltz.
I accepted the connection request, hoping this was the actual national security advisor and that he wanted to chat about Ukraine or Iran or some other important matter. Two days later, Thursday at 4.28 p.m., I received a notice that I was to be included in a signal chat group.
It was called the Houthi PC small group. A message to the group from Michael Waltz read as follows.
Team, establishing a principals, misspelled, principles group for coordination on Houthis, particularly for over the next 72 hours. Now, you could see why Jeffrey Goldberg would be skeptical that this is real, right? That he really has been added to a private chat group for high level coordination of something having to do with the Houthis and the war in Yemen.
But the list of the people in the chat appeared to include not just Trump National Security Advisor Michael Waltz, but also Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, still amazing, still amazing. Trump's Chief of Staff Sus Susie Wiles, Trump's deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, Trump's Middle East envoy and real estate friend, Steve Whitcoff, who incidentally says he recently took a painting of Donald Trump to the White House as a gift from the Kremlin.
Did you guys x-ray that? Also, the vice president of the United States, J.D. Vance.
All these people appear to be on this group chat. If journalist Jeffrey Goldberger remained skeptical that these were actually those people on the chat, the Trump officials in the chat apparently didn't realize that their discussion now included a very well-known Washington journalist.
It actually appears that not only were they all talking about this topic on Signal, but

none of them checked to see who else was in the group while they were chatting.

Nobody said like, oh, who's in this group?

Jeffrey Goldberg says Pete Hegseth at one point told the group, quote, we are currently

clean on OPSEC. They were not clean on OPSEC.
They were not clean on operational security, not even close. We know he sent that text because a journalist was in the group chat that he was texting.
Currently clean on OPSEC. Must have felt cool to say it though, right? What skeptical Jeffrey Goldberg saw in that chat ended up becoming sensitive enough that he doesn't fully describe it in his story today, but he does report that on the morning of Saturday, March 15th, at quote 1144 a.m., the account labeled Pete Hegseth posted in Signal a team update.
Goldberg says, I will not quote from this update or from certain other subsequent texts. What I will say in order to illustrate the shocking recklessness of this Signal conversation is that the Hegseth post contained operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S.
would be deploying, and attack sequencing.

According to the lengthy Hegseth text, the first detonations in Yemen would be felt two hours hence, at 1.45 p.m. Eastern Time.
When, sure enough, the first explosions from the U.S. military strikes were reported in the capital of Yemen.
And then the group chat celebrated the military effort with great work and good job and fire emojis. Jeffrey Goldberg says he watched the attack play out from his car in a grocery store parking lot.
Once he had seen enough to know that this actually had been a real group chat with those actual people, he got out. He left the chat.
They had apparently been texting him and each other classified information on a commercially available, non-classified text-based communication system. A spokesperson for the National Security Council later confirmed what Jeff Goldberg already understood.
Quote, this appears to be an authentic message chain, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain. The administration confirmed for NBC News that it is reviewing how this happened.
The whole story is, I mean, how is this real life? I just, how are these people in charge of what they're in charge of? I will tell you that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters today, quote, nobody was texting war plans. I will also tell you the president said that he hadn't heard about any of this until a reporter asked.
Said he had no idea. News to him, didn't know a thing about it.
Well, we will all have plenty of opportunity to hear more about it. The ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator Jack Reed, called the carelessness by Trump's cabinet, quote, stunning and dangerous.
He said, quote, I will be seeking answers from the administration immediately. Democratic Senator Chris Coons from the Foreign Relations Committee said this story, quote, calls for a prompt and thorough investigation.
Saying this is a shocking breach of the standards for sharing classified information that could have put American service members at risk. Because God keeps a date book, two of the Trump cabinet members who were in that group chat, Tulsi Gabbard and John Ratcliffe, were already scheduled to appear on Capitol Hill tomorrow morning as witnesses for the Senate Intelligence Committee's open hearing on worldwide threats.
Joining us now is Senator Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia. He's the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Sir, it's always an honor to have you with us. Thanks for making time to be here tonight.
Thank you, Rachel. let me start by getting your reaction to this story.
Let me also ask if you learned about it in the Atlantic the way that we all did, or if there was some governmental response that we don't know about here. Well, Rachel, I didn't think this administration could still shock me.
But today's story, which I read about in the Atlantic, was beyond belief. It was like, holy crap on steroids.

This is another example of carelessness, sloppiness, and a crowd that's not ready for prime time. I mean, the remarkable thing, you think about you're on a group chat, and you don't know who everybody is.
I mean, if this had been an intelligence officer who had done this, they'd be fired immediately. And the truth is, you know, signal is not a classified channel.
I got questions tomorrow. Have they collected all the phones to make sure malware is not on some of these phones now? Do they realize that Russia and China have targeted signal to try to break in? Do they realize that, and frankly, I think Hexeth needs to go, or Waltz needs to go, the idea that you are conveying on this encrypted but not classified means the actual military plans, and I believe Jeff Goldberg.
My God, if this had been the Democrats, there would be investigations, there would be hearings,

and we're going to have this tomorrow. We're going to have it out in the open hearing.
This crowd is not ready for prime time. And I would point out Tulsi Gabbard, who all of the Democrats oppose, the director of national intelligence, who's been a spokesman on many right-wing media since he got this job, is said about the same time, if there is any leaker, they've got to be held fully accountable.
What we're going to ask tomorrow, beyond Hegseth, beyond Waltz, what other in this group should be held fully accountable for, frankly, breaching security protocols 101? And I just point out quickly that, you know, this comes on top of them releasing a couple hundred of CIA names, of people who were, you know, a year or so in. We spent a couple hundred thousand dollars on these agents, getting them cleared, getting them through training.
All of their identities were revealed. Those guys can't go out and work around the world anymore.
We've had other classifications revealed. And we've obviously got the Doge boys out there printing totally wrong information about supposed savings.

At what point, and I'm glad to see you're highlighting all the Americans around the country rising up, but I hope those who care about our national security will also start rising up. We are not made safer by these actions.
Let me ask if this is a big enough shock that you expect that some of your Republican colleagues may join you in calling for John Ratcliffe to resign, calling on Pete Hegseth to resign. I mean, I feel like I've covered a lot of embarrassing, inadvertent releases of sensitive information of various types where things through recklessness or negligence have been released.
This seems to have been a deliberate decision to create a completely insecure communications medium that is compounded by the stupidity of having included a journalist and not known they were doing it. But I just feel like this is so much worse than anything we've ever seen for people operating at this kind of a level.
Will Republicans care about it? Well, listen, this is gross negligence on steroids. And if they don't step up, and I got a lot of respect for the folks I work with on the intelligence, but I've been disappointed.
I was disappointed when more of them didn't stand up against Tulsi Gabbard when she refused to call Edward Snowden a traitor. But at some point, something's got to give.
And people who care about our national security people who don't want to you know the american first to be america alone because if we don't have friends and allies if countries around the world won't share their intelligence with us because a bunch of sloppy folks are putting it out on a non-classified signal channel If if you're not willing to stand up and call that out,

what level of abuse, what level of sloppiness will it take to rise up and actually stand up for the country?

Virginia Democratic Senator Mark Warner,

senior Democrat on the Intelligence Committee.

I know you've got a very big day tomorrow with this very, very high-pressure hearing.

Thank you for taking time to join us tonight.

I appreciate it, sir. Thank you, Richard.
We've got more news ahead. Stay with us.
Appreciate it. Hey, friends.
Ted Danson here. And I want to let you know about my new podcast.
It's called Where Everybody Knows Your Name, with me, Ted Danson, and Woody Harrelson, sometimes. Doing this podcast is a chance for me and my good

bud Woody to reconnect after

Cheers wrapped 30 years ago.

Plus we're introducing each other to the friends

we've met since like Jane Fonda

Conan O'Brien, Eric Andre

Mary Steenburgen, my wife

and Flea from the Red Hot Chili

Peppers. And trust me, it's always a

great hang when Woody's there. So why

wait? Listen to where

everybody knows your name, wherever you get your podcasts. Let's get up to speed.
We've got some breaking news right now. Watch your favorite shows live.
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The first 100 days. Bills are passed.

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Now is the time,

so we're going to do it.

Providing her unique insight

and analysis

during this critical time.

How do we strategically

align ourselves

to this moment of information, this moment of transition in our country?

The Rachel Maddow Show, weeknights at 9 p.m. Eastern on MSNBC.
So here's the proclamation that was sent out from the White House last weekend. Invocation of the Alien Enemies Act by the President of the United States of America.
This is the proclamation, in which Donald Trump invoked a law from the 1700s that says when we're at war, the president can immediately deport and jail anyone his administration picks. In this case, picks as belonging to a Venezuelan criminal gang, which is something that has nothing to do with wartime.
But regardless, they put this out, and there's Donald Trump's signature on the proclamation. Within hours of that proclamation, the Trump administration put hundreds of people on planes bound for a prison in El Salvador, and they had no legal process at all.
People were just grabbed, chained, and sent to a foreign prison. A federal judge blocked any further flights like this and spent the week repeatedly grilling Trump administration lawyers about it.
He said on Friday, quote, why was this proclamation essentially signed in the dark on Friday night or early Saturday morning and then these people rushed onto planes? I mean, it seems to me the only reason to do that is if you know it's a problem and you want to get them out of the country before suit is filed. Donald Trump, a couple hours after the judge said that, was asked about that when he was departing for yet another weekend of golf, this time at his New Jersey golf club.
So he's asked about, you know, why did you sign this in that weird time frame? Why did you sign it in the dark in that way? Watch what Trump said in response. This was super weird.
I don't know when it was signed because I didn't sign it. Other people handled it.
But Marco Rubio has done a great job and he wanted him out. And we go along with that.
I don't know when it was signed because I didn't sign it. You sure, big guy? Because you're trying to blame Marco Rubio here, but that is not Marco Rubio's signature.
Do you not remember signing it? Did you not sign it? Somebody else put your name there? When the White House was asked about Trump saying he totally did not sign that proclamation with his signature on it, the White House came up with a novel explanation. They said, and I quote, President Trump was obviously referring to the original Alien Enemies Act that was signed back in 1798.
Oh, yes, obviously, the president of the United States, obviously, just thought he was being asked whether he signed a document more than 200 years ago. And his answer was, no, no, no, other people handled that.
Isn't Marco Rubio wonderful? He was talking about 1798. This proclamation at question is ostensibly the legal underpinning for this whole deportation operation, the sending flightfuls of people to a prison in a foreign country.
Trump's denial that he ever signed it is now obviously part of the ongoing legal fight. The ACLU telling the judge in this case in its latest filing today, quote, there is now confusion as to when the proclamation was issued and whether the president signed it at all.
Today, the Trump administration took this fight to an appeals court in Washington. They want to resume more flights like this, like the one to El Salvador.
It's not clear how the appeals court will rule or when. But meanwhile, the Trump administration just tonight has filed notice that it is invoking the state secrets privilege, meaning they are claiming that for national security reasons, they don't need to provide the court any information about these deportation flights.
Even as we still don't know who they deported, and even as attorneys and family members of the people they put on those flights say they can't get in touch with anybody who has been put in this prison in El Salvador. It is an insane story from the very beginning, but it's now approaching surreal.
The ACLU lawyer who argued this in court today is going to join us live here next. Stay with us.
If the government says we don't have to give process for that, then y'all could have put me up on Saturday and thrown me on a plane. Thinking I'm a member of Trenderagua and giving me no chance to protest it and say somehow it's a violation of presidential war powers for me to say, excuse me, no, I'm not.
I'd like a hearing. He wouldn't say that.
Federal appeals court judge today, incredulous that the Trump administration could argue they have the right to pick up anyone they want and deport them to a jail in a foreign country with no process at all, no explanation, not even a paper trail. But that is what they're arguing.
Joining us now is Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU Immigrant Rights Project. He was in court today arguing against the administration in this case.
Lee, Mr. Gelernt, it's nice to see you.
Thanks for being here. Thank you.
We've just had news that the Trump administration is invoking the state secrets privilege in this case. Can you tell us what that means? Yeah.
So this is just another incredible day in a series of incredible days in this case. The judge said, turn these planes around.
This was last Saturday night, I guess, you know, now eight days ago, when they were in the air because they were headed to El Salvador. And he said, I don't think that this invocation of this 1798 Act is legal.
They did not turn the planes around. It was clear that the planes were in the air.
This is all public information. They could have turned the planes around.
They could have brought people back once they landed. And now the government, rather than answer the judges' understandable questions about what they did, has invoked the State Secrets Act, meaning state secrets privilege, meaning that they're not going to answer the judges' questions.
It's really unbelievable in this situation for the government to say, no, we're not going to answer your questions, and we're going to go as far as to call these state secrets facts, even though everyone knows when the planes were in the air. Lee, what do you make of the fact that the president is now denying having ever signed the Alien Enemies Act proclamation here? Yeah, I mean, I don't know what to make of it, truthfully.
And that's why we filed something in court, as you mentioned, saying that, among other facts that we need, are what's going on with this. Did the president sign it? When did he sign it? And one thing we do know is that, apparently, it was signed on Friday, March 14th.
They started moving people before they actually published the proclamation on the afternoon, Saturday afternoon, the 15th, which is completely against the way the act is supposed to work. It says a public proclamation.
They started using its authority before they even let the public know that it had been passed. didn, if the president didn't even sign it, that's yet a whole nother layer of confusing facts that we need to find out.
It's the combination of like the maximum lawlessness and maximum consequences for the people

who have been sent there. Yeah.
Lee Galer, deputy director of the ACLU Immigrant Rights Project,

ongoing story. Come back soon.
Thank you, sir. Thanks, Rachel.

All right. We'll be right back.

All right. That's going to do it for me for now.
I will see you again tomorrow and every night this

week at 9 p.m. Eastern.
In the meantime, you can find me online at Blue Sky. I don't know if you

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I'm on Blue Sky at maddo.msnbc.com. Hey friends, Ted Danson here, and I want to let you know about my new podcast.
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