Pritzker digs in against Trump abuse of National Guard; warns of 2026 Trump scheme

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Really happy to have you here.

So it is a statue called Best Friends Forever.

It's about 12 feet tall.

We talked about this on last week's show.

You might remember.

This is a statue in Washington that was created by anonymous artists.

It shows Donald Trump and his longtime friend, the convicted pedophile and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein,

holding hands and gazing lovingly at each other while they kick up their heels, seemingly delighting in their long-standing friendship.

We reported last week here on the show that this statue had a permit to be put up on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

But despite that, Park Service personnel were sent out by someone to topple it over and take it down.

And the officials who toppled it over and took it down, they pretty severely damaged it.

They smashed in the Trump head part of it.

They tore the hands apart so the Trump and Epstein figures wouldn't be holding hands anymore.

We reported last week at this time that the group that created the statue was able to retrieve the broken statue and repair it.

And then they brought it back out again to put it up again, again with a permit to be there up on the National Mall.

When they went back to put it back up, they were met with a big show of federal force, not just Park Service personnel, but also people in unmarked cars there to take it down as soon as they put it back up.

But these artists are nothing if not persistent because they did put it back up again for a third time.

Best friends forever, this time with even better repairs.

The plaque on the statue says in honor of Friendship Month, and it has the big heart hands symbol.

It says, we celebrate the long-lasting bond between President Donald J.

Trump and his closest friend, Jeffrey Epstein.

So the Trump administration took this thing down twice,

but the artists who made it got it back up for the weekend.

right there on the National Mall.

When President Trump went to Norfolk, Virginia this weekend to treat an audience of U.S.

Navy sailors like they were paid attendees at one of his political rallies,

this actually was one of the protests he had to pass by on the way to get there.

People on this overpass on the way into Norfolk with a big sign that says end the GOP shutdown in the center of your screen there, but look there on the right.

Off to the right of that, a silhouette of the Trump and Jeffrey Epstein holding hands, kicking up their heels statue.

God, that's got to drive him nuts, right?

Or maybe not.

Maybe not.

Today in the Oval Office, the president was asked a question by CNN's Caitlin Collins.

It was a question about Ghillene Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein's,

for lack of a better term, partner in crime, the woman convicted of child sex trafficking with Jeffrey Epstein, who herself participated in molesting kids with him.

Trump was asked about the Supreme Court decision today to uphold her federal conviction, to leave her in federal prison.

President Trump responded to that question by saying that he planned to talk to DOJ about whether or not to give Ghelane Maxwell a pardon.

Seriously.

Reporter.

Why would she be a candidate for clemency, sir?

President Trump.

I don't know.

I'd have to speak to the DOJ.

I mean, I'll look at it.

I have a lot of people who have asked me for pardons.

I'll call him Puff Daddy.

He has asked me for a a pardon.

Reporter, but she was convicted of child sex trafficking.

Trump.

Yeah, I mean, I'm going to have to take a look at it.

I'd have to ask DOJ.

Yeah, I know the child sex trafficking thing, but.

This is a woman convicted of organizing the Jeffrey Epstein child sex trafficking ring.

and of participating in the sexual abuse of children with Jeffrey Epstein.

Again, the president's longtime friend.

This president has reportedly been told by his attorney general that his name is in the Epstein files multiple times.

He is refusing to release those files.

His administration has already intervened in Ghillene Maxwell's federal sentence to arrange to have her move to a low-security, more comfortable federal prison where typically sex offenders aren't even allowed.

But now, now on top of that, Today, he is volunteering to reporters in the Oval Office that he thinks, you know, maybe she should be getting a pardon.

Can talk to the DOJ about it.

Reporter.

But she was convicted of child sex trafficking.

Trump.

Yeah.

I mean, I'm going to have to take a look at it.

I'd have to ask DOJ.

But she was convicted of child sex trafficking.

Yeah, I mean, I'm going to have to take a look at it.

I'd have to ask DOJ.

Why do you have to ask DOJ?

Why do you have to ask DOJ about somebody who's already convicted and serving time for child sex trafficking and has just had her appeal rejected by the U.S.

Supreme Court?

Why would you need to check in with DOJ about that kind of a person, about a person in that circumstance?

Well, it's because he might want to set her free.

And why would he do that?

I mean, we don't know why, but we do know that he really was great friends with Jeffrey Epstein for 15 years plus.

And this woman is Jeffrey Epstein's co-conspirator.

And the president has been told by his own attorney general that his own name is in the Jeffrey Epstein investigative files multiple times, the files which he now won't release.

Incidentally, the release of those files may be forced by the House of Representatives.

On paper, at least, the House now has the requisite number of votes to force the administration to release those files.

They have enough votes to force the release of the files because a woman named Adelita Grijalva won a special congressional election in Arizona last month.

She says as soon as she's sworn in, she will happily vote to release the Epstein files.

And that should, on paper, give them the number of votes they need to force those files into the public domain.

The Republican Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, has thus far refused to allow Ms.

Grijalva to be sworn in as a new member of Congress, even though she won her election last month.

And so the Republicans in Congress, most of them at least, appear to be willing to do basically anything to shield Trump's involvement with Jeffrey Epstein from public view.

And we are still at that point of this story.

Right before they sent the president out to hold this partisan political rally with active duty U.S.

Navy sailors in Norfolk this weekend, right before that trip.

The Trump administration, for some reason, fired the U.S.

Navy's chief of staff.

And I have to say, it did not make a ton of news when that happened.

I think in part because this is one in a long series of firings like this now, right?

The military, by definition, is not a political body where the whole thing is supposed to turn over every time there's a new president.

Since Trump has been back in office, he has just been destroying the top leadership of the U.S.

military.

Since Trump has been back in the White House, we have seen fired or pushed out the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the head of the Navy SEALs, the Chief of Naval Operations, the head of the Navy Reserve, now this weekend, the Navy Chief of Staff, the head of U.S.

Cyber Command, the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Commandant of the U.S.

Coast Guard, the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, the Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force, the head of the Air Force Global Strike Command, the top legal officer in the Air Force, Force, the top legal officer in the Army, the top legal officer in the Navy.

And in what may or may not be related news, the New York Times reports tonight that they have also removed the top legal official at the CIA, because why not?

All of these people have all been fired or pushed out by Trump, by the Trump administration.

While simultaneously, Trump, as of this past week, is explicitly telling all the remaining top generals and admirals in the U.S.

military that that he wants them to plan to bring U.S.

military operations.

He expects them to bring the force of the U.S.

military to bear against Americans at home in U.S.

cities.

Specifically, he told them that he wants to see U.S.

troops,

U.S.

active duty military engagement against the cities of San Francisco, Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles.

New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles are the three largest cities in the country.

Trump wants the U.S.

military

to

operate in those cities against the Americans who live there.

So is the military going to say no to that?

Are they going to say yes to that?

What Trump is doing as president, broadly speaking, is very unpopular.

And

you'll get results like this from any poll, any snapshot, any day.

The latest CBS YouGov poll, for example, has Trump's overall approval rating 16 points underwater.

Trump is 10 points underwater on immigration.

He is 20 points underwater on the economy.

He is 30 points underwater on inflation.

Trump is unpopular.

His actions even on his supposed signature issues are unpopular.

He is unpopular.

The political fights against Trump, on the other hand, are popular.

And here's an example of that.

In California, they've had to put this question to the voters as a ballot measure about whether or not California should gerrymander its congressional districts in the state so that they purposely can send more Democrats and fewer Republicans to Congress.

California would not generally do this, but they are explicitly doing it just to counteract what Trump is telling Republicans to do to their congressional maps in red states.

This is a very unusual circumstance brought about only by what Trump has done in red states.

And on paper, this is a big lift, a super heavy political lift for California voters.

States like California like to stay above the fray on issues like this.

And voters, by design, have to be asked for permission for the state to do this.

They have to be asked directly for their permission to do this.

But despite that heavy lift,

The People in that state understand that this is a fight against Trump.

This is a fight against Trump's, effectively, his attempted permanent takeover of the government of the United States.

And so voting starts today in California on that California ballot measure, which again, by right, should be a heavy lift.

But look at the polling as voting starts on that ballot measure.

The yes side, the yes, let's redistrict side is ahead by 18 points.

They're up 18 points in the polling.

The yes side, in terms of donors, they have 65,000 individual donors who have collectively donated over $83 million to that side of the fight.

On the other side, on the Trump side, the San Francisco Chronicle reports that they have not tens of thousands of donors, but rather 130 donors total, and that they've raised $35 million.

But you want to do the math on that?

$5 million of their $35 million came from one check from a Republican Party PAC.

The other $30 million that they raised came from one check from one right-wing billionaire guy.

So they had 100-plus donors.

I guess everybody else gave a few cents, enough to add up to a rounding error.

Basically, they've got support from two checks and a handful of people.

The anti-Trump side in California in the polling is ahead by 18 points, and they've raised their money from 65,000 people.

The Trump side in the polling, they're down by 18 points, and their support appears to be basically just two checks.

So, this is what happens when you are pursuing very unpopular political ends, and you are doing so by very unpopular political means.

And so Donald Trump is in a position where he really can't win politically, right?

People are saying, no, they don't want it.

They don't like what he's doing.

So what do you do if you can't win politically?

Well,

let's use military force instead.

Trump has sent federalized troops, including active duty U.S.

Marines, into California's largest city already.

He's got National Guard troops in Los Angeles still.

He's now told the remaining top leadership of the U.S.

military, the ones he hasn't fired yet, that he wants the active duty U.S.

military to use both Los Angeles and San Francisco as, quote, training grounds.

He wants what he described as a war within the United States, a war of the United States military against the American people.

There were big peaceful protests against Trump and against his immigration agents this weekend in L.A.

Sending in the troops in LA hasn't made people any less interested in protesting against him.

It hasn't changed the character of the peaceful protest to which the American people are constitutionally entitled.

There were protests this weekend against Trump in Memphis as well, against Trump's plans to send troops there.

Protests continued this weekend in Chicago as well.

We're going to be speaking with

Illinois Governor J.B.

Kritz Pritzker live in just a moment.

Ahead of the expected arrival of federalized National Guard troops in Chicago, just plain federal agents in Chicago.

From ICE, from CBP, from the FBI, from other agencies, they've been treating the city like it's Fallujah, 2004 or something.

This is from the Chicago Sun-Times.

Quote, armed federal agents and military fatigues busted down their doors overnight, pulling men, women, and children from their apartments in Chicago, some of them naked, residents and witnesses said.

Agents approached or entered nearly every apartment in this five-story building.

U.S.

citizens were among those detained for hours.

The next day, toys, shoes, and food were still in piles in the building's hallways.

Property managers were seen throwing mattresses and broken doors into dumpsters.

Neighbors said federal agents used flashbang grenades to burst through the building, and several drones and helicopters were deployed.

One woman who lives across the street said it looked like hundreds of agents were outside her door.

She said she saw agents dragging residents, including kids, out of the building without any clothes on

and into U-Haul vans.

Kids were separated from their mothers.

This is from the Associated Press.

Agents used unmarked trucks and a helicopter to surround this five-story apartment building in Chicago.

News Nation, which was invited to observe the operation, reported that agents, quote, repelled from Blackhawk helicopters.

Agents then went door to door, woke up residents, and used zip ties to restrain them.

Again, keep in mind, this is before the military gets there.

This is just what Trump's federal agents are doing in Chicago.

Calling in the Black Hawk helicopters to raid a residential apartment building

and then zip-tying all the kids and the old people and breaking down all the doors and ransacking all the apartments.

I mean, this is what they're doing to the American people in Chicago already before they send in federal troops.

This is just federal agents.

Trump is trying to deploy federalized National Guard to Chicago against the wishes of the mayor and the governor.

Again, we're going to talk with Governor Pritzker about the lawsuit that he's brought to try to stop that deployment when we speak with him in just a moment.

Another lawsuit has been brought by a group of journalists and Chicago residents to try to stop federal agents in Chicago from infringing on people's rights to protest and on journalists' right to report on protests.

As part of that lawsuit, the plaintiffs included some video exhibits about how federal agents have been behaving in Chicago already.

Again, before troops even get there.

I want to show you two of those video exhibits that have been filed as part of this lawsuit.

I'm going to show you two of them that depict attacks by Trump's federal agents

on a priest, on a minister.

Here's the first one.

This is just about 20 seconds.

Watch.

You see them spray the minister in the face with chemical spray of some kind.

He falls to his knees.

In this next exhibit from the lawsuit, you will see Trump's agents shoot the minister with some kind of less than lethal munition.

They shoot him in the head.

This is about 15 seconds long.

You'll see the minister praying.

He's standing alone at the beating of the tape here.

He's standing, praying with his hands raised.

Watch.

He's a priest.

He's a Presbyterian minister.

Again, these are exhibits from a lawsuit filed by journalists and Chicago residents over the Trump administration's use of force in Chicago against protesters and passersby and city residents and journalists who are covering their operations.

Meanwhile, the state of Illinois itself has also filed its own lawsuit asking a federal judge to block Trump from escalating the situation further by sending not just agents like these, but federalized National Guard troops to Chicago as well.

A similar lawsuit to stop Trump from sending federalized troops into Oregon was successful this weekend.

This is a judge in this Oregon case who was appointed by Trump for what it's worth.

And she first blocked Trump from federalizing Oregon National Guard to send them into Portland under Trump's command.

The judge said there was nothing in the conditions on the ground in Portland that would justify that kind of military force that Trump wanted to use those troops for.

So she established a temporary restraining order prohibiting Trump from sending in the Oregon National Guard for that purpose.

The Trump administration responded by saying, okay, well, if we can't send in the Oregon National Guard into Portland, then we'll send federalized National Guard troops from other states, from California, since we already federalized them for the LA operation, and we'll send some Texas National Guard federalized troops as well.

That same judge in an emergency hearing late last night told the Trump administration in no uncertain terms that they were obviously trying to defy her order, and they were not allowed to do that.

And I say no uncertain terms.

Now I will show you what I mean.

The judge.

Mr.

Hamilton, let me ask you, how could bringing in federalized National Guard in California not be in direct contravention of the restraining order I issued yesterday?

Trump administration lawyer, Mr.

Hamilton.

The restraining order issued yesterday, paragraph one of it, enjoined implementation of Secretary Hegset's order to the Oregon National Guard.

And this is the judge.

Mr.

Hamilton, you are an officer of the court.

Aren't defendants simply circumventing my order, which relies on the conditions in Portland?

Nothing has changed.

There's nothing in my order that has changed.

Trump administration lawyer.

No, Your Honor.

The judge.

So why, why is this appropriate?

Trump administration lawyer.

Well, the reason is that the California National Guard were federalized under a different presidential memorandum.

The judge.

Mr.

Hamilton, Mr.

Hamilton, you are missing the point because here it's the conditions on the ground in Oregon that was the basis for that were the basis for my finding.

that there was not a legal basis to bring federalized National Guard into Oregon.

Is there any legal authority for federalizing National Guard for one purpose, that is to help California, and then to divert them to another purpose in a different state, where there's no showing that that is military help that is necessary to assist law enforcement or to protect law enforcement or the one federal building here for ICE.

Trump administration lawyer.

Well,

the judge, is there any legal authority for what you are doing?

Trump administration lawyer.

Well, this section of the U.S.

Code, Section 12406, has not been utilized any time in history.

So there are not many previous precedents from the use of this authority.

But the judge, tell me, why do you think it has not been utilized?

Trump administration lawyer,

I can't speak to that.

The judge, Mr.

Hamilton, Mr.

Hamilton.

So again,

if it were the case that you could federalize National Guard in one place and simply send them to a place where the president doesn't have authority to federalize the National Guard, then what would the purpose of this section of the U.S.

Code be?

You have to have a colorable claim that Oregon conditions require it, but you don't.

We have already gone over that.

So why is this appropriate?

Trump administration lawyer.

Well,

again,

no additional California Guardsmen were federalized.

They were instead relocated from California to the state of Oregon.

And the judge.

So are they federalized or are they not?

Trump administration lawyer.

They are.

federalized, but new guardsmen were not federalized.

200 already federalized California Guardsmen were relocated to the state of Oregon.

The judge.

Let me ask you, Mr.

Hamilton.

you're an officer of the court.

Do you believe that this is an appropriate way to deal with my order or an order that a judge issues that you disagree with?

Or is the appropriate mechanism to appeal?

Trump administration lawyer.

Well,

I'm not a policymaker, but my the judge, you're a lawyer.

That's how it's going for the Trump administration in court

in trying trying to send in the troops to Oregon.

We'll see how it goes in Illinois, right?

I mean, Trump does not seem to have the law on his side on this matter.

He does not seem to have the people on his side.

He does not seem to have the politics on his side.

And so what he has is just force.

And,

I mean, Let's be clear.

We have entered the part of the movie where the authoritarian leader is trying to impose an indefinite military occupation on the streets of his own country.

He has told the senior officers in the active duty military, which he is stressing and threatening and misusing already for his own purposes, he has told them already that they need to be ready to wage war on cities that oppose him, with the active duty U.S.

military turned against the American people.

Governor J.B.

Pritzker of Illinois is calling this exactly what it is.

He's calling this an invasion.

He is pushing back as hard as possible against Trump trying to send in the troops against his state.

Governor J.B.

Pritzker joins us live here next.

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Imagine being a child awakened in the middle of the night by a Blackhawk helicopter landing on your roof.

Imagine an armed stranger entering your home and forcibly removing you from your bed, zip-tying your hands, separating you from your family, and detaining you in a dark van for hours.

This didn't happen in some faraway authoritarian regime.

It happened right here in Chicago, right here in the United States of America.

Illinois Governor J.B.

Pritzker describing the situation in his state with ICE conducting military-style raids, literally using Black Hawk helicopters in Chicago neighborhoods.

President Trump saying he'll deploy hundreds of National Guard troops there, federalized troops both from Illinois and also from Texas of all places.

Today, a federal judge in Illinois declined for now to block the Trump administration from doing that.

The judge will hold a hearing on the matter later this week, but that apparently means the deployment can go ahead.

In the meantime, hours ago with no ruling in place to bar the deployment, one U.S.

military official told the New York Times that 200 Texas National Guard troops are expected to fly to the Chicago area tonight in military aircraft.

Tonight, Governor Pritzker is, interestingly, calling on his fellow governors around the country to rally to Illinois' defense.

In a letter to the National Governors Association, he says, quote, if the president continues overriding governors to deploy military assets into another state against the governor's will, we have abandoned the foundational principles that have protected our republic for nearly 250 years.

This action must be denounced immediately and unequivocally by the National Governors Association.

Should National Governors Association leadership choose to remain silent, Illinois will have no choice but to withdraw from the organization.

Joining us now from Chicago is J.B.

Pritzker, a Democrat, the governor of the great state of Illinois.

Governor Pritzker, I know there's a lot going on.

Thank you for making time to be here with us tonight.

Good to be with you, Rachel.

Let me ask you just first about this call to your fellow governors around the country.

What are you asking them to do here to support you?

Well, let's start with that we should stand as one against the idea that Donald Trump has the ability to call up our National Guard against our will.

I want to remind you that just last year, Joe Biden tried to call up National Guard, federalize them,

to

take Air National Guard and move them into the Space Force.

And all 50 governors signed onto a letter, including, I might add, Greg Abbott from Texas, saying that it was improper for the President of the United States to call on governors to either send their National Guard or to federalize the National Guard so that the President could use them however he wanted to.

Now, this year, of course, Greg Abbott is a tool of Donald Trump.

He's his lackey.

And he is, in fact, doing exactly what Donald Trump wants and going against exactly what Greg Abbott said he would do last year.

So this is a problem.

The National Governors Association under Governor Stitt from Oklahoma, whose chair seems unwilling to stand with the rest of us governors, Governor Kotek, Governor Newsom, and others to prevent Trump from taking our National Guard, federalizing them, and then using them either against us or against other states.

Today, you sued to try to get a federal judge to block that deployment.

It seems like we're going to have what will amount to a substantive hearing on that matter on Thursday, but here it is Monday night.

It seems like, in the meantime, there is reporting that some 200 Texas National Guard members are expected to fly to Chicago on military aircraft tonight.

I know this is a very short, short,

short-term question, but what is your plan in the short term for this interim period where you may have federalized National Guard troops on the ground before the court has actually ruled?

Well, the judge did warn the federal lawyers that if, in fact, they brought those National Guard and put them on the streets, that that would be a really bad idea because there may be a ruling against them in just a couple of days.

And I might add that if they do deploy them to the streets and then they are ruled against, I mean, how embarrassing to have to turn tail and run back to Texas two days after you've arrived in Chicago.

So we'll see what they do.

It would be improper for them to be deployed before there is a ruling, and we think that there will be a ruling on Thursday.

Governor, let me just ask you the big picture

question here, which is that you have described and we have seen in open reporting and on social media and even in exhibits filed with other people's lawsuits against these actions by the Trump administration, we have seen tactics against the people of Chicago that look very much like military tactics.

Using Black Hawk helicopters,

the apartment building that they ransacked, broke down all the doors, took all of the residents out of, the way that they've behaved on the street using military-style vehicles and weapons in the faces of people on the streets of Chicago.

That's before troops get there.

And now he's saying, Trump is saying that he wants to escalate further and put actual troops there.

What do you think the goal is here?

What do you think the risk is here to the country?

And how do you think this is going to end?

Well, the broader goal, I believe, is the militarization of major American cities before the 2026 elections.

Let me be clear about what's going on on the streets of Chicago.

They have dressed ICE and CBP in fatigues, put them in military gear, including with automatic weapons, and had them marching up and down major streets in downtown Chicago.

It's a signal that they're trying to send that it's okay to have troops on your street, that this would be a welcome thing for people who live in Chicago.

Nobody here welcomes it, by the way.

I mean, literally, as they're walking down the street, people are yelling at them.

But they think they can get people used to the idea.

And next year, I fear that what they're going to do is deploy these folks eventually to polling places and say they're protecting the vote.

Donald Trump knows that without shenanigans and without these breaches of the Constitution,

that

he's going to lose the Congress.

And if he loses, he's going to immediately, in the aftermath of the election, do what he said he might do in 2020, which is use the military to confiscate the ballot boxes and count the votes claiming that there's fraud.

Remember, he's called up all 50 states'

election data to the Department of Justice because they want to review all 50 states for fraud.

And they won't tell you exactly what they're going to do, but

I fear that these are all connected.

And this militarization, even without National Guard or military troops on the ground, you're seeing ICE act like a militaristic organization.

You're seeing CBP act like it.

One more thing.

CBP, I want to remind you, the Customs and Border Patrol, they're supposed to only operate within about 100 miles of a border.

We're not anywhere near a border.

here in Chicago.

So how can they operate here?

Well, they're claiming that Lake Michigan, the shores of Lake Michigan and Chicago, those shores, are the border of the United States.

But Canada is an awful long way from here across Lake Michigan.

So we know that they're using it again as a pretext.

They want CBP here.

Those are the folks that you saw in uniform marching up and down the streets.

Greg Bavino, who led the effort in Los Angeles for

the Customs and Border Patrol and ICE, is leading the effort here in Chicago.

And you saw what happened in Los Angeles.

They incited people and they're doing that here in Chicago.

We want them.

I mean, if they're going to do that, they got to go.

We honestly, they got to get the hell out of Chicago if that is their aim.

But that is what Donald Trump, I believe, is trying to do, incite it so they can bring more troops in,

invoke the Insurrection Act, and militarize Chicago and other major cities.

Governor, if that's the stakes that we're talking about here, that's about somebody trying to hold power by force and ending democracy, thereby ending democracy, what should the scale of the response be?

You've asked people to continue to protest peacefully, to make sure they film what these guys are doing.

You're asking your fellow governors to join you on this.

You've sued

the government to try to get a federal judge on your side.

Are there other things that the country can be doing to say no to this, given the existential stakes that you're talking about in terms of whether or not we remain the United States of America.

Well, there are two things I would say.

One is we have to rely on the courts, and you've seen in the cases in Oregon that even a Trump-appointed judge followed the law and followed the Constitution.

And we have to rely on the courts to do the same here in Illinois.

I would say there's another thing that we all are paying attention to, and that is making sure that we're electing people in 2026 who actually will follow the law and follow the Constitution in the United States Congress.

We're only a few votes away from having a majority like that.

And frankly, I think there are some Republicans who, yes, they are afraid of Donald Trump right now, but there are some who actually have a conscience.

And I think that they're beginning to talk about breaking away from President Trump.

Those things, I mean, whether we're going to win those Republicans over, maybe not,

or we're going to win the elections in 2026,

the courts and the Congress are going to be vital for us maintaining our democracy.

Illinois Governor J.B.

Pritzker joining us live tonight, right at the center of the storm.

Sir, thank you for your time.

I appreciate it.

Thanks, Rachel.

Much more ahead tonight.

Stay with us.

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The connection between the guests on the show is the show.

All that we do is put together people who are smart, people who are brave, people who are honest, and lots of times people who've never met each other to have a conversation that has never happened before, but on that day deepens everyone's understanding about the moment in which we gather.

Deadline White House with Nicole Wallace, weekdays from 4 to 6 p.m.

Eastern on MSNBC.

It's called Ice Block.

It's an app for your phone.

It works like this.

If you see ICE agents operating somewhere, you can flag the sighting on a map in the app, and then anybody who also has the app can see what you've flagged.

Basically works exactly the same way as the map apps that you use or the driving apps that you use that tell you when there's a speed camera ahead because some other user of the app has flagged that speed camera.

The creator of Ice Block is a young man named Joshua Aaron.

He says he built this app as a resource not for people who want to avoid traffic enforcement operations by police, but for people who want to avoid encountering ICE agents.

In July, Trump Attorney General Pam Bondi went on Fox News and said the DOJ was, quote, looking at Mr.

Aaron and quote, he better watch out.

This did not have the intended effect.

Downloads of ice blocks skyrocketed, put the app at the top of the Apple App Store rankings.

So last week, Pam Bondi tried a different tack.

The Justice Department simply told Apple that they should take down the app.

out of the App Store and Apple did it.

We reached out to Apple for comment.

Here's what they told us tonight.

Quote, we created the App Store to be a safe and trusted place to discover apps.

Based on information we've received from law enforcement about the safety risks associated with IceBlock, we have removed it and similar apps from the App Store.

Yeah, you didn't remove all your own apps that use exactly the same technology to tell people about all other kinds of law enforcement activity.

It's another split-screen moment in American courage and cowardice, right?

You've got normal people refusing to stop protesting against the Trump administration, being really creative and patriotic in the way they're doing it.

People trying to protect their neighbors from the Trump administration, people refusing to back down even when the White House targets them.

And then on the other side of the screen, you've got our nation's biggest and most powerful corporations that are repeatedly, repeatedly just folding when they don't have to.

In this case, not just Apple, but also Google, fresh off Google settling a dead end,

legally super dubious Trump lawsuit by giving Trump more than $24 million.

Google now says it too has removed apps similar to IceBlock from its app store.

And Google says the Justice Department didn't even have to ask them.

Didn't have to, apparently.

They just did it in advance.

Think you're going to keep them happy and they'll be nice to you?

Think that's how this works?

Yeah, you probably only have to hand over the lunch money once, right?

Authoritarian regimes are predictable.

We know what they're going to do.

They try to appear all-powerful, but they are not.

Almost all the time, you don't actually have to do what they want, especially when they don't have the law on their side.

If there's one lesson from the Jimmy Kimmel cancellation, right, and uncancellation, it's that yes, big cowardly companies are susceptible to pressure from Trump, but they're also susceptible to pressure from the American people,

who can make them reverse their bad, cowardly decisions simply by pushing back on them.

The creator of Ice Block joins us live here next.

When the giant, super-rich company Apple capitulated to a demand from the Trump administration to take down an app called Ice Block, which people use to point out where ICE operations are happening, the creator of the app responded like this.

He said, quote, capitulating to an authoritarian regime is never the right move.

This is protected speech under the First Amendment of the U.S.

Constitution.

He said, quote, we are determined to fight this with everything we have.

Joining us now is Joshua Aaron, creator of the IceBlock app, which has been taken down out of the Apple App Store.

Mr.

Aaron, thanks very much for being here.

I appreciate your time.

Thanks for having me, Rachel.

Have you had any contact with Apple since they took the app down out of their store?

I have not had any contact.

On Thursday of last week, I received a message from Apple that they were contacted by law enforcement alleging that IceBlock was targeting law enforcement officers.

Of course, there's no truth to that whatsoever.

And after re-evaluation, they decided to reverse course on their decision to approve the app and remove it from the App Store, citing objectionable content.

I understand that Google has also made a similar decision about similar apps.

In their case, it appears they've made that decision without even being asked, just sort of

following in Apple's wake here.

Is that your understanding?

That is my understanding, yes.

You said in your statement, we are determined to fight this with everything we have.

What does that fight look like?

What options do you think you have?

So IceBlock has an incredible legal team, and we're going to do everything in our power to fight back.

I mean, I can't get into specifics right now, but I think more importantly, Let's talk about the Trump administration pressuring large corporations and small businesses alike into complying with their demands.

As you mentioned, look what happened to Jimmy Kimmel.

He said something they didn't like, and the FCC chair calls ABC and they yank him off the air.

IceBlock grows to amazing popularity and does something they don't like, so they call Apple and demand its removal.

Now, interestingly, IceBlock users are the same users who build, support, and buy Apple's products.

And these same people rely on and trust Apple every single day.

And I'll tell you, if I was speaking directly to Tim Cook, I'd say, Tim,

you've broken that trust.

And now it's up to you to fix it.

You're getting at something I think that's really important, even larger than this fight that you and your legal team are now in, I think, which is that it's one thing for an authoritarian-minded government to announce that they're doing a thing or even to do a thing.

It's another thing for them to count on public-facing, publicly accountable institutions to do their work for them.

And an ABC, even a Nexstar, a Sinclair, an Apple, a Google, they've got different considerations that they need to make in terms of what the public thinks of them than an authoritarian government does.

I expect that Apple will feel a lot of pressure about having done this to you.

I do want to ask you, though, personally, you know, after Apple caved, after we see Google cave as well, after Pam Bondi singled you out directly on national TV, can I ask what your secret is, why you're not backing down when these huge, two of the largest, richest companies in the world so easily are?

You know, I've said it before, and I'm happy to say it on your show, but I was raised in a Jewish household.

And growing up in that community, I had the privilege to speak with Holocaust survivors and learn all about Hitler's rise to power in Nazi Germany.

And when we see five-year-olds in courtrooms with no representation, or college students being disappeared for their political beliefs, or even worse, babies being ripped from their mother's arms while they're screaming for their children in the name of patriotism.

We have to do something to fight back.

We cannot remain apathetic.

We must wake up to what's going on in this country before it's too late.

Joshua Aaron, the creator of the Ice Block app,

keep us apprised.

We'll be really interested to see this legal fight as it goes forward.

Thank you for helping us understand tonight.

Thank you for having me, Rachel.

All right, we'll be right back.

Stay with us.

All All right, that's going to do it for me tonight.