Rambling Trump accidentally reopens questions about an election payoff

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Really happy to have you here.

I got to tell you right off the bat, you get two Rachel Maddow shows this week here on MSNBC.

I am here tonight.

And then I will also be here again this week on Friday night at 8 p.m.

Eastern.

I can explain.

I will have more on that in just a second.

Bear with me, but you're stuck with me for two weeknights this week.

First though, here's a weird thing that happened today.

You ready?

After President Trump gave his speech at the Israeli parliament today, He then, you might have seen, he went to Egypt to go sign things.

We don't exactly know what the things were that he signed, but they purported to be related to the Israeli-Hamas ceasefire deal, the release of Israeli hostages today, the release of prisoners held by Israel.

So he was there signing something in Egypt.

And when he turned to speak at that event in Egypt, he said

something that I think even in the room struck people as a little bit strange.

Now, that is not an unusual occurrence for this president.

He is a meandering speaker.

He often says stuff that seems out of context or inappropriate for the audience to which he is speaking.

But in Egypt, in the midst of this big news day, it was weird.

He turned and he said to the strongman leader of Egypt, who took power in a military coup, a guy who Trump in his first term called his favorite dictator.

Trump turned to the microphone today in Egypt and he said this.

He said,

there was a reason we chose Egypt because you were very helpful.

Everybody wanted to have this.

You are a great leader.

You have very little crime.

Then he said, quote, I want to thank you.

He's been my friend right from the beginning during the campaign against crooked Hillary Clinton.

Have you heard of her?

He's gesturing to the president of Egypt and saying, he's been my friend

from the beginning during the campaign against crooked Hillary Clinton.

Why is he talking about Hillary Clinton today?

Today, in the midst of everything else.

Why is he talking about Hillary Clinton in Egypt?

How in the heck does Hillary Clinton

have anything to do with him being in

Egypt, with his relationship with the president of Egypt?

Yeah, turns out, funny story.

In Donald Trump's 2016 run for president against Hillary Clinton, one of the unexplained twists in that campaign was that Trump picked a foreign leader to call his favorite dictator during the campaign, which is not a typical thing that an American presidential candidate might do.

You might think that the American people might not like that, but Trump

went out on a limb and did that anyway.

Before he was elected, during the campaign, he singled out the military strongman leader of Egypt as his favorite dictator.

He actually showered him with all sorts of inexplicable praise.

And I mean it was inexplicable because I mean, this is not something for which there's like a big domestic audience during a presidential campaign.

Why do you want to vote for somebody for president who's praising who his favorite dictator is and why he likes this military strongman abroad?

It was so weird.

But he was really sort of insistent about it.

Just a few weeks before election day, as Donald Trump's campaign was running out of money and it really looked like he was going to lose to Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, at the height of the 2016 presidential campaign, he took a one-on-one meeting with the president of Egypt.

And he came out of that meeting and he called the president of Egypt a, quote, fantastic guy.

He promised him that if he, Donald Trump, was elected president, the United States would be a, quote, loyal friend to Egypt.

And then when Trump, in fact, was elected, he very much made good on that.

He brought the president of Egypt to be one of his his first guests at the White House.

Egypt, really?

He showered him with totally unqualified praise.

What's that about?

Then he gave Egypt nearly $200 million that his own Trump-appointed State Department leadership opposed him giving.

Then he gave them more than a billion dollars after that.

He just loved,

loved the president of Egypt.

Couldn't do enough for the president of Egypt.

Couldn't say why he loved him so much, but he just kept pouring it on.

What was that about?

I want to thank you.

Another one.

He's been my friends right from the beginning during the campaign against crooked Hillary Clinton.

That was today.

He's been my friend right from the beginning during the campaign against crooked Hillary Clinton.

I want to thank you.

Something about his love for Egypt's president goes back to his campaign against Hillary Clinton in 2016.

What could that be?

Oh, right.

Last year, there was landmark reporting from the Washington Post, including our own Carol Lennig, about one of the Justice Department investigations into Donald Trump that was shut down by his appointees once he became president.

This was the headline, quote, $10 million cash withdrawal drove secret probe into whether Trump took money from Egypt.

Now, when this story was published by the Washington Washington Post, Trump's campaign, of course, called it fake news.

But here's what that reporting said.

During his campaign in 2016 against Hillary Clinton, the Trump campaign really had run out of money.

His advisors were begging him to put in more of his own money into the campaign.

And he was reportedly saying, no, no, no, he couldn't do it, or at least he wouldn't do it.

But then

He met with the president of Egypt, this inexplicable meeting he took at the height of the campaign with the president of Egypt.

And somehow, shortly thereafter, he changed his mind about how much money he could give to his campaign.

Yes, suddenly he could give $10 million of his own money to his campaign in the last crucial weeks before the election.

He had somehow come up with $10 million that he felt he could afford to give his campaign.

Interestingly, at the time, it was little noticed, but he said he would give that $10 million

as a loan,

not as a donation.

So that meant he would expect to be paid back back that $10 million.

Donald Trump, at the very last minute, supercharges his 2016 campaign with a $10 million

loan right at the end.

He then does win the election.

Does Donald Trump ever get that $10 million

back?

That $10 million that he may or may not have been good for?

I don't know.

I don't know.

But the Justice Department reportedly found that five days before he was inaugurated, mysteriously, an organization linked to the Egyptian intelligence service withdrew almost exactly $10 million in cash from the National Bank of Egypt.

They stuffed bundles of $100 bills into two huge bags that weighed a combined 200 pounds.

It was nearly all the US dollar cash reserves that the Egyptian government had.

200 pounds of cash, $10 million cash, loaded into bags and taken out of the National Bank of Egypt.

And poof, nobody knows where that money went.

Now,

for seasoned investigators, like you'll find in the upper echelons of the U.S.

Justice Department, it is theoretically possible to find where money like that might have gone.

But under Bill Barr, the Trump Justice Department shut down that investigation.

So the relevant bank accounts were never looked at.

What potentially could have been a gigantic bribe to Donald Trump to aid his 2016 campaign was never traced.

And so no one knows to this day officially why exactly Trump, all these years later, is still thanking the strongman leader of Egypt for something he did to help Trump in his 2016 campaign against Hillary Clinton.

I want to thank you another one.

He's been my friend right from the beginning during the campaign against crooked Hillary Clinton.

Still thanking him all these years later.

Front of mind whenever he sees the president of Egypt all these years later.

Today at that same event in Egypt, President Trump was caught on a hot mic talking to the president of Indonesia.

saying something about how he was going to set up a meeting for the president of Indonesia with Eric, with Eric Trump, his son, the blonde one who manages the Trump family business.

Eric Trump has no job in the U.S.

government.

There is no reason why an American president should be arranging meetings for one of his family members with the head of state of another country, particularly when he's at an international

meeting on official presidential business.

That said, that appeared to be what he did today in this hot mic moment at this event.

Why Eric Trump?

I don't know, but hey, look, just last week, Eric Trump was promoting the Trump family's brand new golf course deal in Indonesia,

calling it a stunning golf destination.

And now the president in his official capacity, presumably, is hooking up his son, who is running the family business with the president of Indonesia, the country that is hosting this new Trump family boondoggle in that country.

And that is not to be confused with the Trump family boondoggle in Qatar, where the Trump family has a new golf course and tower and luxury apartments or something or other.

The nation of Qatar, Trump in his first term said they were a funder of terrorism at a very high level.

But then Qatar did this deal for this new Trump luxury development in their country.

And then Qatar gifted Trump a $400 million luxury jet, which he plans to refit at taxpayer expense for his own use as president and then not give to the the next president.

He plans to then keep it for his presidential library after he leaves office.

And now Trump has announced that if Qatar is attacked, the United States will respond as if we have been attacked, which means he's basically given them fake NATO membership on his own say-so.

And then this.

I'm also proud that today we're announcing or signing a letter of acceptance to build a Qatari Amiri Air Force facility at the Mountain Home Air Base in Idaho.

The location will be host a contingent of Qatari F-15s.

The response to that announcement from Secretary of Defense Pete Higseth was roughly,

say what now?

We're doing what in Idaho?

Who has an Air Force base in Idaho now?

Whereupon the former Fox and Friends weekend co-host, now Trump Defense Secretary, had to issue what he called a, quote, important clarification.

It's just them getting to use our Air Force base in Idaho.

We're not giving them their own in Idaho.

Did it sound like that when I said it like that?

That's so not what I meant, you guys.

Important clarification.

But Trump is keeping Qatar's plane, and the Trump family is building their big golf and tower thingy in Qatar and presumably whatever else they they want, because that's the way the presidency works now under Donald Trump.

You put money in his pocket, you give money to his family, and he hooks you up with basically whatever you want out of the pockets of the American people

from the American treasury, literally from the U.S.

Treasury.

I mean, while the U.S.

government is shut down right now, it's one thing to have the president leaving the country and flying to other countries, as Trump did today.

It's another thing to have the U.S.

government funding another country's country's government while we are not funding ours.

Nevertheless, Trump's Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessant, just sent $20 billion, just sent 20 billion U.S.

taxpayer dollars to go fund the government of Argentina, to go bail out their currency for some reason.

Argentina's currency has dropped 27% in value already this year,

but we're buying $20 billion worth of it.

Why is that?

That doesn't seem like a good bet.

Don't worry, it's just a loan.

All right, think we're going to get that loan back?

I don't know.

The IMF has had to bail out Argentina 23 different times.

Argentina owes the IMF more money than any other country on earth.

The most recent IMF bailout was just in April, and even that wasn't enough to keep their economy and their peso from continuing to tank.

But apparently now it's us.

Scott Bessant, Trump's Treasury Secretary, nevertheless just gave Argentina $20 billion of your money to prop up the government of Argentina.

Even though we have almost no trade with them, and if their economy or their currency collapses, that would be sad for them, but it would likely have no effect on us.

This is not something we're doing to protect ourselves.

It is just a favor to them.

Trump and Scott Bessant have given them 20 billion U.S.

dollars out of the U.S.

Treasury, a $20 billion bailout that already appears quite possibly to be lost down a deep, dark well.

Because even after

Trump gave them this $20 billion infusion within the last few days, CNBC reports today that markets today reacted in such a way that indicates that $20 billion might not be enough.

Argentina might tank anyway.

And that presumably best case means that we'll never get our $20 billion back.

Worst case, it means they're going to to keep giving them even more money that we'll never get back.

Why, when our own government is shut down, are we giving another country $20 billion to keep their government going?

When again, we have no links to their economy.

Their risk has no connection to risk in our country.

Why are we doing that?

I don't know.

But there are at least two

American billionaires who are very close to Trump Treasury Secretary Scott Besant.

And these billionaires have made big bets on the health of Argentina's economy.

So, you know, I don't know if you had any plans for that $20 billion.

It's your money.

But for these rich guy friends of Scott Bessant, including Scott Bessant's former mentor on Wall Street, they stand to make a lot of money if the U.S.

taxpayer starts propping up that failing country and they stand to lose a lot

if we don't and that country fails.

So there goes $20 billion of your money to buy nearly worthless pesos in Buenos Aires while, you know, Yellowstone shuts down and people who work for the TSA don't get paid and American hospitals are white-knuckling it through day 12 of a government shutdown with no end in sight.

The news right now, what's going on right now, this is why every opposition movement to every authoritarian government everywhere on earth

focuses on the corruption and the self-dealing and the self-enrichment of the supposed strongman leader and inevitably his family and his ne'er-do-well sons-in-law and his cronies, right?

What happens when you lose the rule of law?

What happens when you lose a professional government?

What happens when the democratic right to replace your leaders is taken away from you?

What happens is that the strongman and his family and his sons-in-law and his cronies, they all make sure that they get very rich.

They use the government of the country to get themselves very, very rich.

And they think they don't ever have to answer to anyone ever.

And so they do it shamelessly.

They get everything for themselves, while for everybody else, for regular people, everything crumbles.

They steal everything for themselves.

And for everyone else, it turns into just, you know, make make do economic insult

and the hollowing out of anybody else having any meaningful chance at anything

and if you don't like it the one thing they'll be very good at serving up is repression

i mean in a country that is losing its democracy what are you going to do what are you going to do complain

yes Actually.

Yes, it turns out the American people at least are going to complain about it, particularly about the mass secret police force brutalizing people in the streets part of it, which we are experiencing right now.

The American people are going to complain about that in every way they know how, including while they are dressed in inflatable Tyrannosaurus Rex costumes.

And when they are dressed up as frogs and unicorns and axolotls and bananas, so many bananas, and peacocks and pandas and raccoons and spacemen and lobsters and sharks, We will protest and mock you while dressed up as mushrooms and Pokemons and SpongeBob square pants and while dressed up as Bob Ross, as Bob Ross the painter, wearing a Bob Ross wig, painting the ongoing protests around us.

Protesters in Portland this weekend blew bubbles at ice agents and hula hooped at them.

They formed a flash mob to do a coordinated dance performance of the cha-cha slide.

They held formal afternoon tea services.

They went, quote, ice fishing.

They tied doughnuts to poles and pretended to lure federal agents with those delicious sugary pastries.

This form of absurdist resistance and protest and mockery in Portland started with a guy in a chicken suit showing up at the ICE headquarters every day and one guy in an inflatable frog costume.

showing up at the protest every day and not backing off even when the masked Trump goons pepper sprayed the inflatable frog.

In Portland, Oregon, they have been laughing at the fact that Trump was trying to justify sending in the troops by saying this was a war-ravaged city, by showing in every way they know how that Portland is just as wonderful and weird as it's always been.

By this weekend, what local Portland residents were calling Operation Inflation, they had dozens of people out dancing and protesting in inflatable chicken suits and dino suits and mushroom suits and

those weird, oh, the guy, the yips, the guys from everything, right?

They had a brass band out among the protesters, most of whom were wearing banana suits themselves.

At least some members of the banana block brass band were pepper sprayed by federal agents because, God forbid, there be a band.

At least one member of the band was arrested while committing the crime of playing the clarinet.

And because Portland is Portland, where every year they hold a naked bike ride,

because A, why not?

And B, to show the vulnerability of cyclists.

So drivers take care to not hurt cyclists on the road.

That is the basic idea of the weird and wonderful annual Portland naked bike ride.

This weekend, they did an extra one.

They held what they called an emergency.

naked bike ride, an extra one this year.

Oregon Live reports that at the start of it at the Oregon Convention Center, where it was 53 degrees, there were about a thousand people turned out for the emergency naked bike ride.

By the time people got to the Portland ICE facility, there were several thousand people on bikes in various states of undress,

protesting against Trump and ICE and him wanting to send troops into that city.

Have you ever loved Portland more than you do in this moment?

People turned out in big numbers in Williston, Vermont this weekend, where they are trying to expand the ICE facility there, and locals say they are having none of it.

In Memphis, Tennessee this weekend, U.S.

military veterans set up an encampment at City Hall to protest troops, to protest Trump sending troops to that city.

In Columbia, Missouri, this weekend, people from the excellent local music scene came out to protest and essentially play a live protest show at City Hall after ICE came in and took the guy who does security at the Blue Blue Note and the Rose Music Hall, those legendary music venues in Columbia, Missouri.

In Chicago, we're going to speak tonight with the Reverend David Black, who has been part of protests in that city and has been pepper sprayed and shot in the head with pepper balls while he was in the act of praying.

Today, Chicago community leaders led a protest at the ICE facility in Broadview.

Democratic Congressman Raja Krishnamurti asked to be led into that facility, to see that facility as a member of Congress.

They're supposed to let him do that under federal law, but today they would not let him inside.

We're going to talk tonight about the remarkable, very moving Catholic Eucharistic procession that happened at that ICE facility yesterday with Catholic priests and nuns, more than a thousand Catholics supporting that procession as the priests were turned away from that facility as well.

We're going to be speaking with Pastor David Black again here in just a moment.

We're also tonight going to speak with one of the founders of Indivisible about what are expected to be absolutely massive no-kings protests this weekend.

This is happening this Saturday, October 18th, all over the country.

These protests this Saturday, as I said, they're going to happen everywhere in more than 2,000 locations.

If past is prologue, this is on track to be one of the largest protests in American history this Saturday.

So we've got that, all that

coming up this hour.

A lot to get to this hour.

One last thing, though.

Let me just take one

point of personal privilege here before we get to those stories and to our guests tonight.

I mentioned right at the top of the show that there are going to be two Rachel Maddow shows this week.

I'm here tonight, right now, like you're used to seeing me on Monday nights.

But I'm also going to be here on Friday doing another show Friday at 8 p.m.

That is because Friday at 9 p.m., this is the night before the big no kings protests, Friday at 9 p.m., I've got a new documentary that we are premiering here on MSNBC.

So that is why I'm going to be here Friday.

I'll have a special Rachel Mowder show 8 o'clock.

We're going to show that doc at 9 p.m.

As you might know, I changed my schedule here at MSNBC over the last couple of years.

I'm generally here just one night a week now instead of being here every night.

The reason I made that change in part is because I want to spend my working hours working on a lot of different stuff right now beyond the nightly TV show that I was doing before.

So that includes this new documentary that I'm going to show on Friday.

That includes books that I've done, podcasts.

Tonight in Manhattan, the Edward R.

Murrow Awards are being given out.

It's a big important journalism award.

I am not there.

at the awards tonight accepting one of those awards.

I'm not there because I am here live with you.

But tonight my podcast, Ultra, is getting an Edward R.

Murrow Award, which I have to say I'm really proud of.

I don't generally believe in awards and things, but this is a big deal.

If you haven't listened yet to Ultra Season 2, I hope you will.

I think it's helpful for where we are in this moment.

I think it's one of the best things I've ever done creatively.

But that podcast, Ultra, which is winning that award tonight,

Also, the next podcast that I've got coming out before the end of this year, which I haven't told you about yet,

and this documentary that I've got coming out on Friday,

they are all a part of the same thing to me.

They're all part of what I consider sort of to be my work right now in this moment, which is that these are all different stories, different lessons about how to fight really hard fights in America, how to fight the government when the government is doing terrible things, how to fight authoritarian movements in this country.

This has been sort of a series for me.

Ultra, my book prequel, the next podcast that I've got coming out, and this documentary that I've got coming out on Friday.

It's all about how hard it is to fight those fights and how noble it is and how worthwhile it is.

And specifically with this new documentary, it's about the real, unglamorous, very difficult work it takes behind the scenes to be part of a big movement like that that wins.

So again, the film is going to air Friday night here on MSNBC.

I will be back here Friday, 8 p.m.

Eastern.

In the meantime, I just want to show you this.

This is the trailer.

Watch.

It didn't look like a promising job.

Now I will call for Andrew Young, that dedicated leader.

Nobody really wanted to go work for Martin Luther King.

He had been stabbed, bombed, jailed, and he didn't have any money.

A Southern Christian Leadership Conference spearheading the passive resistance movement.

Martin Luther King was looking for an assistant to do all the dirty work.

When it was something that needed to be done and nobody wanted to do it, that was my job.

We will use the dogs if they start drawing knives again.

We will use the holes if...

We don't intend to quit this fight until we get our situation resolved.

My assignment was to find somebody to negotiate with.

They were looking for a fight.

We say to Lord to do the neck.

They'll get burned before it's over with.

Somebody came up behind me and hit me.

I remember somebody kicking me in my stomach.

And I felt around looking for a sore place and there wasn't any there.

We were soldiers.

Soldiers without violence, without hatred.

This is a revolution that won't fire a shot.

I was expected to oversee all of the things that were going on.

We are marching for you.

A shot rang out.

He fell.

When I saw him, there was no hope.

The last thing we agreed on was that we had to take the movement into politics.

Congressman Andrew Young, Andrew Young, has emerged.

Young drew louder applause than the president.

Andy Young is at best.

Certainly no stranger to controversy.

Ambassador Young acted on his own.

I've been through many dangers, toils, and snares.

If I had to take a few kicks and licks to get a Civil Rights Act, I'd do it any day of the week.

That's what I call the dirty work.

So that's the film.

It's going to air this Friday night at 9 p.m.

here on MSNBC.

I'll be here at 8 p.m.

Eastern for a special Rachel Maddow show ahead of that on Friday.

But we got lots to get to tonight.

Stay with us.

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It was an almost unimaginable number.

More than 5 million Americans turned out in small towns and big cities all across the country for those no kings protests against the Trump administration back in June.

That no Kings Day protest, that one day in June is considered to be one of the three largest days of peaceful protest ever in U.S.

history.

There were so many demonstrations on No Kings Day in June that when we covered them here on this show the following day, we had to show them in batches of 20 to even scratch the surface of how many of them there were.

Well, now the second No Kings Day is just around the corner.

It's this Saturday, October 18th.

And the organizing effort around it so far indicates that it might be even bigger this time around.

In June, for those huge, huge protests, they got like 2,100 different protests.

This time for Saturday, organizers are expecting more than 2,500, even more than we saw in June.

Joining us now is Ezra Levin.

He's co-founder and co-executive director of Indivisible, the group that has helped lead the organizing for the No Kings rallies.

Mr.

Levin, it's nice to see you.

Thanks for being here.

Great to see you, Rachel.

What are you expecting for Saturday?

I'm expecting it to be huge.

I'm expecting it to be boisterous.

I'm expecting it to be joyful.

It's going to be the place to be, Rachel.

I mean, it really is.

I hope people are, I mean, we're doing big things here, right?

We're collectively fighting for democracy that's big, that serious Trump is saber-rattling, and that can be scary.

But fundamentally, what this is about is everybody coming together and demonstrating.

we don't do kings in America.

And they're going to have funny signs.

There's going to be chanting.

There's going to be dancing.

There's going to be singing.

We want this to be a place where anybody can come out.

And it doesn't matter your ideological persuasion.

It doesn't matter who you voted for before.

It doesn't matter if you've never protested before.

This is a place for you if you believe we don't do kings in this country.

We're in this moment where

Republican leaders, particularly House Speaker Mike Johnson, but also other Republicans, have tried to really like fear monger about the no kings protest.

He called, he said it was a planned hate America rally, which made me laugh out loud.

But I have to ask, obviously they're trying to scare people into not protesting or trying to make it seem like a scary thing.

On the other side, we've got protests in Portland erupting into dance parties and like everybody with share on the boom box and like dancing inflatable frogs and everything.

How do you,

what do you make of the Republican effort to really demonize protest against Trump?

Look, on the one hand, I welcome the free publicity.

I'm glad they're talking about what will be the largest peaceful protest in modern American history coming up on Saturday.

And it's also funny that they can't actually say no kings.

They've got to make some other name up for it because they understand it.

They say no kings, how is that objectionable?

How could anybody say that that's anything other than the most American thing since apple pie?

But I do think we have to hold two things in our head at the same time.

One, anybody who's been to a protest this year that's been organized by indivisible or no kings has seen moms and grandmas and kids and dogs and funny chants, and it was a feeling of joyous power out in the streets.

And on the other hand, we've got an authoritarian regime.

who wants to crack down on free speech.

So we should show up in force and we should take care.

We should attend the security training briefings.

We should attend the how to de-escalate briefings and trainings.

We should do that work so that if anything happens at these protests, we're ready to do it.

But if your First Amendment rights are under attack and you decline to show up because of those threats, you don't have First Amendment rights.

So if anybody is out there watching this and it's like, oh, I don't know, I've never been a protester.

I'm hearing a lot of gnarly stuff from this regime and maybe I won't come out.

Let me tell you, it's going to be fun, it's going to be be powerful, and it's going to be part of history.

What about the trainings that you have been doing?

We talked about this last time I spoke with you, we talked about it, that in addition to organizing demonstrations, in addition to organizing political action where you're asking people to, you know, contact their elected officials about something they're doing right or something they're doing wrong, you've also started doing this movement-building work of training people in nonviolence, training people in communications tactics, training people to organize other people along those lines.

How are those trainings going?

I mean, pretty incredible, Rachel.

So coming out of the first No Kings protest, we had 2,169 events.

There were five to six million people out.

And what we funneled folks into was a training series on strategic non-cooperation.

So, that means not just focusing on your elected officials.

That's good.

Look, I like that.

We call members of Congress, we show up at members of Congress's offices.

I think that's good advocacy.

But we have to recognize this regime is not just passing laws or issuing executive orders.

It's threatening media institutions, universities, businesses, law firms, and we've got to wield our power to buck up those institutions that might otherwise fail.

I think case in point is Disney and ABC News with Kimmel, him being bullied off the air, mass protests, mass opposition, and suddenly Disney finds some courage.

If you want courage to spread, you've got to spread that courage yourself.

But that means focusing where you actually have leverage.

So doing trainings coming out of these big protest events are a way to go from one day of protest to sustained opposition to the regime.

And that's what we need.

Ezra Levin, co-founder and co-executive director of Indivisible, not at all a scary person.

Thank you for being here, Ezra.

Good luck.

Thanks for shaking.

We'll be right back.

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Since President Trump announced he wanted to send troops into the streets of Chicago, the pushback there has been creative and multifaceted, and it keeps evolving.

They're trying everything.

Governor J.B.

Pritzker told us last week here on this show about a letter he had just sent to the National Governors Association saying the National Governors Association should stand with Illinois in opposing troop deployments in U.S.

cities.

Governor Pritzker didn't get a statement like that from the Governors Association, but he did get the chair of the group, the Republican governor of Oklahoma, to do a big interview with the New York Times saying, yes, he at least is against this.

Governor Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma told the Times he opposes Trump's National Guard deployment in Chicago.

He said Oklahomans would lose their minds if Pritzker in Illinois sent troops down to Oklahoma during the Biden administration.

That same day, the Republican governor of Vermont also came out against the deployment of troops in Chicago.

Vermont Governor Phil Scott called it unconstitutional.

He said if Trump made good on his threats to jail Governor Pritzker, he, as the Republican governor of Vermont, would be, quote, on the forefront of pushing back against that.

Meanwhile, the people of Chicago have continued to show up to make it clear they don't want troops deployed to Chicago and they are opposed to what the Trump administration is doing in their city.

Chicagoans have marched in big protests in downtown Chicago, including a couple of huge ones, and just in the last few days.

They've also adopted the cheerfully absurd tactics that we've been seeing in Portland, Oregon, showing up in big inflatable cartoon costumes.

We're seeing scrappy neighborhood responses in places like Albany Park, where neighbors surrounded, excuse me, neighbors sounded the alarm as federal agents made stops in that neighborhood until eventually the agents left.

At a church in the Rogers Park neighborhood, we saw neighbors forming a human chain around the church to protect the church's parishioners as Trump's immigration agents lurked outside the church while Mass was ending.

Outside a Chicago ICE facility yesterday, there was yet another prayer protest against what Trump's agents are doing in Chicago.

Over a thousand people joined a delegation of Catholic priests and nuns this weekend as they held a Eucharistic procession to that ICE facility.

That's not just a protest, that's a Catholic religious rite.

Those priests and nuns marched to that ICE facility with the Eucharist in the hopes of delivering Holy Communion to Catholic prisoners there.

ICE refused to let them do it.

Last week on the show, we played this video of a Presbyterian minister, the Reverend David Black, being pepper sprayed in the face and then shot in the head with a pepper ball as he prayed and called on ICE agents to repent.

The bravery of Reverend David Black in that moment has had a lot of attention across the country in the last few days.

That video, though, also became part of a new lawsuit against federal agents in Chicago.

So far, the case involving Reverend Black has already resulted in a judge putting strict new limits on Trump's federal agents using weapons like pepper balls and tear gas against protesters and journalists.

Pushback of every kind, one way or another, always works.

Reverend David Black joins us here next.

Stay with us.

By now, you have seen this video of a pastor, Presbyterian pastor, Reverend David David Black, being shot in the head last month by Trump's immigration agents, shot with a pepper ball while he prayed outside an ICE facility in Chicago.

Reverend Black joined a lawsuit last week to defend the First Amendment rights of protesters and journalists and Chicago residents.

On Friday, the judge in that case ordered that federal agents in Chicago are now prohibited from, quote, using riot control weapons on members of the press, protesters, or religious practitioners who are not posing an immediate threat to the safety of a law enforcement officer or others.

Joining us now is Reverend David Black.

He's the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Chicago.

Reverend, thank you so much for being here.

I appreciate your time.

Thank you, Rachel.

A lot of people have had strong feelings seeing that video of you being hurt.

I have to ask, how are you?

Thank you for asking.

I'm recovering, but if I may say so, the story here is not about how I'm doing.

The story here is if this is what the agents of the Trump administration are doing to pastors, to journalists, to peaceful protesters in broad daylight,

it is,

it makes me shudder to imagine what they might be doing to our neighbors who are captive behind closed doors.

And I hope that the consciences of all those who are concerned about me, and I have been grateful for the outpouring of support I have received from people around this country, But I hope that their consciences will be turned to those who are vulnerable and invisible in this moment, who are seeking that solidarity and support that has been so lovingly offered to me.

Your congregation is among the many faith organizations in Chicago that have responded both with leadership but also your membership in terms of turning out.

What do you think the presence of faith leaders and faith communities in the protests has done to affect the overall presence of these federal agents and the overall response in Chicago?

This is a moment when people are profoundly disenchanted and profoundly overcome by despair and a feeling of powerlessness.

But in our faith traditions, what we bear witness to, what I bear witness to every time that I read the Bible, is that humankind has been here before and that there is a way through.

And I feel profoundly hopeful about how the

ligaments of the body of Christ, of the people of this land, are coming together to protect one another, to support one another in solidarity and mutual love.

And faith leaders showing up at these protests to minister.

I came not as an organizer or even necessarily as a protester, but as a pastor.

We're there to offer the witness of our faith, the Christian faith, Protestant faith, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim faiths, to offer a sense of hopefulness that justice is already in the waters and we will will see a new creation and a new day.

The lawsuit that you joined has led to new restrictions in which a judge says effectively explicitly what happened to you can no longer happen.

Federal agents can no longer use weapons like pepper balls or other tactics like shoving people to the ground unless somebody poses a direct threat to them.

Obviously, that was part of what that lawsuit was seeking.

And so in that sense, in terms of the judge's order, order, it has been successful already.

Do you think it will make a difference, either in terms of the practical, physical reality of what it is out there on the streets, but also potentially in the hearts of the people who are doing those things?

Well, ICE agents in Chicago community deployed tear gas on civilians yesterday.

So, I think we are already seeing that this notoriously boundaryless administration is still having trouble with boundaries.

But I am so grateful for all of the valor of the protesters, the lawyers, the teachers, the clergy who have showed up to

make this legal ruling a reality because it is a step in the right direction.

And I hope that it will continue to summon the consciences of people throughout this land to seek more justice and more accountability.

The Reverend David Black, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Chicago, sir, thank you for your time.

I'm glad you're okay.

Thank you, Rachel.

We'll be right back.

Stay with us.

Quick reminder that I'll be back here this week, Friday night at 8 p.m.

Eastern for a special show ahead of my new documentary.

The show's at 8 p.m.

Eastern.

Then the movie, Andrew Young, the Dirty Work, starts at 9 p.m.

Eastern on Friday.

I'm really proud of this thing.

I hope you'll come back Friday night to watch with me.

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