Trump learns Politics 101: Do unpopular things, become unpopular, lose political power

Kids need to feel safe at school so that they can flourish. I always make sure that my students are well fed. I make sure that everyone gets breakfast. The most important thing is that to listen to them. The social emotional learning is something that I've really focused on. There's a check-in. They know that I care about them, so I'm checking in with them. That's one of our classroom rules, how we're all friends and we're all respectful. It's a matter of welcoming everybody. That's one way that I'm making sure that my students are in a good headspace. If you dread dealing with your insurance company more than you dread being stuck in an elevator with a total stranger. Hey. Who's an oversharer. Oh, bean burrito for lunch. Then you might have Insuranoia. And if you have Insuranoia, then you should have NJM. They go to great lengths to do what's best for their policyholders. No jingles or mascots. Just great insurance. NJM. Insurance underwritten by NJM Insurance Company and its subsidiaries. Thanks, June Holm, for joining us this hour. Really happy to have you here. If things look a little bit different tonight, if the lighting seems different, the background looks a little different, that is because I'm joining you from somewhere I almost never am. I'm in Los Angeles right now. I was here in L.A. last night. We had a big event at the Orpheum Theater in downtown L.A. with some of the people who helped us make my new podcast, Burn Order, which is about the decision to incarcerate Japanese-Americans during World War II and the people who fought that decision and the thriller, the investigative thriller at the heart of that. All six episodes of Burn Order are now out. The whole thing is out. Everything's posted. Free to listen to the whole series on any podcast app. Here in L.A., there's a lot going on. There is honestly a lot of shock and anger from all sorts of different people, from people connected to the show business and not. shock and anger about the murder of beloved actor and director Rob Reiner and his wife. I will say also a lot of just visceral revulsion about President Trump's ghoulish, really ugly, disgusting comments sneering at Mr. Reiner's death, almost seeming to celebrate his murder. in L.A. today is also the day that Donald Trump's deployment of National Guard troops to this city fell apart. The federalized National Guard troops were forced to leave L.A. today because of a federal court order, because what Trump did in deploying them here, according to a judge, was illegal. We're going to have more to come on both of those stories and much more tonight. But I want to start somewhere tonight that is much colder than it is here. Let's start in Minnesota, specifically about 15 miles southwest of Minneapolis, because something truly wild just happened there over the weekend. It happened outside when it was way below zero. It was a spontaneous, not planned thing. But just just watch this. This is footage from local Channel 9 KMSP, the Fox station in that area. Watch. Activists tell us ICE was trying to detain two workers at a house that is under construction. Fox 9's Leon Purvis was there and has more on what happened. It all started at 10.30 Saturday morning. Witnesses say ICE showed up to this Chanhassen neighborhood targeting two construction workers. It's mind-blowing that people are out here in negative 20-plus degree weather building houses for our community members, and they're being targeted by ICE. We're told workers climbed the rafters to avoid ICE agents. People posted about it online and the crowd grew. The goal was to ensure the workers weren't taken into custody. Concerned residents showed up to the front lines where tensions reached a boiling point. It was scary. It was really scary. It was, I don't know, I guess it was just something that you never think it's going to happen. One of the workers was talked down by EMTs who took him by ambulance for medical attention. But the standoff continued between ICE and a second man, with activists asking ICE to leave. People are mad. People are really mad. No protester was hurt, but there was a lot of shouting, whistles, and demands. Meanwhile, people provided blankets, coffee, and food for the one worker still up in the rafters, until ICE eventually left the scene. At that point, people celebrated, hugging each other and chanting. We value immigrants in our community and we'll do anything to protect them. With concerns ICE could drive back, the community activists coordinated together to get the other worker down from the roof while others locked arms to ensure a safe exit. Then they lined their cars up to discreetly put them in one of them. They drove off in multiple vehicles so we could leave undetected. We're committed to making our country a better place for all of us. Liberty and justice for all. Wow. And what did you do with your weekend? Right. I mean, how are you living your one wild and precious life? Just incredible. Right. That is local reporting again from from KMSP in Minnesota, the local Fox station, local CBS station also had a reporter there and a camera. They got this footage of people climbing into the rafters themselves, trying really trying to save the man who was up there in this standoff in the rafters at below zero temperatures. They brought him blankets. They were literally trying to keep him alive while he was up there for hours. After Trump's federal agents were finally chased off by the people who had come to try to protect that guy, they had footage of him coming down and ultimately being sort of swarmed by people trying to take care of him. The reports about how this all resolved are a little bit mixed up, understandably, given exactly what happened here. But it does appear that that man may have been hospitalized for exposure at the end of this. but we're told that he's expected to be okay. Like I said, that was about 15 miles outside of Minneapolis on Saturday this weekend. But people in Minnesota, of course, are not afraid of the cold. There was tons of local coverage of that event on Saturday, but then this was the very next day right in Minneapolis. Another ice-cold day in Minnesota. isn't stopping these Minnesotans from stepping outside to say ICE agents are not welcome here. Most are postal workers who shared these photos and videos with us of what they say are ICE agents using the Lake Street and Powderhorn Post Office parking lots to stage operations over the past two weeks. Vans with tinted windows and body armor and guns, and it's not, you know, we shouldn't have to work in that kind of environment. We want people to know that we are not working with ICE. We are in support of our immigrant co-workers and neighbors. And, you know, we want to see a society free of secret police. A society free of secret police. This was that was all Minnesota this weekend. This was cold, cold Milwaukee, Wisconsin today. Free Judge Dugan, it says there. You might remember back in April, federal agents arrested a sitting judge, Hannah Dugan, because they said she tried to help a man in her courtroom when ICE agents came to her courtroom to try to get him. They arrested and perp walked a sitting judge that day in Milwaukee. You might remember our coverage. There was a big instant, spontaneous protest in Milwaukee as people rushed to the courthouse, rushed to her courtroom to try to defend her. to say that arresting her was wrong. There have been protests in support of that judge over and over and over again since her initial arrest as the Trump administration has proceeded with this plan to bring charges against her. Today was the start of her trial and Milwaukee again turned out in force in big numbers to defend her, to stand up for her. It's 14 degrees right now in Milwaukee. There were ice cold protests against Trump and against his federal immigration agents and specifically in support of Somali Americans who Trump has been attacking in language so blunt and so racist. It sounds like it's translated from a 1940s German newsreel. Democratic politicians, including candidates for governor and Senate in Maine, came out to this in Maine this weekend. And that's that show of support and solidarity. for Mainers and their Somali neighbors. In Huntington, New York this weekend, a protest at the local police station amid outrage of local police in Huntington being seen to help Trump's federal agents. Protests all over Louisiana over the last few days, in Baton Rouge, in Kenner, in Gonzalez. Big, feisty, diverse protests in Louisiana against Trump's immigration agents and what they are doing there. Louisiana state attorney general is having to fend off, uncomfortably fend off very pointed questions from news outlets in Louisiana, calling her office and asking her to defend the state's cooperation with Trump's agents while all these people in Louisiana are standing in solidarity with one another and against what Trump's agents are doing. Because of burn order, I've been thinking a lot about Japanese Americans and Japanese immigrants being locked up by our government in World War II. And our government's eventual apology for that, including paying people restitution who were locked up because our government acknowledged it was wrong. It was a mistake. It should never happen again. One of the places people were locked up back then is Fort Bliss in Texas. And this is Fort Bliss in Texas today. Trump administration bringing all that back by turning that same site into what is now its largest prison for immigrants. They've got nearly 3,000 people locked up at Fort Bliss right now, and they say they want to bring it up to 5,000. I made new reports from the ACLU and other groups that there are really bad conditions inside that prison camp at Fort Bliss. New reports last week of a man dying at that camp. El Paso residents this weekend protested there, protested on the road out to Fort Bliss at this site where we locked up Japanese immigrants in World War II. Home Depot stores are getting protested all the time now and all over the country as Home Depot, as a corporation, refuses to say anything, refuses to do anything about the fact that Trump's immigration agents are routinely using Home Depot stores and Home Depot parking lots to stage their raids on immigrants. This weekend, the Home Depot in Manhattan in New York City filled up with people shouting in the aisles about standing with immigrants. Ice out of Home Depot. The Home Depot in Encinitas, California, was bedeviled this weekend by cheery carolers in Santa hats, just ripping Home Depot for what they're doing, telling people to boycott Home Depot if they don't change their ways on this. Also, the Home Depot in Albany, New York, Same thing. People out there picketing, making a ruckus, telling people not to shop there unless Home Depot at least speaks up, at least objects to how the Trump administration is using their stores and their parking lots and their property. The Apple Store in Portland and the Apple Store in South Lake, Texas, also both bedeviled by protesters in the last few days, telling the company to put back on the App Store. The app that's called IceBlock, which helps people alert their neighbors about where Trump's immigration agents have been seen operating. The Trump administration told Apple to take IceBlock out of the app store and they did people protesting all over the country against Apple and against Apple CEO Tim Cook for the company caving like that Put IceBlock back in the app store. People protested against President Trump as he arrived at the Army-Navy game this weekend. Don't obey illegal orders. No war crimes with my tax dollars. Baltimore says no to tyranny. People today rolled out a huge, huge photo. Look at that. A huge photo of Trump and Jeffrey Epstein rolled out on the lawn on the National Mall just across from the White House. As some iteration of the Epstein files are finally due to be released this week on Friday. And as a new Reuters poll shows that the proportion of Americans who believe that Donald Trump didn't know about Epstein's crimes has fallen now below 20 percent. Did you know about Epstein? Do you think Trump knew about Epstein's alleged crimes before they were public? No, I'm sure Trump didn't know that. Less than 20% of the public now believes that. I feel like everybody in the national news media is cottoning now to the fact that Trump's approval ratings, not just in general, but on specific issues and all the issues that are most important to him, Trump's approval ratings are just cratering. I feel like the national media is finally sort of figuring that out. You know, that the country, broadly speaking, is really quite sharply against President Trump at this point. That said, I'm not sure my brothers and sisters in the national media have quite caught into the fact of what that looks like, even in red state local media markets like, say, Tulsa, Oklahoma. I'm not sure everybody coast to coast has quite realized that what that cratering approval rating for Trump and his continued every day stepping on new rakes and doing new things that are radically unpopular with the American people. I'm not sure people have quite figured out that that translates to primetime local news coverage in Oklahoma. That looks like this. Protesters with Indivisible Tulsa County say they are wishing for things like a United America, affordable food prices, and peace in Ukraine. Indivisible Tulsa County co-leader Susan Young explained why the organization felt the need to speak out Saturday afternoon. The economy needs to improve the affordability thing, although the administration doesn't really like us talking about that. It is a big deal. People don't like being told how many dolls they should buy for their children or what they need to give up for Christmas. At a speaking engagement earlier this week, President Trump talked about affordability, saying, quote, you don't need $37 for your daughter. Two or three is nice, but you don't need $37. Just love to like straight up local news reporter and, quote, two or three dolls is nice, but you do not need $37. Now, on to, yeah, you really did say that. And, you know, red states don't like that either. And that's the local nightly news in Oklahoma. You know things aren't going great, my dude. In the latest AP polling, Trump is minus 36 on the economy. 31% of the country approves of Trump on the economy. 67% disapproves. So Trump on the economy is underwater by 36 points. On health care, it's even worse. He's underwater by 40 points. And that poll ended before today. which is the deadline for people to sign up for their health plans under the ACA, which is tens of millions of people in this country. And those plans, the prices of those plans, the premium costs are skyrocketing in price because of what Trump and the Republicans did in his so-called big, beautiful bill. What they did to destroy health care premiums in terms of how expensive they are, what they did, that overt policy change they made, that costs everybody's health insurance premiums to go through the roof. That starts hitting people officially today. Trump and the Republicans caused it. They have not been able to fix it. And Trump is already 40 points underwater on health care, even before that starts hitting people. I mean, there is there is a lot going on right now. And frankly, all of it that points back to the Trump administration and its own actions right now is basically a debacle, right? We're going to talk about the huge mess and very public failures at the FBI in just a couple of minutes. But beyond that, at the VA, we've got the Trump administration cutting 35,000 healthcare jobs because Merry Christmas, veterans. That's what Donald Trump and the Republicans think of veterans healthcare. They're cutting 35,000 doctors and nurses and other healthcare jobs at the VA. Merry Christmas. at FEMA, which has not exactly been distinguishing itself under the Trump administration, ask Texas. Trump is now putting in charge of the key emergency response division there, the Office of Response and Recovery. Trump is putting in charge of that. A man who has no discernible emergency response experience whatsoever. But he is a guy who said the election was stolen from Trump, not only in 2020, but also in 2016. Now, you may recall 2016 is an election Trump won. But this guy says that one was also stolen from Trump, even though Trump won it. Now, his reward is that Trump is putting him in charge of running response and recovery for the U.S. federal government at FEMA. That's going to be real popular, too, I'm sure. Listen, you do unpopular things. and you end up unpopular. Donald Trump is as unpopular as he has ever been. And smart politicians all over the country are figuring that out. Gavin Newsom, Democratic governor of California, is crowing today about California chasing Trump's illegal National Guard deployment out of this state. Gavin Newsom is also hiring away from Washington, D.C., from Trump's now broken federal government, the most prominent public health officials in the country and therefore in the world. He's hiring them away to leave Washington and come work for California instead, where their work is valued and they can do world class public health work here. Come work for a real government, not the clown show that Trump is operating in Washington when he's not sneering at murder victims. Across the country in Maine, I mentioned that some Democratic candidates for office joined the demonstration and the rally in Lewiston this weekend in support of Somali Americans, calling out and responding to Trump's racist tirades against Somali Americans. Well, in the governor's office today in Maine, Maine Governor Janet Mills, who would like to be Senator Janet Mills, today she announced in an op-ed that she is repealing Maine's policy of having local police cooperate with Trump's federal immigration agents. Because that is the political weather right now, right? Yes, the weather is cold, but the political weather is against Trump. And and in particular, the weather is is is right now very, very clearly against Trump's performative crudeness and cruelty and violence against immigrants, which he has always counted on being a political winner for him. And it turns out the American people don't like it. And that recent AP poll I just mentioned, Trump on immigration is 22 points underwater on immigration. on what he wants to be his signature issue. When you see things like, I don't know, Indiana Republicans deciding they are going to defy Trump, they're not going to redistrict their state because Trump told them to, they're not going to be bullied and they're willing to say so in great numbers. When you see something like that, consider, yes, the bravery of those Indiana Republicans in deciding not to be pushed around. But consider also the political weather that Donald Trump has created by doing very unpopular things and by doing his job very poorly. He has therefore and thereby made himself and his party very unpopular. And that changes the course of other decisions by other politicians all around the country. Right. The Indiana protesters who showed up again and again and again and filled their state Capitol in Indiana and told their Republican state legislators to not cave to Trump, to not do it, to stand on principle. Those protesters who showed up over and over and over again in Indiana, they very well may have put steel in the spines of those Republicans to get them to stand up and say no to Trump. But with a president this unpopular, this reviled, failing this blatantly, those Indiana Republicans can also read the weather. They don't want to go down with this guy. Who would? Lots to get to tonight. Stay with us. What do you know about the Family Detention Center in Dilley, Texas? It's where our government imprisons immigrant parents, children, and even newborns, a place with putrid drinking water, food with bugs and worms, and even a confirmed measles outbreak. These conditions are unsafe and inhumane. The Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, or RAICES, is the only legal aid provider inside Dili, day in and day out. We're there right now, defending immigrants' rights to due process and filing emergency petitions to free families illegally detained. You can fuel our fight to protect the rights of our children, our neighbors, and all of us. Donate at freeallfamilies.org. That's freeallfamilies.org CIDP can make your daily routine feel not so routine. The good news? With a self-injection for chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy, you have the option to treat at home. Discover more at CIDPselfinjection.com and talk to your doctor. That's CIDPselfinjection.com. Brought to you by Argenix. So the deadline for Americans who want to sign up for health insurance for January 1st under the Affordable Care Act, that deadline is midnight tonight, less than three hours from now. Because of what Trump and the Republicans did this year, because they decided to cut off the subsidies that support that health insurance program, 22 million Americans who get their health care from the ACA are about to see dramatic increases in what the premiums will cost. And I mean dramatic increases. The average person is going to be paying double what they paid before. On average, doubling. Now, to be clear, the reason those costs are about to skyrocket is not because of inflation or some new unforeseen problem in our health care system. This is an entirely manmade problem. This actually it is entirely a Republican made crisis. This is a we hit the wrong button problem. Oops, we flipped the wrong switch. Now what's happening? A problem created entirely by President Trump and the Republicans in their legislation that they passed this year And it this disaster this impending economic disaster for more than 20 million Americans has led to a deluge of pressure on frontline swing district Republicans who are hearing now from very unhappy citizens in their home districts who are being put in a totally untenable position. I mean, headline from The Washington Post, Rank and file Republicans feel heat from constituents on health care. Headline from the Associated Press. Swing district Republicans brace for political fallout if health care subsidies expire. Headline from Politico. Frontline GOPers caught in health care jam. I mean, despite all of that pressure and their recognition that actually this is a real problem, this is not a messaging problem, this is a real problem, Republicans still haven't been able to get it together to do anything. And that's in part because they have a problem at the top. Their leader, their president, has been totally AWOL on this. His main contribution to the discussion about this problem thus far has been to say about what's about to happen to people's health insurance. He said, quote, don't make it sound so bad. Trump dismisses question about skyrocketing health care costs. You make it sound so bad. Well, don't make it sound so bad. It's really bad. But please don't say so. That's his plan. Meanwhile, we're also seeing his administration really destroy the world's gold standard public health system, firing experts at the CDC, installing a whole flock of quacks in the upper echelons of the nation's health agencies, rolling out inevitably a QAnon convention's wish list of bizarre changes to vaccine protocols that seem to be mostly based on things people read in the comments section on YouTube videos. As I mentioned earlier this weekend, we learned that the Trump administration also plans to eliminate more than 30,000 health care jobs at the Department of Veterans Affairs. So Merry Christmas to veterans on that one. The hollowing out of our public health systems in this country under Donald Trump has led to a really interesting dynamic that we've been keeping an eye on for a few months here. Democratic-led states essentially picking up the slack where our federal public health systems are being destroyed. This is something that could really fundamentally reshape governance in this country and how we live. It could fundamentally reshape the difference between states and what it's like in blue state America versus red state America. You may remember back in August when Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. abruptly fired the head of the CDC. It led to a wave of resignations from other top officials at that agency. Well, today, California's Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom announced that he has hired that former CDC director and the chief medical officer who quit along with her. Those two former CDC officials will now lead California's effort to, quote, fill the vacuum left by the Trump administration's systematic retreat from science and evidence based public health. Joining us now is Dr. Deborah Howery. She's former chief medical officer at the CDC and now officially a senior advisor to the State Department of Health in California. Dr. Howery, I really appreciate your time tonight. Thank you. Absolutely. My pleasure. So what is this new initiative, this advisory role that you're taking on? What is it that you're going to be doing? Yeah, so as senior medical advisor, I'm really going to be helping look at not just California, but other states in the region to see how they can look at improving data exchange, how they can look at preparing for pandemics, looking at laboratory tests. And the other thing is with the withdrawal of the U.S. from the World Health Organization, looking at how California can really work globally to ensure that Californians and others in the region are prepared for any global health threats as well. California is a big state, a populous state. It's a big economy. It's a big, well-run state government. It can sort of stand on the national stage just because of its own gravity. But I wonder, coming from the federal government now to be working on this state based project that you're going to be part of the state based approach, at least what you think about the capacity of the federal government versus the capacity of even big, strong states like California to tackle some of the kinds of problems that you're talking about looking at. Well, I think states have to tackle it because right now the federal government is not. You know, we're seeing a complete lack of leadership from the secretary. And as you'd mentioned, you know, in your opening, just talking about like the vaccine panel and things like that, when you can't trust a lot that's coming out of the federal agency, states and regional groups really do need to step up and provide that leadership. And I think that's where California can really be a model for other states. And I do hope other states want to partner with California on this effort. We have to have science and data really protecting the health of our populations. And that's what this is about. You resigned in protest from the CDC back in in August. Since then, we have seen Secretary Kennedy follow through on many of his most radical planned changes, like changing the vaccine recommendations for young kids, stuff that he overtly promised he wouldn't do when he was going through the confirmation process. As somebody who worked at a very high level in that institution and who understands the stakes here, how should the average American approach information coming out of the CDC right now? How should we think about the permanence of the damage that's been done to that part of our government and whether whether it'll ever come back? You know, when I resigned, I was hopeful because there was a Senate hearing and seemed to be a lot of attention. But after that, really, I saw the trajectory worsen again. You know, leading the scientific priorities at the agency right now are a realtor and an aviation attorney, not career scientists. So to me, that's very worrisome. And when you see that, you know, the most recent vaccine committee, there were personal anecdotes CDC scientists weren't presenting. I don't know if CDC will survive this year if it continues like this with the budget cuts, the staffing cuts. and over 14 political leaders now at the agency, when normally there's two to three. This is unprecedented and not in a good way. Is California in a position, especially with the role that you're taking on right now and the type of work that former CDC leaders are now going to be doing through California, Is California in a position to sort of convene the remaining sane public health leaders of our country in a way that could make national recommendations that Americans could look to to supplant what we're seeing for the CDC? You see, I'm thinking, yes, about people who live here in California, but I'm also thinking about people who live in New York State, people who live, you know, in Florida, people who live in, you know, in Red State, Ohio, other places who just don't know what to what to trust in terms of basic information and in terms of advice that can change quickly about things like vaccinations, about things like, you know, COVID boosters and other things like that. I agree. And that's my hope and why I agreed to work with California, because with what we're seeing with the lack of leadership at the federal government level, we do need something across the nation. And so California really can lead. You know, it's got such a large economy. I think it's the populace is about 22 states worth. Other states can very much partner with California and, you know, across the Western region. And there's already four states working closely with California. And I've been also talking with other regions about partnering across regions so that we do have much more of a national network. We need evidence and science to drive decisions and clinical guidance and not ideology. And what we're seeing right now is a lot of ideology. And I worry that we're going to continue to see pediatric deaths. We've seen five kids die this year from vaccine preventable deaths. We can't have that in this country. Yeah. If you want your public health run by doctors and public health experts instead of realtors and aviation attorneys, turn to a blue state near you. Dr. Deborah Howery embarking on a remarkable new chapter in what's been a really illustrious career. Dr. Howery, good luck to you and thank you for being here tonight. All right. We've got much more news ahead. Stay with us. CIDP can make your daily routine feel not so routine. The good news? With a self-injection for chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy, you have the option to treat at home. Discover more at CIDPSelfinjection.com and talk to your doctor. That's CIDPSelfinjection.com. Brought to you by Argenix. Need to restock inventory, cover seasonal dips, or manage payroll? OnDeck's small business line of credit provides immediate access to funds, up to $200,000, exactly when your business needs it. 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You may have seen some of this strange chatter today about the right wing podcaster who President Donald Trump inexplicably installed as the deputy director of the FBI. There are competing reports out today that suggest said right wing podcaster might not stick around the FBI all that much longer. One story says he has cleared out his FBI office already. It's already emptied out. Another story says, no, no, his office is not empty, but he is planning to decide about his future in coming weeks. Whatever that means. Who knows? It would not be all that surprising if the podcaster, his name is Dan Bongino, were on his way out at the FBI. He's the first FBI deputy director with zero FBI experience, unless you count his podcasts where he complained about how the FBI should be gotten rid of. He has not sounded super happy with his life at the FBI since he's been there, nor has the FBI been especially happy with him. And in a report on the FBI that was prepared for Congress last month by active duty and retired agents, Mr. Bongino is referred to as, quote, something of a clown. The White House even installed a kind of bureaucratic babysitter for Mr. Bongino, appointing an unprecedented co-deputy director of the FBI to give somebody else the job as well, since why should he have it alone? That was widely seen as the first step in replacing Mr. Bongino. What about his boss, Kash Patel, the other right-wing podcaster who was put in as director of the FBI? Well, MSNOW has reported that President Trump is considering firing Mr. Patel as well because of the, quote, unflattering headlines Mr. Patel has recently generated. Those headlines include the director reportedly diverting an elite FBI SWAT team to provide security for his girlfriend also reportedly directing that team to drive his girlfriend drunk friend home more than once Same friend Also Kash Patel reportedly using his government private jet to visit his girlfriend and to take a golfing trip to Scotland with his pals and to visit a Texas hunting resort that, I kid you not, is actually called the boondoggle ranch. Then there was the time that the director bragged on social media about the FBI busting up a terror plot in Michigan. He made that online statement before investigators had even had a chance to file any charges. After Patel posted what he did online, some of the associates of the suspects caught wind of the impending arrests and therefore moved up their plans to leave the country. One of them was only intercepted at the very last moment at the airport. Premature social media eruptions have kind of become Kash Patel's thing as FBI director. In September, hours after the conservative activist Charlie Kirk was fatally shot in Utah, Kash Patel posted on social media that the, quote, subject in Charlie Kirk's killing was, quote, in custody. Roughly 90 minutes later, Patel had to walk that back when the person was released. That was a correction that Mr. Patel may have had to post from his dinner that night at a trendy New York restaurant, because who wants to give up dinner reservations for a little low-profile crime like that? Now, Kash Patel appears to have done it again the morning after a shooter killed two people and injured nine more at Brown University on Saturday this weekend. Kash Patel proudly posted on social media that as a result of the FBI's tireless efforts, a person of interest had been taken into custody. Hoorah. And then hours later, that person was released. And as of tonight, the suspected shooter is still at large. The FBI has released new photos of a person of interest who they warn is armed and dangerous. They're offering a $50,000 reward for information on the suspect. But the FBI right now, forgive me, at least in terms of their public facing output, they're a hot mess. Should we be worried that the chaos at the top of an agency as important as the FBI is hurting its ability to perform even its most basic missions? Like, for example, finding this Brown University shooter who is still on the loose as we speak. Joining us now is Chris O'Leary. He's a former senior counterterrorism official at the FBI. He spent over two decades there. He's now an MSNOW National Security and Intelligence Analyst. Mr. O'Leary, it's a real pleasure to have you here on the show tonight. Thanks for making time. Thanks for having me. So let me ask you about the Brown University shooting. We're now the more than 48 hours after the shooting. There was a person of interest in custody. There was a sort of crowing statement from the FBI director about that. Then that person was released. Now there's a manhunt underway for someone else. How unusual is this turn of events? What would you expect that the FBI is doing right now? Does this sort of hiccup in the public facing part of this process indicate that things might be more difficult for FBI agents working this crime than you'd hope? Well, certainly. And I think this incident, similar to Charlie Kirk, is indicative of the fact that Kesh Pell and Dan Bongino have created chaos in the FBI. They constantly insert themselves in places where they think they can steal the spotlight because their only background qualification is as podcasters and working on social media. So they're going to what they know because they have no other skills or qualifications for the job. So, you know, they quickly put out messages fast and loose, not in concert with their partners. And unfortunately, that's not how business is done. You know, what you should see is a unified message, something that was coordinated in advance, letting the public know what's going on, what you can share. And when you think you have the right person, either detained or in custody, you, you know, circle up with your partners, you agree upon it, and you put out a unified message. It's that's how the FBI has done its business really since 1908, when it started as a relatively small organization that had nationwide responsibility. And they did it through partnerships. When the FBI became a global organization, it did it through building strong partnerships with our international partners. Kesh Patel and Dan Bongino have systematically eroded all those partnerships and really destroyed the trust and the confidence of the FBI amongst the American people in some cases. Well, you use that word destroyed talking about confidence. I think a lot of people are worrying now and starting to think about when Trump is gone, based on this recent reporting in the short term, when Kash Patel and Dan Bongino themselves may be gone. How much irreversible damage have they done to the FBI as an institution? Patel has obviously fired scores of agents. We've had some very high profile lawsuits filed over some of those dismissals. Um, how deep is this damage? What are the long term implications for the FBI? Well, the implications are really should concern every American. I don't care where your politics are. And let me just tell you, most FBI agents, I couldn't tell you what their politics are, because it's not something that's ever discussed at work, despite the fact that Dan Bongino and Ketel, you know, made a career, made themselves famous out of suggesting that the FBI were political actors. Just not the case. I always point to the fact that, you know, working in the FBI is like walking into an Irish bar. You don't discuss religion or politics. You concentrate on the mission and you concentrate on your service to the American people and the national security of the United States. And that's what's being impacted now. So whether it's driving down crime, going after fugitives like we see playing out in Brown, going after domestic or international terrorism like we saw just play out in Los Angeles with the Joint Terrorism Task Force there, counter espionage. Those are the things that the FBI works. Public corruption, which there's quite a bit seemingly going on right now, but the ranks have been completely decimated, and nobody has the authority to work any of that now. All of those things are things, they're essential things that the American people need to protect our society and our Constitution, and none of those are being done. And I will tell you, it's not a job. You're talking about people losing their jobs. Cash Patel and Dan Bongino have forced out career professionals. FBI agents don't look at it as job. It's a vocation. I looked at my counterterrorism service as a vocation, a calling, a duty, the same way I looked at serving in the Marine Corps. So it's not something that, you know, you're getting rid of professional experience, but you're also getting rid of people dedicated to the job and their duty. And what's going to be left is loyalists, you know, to this administration if we let it go too much longer, which is really concerning. Chris O'Leary, former senior FBI counterterrorism official. Thank you so much for your time and your insight. We're lucky to have you, Mr. O'Leary. I'm really glad to have you here tonight. You bet. I will tell you, I do have to make one correction. Some of the best politics discussions I've ever had in my life have happened in Irish bars. So on that, we have to correct the record. But other than that, we'll be right back. Stay with us. One of the things that Republicans in the United States Senate have done for Donald Trump is that they have started confirming his nominees in groups rather than bringing them up one by one individually. They've changed the system of Senate confirmations so they can confirm dozens of people all at once. This week, for example, Republicans in the Senate are expected to confirm a group of 97 Trump nominees all in one big herd. Who are you trying to sneak in amid the herd, you guys? Well, among the dozens of people, the nearly 100 people in this current batch that they're rushing through all at once in a group, is a former Republican congressman named Anthony Desposito. The New York Republican won his first and only term in Congress in 2022. Congressman Desposito then lost his seat last year. Last year. And now you're thinking, wait, Maddo, last year was 2024. That was a hard year for a Republican, for a Republican incumbent to lose his seat. How did a Republican incumbent lose his seat last year? Oh, special case. This is the guy who The New York Times reported put a woman he was having an affair with on his congressional payroll. In addition to the daughter of his fiance, who he also put on his congressional payroll. Oh, staff meetings are fun. Both of those hires were potential violations of House ethics rules on nepotism and corruption. Then CNN reported that Despacito's campaign spent tens of thousands of donors' dollars at steakhouses, bars and liquor stores, with no clear connection between that spending and official campaign events. In two instances, Despacito's campaign didn't even bother to name the steakhouse. They simply wrote down the word steak. In other instances, the campaign did not itemize the expenses at all, including a casual $156,000 in credit card payments for, don't know, could be anything, didn't bother to even provide a noun. Steak. Former Congressman Desposito has maintained that he did nothing wrong. And now Trump naturally has picked him for a new job, an oversight job, a watchdog. The president has picked him for the job of inspector general at the United States Department of Labor. Because that guy definitely knows how to cross the I's and dot the T's and order the steak. This week, Congressman Anthony Desposito is just one of the 97 Trump nominees. The Senate is expected to rubber stamp on mass quicker by the dozen. Watch this space. All right, that's going to do it for me tonight. Snoring? Gasping during sleep? Feeling fatigued? Wake up to ZetBound Terzepatide, the first and only FDA-approved prescription medicine for moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, and adults with obesity. ZetBound is an injectable prescription medicine that may help adults with moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, and obesity to improve their OSA. 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