Morning Joe - ‘Makes no political sense’: Joe says Republicans will lose politically against Jack Smith every time

Episode Date: January 23, 2026

‘Makes no political sense’: Joe says Republicans will lose politically against Jack Smith every time To listen to this show and other MS podcasts without ads, sign up for MS NOW Premium on Apple Podcasts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This weekend, there's a historic winter storm hitting most of the country that's bringing brutal temperatures and over 20 inches of snow. Greenland heard and was like, well, you wanted us. You got us. Yeah, today Southwest Airlines canceled hundreds of flights, although that had nothing to do with the storm. Good morning and welcome to morning, Joe. It's Friday, January 23rd. We have a lot to get to this morning. including Jack Smith's testimony yesterday on Capitol. I've got to say, I don't know exactly what the Republicans thought they were going to get when they actually let Jack Smith speak in public, which he wanted to do from the very beginning.

But it didn't end well for them. And it will never end well for them when they're trying to go up against Jack Smith. Like I said, they should let them go. back to the Hague, put on those scary robes, and stop humiliating themselves as this committee has a longstanding tradition of doing. The former special counsel spent five hours talking about the investigations into President Trump will bring you some of the biggest moments straight ahead. Plus, the Trump administration is acknowledging. They seem to be acknowledging that Americans don't support the aggressive immigration tactics and the operations that they're using

in Minnesota. Last night, President J.D. Vance visited Minneapolis, and we're going to take you through some of those comments where he actually talked about how the administration needed to meet local officials halfway. Also, President Trump reveals when we can learn more about the framework of the Greenland deal. This is very exciting in two weeks. I'm sure the health care deal also coming in two weeks. It comes as Denmark's prime minister continues to make it clear,

the Greenland giving up its sovereignty, not an option. No says nook. With us, we have the co-hosts to our 9 a.m. hour staff writer for the Atlantic, Jonathan Lemire, also MS now National Affairs analyst, John Heilme, he's a partner in chief political columnist at Puck. call. So we have the CEO and the co-founder of Axis Jim Van de High and MS now senior investigative reporter, Carolyn. Jim Van de Haid. So you just got back from Davos. Anything happened while you were over there? Get us updated. Give us a behind the scenes color about just what was an extraordinary

couple of days there. It really was. Like, typically Davos can be a little sleepy, a little boring, and just basically a place where a lot of people go to do business. This time it was highly consequential. On two sides, it was obviously the speech by the Canadian Prime Minister, and then

Trump going there and rebuking Europe over and over and over and over and over again. But it was interesting is offstage, and if you weren't a world leader, I'd say 98% of all conversations were about the application of AI and how radically the world is about to change. And yet coverage of it was almost wholly focused on Trump, which is kind of a metaphor and a microcosm of our existence today.

Everyone's talking about Greenland when the outcome in Greenland was essentially what we had a week ago. We had all this drama in between. You know, yeah, Jim, I've often thought about that over the past six months to a year, especially with you coming on our show a good bit, that here we are, people are going tribal and going full 19th century politically at home. They're, you know, the White House is talking about Greenland. People on the far right still fighting about trans athletes. I think 85, 90 percent of Americans are on their side now on. And they're having to work overtime trying to find out.

a trans athlete somewhere across the fruited plains that they can be shocked, stunned, and deeply saddened about. And yet right in front of them is something that's going to impact Republicans, independents, Democrats, young, and old, especially young right now. And yet they're not talking about it. We're talking about distractions like Greenland. We're talking about, I mean, and, you know, this guy right here. saying globalization has failed when the United States has been dominant over the past 80 years because of it. You talk about a distraction.

You talk about what my football coach in high school would talk about majoring in the minors. It's just sheer insanity. This is something that should bring everybody together to figure out how working Americans don't get sold. And or young coming out of our best colleges on the United. the planet even, not being able to get jobs because of AI. I've never in my life seen a bigger disconnect between what people are fixating on and what they should fixate on. I mean, I run a company, and so I have 450 employees. I use AI. In the last week alone, I've built three new business plans and six new apps by myself, and I'm a complete tech dope. This technology is so good.

it is so much smarter than almost any person I've met in a bunch of different domains. You have to take the time to learn it, but you can learn it quite quickly. It's the only thing government should be talking about. How do we make sure that everybody benefits from this technology that's going to make a couple of companies awesomely powerful and awesomely rich? And that's fine if everybody else benefits from it. But if you have a bunch of people or a few people getting really rich, really powerful at the expense of everyone else, you're going to have a much bigger mess than we have

today. And so hopefully, you know, by writing about it, by you talking about it, eventually Congress, business leaders, teachers, everyone will start thinking about how do we equip everyone to make this shift. We can do this. I believe that we can do it, but not by ignoring it, right? Right. And I mean, listen, and for for younger Americans who are who are trying to figure out why they're not getting jobs, you can blame Somalians if you want to blame Somalians. It's, it's horrible for you to be blaming Somalians, but I know you have political leaders that are telling you, you're not getting jobs because of Somalians, you're not getting jobs because of Mexicans, you're not getting jobs because people are coming from India and they're getting H1BVs.

I understand. I understand that's what you hear on your feeds. That's what you see on your feeds all the time. That's simply not the case. The problem right now is, especially right now, over the past year to 18 months. You're not getting jobs out of college right now because as Jim Vanda high and Axis has reported and other people have reported, CEOs are frozen. They're saying, we're not going to fire people,

but with this AI technology, we don't have to hire anybody new and we can just get rid of our workforce by attrition. That's what they're thinking right now. So you blame the Somali. Eight states over from you. If that makes you feel better, that's not going to fix anything.

And it's really bigoted. So you should actually look what the real problem is and understand you have people in Washington, D.C. that will not stand up to tech monopolists. They will not stand up to the billionaires that run this economy. They will not stand up to the very people who are going to get richer and richer on AI and leave you and your friends and your generation further and further behind. It's that simple. I mean, you don't, listen.

You can keep getting distracted by things they're trying to get you to distract on. Well, Washington keeps passing tax cuts and keeps passing laws and keeps refusing to do the things they knew, do, need to do to break up tech monopolies. If you don't want to focus on that, if that's too hard for you to read about, I mean, it shouldn't be. You're in college, for God's sake. You know, then that's your problem. But anyway, Jim Van de Haie has written a Willie, a very moving letter. to his children. It's funny, Jim and I both did the same thing over the past week. Jim, of course, wrote a letter to his children about the threats of, hey, I, in the future, and it's a very moving letter.

I wrote a letter to my children about Alabama's desperate need to rebuild their offensive lines so they can average three to four yards per rush in the SEC over the next few years. So both of them, very important, six and one, a half dozen of the other, I would say. But Jim's on something. Equally important to the future of the Republic without question, Joe. It's yards after contact. It's all of that stuff. Go get yourself off tackle. Establish the run game. It opens things up downfield. I'm sure it's all in the letter. And I can't wait to. So you have post that on the T coming up a little bit later today. It'll make you cry. I believe it will. I believe it will. Let's get back to that highly anticipated testimony from former special counsel Jack Smith.

Yesterday on Capitol Hill, he insisted he acted without regard to politics when he brought criminal charges against President Trump, laying out why exactly he was seeking to take those cases to trial. Smith defended his prosecutions saying they were meant to withstand any legal scrutiny. President Trump was charged because the evidence established that he willfully broke the law. The very laws, he took an oath to uphold. Grand juries and two separate. districts reached this conclusion based on his actions, as alleged in the indictments they returned. Rather than accept his defeat in the 2020 election, President Trump engaged in a criminal

scheme to overturn the results and prevent the lawful transfer of power. After leaving office in January of 21, President Trump illegally kept classified documents at his Marilago Social Club and repeatedly tried to obstruct justice to conceal. his continued retention of those documents. Highly sensitive national security information was held in a ballroom and a bathroom. I stand by my decisions as special counsel, including the decision to bring charges against President Trump. Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in criminal activity. If asked whether to prosecute a former president, based on the president of the reason for the fact that President,

on the same facts today, I would do so regardless of whether that president was a Democrat or a Republican. No one. No one should be above the law in this country, and the law required that he be held to account. With respect to presenting the case that we charged, one of the central challenges was trying to present that in a concise way because we did have so many witnesses. Some of the most powerful witnesses were witnesses who, in fact, were fellow Republicans who had voted for Donald Trump, who had campaigned for him, and who wanted him to win the election. These included state officials, people who worked on his campaign and advisors.

The people who assaulted police officers and were convicted after trial, in my view, and I think in the view of the judges who sentenced them to prison, are dangers to their community. As you've mentioned, some of these people have already committed crimes against their communities again. And I think all of us, if we're reasonable, know that there's going to be more crimes committed by these people in the future. I do not understand why you would mass pardon people

who assaulted police officers. I don't get it. I never will. And one thing I want to be clear about today, the case that I investigated in the case we had, it was built to be tried in a courtroom, not in the media. Our case was built to withstand the crucible of litigation. And our assessment was that we had proof beyond a reasonable doubt that would do that. So Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee and their questioning didn't really dispute the facts of either case,

not at all really. They instead focused on the procedural steps he took during the investigation. Jack Smith also puts on his team the people responsible for getting the phone records of dozens of members of Congress. Now, if you sought to do that today, would you be able to get away with that with asking the judges for a non-disclosure order without telling them these are members of Congress? When we secured these total records subpoenas, it was done consistent with department policy. You're correct in that that policy has since changed. They changed the policy based upon the actions that you took. Am I on this list?

Did you target my records and subpoena my phone toll records? My understanding is your records were subpoenaed by prosecutors before I became special counsel. My question here is, was there any limits to your investigation or the investigation that preceded you, Mr. Smith? Because as egregious as a violation of separation of powers this is, is an egregious and abuse of power it is. It's far more concerning you are clearly targeting American citizens for merely being conservative or supporting the president.

So Jonathan Lemire was about five hours or so. And what you saw there from special counsel, Jack Smith, the former special counsel, is exactly what you saw for all of those five hours. He was measured. He was calm. He humored some of the questions that were thrown his way that were some often hard to comprehend what the point was exactly. A lot of procedural questions, as I said, from Republicans, when were you sworn in?

and then weren't you sworn in again, no one disputing the facts of the case effectively that Donald Trump argues special counsel, Jack Smith, led the events that led to the attack of January 6th, and then we haven't even gotten into the classified documents of it all. What did you make of the spectacle we saw yesterday over those five hours? I mean, watching this, it raised a question yet again,

why did Republicans want to do this? I mean, and the answer is because they were taking their mark marching orders from the White House and people close to the president, a decision based on hubris, that they thought that if they put Jack Smith out there, that they could expose lawfare. They could expose that Jack Smith and this whole investigation was biased, criminally biased against President Trump, that there was never a there and that this was the deep straight trying to undo him. But instead of doing that, and Willie, you're right, the Republican attacks were mostly bogged

down on procedural matters that any viewer, most viewers wouldn't care about. Instead of doing that, they gave him an open platform, an open forum to once more go through these cases. And in that calm measured way, you know, talk about the evidence he compiled, say yet again, I believe charges were warranted. And it seems to me like this is an effort that has backfired. This is an obsession of President Trump to clear his name, you know, all the cases we've seen. We have seen him order his Department of Justice on a campaign of retribution last night flying home from Davos. He called Jack Smith deranged and suggested that he should be prosecuted.

So perhaps that is the next step here. But, Joe, we know that early on that the Republicans refused to have an open hearing. Everything was done behind closed doors. Then we had a news dump of the video and transcript on the afternoon of New Year's Eve. And yet then they decided to do this. And I don't see what good it did them. Well, it really makes no political sense. Because if you're Donald Trump and you really want to focus on cases, focus on the case brought in Manhattan, which was always suspect.

As far as the legal theory, I said at the time, but still say it, I don't understand Alvin Bragg's legal theory. I never will. You could also focus on the New York State case, which again, just clearly excessive fines leveled against the president, which of course the courts confirmed. You know, you can focus on Fannie Willis and the way she ran her investigation in Georgia with all of the problems that she had. But John Heilman, the problem with going after Jack Smith is that even Donald Trump has admitted privately. You know, if they'd only come after me with one case, one or two, I would have been in trouble. The best thing that ever happened to me was they came after me like four or five, six cases. and it was just overwhelming to the American people.

So I guess my question is, why in the world would Republicans want to bring up the one or two cases? Even the president admits he could have been convicted on if they had focused on that. And why it's so stupid for the Republicans to give Jack Smith free time to explain, no, this wasn't me. The grand juries in two different places said that the president, needed to be indicted. The witnesses against the president were all of his former Republican workers, Republican staff members, workers at Moralago. Again, as John Lamar says, this makes no political sense. If you're Donald Trump, if you're the Republicans, let Jack Smith go. Because you're going to lose that. You are, you, you, you,

you may be able to win fights against less seasoned, less competent prosecutors. You're going to lose that fight against Jack Smith every time. You just are politically. You know, I think, Joe, that there are a few things going on here. I mean, one is the thing that we're saying a second ago about how, you know, the Congress has shown over and over again, that if Donald Trump wants something to happen, they are going to comply. So that's the first, the starting point is no one, if this is what Trump wants, And we can spend some time talking about what the politics of this are for Donald Trump as we are right now.

You're not going to win the fight. It's not going to help Donald Trump in any way. I'm not totally convinced it's going to hurt Donald Trump in any way because I do think that a lot of public opinion is pretty baked in about this issue, which is we're going back of relitigating a thing that now happened, you know, five years ago and four years ago, four or five years ago. we've had a lot of discussion over January 6th and Donald Trump's role in it. Does it hurt the president appreciably compared to everything else that's going on? I don't think that much. Does it help him? It doesn't help him at all.

But the Congress, Republican Congress people, do what Donald Trump wants. Now, I think the other thing here is that we all have been talking about how we watch the totality of this and you give Dick Jack Smith platform to make the statements he's going to make, et cetera, et cetera. If you're a Republican congressman, you're not thinking about the. totality of the effect. You're not thinking about, you've kind of put in this awkward position where you have to do with Donald Trump wants. All you're thinking about is the media environment that now exists in which no one is watching the totality of this. And you are looking for,

can I get a piece of social media content that will feed my base? If I can get up in grandstand and I can make some point, and Jack Smith is not going to get theatrical, he's not going to push back, he's not going to fight back. He's going to sort of sit there and take it because he doesn't want to rise, I should say, stoop to the level of a lot of these Republican Congress people, what do they want? They want 30 seconds of video they can put out on TikTok or put it on Instagram or put out on one of the more right-wing social media channels. And they think that that will help them with fundraising, that will help them with their base. And the difference in our world now is the difference between people who absorb the totality of these things, who watch and say, well, what on balance

has been the good or bad that's been done politically versus a lot of Republican and Democratic in their way members on Capitol Hill who are mostly focused on what's the 30 seconds or 45 seconds worth of content I can get out of this that will maybe move the needle in terms of I said before, fundraising and stoking the base. And from that, I think some of these Republicans yesterday will think it went fine. Well, you know, the problem is there, Willie, you know, if I'm running against one of these guys, I get your 30 seconds for you. I get you yelling at protesters or helping the cops try to keep people out. I get you whining or running. or looking scared to death, then split with you claiming it's a hoax five years later.

And of course, there were some extraordinarily pathetic moments yesterday where you had just that, where you had members of Congress yelling at protesters who, and helping Capitol Hill cops, barricade doors, turn around and then attack Capitol Hill cops? I mean, how sad and pathetic that the very people that help save. their lives on January the 6th from a mob, those same people now to try to save, you know, be able to wear a congressional pen, which is really about as sad and pathetic as it gets, they're now stabbing those Capitol Hill cops in the back and attacking them and blaming them, despite the fact they saved their lives that day.

Yeah, and remember, this is all in the context of many of these members and the administration criticizing protesters, most of them peaceful in places like Minneapolis, for protesting against police officers there. And yet not a word about what happened on January 6th to those officers. In fact, Carol Lennig, Congress in Moskowitz, the Democrat from Florida, read down a litany of the criticisms made, to Joe's point about the hypocrisy, the criticisms made by Republicans in the hours and days after January 6, 2021, of the attack on the Capitol, of the,

the people who committed crimes that day of Donald Trump himself and those very same people, some of them sitting in the room now, rewriting history again and trying to poke holes, not in the facts again of what Jack Smith was saying, but in the way he conducted his investigation. Carol? Yes. I'm sorry. I can't hear your question. Oh, okay.

Can you hear me now, Carol? Yeah, yeah. Try me again. I'm sorry, Willie. No, no. I was, we were just talking. talking about the hypocrisy that was underlined in the room by some Democrats of Republicans who attacked Donald Trump, who attacked the people who committed crimes on January 6th,

now flipping even in that room and rewriting history and suggesting that perhaps it was the Capitol police officers at fault. And again, not really getting at the facts or the case made by Jack Smith, but the way he prosecuted it. Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more about the rewriting of history, which is happening pretty much every day in Capitol Hill. And that litany that the congressman read of statements that Republicans on the dais yesterday had said on January 6th or January 7th or January 8th, essentially, I mean, you may remember, I do very clearly when there were reports of Jim Jordan trying to protect Liz Cheney in an aisle during the actual attack on the Capitol.

he said, you know, the ladies should be further in on the benches to protect them from people who might be breaking in. And she said, don't touch me. This is your fault. It's really interesting that now people can, with a straight face, claim that it was a peaceful, peaceful protest, that it was the Capitol Hill police officer's fault that anybody got inside the building. And almost as if they didn't remember Donald Trump's role or his phone calls. I also am struck by the rewriting of Jack Smith's investigation. For example, Republicans claiming that they were spied on yesterday, and they've been claiming that for several months, no, federal investigators actually pull the toll records, non-content

of phones in almost every single investigation. investigation. And in this one, they pulled the phone records of members of Congress to confirm and establish all the phone calls Donald Trump made to them on January 6th to try to encourage them to block the certification that day, even as that Capitol Hill was being attacked, as the building was being ransacked. Here's the moment from Congressman Moskowitz. I was talking about really pointing out the hypocrisy of the Republicans in the room yesterday, contrasting what they were saying in the days after January 6th. Here are some quotes, because I heard one of my colleagues call you a hypocrite, here are some

quotes from my colleagues. Chairman Jordan, right after January 6th, stop the violence, support Capitol police. Ted Cruz, those storming the Capitol need to stop right now. The Constitution protects, but not violence. Chip Roy, today the People's House was attacked, which is an attack on the Republic itself. Steve Scalise, United States Capitol Police, saved my life. Lindsey Graham, when it comes to accountability, the president needs to understand his actions were the problem.

Troy Nils, oh my God, him again. I'm happy to stand shoulder to shoulder with Capitol Police, Daryl Issa. The violence and turmoil we witnessed in Washington, D.C., was completely unacceptable. Rep. McClintock, the attack on Capitol, strikes the most sacred act of our democracy. And former Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy, whose name we heard a lot today, what did he have to say about it? Let me be clear. last week's violence attack on the Capitol was undemocratic on American and criminal and make no mistake. Those who were responsible should be brought to justice. The president bears responsibility.

And of course, that's what we heard, really, for the first Jim Van Dy, a couple weeks after, of course, Lindsay Graham, a little less steadfast in his criticism saying, I'm off the train. I'm off the train. Then he goes to Reagan National and as five or six people yell at him in a hound dog or something, go after him and he immediately switches. But the hypocrisy, especially, Troy Nells, who, my God, he's literally attacking Capitol Hill cops yesterday saying it was their fault. When right after the attack, everybody was saying was Donald Trump's fault. and he himself was saying, I'm very proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with the Capitol Hill cops. And so the political win changes,

and he completely, completely stabs in the back those same cops who saved his life. I mean, we've all seen like a lot of whitewashing of reality and of history, but I can't think of a more blatant example than this, right? I don't sure your fellow supporters hate to hear this, but give me a break. Like we saw what happened.

We saw people storm a capital. They trashed the center of democracy. They stampeded over police officers. People were killed. Police officers killed themselves because they were so horrified by what had happened that day. And to do anything other than say that that sucks,

that's wrong. It should never happen. It should never happen again. It's really the only response that you could possibly have. And obviously Republicans are quick to kind of defend Trump, But there's not a single Republican that you or I or anyone on this show talked to in the month after that that would have said anything that they're saying today.

So what happened? You were there and you said the same thing for a month. And now you say a completely different thing. You're painting a completely different reality. Well, what the hell happened? I want to know. I mean, I think we all want to know. Yeah.

I mean, you know, Willie, I have friends who, were horrified afterwards. You have a lot of people in Wall Street that were horrified afterwards. Who said they would never support Donald Trump again, who crawled back on their hands and knees, begging for his, you know, to be an ally again after it looked like he was going to survive all of this. But I have friends, intelligent friends, friends with, you know, post-grad degrees, with law degrees, who they start talking about September the 6th. And they just pretend that all of these things

that they were saying, that we heard them saying, back in 2001, they now pretend that, oh, Mike Pence was never in danger. Nobody wanted to hurt Mike Pence. This was a peaceful protest. Oh, you want to look at bad protests. Look at what happened with Black Lives Matters, as if one offsets the other.

You know, and so it, Jim asks a great question, what the hell happened? I mean, I understand. I've been around hypocrites in Washington and I've seen them switch their positions time and time again. But I've never seen the twisting of reality the way Republicans have twisted reality. And it's not just Republican leaders. It's Republicans across America who have bought into the lie that, yes, they know is a lie. Because right after January 6th, they were saying the same thing as independents, as we were, as everybody else was, you could see it with your own eyes. And they've been lying to themselves ever since.

Yeah, I mean, it's what you see is fear of Donald Trump. You see weakness and inability to stand up to Donald Trump. They put their finger in the wind, as you put it, Lindsay Graham, chief among them. He was out. I mean, in no uncertain terms on the night of January 6th made that rousing speech on the floor of the Capitol and then flipped a couple of days later when he saw Donald Trump was not backing down that his supporters, some of them anyway, fell in line behind them and said, uh-oh, I better do the same. And the entire thing flipped.

But again, we saw it happen on TV, like Jim said. Everyone saw it on TV. People are now in a media ecosystem where they're hearing different theories about what actually happened. To your point, Joe, I've had smart people who I received. suggest that this was some kind of a false flag inside job by the FBI. It's hard to follow all the string being put up on the thumbnail board like Kerry in homeland when you get into some of these theories. But people buy into it, why they do it, I don't know.

I think they don't want to admit weakness or failure or who knows what it is. But to see people who are in the building and whose lives were protected and saved by Capitol Hill police now effectively looking the other way or defending. it in some cases and attacking the very officers yesterday who saved their lives. Not much shocks us anymore, but it's pretty shocking to see that and to see the fear and weakness of Donald Trump on full display. We're going to talk much more about this and here's some more of the commentary from inside the room from Jack Smith as well. Meanwhile, though, Carol, you've got some new reporting this morning detailing how FBI director Cash Patel removed some federal employees

from their previous work on criminal investigations looking into President Trump. Who are we talking about and what's behind all this? That's right, Willie. So late last night, yesterday was a long newsday, if I can say, Jack Smith all day, then we wrote a story about Minnesota, and then close to midnight we were learning and confirming

that Cashminton has ousted a series of senior supervisors and also just line agents in Miami. Those people, we are told, are all folks who had worked on investigations related to either Mar-a-Lago, so Donald Trump, or to the election interference case, again, Donald Trump.

Cash Patel told a conservative news site, I believe it was on Tuesday, that he was trying to route out, anybody who had been involved in the Arctic Frost investigation. And that was the investigation that basically preceded Jack Smith's, in which the FBI and the Department of Justice was, you know, trying to figure out what were the Republicans up to with these fake elector slates, this sort of effort to try to stop the peaceful transfer of power

and stop the certification by claiming in swing states that Donald Trump had actually won when he had not with fraudulent elector slates. Those FBI agents were told were given the heave-ho. And it's a really stunning mass removal coming roughly one year after the last time that a string more than a dozen actually of FBI agents were removed either from senior leadership posts or from other positions in the field who had some role in investigations of Donald Trump. So, Carol, also, you point out the six agents in Miami because of their ties to the seizure,

the execution of a legal search warrant at Mara Lago of those classified documents have been moved off to, are they out of jobs completely or just have they been reassigned? It appears that some people have been put on leave, some have been pushed out of their positions, but in the senior supervisor role, there have been people. who've been told that they need to leave. And we're trying to sort out the total number right now. Great reporting. It's online now. MS Now senior investigative reporter Carol Ledyg. Carol, thanks so much for bringing it to us. We appreciate it.

Co-founder of Axios Jim Vandahai, thank you as well. We'll be reading that letter online. Coming up on Morning Joe, we're learning some new information about an incident earlier this week involving ICE agents who forcibly removed a U.S. citizen from his home in Minnesota. We'll go through some of that new report. Plus, what President Trump is saying about the framework of a deal on Greenland, as Denmark's Prime Minister insists sovereignty is non-negotiable. And as we had to break a quick look at the Travelers' Forecast this morning from Accuethers, Bernie Rayno.

Bernie, how's it looking? Willie, it's the calm or I should say the cold before the storm. High temperatures today, Accuwether says below zero all day, Green Bay and in Chicago, sunshine, some clouds, gusty winds in Boston and the storm. New York City, the cold starting to make its way southward. Delays Oklahoma City in Dallas later today, maybe a spotty shower in Miami. Traveling, get it done today. No one's going anywhere later tomorrow and Sunday, but there will be some minor delays

in Boston, New York City, and Philadelphia due to wind. To help you make the best decisions and be more in the know, stay ahead of this storm and download the Ackyweather app today. Well, it's going to go on for a long time, I suspect. I mean, they said they released them, but what did they release? No, they're still not all out yet. What are they released? Yeah, yeah.

Like, it's weird. The whole thing's weird. It feels like everything's been drowned out by everything else been going on with like Somali, uh, the Somalians and the ice shooting. It feels like that's completely drowned out. Anything about it. I think some of that's on purpose. Oh, 100%.

Yeah, that's podcaster Joe Rogan suggesting the Trump administration is using ice raids and fraud investigations, Greenland. You name it. It's a distraction. for the fact that the Justice Department keeps breaking the law every day. The Justice Department has only released 1% of all of the Epstein files, and they're 99% still mandated by law that need to be released. You know, really, New York Times polls that they talk about on the front page,

and the president was Rilling against yesterday, line up with so many other polls that just show an absolutely dreadful situation right now. for the president politically, and it's only a snapshot. It's only right now. But I think one of the most devastating things other than the fact that he's so upside down on affordability, inflation, is that on immigration, which is, you know, immigration's always been one of his most powerful positions. And you see that number. He's minus 16 on immigration. Yeah, he's minus 16 on immigration. In fact, despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of Americans support what he did at the southern border. They want a strong and secure and safe southern border.

So that entire 16% is how it's being enforced. It's, you know, what Christy Nome is doing. Wait, what you have Stephen Miller inside the White House every day pushing for more brutality. It just does, it really doesn't make any sense. And this morning, the Washington Post writes a fascinating story and talks about the parallels between what's happening now and what a lot of us conservatives were concerned about in 1993, some things that a lot of people watching right now won't remember, but Ruby Ridge and what happened at Waco,

that's when you started having the NRA calling federal agents, jackbooted thugs, it enraged to, you know, George, H.W. Bush and a lot of other people, but this growing populism, this growing libertarianism, this growing fear of federal agents coming in and kicking down your door, are you ready for this? Without a warrant. That started in 1993 in a very significant way. I know because I was in the middle of my first political campaign, and that was a real issue. So here you had the fear of an overreaching, overpowerful federal police force kicking down Americans' doors. And here you are, and we fast forward to 2026. And it's not the Democrats doing it. It's the Republicans do it.

It's not Janet Reno doing it at Waco. It's Christy Noem doing it wherever she goes. And there is no doubt this is really impacting Donald Trump's numbers. What Christy Noem is doing, is dragging down Donald Trump's numbers. What Stephen Miller is pushing every day is dragging down Donald Trump's numbers. Those are just the realities. We've said it here every day. And again, I get so tired of trying to help people

who just don't want to be helped, telling people not to put their hands on red-hot stoves, even though they love putting their hands on red-hot stoves and burning them and being shocked. but take the win at the southern border and stop with this heinous random enforcement, brutal enforcement, and the shooting of a young woman through the brain from a shot that came from an officer that was at the side of her Honda pilot in no danger whatsoever. Like, that, do they really think having untransmit? people in the streets of Minneapolis, not knowing how to de-escalate, not knowing how to handle

their weapons. The guy that the killer, the guy that killed, the shooter who killed René Good was juggling an iPhone and a gun at the same time. That guy would be fired from the NYPD. He would be fired from the LAPD. He would be fired from every major police department for what he did here. There wouldn't be disciplinary action. It would be far worse than that if this had happened to a cop and the NYPD. They would not still be wearing the uniform. No doubt about it, Willie.

But this is what the White House has allowed Christy Noam and Stephen Miller to do. and the results are absolutely devastating for Americans, devastating for Renee Good and her family, and pretty damn bad for Donald Trump's poll numbers. Yeah, and this national police force, what it amounts to, unaccountable, the investigation thus far from the Justice Department of the Trump administration in the video that you just looked at is focused on lawmakers in Minnesota. It's focused on Renee Good's partner and what ties she may have had instead of investigating. getting what happened and exercising some accountability. And you're right, Joe, when Americans see images of U.S. citizens mistakenly being dragged out of their homes without the opportunity to put on a shirt or pants

in the freezing cold with a blanket thrown over them and then I say, oops, sorry, wrong house. Or a five-year-old, a five-year-old, a kindergartner in Minneapolis being taken with his father from his driveway and flown to San Antonio. when you have a person yesterday being detained on the ground, restrained, and then being sprayed in the face with some kind of irritant. These accrue to a story for the American people, the vast majority we're seeing now of the American people

who just don't like what they're seeing. Again, to your point, strong border, get the murders and rapists who are here out of the country as promised during the campaign. The American people say, yeah, go do that. But not this, not what we're seeing here. That's a U.S. citizen. Not five-year-olds being taken from their driveways and flown to San Antonio. Not American citizens being harassed in the streets and sprayed gleefully by agents of ice.

But there is, Joe, to your point, some sign that the White House at least maybe is reading the polls a little bit over the unpopular tactics being used in Minnesota. Here's Vice President J.D. Vance yesterday in Minneapolis. What I do think that we can do is working with state and local officials. We can make the worst moments of chaos much less common, and all they've got to do is meet us halfway. The vice president conceded ICE has made mistakes, echoing recent comments made by the president about the shooting death of Renee Good. Vance also walked back his remarks from earlier this month

that the officer who killed Renee Good had absolute immunity. Remember he said that at the White House? Here is what the vice president said the day after Good was killed, followed by his comments yesterday. The precedent here is very simple. You have a federal law enforcement official engaging in federal law enforcement action. That's a federal issue. That guy is protected by absolute immunity.

He was doing his job. I didn't say, and I don't think any other official within the Trump administration said that officers who engaged in wrongdoing would enjoy immunity. That's absurd. What I did say is that when federal law enforcement officers violate the law, that is typically something that federal officials would look into. So some clarification there, Jonathan Lemire. larger point, though, J.D. Vance, the vice president, for him, let's just say, at least

showing a little bit of concern, perhaps not about the tactics used by ICE or about the immigration policy, but reading some polls that show what they're doing is deeply unpopular with the American people. Yeah, I mean, I think there's something a little rich about the vice president suggesting the local officials need to meet them halfway when, A, the federal government is completely taking control of the investigation into that shooting, refusing to cooperate with state and local authorities. And B, the federal government has opened up criminal investigations into local officials there, including the mayor of Minneapolis and the governor of Minnesota. But yes, there was some thought that Vance would go to Minneapolis to sort of inflame the situation.

You didn't do that. We just played some of it. He spoke in more measured tones than I think some had expected. So joining us now, MS now, political analyst, former U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill. So, Senator, curious, your read on this? Is it, you know, the Trump administration, usually it's reflective. They take criticism. They don't back off. They don't apologize. They double down. And it seemed like that has been the case in Minneapolis to this point. Do you suspect that could continue? Or is this indeed the vice president and the political operation at the White House reading some polls and saying, maybe we need to change our tone even a little? Well, what you saw yesterday is a candidate for president, not Trump's vice president.

I think J.D. Vance is looking ahead and realizing that if he doubles down and tries to, you know, say what's going on in Minnesota is just all-American stuff, that really hurts him as a presidential nominee. So he's trying to, you know, make stuff up like somehow the state and local people are responsible for this because they're not meeting them halfway. I don't even know what that means. What, what, are they supposed to put masks on to? Is that meeting them halfway? Are they supposed to be? breaking out windows and dragging women with their children in the car, physically out of the cars. You know, that's, it's really what he was trying to do is change the narrative that somehow

this is all because state and local people aren't cooperating, which of course is just BS. It's just not true. They haven't even been asked. I would say to him, if I had been a press person, had a chance to ask a question, well, why aren't you allowing the state and local people to participate in the investigation of the shooting? If the state and local people are so needed, why have you shut them out of what I think most people in America would like to see? And that is a real investigation over the use of force in a way that was inappropriate and cost an American citizen their life. Yeah, you know, Claire, I'm sure you'll remember Ruby Ridge and Waco. And I was just talking about in my first campaign, those two issues were massive and people were concerned.

about the overreach of the federal government's police powers. It was a driving force in the 1994 campaign, which brought Republicans back to power in the House for the first time in a generation. And that defined this party up until this moment, where you now have Republicans, and J.D. Vance has to know this. Like you said, if he's going to run for the Republican nomination,

Republicans watching a 37-year-old mom get shot through the brain from the side of her Honda pilot, when the officer, when delivering those kill shots, was in no danger, that's going to greatly damage. Whoever is connected to that politically, whoever's policy that is when an older man is pulled out of his house freezing and they claim, you know, and they continue the lies. And Elon Musk continues the lies a day later that he was holding pedophiles. And then you find out the person that they're looking for has already been in jail. But you see an older man shivering as they take him out practically naked of his house, an American citizen. When you see American citizens treated this way, I mean, it, again, this is devastating. When you,

see migrants being ripped from their mother's arms? Donald Trump knows that's a political loser. He knows that's a political loser. And yet for some reason, Stephen Miller and Christine own have been given free reign. I wonder if in those comments yesterday from J.E. Vance, we're actually starting to see a White House who understands that the president's upside down on immigration, not because of the southern border, but because of the this? Well, I'm not sure if the White House realizes it. I think J.D. Vance realizes it will see about the White House. But Joe, you're right. You know, the irony of this is when I started campaigning statewide in Missouri, everywhere I went in rural Missouri, which is Donald Trump's

political stronghold is rural America. That's where he has a vice grip on so many Americans in terms of how they view him. It was those people that expressed to me over and over, again, their fear of the federal government. Missouri didn't want to do real ID because, oh, my God, the federal government is going to have our information. And we have to have guns because the federal government could actually come after us and our property. We have to be ready to fight back the federal government. Now, when you look at what's going on, it is, in fact, their federal government. It is Donald Trump's federal government that is being wearing masks. and being thugs and violating Americans' rights, right and left, the rights to be secure in their

own homes, that's sacred in rural America to be secure in your own home. And why do we have all these standard ground laws? It's because people want security in their homes. So they are really across the line here. It will remain to be seen if they figure it out, instead of BSing about they need more state and local cooperation, they go back to doing targeted surgical immigration enforcement for people who are very dangerous criminals and continue to secure the border. Then they'll be a much more solid ground. And to Claire's point, we learned this week from internal whistleblower memos that many of these are being conducted, these raids without a judge's warrant, but with an internal administrative warrant instead. Joining us now,

deputy director for the ACLU Immigants Rights Project, Lee, Galant. Lee, thanks for being with us. I want to talk about the important case you're arguing in New Orleans. but first just on Minneapolis and the images we're seeing of a U.S. citizen being taken mistakenly from his home. What is the recourse? It may not happen today or tomorrow, but in perhaps the long term for many of these people who've been taken out of their homes and released because it turns out they weren't the violent criminals that ICE has suggested they were. Yeah, so thanks for having me. Going forward, we have lawsuits.

The state has lawsuits. to try and stop it from going forward. The recourse for people who have been treated like this will hopefully be some sort of compensation. There may be damage actions brought. They can be difficult, but I think people ought to sue if this is what's happened to them.

I mean, you've hit it right on the head. When Trump came in the second time, everyone said, well, now everyone has voted for more immigration enforcement. That's it. Your job is going to be impossible. And what I said then was you're going to see once little children start being pulled out of their house, once citizens are attacked, things are going to change because they won't stop at just the worst to the worse. As others are saying, they haven't. And now you see what's happening is that the winds have changed.

People have realized, well, this is not just the worst to the worst, not even close. Everyone is being pulled out of their house. The doors are being barged down. and out people being shot. Hey, Lee, it's Sean Haman here. Here's the question I have, which is, you know, basically, the administration tried to do this what, apparently what they are doing in Minneapolis. They tried to do it first in Chicago, right?

And there was a lot of pushback from Governor Pritzker and a bunch of his allies there. And basically, in the standoff between ICE and Chicago and Illinois, Illinois won, ICE backed off, and then moved on to Minneapolis. Right. Without casting any blame at anybody in Minneapolis or Minnesota, what's the difference between those two cases? What did people, what did Governor Pritzker and the resistance, or to ICE at least in Illinois,

what did they do that worked or so it seemed to work to get the administration to back off that is not being done in Minnesota? Yeah, that's a good question. I'm not actually sure what the political dynamic is here, whether the administration just thinks they're not going to back off of Minneapolis because they have the Somali issue there or they can paint Minneapolis as more liberal. I don't think that the legal tactics were all that different.

I think we're just going to see how Minneapolis plays out with these lawsuits. I don't know. And I think the big wild card is whether he's going to invoke the Insurrection Act and send the military there, which is obviously going to another legal fight. But that's a good question. And I'm not sure that there are that money different in the tactics. It may be just more the reaction in the administration. I don't know.

So we will see. It's been about a week since President Trump threatened the Insurrection Act. We will see if he follows through. Lee, let's now turn to the case you're working on all 17 active status judges from the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals heard arguments yesterday in the ACLU's lawsuit against president. Trump's use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport migrants. The administration argues only the president can determine what an invasion is, and therefore he has broad use of the law to remove people at will.

So, Lee, you argued this case against the Trump administration. Just briefly remind viewers how they're using it to justify their tactics and tell us what you argued. Yeah, so this is really an extraordinary situation. I think if the administration gets away with this, basically anything goes. This is a law passed in 1798, which basically says when we're at war, we can make everybody from the other country, even if they're lawfully here, a quote-unquote enemy alien, detain them, remove them, take their property. So it's only supposed to be used during war. And not surprisingly, we've only used it three times in our country's history.

the war of 1812, World War I and World War II, where we made everyone from those warring countries and enemy alien. The Trump, but we're going to use it for the fourth time in the country's history, and you have to show that there's been either a declared war, obviously there's no declared war against Venezuela, or an invasion or incursion. We're going to say there's been an invasion or incursion by a drug gang, and they have some connection to the former head of Venezuela, Maduro, and therefore invoke this extraordinary power, again, for only the fourth time in our country's history. And even more, what they told the

Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals is whatever the president essentially declares as an invasion or incursion, even if it's just drug smuggling by a gang, the courts can't second guess that. And so if this is allowed, basically the president can declare an invasion or incursion whatever he wants. He's even saying that it's just not even drug smuggling, it's migration constitutes an invasion unlocking these war powers. So we prevailed originally. The full court, the 17 judges now heard it yesterday. We'll see what happens. But ultimately, the Supreme Court has said nobody can remove them to this extraordinary law until it comes back to the Supreme Court. So I suspect that's where it's headed fairly soon. As you say, the argument is that the Venezuelan state

backs this gang that's doing harm to the United States of America, but as I'm sure you've raised in court, there was a declassified CIA memo that said that was not the case, that it was not, in fact, the Maduro regime backing that gang. Fascinating. We'll keep close tabs on it. Deputy Director for the ACLU Immigrants Rights Project, Lee, Galern. Lee, thanks so much for being here. We appreciate it. And an update on that video of U.S. citizen Chong Li Tao being forcibly removed from his St. Paul, Minnesota home with ICE officers pulling him into the street wearing nothing but shorts and a blanket despite the freezing temperatures there. Immigration enforcement claims he was detained as part of a raid looking for two criminals

they thought lived in his home. A DHS spokesperson put out on social media a pair of wanted posters for alleged sex offenders. But it turns out one of ICE's named targets of that raid is already in custody, serving time in a Minnesota prison since 2024. The bulwark and local news station KSTP report the Department of Corrections has confirmed the man's identity and he's expected to be placed into ICE custody upon his release from state prison.