Morning Joe - Morning Joe 6/13/25

Episode Date: June 13, 2025

Israel launches major attack on Iran, striking nuclear sites and killing top commanders

Moments ago, Israel launched Operation Rising Lion, a targeted military operation to roll back the Iranian threat to Israel's very survival. This operation will continue for as many days as it takes to remove this threat. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, last night delivering a statement on strikes against Iran. We'll bring you the very latest from the Middle East as those attacks are believed to have killed some of Iran's top military leaders and prompted retaliatory strikes on Israel. Also ahead, we'll go through legal fight for control over California's National Guard troops, with more ICE protests expected through the weekend. Plus an update on the breaking news during our show yesterday. That plane crash in India that killed all but one person on board the jet and several people on the ground.

We'll have much more about that sole survivor and what happened here. Good morning. Welcome to Morning Joe. It is a very busy Friday, June 13th with us, the co-host of our fourth hour, contributing writer at the Atlantic, Jonathan Lemire, U.S. special correspondent for BBC News and host of the Rest Is Politics podcast, Cady Kay, President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations Richard Haas, and columnist and associate editor for the Washington Post, David Ignatius.

Good morning to you all. Let's get right to the breaking news out of the Middle East. Israel's military says Iran launched more than 100 drones targeting Israel after the Israelis carried out what it called a precise and coordinated preemptive strike targeting Iran's nuclear program. Israel's defense forces say its opening wave of attacks hit dozens of military installations, including nuclear sites across multiple regions in Iran, killing Iran's most senior military official and two other leaders.

Now, Iranian state media is reporting a new round of Israeli strikes near an air base and an airport. In a video message posted to social media, Israel's military chief said the operation was launched because, quote, Israel could not wait another moment to act. In Washington, Secretary of State Marco Rubio described Israel's strikes as unilateral, emphasizing the United States is not involved. He added the Trump administration has taken steps to protect American forces and remains in close contacts with regional allies.

Secretary Rubio concluded his statement warning Iran, quote, let me be clear, Iran should not target U.S. interests or personnel. Let's bring in NBC News Chief International Correspondent Keir Simmons live this morning in Dubai. Keir, what more can you tell us about the latest on these strikes? Well, this does look like the most substantial attack by Israel against Iran. They're talking about 200 Israeli aircraft involved in the attacks, releasing videos of strikes on Iranian defences that were happening simultaneously as these munitions rained down not just on Tehran, the capital, though many, many sites there in Tehran, but also around the country. More than

10 locations were hit and according to the Israelis and according to the Iranians, there were strikes on military bases as well as nuclear facilities, as well as military leaders, as you mentioned, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, for example, killed in these in this what it looks like now is a first wave of attacks. There are images of thick black smoke rising from the Natanz nuclear facility and an Iranian state reporter appears in front of it a few hours later to say that the attack happened around 4.15 in the morning Iranian time. There are images of really suburban locations, apartment buildings

in flames at night and then still burning in the daytime. The Israelis are talking about this as an attack on the existential threat from Iran. So implicitly, not simply Iran's nuclear capability, but its entire infrastructure, its entire military infrastructure, its ability to threaten Israel, if you like. As you mentioned, we then got reports just in recent hours of around more than 100 UAVs, drones from Iran heading towards Israel. The Israelis say that they have stopped many of those. It's not clear how many might be still heading Israel's way. They do take some time to arrive there. And then the other aspect of this, of course, is that simply hours before this took place, President Trump was indicating that he still wanted the Iran nuclear issue to be addressed by diplomatic means, while indicating that the US was aware that this

strike would take place. He all but urged Israel not to do this. There are going to be more attacks. That's quite clear. We're hearing, as you mentioned now, of another wave from Israel. Prime Minister Netanyahu being clear that this is part of an ongoing operation, not just an overnight one off. And just to set the table a little bit, I guess, really, the question

has always been when this has been talked about is whether Israel has the capability to take out, if you like, Iran's nuclear facilities, Iran's nuclear program comprehensively enough to stop it, or whether that would need the support of the US, the US, particularly US munitions, and whether an attack like this would prompt Iran to, if you like, race towards nuclear capability. Those questions are all still out there as we look at these images of multiple places in Iran burning today. Keir, stay with us. I want to turn to David Ignatius as well.

David, obviously this was a targeted attack on, as Kyr says, the nuclear program, top two nuclear scientists killed, Israel says, in these attacks, but also on the military leadership of the IRGC, the commander in chief, another top leader of the IRGC taken out in this strike as well. This is something that had been sort of signaled for the last couple of days. People talking about this and how the United States would handle it, distancing itself, at least rhetorically saying the United States had nothing to do with this. What do you take away from what we know so far about these strikes?

So Willie, what strikes me initially when we have such limited information is that this looks like a decapitation strike against Iran, similar to the decapitation of Hezbollah in Lebanon, where there's a deliberate attempt to target and assassinate the senior leadership. The top three military officials appear to have been killed. If you look at the photos and video that we have, you can see very precise targeting. Certain floors of buildings, but not the building as a whole, have been hit, indicating very precise intelligence. There are also reports that Iran was using drones brought into Iran, excuse me, Israel is using drones brought into Iran to be as

precise as possible, not ballistic missile or aircraft strikes. The second thing that strikes me is that the United States position so far is not what I've ever seen in any conflict that involves Israel to this degree with Iran or other adversaries. The United States is standing back, is saying this is Israel's unilateral action, seems still interested in having a diplomatic meeting, Steve Wittkopf meeting on Sunday in Oman with the Iranian foreign minister. So it does still seem as if President Trump hopes that he can pull from this conflict some kind of nuclear agreement with with Iran. That seems increasingly less likely to me as the death toll rises. And a final point I'd make, so far

in these early hours the Iranian response has been fairly limited. Israel had hoped that its previous attacks had so destroyed Iran's base of air defense and ballistic missiles that its ability to retaliate would be limited. We may be watching that, and as we see 200 Israeli planes go in for what are described as five different waves of sorties over Tehran and other cities. It may be that the Iranian air defenses have in fact been compromised so severely by Israel that Israel can operate it well. Yeah, Iran's military may be compromised.

Also, now its leadership apparently decimated, so maybe leading to some confusion there in Tehran as to what to do for a response. We know that President Trump did not want this. He warned off Prime Minister Netanyahu back in April when Israel was planning an attack then. Israel listened. He has in recent weeks still been pushing a diplomatic solution. We're told Prime Minister Netanyahu told President Trump when they had a call on Monday that

an attack was possible. That's in part why the U.S. moved personnel out of the region in anticipation of a response. And that, as David just noted, the Secretary of State's statement made clear that this was Israel's decision. There's a unilateral move. And we just now have heard from President Trump for the first time. Last night after the attack happened, he left the congressional picnic early at the White House, met with national security officials.

He's just taken a true social just a couple moments ago. It is a very Iran-focused post. I'll read a little bit of it. I gave Iran chance after chance to make a deal. I told them in the strongest of words to just do it. But no matter how hard they tried, no matter how close they got, they just couldn't get it done. I told them that it would be much worse than anything they knew, anticipated or were told

that the United States makes the best military equipment in the world and Israel has a lot of it. Certain Iranian hardliners, he goes on to say, spoke bravely, but they didn't know what was about to happen. They're all dead now and it will only get worse. And then he goes on to say that even after this attack, that bigger attacks are coming, more brutal, in his words, more brutal attacks, presumably from Israel, are coming and that Iran should make a deal before they happen.

So Richard, the president of the United States here still pushing for a diplomatic solution to this. I don't know how likely that is now in the wake of what we saw last night, but start by talking to us about that relationship. The sort of, I mean, Prime Minister Netanyahu did not listen to President Trump. It would appear in these attacks. At the same time, it does sort of defy belief that Israel would just do this almost on its

own without at least some sort of blessing from the US. It's not clear whether they got it. And I guess as part of that, when we're all going to be watching, when Iran does hit back, does the U.S. actively participate in Israel's defense as it has in the past? Well, a couple of things. Let's just unpack this a little bit. Yeah. Israel described this as a quote unquote preemptive strike on Iran. It was not. This is a preventive strike. Big difference under international law, diplomacy. This was against a gathering Iranian threat. There was no imminent plan for Iran, say, to launch anything nuclear against Israel,

because they don't have that capacity. So let's just put this in context. Second of all, Israel clearly gave the United States a heads up. And what seems to me, Jonathan, is the United States acquiesced. Look, I've been in government when we've given Israel red lights. I've been in government when we gave Israel yellow lights or green lights. This was somewhere between a yellow and a green light, in the sense when the United States says, we're going to withdraw our personnel from the region and so forth.

There was no red light here. So again, Israel acted on its own, but the United States essentially said, if you want to do this, it's one way or another. We were saying, it's okay by us if you do this. If President Trump wanted to have stopped this attack, he could have. It's that simple, given the importance of the U.S. relationship to Israel. The idea that now you could get diplomacy restarted, I think it's fanciful. I think it's fanciful.

I think what the Iranians are going to do in the short run is look at various types of retaliation. Drone thing is small. I think the most interesting thing is whether they go regional, whether they go against, for example, some of the Arab countries or something like that. I don't know. Whether they do terrorism. They've also got time on their side.

As we've seen in the past, Iranian retaliation doesn't have to be instant. The other big issue is whether they try to reconstitute their nuclear program much more underground. One of the big Iranian facilities seems to have been left out of the Israeli attack, as best I know, which is Fordow. That's one of the two places where the Iranians produce and store enriched uranium, deep, deep, deep underground. So this might be something we have to think about not as an attack, but Israel will launch a campaign, and Iran will have both a retaliatory campaign and a reconstitution effort over time.

So this might be something we don't look at as in hours, but this could play out over months or even years. Kiya, dig into that a little bit more, what that retaliation could look like, given that Iran's proxies in the region have been damaged recently in Syria, in Lebanon, even in Yemen. What are the other options that they have in front of them? You're based in the Gulf there. Is that something that could come into play? We've seen the Gulf states oppose this attack. Are they nervous now that there could be some kind of retaliation

potentially against them or against the 50,000-odd American troops that are based in the region? Yeah, I mean, no question they're going to be nervous and not far from here, of course, are the Houthis in Yemen, who do in principle have the capability to turn their missiles on the Gulf. Iran, of course, is just across the water from here. So yes, without doubt, there is that risk. That will be one of the reasons why you are here in the Gulf States and the Saudi Foreign Minister, as an example, condemning this attack by Israel. It should be said that the Gulf countries have shifted their position, particularly the UAE here

in the Saudis, have shifted their position over kind of relatively recent years towards wanting to play a diplomatic role with Iran rather than confronting Iran. There are reports from Jordan that Jordan has shot down some of those drones from Iran targeting Israel on the basis that they were risking Jordanian sovereign territory, but that may be viewed by the Iranians as effectively Jordan defending Israel. So these are very, very delicate times. We don't know really to the point that was being well made by Richard Haass and others there just a moment ago.

We don't know honestly exactly how capable the Iranians are at this stage in terms of their ability to retaliate. And I would just point make another point, you know, you know, Cassie, sorry, it's that the UN nuclear watchdog, just hours before this attack, ruled that Iran wasn't meeting its nuclear obligations, its obligations to have full view, for example, to that watchdog of what it was doing. And that's important because the debate is, of course, about whether the Iranians were trying to reach for nuclear capability anyway. There will be those who will argue today that this will push them more towards nuclear capability. There will be others arguing that that's the path they're on.

And as the Israelis say, that's why the Israelis say we had no choice. NBC's Keir Simmons reporting for us this morning from Dubai. Keir, thanks so much as always. We're going to continue this conversation on the other side of a brief 90-second break. How imminent is an Israeli strike on Iran? Well I don't want to say imminent, but it looks like it's something that could very well happen. Look, it's very simple, not complicated.

Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. Other than that, I want them to be successful. I want them to be tremendous. We'll help them be successful. That was President Trump at the White House, obviously, before these Israeli strikes yesterday. So David Ignatius, let's pick up our conversation. Marco Rubio, as you pointed out a few minutes ago, putting out that statement distancing the United States, saying this was a unilateral attack by Israel on Iran, that the United

States had nothing to do with it. Jonathan Lemire just reported the statement this morning from President Trump suggesting he did get a phone call, had a heads up. What do you make of how much or how little the United States was involved in this? So for the moment, it appears that the most that could be said of the US is that we acquiesced

in this Israeli action. I don't see any evidence in contrast to last October when the US CENTCOM actively, decisively helped defeat Iranian missile and drone attacks on Israel, that there's anything like that kind of coordinated response. In recent weeks, it seemed to me that there's almost a three-way game of chicken going on between President Trump, Israel, and Iran about the threat Israel's making to take out the nuclear facilities, the effort Trump is making, which threatens Israel's interest to negotiate with Iran, and Iran leaning in both directions

hard and soft. And I think finally Israel just decided it wasn't prepared to wait for US diplomacy, that US diplomacy in a way was threatening to Israel, that we were about to make some kind of deal with the country they consider their biggest enemy. And I think that's something to keep in mind. This was a threatening process for Israel. So we'll have to see whether the President Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff, goes ahead with his plan to meet with an Iranian representative on Sunday in Oman. That seems very unlikely to me at a

time when Tehran, as we see from these pictures, smoke is coming out of buildings that have been bombed, but you never can be sure. Come back to what I said at the beginning. The essence of the strike, from what we can see so far, is an attack on the Iranian leadership, the military leadership, the heads of the army, the IRGC, the top two scientists. Not an attack on the nuclear facilities themselves so far. Several of them have escaped attacks. So again, it looks to me like what Israel did in Lebanon.

And we remember that that campaign continued for many, many days. And that may be a sign of what's ahead here. To David's point about this attack, The New York Times puts it this way this morning, a remarkable coup of intelligence and military force that immediately decapitated Tehran's chain of command. So Richard Haass, let's talk about what comes next. Obviously, this is a loud attack that got the attention of the world this morning. Pardon Mr. Netanyahu,ahu says there is more to come.

We will go, he says, for as many days as it takes. What is your read about what that means? As many days as it takes to do what? To destroy their nuclear capabilities? What is the aim here for Israel? Well, the phase of going after the Iranian military and nuclear personnel, I think, is probably over, because you no longer have surprise. Israel seems to have already pretty much degraded Iranian air defenses.

So what's left is a number of facilities and installations associated with the nuclear program. I obviously haven't seen damage assessments of places like Natanz, not far from Tehran, which is one of the main facilities. You've got various reactors around the countries. As I mentioned before, you've got this large underground hard-to-reach facility at Fordow. So it could be that the Israelis will have a kind of open-ended campaign along their own time schedule, not rushed.

They'll attack, they'll do assessment. if need be they'll attack some more. There's still going to be limits, I think, on what they can accomplish. And that's why, again, I think this could play out over a long amount of time, where Iran then can choose the means and locations of its retaliation. And then also Iran's going to have to make some big decisions, not just about reconstituting their leadership, which has been devastated here, not just about reconstituting their leadership, which has been devastated here, but also about reconstituting their nuclear program. And one of the arguments, again, that's historically been raised against Israel doing this type of a preventive strike

is that Iran would be the recipient of a degree of international sympathy and would basically say, we tried to work it out diplomatically, it didn't work, so now we're going to underground do our own program in ways that Israel can't reach. I'm not necessarily predicting that, but I don't think we should look at this really that somehow this issue now is quote unquote solves. I think this is more yet another kind of point of punctuation along a long road here that has been playing out for some time.

And to Richard's point about watching for the next steps from both Iran and Israel, we also of course have to watch Washington. President Trump has made clear he does not want conflict. He wants wars to end and end quickly. We're seeing that, of course, in Ukraine. We're seeing that in Gaza. We're seeing that in the Middle East. That's what he says with his rhetoric, that very few actions have led that to happen.

We should make that clear. It seems like for now the US is as say, maybe they acquiesced to this attack, but they're standing on the sidelines, they're stressing, they were not intimately involved. The president, again, just a few moments ago, saying he still hopes for a diplomatic solution to bring this conflict to a close. You've also seen as what happens when there's violence in the Middle East, oil prices already starting to rise this morning. And Willie, we also should look at the relationship

between President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu, one that was very close in Trump's first term, but has grown rather strained here in recent months. President, of course, skipped Israel on his recent Middle East visit. He was able to talk Netanyahu out of a strike back in the spring. That didn't happen this time around.

Netanyahu has showed a willingness to defy, defy President Biden at times, seemingly maybe doing so again here with President Trump. So we'll need to watch that relationship. What kind of conversations, what kind of meetings perhaps do these two men have as Washington tries to chart its next steps in what is obviously now a situation that for a lot of people raises fears of a wider war? And we heard President Trump just a minute ago in that clip saying explicitly Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.

That appears to be the mission pursued now as of this morning by Israel as well. Richard Haass, David Ignatius, great to have you both on on such an important morning. Thank you. Still ahead on Morning Joe, we're bringing the latest out of California where an appeals court delivered a late night ruling granting the Trump administration temporary control of the National Guard troops deployed to Los Angeles. Plus, we'll show you the moment a United States Senator was forcibly removed from a press conference with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. And a reminder, the Morning Joe podcast is

available every weekday featuring our full conversations and analysis. You can listen wherever you get your podcasts. You're watching Morning Joe on a Friday morning. Parts of Downingos are under another night of curfew restrictions as Mayor Karen Bass tries to clamp down on the vandalism and protests in the city. The Los Angeles Police Department reported 78 arrests overnight for charges including failure to disperse and curfew violations. Crowd also reported throwing concrete and commercial grade fireworks at officers, but there were no reports of arrests for vandalism or looting.

Thousands of National Guard troops remain stationed throughout the city. Today, a battalion of 700 Marines is expected to arrive there in L.A. Meanwhile, a federal appeals court has ruled the Trump administration can maintain control of those troops in California. The late night ruling reverses the lower court judge's order. The federal judge had told the administration to return control of the National Guard to Governor Gavin Newsom earlier in the day, but the Trump administration quickly filed an appeal, resulting in a temporary pause of the National Guard to Governor Gavin Newsom earlier in the day. But the Trump administration quickly filed an appeal, resulting in a temporary pause

of the lower court's ruling. The appeals court will hold a hearing on the matter next week. Governor Newsom has opposed President Trump's decision to deploy the troops, arguing the presence of militarized law enforcement only intensifies protests and raises the possibility of conflict. Joining us now, MSNBC legal correspondent, former litigator Lisa Rubin, New York Times opinion columnist David French, the president of Voto Latino Foundation, Maria Teresa Kumar,

and Rogers Chair in the American presidency at Vanderbilt University, historian John Meacham. Good morning to you all. Lisa, let me begin with you. Kind of a quick back and forth for people having trouble keeping up in the courts yesterday about who gets to control these National Guard troops. Can you kind of walk us through what happened and where it sits this morning? So Willie, yesterday late at night, maybe about eight o'clock last night, Judge Charles

Breyer, he is a federal judge sitting in San Francisco. And if the name sounds familiar, it is because he is also the brother of retired Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer. He ruled last night that the single statute that Trump used to justify bringing in the National Guard had three predicates to it and that Trump didn't meet any of them in calling in the National Guard. Therefore, the use and deployment of the Guard in Los Angeles based on Trump's June 7th memo is unlawful. And he temporarily restrained them from using the Guard,

saying that the control of the California National Guard and there are 4,000 of them that have been called up has to be returned to Governor Gavin Newsom. Later last night, not even two hours later, the Ninth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals put a temporary pause on that order, as you said. That means that in effect nothing is changed and won't be changed at least until next Tuesday when that Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals meets to hear argument as to whether Judge Breyer's temporary restraining order should or should not be honored. One of the things that might have been going through that

appeals courts had last night in granting the stay and they didn't really write an opinion they just said we're going to grant this temporary pause here is when briefs are due. One of the things they may have been thinking about is trying to prevent further chaos by pulling back the National Guard, returning them to Newsom, who clearly would have sent them home, saying the LAPD and the L.A. Sheriff had this well in hand. That could have made for a chaotic situation if the Ninth Circuit then reversed it. And so one of the things they may have been trying to do last night is just preserve what is a status quo right now, particularly given that Judge Breyer also found last night that it's too speculative to say that the use of the guard to date violates the Posse Comitatus

Act. That's the federal statute that prohibits using military troops for civilian law enforcement. So President Trump has not yet invoked the Insurrection Act, though he and his aides have certainly started to use that word a little bit, perhaps just dangling it out there in case they decide to go that route. So outside of that, just big picture and taking politics out of it and how many Americans feel about troops being in the streets of an American city. Is the president, is the Trump administration at this point on solid legal ground by sending those National Guard troops in?

Can they do it right now? Yes. Should they do it based on the reasoning of this decision? I would argue no. It's a really thorough decision. And Willie, it's a clever one because it's set up to withstand appeal. One of the things that Judge Breyer does in his opinion is he credits all the facts that the Trump administration offered him.

Essentially, he says, look, I don't dispute that every mango that was chucked at law enforcement officers, every firework, every piece of concrete that you say was thrown at ICE officers, that that happened. And yet, notwithstanding that, you weren't in your authority because this doesn't constitute a rebellion and you haven't shown that you were thoroughly unable to execute the laws of the United States. Just having an impediment to your execution of immigration laws isn't what the statute demands. So could Donald Trump continue to send National Guard to other places in the country by mimicking the order that he sent down

last weekend? Sure. But do I think this will ultimately withstand judicial scrutiny? I wouldn't necessarily bet so. And so the Trump administration may be thinking about that over the coming days, wanting to see how this plays out in Los Angeles, or alternatively, they may deploy national guardsmen in other areas of the country where we're seeing protest activity ratchet up. The one other thing that I want to bring to your and our viewers attention is that Judge Breyer notes that the federalization, and I'm reading from the opinion of 4,000 members of California's National Guard,

Nass, I'm sorry, I'm reading from the wrong portion of what I wanted to read to you. He's talking about the overreach. He's saying that federal overreach risks instigating the very behavior that the federal government fears. To put a finer point on it, the federal government cannot be permitted to exceed its bounds, and in doing so, create the very emergency conditions To put a finer point on it, the federal government cannot be permitted to exceed its bounds and

in doing so, create the very emergency conditions that it then relies on to justify federal intervention. That's a warning, I think, to the Trump administration. Don't go too far right now. You might not have gone far enough to violate the Posit Comitatus Act, but if you overreach here, you will be responsible for ratcheting up the protest activity such that it reaches a fervor and a point that it hasn't reached before you got involved. And by the way, that's the exact case that Governor Newsom has made, which is the LAPD's

got this. We don't need troops in the street, perhaps escalating things. MSNBC legal correspondent Lisa Rubin. Thanks so much, Lisa. You can check out Lisa's show, How Can They Do That on MSNBC's YouTube channel. So while all that's going on in the streets, Democratic Senator Alex Padilla of California was handcuffed and removed from a news conference in Los Angeles yesterday after he tried to ask a question of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem during a media event about the issue of immigration. A dozen violent criminals that you're rotating on your... On your...

Hands up! On the ground. On the ground. On the ground. Hands behind your back. Hands behind your back. Leave your hands going! Alright, alright, alright. Cool. Lay flat. Lay flat. Other right, all right. Cool. Hey, with one hand, lay flat, lay flat. Other hand, sir. Other hand. There's no recording loud out here.

Let's go ahead and back in, sir. All right, I did not know there was no recording loud out here. Again, that's a United States senator. Senator from California. On the ground with his hands behind his back being handcuffed. That video you just saw shared with NBC News by the Senator's office. Senator Padilla told reporters he was waiting for a scheduled briefing for military officials

when he learned Secretary Noem was in the same building. He then decided to enter her briefing. Here's what he said after the incident. I was there peacefully. At one point I had a question. And so I began to ask a question. I was almost immediately forcibly removed from the room. I was forced to the ground.

And I was handcuffed. I was not arrested. If this is how this administration responds to a senator with a question, if this is how the Department of Homeland Security responds to a senator with a question, you can only imagine what they're doing to farm workers, to cooks, to day laborers out in the Los Angeles community and throughout California and throughout the country. Now, Secretary Noem offered a different account of what happened. During an interview on Fox News, she claimed Padilla did not identify himself.

You heard him identify himself. Let's hear what she said. We were conducting a press conference to update everyone on the enforcement actions that are ongoing to bring peace to the city of Los Angeles and this man burst into the room started lunging towards the podium interrupting me and elevating his voice and was stopped did not identify himself and was removed from the room so as soon as he identified himself, appropriate actions were taken.

But I would say that I had a conversation with the senator after this. We sat down for 10 to 15 minutes and talked about the fact that nobody knew who he was. He didn't say who he was until he already had been lunging forward. And people were trying to detain him for quite a period of time.

So the argument from Secretary Noem and from many others in the Trump administration that looked to them like some random guy charging the podium, clearly as you heard in the video we played, he identified himself as Senator Padilla. Let's listen again. I have a question for the secretary. Secret service officials tell NBC News they interviewed the senator after the incident, quickly determined he had no intention to harm the secretary and was not charged. So Maria Teresa Kumar, obviously that is a very jarring scene to see a United States Senator forcibly removed,

thrown to the ground and handcuffed and arrested. What do you make of what we saw there? I mean, you can quibble with his tactics perhaps that he shouldn't have charged in there maybe, but he clearly identified himself. What do you make of what we saw yesterday? Well, I think first of all, he didn't charge. He was asking questions, but let's take a step back, Willie.

Let's assume that she did not hear himself identify himself. How many times have we witnessed leaders at a podium, whether we're talking about Senator McCain, whether we were talking about Bush, whether we're talking about Obama, even Senator, Secretary Mayorkas. How many times have they been in a place where they are heckled at the podium and they do what is right, what leaders do? They de-escalate the situation.

They basically say, you know what, I can't take your question now, but perhaps afterwards. That is the job of a leader. You have Secretary Noem, who is charged with 250,000 agents around the country, and she cannot de-escalate a basic press conference. Instead, it has to go to the maximum where they have to handcuff a sitting senator. That actually goes to a broader issue. Is she the right person for this job?

Does she understand that right now, if she cannot control press conference, how can we make sure that there are not going to be rogue ICE agents, rogue folks that are going to interfere and violate people's constitutional rights simply because she does not have the authority or the ability to actually rein her in? I believe that there was someone from the White House

that called her and said, you know what, you really messed up right now, you have to go now sit down and talk to the Senator. I have to tell you that I have known Alex Padilla for a very long time. In his character, he is someone that has stayed. This is perhaps the most excited I've ever seen him. And in part is because he is someone

that is very methodical, very thoughtful in the way he actually engages with his community. And he was there simply doing his job. He asked a simple question. He was in a federal building where he had to go through

security. He was escorted by security into that conference room. So I do think that the question is much larger. Did the folks are saying, well, what did the Secret Service do? They were doing their job. But her job at the podium as the head of ICE is to de-escalate

situations and she absolutely failed. Yes, certainly a more talented politician could have used that moment even deftly to talk, even make a talking point or at the very least de-escalate it. Two pieces of audio from that clip we played earlier that should be worth repeating. Willie did one already. Senator Patia clearly identified himself. The other, as the staffer follows the fracas into the hallway and is told by an agent, you can't record here, you can't record here.

It's a news conference. Everyone was recording there. This is a United States senator. This is a co-equal branch of government trying to ask a question of the administration. That is part of the job description. And he is pushed out of the room, manhandled, pushed to the ground, handcuffed. David French, this feels like more. There's more going on here.

This is not just a misunderstanding at a news conference. This feels like too many, like a sign of bad things to come. You just wrote recently about how you feel like America is no longer a stable country in part of everything we've seen in Los Angeles this past week. We'll add this moment to that where, again, a member of the legislative branch tries to ask a question of the executive branch and for that David, that person is thrown to the ground and briefly handcuffed. You know, look, even if you thought this person was just a member of the public who was interrupting, just trying to be disruptive and interrupt, I can see pushing them out

of the room, but then putting them down on the ground and handcuffing them as if they've broken the law, add into this that then the spin afterwards was just a lie. I have not seen any video, and I've yet to see any video, that shows a lunge towards the secretary. He clearly identifies himself. Here you have a situation where they put him in handcuffs when you absolutely had no need to do that at all, even if they genuinely thought he was just a member of the public interrupting. Then, when this becomes public, you put out a statement that is incredibly

easily disprovable, and you make arguments that are just disprovable from the tape. This is yet another example of when we have a conflict in this country right now, and you have two branching paths. One is towards de-escalation, and the other one is towards escalation. This administration is taking that escalation path every single time, especially when it comes to its domestic political opponents. This is fraying the stability of this country. As this was happening, you're also seeing reports on Twitter of these shouting matches on the House floor, people screaming at each other. When you're reading about flashpoints in American history, where America starts to feel as if it's coming off the rails, you will have the personal conflicts that are online that are around the nation start to spill into the halls of power.

And we're just seeing this and time and again, they're choosing to escalate, not de-escalate. John, talk about that a little bit more, because I keep hearing from members of Congress that something that is new at the moment since the second Trump administration is that there is a level of violence implied towards members of Congress. They say to me, look, it's not just that I'm feeling under threat. It's also that, you know, my family might be feeling under threat. What are you hearing about how much more threats of violence there are and how this kind of incident doesn't calm things down, but it provokes people to more violence?

Oh, you're exactly right. I mean, almost all public officials, including perhaps most frighteningly judges who are supposed to be the umpires, who are supposed to be part of the field but have a certain authority, are in an, I don't want to say an unprecedented threat environment, to use that term of art, but it is a real, tactile sense of menace in the country. And I think what David has written about so well is really well, our point's really well taken.

Part of what's happened, I think, Kay, is, well, first of all, the historical point you asked about, the last time it was this bad, not to shake everybody's Friday morning even more than it's already shaken, given what's going on, was the pre-Civil War period, where you had an extraordinary amount of political violence. And we know how the 1850s turned out. And so these are signs of a deeper condition within the country, which is a fraying, I believe, of a kind of consensus, not about policy, but about politics not as total war, but as a mediation of differences. That's what a democracy,

that's what a constitutional system should be. And the prevalence of violence is useful to, politically useful for, in this case, the administration, and very dangerous. And I always hate the phrase both sides, both sides, everyone needs to take a deep breath. Everyone needs to remember that what makes America truly great is the rule of law, is the capacity of the country to resolve crises, to resolve issues through the courts, through the legislative process, through the means and mediation of politics.

And this prevalence of violence is a sign that we are not living up to that covenant. And it was fascinating to watch yesterday. Clearly someone is in President Trump's ear about the impact of this mass deportation operation. Yesterday, now he's saying he will take action to protect certain undocumented workers, particularly those working on farms and the hospitality service. Take a look. Our farmers are being hurt badly by, you know, they have very good workers. They've worked for them for 20 years.

They're not citizens, but they've turned out to be great. And we're going to have to do something about that. We can't take farmers and take all their people and send them back because they don't have maybe what they're supposed to have, maybe not. And you know what's going to happen and what is happening? They get rid of some of the people because, you know, you go have maybe not and you know, what's gonna happen and what is happening they get rid of some of the people because you know you go into a farm and you look and People don't they've been there for 20 25 years and they've worked great and the owner of the farm loves them and everything else And then you're supposed to throw them out and you know what happens

They end up hiring the people the criminals that have come in the murderers from prisons and everything else So we're we're gonna have have an order on that pretty soon, I think. We can't do that to our farmers and leisure too, hotels. We're going to have to use a lot of common sense on that. Maria Teresa Kumar, he's making the explicit case against his mass deportation rate that so many people have been making now for years and years and years and certainly in the last few weeks as this has escalated, which is he sees the value in certain undocumented workers to the American economy. Well, Willie, let's, I mean, it's almost as if you didn't get the very first memo. The majority of undocumented folks have lived in the United

States for over a decade and a half, over a decade and a half. The majority of them are absolutely good citizens. They pay tens of billions of dollars just in state tax. When we start talking about federal tax and we talk about social security, if there's a person right now who's receiving a social security check, think an undocumented immigrant because the reason that social security is solvent is because of their hard labor. My hope is that the president has cooler heads and actually recognizes that his policy is failing. I have to tell you that I am constantly feeling not just videos

of documented people in the fields running away, but then we're also seeing member we're seeing U.S. citizens getting caught in the dragnet. We're seeing U.S. citizen children getting deported. He has put this on the place of the American people, and it's time for us not only to fight back, to call our members of Congress and say that this is not tenable, but it's also

tearing communities apart, and it's impacting every single person. My hope is, is that he does proceed, that he does protect individuals that have been here for at least 10 years, and grants them go a step further.

Grant them, you know, they've been paying taxes as long as they're abide by the law. Make sure that there's a pathway to citizenship. On Saturday, we're going to be celebrating 13 years of DACA, the Dreamers. Some of these Dreamers, Willie, they're grandparents. That's how long they've been waiting. And these are individuals that have been able to demonstrate every single checks and balance that they are incredible contributors to our society. But I also want to take a step back. We should also recognize not only

and appreciate the immigrants, not only for what they're able to contribute to our economy, but also recognize their dignity and their humanity. The reason that our economy was able to stay afloat during the pandemic and post-pandemic and why Wall Street was rallying was because of the sacrifices of these essential workers. And one something Willie, my grandmother always says, when someone gives so much to you,

the least we can do is be grateful. And the documented, the undocumented community right now is living in fear. There's not one person that I do not talk to that is not afraid to drop their kids off at school. For Mother's Day, I was talking to a young mother. I said, well, what did you do? She said, I didn't do anything. We stayed home. When we talk about the impact that we're having is the conversations that parents have to tell to their children of what happens in the event

that they don't come back home. In the event they don't come back from home, home from work. These are real conversations and there's no reason that the President of the United States should actually be presiding around such great fear. Instead, I encourage him to use this podium of leadership, sign a pen and say, hey, let's actually talk seriously about creating pathways for citizenship and making sure that these

folks that have been here at least 10 years that are grandfathered in and do right by the DREAMers. And by the way, that sentiment is exactly what Senator Padilla was trying to give voice to at that news conference yesterday. President of Voto Latino Foundation, Maria Teresa Kumar, thanks so much for being with us this morning. President Trump's military parade is set to kick off tomorrow in Washington. Opponents of his administration plan to rally in cities across the country in what organizers

are calling No King's Day. Yesterday President Trump was asked about the name of those protests. I don't feel like a king. I have to go through hell to get stuff approved. A king would say, I'm not gonna get this. A king would have never had the California mandate to even be talking to him. He wouldn't have to call up Mike Johnson and Thune

and say, fellas, you gotta pull this off. And after years, we get it done. No, no, we're not a king. We're not a king at all. Tomorrow's parade is to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army, a worthy day, of course. It also happens to coincide with President Trump's 79th birthday. The event estimated to cost upward of $50 million.

David French, you've been thinking a lot about this and writing about this parade on Saturday. It is to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the United States Army. We all agree that's worthy of celebration. We thank you for your service in the United States Army, recipient of a Bronze Star. But it also does coincide with the president's birthday.

So what do you make of the spectacle we will see tomorrow of those tanks rolling through the streets of Washington? You know, I'm honestly not as worried about this incident as a number of other people have been. I do think celebrating the 250th anniversary of the Army is worth something, certainly. However, the context overall here is what makes this, to the extent that I'm troubled about this, it's the context overall here is what makes this, to the extent that I'm troubled

about this, it's the context overall here. On the one hand, a military parade to honor the 250th anniversary of one of our branches of the military doesn't seem objectionable. On the other hand, he just came from a rally. He turned an appearance in front of the troops into what was hard to distinguish from a political rally with reporting that the troops who were behind him were screened for appearance and potential loyalty to Trump, that those who were not going to be liking what Trump was going to say were not going to be behind him.

And then you have the deployment of troops into Los Angeles on a pretext, an escalation in Los Angeles, really on a pretext, on a violent incident that, though serious, certainly didn't indicate the collapse of California's ability to control its streets. That greater context, I think, is the element that I'm worried about here, not the existence of a parade on the 250th anniversary of the Army, but this larger context of constant escalation, constant escalation, puts a darker tone on it, a darker spin on it. AARON MATEY John Meacham, through the lens of history, how do you look at this parade tomorrow? I go back to the quote from Colonel

Jack Jacobs, our friend, the Medal of Honor recipient. He said, we're not really a tanks in the street kind of country, though, of course, he celebrates the United States Army and its 250th anniversary. But this is something we haven't seen much of in this country. We haven't. And I think David's right, I think we have to make a distinction between commemorating and celebrating the remarkable sacrifices of a quarter of a millennium tradition of the United States Army. As Colin Powell used to say, we've projected force across the seas and all we've ever asked for in return is the ground in which to bury our dead. And so at our best, the American tradition is one where we have projected force to defend

and promulgate in many cases the principles of the Declaration of Independence, the most vital document, the document that the sacred secular scripture, if you will, that animates who we are. And I would suggest to everybody that, whether it's Los Angeles or the parade, whatever it might be, a really good question to ask yourself, is what we're doing as a country at this particular hour fulfilling the implications and the

promise of the declaration, or is it pulling us farther away? And the answer won't always be simple or straightforward, but our finest hours have been the hours in which we have lived into the declaration. And so I think remembering that that's what the United States Army most and best represents and what the country best represents is a good way to get through the weekend. John Meacham, thank you as always. New York Times columnist David French, thank you and happy 250th birthday to the United States Army. Thanks guys.