Today, we have added the Secretary of State, the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, the NASA Administrator, the Head of the Forest Service, and the President's Personal Assistant. We have gone to the big wall and three columns. Anybody else going tonight? There needs to be a new Director of the CIA as well, and now tonight the National Security Advisor is out too. And so, yeah, we're gonna need another wall soon.
Hi again, everybody. Five o'clock in New York. One of the hallmarks of the first Trump administration was our friend and dear colleague Rachel Maddow and her wall, her giant wall, keeping tabs on and listing all of the many, many, many, many people who left the White House under Trump, often under duress, often fired after a blow up.
Many of them unceremoniously fired on Twitter by the ex-president himself for not giving him exactly what he wanted. We show that blast from the past, that time capsule with you because this time, it's not clear that Rachel's gonna need a wall and maybe not win that big because Donald Trump is now surrounding himself with the kind of people who would never have any tension with them, the kind of people who only say yes.
People whose only qualification for the kinds of jobs they're getting are that feature, that fact, that they're loyal only to him, not the Constitution, not the expertise once associated with the agencies they've been tapped to lead. Just take the most recent cabinet pics of Fox News weekend morning show anchor to head the Department of Defense, a former Democratic Congresswoman who publicly spreads Russian talking points.
Lisbon now tapped to lead the nation's spy agencies, and a man who was the target of a year's long federal sex trafficking investigation to lead the Department of Justice. And, of course, the breaking news we just brought you in the last hour, a world-famous anti-vaccine activist Robert Kennedy, Jr., to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.
Of course, the choices still have to come to pass, either bypass Senate confirmation or by some ultimate humiliation of the Republicans in the Senate be confirmed by the Senate. But as the New York Times editorial board writes, quote, Trump clearly expects the Senate to simply roll over.
and ignore its responsibilities, he wants to turn the leaders of major important agencies into his deputies, remaking the federal government into a Trump, Inc. org chart entirely subordinate to him. He recently demanded that the Senate give him the ability to make recess appointments away by passing the Senate's consent process when the chamber is adjourned for 10 days or more.
And it's not just the positions at the top of the agencies that Trump is filling with unqualified yes men and women. He has threatened to purge these departments of civil servants who he believes are not loyal enough to him.
The Republican Party has already demonstrated over the last nine years that they almost always let him have his way with whatever his attention demands. Here's Congressman Troy Nells of Texas yesterday, right after Trump spoke to the House Republican caucus.
Donald Trump is, he was in there. Everybody loves listening to him. He could have sat in there for another hour, two hours, three hours, and we'd all be listening attentively. He's the greatest thing since sliced bread. If Donald Trump says jump three feet high and scratch your head, we all jump three feet high and scratch your heads. That's it.
At least they admit it now, here nine. It is sort of a helpful feature. So we're going to forget about the Constitution, the guiding principle of the country and the Republican Party.
and replace it with Donald Trump. Liz Cheney warned us, we are slow walking into autocracy, although at the rate this week is going, it looks more like we are running. It's where we start the hour with the host of the Rachel Maddow Show right here on MSNBC, New York Times by selling author, my colleague and dear friend, Rachel Maddow's here. Rachel, where does start? You go.
Well, I don't know where to start. I mean, I do feel like, Nicole, that you, maybe more than anyone, has been very clear-eyed about what was coming and about what was being promised here and that there was no reason to expect this to be moderated or normal or that this is going to tack back toward the center or towards anything that looked like traditional American politics. I mean, you did your Autocracy in America series.
Listen, we saw what was going to happen and now it is happening. And so I do feel like this is a moment for people to get real and for people to stop saying like, oh, this is going to end up being much more moderate than anybody expected. When are you going to stop? So when are you going to start apologizing for saying that democracy was threatened? I mean, I think it's time to get real and realize that this is really what we're up against. But I also think the fact that we all feel a little bit
I don't know if Flummox is the right word sort of rocked by the increasing incredulity of these choices is that it is meant to shock us. It's meant to adjust our sense of what is normal, what is possible, and to sort of
so disorient us as to what it counts to propose governance in the United States that we're ready for the most radical pronouncements and actions. And I do think we're supposed to feel the way that we do right now. I think that's part of this. It's a shock and awe campaign against American traditions and mores. And that's, I think, how most of the country feels about it.
I mean, I think to sort of sustain the military analysis, the Iraq war starts with the shock and awe bombing campaign, the war is a catastrophe. I mean, it doesn't connote competence. It doesn't signal that he will succeed in successfully demolishing American democracy. It does mean that we as a press still
every single time chase the shiny object. And this week, the shiny objects are named Matt Gates, Tulsi Gabbard, an RFK junior, next week they'll be named, or maybe by 9 o'clock, they'll be named Steve Bannon and Cash Patel, and they may be running the FBI. Those are the shiny objects. But the movement is propelled by this hatred of the Democratic Party and the media elites, but also a promise, a promise to deliver.
on the economy on immigration. And the people in charge of those two things, one of them is an alleged child's sex trafficker and the other is by her own telling a dog killer. I mean, the competence may be where he gets sort of bollocks stopped.
I think that the idea of the authoritarian promise is that everything shrivels in government other than the will of the leader, right? So you don't necessarily put a Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in charge of HHS because you're hoping for great things from HHS. I mean, Matt Gates, among all the other things we can say about Matt Gates, he has explicitly proposed abolishing
the justice department not specifically just apologize uh... abolishing the the fb i and the a t f but talking about abolishing the justice department i mean tulsi gabbard as the director of national intelligence uh... is
The idea that Tulsi covered in a normal circumstance could get a security clearance to be like a Walmart-style greeter at any US intelligence agency, let alone get past the security barriers, is insane. So you do that because you want the worst for these agencies, because you want the worst for the US government, because you think that the US government is worthless.
That's part of consolidating power to make the U.S. government nothing other than the leader and people who will do what he says. And there are not being any repository of expertise, let alone, you know, just general day to day know-how anywhere.
So, it's a sort of, I mean, as Steve Bannon used to say, it's a sort of Leninist project, right? Destroy the state. This is the cabinet that you nominate, not to run the US government to do anything, but to destroy the US government, so that the US government can be fundamentally reimagined as something much more like a unitary authoritarian or autocratic for lack of a better term system.
What are you looking at as the friction points? I mean, in the first Trump presidency, it was the firing of Jim Comey after he refused to, quote, see to it, to let Mike Flingo let Mike Flingo. Comey says, no. Trump embarks on a four-year-long crusade against the FBI and the Department of Justice. He's, I mean, to your point, Mike Gates is going to be in charge of the department. And then as yet, a named person expected to replace his last hand-picked head of the FBI, Christopher Ray.
He's sort of threatened Jerome Powell who said it's illegal for him to replace me. I mean, where do you expect any friction between Trump 2.0 and the institutions that stand?
Well, the first one is going to happen over the question, not of the appointment of any particular nominee, not of the confirmation process for any particular nominee, but whether there will be a confirmation process for nominees. The first point of confrontation is going to be between Trump and the Republican-controlled Senate. And it's going to be over the basic question of whether or not the Senate has any role in confirming any of these nominees.
Trump will have to go to very arcane, very, very unusual and untested corners of the Constitution and precedent to find any way that he can shut down the House and the Senate himself. He's going to tell Republicans in Congress to shut themselves down.
thus marginalizing themselves as one of the three supposedly co-equal branches of government so that he can set up the executive branch himself without anybody having a say about it now why would you want to do that rather than just have all of your nominees confirmed by the senate which i'm sure the republicans in the senate would be happy to do you want them not to have a role in the confirmation process because you want that legislative branch
You want the legislative branch to go away because what authoritarians do is they consolidate power both within the executive and then in the person of the authoritarian leader. And so that's why it's an advantage to get a recess appointment rather than a Senate confirmed appointment, even if he's guaranteed Senate confirmation for even the craziest of these folks.
And I think that confrontation will be first as to whether or not Congress essentially folds and becomes something like what Troy Nells wants, rather than what the founders intended, which was a co-equal branch of government that has a say in how we run the place.
You've said shriveled twice, so I'm going to go there. We have an alleged child sex trafficker as Trump's pick for DOJ and adjudicated sexual abuser and the president elect himself and a man who believes that a violent marriage is better than a divorce and women should stay into it.
of all the post-election analysis that is undisputed. Joe Rogan's influence is clear, the massive audience. I think I saw somewhere that Trump's interview there was seen by 34 million people, and Vice President Harris's podcast appearances were seen by maybe hundreds of thousands of people.
What role do you think the menosphere influencers have in saying, no, that actually isn't masculinity in America. In the words of a Republican senator, JD Vance, quote, crushed ED medicine, chased it with an energy drink so he could go all night, end quote. I mean, that's the kind of stuff that Republicans are saying about Matt Gaetz.
the pig to be a G. And to your point about shock and awe, I mean, how much can we sort of clinically ask the people who influenced more Americans than maybe anybody else to either own these kinds of men in this definition, in this example of masculinity, or say maybe not?
I don't think you ask those folks for what you're asking. One of the things that we know from looking at the rise of authoritarians in other countries and throughout history is that there's almost always a machismo play. There's almost always a performative masculinity and dominance.
um, sort of pageant that goes along with it. And it's always ridiculous, right? I mean, you get like a schlub, like a burliskoni or you get a schlub, frankly, forgive me, like the whole Trump, um, you know, or you get Robert F. Kennedy is like 160 years old and he's like, juiced to the gills and talking about how to get all the chemicals out of our, out of our food. And it's like, yeah, dude, could you say that with like, I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the biceps.
You know, in your sub is the decade. Yes, I think you just push up. Very poon-esque, though, right? Who also rides horses in the winter without shirts on.
Yes, exactly. It's a very shirtless vibe, despite the type of man who does it. And that's part of it, right? That's their performance of dominance. And that's why there isn't a female dictator who we put in the list of all of these things, right? This is part and parcel of how you sell strongman leadership.
Right? I don't need process. I don't need rules. I don't need traditions. I don't need anybody else who knows anything. I don't know anything, but that's what you love about me because I'm just going to, you know, flex until my shirt sleeves fall off and get it done. And that's part of the, that's the sale.
And so asking guys who have been selling this their whole lives, like Joe Rogan, right? Look at what his career has been up until the point where he got his into his podcast, looking at the people who have themselves been profiting off that kind of salesmanship in terms of what they have to offer. They're all sort of proudly dumb, right? Like, I don't know, but I know I don't know, and I know I could do a better deal. It's all the same stick.
And this goes back to gladiator times. It's been around for a very long time. So no, I don't think those guys are going to have a conscience about it and suddenly decide to cash in against their own monetary interests. I do think that most people
have critical thinking skills, right? And I think that most Americans are capable of answering to our better angels. And so I think there's an alternative to asking people to sign up for the sort of Dana White, Joe Rogan model, a whole cogan model of masculinity. And it's a matter of one side sort of prevailing over the other, not asking the other side to have a conscience.
I still believe that too, that people, if the better angel reaches them when they're home and they're not on their phones, that they can be reached. Why do you think that didn't happen in this election? I don't know. I feel like my electoral politics, antennae, have always been about yay long and not very well tuned. I don't feel like I ever know who's going to win an election or why. But it does feel like some of the
some of the global forces that work here that have caused every governing party in every industrialized democracy to lose in every election that's happened in recent years. I think some of those global forces aren't working here. I also think that America is
is willing to go for the strong man promise. And I think that the same way that it worked in lots of other countries, both in our own time and in previous generations, it worked here for all the reasons that it always works. And it never works because you think that this guy is secretly competent at something that looks like governance. It never wins because you think this guy is going to be more normal than you expected. It wins because this guy says, I'm going to get in there and break everything.
I'm a real man. I'm a strong man. Nobody else's worth anything. I alone can do it. It's the same pitch from every other guy. And why can I alone do it? It's because there's an enemy within and we have to use force and violence against them. And this is an emergency and it's been, you know, we're in decline and we need to make ourselves great again by defeating the enemy within. And we're going to have to be ruthless and crush them. And I can do that because I'm the one who's willing to break all the rules. I mean, it's the same stupid
preachy pitch going back for more than a hundred years in industrialized democracies and it always ends the same way but it it doesn't make it less
appealing to voters. And that's why most of these guys do get into power by the choice of the people. Then once they're there, it's also the choice of the people whether they stay there. And in the very short term for us, it's the choice how much they get away with, how much push back they're going to get. And honestly, what they find difficult to do. People who pose what they're doing right now owe it to the country to make what they're doing right now hard.
If it's easy, they're going to do it in more. If it's hard, they're going to do less of it. And that's where we are right now. That's the clarity of purpose that we all have and how to try to save the country from further autocratic slide. Just quickly, your New Yorker piece is also about a defining feature of all autocrats. They fleece you. They rub you blind. Talk about how that might be a rub.
Yeah, I mean, this is, I think, just something for us in the media to keep in mind, but also something for us to be aware of in terms of what we can learn from other countries, what we can learn of American experiments with this kind of governance in the past. Autocrats would be authoritarians.
always crooks. They always steal. I mean, why bother getting rid of the rule of law if you can't then steal from the country blindly? I mean, it just always happens every time. And it's happened with all of our American demagogues throughout history. They've all been incredibly corrupt and have stolen from the people who they've, in some cases, persuaded to vote for them.
So there's no reason to expect that this will be any different, particularly the way the run up to this next term for Trump has gone. And it's worth being aware of that both in terms of self-protection, you know, watch your wallet. But I think it's also worth us being focused on as the fourth estate in terms of looking out for kleptocratic stuff, looking out for the establishment of an American oligarchy that isn't just sort of scary because it's unaccountable power, but it's scary because it's stealing the country out from under us.
they do it in every country they do it everywhere and i don't think the american people are going to like it if it's well documented it's our job to document it
Rachel, our North Star on and off the air, and also someone who says, every time we talk on and off TV, that these jobs are such a tremendous privilege. I've thought about that. I've repeated that to my team and my staff and myself more than a few times over the last 10 days. Thank you very much for the privilege of getting to talk to you at the top of this hour. It's great to see you. Thanks for having me. I'll be back any time you want me, Nicole. Any day, any day. Stay free. You know where I am.
