Rachel Maddow

They bought the land.

They preserved everything they could.

And ultimately, that site was reopened as a National Historic Site.

Today, it is sort of an open-air pavilion where you can see the shape of the president's house.

You can see the foundations of the original building.

They've got artifacts there from the time that George Washington and John Adams lived in that house.

And while John Adams, who was from Massachusetts, while Adams was not a slaveholder, George Washington was.

George Washington had eight people who were enslaved to him.

who he brought from Virginia to that house in Philadelphia to serve him while he was president.

He later brought an additional enslaved person from Virginia to Philadelphia to that house, making it a total of nine.

And that is all part of the history there at this historic site in Philadelphia.

Now, you've probably heard about the fact that over this past year, President Donald Trump ordered the physical removal of all references to slaves and slavery at that National Historic Site.

Well, today, a big change in that case.

Today, happy President's Day, a federal judge in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania ordered that the Trump administration must put those references to slaves and slavery back up.

The judge in the case is a Republican appointee from the George W. Bush administration, and she starts her

remarkable ruling today with a quote from 1984 from George Orwell.

She then says, quote, as if the ministry of truth in George Orwell's 1984 now existed with its motto, ignorance is strength, this court is now asked to determine whether the federal government has the power it claims to dissemble and disassemble historic truths

when it has some domain over historical facts.

It does not.

Honestly, this is your President's Day present this year, this ruling.