Sherrilyn Ifill
Appearances
The Rachel Maddow Show
Making a mockery of Musk: Backlash against dismantling U.S. government focuses on hatchet man
Thank you, Rachel.
The Rachel Maddow Show
Making a mockery of Musk: Backlash against dismantling U.S. government focuses on hatchet man
Yes, and I very much thank you for this conversation tonight, Rachel. I've been sounding the alarm because Trump has been saying it over and over. In fact, he started out when his family first met with the president of El Salvador a couple of months ago. And he said then that the president of El Salvador was interested in housing U.S. prisoners.
The Rachel Maddow Show
Making a mockery of Musk: Backlash against dismantling U.S. government focuses on hatchet man
He said it again the other night as he was exiting or entering his plane—I don't remember which one it was—where he talked about this again. He said, you know, for our worst of the worst, people who knock old ladies over the head, people who push people in front of subway trains, or if you had a bad judge and a bad prosecutor who didn't do the case right because they only care about politics.
The Rachel Maddow Show
Making a mockery of Musk: Backlash against dismantling U.S. government focuses on hatchet man
He's been repeating this over and over again. He tweeted that he can't wait to see people who attack Teslas face incarceration in El Salvadoran prisons. And by now, we know Trump a little bit. We know that when he keeps saying something over and over again, he is not joking. We know that he is incapable of holding his cards close to his chest when they are having discussions about these things.
The Rachel Maddow Show
Making a mockery of Musk: Backlash against dismantling U.S. government focuses on hatchet man
And we've seen two new reports. One was in Politico this weekend. about plans. One is Stephen Miller's plan to do a mass denaturalization of naturalized U.S. citizens who are incarcerated. We saw, can you believe it, the name Eric Prince again, who apparently is involved in an effort to use private prisons in El Salvador and in other countries, with the U.S.
The Rachel Maddow Show
Making a mockery of Musk: Backlash against dismantling U.S. government focuses on hatchet man
perhaps entering into a treaty of session, something I really think about when I think about maybe getting Alaska from Russia. a treaty of session, so that the U.S. would control the territory in that country, and therefore there could be no claim that U.S. citizens were being moved off of U.S. soil. It's crazy and diabolical, but it's real.
The Rachel Maddow Show
Making a mockery of Musk: Backlash against dismantling U.S. government focuses on hatchet man
Well, it's a strange thing. If she didn't find the Fifth Amendment that says every person in the United States, person, not citizen, is entitled to due process of law, cannot be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process, which should have stopped the deportation of Mr. Abregu Garcia and others who received no due process, I'm not sure what she's likely to find with this look.
The Rachel Maddow Show
Making a mockery of Musk: Backlash against dismantling U.S. government focuses on hatchet man
I think there are two things to think about here. One is that As almost everyone knows, there are nearly 2 million people incarcerated in the United States. Most of them are in state prisons, not in federal prison. The person who assaulted the old lady is most likely not in federal prison. There are about 200,000 people in our federal prisons.
The Rachel Maddow Show
Making a mockery of Musk: Backlash against dismantling U.S. government focuses on hatchet man
So, I'm not sure the population that Trump is looking at, if it is the state prison population, that creates complications for him. And in any case, we have a constitution that prevents cruel and unusual punishment.
The Rachel Maddow Show
Making a mockery of Musk: Backlash against dismantling U.S. government focuses on hatchet man
Sending folks here who are incarcerated to what has been identified as a torture prison, as a prison that the warden of Secot in El Salvador said is the prison no one ever leaves, that is simply a violation of the constitutional rights of prisoners. Prisoners who are citizens of this country are United States citizens, and they have the rights of citizens.
The Rachel Maddow Show
Making a mockery of Musk: Backlash against dismantling U.S. government focuses on hatchet man
And so, I don't have any faith that Pam Bondi, in her research, will feel bound by that. But that is the state of the law, and that's why so many of us have been looking at this very closely and preparing. Because I think, as you alluded to earlier, Rachel, when the plane takes off, the plane takes off. That's what happened to Mr. Abregu Garcia.
The Rachel Maddow Show
Making a mockery of Musk: Backlash against dismantling U.S. government focuses on hatchet man
This administration has made clear they're not interested in lifting a finger to get people back, even people who were wrongfully Well, they were all wrongfully shipped to El Salvador, but certainly this individual was, by concession, wrongfully sent to El Salvador. So, it's very, very alarming, very, very frightening, and something we have to get out ahead of.