Maddow: The good news about our bad president
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Johanna cuts in well, challenges Poxia, and it's a close call! Oh, oh, oh, oh, wait a minute! Or was there something else? Based on the live footage, it doesn't look like it. Let's take a look at the slowdown. Was that the right judgment? Yes, there's contact. A clear card payment, no buttons, no HSL signs. HSL! HSL! HSL! Close call ease is still there.
Today is June 22nd, which means yesterday was June 21st.
the summer solstice, which means these are the longest days of the year, the longest days and the shortest nights. And I know it's a coincidence. I know it's unrelated. But can I also tell you that there's like 10 different things to report to you tonight that are all good news stories. And I know that is not how we usually lead things off on this show, but there really is a bunch of positive news to tell you, just thing after thing after thing. Let's start, for example, with the courts. Today, a federal judge, a Republican-appointed federal judge, tossed out subpoenas that Trump's Justice Department had issued against Minnesota's Democratic governor, Tim Walz, and the Minneapolis mayor, also a Democrat, Jacob Fry, and Minnesota's Democratic attorney general, Keith Ellison, and a whole bunch of other Minnesota officials.
This goes back to Trump's big federal attack on Minnesota this winter. with those thousands of federal agents in the Twin Cities. In between Trump's agents killing Renee Goode and them killing Alex Preddy in the streets of Minneapolis, in between those two killings, Trump's Justice Department got subpoenas to basically raid the offices of most of the major Democratic officials in the state of Minnesota and in the Twin Cities. Well, today, a Republican-appointed federal judge shot those down. saying in his ruling that there was, quote, no doubt those subpoenas were issued to, quote, harass Trump's political opponents.
What big-picture good-news examples does Rachel Maddow open the episode with?
The ruling said, quote, on the one hand, the evidence that the challenged subpoenas were issued for unlawful reasons is overwhelming. On the other hand, the judge wrote, the Department of Justice has struggled without success to identify a single plausible investigatory justification for the subpoenas. And so those Trump administration Justice Department subpoenas were thrown out. Another federal judge today shut down Trump's attempt to raid the Social Security Administration and use its data as part of his efforts to mess with the midterm elections this year. The judge in that case ruled today, quote, "...the federal government has knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote.
This court cannot stand idly by while that happens." So Trump is now blocked from using the Social Security Administration, using that strategy to try to throw people off the voter rolls. Both that Minnesota ruling, quashing those subpoenas, shoving Trump back there, and the Social Security ruling also shoving Trump back. Both of those federal court rulings happen today. as did this. We got news that the so-called Alligator Alcatraz immigrant prison in Florida is now closed. They shut it down as of today. This is from the CBS affiliate in Miami, quote, companies hired by the state of Florida to operate the immigration facility known as Alligator Alcatraz were notified Monday morning, notified this morning, to begin a, quote, full demobilization of the facility.
Which quietly brings an ignominious close to a $1.2 billion experiment that had once been hailed by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and President Donald Trump as a model other states should pursue. The final few detainees left the facility last week. Federal and state officials at the time said it was due to safety concerns over the start of hurricane season. They even suggested the facility would remain ready to take on new detainees. But none of that is true. Now we know it is closed, closed for good. That performatively cruel moral and practical disaster, they have now had to close it. And as of today, it's gone. Alligator Alcatraz is gone.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–2:26
2
What big-picture good-news examples does Rachel Maddow open the episode with?
2:26–9:28
3
Which federal court rulings blocked Trump administration subpoenas and Social Security plans?
9:28–23:14
4
Why was the Alligator Alcatraz immigration facility shut down and what does it mean?
23:14–31:28
5
Which planned Trump 'warehouse prison camps' were abandoned and who won those fights?
31:28–44:50
Speakers
5 identifiedMore from The Rachel Maddow Show
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