MSNBC star Rachel Maddow repeatedly accused Donald Trump of “panicking” in his response to the anti-ICE raids that have exploded in Los Angeles and now spread across the country, claiming the president has “no freaking idea” how to deal with the fallout politically.
At the same time, she appeared to urge her viewers to take part in demonstrations against the administration, saying that “protests work” while highlighting the anti-Trump “No Kings” movement that has grown in recent days.
“The most important story of our time is this one,” she confidently stated. “What is this country going to allow him to do? This is an attempted authoritarian overthrow of the US Constitution and the US government. The attempted imposition of a dictatorial regime... the question is whether it will work.”
With the president now doubling the number of National Guard soldiers to Los Angeles while also deploying a contingent of 700 Marines as the demonstrations against the administration’s immigration raids have raged for five days, Maddow kicked off her primetime show on Monday by claiming Trump’s actions are only making opposition to him stronger.
“As of Saturday night, Trump had started fulminating against the protests in Los Angeles. He had announced that he would federalize the National Guard, the first time a president has done that, against the wishes of a state’s governor, in 60 years,” the progressive host noted. “And when it was done 60 years ago, it was to protect civil rights protesters, not to threaten protesters with military force. But, you know, Trump panicking like that, the response of the American people to it has been exactly what you’d think.”
Maddow pointed out that in the days since Trump had mobilized the military to stop demonstrations against his mass deportation efforts, solidarity protests have sparked up across the country.
“And when people stand up and protest, what we are learning over and over again in this administration is that protest works. And one of the ways that it works is that it puts steel in the spine of the political opposition in this country,” she stated, adding: “So it’s sort of a virtuous circle, right amid this primal surge of protest, this moral revulsion and rejection of what Trump is doing. I mean, you see the elected Democrats stepping up and standing up too.”
After commending California Gov. Gavin Newsom for pushing back against the president, who has suggested the governor should be arrested by the White House’s border czar, Maddow continued to claim that Trump’s response to the protests shows he is falling to pieces.
“He cannot handle the amount of protests against him now, and it is about to increase exponentially for a president who is flailing and panicking and literally calling in the troops to try to wage a physical war against his own people,” she declared. “Because the people are against him, and he has no idea what to do about it.”
“What we are seeing right now in California is a president panicking. We have never before in the history of the U.S. presidency seen a president who is less popular than this one at this point in his term,” the MSNBC anchor added. “And we have never seen a president less politically skilled, less politically equipped than this one to turn that kind of problem around. And so he has panicked.”
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Maddow continued that theme during the handoff with fellow primetime host Lawrence O’Donnell, arguing that he was trying to use the same playbook as other failed authoritarian leaders and strongmen before him. She also suggested this was the reason why Trump was holding a military parade on Friday night to celebrate the Army’s 250th anniversary – which just so happens to fall on his birthday.
“He’s doing this because he’s panicking and thinks that he looks weak, and therefore he has to do something that seems strong,” she insisted. “And so we will have tanks destroying the streets of Washington this Saturday, and we will have National Guardsmen and active duty US Marines standing around Los Angeles wondering what this has to do with their military careers.”
Maddow concluded: “And it’s all because he has no freaking idea how to deal with this politically, and he’s absolutely panicking about the, I think, trenchant and joyful and sustainable opposition against him.”
