Troops Enter More Cities As Trump Suggests Some Citizens Are ‘Enemies’

0:00Exterior Remodels Inner Monologues. Brought to you by Power. The house looks good. Like, really good. That siding? Stunning. The roof? Elevated. Windows? I mean, wow. The process? Smooth. The neighbors? Jealous. Choose Power Home Remodeling and remodel how you think about remodeling. Schedule your free quote on windows, siding, roofing, and doors at PowerHomeRemodeling.com. Power. Our work shows. OmniWatch protects way more than just your passwords and logins. We protect what matters most, you, your family, and the life you live online. From scam alerts to dark web monitoring, OmniWatch has you covered around the clock.

0:42Real experts are just a call away. And with plans up to$4 million in identity theft insurance, you get total peace of mind. So whether you're garden gal 54 or dad bod 23, OmniWatch helps you browse, shop, and connect with confidence. Go to OmniWatch.com to get protected today. Welcome to The Beat. I'm Melissa Murray in for Ari Melber. Ahead tonight, on day one of the government shutdown, Donald Trump is trying to exert some presidential pressure. But top Democrats are defiant. For decades, Republicans have consistently shut the government down as part of their efforts to try to extract and jam their extreme right wing agenda down the throats of the American people.

1:28Already, Trump is targeting blue states in a way that some Democrats claim is an abuse of power. We will get into that and more. But we start tonight with a red alert for the country as federal troops enter more American cities and Donald Trump suggests that some American citizens are, quote, enemies. Today, Trump claimed that the National Guard is now, quote, in place in Portland, Oregon. This, despite local on-the-ground reporting that National Guard deployment has actually been delayed amid legal challenges. Also today, federal troops are on the ground in Memphis, Tennessee. And Missouri's Republican governor has authorized the National Guard to assist ICE with deportations across the state.

2:13All of this comes, of course, just months after Donald Trump deployed troops to Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. And it comes just one day after Trump tried to justify domestic military action, telling Pentagon leaders to, quote, handle the, quote, enemy from within. Take a listen. San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, they're very unsafe places, and we're going to straighten them out one by one. And this is going to be a major part for some of the people in this room. That's a war, too. It's a war from within. We should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military National Guard.

2:53It's the enemy from within, and we have to handle it before it gets out of control. The Washington Post editorial board responded to these startling developments, writing simply, quote, U.S. cities aren't meant to be military training grounds, and our soldiers didn't sign up to be police officers. That is where we begin tonight. New warnings that Donald Trump's rhetoric and actions about military troops in American cities is escalating at an alarming pace. Joining me now to discuss all of this is Michelle Goldberg, columnist for The New York Times, and Molly Jong-Fast, columnist for Vanity Fair.

3:30Both are MSNBC political analysts. Michelle, let's start with you. What is your reaction to the expansion of the military's presence throughout American cities? Is this normal? I mean, no, it's not normal. I think that, you know, we've been talking a lot about for years, you know, we're on the verge of authoritarianism. We might lose our democracy. You know, I think that we're pretty well here when you have a president stand up before the entire military and basically say, I want you or you're going to use American cities as training grounds for your foreign wars. when he declares huge swaths of the populace his enemies, when he sends the military to intimidate and potentially crush them.

4:21When you have scenes like we had recently in the in the immigration court building here in New York, you've seen a woman, a mother thrown to the ground. The agent who did that was briefly fired because there was someone, I guess, in the bureaucracy who thought that was unacceptable. and thought wrongly and thought wrongly. And so the message is even worse because it's actually saying, no, somebody will come to your aid. There was a journalist who was taken out on a stretcher the other day. So it's just, it's getting worse and worse and worse. And we're not capable, I think, as a society of reacting appropriately because, you know, partly because the mechanisms of accountability have shut off.

5:06Partly, I think the leaders of the Democratic Party have decided that it has to be healthcare, healthcare, healthcare, and that people don't really, that these kind of broader ideas about authoritarianism and democracy don't move the needle. You know, it's interesting that the shutdown fight is about healthcare. You could imagine a world where the shutdown fight is about why would we fund your efforts to declare war on us? So this is my question today, Molly Jungfasta. There was a New York Times interview with Chuck Schumer, and he was talking about, you know, we are emphasizing that this shutdown is about the Republicans' refusal to give on the health care cuts.

5:41But there are so many other things that are happening right now, things that could be about bread and butter economic issues. Why is it health care? Why aren't we talking about the fact that the president of the United States is calling people living in blue cities, all of us, the enemies? Well, and the question is also, why are they making a deal with the Republican Congress that has given up its power? Like, think about these pocket rescissions, right? At the end of the year, You had Republicans claw back five billion dollars in foreign aid and funding for PBS after it had been signed into law.

6:12So here's the question. Like, how do you make a deal with someone who you can't trust? And I think that is a real big problem. And you saw even Republicans on the Appropriation Committee saying that they need to have solid, you know, buy in fright to the Trump administration if they're going to make deals. And so I think Democrats are, you know, this has been very tough for them to sort of they think that health care polls better than ICE, than this paramilitary police force that has billions of dollars in our cities. I don't know that that is a wise mood. I think they can walk and chew gum at the same time.

6:52Doing two things at one, though. Very interesting possibility. Michelle, one of the things that the Trump administration has emphasized over and over again as it sent the military into American cities is that this is necessary to fight crime. And Democrats, I think, have responded in large part by pointing to statistics that show that, in fact, there isn't a crime problem. Is that missing the moment and messaging the wrong kind of thing? Well, I don't know that pointing to statistics is going to convince anybody, especially because the people who are actually in these cities are by and large not voting for Republicans.

7:26People outside them are not going to listen to Democratic statistics. And it feels like it's about making the divide between the urban and the rural even more profound. Right. I mean, you know, my parents are retired and live in Arizona. My dad tells me he has friends out there who are shocked that they come visit me because they think it's some sort of dangerous hellhole there in New York instead of a place where my middle school students can take public transportation. But I also think that, you know, there's this message. There's also that this is I think that they get caught up talking about crime when in a way that's kind of taking the administration's pretext at face value.

8:08Yeah. The administration, the Trump administration recently put out this memoranda describing huge, basically the American left writ large in sort of terms of domestic terrorism, you know, threatening to go after George Soros, threatening to go after all sorts of, you know, kind of people who who who dissent, who dissent. Right. Not who are violent, but who, you know, kind of demonize immigration officials, for example. And so and at the same time, you have Trump in front of the military saying, you know, not just when he talks about the enemy within. At one point, he said civil unrest. So he's talking about mass protest.

8:48And that's what this is laying the groundwork for. And if we're, you know, quibbling about crime statistics. Yeah, we've missed the point. Exactly. So, Molly, something seems very un-American about this. Law professor here was looking at the Constitution today, looking at the Declaration of Independence. One of the things that the Founding Fathers feared most deeply was the prospect of the government and Congress and the president being able to use a standing army against the people. And here we are. How can the party of law and order and the party that talks about the Constitution do this with a straight face?

9:21Right. And I think it's important to remember this is not legal. We just saw this like in California, in Los Angeles, posse comititas, like it's not legal. So I think that, you know, Governor Pritzker has been really clear on this and I think in a really effective way. He says you be peaceful and you document everything and people need to document everything with their phones in a peaceful way. And you know why? Because there's going to be a moment in this country and we've seen it again and again and again because we've gone from backlash to backlash to backlash. where there's going to be a video where people are going to be like, oh, no, this is not who we are.

9:59And Donald Trump is very sensitive to images, too. So he will see one of those videos and be like, whoa, Stephen Miller. So, you know, I think this is, you know, and I just think it's a very scary moment in American life. But we have to know there are laws. There are rules. These courts are finding these things illegal. and we have these cell phones that are incredibly powerful and these images can travel. And I do think that we're going to hit a tipping point probably sooner rather than later. Michelle, final question to you. We don't have time to play this tape, but we have some amazing footage of a Portland city council who is also a military veteran who omits the Trump deployment to his city has said that even these troops have taken an oath to the Constitution.

10:46And part of that oath involves an obligation to do the right thing in this moment. Is that a lesson for all of us right now? Like maybe dissent is the right thing? I think so. I mean, I feel like it's all we have. I'm not necessarily as sanguine as Molly is about the laws and the rules prevailing, but I think you have to behave as if they will, right? You sort of can't preemptively decide that we are all at the mercy of these people. All right. Michelle Goldberg, Molly John Fast. Thanks for getting us started. Coming up, Democrats hit back as Trump targets blue states on day one of this government shutdown.

11:25Plus, Jacob Soberoff is here. He can tell you live about the horrific videos of ICE agents in action. And a 79-year-old business owner says he was body slammed and pinned to the ground by federal agents during an immigration raid despite being a U.S. citizen. The agent shoves her backwards into a wall, knocking her to the floor, standing over her and pointing as she lay on the ground. And when we return, I'll talk to Barbara McQuaid about the big problem in the Comey indictment. We are back in just 90 seconds.

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13:29Go to OmniWatch.com to get protected today.

13:36Tonight, critics are warning that ICE agents across the country are out of control. using improper intimidation and force against suspects, journalists, and U.S. citizens. A 79-year-old business owner says he was body slammed and pinned to the ground by federal agents during an immigration raid despite being a U.S. citizen. One of the women who was detained was hospitalized.

14:03Witness video from a Ladera Heights Home Depot this morning shows a woman screaming as she is detained by federal agents. At one point, she identifies herself as an American. The ICE officer now relieved of his duties after what this video showed him doing. The agent shoves her backwards into a wall, knocking her to the floor, standing over her and pointing as she lay in the ground. One of our own reporters, Asal Rezai, was in her own car when an ICE agent shot a projectile at her. An ICE agent that was masked pointed his weapon and shot directly at my car. Journalists were pushed and one ended up in the hospital.

14:43Immigration officers followed two women into an elevator Tuesday at the federal court in lower Manhattan, followed by two photojournalists. And then agents in ski masks pushed two of the journalists. One of the journalists you saw was later taken to the hospital on a stretcher. We've never quite seen this in modern America. masked armed agents who often refuse to identify themselves patrolling the streets of our cities. In fact, one Reagan-appointed judge called it out in a recent ruling. He wrote, quote, Ice goes masked for a single reason, to terrorize Americans into quiescence. Our troops do not ordinarily wear masks.

15:29Can you imagine a masked Marine? It is a matter of honor, and honor still matters. To us, masks are associated with cowardly desperados and the despised Ku Klux Klan. In all our history, we have never tolerated an armed, masked secret police. Joining me now to discuss all of this is Jacob Soboroff, MSNBC senior political and national correspondent who has been in the field covering so many of these issues. Jacob, help me understand, what did I just see in those ICE videos? is this is America. This is America. And I think, you know, Melissa, just like family separation, we'll look back at the ignoble chapters of American history and this effort by the Trump administration to institute the largest mass deportation effort in American history that is not going after solely the worst of the worst.

16:22And in fact, the majority of people, I think we have to reiterate time and again, as much as we can, who have been apprehended under these operations have no criminal record whatsoever, other than being in the country without authorization. And that is the discretion of this administration to go after those folks, like people who are at fruit carts here in L.A. or at flower stands or in Home Depot parking lots or people trying to do the right thing by showing up in the hallways of 26 Federal Plaza in New York with their family members oftentimes to actually go through the legal asylum process.

16:55And they are met not just with masked armed immigration agents like the ones that I've seen myself, but they meet the fate of this mother right here that you're watching on your screen thrown to the ground or like Mr. Elie Bowl, the journalist who you saw in that neck brace who I was exchanging messages with earlier today. And he says, you know, he's feeling better and he's resting. But these are not agitators, as Tricia McLaughlin, the spokesperson for the Secretary of Homeland Security, said earlier today. She said agitators and members of the media were interfering with operations yesterday at 26 Federal Plaza.

17:32I'll say to you what I said to Nicole earlier this evening. Agitators are not permitted inside 26 Federal Plaza. It is a federal building with intense, aggressive security. Anybody who's ever gone to try to renew your passport knows how hard it is to get into a building like that. These are credentialed members of the media and local elected officials who are there to observe, people like sketch artists and others. And so this picture that they're painting within the administration that there's some kind of lawlessness. And that's why this type of violence needed to be perpetrated on immigrants coming to try to do the right thing is preposterous, frankly.

18:07Well, a key aspect of this is that these agents are not only behaving with incredible force, they're doing so while they're masked. And the judge in the piece that we just quoted noted that this was to terrorize people. What do you make of that? Is the terror the point? Is this just about chilling dissent or something bigger? No, of course it is. And they have said as much. You know, they called this massive raid they did in MacArthur Park here in Los Angeles in the center of the city a show of force or some version of that phrase. What do you think they were doing marching down Michigan Avenue in Chicago in tactical gear with long rifles with their faces covered on a beautiful weekend afternoon?

18:50That's a show of force. That's a that's a that is a message that they're sending. That is not a tactical operation that they are engaged in. What's the point of having Border Patrol agents march up and down Michigan Avenue, ride in the Chicago River in the boats of CBP air and marine operation? The whole thing is to send a message or to put on a show. I mean, look at that. Do you see drug cartels like, you know, usually they're in the Rio Grande chasing drug cartels that are They're trying to smuggle people or contraband across the river. There they are, surrounded the Lucia tourist boat in the Chicago River.

19:24The scenes are, you know, I've seen Trump administration officials say, oh, this is so badass. Katie Miller, Stephen Miller's wife, posted that about images from Chicago. I think any other person that would look at that would say this is ridiculous. Yeah, not the country that we've come to know, or at least that we did know. Jacob Soboroff, thank you so much for that update. Thanks. Ahead, how the Trump DOJ's rushed indictment of James Comey may already be falling apart. We have a breakdown. And Trump dials up threats on day one of the shutdown, while top Democrats remain defiant. We've been here all week.

20:00Republicans are missing in action. Nowhere to be found. On vacation, scattered across the country.

20:11Democrats want Republicans to agree to continue funding the Affordable Care Act, whereas Republicans want to use that money to add crab legs to the omelet station at Mar-a-Lago. It's day one of the government shutdown, and the Washington blame game is in full swing. Take a listen. We're not going to engage in bipartisan discussions while Democrats are holding the federal government hostage. If it isn't entertainment, this is a really show. It's one thing to say that we should solve the health care crisis for Americans. It's another thing to say that we're going to shut down the government. The callousness of this president, where he's basically threatening people's lives, threatening their employment, threatening their careers.

20:57They prioritize taxpayer-funded benefits for illegal aliens over keeping the government open. That is a damn lie. Here's what this means as a practical matter. There will be delays to federal worker pay, as well as possible delays to critical functions like Social Security and SNAP benefits. And hanging over all of this is the White House threat of mass permanent layoffs to the federal workforce. When you shut it down, you have to do layoffs. So we'd be laying off a lot of people that are going to be very affected and the Democrats, they're going to be Democrats. We believe that layoffs are imminent.

21:41As for next steps, the Senate doesn't reconvene until Friday, meaning that this shutdown will last for at least three days. Joining me now to break all of this down is Congressman Brendan Boyle, a ranking Democratic member of the House Budget Committee. Congressman Boyle, thank you for joining us. Where are we with this? What is the state of play right now? What are the backroom deals and conversations that are happening, if any at all? Yeah, great to be with you. And what's really frustrating is those conversations aren't taking place. I was in Washington, D.C., in the Capitol this week. A couple hundred of my Democratic colleagues were there as well.

22:18And if you walked around the Capitol, something you would not find was a Republican colleague. Speaker Mike Johnson canceled session we were supposed to be in on Monday and Tuesday. He outright canceled it, sent all of his members home. So it's pretty clear they wanted this shutdown. They ensured that it would happen. Now, I know the Senate is coming back in session on Friday, and I understand we'll be in session over the weekend. But as of right now, the House isn't even scheduled to return by the Republicans' own design, not scheduled to return until Tuesday. The Republicans may be out of the building, but they do have a unified message about this shutdown.

23:01And the message is that this is the Democrats' fault. How does your party counteract this messaging and remind voters that this is a president whose party controls the White House and both houses of Congress? This seems like something they could have avoided. Yeah, there's no question about it. As you just pointed out, Republicans control the House. They control the Senate. They control the White House. This is the Republican shutdown. I would also point out a big difference between this time versus over the last 30 years when Republicans forced every single shutdown. They were forcing those shutdowns because, frankly, they just don't believe in government and they want to shut it down.

23:39You don't hear me. You don't hear one of my Democratic colleagues saying they want a government shutdown. My Senate Democratic colleagues, in fact, have a bill that would reopen the government immediately, but crucially would also ensure that all of those devastating cuts to our health care that will cost millions and millions of Americans their health insurance, that those cuts also don't take effect. So Democrats have been emphasizing that the reason for this shutdown, why we've been brought to the brink of a shutdown, is because the Republicans will not give on the restoration of those health care cuts.

24:14Is that going to resonate with voters? And would it have been possible to expand the message to focus not just on health care, but on the fact that we don't want to fund ICE enforcement in this particular way? We don't want to fund the deployment of the military to cities to assist with domestic local crime enforcement. But aren't there other messages that might resonate just as well, maybe more so with with all of the voters right now, given the things that we are seeing? Yeah, I was interested in your previous conversation. So let me just offer a few thoughts. First, I would say that our primary message is that this is about health care just because those cuts literally begin.

24:54Well, they begin today, October 1st. That is a result of the legislation that was passed in the Trump Republican reconciliation. bill. I would remind you, Congressional Budget Office projects more than 15 million Americans will lose their health care and premiums for those who will still be on the Obamacare exchanges will literally double overnight. So that has been the primary message. But that's not the only message. For example, I have an op-ed that I published a couple of months ago in which I pointed out the problem with rescissions. Now, I know that, you know, no voter of mine or constituent here in Philadelphia is bringing up rescissions to me.