This is an adapted excerpt from the Oct. 6 episode of “The Rachel Maddow Show.”
On Friday, shortly before Donald Trump held what looked a lot like a political rally with active-duty U.S. Navy sailors in Norfolk, Virginia, his Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth fired the U.S. Navy chief of staff. That firing didn’t make a lot of news when it happened, likely because it is just one in a long series of firings by the Trump administration.
By definition, the military is not a political body that’s supposed to turn over every time there’s a new president, but since Trump has been back in office, the administration has been destroying the leadership of the U.S. military.
Since Trump retook the White House, over a dozen top military officials have been fired or seemingly pushed out: the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the head of the Navy SEALs, the chief of naval operations, the head of the Navy Reserve, the head of U.S. Cyber Command, the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, the commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard, the chief of staff of the Air Force, the vice chief of staff of the Air Force, the head of the Air Force Global Strike Command, the top legal officer in the Air Force, the top legal officer in the Army, the top legal officer in the Navy and now, the Navy chief of staff.
According to witnesses who spoke to the Chicago Sun-Times, ‘armed federal agents in military fatigues’ have busted down doors.
And on Monday, in what may or may not be related news, The New York Times reported that the administration has removed the top legal official at the CIA.
At the same time that the administration has carried out this firing spree, we have seen the president explicitly tell all the country’s top generals and admirals that he wants them to plan to bring U.S. military operations to bear against Americans in cities like San Francisco, Chicago, New York and Los Angeles.
Trump has already sent federalized troops, including active-duty Marines, into California’s largest city, Los Angeles. National Guard troops are still stationed in the state. And he’s now told the remaining top leadership of the military — the parts he hasn’t fired yet — that he wants the active-duty U.S. military to use both San Francisco and Los Angeles as military “training grounds.”
But the American people aren’t standing by silently. This weekend, there were big, peaceful protests against Trump and against his immigration agents in Los Angeles. It seems that sending in the troops there hasn’t made people any less interested in protesting against him.
There were protests this weekend in Memphis against Trump’s plans to send troops there. Protests continued in Chicago as well ahead of the expected arrival of federalized National Guard troops.
Federal agents have already been dispatched to the city. According to witnesses who spoke to the Chicago Sun-Times, “armed federal agents in military fatigues” have busted down doors, “pulling men, women and children from their apartments, some of them naked.”
During one raid, witnesses told the paper that agents “approached or entered nearly every apartment in the five-story building, and U.S. citizens were among those detained for hours.” They also said federal agents “used flash-bang grenades to burst through the building and several drones and helicopters were deployed.”
The Associated Press reported that “agents used unmarked trucks and a helicopter to surround the five-story apartment building … then went door to door, woke up residents and used zip ties to restrain them.”
Reporters from NewsNation, who were invited to observe the operation, said agents “rappelled from Black Hawk helicopters.” Remember, this is what’s happening in Chicago before the military has been deployed. A lawsuit has been brought by a group of journalists and Chicago residents to try to stop these federal agents from infringing on people’s rights to protest, and on journalists’ right to report on the protests. Meanwhile, the state of Illinois itself has also filed its own lawsuit, asking a federal judge to block Trump from escalating further by sending not just agents like these, but federalized National Guard troops into the city as well. A similar lawsuit to stop Trump from sending troops into Oregon was successful this weekend. The judge, who was appointed by Trump, first blocked the president from federalizing the Oregon National Guard to send them into Portland under his command. The judge said there was nothing in the conditions on the ground in Portland that would justify the kind of military force that Trump wanted to use these troops for. The Trump administration responded by telling the judge it would send federalized National Guard troops from California or from Texas instead. But that same judge, in an emergency hearing late Sunday, told the administration, in no uncertain terms, that they were obviously trying to defy her first order and they were not allowed to do that, calling their move “in direct contravention” of her earlier decision. It’s clear Trump doesn’t have the law, the people, or even the politics on his side — and so the only response he can muster is force.
Rachel Maddow
Rachel Maddow is host of the Emmy Award-winning “The Rachel Maddow Show” Mondays at 9 p.m. ET on MSNBC. “The Rachel Maddow Show” features Maddow’s take on the biggest stories of the day, political and otherwise, including in-depth analysis and stories no other shows in cable news will cover.
Allison Detzel is an editor/producer for MS NOW.
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