The Rachel Maddow Show

Rufus Gifford, former U.S. ambassador to Denmark, talks with Rachel Maddow about the animosity and mistrust Donald Trump is sowing among even allied nations, and the shock of betrayal people around the world are feeling about Americans they'd previously held in high regard but who they do not see pushing back against Trump and standing up for long-term international friendships.

Not only has the scandal over Trump officials discussing military plans in a group chat on an insecure commercial platform made the Trump administration look like fools to Americans paying attention, but overseas allies are drawing conclusions about the risk of sharing intelligence with America when its top officials are so careless with sensitive data. Alexander Ward, national security reporter for the Wall Street Journal, talks with Rachel Maddow about his reporting that it was actually an Israeli intelligence asset that was exposed by the sloppiness of the Trump officials' group chat.

Donald Trump says the scandal over his top officials discussing secret military plans in an unsecured group chat is just a "glitch" in an otherwise perfect first two months in office. Rachel Maddow looks back to help Trump jog his memory and realize that "perfect" is probably not the best word for what has happened so far in Trump's second term.

Rachel Maddow looks at Donald Trump's ridiculously poor track record of mishandling sensitive information, with the scandal of several of his top officials thoughtlessly discussing military plans in an insecure group text raising questions of criminality on top of the widespread outrage over the sheer sloppiness of their actions.

Top officials in the Trump administration discussed a military operation in a group chat on a commercially available messaging platform with a random member of the media added to the chat without anyone bothering to look at who else was in the chat. Senator Mark Warner, top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, shares his reaction to the news with Rachel Maddow.

Rachel Maddow follows up on last night's breaking news that the Pentagon planned to brief Donald Trump's top campaign donor, Elon Musk, on top-secret U.S. plans for a potential war with China, with new reports that Trump says he only learned of the plan from the media and ordered that the briefing not take place. Trump's explanation is not especially reassuring as it raises new, unsettling questions.

Rachel Maddow reports on the ridiculous, bungled spectacle of the Trump administration's release of unredacted documents related to the JFK assassination. Donald Trump appears to have thoughtlessly announced the release of the documents, and the sycophants who serve him followed his order to the letter, apparently without thinking about what they were doing. The result was the unredacted publishing of the social security numbers of people who were involved in the investigation, including many people who are still alive, like Trump's own lawyer, Joe diGenova.

Rachel Maddow looks at recent acts of sabotage by Russia in countries that support Ukraine, including what is believed to be the planning stages of detonating a bomb in a cargo plane over the United States. Erin Banco, national security correspondent for Reuters, joins to discuss her new reporting that the U.S. is now taking steps to back away from its role in helping to counter Russian acts of sabotage.

Rachel Maddow reports on yet another bad day in the courts for Donald Trump as he was made to restore jobs his top campaign donor, Elon Musk, had slashed, and was similarly made to restore USAID, another victim of Musk's DOGE, and lastly, had his anti-trans military policy rejected and was given a lesson in the language of the Declaration of Independence for good measure.

The U.S. Institute for Peace announced Monday that despite being independent of the executive branch and controlling its own building and the land it sits on, their objections to members of Elon Musk's DOGE team trespassing in their building were overridden by D.C. police. That came after an earlier confrontation in which DOGE was accompanied by the FBI. Skye Perryman, president of Democracy Forward, who is suing the U.S. Marshals for information on DOGE after a similar raid, joins to discuss the unprecedented nature of DOGE leveraging the threat of armed law enforcement against another part of the government.

Rachel Maddow shares the amazing, historic story of how former Senator Alan Simpson and former Representative Norm Mineta partnered on hearings into the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, and why Donald Trump's reported plan to invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which was used to justify Japanese internment, is raising alarm.

Rachel Maddow reads from the court transcript in which a federal judge blasts the Trump administration's defense of its firing of thousands of federal workers and orders that the jobs be restored, with some harsh words for Trump's lawyers to boot.

Rachel Maddow shares video of Rep. John Larson channeling the outrage of his constituents at the anticipation that Donald Trump's top donor, Elon Musk, is intending to destroy Social Security in order to privatize it. The Washington Post reported early Wednesday that Musk was planning cuts to Social Security's telephone customer service, but by the end of the day those plans had been cancelled. Between the public outcry and the exposure in the media, the pushback on Social Security cuts appears to have worked.

Plus, House Republicans literally alter time to avoid responsibility for Trump wrecking the economy

Rachel Maddow shows how the United States under Donald Trump is growing increasingly reliant on Elon Musk, and his Starlink program in particular. But Musk's words and deeds suggest he is not acting for the good of the United States.

As Donald Trump guts the programs and agencies behind some of America's greatest scientific achievements and fires the people responsible for those achievements and working on new ones, scientists across the country from every discipline took to the streets in protest to "stand up for science."

Rachel Maddow talks with Hampton Dellinger, former chief of the Office of Special Counsel, about the importance of political independence for his watchdog agency, and his fight against Trump to restore the jobs of improperly fired federal workers.

Rachel Maddow reports on the number of Trump cuts, firings and other initiatives that have been reversed, blocked, walked back or reconsidered, and the variety of American institutions, from the courts to the streets, that have contributed to restraining Trump from asserting the full force of his will.

Rachel Maddow and a panel of her MSNBC colleagues react to Donald Trump's first address to a joint session of Congress of his second term.

Rachel Maddow surveys the varied and widespread protests in opposition to Donald Trump's wanton destruction of the federal government. From weather scientists to immigrants to LGBTQ+ and its allies to consumer advocates to park rangers, each round of firings or extremist executive orders brings a new collection of anti-Trump activists under an ever-widening tent.