Hostile Takeover: Democrats Fight Uphill Battle Against Trump's Ransacking of Federal Government

The Briefing with Jen Psaki

NBC News

News, Politics

4.5 • 664 Ratings

🗓️ 4 February 2025

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Jen Psaki breaks down Trump's hostile takeover of the U.S. government and the efforts by Democrats to push back. Jen is joined by Jake Struebing, a former assistant U.S. attorney, who spoke out for the first time after being fired this week in Trump's purge of federal officials. Next, Jen is joined by Former U.S. Attorney for SDNY Preet Bharara to discuss the 'frightening' implications of Trump's 'unlawful' firing of career DOJ and FBI officials. Then, Jen is joined by Senator Chris Van Hollen to discuss Trump and Elon Musk's 'illegal' closure of the U.S. Agency for International Development, as well as Democrats' plans to fight back through the courts. Later, Jen outlines new reporting on Elon Musk and his team's efforts to hijack the Office of Personnel Management. She is joined by Judd Legum, the reporter who broke the story, to discuss why Musk wants access to this information and what they will do with it, including further hollowing out the federal government. Finally, Jen explains why the Pentagon removing major news organizations from their office spaces in favor of much friendlier outlets is not only a punishment of the media, but of the American people.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Okay. So we all have our coping mechanisms for this moment, or we're developing them at least.
0:12.6	And I've kind of settled into wanting to know more about what's happening. And most importantly,
0:18.6	what can be done to stop it? And I invite you to join me in this because the more our eyes are wide open and the more
0:25.0	we stop ourselves from looking away and just talking about just how terrible it is,
0:29.8	the better we can understand what the levers of power are that can push back on illegal
0:34.1	and unconstitutional actions of the Trump administration.
0:37.7	The more we know, I mean the more we're prepared to call it out and call on illegal and unconstitutional actions of the Trump administration. The more we know, I mean the more we're prepared to call it out and call on people in power
0:41.9	or people aspiring to be in power to do more, to push harder, to be more creative.
0:48.4	Because what's happening right now is a hostile takeover of the U.S. government.
0:52.9	There's no other way to describe it.
0:54.5	It's happening clearly across our justice system
0:57.0	where just a few hours ago,
0:58.7	a deadline passed for FBI employees
1:00.7	to fill out a questionnaire,
1:02.7	detailing their involvement in January 6 cases.
1:06.3	In other words, they were asked to fill out
1:08.7	basically a loyalty test.
1:13.1	That comes after an unprecedented purge of the FBI on Friday night when the Trump administration forced out top FBI career
1:18.4	officials, multiple FBI field office leaders, and a number of DOJ prosecutors who worked on January
1:24.2	6th cases. Tonight I'm going to talk to one of the prosecutors who was
1:28.2	fired on Friday. His name is Jake Strubbing. He was back at the U.S. Attorney's Office in D.C.
1:32.9	this morning where he was escorted to his office to pick up his things, drop off his computer,
	...

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