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The Rachel Maddow Show

Pritzker digs in against Trump abuse of National Guard; warns of 2026 Trump scheme

The Rachel Maddow Show

Rachel Maddow, MS NOW

Madow, Versant, Ms Now, Msnbc, Washington, Rachel Maddow, Congress, Campaign, Policy, Election, President, Nbc, Public, News, Government, Maddow, Politics, Issues

4.534K Ratings

🗓️ 7 October 2025

⏱️ 43 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker talks with Rachel Maddow about his threat to leave the National Governors Association of the group won't speak out against Donald Trump's use of the National Guard against U.S. cities. Pritzker explains how he sees the militarization of ICE and Border Patrol agents as a normalizing precursor to establishing a military presence in cities in time to interfere with the 2026 election.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Really happy to have you here. So it is a statue called Best Friends Forever. It's about 12 feet tall.

0:07.1

We talked about this on last week's show. You might remember. This is a statue in Washington that was created by anonymous artists.

0:15.1

It shows Donald Trump and his longtime friend, the convicted pedophile and sex trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein, holding hands

0:24.6

and gazing lovingly at each other while they kick up their heels, seemingly delighting in their

0:31.2

longstanding friendship. We reported last week here on the show that this statue had a permit to be put up on the

0:38.6

National Mall in Washington, D.C.

0:40.2

But despite that, park service personnel were sent out by someone to topple it over and take it

0:47.4

down.

0:48.4

And the officials who toppled it over and took it down, they pretty severely damaged it.

0:56.0

They smashed in the Trump head part of it. They tore the hands apart so the Trump and Epstein figures wouldn't be holding

1:00.7

hands anymore. We reported last week at this time that the group that created the statue

1:06.3

was able to retrieve the broken statue and repair it.

1:11.6

And then they brought it back out again to put it up again, again with a permit to be there up on the National Mall.

1:17.6

When they went back to put it back up, they were met with a big show of federal force, not just park service personnel,

1:23.6

but also people in unmarked cars there to take it down as soon as they put it back up.

1:29.3

But these artists are nothing, if not persistent, because they did put it back up again for a third time.

1:35.3

Best Friends Forever. This time with even better repairs.

1:40.3

The plaque on the statue says in honor of friendship month, and it has the big

1:45.2

heart-hands symbol. It says, we celebrate the long-lasting bond between President Donald

1:51.0

J. Trump and his closest friend, Jeffrey Epstein. So the Trump administration took this

1:58.4

thing down twice, but the artists who made it got it back up for the weekend, right there on the National Mall.

2:07.1

When President Trump went to Norfolk, Virginia this weekend, to treat an audience of U.S. Navy sailors like they were paid attendees at one of his political rallies.

...

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