The Rachel Maddow Show
'This is shameful': Trump sows animosity and mistrust abroad, degrading Americans in the process
Sat, 29 Mar 2025
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.
What legal challenges is Trump facing regarding media and government agencies?
Thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. Wow, a lot happened today and even more has happened tonight. Every Friday it's like this, but here we go. Ready? Tonight, a federal judge in New York has just blocked Trump from shutting down the Voice of America and firing its staff.
Trump tried to do this two weeks ago, but tonight a judge ordered Trump that he cannot, quote, terminate, reduce in force, place on leave, or furlough the journalists and staff and engineers at Voice of America. The judge called what Trump is doing here, quote, a classic case of arbitrary and capricious decision-making. Trump also tried to shut down another part of the U.S.
agency for global media, Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. Plaintiffs also sued to block Trump from shutting down those entities. Yesterday, after those plaintiffs had initial success in court in their case, Trump actually reversed that decision and let Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty stay open and stay funded. pushback works.
We have been closely watching the case of the Tufts University Fulbright Scholar, who was snatched off the street by masked officers. A bunch of things are happening in that case, and we are going to have a full update on that for you in just a moment. But I can tell you right now that a judge overseeing that case has just ordered that Trump is not allowed to deport that young woman.
The courts have blocked him from sending her out of the country. Again, we will have More on that to come. Plenty of new detail on that case to bring you tonight. In a separate case, yet another federal judge has just issued a restraining order that blocks Trump from sending people to random third countries that they're not from.
Like, for example, what he has done by sending hundreds of men who aren't from El Salvador to a prison in El Salvador. There is a separate court order that is blocking Trump from sending anybody else to that El Salvador prison the way that he did those several hundred men. It remains to be seen if the courts will also order Trump to return those men. from El Salvador.
But just in case Trump had designs on sending people to yet another random country to which the deportees had no connection, a federal judge tonight in Massachusetts has blocked him from doing that. Want more? There's more. Today, also, a federal judge has blocked Trump from shutting down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Trump had tried to fire most of the people who worked there and then told the remaining people who were still there that they were not allowed to do any work. And then he shut down the physical headquarters of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. But now a federal judge has issued an injunction blocking Trump from doing any of that.
She has, as of tonight, ordered Donald Trump to instruct the government to reinstate the employees of the CFPB and to preserve the agency's contracts and their data. CFPB employees, I should tell you, they have been showing up in person, packing the court hearings every day this case has been in court. Well, now the judge says those CFPB employees are likely to win this case on the merits.
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