In this MLK Day clip, Rachel Maddow claimed that protest campaigns successfully forced Elon Musk out of government and “ended” DOGE — a claim she attributes directly to activist pressure.
But DOGE was created as a temporary government efficiency initiative by executive order, with a defined lifespan and evolving structure. While its centralized, high-profile phase changed over time, DOGE is still active and saving taxpayers money. Elon Musk is no longer formally leading DOGE, but he remains deeply involved in politics and government affairs, including backing candidates, shaping policy debates, and influencing elections. Maddow nonetheless declares victory, presenting protests as proof that activists ended DOGE and removed Elon Musk from government.
She then celebrates Democrat protests targeting corporations like Target and Home Depot, demanding they block ICE from using their parking lots. This highlights a clear double standard: Democrats tolerate illegal labor activity in those same parking lots, but condemn immigration enforcement there.
Most concerning, Maddow reframes the enforcement of immigration laws as oppression. She portrays lawful federal immigration enforcement as an “attempted overthrow of our system of government,” while casting organized efforts to obstruct law enforcement — including corporate pressure campaigns, walkouts, and protests — as “moral force,” “nonviolent resistance,” and even acts of faith. In doing so, she flips the moral framework entirely: enforcing the law becomes tyranny, while obstructing it becomes virtue.
Notably, Maddow spent the first twenty minutes of her broadcast elevating the words of religious leaders. Clergy were presented to frame political resistance as a moral and spiritual duty and to portray President Trump and the government he leads as threats to democracy, morality, and the nation’s values.45MakeMoneTranscript:
Stopping helping ICE with their deportations. And you know what? That Avelo campaign succeeded.
Avelo Airlines has now announced that they have ended their contract with ICE. They are no longer flying their deportation flights.
We’re going to talk with one of the people involved in that successful protest campaign against Avelo Airlines to ask how they did it.
I mean, the Tesla takedown protests worked to get Elon Musk out of the U.S. government and ultimately to end his DOGE thing. The Avelo Airlines protests worked to get them out of deportation flights for ICE.
And now we are seeing protests all over the country, anywhere they want to try to put an ICE prison camp in any town of any size, in any state, no matter how liberal or how conservative.
We’re also seeing corporations like Target being pressured to tell ICE to get out of the state where they are headquartered in Minnesota — to tell ICE that they cannot stage in Target parking lots or enter Target stores for their operations without a warrant.
We’re seeing Home Depots continue to be protested, like this one in Phoenix this weekend — Home Depot continuing to face pressure to tell ICE not to use their parking lots, not to use their stores for their operations.
We’re also seeing protests now in the seat of power in Washington, like this really big one a few days ago at the headquarters of Customs and Border Protection in Washington, D.C.
Tomorrow, January 20th, we are expecting people all over the country to stage walkouts from their jobs and their schools as a fitting way to mark one year exactly since Trump has been back in power.
And on this MLK Day, we are seeing Americans bring moral force of every imaginable kind to bear against the attempted overthrow of our system of government and the violence that’s being used to try to achieve that — moral force, nonviolent moral force, and faith, the most powerful things in the world.
We’ve got a big show tonight. Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago is here with us next, live. Stay with us.
Maddow used religion as a moral weapon against President Trump and his administration for the first twenty minutes of her show. Then, immediately after saying, “We’ve got a big show tonight. Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago is here with us next, live,” the following commercial played. The hypocrisy is hilarious.
COMMERCIAL
Hi, I’m Ron Reagan, an unabashed atheist, and I’m alarmed, as you may be, by the intrusions of religion into our secular government. That’s why I’m asking you to join the Freedom From Religion Foundation, the nation’s largest and most effective association of atheists and agnostics working to keep state and church separate, just like our founders intended.
Please join the Freedom From Religion Foundation today.
Ron Reagan — lifelong atheist, not afraid of burning in hell.
Thank you.
Ron Reagan — lifelong atheist, not afraid of burning in hell. LOL!!!!! Am I watching the comedy channel or a news program?!
Watch On Rumble:
Watch On YouTube