On Monday night, March 23, 2026, right after The Rachel Maddow Show on MS NOW, Maddow handed off to Lawrence O’Donnell on The Last Word.
Rachel Maddow:
All right, that’s gonna do it for me tonight. Now it’s time for The Last Word. Oh, Donald. Good evening, Lawrence.
Lawrence O’Donnell:
Good evening, Rachel. So the weird news is ICE at airports, but it turns out if they’re doing absolutely nothing. Isn’t that an overall improvement in the deployment of ICE (Maddow cracks up laughing) so far this year in this country? I mean, better there than raiding, you know, some grocery store.
Rachel Maddow:
Yeah, I mean, yes.
A. They’ve taken their masks off, so now we can see who works for ICE.
B. It’s not great that there’s additional crowding in the terminals and presumably creeping a lot of people out in the terminals.
But C. What we’re hearing anecdotally and sort of seeing pictures of, and getting anecdotal information about in terms of their behavior, is that they seem to be going to the Dunkin’ and looking at their phones while getting paid their full salary right in front of the TSA agents who are working their actual jobs, completely overwhelmed, completely overworked, and working without pay. So it just seems like it’s kind of a psychological negative, but a physical positive.
Lawrence O’Donnell:
Yeah, and I love the root of the idea. According to Brian Stelter, who’s been covering this pretty closely, a caller to a right-wing radio show last week suggested it, and then the host of that show goes on Fox and gives the idea directly to Donald Trump, who he knows is watching. And now Donald Trump claims that was my idea. It was my idea to get them out there.
Rachel Maddow:
I think that we should seed callers onto right-wing radio shows that tell Trump that he should send ICE to Iran. They can do it. Put Greg Bovino in charge. They’ll do great. They’ll be awesome at it. If you get it into enough sort of crevices in the Fox News-iverse, he’ll think it’s an idea that he had.
Lawrence O’Donnell:
They’ll recognize my voice, so we’re gonna have to find someone else to make those calls.
End of transcript.
The deployment was not “weird news” or “doing absolutely nothing.” It was practical backup that helped control TSA line chaos when unpaid agents were calling out sick during the shutdown.
Laughing while claiming it was “better than raiding some grocery store” simply shows they oppose basic worksite enforcement against employers who hire illegals.
The masks-off comment stood out. Maddow highlighted that agents had taken their masks off “so now we can see who works for ICE.” In the current climate, where ICE officers and their families have faced doxxing, threats, and harassment, that line sounded less like a neutral observation and more like an invitation to identify and target them. She then added that the extra presence was “creeping a lot of people out,” treating visible law enforcement as something inherently frightening. Law-abiding travelers, on the other hand, saw the additional federal officers as reassuring during the airport chaos.
The Dunkin’ and phones jab is nothing but a lazy gotcha. Maddow and O’Donnell admit they’re relying on “anecdotally” hearing things and “sort of seeing pictures,” yet they confidently smear federal officers as lazy donut-scrollers on the taxpayer dime. Democrats whine no matter what ICE does, whether arresting illegals, wearing masks to prevent doxing (which has placed officers and their families at risk), taking masks off, or grabbing coffee.
On the radio caller, Maddow and O’Donnell tried to paint Trump as a puppet who simply stole the idea from a right-wing radio caller after the host went on Fox. In reality, it was a common-sense suggestion — using already-funded ICE agents to help manage airport chaos during a TSA staffing meltdown.
Finally, they spent time mocking the radio caller as manipulation, then joked about “seeding” fake callers themselves to bait Trump into sending ICE to Iran as a prank. They even added the snide little dig “who he knows is watching,” as if Trump just sits around all day glued to Fox News like a mindless TV addict.
This isn’t journalism — it’s Democrat propaganda for a left-wing audience that wants to be reassured, not informed. The goal is to delegitimize Trump and ICE, not to honestly report what happened.
Real news is dead on MS NOW.
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