Rachel Maddow used President Trump‘s anti-climactic, bungled release of files this week related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy to blast his administration’s willingness to blindly do whatever he says during Thursday night’s episode of “The Rachel Maddow Show.”
“For all the conspiracy theories and drama that we as a country have built up around the JFK assassination in the past 60+ years, ask yourself this: Over the last couple of days, have you heard anything in the news? Have you seen any big headlines about the amazing revelations in these documents?” Maddow asked. “You have not. That is because the documents that genius Donald Trump insisted on Monday had to be released on Tuesday were almost entirely documents that had been previously released to the public under President Joe Biden.”
While noting that “almost all of this stuff had previously been released,” the MSNBC host continued, “But this was a little different, right? Because Donald Trump, genius, insisted that the documents he was ordering to be released would have to be unredacted.” A lot of the redacted information, unfortunately, turned out to be the social security numbers and birth dates of “random people who worked for the government around the time that the Kennedy assassination was being investigated,” including Trump’s own former campaign lawyer, Joseph diGenova.
“Ta da!” Maddow joked.”These geniuses! These big brains!” You can watch the full segment yourself below:
Maddow spent several minutes Thursday night detailing how the Trump administration has scrambled to respond to its unwitting mass doxing, including issuing countless new social security numbers to those affected. In the closing moments of the segment, though, Maddow quoted a report by the New York Times that stated that some Trump administration officials knew beforehand that releasing said JFK files completely unredacted would expose some Americans’ personal information.
“They knew before the documents went out, but they did it anyway, because he’s the King,” Maddow lamented. “What? You’re going to tell him [that] the genius brain fart he had about Kennedy while he was walking around the Kennedy Center is somehow not the world’s greatest and [most] well-thought-out idea? Who around him is going to be like, ‘Um.. sir?’ That’s not how the government works in an autocratic system.”
Responding to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s remark that Trump “delivered on his promise of maximum transparency,” Maddow said, “Yes he did, and the maximum transparency here is like if jeans came in clear and nobody had underwear anymore. Yes, it’s maximum transparency. I’m not sure that’s good.”
“He definitely delivered,” Maddow dryly added. “Who are you or anyone else to question the inherent genius of every impulsive blurt of the 70-whatever-year-old God King who rules without restraint and without any checks and balances and without anyone anywhere near him who ever suggests the word, ‘No’?”
