Name: "What Can We Get Away With?" - Chris Hayes Identifies The Trump Administration's Operating Principle
Uploaded: 2026-01-08T16:53:22.000Z
Duration: 5 min 40 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Hey everybody, we're back with Chris Hayes.

Governor Walz alludes to this in his, in his statement when he first came out and spoke today that all of this is the result of a policy of intimidation and using fear to try to cow his what he perceives as political enemies or those who don't support him.

That federal government, the power of the federal government instilling fear in the people, fear of violence in the people.

isn't protecting ourselves against that the argument that second amendment people have made for so many years about why we're supposed to have guns?

No, I'm not saying anybody to use any violence against the government.

But that seems to be an odd conflict between those who might support the President and his support of the second Amendment and the fact that this is exactly what they described in their fantasies and why the Supreme Court said that personal protection is what is granted by the second Amendment.

I mean first, I would agree with you that more guns in this situation would make things only worse, just to be clear.

But it is interesting that the precedent I just cited, which is Ruby Ridge, right, was a cause of lab of gun rights activists and right wingers and conservatives precisely because at the time they viewed that as government overreach and that the sort of right we have as citizens to protect against that tyranny and incursion.

And I had to sort of chuckle today when I was reading into the news.

There was a headline from yesterday that just came across my feed that the President of the United States was threatening the Iranian government with military action if they killed peaceful protesters.

And I think we all understand that like killing peaceful protesters is a sign of something horribly wrong with a government.

This is a 37 year old mother with her partner and dog in the car sitting in a street and recording what ICE is doing.

Now they want to call her a domestic terrorist.

And everyone can decide whether the 37 year old mom with her kids stuffies shoved in the dashboard of her car is a domestic terrorist draw.

But to my mind she looks like a peaceful protester and she's dead.

Now in another play from the authoritarian handbook let's talk about the war or however should be characterized or Venezuela.

I think something like 80 people on the ground killed no Americans, no American service members.

Our government can always count on the military to be the best in the world.

Ask the military to do something Very hard.

They will do it for incredibly impressive operation.

Okay, so you've been tracking the escalation, you know, because there was carrier groups that were blowing up boats that were alleged to have drugs in them.

What was your reaction when you heard that Maduro had been captured?

Well, I was shocked, but not surprised and appalled.

I mean, part of what's so insane about this buildup that you just mentioned.

Just to take a step back, let's all remember how this.

They started blowing up ships with human beings on them.

And they said drugs, which maybe there were, maybe there weren't.

We can't confirm it because they said they were engaged in a war, a military war with a narco terrorist gang called Trend Aragua that was associated with the Venezuelan government.

So something that had been law enforcement for centuries, the interdiction of contraband.

They converted from law enforcement to a war, clearly, as a means of pressure for regime change.

When it came time to do the regime change, when they sent U.S.

forces to invade a country, what else can you call it?

They then turned around and be like, no, this is law enforcement.

The ships are law enforcement, but that's war that you were blowing up.

Now you're invading the country and now you want to tell us it's law enforcement?

And the reason I bring it up is like, at some point, it's like, what's the point of playing Gotcha on this?

But the point to make, I think, is that everything they say and do is pretextual, and

You cannot credit any of the justifications ever given for anything as good faith, actual reason justifications.

And I say that because there are conservatives, Republicans, all sorts of people I disagree with, who I've dealt with in public life and debated and had on my show, who do make good faith arguments, who aren't just slinging pretext, who aren't just totally mired in this kind of gaslighting.

Those people exist, the people running the country are only operating on one principle and one principle only.

We're gonna take another break here, but we're right back with more Chris Hayes, everybody.