Just two nights after a third leftist extremist attempted to kill President Trump, MS NOW was already back to using incendiary and possibly inciting language. During the Monday night handoff between Rachel Maddow’s eponymous show and Lawrence O’Donnell’s The Last Word, the duo discussed how Trump was trying to build “concentration camps” for illegal immigrants. They also mocked how the “Trump prison camp warehouses” were failing to materialize.
“Did I hear your reporting correctly tonight that not a single one of these Trump prison camp warehouses of - that, that they were they've been trying to build, buy, and operate. Not one of them has come online?” O’Donnell coyly questioned, teeing up his colleague to reiterate content from her show, which was wrapping up.
O’Donnell would later quip, “And there's been no uprising by Trump voters in those districts and in those states saying, oh, no, no, we want Donald Trump's detention centers and concentration camps here.” Maddow agreed with the description with a “yeah, yeah.”
He was using intentionally incendiary rhetoric to push a narrative that portrayed Trump in Hitleresque and Naziesque imagery. It was just like what we saw in the defamation suit MS NOW (then-MSNBC) settled just before trial last year. In discovery, a message from host Chris Hayes showed that they intentionally used words that “conjured the worst kind of like Third Reich” thoughts in viewers’ heads.
Just two nights after the third assassination attempt on President Trump, MS NOW is claiming Trump is trying to build "concentration camps" for Illegals. They laugh about how the "prison camps" were being rejected.
— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) April 28, 2026
LAWRENCE O’DONNELL: Rachel. You know, I'm - Did I hear your… pic.twitter.com/of0WfnFl22
Maddow boasted about how liberals in Maryland had organized to pressure the state to file a lawsuit to stymie the construction of an illegal immigrant detention center:
Not one of them has come online. The first one they wanted to open was the one in Williamsport, just outside Hagerstown, Maryland, and that one was stopped in its tracks by a lawsuit brought by the state of Maryland. And that lawsuit, I am surmising, was brought because of the unbelievably fierce and well-organized resistance of all the local people in Hagerstown who said, ‘oh my god, no, we're not going to do this.’
And they form this statewide coalition to stop it. And they dug up all of this incredible detail out of public records requests. They flew a drone over the site. They did all of this great reporting in terms of all the reasons it wasn't feasible. All of that, I think, really, honestly empowered the state to bring this lawsuit. The lawsuit stopped it. And now that lawsuit is being used essentially as a template to stop all the rest of them.
She was also tickled by how Republican senators where able to put the kibosh on planned centers by pushing back on the ones slated for their states:
Like, I'm sorry, Roger Wicker said, no, you can't put one of those in Mississippi. And so there isn't one. Marsha Blackburn said, no, you can't put one of those in Tennessee. And so there isn't one. John Curtis is saying, no, you can't put one of those in Utah. And I think there's not going to be one there. We saw the Republican governor in new Hampshire say, no, no, no, you can't put one here. Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire said. And so there's not going to be one there.
I mean, these things are falling apart everywhere. Anybody realizes it's going to touch their own life. And Republicans have said no to them. And the Department of Homeland security, with the tiniest little iota of pushback from any Republican just instantly collapses. And that dynamic, I mean, it's really important, I think, to observe it. And I think it should help all the rest of us understand sort of how to calibrate the cowardice of all of these various Republicans, seeing how powerful they are.
“They just have to lift one finger and say no. And the worst idea Donald Trump has ever had goes away,” she touted.
It’s worth a reminder that MS NOW (then-MSNBC), and particularly Maddow’s show, were favorites of Congressional Baseball shooter James Hodgekinson. He also was a big fan of far-left Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT).
The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read:
MS NOW’s The Last Word
April 27, 2026
10:01:32 p.m. Eastern(…)
LAWRENCE O’DONNELL: Rachel. You know, I'm - Did I hear your reporting correctly tonight that not a single one of these Trump prison camp warehouses of - that, that they were they've been trying to build, buy, and operate. Not one of them has come online?
RACHEL MADDOW: Not one of them has come online. The first one they wanted to open was the one in Williamsport, just outside Hagerstown, Maryland, and that one was stopped in its tracks by a lawsuit brought by the state of Maryland. And that lawsuit, I am surmising, was brought because of the unbelievably fierce and well-organized resistance of all the local people in Hagerstown who said, ‘oh my god, no, we're not going to do this.’
And they form this statewide coalition to stop it. And they dug up all of this incredible detail out of public records requests. They flew a drone over the site. They did all of this great reporting in terms of all the reasons it wasn't feasible. All of that, I think, really, honestly empowered the state to bring this lawsuit. The lawsuit stopped it. And now that lawsuit is being used essentially as a template to stop all the rest of them.
There's opposition to every single one of them that they haven't canceled yet, and they've canceled more than they've even tried to bring online. So it, it does feel like this is turning into - turning out to be a $38 billion debacle. None of these things is open. And if the if the resistance level keeps to these things keeps increasing. The way we've been documenting, I think it's a good bet that none of them ever will.
O’DONNELL: And as of right now, the Republican Congress is trying to deliver even more money to this project that appears to be going nowhere.
Rachel, the first one that I covered, I remember Senator Roger Wicker, Republican, who's the chairman of the Armed Services Committee. He objected to it in his state. And this is a state Donald Trump carries by, I don't know, 20 points or so, deep south.
And I thought that was the first one I reported on. And I saw how easy it was. Just one letter from the chairman to then Kristi Noem to the - the, you know, the secretary. And that was the end of it. And I just thought, well, if you can't build one of these in the deep south in Trump territory -
MADDOW: In Mississippi.
O’DONNELL: - overwhelming Trump voter support in the place where you want to put it, then you're not going to get one anywhere. And that was just my - my sort of prediction about it. And, and you're reporting to us, that's exactly what happened. Even in states that aren't represented by powerful Republicans in Congress.
MADDOW: But, you know, it's funny. I feel like it is one of a it's a really underreported story -
O’DONNELL: Yes.
MADDOW: - given the understandable focus of the national media and even the international media on why Republicans keep rolling over, and they haven't stood up to him, and why the Republican Party has collapsed under this personalist rule of this would be autocrat, blah blah blah.
Like, I'm sorry, Roger Wicker said, no, you can't put one of those in Mississippi. And so there isn't one. Marsha Blackburn said, no, you can't put one of those in Tennessee. And so there isn't one. John Curtis is saying, no, you can't put one of those in Utah. And I think there's not going to be one there. We saw the Republican governor in new Hampshire say, no, no, no, you can't put one here. Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire said. And so there's not going to be one there.
I mean, these things are falling apart everywhere. Anybody realizes it's going to touch their own life. And Republicans have said no to them. And the Department of Homeland security, with the tiniest little iota of pushback from any Republican just instantly collapses. And that dynamic, I mean, it's really important, I think, to observe it. And I think it should help all the rest of us understand sort of how to calibrate the cowardice of all of these various Republicans, seeing how powerful they are.
They just have to lift one finger and say no. And the worst idea Donald Trump has ever had goes away. It just means we should expect a lot more of them, for them to be able to, because they can do this stuff, and it doesn't cost them much when they do it. And it's effective. It's a it's a case for, as far as I'm concerned, to put even more pressure on them to do the right thing by their constituents.
O’DONNELL: And there's been no uprising by Trump voters in those districts and in those states saying, oh, no, no, we want Donald Trump's detention centers and concentration camps here.
MADDOW: Yeah, yeah. By Hallie and Mississippi isn't like Roger. What do you mean? Yeah, it's it doesn't go that way ever. Not any of these.
O’DONNELL: Yeah. Great reporting Rachel. Thank you.
MADDOW: Thanks, Lawrence. Appreciate it.
O’DONNELL: Thank you.
