MS NOW’s Rachel Maddow Gloats Over Resistance to ‘Trump Prison Camps’ in ‘Deep Red’ Trump Country

MS NOW host Rachel Maddow gloated over successful resistance to “Trump prison camps” in “deep, deep red” areas that President Donald Trump won by large margins.

Maddow has consistently covered and cheered protesters and officials who have pushed back against Trump’s deportation forces amid an escalating crackdown.

That trend continued on Monday night’s edition of MS NOW’s The Rachel Maddow Show, as Maddow opened her show with a marathon commentary devoted to repeated examples of successful pressure against facilities that some critics refer to as “concentration camps”:

RACHEL MADDOW: Following day, Wednesday, a big outdoor advertising company that does tons of business with that billionaire’s company, advertising company called Point Blank, they send the billionaire a letter saying, hey, you know, if you help ICE build a fricking prison camp in America, in Virginia, we’re never doing any business with any of your companies ever again.

Well, that night back in Virginia, back in Hanover County, there’s a board of supervisors meeting. When — when they first got those local news reports that this prison camp was coming to town, that ICE wanted to build a prison camp there, those local news reports had mentioned that the local board of supervisors was, quote, “set to consider the proposal and potential next steps at its next regularly scheduled meeting on Wednesday, January 28th, weather permitting.”

Well, as of Wednesday, January 28th, weather was not permitting. It was absolutely freezing, snow everywhere. The roads were completely covered in ice. Nevertheless, the local board of supervisors in Hanover County, Virginia, met that night, Wednesday, and the place was absolutely packed with locals.

The public comment period at the board of supervisors meeting went on and on and on for hours. And nobody was allowed to speak at that public comment period unless they were from Hanover County. And, again, this is a Trump plus-26 county.

But basically the whole community turned up on this icy cold, snowy, dangerous night to tell the board of supervisors there exactly what they thought. There were so many people there in the cold and the snow that once the room was full, people queued up outside despite the weather. They knew they wouldn’t get in. They were told they wouldn’t get in. They said they weren’t leaving. They were staying. They had to say their peace. And then this happened.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED: Hey there, Indivisible Virginia, we’re here outside the Hanover Board of Supervisors meeting. You can see people turned out hugely. They are cheering and excited right now because the rumor is that they’ve just voted it down. I’m going to see if I can get confirmation, if that is what has actually happened. People — there was chanting, “this is what democracy looks like.”

(CHEERING)

UNIDENTIFIED: This looks awesome. Sorry, (inaudible). Do you know why people are excited?

UNIDENTIFIED: They just announced proposal rejected, and everyone screamed.

UNIDENTIFIED: So that — so that is it. So they — so these wonderful patriots have defeated the concentration camp.

CROWD: We’re not leaving! We’re not leaving!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: Saying, we’re not leaving. We’re not leaving. You hear the cheers that go up when they hear the result of what happened inside the board of supervisors in deep, deep red Hanover County, Virginia, said no. That night, with all those people packing the meeting with all those people outside, they said, we do not want a Trump prison camp here.

In the statement that the board put out saying that they oppose this prison camp being sited in their county, they called on their state representatives in state government. They called on their federal delegation in Congress to please help them, to please make this not happen, to tell ICE and to tell the Trump administration that they were not going to have one of these prison camps in their county. So that was Wednesday night.

Then, less than 48 hours later on Friday, this past Friday, the Canadian billionaire, the guy who owns that half million square foot warehouse in Ashland in Hanover County, Virginia, his company put out a very simple one line statement. It says, quote, “The transaction to sell our industrial building in Ashland, Virginia, will not be proceeding.” Will not be proceeding. Done.

Let’s go to another red part of the country. Let’s go to Utah. We covered over the past couple of weeks local organizing in Utah to stop yet another huge warehouse from being bought by the Trump administration and turned into a huge immigrant prison camp there. Local organizers in Utah focused their attention on the real estate company that was trying to broker the sale of that Salt Lake City warehouse to ICE. Saw organizing like this one, “Contact the real estate company today. Let them know what you think of their plan to profit off the suffering of countless human beings. Call their offices, email them, review them on Google, Yelp, and Facebook.”

There was a big protest at the offices of that local real estate company. The mayor of Salt Lake County got involved. She says publicly that the — the size of this prison camp that Trump wants to put there, it would hold more people than the entire Utah Department of Corrections. It would hold more people in that one facility than all Utah state prisons combined. And that community is not willing to bear that cost. She said she will use, quote, “all available legal and policy avenues, including land use authority, regulatory review, and coordination with local partners to oppose this thing.”

Then we get the Salt Lake City mayor involved. She’s contacting the local real estate group that’s been getting all these calls and these emails, that’s having protests at its offices. It’s getting the most pressure and the worst press of its life over its choice to do business with ICE, to put a prison camp in their hometown. Salt Lake City mayor tells them, do not do it.

Then this Saturday, this weekend, that local real estate company, the one that owns the warehouse, they put out their own brief, to-the-point statement, “We,” quote, “have no plans to sell or lease the building to ICE or any other federal government agency.” Done, in Salt Lake City.

Watch above via MS NOW’s The Rachel Maddow Show.

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