Maddow: Trump's CLOWN CAR CABINET now an alarming liability as threat from Iran spikes

For everything else Iran is, Iran is a big country, more than 90 million people, and they are a powerful country, with a sophisticated, intensively resourced, world-class, ruthless set of intelligence and security services, which, of course, target their own people at home to disastrous, murderous effect, particularly recently. But those security services and intelligence services also have tentacles all around the world.

And they have used them to target the regime's perceived enemies all over the world, including in the United States of America. Luckily, the U.S. government has been all over them on this. They know what the Iranians are capable of. They know what they've been trying to do.

Among other things, the United States government has specialist counterintelligence agents in the FBI who specialize in these kinds of threats, specifically emanating from Iran. It's a group at the FBI. It's a unit called CI12, CI for counterintelligence, CI12.

And thank God we've got them now, right? Now that we just killed Iran's supreme leader and started a huge new war with Iran, with apparently no idea what the consequences would be of us doing that, at least here at home, even if we're just going to be selfish in terms of the risk

to us. Well, thank God we've got a unit like CI-12 that really uniquely knows this stuff that's on it, right? The group that got that Air Force intelligence spy who defected to Iran, that got the people who tried to assassinate John Bolton and discovered the plots to kill Mike Pompeo and Brian Hook, and even the plot to kill Donald Trump.

Thank God we've got this group, CI-12, right? Last week, FBI Director Kash Patel, while he was coming off a wave of terrible press about U.S. taxpayers paying him to fly to Italy so he could go to a hockey game and chug beer in a locker room,

while he was heading into a whole new round of fresh reporting about how he has ordered an elite FBI SWAT team to be personal bodyguards and basically a chauffeur service for his girlfriend. In the middle of that bittersweet symphony of competence, last week, FBI Director Kash Patel

fired a dozen FBI agents and staff in the elite Counter Espionage and Counterintelligence Unit, CI12. We don't know why Donald Trump just started this war in Iran. Washington Post reported this weekend,

and The New York Times reported today that Trump did it basically as a favor, that there was no U.S. intelligence that Iran posed any imminent threat to us, but Saudi Arabia and Israel told Trump to do it, and so he

did it.

Because, hey, you know, America first. Strong man. We're just going to put our military at the disposal of other countries? Because they can tell Trump what to do with it? The attack came despite U.S. intelligence assessments that Iran's forces were unlikely to pose an immediate threat to the U.S. mainland within the next decade.

But he did it anyway, because Israel and Saudi Arabia told him to, and he apparently does what they say. And now six American service members are known to have been killed and many more injured. There's also new reporting tonight that the U.S. embassy in Riyadh in Saudi Arabia has been hit by two drones. The Washington Post is now also reporting that two U.S. Defense Department employees have been wounded in an Iranian drone attack on a hotel in Bahrain. And I mean, in terms of what we are heading into and the kind of risk we're heading

into, these are the sort of headlines that we're seeing tonight, quote, Earthquake in the Gulf? Iran War Expands to a Dozen Countries in 72 Hours. Just 72 hours after the U.S. and Israel began bombing Iran, the war has already consumed nearly the entire Middle East, reached the gates of Europe, and raised new fears of attacks on American soil.

This was the front page of The New York Times that we woke up to today. US troops killed as blasts jolt Mideast, fear of wider war after Iran's response. Here's the headline at The Washington Post. Quote, Trump pursues Iranian decapitation

without a plan for what comes next. Quote, security officials in the Middle East and in Europe have raised concerns that the US is unleashing forces that could spill across borders, disrupt global trade, and lead to asymmetric terrorist attack reprisals, all with no certainty that the remaining Islamic hardliners

won't ultimately retain their hold on power anyway. Spill across borders, disrupt global trade, lead to asymmetric terrorist attack reprisals. Given those kinds of threats that Trump has just unleashed with this war that he started for reasons he still cannot clearly articulate, given those kind of threats, given that Pandora's box that has just been opened, do you feel like we've got all our national security ducks in a row here in this country now that we've

started this thing? Do you feel like our leaders in the US government are really on the ball right now when it comes to national security, when it comes even just to domestic national security, when it comes to managing security, when it comes even just to domestic national security, when it comes to managing potential fallout

from this thing that Donald Trump has just unleashed? I mean, you can start with our Secretary of Defense, right? I mean, his immediate previous job before Donald Trump gave him the keys to the U.S. Defense Department was that he was the weekend co-host

on the cable news show Fox & Friends. Now we're at war with Iran. Six U.S. service members killed so far, many more wounded. Hegseth also apparently just lost three F-15 fighter jets to friendly fire because the U.S. military did not de-conflict with our allies in Kuwait, so Kuwait shot down our

planes. Great. with our allies in Kuwait, so Kuwait shot down our planes?

took the Coast Guard Commandant's House for herself, who has been mostly focused, who's been focused most intently during her time in office on sending militarized mask federal troops all over the United States to kill and terrorize people here at home. Kristi Noem is currently trying to stand up a huge new network of prison camps for Donald Trump to send people to without trial. Yeah, Kristi Noem already doing great. is currently trying to stand up a huge new network of prison camps for Donald Trump to send people to without trial.

Now, Kristi Noem, already doing great. She is in charge of our homeland security right now at this incredibly fraught, stupid, dangerous time, now that Trump has started this war. Specifically, I should mention that also means that Kristi Noem is in charge of our cyber defense.

I mentioned that Iran's security services and intelligence services are pretty sophisticated and well-resourced, and they're thought of as having a pretty wide international reach. One of the things they're best at and most ambitious at is cyber warfare. While Christine Ohm, in her infinite wisdom, put who in charge of America's cyber defense? It's this gentleman. Politico just profiled him.

You see the headline there, Canceled Contracts, a Failed Polygraph, and Personal Disputes Inside the Turbulent Tenure of Christine Ohm's Former Cyber Czar. It's former. He's only been former since Thursday, because they finally kicked him out of that job on Thursday. The nation's top cybersecurity official lost his job on Thursday, less than 48 hours before the Trump administration started a war with

Iran, a particularly adept cyber rival. I mean, this is the Homeland Security Department's premier cybersecurity division. And who is this guy? Quote, he had no prior experience in the federal government before Kristi Noem appointed him

to lead the agency last May. But he had served a 10-month stint under then-Governor Noem as South Dakota's chief information

officer.

OK. Quote, in August, he triggered a DHS-wide damage assessment Hunter, then Governor Nome, as South Dakota's Chief Information Officer. Okay. Quote, in August, he triggered a DHS-wide damage assessment by uploading sensitive agency contracting documents into a public version of ChatGPT, information that other staff at the agency weren't permitted to use for security reasons. He also failed a counterintelligence polygraph exam last July.

He failed the polygraph? Yes, Homeland Security later dismissed the polygraph as, quote, unsanctioned and accused staff of, quote, misleading him about the need for the test. So to be clear, Christine Ount put this guy in charge of cybersecurity for the country.

He then failed a counterintelligence polygraph exam. And Christy Noem's response to that was, well, you shouldn't have made him take that test. And she kept him on in the job. Well, he was fine in South Dakota. You can just imagine the kind of brilliance we have had at the helm of the nation's top cybersecurity agency in the United States, a particularly key job now that Trump has started a war with Iran.

What else do you need to know about him? Well, there's this. Well, last summer, he temporarily suspended a SysISA employee who had flashed a middle finger at his Tesla Cybertruck while it sat unoccupied in an agency parking lot. Footage of the incident was captured by the car's onboard camera. The director had the CISA security office identify the employee.

The employee did not appear to know whose car it was at the time he or she flipped off the vehicle. The employee was frustrated because the truck had been left in a shared electric vehicle charging port four days at a time. This employee gives the cyber truck the finger in the parking lot, and this guy goes into his dash cam footage and figures out who gave his truck the finger, and then has that employee,

who works at the nation's premier cybersecurity agency, suspended from his or her job because that person had the temerity to flip off his truck while he was not in it. That's who Kristi Noem put in charge of America's cybersecurity,

and he only got relieved of his responsibilities in that job on Thursday. How did he last so long in that job? According to Politico's reporting today, Noam was hesitant to remove him until recently because she and Homeland Security Department Special Advisor Corey Lewandowski feared that firing him would, quote, reflect poorly on her.

OK.

Homeland Security also oversees Customs and Border Patrol, which accidentally shut down the airspace over El Paso a couple of weeks ago because Customs and Border Patrol used a military laser to shoot down Happy Valentine's Day Mylar party balloons. Oops! Then last week some other Texas airspace had to be shut down because this time it was Pete Hegseth's Fox and Friends Defense Department also using a laser gun to shoot down a drone this time. Whose drone was it? Oh it was a

drone from Customs and Border Protection. Because this punch-yourself-in-the-face, staggering genius is the level of talent we have handling our national security right now. As President Donald Trump, for no reason he can articulate, sets off what may end up being a worldwide conflagration with one of the most capable and unpredictable adversaries the United States has faced off against in

generations. Yeah, it's a good thing we've got people of the caliber of Kristi Noem attacking, I mean, defending the homeland, and geniuses like Kash Patel at the FBI, instead of the experienced Iran specialist counterintelligence agents who Kash Patel defending the homeland, and geniuses like Kash Patel at the FBI, instead of the experienced Iran specialist counterintelligence agents who Kash Patel just fired literally last week, right before we started bombing Iran.