'It's day 4 and it's already happening': Maddow sounds the alarm on Trump's science gag order

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Tuesday sounded the alarm about Donald Trump’s imminent crackdown of federal agencies—including the Environmental Protection Agency—warning, “it is day four, and it is already happening.”

Maddow was referring to reports that the new administration issued a gag order to workers at the EPA, even as hearings are currently underway for Trump’s pick to head the agency, climate change denier Scott Pruitt. She said the EPA has essentially been “brought to a halt,” pointing out that the only reason we even know about the gag order is because an employee managed to surreptitiously “tip somebody off inside a Congressional office on Capitol Hill.”

“The work of the agency is frozen, all existing contracts and grants are suspended immediately, and no EPA employees are allowed to make any public statements, including any online postings, social media—anything,” Maddow said, aghast. “They can’t even make public appearances that were previously scheduled.”

Maddow said while the Trump administration mulls over ways to “formally” close the EPA, it has successfully “bound and gagged the EPA.” The MSNBC host noted this is “not a solitary case,” adding “multiple federal agencies” have received similar orders.

Maddow then referred to reports shortly after Trump’s election indicating federal agencies—particularly those involved with scientific research—were actively backing up public-facing information in preparation for Trump’s presidency.

“Now we know, not paranoid,” Maddow said. “Now we know, day four of the new administration, those people were not wrong to be freaked out. And they probably, in the interest of science, were not wrong to be downloading and trying to save data privately.”

“Because the data is disappearing,” she continued. “The scientists are already being told they are not allowed to speak or publish. It is already happening, it is day four, and it is already happening.”

Watch the video below, via MSNBC: