MSNBC's Rachel Maddow says Trump 'pulling out all the last stops' to avoid this scandal

According to MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, President Donald Trump's latest moves all share the same goal: Keeping Americans distracted from the ongoing fallout over his administration's handling of unreleased documents pertaining to convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

In an atypical Friday night broadcast (the longtime host hasn't had a regular weekly show since the end of Trump's first 100 days), Maddow used her opening monologue to argue that the president's distraction agenda is coming off as increasingly desperate. She touched on how Trump has quietly withdrawn appointees to key government positions, and not announced replacements — as he did with former Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) commissioner nominee E.J. Antoni last month. And she pointed out that despite the BLS having the ability to publish a September jobs report despite the shutdown, it had not done so.

Maddow also observed that, 17 days into a government shutdown, Trump has yet to broker a deal to extend Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies due to expire at the end of the year that Democrats have all agreed are a necessity to gain their support in reopening the government. She noted that should the ACA tax credits not be extended, people in Republican-dominated states would be on the hook for the biggest health insurance premium increases.

The MSNBC host then pivoted to Trump announcing Friday that he was commuting the sentence of disgraced former Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.), who was expelled from Congress in 2023. Santos was serving an 87-month sentence after being convicted of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.

"So clearly that's a president operating from a position of strength, right?" Maddow said while laughing. "This is what he wants to be known for. I mean, his only moves right now are big distraction moves. We're on day 17 of a government shutdown. He's refusing to release the jobs data or the inflation data about what he's doing to the country's economy, while all the private sector data that we have to look to, to try to understand those things, is terrible."

"His paramilitary and would-be military assault on his own people in cities across the country is being pushed back: Not only on every street corner where he's trying it, but in every courtroom where he's trying to get away with it — including in front of judges he himself appointed," she continued. "He is pulling out all the last stops he can to try desperately to avoid the Epstein disaster he is still mired in. He is quietly, quietly pulling his nominees and hoping no one notices, and asks why the health care policy on which the Democrats are totally unified and taking their stand against him, is about to be a full-blown economic disaster for literally tens of millions of American families."

"He is 24 points underwater in his job approval, 24 points," she added. "And his big idea to change the subject is to free America's comedic poster child for compulsive lying and stealing. I mean, for a supposed strong man, this is all pretty weak, right?"

Watch the segment below: