MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow delivered an on-air takedown of the Trump administration’s startling arrest on Wednesday of a Turkish national by masked Department of Homeland Security agents, who surrounded and “snatched” her from the street.
The sudden detainment of Tufts University grad student Rumeysa Ozturk, 30, was captured on a doorbell video and sparked protests demanding her release “spontaneously and basically instantly,” Maddow told viewers Thursday.
But, she added, the harrowing incident could’ve been easily avoided.
“Donald Trump is now claiming the right to do this to anyone,” Maddow said. “He is making the truly authoritarian claim that if you express an opinion that Donald Trump doesn't like, this is what will happen to you. In this case, it was a student writing an op-ed criticizing the war in the Middle East.”
The primetime host went on to call out the MAGA administration’s justification for revoking Ozturk’s student visa as “insane.”
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“But even if signing an op-ed were grounds to revoke this young woman's visa, they could just tell her they were revoking her visa!” she said. “Tell her that she therefore needs to leave the country, instead they didn't tell her anything. They just sent masked goons to jump her on the street and throw her in an unmarked car and take her away.”
But there was a bright spot according to Maddow, who concluded: “It is regular Americans that have been fighting against Trump and that’s what’s made the difference.”
“Instantly thousands of people gathered on no notice in the immediate aftermath of a Tufts University student with a valid student visa, a Fulbright scholar, PhD candidate with no criminal record who'd had no notice from the government that they believed she had done anything wrong.”
The situation left Maddow sure of one thing: “That will now be litigated.”
