FBI Trump raid: MSNBC figures balk at calling Mar-a-Lago search a 'raid' even as colleagues use term

Several MSNBC figures have publicly objected to the use of the term "raid" to describe the FBI's execution of a search warrant at former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence.

Trump announced the news in a dramatic statement on Monday, declaring his home was "under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents." MSNBC's Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O'Donnell were among those who described the situation as a "raid" as the news broke Monday night, and other on-air hosts have used the word since then, but several of their network colleagues have balked at the term. 

MSNBC anchor Alicia Menendez asked former FBI agent Frank Figliuzzi on Monday night how the FBI was able to "pull off this raid." Figliuzzi, a national security contributor at MSNBC, took a shot at her use of the term in his response.

"Agents don’t like the word ‘raid,’ they don’t like it. It sounds like it’s some sort of extrajudicial, non-legal thing. It’s an execution of a search warrant. It’s a court-authorized search warrant," he said.

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MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle also objected Tuesday to the term her own colleagues have used.

"We keep hearing a lot of people call what the FBI did at Mar-a-Lago a ‘raid.’ But for fact's sake, here's the deal. Law enforcement doesn't even use the term ‘raid,’" she said. "The Justice Department applied for and got a court-authorized search warrant that gave them lawful authority to into Trump's home. That was consistent with the Fourth Amendment probable cause requirement and allowed agents to seize items as permitted by the judge, and as outlined in the warrant. Words matter. And calling a court-authorized search a ‘raid’ suggests some sort of degree of aggression and lawlessness that is simply inconsistent with the facts and the law, and those are the facts."

On Wednesday's "Morning Joe," co-host Mika Brzezinski cut off Joe Scarborough and got him to change his rhetoric when he initially referred to the FBI's action as a raid. 

"I cannot believe that [Monday]'s raid was just about documents," Scarborough said, before she broke in to ask, "Was it really a raid?"

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"Not a raid. The search," he said, correcting himself. "I cannot believe that yesterday's legal, judicially sanctioned search of his premises was just about documents."

"It’s all legal. It’s all lawful. It’s not a raid," former U.S. Attorney Chuck Rosenberg also said on the show Wednesday.

It wasn't just on TV, either. MSNBC host Symone Sanders, a former top aide to Vice President Kamala Harris, pleaded Tuesday on Twitter, "Please folks stop calling it a ‘raid.’"

The semantics matter, as the FBI raid already seems to have had political ramifications, with both media foes and allies of Trump agreeing that the situation likely elevates his hopes of capturing the 2024 Republican nomination. His supporters have rallied behind him and framed the FBI's actions as more "Deep State" persecution of the 45th president, whose administration was clouded by the sprawling Russia investigation. 

Subsequent probes revealed FBI misconduct in obtaining surveillance warrants of Trumpworld figures, and the mutual suspicion between federal law enforcement and its media allies and those in Trump's orbit has only deepened. Democrats and liberal media members have blasted Republicans who've stood behind Trump in the wake of the raid as being hypocritical, given their vocal "Back the Blue" support for police.

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"Donald Trump has spent years trying to delegitimize these law enforcement agencies and to the deep state, and in the last 24 hours, we got an indication of how deep his campaign of subversion has gone in the Republican Party," MSNBC contributor Charlies Sykes said Tuesday. "It's one thing for the hardcore MAGAverse to react with fury, but what you are seeing is across the board, elected Republicans not giving the benefit of the doubt to the FBI, not observing the studied silence that you would normally do when evidence is being gathered."

MSNBC didn't respond to a request for comment.

FBI agents executed a search warrant of Trump's home in connection to an ongoing Department of Justice probe into whether Trump kept classified government documents after leaving the White House, according to sources who spoke with Fox News Digital. They added the National Archives and Records Administration referred the case to the Justice Department, which recovered 15 boxes of classified materials from the home. 

Trump was in New York City at the time of the raid, which the Secret Service at Mar-a-Lago was informed would happen shortly beforehand. Federal agents searched former first lady Melania Trump's wardrobe, broke into Trump's safe and spent hours in the former president's private office as well.

Other left-leaning media figures have used the "raid" language as well. Liberal CBS "Late Show" host Stephen Colbert celebrated Tuesday that "FBI agents raided Mar-a-Lago," comparing the event to Christmas.

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"We know the raid happened. We still don't know why the raid happened," he said during his monologue.

Fox News' Bradford Betz contributed to this report.