Latest / Pod Save America / ICE's Reign of Terror

Transcript

ICE's Reign of Terror · Pod Save America

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Today's presenting sponsor is SimpliSafe Home Security. Look, we spent
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: all day talking about threats to democracy, but at the
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: very least, you can get rid of threats at home
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: with SimpliSafe Home Security.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: And as you all know, John Lovett has SimpliSafe at
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: his home, and it is the first time he's felt
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: safe in his house.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: More safe than Congress, even. The big thing is it's proactive,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: not reactive. SimpliSafe's active guard outdoor monitoring uses smart AI
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: cameras and real live agents watching for trouble. So SimpliSafe
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: stops crimes before they start.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: If someone's creeping around, they can see it, talk to them,
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: and get help on the way before anyone gets inside.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: You're covered outside and inside. Proactive live outdoor monitoring plus
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: 24-7 indoor protection for your whole home. John Lovett loved
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: his experience.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Simply safe.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: It was so easy to set up. It gives you
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: peace of mind when you're away. It's really reliable. It's
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: easy to turn it on and off from your phone.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: Your house is fully protected. There's no long-term contracts. The
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: features are great. The app is great.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: The cameras are high-tech, and they work inside and out
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: of the house, and you'll love it. They've been protecting
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: over 5 million Americans for more than 20 years. They've
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: been named best home security system by U.S. News and
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: World Report five years running. And there are no long-term
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: contracts you can cancel anytime. Get 50% off any new
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: system at simplisafe.com slash crooked. That's simplisafe.com slash crooked. Protect
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: your house.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: Like it actually matters because it does. There's no safe
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: like SimpliSafe.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: On today's show, we're going to talk about the chaos
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: in Minneapolis where protests have broken out after federal agents
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: shot another person. prompting Trump to threaten the Insurrection Act.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: We'll also talk about how this is all landing with Americans,
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: as well as the debates Democrats are having about what
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: to do. We'll get into the latest with Trump's Justice Department,
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: where more lawyers have resigned and more investigations have been launched,
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: as well as RFK Jr. 's assessment of Trump's eating
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: habits and testosterone levels. Then Senator Ruben Gallego stops by
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: to talk about Trump's invasion of Minneapolis and his potential
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: invasion of Greenland. A great day of news. Let's start
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: with the latest in Minneapolis, which now feels like a
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: war zone to the people who live there. On Wednesday night,
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: a federal agent shot a man he was pursuing, leading
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: to a long night of protests that led to more
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: federal agents firing tear gas, flashbangs, and other projectiles. Mayor
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: Frey held a press conference where he reiterated that he's
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: in an impossible situation trying to keep people safe with
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: only 600 police officers versus around 3,000 armed federal agents.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: who are terrorizing citizens and non-citizens alike, arresting people without warrants,
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: physically assaulting them, dragging them out of their cars. And
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: that was before Trump said on Thursday morning that he's
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: considering invoking the Insurrection Act and sending actual troops to
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: the city, a move that pretty clearly seems designed to
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: bait residents into violence. One of those residents summed up
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: how so many of his neighbors and so many of
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: us feel about what's going on in Minnesota right now
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: while talking to a reporter on Wednesday night. Let's listen.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: This is nuts.
• 3:17
  Speaker 4: This is fucking, yeah, and you're right in the middle
• 3:19
  Speaker 4: of this shit. What the fuck is going on, dude?
• 3:23
  Speaker 5: This is insane.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: Have you ever gone out to these sort of things before? Never, never.
• 3:27
  Speaker 5: I've never protested in my life.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: My brother, my brother's here. He does it all the time.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: I've never.
• 3:30
  Speaker 4: I got, dude, like I said. I'm far enough away,
• 3:34
  Speaker 4: but close enough. And I'm sitting in my cushy house
• 3:37
  Speaker 4: and look at shit and get mad. And I, yeah,
• 3:39
  Speaker 4: they're just trying to fucking scare people. And, you know, but, but,
• 3:43
  Speaker 4: but why shoot people? No, you know, what really pisses
• 3:46
  Speaker 4: me off is the fact that they detain people, cuff them,
• 3:49
  Speaker 4: and then still beat the shit out of them.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: They tell you it's.
• 3:51
  Speaker 4: Immigrants, only immigrants. It's fucking anybody. I have friends that
• 3:56
  Speaker 4: got detained and all they were doing was fucking driving
• 3:58
  Speaker 4: home from work.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: What the fuck? Sounds like you don't fit the definition
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: of the.
• 4:03
  Speaker 4: No, and I'm not fucking paid to be here like
• 4:06
  Speaker 4: everybody fucking says.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: What the fuck is that?
• 4:08
  Speaker 4: I gotta work in the goddamn morning, just like everybody else.
• 4:12
  Speaker 4: I'm just here trying to stand up for community, dude.
• 4:14
  Speaker 4: We're all human beings here. I don't give a shit
• 4:16
  Speaker 4: who you are, where you came from, what color you are.
• 4:18
  Speaker 4: It doesn't fucking matter.
• 4:19
  Speaker 5: This is wrong.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: That guy in 2028.
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: I mean, more Democrats should sound like that.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: Starting his campaign. Can we get him? Can we get
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: him on the horn? Let's draft him. Yeah, he doesn't
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: sound like your typical paid leftist agitator, huh, Dan? What's
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: your reaction been to watching this unfold Wednesday night and
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: just over the last few days?
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: It seems insane to say this, but when you watch
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: what's happening in Minneapolis right now, it is clear that
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: the president of the United States dispatched a mass paramilitary
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: force loyal to him to invade and occupy an American
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: city for basically no reason at all. just because he
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: could and because he wanted to send a message. And
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: that is what is happening. And it is horrific. I mean,
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: I just saw right before we did this, you just
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: tweeted a video of a dad talking about how ICE
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: threw tear gas into his car with six kids and
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: then wouldn't let him call an ambulance or get access
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: to healthcare.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: His six-month-old, his six-month-old, he had a two-year-old, a six-month-old,
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: the six-month-old couldn't breathe. And if you watch the video,
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: it says, he's like, I wasn't even, I wasn't even
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: at the protest. I was just trying to drive somewhere.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: Of course, all the fucking people on Twitter, all the
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: right wing assholes are like, oh, he shouldn't have put
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: his kids in a dangerous situation. It's like not everything.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: There's not a fucking excuse for everything. You assholes. The
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: guy literally lives in Minneapolis and was driving home because
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: that's where he lives. And his six month old couldn't
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: get a fucking ambulance because there weren't enough officials to
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: help them with an ambulance because there were so many
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: trying to fucking terrorize the people in Minneapolis.
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: I mean, there are thousands of masked ICE agents roaming
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: the cities of Minneapolis, right? And after everything we saw
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: with National Guard troops in DC, Portland, Chicago, Memphis, LA, elsewhere,
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: it's easy to sort of become numb to what's happening here.
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: But this is deeply, deeply dangerous. And if you can't
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: look at these videos, look at what's happening there, read
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: the local reporting about what's happening on the ground, and
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: not realize that we are at a very dangerous crossroads
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: in this country, then I honestly don't know what you're
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: doing or what you're looking at. We'll see all of
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: this and decide that now is not the time to
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: speak up or this is not the issue that is
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: best for us and that we should just wait for
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: our chance to talk about affordability or healthcare tax cuts
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: or something. Honestly, you shouldn't be in politics. You are
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: missing a moment because this is what is happening.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: This is what matters.
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: This is what is dominating discussion in America right now.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: I understand that when your world is peaceful and doesn't
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: look like Minneapolis, or even when, look, when this was
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: happening in Los Angeles, I remember the rest of the
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: country was like, what's Los Angeles like right now? And
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: sure enough, it was like a few city blocks, right?
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: In downtown LA. And, you know, that's been the case
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: in a few other cities. Chicago was very bad. It
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: was most of Chicago. Obviously DC was, you know, we
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: had occupied DC for a while. But because I think
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: Minneapolis is smaller and because there are so many more
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: federal agents there than there have been any other place.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: It re like, you know, I know people on the
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: ground in, in Minneapolis and, um, people are afraid to
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: leave their homes. Kids who are in school have had
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: like so many of their family members taken. Um, they it's,
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: they said it feels like a war zone. Like it, it's,
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: it's not, it's not just that the clips we're seeing
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: are isolated incidents or certain neighborhoods or anything like that.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: It is the whole city feels like this. And it
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: would be, it would be nice if, Most Americans sort
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: of stood up and spoke out for our neighbors in
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: Minnesota right now, in Minneapolis, because they're going through a
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: really hard time. And they must feel very lonely, I'm sure,
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: because the rest, you know, partly everyone's distracted with everything
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: else in the news and everyone else is like going
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: about living their lives like, oh, it's Trump, another crazy
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: Trump thing. But this is really fucking scary. Trump and
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: his goons have already decided that the ICE agent who
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: killed Rene Good should be praised, not investigated. and that
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: the person who really deserves to be investigated is Good's widow, Rebecca.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: These decisions reportedly led to the resignations of six federal
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney's Office in Minnesota, including the
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: Trump-appointed prosecutor, who had been running the administration's fraud investigation
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: in that state. Thought that was supposed to be the
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: most important agenda item, the big Somali fraud investigation. So
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: the attorney that was running that resigned. because he wouldn't
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: investigate this woman's widow. Pam Bondi, who seems eager to
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: rebut the Wall Street Journal's reporting this week that Trump's
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: been complaining about her being, quote, weak and ineffective, went
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: on Fox to yell about this.
• 9:06
  Speaker 6: The breaking news tonight, I fired them all. They're fired
• 9:09
  Speaker 6: from the office. And we learned these people had been
• 9:11
  Speaker 6: out there interviewing at liberal law firms prior to this.
• 9:15
  Speaker 6: But I'll tell you what, from a personnel level, that'd
• 9:17
  Speaker 6: be an HR nightmare. So people better look into them.
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: This is so embarrassing.
• 9:24
  Speaker 5: You didn't dump me.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: I dumped you. I know. And she says earlier too,
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: she's like, and they, they resigned, you know, but then
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: I fired them. It's like, what? You did what? You're
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: a fucking idiot. You're all fucking idiots.
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: I mean, not for nothing. Letting him resign is probably
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: better for you because of severance packages and the like,
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: but so firing him just, just, She is clearly someone
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: who's in so far overhead and beginning to feel the
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: pressure because of the Wall Street Journal story that said
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: that Trump has been complaining about her all over the place,
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: as he should. I mean, she almost single-handedly created the
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: Epstein Files PR crisis for them, for the last year,
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: and it's clearly terrible at her job.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: It is quite telling that the cabinet secretaries in charge
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: of the most powerful agencies, the Justice Department, DHS, and DOD,
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: are the biggest fucking idiots in Who are the non-idiots, Sean? Well,
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: but those are, they're special idiots, I mean, on top
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: of these agencies. And I think it's because they're not
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: really in charge. Stephen Miller's in charge of those three agencies,
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: you know, from all the reporting. And they're just there
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: because they were good on TV. Which they're not.
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: No, I would say that you got that one.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: Wrong, Mr. Trump. Trump thinks they look good on TV.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: They have the look that Trump likes, right? Which is
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: Fox host, Fox pundit. Yes. Everyone has been rightfully focused
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: on ICE and DHS. I do feel like the resignations
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: over DOJ choosing to investigate Good's widow instead of her
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: killer is as big of a deal, if not bigger.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: Just how this has been handled legally is I think
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: if you just go out to people, just like not
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: political people, not people at protests, not people listening to
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: the show, just like regular people, and you just said
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: the following.
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: A ICE agent shot a unarmed woman in the face
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: three times, killing her in broad daylight on video. The
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: agency responsible for investigating them is not investigating the shooter.
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: They are investigating the widow of the woman who was shot.
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: People would think that is fucking nuts. Because it is.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: Who had to stand there and watch her wife die.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: I just like, and they have a six-year-old. who has
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: just dealt with the loss of his mother. Now, I
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: don't know if you saw the CNN did a whole
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: story on Renee goods, actual connections to these ice watch groups.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: And sure enough, basically Renee good was on the board
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: of her son's elementary school and the board linked to documents,
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: encouraging parents to monitor ice and directing them to training.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: And they had a bunch of lawyers look at all
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: the documents and all of them are, you know, civil disobedience,
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: nonviolent tactics. It's like a, it's an elementary school. It's like, hey,
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: thanks to the parents for watching out for our neighbors. And,
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: you know, there's like a school bulletin board and, you know,
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: they're thanking on the bulletin board, Renee Good and Rebecca
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: Good for, you know, they brought pots for us to
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: paint and we're going to sell them at the plant
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: sale in the spring. They look beautiful. And, They interview
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: the PE teacher at the school who had taught the
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: six-year-old good son in class. And he was like, you know,
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: whenever they would drop him off, they would say goodbye
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: several times before they could leave. And then they would
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: drive around the front of the school so they had
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: a window where he could see them. And then they
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: would wave. And they were just awesome parents. And it's
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: just like the vitriol that has been directed towards, first
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: of all, a woman who's now dead, her wife, who
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: is very much alive, and now this six-year-old who just
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: a couple weeks ago was having trouble saying goodbye to
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: both of his parents when he went to school and
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: now has lost one of them. And now they all
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: have to deal with this. The PE teacher also said
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: that the names of teachers and staff members at the
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: school have been posted on social media and they're all
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: getting death threats. I don't understand where the humanity is
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: right now.
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: There's none. There's absolutely none. And this is not a
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: bunch of angry... or a click-hungry right-wing media influencers. This
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: is the federal government of the United States. This is
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: the president of the United States. This is the vice
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: president of the United States.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: This is the.
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: Attorney general of the United States. When we used to
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: work for Obama, and David Axelrod used to say, we
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: used to talk about the pastoral role of the president.
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: When the nation is hurt, that is the job of
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: the president, whether they like it or not. It's not
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: in the Constitution, but what people expect is the president
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: to speak to them, whether it's Obama after Newtown. Reagan
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: after Challenger, Bill Clinton after the Oklahoma City bombing, or
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: even George W. Bush with the bullhorn after 9-11. And
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: here you have a moment. This is something that's captured
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: the nation's attention. You have a dead woman killed on video,
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: in a video that huge swaths of American people have seen.
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: And the response is not, let the investigation play out.
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: The response is not, sympathy for her family, for the widow,
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: for the son. It is to smear her without evidence
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: for the purposes of advancing your broken political narrative. And
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: no one at any point just takes a moment to
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: think or say or appear even conflicted for a second
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: about doing this.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: It's like the idea that You would only be out
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: there protesting or opposing ICE because you are some left-wing
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: ideologue or crazy activist and not because you're scared and
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: your neighbors are scared and you want to protect people
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: who haven't done anything wrong. You know?
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: You know, this didn't get enough attention, I don't think.
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: But after this was over, after the shooting, when Kristi
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: Noem did the press avail with the sign that said,
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: one of ours, all of yours.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: Uh, yeah, I had missed that. Yeah.
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: The idea being, if you, if you, it's, it's like
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: an old war saying, if you kill one of ours,
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: we'll kill all of yours. And then the, ours and yours, right?
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: Where the fucking, this is the country. These are the,
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: these are the people you serve, whether they voted for
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: you or not, whether they protest you or not. And
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: to think of a, like, it is just a simple
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: fact that federal government of the United States from the
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: president on down to the people enforcing his orders in
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: these communities. believe that anyone who disagrees with this president,
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: who didn't vote for this president, who has a different
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: view of this country is the enemy.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: And like, I know everyone debates the historical comparisons and
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: can you call it fascism, authoritarianism or this or that?
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: I don't fucking care what you call it. Just look
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: at what has happened over the last couple of weeks.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: That's what it is. You can call it whatever you want.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: You can label it whatever you want, but like this
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: is happening. And what you're seeing on TV, what you're
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: seeing from these officials, this is our government right now.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: And if you don't think that like this effect trickles
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: down to the rest of the population, this like dehumanization
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: of people and someone dies and then you start attacking
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: them and like, you know, you can say, oh, do
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: you need a nice speech from the president that makes
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: everyone feel better? Because does it actually fix anything? Yeah.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: But but what they have done. If you don't think
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: that like that numbs us and dulls people to violence
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: and to people losing their lives, then like, I don't
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: know what to tell you, you know? And that, that
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: I really worry about that long-term because that's going to
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: be a harder thing to build back. Positive America is
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: brought to you by stamps.com. It's staggering that to this
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: very day, many small business owners are still making post
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: office runs or are stuck with expensive postage meter leases.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: It's 2026, not 1926. Mail and ship when you want,
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: how you want with Stamps.com. With Stamps.com, you can send
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: from your computer or phone 24-7, no long lines, no
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: low supplies, open anytime, print postage on demand, and get
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: up to 90% off carrier rates like FedEx, UPS, and USPS.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: Schedule carrier pickups right from your door and get carrier-compliant
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: labels every time. No errors, no rejected mail, no wasted trips.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: It's perfect for your business. Send certified mail, get document
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: tracking to confirm delivery, and analytics to make sure you
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: know exactly what you sent and spent. For almost 30 years,
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: millions of customers have relied on stamps.com to make mailing
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: and shipping faster and so simple. We've used stamps.com here forever.
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: Back when we were just a tiny business, didn't have
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: a lot of time to be walking out of the
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: post office, used stamps.com and have used it ever since.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: Right now, you can try stamps.com risk-free for 60 days.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: Go to stamps.com and use code PSA to get 60
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: days risk-free. 60 days gives you plenty of time to
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: see exactly how much time and money you're saving on
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: every shipment. That's Stamps.com, code PSA. Stamps.com, code PSA.
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: Pod Save America is brought to you by Uplift Desk.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: We've got two Uplift Desk users here at microphones right now. Me, Lovajon,
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: I'll have them in our office. It's really nice to
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: be able to sit and work at a normal desk,
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: but then stand up when you feel like it.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: You just press the button. You just press the button.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: The desk goes up and the desk goes down. Super simple.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: You can go up, you can go all the way down,
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: you can go halfway.
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: Sitting all day can suck sometimes. You know, you get
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: get hunched over, your back hurts, it's not good.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: Movement equals mindset.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: The new Uplift V3 standing desk transforms your desk into
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: a productivity engine. The V3 combines the best of Uplift
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: V2 and V2 commercial into one stronger, smarter frame. Redesigned
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: feet and steel reinforcements make this the most stable standing
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: desk yet. Assembles in minutes, no stress no mess. The
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: new flex mount cable manager comes with every desk to
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: keep cords hidden and tidy. They upgraded everything, speed, stability, ergonomics,
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: and design with the most extensive range of desktop styles
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: and accessories in the industry. Transform your workspace and unlock
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: your full potential with the new Uplift V3 standing desk.
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: Go to upliftdesk.com slash PSA and use our code PSA
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: to get four free accessories, free same-day shipping, free returns,
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: and an industry-leading 15-year warranty that covers your entire desk,
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: plus an extra discount off your entire order. That's U-P-L-I-F-T-D-E-S-K
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: dot com slash PSA for this exclusive offer.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: It's only available through our link. One piece of good
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: news here is that most Americans don't support any of
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: this by a pretty healthy margin. There have now been
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: polls out from The Economist, YouGov, Quinnipiac, CNN, our friends
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: at Data for Progress, our friends at Blue Rose Research. Basically,
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: they all have very similar findings. A majority of Americans
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: don't believe that the shooting was justified. They don't think
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: Goode was a domestic terrorist. They don't approve of what
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: ICE is doing. And they do support most Democratic proposals
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: to rein in ICE. And they believe all these things
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: by around like around a 20 point margin, depends on
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: the question, but it's pretty significant. We did something on
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: YouTube about this Wednesday, but we're also seeing some prominent
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: Trump voters like Joe Rogan and Tim Dillon heavily criticizing
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: Trump over this with Rogan comparing ICE to the Gestapo.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: What was your takeaway from all the polling and any surprises,
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: anything stand out to you?
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: I think, you know, so much of the time that
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: we spend on this show is in our political life
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: is talking about things that only people who listen to
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: this show or listen to the right-wing equivalent of this
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: show know about or care about. This is not one
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: of those moments. In the Economist poll, they asked people
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: if they'd seen the video or heard about the video.
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: 89% of people polled had either seen the video or
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: heard about the video. And 69% of them had seen
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: the video.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: That's wild.
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: And the Quinnipiac poll, 75% had seen the video. That
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: is impossible to imagine in this media environment. You have
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: large swaths of people checking out of politics and checking
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: out of news. We have this hyper-fragmented media environment. And
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: this is a monocultural moment. And there are so few
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: of those. And so this is breaking through in huge ways.
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: The second, I think, really important takeaway from here is
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: that the– Trump administration's attempt to gaslight the American people
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: about what happened and who Renee Nicole Good is has
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: failed miserably. You have majorities say that she was justified,
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: majorities who say that she is not a domestic terrorist,
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: majorities who say that the officers, that criminal charges should
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: be pressed against officers, like they have failed. And I
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: think that's just important to note and remember is that
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: for all of the media firepower that Trump has and
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: all of his messaging skills, all this idea that he
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: can make people disbelieve what their eyes are showing them,
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: That has not happened in this case. And then there's
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: just like one, I think, very important poll result buried
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: in here is that in the CNN poll, a majority
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: of Americans believe that ICE's presence is making US cities
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: less safe. And that, I think, is fundamentally important because
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: the core premise of Trumpism, the core rationale for all
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: of this is that Trump is going to keep you safe.
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: And if people now believe that ICE is not making
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: them safe, but making them less safe, the entire political
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: project around immigration unravels.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: And it's like, of course they're not.
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: I'm glad to see it. It's obvious, but it's- But.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: It's actually, and look, ICE has been in, I don't know,
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: half a dozen cities in a significant way since this started.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: And that number is also, I think, notable in that
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of people who haven't seen, a lot
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: of people who live places in this country who haven't
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: seen ICE at all. Or maybe they've seen an agent
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: here or there, right? But they have not seen what
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: people are seeing in Minneapolis or Chicago. And for those people,
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying? Like for those people to
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: still think like, yeah, from what I'm seeing and hearing,
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: it's not really making people safer. That is significant. So
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: now the question is, what can Democrats do about any
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: of this? And what will they do? The next government
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: funding deadline is just a few weeks away. And there
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: is a debate among Democrats about how much leverage they have,
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: if any, to force changes at ICE and DHS. Joe
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: Perticone at the Bulwark spoke to a bunch of Senate
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: Democrats who all said they're outraged at what's happening and
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: they don't want to increase funding for ICE, but stop
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: short of saying it was a red line for them.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: I talked to Senator Gallego about this. He basically said
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: that they are still in the midst of trying to
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: figure out whether a shutdown or a partial shutdown aimed
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: at DHS would actually have an impact on ICE's operations.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: And I saw that, you know, Angus King just said
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: to Semaphore that during the last shutdown, ICE still operated
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: at full speed because they got all that money from
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: Trump's tax cut legislation from the big bill. And so
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: the challenge is if you shut down just DHS and
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: ICE can still operate, then Do you really want to
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: be in a situation where you've shut down DHS, which
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: means TSA and the airports, TSA can't operate and FEMA
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: can't operate, but somehow ICE is still out there up
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: and running?
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: Well, FEMA and TSA could operate, but they would not
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: under this precedent.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: Right, exactly. Because basically, yeah, the point is the president
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: and Noem and Miller have such latitude, even in a shutdown,
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: or maybe even especially in a shutdown, to do whatever
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: the fuck they want with the money. and the personnel
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: that they have. But I don't know. What do you
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: think about the politics here?
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: So I think there are more options than simply greenlight
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: an increase in funding for DHS and for ICE in
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: particular and shut down DHS. So just, can I nerd
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: out just for one second? Just explain to people what
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: is happening here. So the last time we had, when
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: the shutdown happened, it was over a continuing resolution, a
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: bill to just keep the government funded at the same
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: levels of the previously agreed upon budget for a certain
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: period of time. That's not what's happening here. So after
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: the shutdown, Congress got really horny for the appropriations process again,
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: and they started passing bills. And the way you fund
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: the government is you do these continued resolutions. You do
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: what's called an omnibus. You pass all the bills individually,
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: which is how this used to work back in the day.
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: You pass the bill for the Defense Department. You pass
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: the one that's for Commerce, Justice, and State, or whatever
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: it is. Pass the House, pass the Senate, President's House.
• 26:41
  Speaker 5: You do them all.
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: You have to get them all done by the time
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: the– Government funding runs out, which is usually at the
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: end of September. The next option is what happens more
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: often these days is they just pass an omnibus bill,
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: which is just they take the entire federal budget, they
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: put it in a one gigantic bill and pass it.
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: The problem with that is no one ever reads it.
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: We always find out afterwards there's all this shit in
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: there that no one knew about. It's a bad way
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: of doing business. But there's at least a bipartisan negotiation
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: between the House and the Senate leadership. We get some things,
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: they get some other things, et cetera. The other way,
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: which is what they're doing here, something called they pass
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: mini buses, which are bills that contain a handful of
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: the appropriations bills. And so they have passed a couple
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: mini buses now. So more than half the government, not
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: in terms of agencies, not in terms of funding, have
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: been funded for next year. They passed. The president's either
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: signed them or he's going to sign them. The problem
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: is they're on DHS. And in these things, they're really
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: doing the thing where the House, the Democrats, Republicans get together,
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: the appropriators, are sitting there, they're figuring out, like, we're
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: going to give you guys a little more funding. Here,
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: you give us this much. Here, we have a bipartisan
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: agreement and we get it out the door and Trump
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: signs it. DHS is the problem. All the rest of
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: them will pass fine. And so you could, what I
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: don't want Democrats to do, I do not think Democrats
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: should do, is be so committed to this bipartisan process
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: that they vote for a year-long DHS appropriations bill that
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: contains no reforms, no efforts to curtail ICE. It increases
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: funding for ICE. I do not think they can do that.
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: I think that is Morally abhorrent, and I think it's
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: politically bad, because you can't rightfully scream, as we were
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: asking people to do, to talk like that guy at
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: the beginning of the podcast about what ICE is doing,
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: and then pass their bill. You cannot do that. What
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: you can do is.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: I should say that from all the reporting, it does
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: not seem like there's many Democrats on board for that option.
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: In the House, it seems like Hakeem Jeffries and others
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: are not for that. In the Senate, there would be
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: much more coy, although Patty Murray, since that Joe Pertico
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: in peace has come out and suggested that she would
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: not be for that. But we cannot be for that.
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: I don't think that's going to be an issue. You
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: could theoretically just keep DHS funded at its current levels.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: I think the important point- A CR, basically.
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, just a CR for DHS and for the year.
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: And so they get nothing new. Now, a lot of
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: their funding and the funding for ICE comes from the
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: one big, beautiful bill.
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: That's the real problem.
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's mandatory funding. So you can't really, you're not
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: affecting that. I think the important point here that everyone
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: should be aware of is shutting down DHS would do nothing,
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: would do absolutely nothing to stop ICE from doing what
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: it's doing right now.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: Yes. And that is the very hard truth.
• 29:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: I wish it weren't so, but look, we have been
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: through this. We've been through this shutdown stuff before. I
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: always want Democrats to fight when Democrats have the power.
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: to fight when they have the power to fight with
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: results and they do not use that power. Fuck them.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: And we should all scream when they do not have
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: the power to fight or their fight is not going
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: to produce the results that we want. I don't know.
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: It's like, you know. Like, sure, they can shut it down.
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: And it's not even like I'm worried about the politics
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: of shutting down DHS. I'm really not. I'm more worried
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: about like, well, it's a Pyrrhic victory if suddenly we're
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: shutting down a department. But the one thing in the department, ICE,
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: that we actually want to shut down, that's still going
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: while everything else gets shut down.
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: It's not even a Pyrrhic victory. It's just not a
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: victory at all.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: Well, it's when you'd be like, what they fought. You know,
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: it's like, what did they fight? What did they get?
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: So that's unsatisfying. Here's something else that'll be unsatisfying. The
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: other question Democrats are once again grappling with here in
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: 2026 is whether it's wise to call for abolishing ICE,
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: which is something that Democrats wouldn't be able to do
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: until 2029 at the earliest if there's a Democratic president.
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: The Searchlight Institute, which is a startup Democratic group, is
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: circulating a memo about why this would be a mistake
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: and On the other hand, you have a lot of
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: people feeling like what's happening is so clear cut that
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: we have to rid ourselves of ICE entirely. And that
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: group naturally includes fellow ideological travelers AOC and Bill Kristol.
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: I saw Bill's tweet, abolish ICE. I was like, whoa.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: All right. What do you think? What are your thoughts
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: on all this?
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: You alerted me to this debate. I was blissfully unaware
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: of it until we had a meeting yesterday.
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: Nothing gets by this.
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I know.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: Now I am deep, deep in it.
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: I feel sorry for you and your cortex. I can't
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: figure out if this is debate around a real problem
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: or not. Are there a bunch of Democrats who want
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: to actually run on abolishing ICE? I'm pretty skeptical that
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: that is the case. But even still, I think it's
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: worth having the debate because I think it does get
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: at something bigger. And so I would stipulate at the
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: beginning of this that Democrats should have no fear of
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: aggressively criticizing ICE, Trump's immigration policies, Trump's deportation policies, the
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: policies themselves, the enforcement of them. Trump is not Trump
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: right now, his immigration approval is very far underwater. He is,
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: ICE has become the face of Trump's immigration policy. As
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: our friend Peter Hamby pointed out in Puck, ICE's approval
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: rating is down 30 points since last year. It's now
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: 14 points underwater. That is a phenomenal slide. So we
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: should have no fear about being critical of ICE. There
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: is polling, what sort of sparked this conversation is that
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: in the YouGov poll, it shows a slight plurality, essentially
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: a dead heat. for Abolish ICE, which is a relative
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: dramatic shift since the last time they asked this question
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: in 2019. I've seen other internal polling that shows that
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: while it is more popular than it was in 2019,
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: it's still underwater and more so with swing voters.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: Same. And I've seen some public polling that bears that
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: out as well. Yeah.
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: But I think the question I would have about Abolish
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: ICE is, let's play it out logically. Not the slogan,
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: not the idea, not like it's a thing you're going
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: to say on a debate stage in a 2028 debate
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: to applause or post on. How does it work? So
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: you are the newly elected Democratic president. We are fortunate
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: enough that we have a trifecta, right? One of our
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: first things we're going to do is we're going to
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: get Congress to pass a bill to abolish ICE, to
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: end that department, make it go away. That is something
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: that I believe would require 60 votes. So therefore, unless
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: we have the election to end all elections in 2020,
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: that is not going to happen. And so are you
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: running on something that you cannot do, that is not
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: available to you? Why is it not a better idea
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: to run on aggressive, transformative reform of ICE that includes
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: accountability for the people in charge and the agents who
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: have done the things we have seen, get them out
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: of there, hold them accountable for it, deep investigation of
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: everything that went wrong to fundamentally change how it operates
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: in this Blue Rose Research Poll that's been making the rounds.
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: They test a bunch of ideas proposed by Chris Murphy,
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: including requiring warrants, masks, sending Border Patrol back to the border,
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: which is a crazy idea to get them out of cities.
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: Those all poll quite well. Why not do those things?
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: Is it not a better idea substantively if not even politically,
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: to run on making ICE work, making it like fundamental
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: reform so that it is unrecognized, that the ICE serving
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: under the next Democratic president is unrecognizable compared to the
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: ICE serving under Trump.
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: Which I think it will be no matter what. I mean,
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: here's the exercise I went through. I was like, put
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: the polling and the politics aside for a second. It's like,
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: what do I want to hear from 2028 presidential candidates?
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: one of whom will hopefully be in a position to
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: decide what happens to ICE. And I will say to
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: the first point that you made, I think that the
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: next president, hopefully the next Democratic president, is going to
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: have very wide latitude to do whatever they would like
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: with ICE, both because the president always has pretty broad
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: latitude in terms of immigration, with what to do at
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: an agency, and... After the Trump presidency and what the
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: Supreme Court has decided is legal under the Trump presidency,
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: it turns out you can do quite a bit with
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: departments and agencies in terms of cutting their funding, firing people,
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: getting rid of them, all that kind of stuff. But
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: I would want the next Democratic president to say, like,
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: day one, they will end ICE's reign of terror. A
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: lot of the stuff you just said, like no more
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: militarized occupations, no more invasions, no more mass raids, no
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: more arrests without a warrant. No more denial of due process.
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: I would fire every agent hired by Trump. Fired all
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: of them. And I would fire every agent that violated
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: either the law or DHS's own use of force policy
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: or other policies. And then, like you said, hold them
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: accountable to whatever extent possible within the law. Use part
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: of ICE's budget. Now we're moving money around in the
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: federal government. That's what Trump's doing. Move part of ICE's
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: budget to go fund people's health care. And then leave
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: behind a small deportation force whose job is basically limited
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: to detaining non-citizens who have a criminal record or pose
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: a genuine threat to their communities. Because I do think
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: you need, like, again, I noticed some of the people
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: who are for abolish ICE were like, well, it's not
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: fair to say that if you want to abolish ICE,
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: you're not for immigration enforcement. It's like, okay, that's fine.
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: But if, like, if the slogan is abolish immigration and
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: customs enforcement, I don't think it necessarily helps to have
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: a slogan that is going to raise more questions with
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: people that you then have to explain. Cause I think the,
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: the benefit of a slogan when it's a good slogan
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: is that it's obvious what it is and you don't
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: have to answer a lot of questions about it. And
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: I do think you, you do need immigration enforcement in
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: this country. Like I just, it's, of course you do.
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: You absolutely do.
• 37:22
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: And like now in an ideal world, Now, we could
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: talk about like immigration reform writ large, because I think
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: the other challenge here is whatever you do with ICE,
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: like that's just one. That's the issue we're dealing with
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: right now. There's so many other problems in immigration that
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: you have to solve, and some of them really do
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: are going to require legislation. But in an ideal world,
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: you would have most of the federal agents, whether Customs
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: and Border Patrol or ICE, near the border, and you
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: would try to stop people from crossing illegally before they
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: get here, right? that is not the world we live in.
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: We live in a world now where there are millions
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: of people who are here who are undocumented. They are
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: in the interior of the country. And if there is
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: someone with a criminal record, if there's someone who poses
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: a threat to the community, if there's someone who's dangerous,
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: then you can't just have border patrol. You actually need,
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: and you can have law enforcement, but you also need
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: like federal law enforcement to deal with this in some way,
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: whether you call it ICE, whether you call it whatever
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: the fuck you want to call it. You just need that.
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: And so figuring out what that deportation force looks like,
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: and completely reforming ICE, or you can name it whatever
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: the fuck you want. Change the name.
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: I'm fine. Apparently we just changed the name of that
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: legislation anyway.
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: I'm open to whatever, right? I do think that having
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: a debate in 2026 about what the DHS org chart
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: will look like in 2029, it makes less sense to
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: do now when, to me, the most important thing is
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: to figure out how to stop ICE from terrorizing our
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: cities right now. And I think the most important thing
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: for 2028 and the race we're going to have in 2028,
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: is to lay out a vision of humane immigration enforcement
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: and what that would look like.
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: The thing I would add to this is, I believe
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: to my core that after all of this, the next
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: Democratic president is going to have the best shot we've
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: had in a very long time to pass comprehensive immigration reform.
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: I know. I was thinking about this the other day,
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: because I think you could do it by If you
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: have the Senate, you could get rid of the filibuster
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: and do it.
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: Yes, you could do it. And I think that you
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: may even be able to find some Republicans for it.
• 39:25
  Speaker 3: We are living in a world of absolute chaos. And
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: I mean, this is the brutal irony of what Trump
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: and Stephen Miller have done is that by winning on
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: an anti-immigrant platform, by governing in an anti-immigrant way, they've
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: made Americans overwhelmingly more pro-immigration. The number of Americans who
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: say immigration is a good thing for our country is
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: at a 25-year high in the Gallup polling. A dramatic
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: shift since 2024. 2024 is this horrendous singular blip where
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: opinions on immigration, or basically during the Biden administration, went
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: the exact opposite way that they had been for a
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: very long time. And now back there, American people understand,
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: and the polling shows, that immigration is good for our country.
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: Polling also shows that they believe that the people who
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: have been here for a long time, who have been
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: working and paying taxes in their community, should be given
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: a path to citizenship. And that was true 15 years ago,
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: and it's true again. And so I say that only
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: to say, if we want to stop all of this,
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: if we want to really on the change, prevent the
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: next Trump from doing something like this down the line,
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: the way you do it is you pass comprehensive immigration reform.
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: And so you have to work backwards from what's the
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: best way to do that. And how would an abolish
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: ICE or whatever your ICE reform plans fit in that?
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: And that is not to say that you have to
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: be pro-ICE to try to get some sort of path
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: to citizenship border security deal. That's not what I'm saying
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: at all. I'm not making that case. I think ICE
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: needs to be better, smaller, renamed, all the above, reformed.
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: But just the way to think about it is let's
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: start with how do we fix the overall problem and
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: then go backwards from that.
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And look, there's a lot of big questions you
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: have to answer that I don't think are easy. Like,
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: I don't want to make it sound like it's going
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: to be very easy, even if Democrats have power to
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: do it. But you've got to decide, like, what's the
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: border going to look like? How are you going to
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: handle deportations? How are you going to handle a path
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: to citizenship? How are you going to decide who's a
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: recent arrival and who's not? In some ways, because we
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: have punted the problem so far down the road for
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: so long, it was easier. It would have been easier
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: to do it. I mean, it would have been easier
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: to do it when George W. Bush thought about doing it.
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: And then when we thought about doing it and it's
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: getting harder and harder because back then it was mostly
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: immigrants from Mexico who were here undocumented and and we're
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: going to get a path to citizenship. And, you know,
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: in the Biden administration, there was an influx of immigrants
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: and asylum seekers from Central America, South America and all
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: over the world. And so you do have a lot
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: more recent arrivals who came in the Biden years and
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: you have to figure out, like, who gets to stay
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: and who doesn't and make sure that you, like, count
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: for all of those people and then also figure out
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: what our asylum laws are going forward. I mean, there's
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: like a, you know, I'm not complete immigration policy expert here,
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: but like there's a lot of thorny questions here. But
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: I do think that the goal should be a humane
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: immigration system where we're welcoming to immigrants, but we also
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: make sure that people follow the law, people follow our laws,
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: and that we have like an orderly immigration system that
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: finally works. Pod Save America is brought to you by
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: Magic Spoon. Magic Spoon is basically the grown-up version of
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: your favorite childhood cereals. Same fun taste, none of the
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: sugar bomb, high-protein, zero-sugar cereal that still hits that nostalgic
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: Saturday morning note. Each serving packs 13 grams of protein,
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: 5 grams of net carbs, and 0 grams of sugar,
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: so it actually keeps you fueled any time of day, breakfast,
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: late-night snack, post-workout, whenever. They've got a bunch of classic
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: flavors like fruity, frosted, hot chocolate, cinnamon toast, and more.
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: Hot chocolate? Sounds good.
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: I haven't had that either.
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: New flavors launching in January. Classic Marshmallow and S'mores, the
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: ultimate campfire-inspired cereal, if you were looking for that. Also,
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: you should try Magic Spoon Treats. They're crispy, air-protein-packed snack
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: bars with 12 grams of protein. Great for tossing in
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: your bag, keeping in the car, or grabbing between meetings.
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: Those flavors include marshmallow, chocolate, peanut butter, dark chocolate, and more. Um,
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: there's also magic spoon, granola, 13 grams of protein, zero
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: added sugar. Perfect for yogurt bowls or quick handful snacking
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: comes in a dark chocolate, almond, honey, almond, peanut butter,
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: and additional flavors. It's making me hungry. All magic spoons
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: products are easy. Anytime breakfast snack, pre-workout post-workout or midnight snack.
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: Look for magic spoon on Amazon or at your nearest
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: grocery store or get $ 5 off your next order at
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: magic spoon.com slash crooked. That's magic spoon.com slash crooked for
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: $ 5 off.
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: Pod Save America is brought to you by Bombas.com. I
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: bet a lot of you have 2026 resolutions, stuff like
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: hitting the gym, reading more, whatever, learning how to sing,
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: learning language. But this year, there's a new one at
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: the top of my list, Get Comfy. That's where Bombas
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: comes in. They're bringing serious comfort to all my everyday go-tos.
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: The all-new Bombas sports socks are engineered with sport-specific comfort
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: for running, golf, hiking, skiing, snowboarding, and all sport. I
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: actually just bought a bunch of these new Bombas socks because,
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: Had holes in the other ones?
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: They had to hold in the other ones. The elastics
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: stopped working and I got the no-shows and they really
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: work well for like workout because they've got some sticky
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: thing on the backs. They don't fall down.
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: That's the worst.
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: When you have like running socks and they fall down,
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: they bunch under your foot. This never happens with Bombas.
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: And you get the blisters.
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: You don't want any of that. The Bombas are the best.
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: I tossed out a bunch of my old ones and
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: I bought like five or six new Bombas. For those
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: everyday around the house resolutions, Bombas also has you covered
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: with the comfiest footwear imaginable. They got Sunday slippers that
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: feel like you're walking on clouds. They have slides made
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: with Super Company lightweight EVA, the Friday sandal, and they
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: have a new squishy Saturday suede slip-on shoe for the
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: comfort on the go. For every item you purchase, an
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: essential clothing item is donated to someone facing housing insecurity.
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: One purchased, one donated with over 150 million donations and counting.
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: Head over to bombas.com slash crooked and use code crooked
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: for 20% off your first purchase. That's B-O-M-B-A-S dot com
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: slash crooked. Code crooked to check out.
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: All right, so now we got the Justice Department, which,
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: when they're not busy investigating the widow of a woman
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: the government shot in the head, they're also hard at
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: work investigating the Fed chair, Democratic members of Congress, and
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: now raiding the homes of journalists. On Wednesday, the FBI
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: showed up at Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson's house and
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: seized her work computer, her personal computer, her phone, and
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: her smartwatch. The warrant they obtained was issued as part
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: of an investigation into a government contractor who may have
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: leaked sensitive or classified information about Venezuela. even though Natanson
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: isn't the target of the investigation, the raid and the
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: seizures are really shocking because, one, it's not a crime
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: to publish classified information, and two, usually DOJ will try
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: to get the information it wants through subpoenas, or at
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: least they will try to do that first. Trump's DOJ
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: is also now investigating the Democratic members of Congress who
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: filmed a video where they merely told Americans serving in
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: the military that they don't have to follow illegal orders.
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: They have all been contacted by ace DC prosecutor, Jeanine Pirro,
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: or her prosecutors, who's also investigating Fed Chair Jerome Powell,
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: at least until outraged fellow Republicans talk her out of it.
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: On one hand, this is just, you know, one terrifying
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: abuse of power after another. On the other, it does
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: seem like the Trump administration's very sloppy attempts to threaten
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: and intimidate the president's perceived enemies keep backfiring. Like, I
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: don't know that they have gained much from the attempt
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: of the Comey prosecution, Tish James, like politically, they're not
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: necessarily helping them. They really haven't borne fruit in court.
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: And so I'm sure it satisfies Donald Trump and makes
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: him happy. But I don't know. What do you think
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: about this?
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: Back in Trump 1.0, I used to describe the Trump
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: presidency as the plot of House of Cards with a
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: cast of Veep. And that like, that's exactly what's going
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: on here. Like the, we are blessed by the idiocy
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: of our enemies and people like Jeanine Pirro doing this
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: because they're just so bad at it. And it's funny
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: that they're so bad at it and we're fortunate they're
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: so bad at it. But then there's the alternative reality
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: that we haven't even hit the one-year mark of this presidency.
• 47:50
  Speaker 3: And at some point, they might get better people doing
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: these jobs.
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true.
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: And Jeanine Pirro makes her triumphal return to the five.
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: And so they put someone else who's better at that
• 47:59
  Speaker 3: job in there. And then that's where this gets worrisome.
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it does. She tags out for Greg Gutfeld.
• 48:05
  Speaker 3: I guess the question is, who replaces her?
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: No, and look, going after the senators and the members
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: of Congress for that video is just fucking nuts to me.
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: The Kelly thing was nuts, the Mark Kelly thing, what
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: Hegseth tried to do. The Jerome Powell thing is clearly backfiring.
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, the fact that even Pirro is already trying
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: to walk it back by being like, actually, we just
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: called him for questions about the renovation, and then he
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: didn't get back to us And so what we had
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: to like threaten an investigation and subpoenas. Come on. But
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: you can tell that none of them think that the
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: Fed chair especially was a good idea. The post reporter
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: thing is terrifying and like we have to see how
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: this plays out in court and they have to like
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: unseal the warrant to see like how they got the
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: warrant and everything. But like raiding a reporter's house is
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: fucking nuts. Yeah. Let's talk about the latest in Trump's
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: efforts to acquire Greenland through bribery or force. After meeting
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: with J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio on Wednesday, the foreign
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: ministers of Denmark and Greenland told reporters that a, quote,
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: fundamental disagreement remains between the parties, but said they agreed
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: to form a, quote, high-level working group to review the problem.
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: The problem being that the leader of the world's most
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: powerful nation is off his fucking rocker and is willing
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: to block... up our most important alliance because he thinks
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: the map would look cooler if he owned Greenland. That's
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: where we are. Because of that, France, Germany, the UK, Norway, Sweden,
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: and the Netherlands have now sent troops to Greenland to
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: conduct military exercises and show support for the Danes. reading
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: this is so fucking nuts. It's hard not to laugh,
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: but it's also horrifying at the same time, which I
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: guess is like most of the Trump administration, but it is.
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: Trump remains undeterred and said that if Russia or China
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: occupied Greenland, there's, quote, not a thing that Denmark could
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: do about it, but that, quote, there's everything we can do.
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: You found that out last week with Venezuela. They're going
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: to fucking send Delta Force in to What, to capture
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: the Danish prime minister? What are they doing?
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's so stupid because if China or Russia
• 50:19
  Speaker 3: invaded Greenland as members of NATO, we would fight back.
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it would trigger an Article 5 response. That's the
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: whole point of.
• 50:25
  Speaker 3: A fucking alliance. I just think it's so funny that
• 50:27
  Speaker 3: they were going to have to have like a, there's
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: like probably a working group trying to figure out how
• 50:30
  Speaker 3: Article 5 applies if a NATO member invades a NATO member.
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: There's also the opportunity cost of everyone having to like
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: spend their time and energy on this fucking senile old
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: man's deranged plans for the world. When like another deranged
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: old man is, uh, at war with Ukraine and like
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: threatening Eastern Europe. And now all the NATO countries are
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: like spending time in meetings and sending troops to fucking
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: Greenland because Trump thinks it looks cool on the Mercator projection.
• 51:06
  Speaker 3: Of all the things we've dealt with over the many
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: years we've been forced to talk about and think about Trump,
• 51:13
  Speaker 3: I've struggled to find something that was this dumb and
• 51:15
  Speaker 3: this consequential as the federal government plan to invade or
• 51:19
  Speaker 3: buy Greenland. Like, did you see the estimate that this
• 51:23
  Speaker 3: working group put out that it would cost $ 800 billion
• 51:25
  Speaker 3: to buy Greenland?
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: Which is like, also, what are we going to, we're
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: just going to pay, we're going to pay $ 800 billion?
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: That's what the United States is going to do?
• 51:36
  Speaker 3: Are we just going to give it to Denmark? Are
• 51:37
  Speaker 3: we going to give it to the people of Greenland?
• 51:39
  Speaker 3: And then let's just play this out.
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: The federal government is unwilling to pay a third of
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: that to stop people's health insurance premiums from rising for
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: 20 million Americans.
• 51:54
  Speaker 3: Or a fraction of that to feed children in Africa
• 51:58
  Speaker 3: or prevent babies from getting HIV or give people clean
• 52:01
  Speaker 3: drinking water, any of those things. But we have the money.
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: But we're going to buy Greenland because it looks cool
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: on a map.
• 52:06
  Speaker 3: A place that we already have a base and could
• 52:09
  Speaker 3: have as many bases as we wanted, but we must
• 52:12
  Speaker 3: own it for reasons that truly make zero sense.
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: It's so fucking stupid. And like, I don't know, I
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: don't have a lot of faith in the high level
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: working group.
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: Oh, you, such a cynic.
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: Finding a way forward here? Like what way forward is there?
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: It's not for sale. They said that a million times.
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: And so we're going to, that's what we're going to invade.
• 52:39
  Speaker 3: I think they're just trying, I think the high level
• 52:40
  Speaker 3: working group is trying to run out the clock on
• 52:43
  Speaker 3: Trump's short attention span.
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah. That's the other thing. It's like, and, and Gallego
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: said this too, it's like, what, like if it, when
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: a Democrat becomes president, we're just going to give it back.
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: You know, that's going to be the first thing.
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: Well, that's what a, what a group of litmus tests
• 52:58
  Speaker 3: we're going to have to destroy the ballroom, change the
• 53:01
  Speaker 3: department of war back to the department of defense. Get
• 53:05
  Speaker 3: all that weird stenciling off the White House.
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, now we've got a Rose Garden sign up. It
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: looks like you're at a fucking Chili's.
• 53:15
  Speaker 3: It's for him to know where he is at all times.
• 53:18
  Speaker 3: He's an old doddering man who gets confused. They're like
• 53:21
  Speaker 3: labeling his clothes. Like, these are your socks. These are
• 53:24
  Speaker 3: your underwear. This is the Rose Garden.
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: In other hemispheric conquest news, Trump met with Venezuelan opposition
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: leader Maria Machado on Thursday at the White House. Where
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: she presented him with her Nobel Peace Prize.
• 53:37
  Speaker 3: Did he accept it? I could not get to that.
• 53:39
  Speaker 3: I could not find that in the reporting before this.
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: No one seems to know yet. Do you think he...
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: I see everyone with this question. Do you think he's
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: the kind of person that's like, no, no, no, you
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: keep it. You keep it.
• 53:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I would assume. I was just looking for confirmation
• 53:53
  Speaker 3: before I asserted it. But it's just so pitiful. It's
• 53:59
  Speaker 3: so embarrassing that she is like here. Take this trinket
• 54:03
  Speaker 3: so you can feel better about yourself, and that may
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: improve our chances for a good policy outcome.
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: Because now that you have deposed the authoritarian leader of
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: my country, I would like to return and become that
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: leader because I won the peace prize and the election.
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: But instead, you have the authoritarian leader's number two in
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: command there and don't seem eager to get rid of
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: her at all because you have called her a terrific person.
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: because I guess she's giving you all the oil that
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: you need.
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: I think in hindsight, now, I do not believe that
• 54:36
  Speaker 3: Trump deserved the Nobel Peace Prize, but in hindsight, it
• 54:38
  Speaker 3: was probably a mistake not to give it to him.
• 54:40
  Speaker 3: I mean, think of what's happened since they did not give.
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: It to him. You think Greenland wouldn't be happening if
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: he had the Peace Prize?
• 54:46
  Speaker 3: We have bombed. We've invaded Venezuela. We've bombed Nigeria. We've
• 54:49
  Speaker 3: invaded Minneapolis. Like, he's really, we are threatening Cuba. We're
• 54:54
  Speaker 3: threatening Colombia. We are looking at bombing Iran. By the
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: time you listen to this podcast, Iran could be bombed.
• 55:00
  Speaker 5: We don't know.
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: Good news on the oil, though. Semaphore broke the news
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: that the U.S. has brokered its first sale of Venezuelan oil,
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: apparently worth around $ 500 million, which is being held in
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: bank accounts controlled by the U.S. government with the main
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: one located in Qatar. Why? Why are we stashing oil
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: revenues in Qatari banks?
• 55:22
  Speaker 3: We have a bank account in Qatar?
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: Now we do. Do we think it's the U.S. governments?
• 55:27
  Speaker 5: Really? It's very, very.
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: But don't worry. We're going to get more oil because
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: all those oil companies that are a little worried about
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: going back into Venezuela because, you know, it's still basically
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: a dictatorship and quite politically unstable. And Trump, you know,
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: wants to keep his... He doesn't want to send... He
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: wants to have boots on the ground in the form
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: of American military. So now we're going to pay private
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: military contractors to go to Venezuela and guard the oil.
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: And one of them could be Eric Prince.
• 55:57
  Speaker 3: I mean, one of them is almost certainly Eric Prince.
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: Yes. And the White House put out an RFP. And
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: they're all going to start bidding because, boy, is there
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: going to be some money to be made from the U.S. government.
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: So our tax dollars are going to go to pay
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: military contractors to guard oil interests for the oil companies
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: to lure the oil companies into Venezuela so Donald Trump
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: can sell the oil and put it in his Qatari
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: bank account? What the fuck is going on?
• 56:31
  Speaker 3: I mean, Donald Trump is going to get rich on this.
• 56:33
  Speaker 3: The oil companies are going to get rich on this.
• 56:34
  Speaker 3: The military contractors are going to get.
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: Rich on it. Yeah, I guess it is a win.
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: Big win for the hemisphere. And just in case our
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: other neighbors in the Western Hemisphere haven't gotten the message yet,
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: the New York Times reported on Thursday that the Trump
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: administration is, quote, intensifying pressure, we know what that means,
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: on the Mexican government to let either U.S. special forces
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: or CIA officers conduct joint operations on fentanyl labs in
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: the country. So Mexico's next. That's cool. Over in the
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: Middle East, which is not yet part of the Don
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: Roe doctrine, Trump seems to have decided for now to
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: hold off on taking military action against Iran in response
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: to the regime's brutal crackdown on protests. Trump claimed on
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: Wednesday that he'd heard from, quote, very important sources that, quote,
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: the killing in Iran is stopping. It's stopped. It's stopping.
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: And there's no plan for executions or an execution or execution.
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: So I've been told that on good authority. Well said, sir.
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: Well said.
• 57:32
  Speaker 3: This is all because he gave an insane answer, an
• 57:36
  Speaker 3: even more insane answer, in the totally ridiculous and totally
• 57:39
  Speaker 3: embarrassing interview with Tony DeCoppo on CBS, where He learned
• 57:43
  Speaker 3: in real time about the hanging of protesters and then
• 57:47
  Speaker 3: declared that that was his new red line. I can't
• 57:50
  Speaker 3: remember his words, but they were very strange and ominous.
• 57:56
  Speaker 3: I'm not arguing for Trump to do anything here. I'm
• 57:59
  Speaker 3: not hoping for a bunch of bombing or anything. But
• 58:02
  Speaker 3: it's like, how many red lines is he going to
• 58:04
  Speaker 3: draw and step right over and do nothing with?
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: And you can't tell, you know, it's like they say
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: he hasn't taken military options off the table. One of
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: our aircraft carriers is headed toward the region. But it's like,
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: you know, he does have a pattern of right when
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: he says, oh, maybe I'm not going to bomb after all.
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: Then he sneaks in and bombs, you know, he kind
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: of likes to do that.
• 58:24
  Speaker 3: This is the important part of my notes where I
• 58:25
  Speaker 3: said insert caveat, which is it feels like there's a
• 58:28
  Speaker 3: very real chance that between now and when this podcast,
• 58:31
  Speaker 3: between when we record this podcast on Thursday afternoon and
• 58:33
  Speaker 3: you're listening to it on Friday. that something may have
• 58:36
  Speaker 3: happened because that's basically what happened with the Iran bombings.
• 58:38
  Speaker 3: He said he's not going to do it. He set
• 58:40
  Speaker 3: a timeline and then boom, they did it. So it
• 58:42
  Speaker 3: could happen at any moment here.
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I'm sure whatever the action is, it's going to
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: be focused on saving the lives of the protesters.
• 58:47
  Speaker 3: That is what he carries. As we can see all
• 58:49
  Speaker 3: across this country, he is a man who deeply respects
• 58:52
  Speaker 3: civil disobedience and protecting protesters.
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: Human rights and democracy, top of the list, right after
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: the oil.
• 58:59
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: One last thing before we get to my interview with
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: Ruben Gallego, a podcaster- Just wildly successful podcaster, Katie Miller,
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: rocketing to the top of the charts. She had as
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: her guest this week, none other than Health and Human
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who spilled some secrets
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: about how his boss keeps functioning at such a high level.
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: Let's listen.
• 59:22
  Speaker 3: Who has the most unhinged eating habits?
• 59:25
  Speaker 7: The president. He eats really bad food, which is McDonald's.
• 59:30
  Speaker 7: and then, you know, candy and Diet Coke. But he
• 59:36
  Speaker 7: drinks the Diet Coke all the time. He has a
• 59:37
  Speaker 7: constitution of a deity. I don't know how he's alive.
• 59:41
  Speaker 7: If you travel with him, you get this idea that
• 59:44
  Speaker 7: he's just pumping himself full of poison all day long,
• 59:50
  Speaker 7: and you don't know how he's walking around, much less
• 59:52
  Speaker 7: being the most energetic person, you know, any of us
• 59:55
  Speaker 7: have ever met.
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: Dr.
• 59:57
  Speaker 7: Oz looked at his... his medical records and said he's
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 7: got the highest testosterone level that he's ever seen for
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 7: an individual over 70 years old.
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: I don't even know where to begin with that. I
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: do think it might be the best news I heard
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: all week that the Health and Human Services Secretary can't
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: believe that the president's still alive. And that he is
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: pumping him, believes he is pumping himself full of poison
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: all the time.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess if we're looking for silver linings in
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 3: this dark cloud, I guess that's one of them.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: Let's see. Let's see. Is it something about, does he
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: have the body of a deity? Is that the constitution
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: of a deity? Is that what he said? Could it
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: be that? Or could he just be lying to everyone
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: about how healthy he actually is? What is the truth there?
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: I can't tell.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 3: Do you think he really has the highest level of
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 3: testosterone of any man over 70 that Dr. Oz has
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 3: ever seen?
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. Oh, and also, he has an eight-inch dick.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: That's what it said right in the medical records.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 3: At least we got a pod title.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: That's good. It's just so funny to volunteer. Like, oh,
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: but what is his diet like? Also, really, really high testosterone.
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: What a weird fucking thing. These people are so fucking weird.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 3: I know most people are listening to this and not
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 3: watching it, but I do recommend the video because in it,
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 3: There are all these very strange cutaways to Katie Miller
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 3: silently laughing.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I know.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 3: Just losing her shit. And then when Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 3: calls Trump the most energetic person he's ever seen, his
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 3: arched eyebrow is like, what are you talking about? This
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 3: is a man who fell asleep in a Oval Office
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 3: meeting 24 hours ago.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: Tip-top shape. Tip-top shape. Anyway, you know what? Keep eating
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: that candy. Keep eating that McDonald's. We're behind you 100%.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 3: You're back on the hamburger from heaven move.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: I just, I think that's, I might be responsible for
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: his high tea.
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 5: It's all in the comments.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: It's not one of those low tea betas like us,
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: you know, of us libs. Yeah. All right. When we
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: get back from the break, you'll hear my conversation with
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: Ruben Gallego about Greenland voting for DHS funding and so
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: much more. But two reminders before we get to that.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: Crooked Media's newest book, Hated by All the Right People,
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: Tucker Carlson and the Unraveling of the Conservative Mind, is
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: releasing on January 27th. It's by one of our favorite
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: political journalists, New York Times Magazine writer Jason Zengerle. And
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: it is a fascinating, really entertaining look at Tucker's political
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: evolution and how his rise traces the rise of the
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: MAGA movement. Tommy's going to interview Jason on Tuesday's Pod
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: Save America, so make sure to check that out. And
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: as I said, Hated by All the Right People comes
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: out January 27th, but you can get a discount right
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: now when you pre-order a copy of Hated by All
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: the Right People. Head to crooked.com slash books to get
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: that discount. and check out Jason's book, Signing Tour Dates. Also,
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: there are still tickets available for our shows in New
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: Zealand and Australia. The Hopefully Just Visiting Tour takes us
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: to Auckland on February 11th, and then three cities in Australia,
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: Melbourne on the 13th, Brisbane on the 14th, and Sydney
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: on the 16th. For more details and to grab tickets,
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: head to crooked.com slash events. When we come back, Ruben Gallego.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. The new year doesn't
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: require a new you, maybe just a less burdened you.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: Therapy can help more easily identify what weighs you down
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: by offering an unbiased perspective to better understand your relationships, motivations,
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: and emotions. Therapy's great, a lot going on in the
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: world right now. I'm sure there's a lot going on
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: in your lives. You might not think you need therapy,
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: but talking to someone always helps. BetterHelp therapists work according
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: to a strict code of conduct and are fully licensed
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: in the US. BetterHelp does the initial matching work for
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: you So you can focus on your therapy goals. A
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: short questionnaire helps identify your needs and preferences in their
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: 12 plus years of experience and industry leading match fulfillment
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: rate means they typically get it right the first time.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: If you aren't happy with your match, switch to a
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: different therapist at any time from their tailored recommendations. With
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: over 30,000 therapists, BetterHelp is one of the world's largest
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: online therapy platforms, having served over 5 million people globally.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: And it works with an average rating of 4.9 out
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: of 5 for a live session based on over 1.7
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: million client reviews. BetterHelp makes it easy to get matched
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: online with a qualified therapist. Sign up and get 10%
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: off at BetterHelp.com slash PSA. That's BetterHelp.com slash PSA. Senator Gallego,
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: welcome back to Pod Save America.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 5: Thanks for having me.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: Politically, the new year has been off to an absurd
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: and infuriating start. What's pissing you off most right now?
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 5: The fact that it's It's that. It's such a start.
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 8: I mean, as any normal human, nobody wants chaos. And
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 8: this president is all about chaos. He creates the chaos,
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 8: whether it's starting a war in Venezuela, these massive suppression
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 8: of our cities by those ICE agents, or the buildup
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 8: or some type of pressure campaign that we have going
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 8: on for Greenland. None of this makes sense. It all
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 8: actually hurts Americans in the end. And, you know, of course,
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 8: that pisses me off that, you know, we should be
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 8: trying to help people right now because Americans are really
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 8: hurting right now.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: Trump's once again threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act, this
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: time in Minnesota. DHS has already deployed a small army
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: to Minneapolis. They're continuing to terrorize the people who live there,
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: citizens and not citizens alike.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 4: J.D.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: Vance tweeted the new line from the administration, which is
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: that in cities that aren't sanctuary cities, the deportation process
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: is orderly and normal. But in Minneapolis and a few
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: other sanctuary cities, local jurisdictions and a few left-wing agitators
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: have decided to wage war on all immigration officers. What
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: do you think of that?
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 8: That's total bullshit. What's happening right now is that they're
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 8: using overt force, these men with masks, to go and
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 8: they're violating people's rights. They're racially profiling. They're going up
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 8: to gas stations. And if you're not white, they're coming
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 8: and asking you if you're a citizen. having to prove
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 8: that you're a citizen. Even some people that do have
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 8: proper identification, not accepting them. They're using these tactics that
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 8: we didn't even use in Iraq in urban areas to
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 8: basically suppress and make the people feel like they're under
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 8: attack or they're taken over. So you see videos of
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 8: people reacting very harshly against these guys when they go
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 8: into restaurants, when they go into stores, when they're all
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 8: masked up, gunned up, and acting like they're stormtroopers. because
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 8: the American public does not like that. They don't like being,
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 8: have this feeling like someone's coming after them or the
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 8: government's here with their boot on the back.
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 5: Of your neck.
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 8: They don't do that in red states because they want
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 8: to avoid the politics, but they do this type of
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 8: overt suppression in blue states so they could get the
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 8: political feels they.
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 5: Get from it.
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 8: They want to be able to say they stuck it
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 8: to the libs. And they also want to create the
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 8: environment for them to actually invoke the Insurrection Act. And
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 8: let's be clear, the shit they're doing right? And I
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 8: was in cities of 50 to 100,000 cities of Iraqis
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 8: in Iraq, surrounded by insurgents. And we Marines, well-trained Marines,
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 8: did not act the way that they're doing, the way
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 8: they're treating other fellow Americans right now.
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 5: It's disgusting.
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: Government funding's going to run out at the end of
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: the month. There's been rumbling about Democrats withholding support for DHS,
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: at least until there's changes to ICE. Do you think
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: there's any chance that Any of your Republican colleagues would
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: support any kind of ICE reforms?
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 5: No, absolutely not.
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 8: This is the one thing that from what I see,
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 8: they understand that this is the red line you can't
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 8: cross Trump on. You could maybe go a little against
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 8: him on this issue, that issue. This is the world
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 8: where if you do this, Stephen Miller and his like online.
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 8: bullies will come after you. So they're not willing to
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 8: do it. Now, it doesn't mean that we shouldn't use
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 8: whatever levers that we can to stop them. And I'm
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 8: trying to figure out what that is. What is the
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 8: best way to rein in this craziness? Is it just
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 8: denying them the funding? If that's the best way to
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 8: do it, I'm going to do that. If it's giving
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 8: them some funding but putting tons of constraints on them,
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 8: then I'll do that. But we need to figure out
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 8: how to rein these monsters in because it is bad, bad.
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: If there's a shutdown or a partial shutdown just because
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: like DHS isn't funding, I mean, does that impact what
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: ICE is doing right now? Does that really deny them
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: the ability to continue what they're doing right now in Minneapolis?
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 5: So that's what we're trying to find out.
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 8: And like, and I think a lot of us that
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 8: are sick of what we're seeing, of what we've seen
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 8: so far and need to understand that this is not normal.
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 8: We need to use every lever of power to reign
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 8: them in. That's what we want to explore. If we
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 8: can rein them in through appropriations, then we'll do that.
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 8: If not, I don't see why we would continue to
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 8: be funding this craziness. And look, they're going to be
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 8: able to get the money anyway because they passed a
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 8: big ugly bill a couple of years ago, but it
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 8: doesn't necessarily mean that I have to make this easier
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 8: for them. And so whatever is the best way for
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 8: us to stop these guys from acting the way that
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 8: they are abusing us citizens, racially profiling in our communities,
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 8: physically harming Americans.
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 5: We're going to look, uh, we're going to try to
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 5: find a way.
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: Do you get a sense from your Democratic colleagues then
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: that this is still a very live issue on whether
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: or not you'll all join hands to fund the government?
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 8: Talking to my Democratic colleagues, it sounds like a lot
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 8: of them are aligned with me and a couple other
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 8: people that we need to use this opportunity to rein
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 8: them in, to constrain them, to do anything. Because right now,
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 8: it's lawless what they're doing. They're not acting like a
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 8: police force. They're acting like a goon squad for this president.
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 8: And they're not even effectively doing their jobs. I have
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 8: friends of mine that I've known for forever that are
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 8: lifelong ICE agents and HSI agents. They're getting pulled off
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 8: their very important cases, going after drug smugglers, they're going
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 8: after money laundering, going after child exploitation cases, because now
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 8: they're forced to go look for people that maybe they're
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 8: in the country illegally, but have no other criminal record.
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 8: And we're using a lot of time, money, manpower to
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 8: go after him for a political effect, not for an
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 8: actual real security effect for everyday Americans.
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: This has resurfaced an old debate among Democrats over whether
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: to call for abolishing ICE. I'm just going to ask,
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: if you were in charge of DHS, what would immigration
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: enforcement look like?
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 8: Well, if I was in charge of DHS, it would
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 8: look like a very professional operation. Number one, you wouldn't
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 8: be able to deport anybody without a warrant. And what
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 8: we've seen right now is that without that safeguard, these
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 8: guys feel they could go and grab anyone anywhere.
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 5: And they're making mistakes too.
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 8: The reason the warrants are important is because a lot
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 8: of times, you know, it creates the right conduct of
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 8: how they go and grab and export some of these people.
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 8: We would, you know, right-size the amount of people. There
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 8: are way too many ICE agents. If you have so
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 8: many ICE agents, that means they're just going to go
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 8: after innocent people and or even feel the necessity to
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 8: go after Americans. I would get rid of the quotas
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 8: that they have to be filling because that encourages them, again,
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 8: to just keep going out there and finding anybody. I
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 8: would work with the president and the Senate to pass
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 8: comprehensive immigration reform so we could focus on the real
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 8: criminals and not the people that are just working here,
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 8: that we could legalize and have them have a job
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 8: and stay with their families. And I would take off
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 8: the masks. You have to be accountable. You have to
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 8: be accountable to US citizens. Police officers in almost every city,
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 8: every day, interact with the public and they do it
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 8: in a professional manner and this is why they don't
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 8: wear a mask. ICE agents, they feel that they could
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 8: get away with what they want because they're covered, they're
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 8: covering their faces and this president has basically guaranteed them
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 8: that he's going to give them all.
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 5: A pardon no matter what they do.
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 8: That's not what should fly that.
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 5: Way in the future.
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: The argument you hear from some folks who want to
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: abolish ICE is, you know, ICE is relatively... new agency anyway.
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: It's only been around for a couple decades. And can't
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: we go back to, you know, pre-ICE when there was
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: still immigration enforcement, but you didn't have ICE? What do
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: you think about that?
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 8: Well, I mean, at that point, it's still ICE, it's
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 8: just by a different name. The problem we have to avoid,
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 8: and I actually don't necessarily disagree with that viewpoint either.
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 8: I think the problem we have to avoid is like
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 8: the everyday person is not as well read in when
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 8: it comes to immigration policies, right? So if you say
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 8: abolish ICE to somebody, they're going to be like, I
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 8: don't know what that means. Everyone knows and understands we're
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 8: always going to have to have a deportation force. Do
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 8: we have to have one that is how ICE is
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 8: currently acting right now? Lawless, without warrants, without justification. No,
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 8: we don't have to have it that way. We can
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 8: have something that we saw akin even before 9-11, that
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 8: is a professionalized force that goes after criminals, that goes
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 8: after people that shouldn't be in the country, that does
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 8: it in a manner that isn't abrasive to everyday civil
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 8: liberties and Americans in general. But The confusion is around
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 8: the language. And I think the general rule, especially as
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 8: someone who has had to engage, by the way, in
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 8: immigration and border policies for the last 16 years in Arizona,
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 8: is if you're explaining, you're losing, right? And so let's
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 8: be clear what we know Americans want. Americans want a
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 8: secure border. Americans want criminals in this country to be deported.
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 8: They don't want the mom, the dad with US citizen
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 8: kids people that have been here, that have community roots,
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 8: that haven't had any major crimes, they don't want them deported.
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 8: Let's create a force that reflects that instead of what
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 8: it is right now.
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 5: Because what it is right now, it's not at all
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 5: about immigration enforcement.
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 8: It is about suppressing and trying to intimidate Americans in
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 8: blue cities.
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: You met with the foreign ministers of Denmark and Greenland
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: on Wednesday, same day they met with J.D. Vance and
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: Marco Rubio. Were they just like, what the fuck is
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: wrong with your president? Like, were they freaked out? What
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: was the mood there?
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 8: Honestly, they were more politically stable than I would have been.
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 8: It is clear from the conversation that I was having
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 8: with them that Marco Rubio and J.D. Vance are trying
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 8: to create an actual reason why we need to take Greenland.
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 8: Because the actual reason we want to take Greenland is
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 8: a stupid, idiotic idea of the president because he just
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 8: wants to have that big island on the map being
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 8: part of the United States. So talking to the foreign minister,
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 8: they have been very clear. Like, if you want to
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 8: build more bases, U.S. bases in Greenland, you are welcome
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 8: to build more bases in Greenland. You want to stage
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 8: more men in Greenland, you're welcome to do that. We
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 8: will cut off all commercial trade with China. We'll cut
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 8: commercial trade with Russia, which they already have. Tell us
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 8: what you want.
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 5: We will do it. There's no need for any of this.
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 8: And the ostensible reason why JD Vance reoccurred was like, well,
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 8: that may be the case right now. But 10 years
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 8: from now, you could be in a totally different situation.
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 8: So there is no logical reason for them to be
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 8: engaging this. It's actually harmful, right? Right now, you have
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 8: people trying to figure out how to balance against us
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 8: versus us being able to work with them to balance
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 8: power against China, against Russia. We need the buying power
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 8: of NATO as well as of the European Union to
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 8: be able to really overcome the buying power of China.
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 8: And we're going to make ourselves weaker in the long
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 8: run if we go into a stupid war over Greenland,
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 8: which in the end would not be successful. What happens
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 8: when the next president comes? I guarantee you, it's a Democrat.
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 8: We're going to give it right back. And even if
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 8: you try to, you know, I don't know, bring it in,
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 8: you have to have a treaty process to that. And again,
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 8: you'd have a lot of people against that. And this
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 8: is monumentally unpopular right now. You know, people don't want
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 8: any wars, let alone a war with Denmark or NATO.
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 8: especially right now when there's so many other problems happening
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 8: in this country.
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: You introduced a bill this morning saying that any action
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: in Greenland would require congressional authorization. Your Republican colleagues in
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: the Senate folded to Trump's pressure on the Venezuela war
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: powers resolution. Do you have any more hope when it
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: comes to the Greenland resolution?
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 5: I do, and for a couple reasons.
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 8: Number one, this is a violation of a treaty. So
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 8: that was, you know, NATO came into as a treaty
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 8: in the late 40s, early 50s, voted by the Senate.
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 8: There's also generations of relationships across the pond with, you know,
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 8: NATO leaders that a lot of these senators would lose respect,
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 8: not among necessarily their citizens or Arizonans, or sorry, Americans,
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 8: but across, you know, these people that they consider friends,
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 8: you know, parliamentarians in other states, you know, generals from
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 8: other countries. And I think they also understand the existential
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 8: situation that would come if we end up getting.
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 5: Into a stupid war for Greenland.
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 8: It would be the dumbest, dumbest move, strategic move that
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 8: this country has done probably since its birth. It would
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 8: end up destroying an alliance that has stabilized at least
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 8: the Western Hemisphere. It would end up causing economic problems
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 8: you know, slowing down our economy and potentially making China
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 8: the rising and permanent economic power. And these senators would
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 8: all have to pay for it because guess what? Donald
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 8: Trump is gone in three years. These senators have to
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 8: run again and they will end up feeling and having
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 8: to deal with the fallout of a very stupid war
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 8: over Greenland.
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: You also released a big housing affordability plan this week
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: centered around making it easier to build more homes, making
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: homeownership more affordable. Everything. Yeah, very abundance coded, which reminded
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: me this week, also your Senate colleague, Elizabeth Warren, she
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: gave a big speech where she said, abundance has become
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: a rallying cry for wealthy donors and other corporate Dems
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: who are putting big time muscle behind making Democrats more
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: favorable to big business. She made the argument that economic
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: populism is much more popular with voters than an abundance message.
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: I know that you've previously said there is no need
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: to choose between populism and abundance, but what did you
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: make of her comments?
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 5: I mean, I get it. I think there is no
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 5: need to choose. You can do both.
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 8: And I think most Americans really do not care the
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 8: color of the cat when it catches the mouse. Like,
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 8: you know, you have to have the opportunity to build fast.
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 8: And you have to make some of the incentives for
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 8: them to build fast. But you also do have to
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 8: make sure that the big conglomerates that are controlling maybe timber,
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 8: the mortgage industry or something like that, aren't becoming so
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 8: powerful that it becomes uncompetitive, non-competitive for smaller businesses or
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 8: even for the consumer.
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 5: Then you got to do both.
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 8: I'm agnostic when it comes to this stuff. I don't
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 8: take sides. This is like a gang fight and I'm
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 8: an innocent civilian. All I care about is results. Let
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 8: me tell you, Americans, when you talk to them, aren't
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 8: going to tell me, Ruben, I really hate the fact
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 8: that you built that house, but you.
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 5: Didn't do it in a populist way. or the opposite.
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 8: Ruben, I'm very disappointed that you used your abundance agenda
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 8: to bring down my mortgage costs.
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 5: That's ridiculous. That's not how normal people are.
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 8: No one thinks that way, except for a couple of
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 8: people in a couple of zip codes around the whole country.
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 8: Let's focus on results. And if you have to break
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 8: up the banks to do it, then do it. If
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 8: you have to make sure that we are introducing or
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 8: cutting it on a regulation to do it, then we
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 8: do that. But like, This whole argument is a bunch
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 8: of elites talking to a bunch of elites, and it's
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 8: not going to make.
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 5: A bit of a difference.
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm an elite, and it breaks my brain. Senator Gallego,
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: thank you, as always, for joining Pod Save America. I
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: know you've got a meeting to rush to, but thanks
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: for coming on.
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 4: Thanks, Matt.
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: That's our show for today. Thanks to Ruben Gallego for
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: coming on. Alex will be back on the feed on
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: Sunday with a conversation with Strict Scrutiny's Leah Littman. about
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: legal avenues for pushing back on ICE. Check it out. Bye, everyone.
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad-free
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: and get access to exclusive podcasts, go to cricket.com slash
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 1: friends to subscribe on Supercast, Substack, YouTube, or Apple Podcasts. Also,
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: please consider leaving us a review. That helps boost this
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: episode and everything we do here at Cricket. Pod Save
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: America is a Cricket Media production. Our producers are David Toledo,
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: Emma Illich-Frank, and Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farah Safari.
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: Austin Fisher is our senior producer. Reid Cherlin is our
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: executive editor. Adrian Hill is our head of news and politics.
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Matt DeGroat is our head of production.
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 1: Naomi Sengel is our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team,
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Ben Hefcote, Mia Kelman, Carol Pellevive,
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: David Tolles, and Ryan Young. Our production staff is proudly
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.