Latest / The Fourcast / Minneapolis ICE shooting: innocent victim or ‘domestic terrorist’?

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Minneapolis ICE shooting: innocent victim or ‘domestic terrorist’? · The Fourcast

0:00
It is impossible for someone to show you that video from
0:03
yesterday and prove to you, well, this is terrorism.
0:05
But that message, because it was propagated so early by this
0:08
administration, is being accepted by millions of people
0:12
without a second thought. And that is very alarming
0:15
because it expands beyond this incident.
0:18
What happens when there's an act of terrorism?
0:20
Well, what you do is you increase a law enforcement
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presence and you crack down on the potential perpetrators.
0:25
There are folks inside this administration, people I worked
0:27
with in the first Trump administration, who have been
0:30
waiting for and looking for a pretext for a domestic terrorism
0:35
crackdown. Hello and welcome to the
0:41
forecast an innocent woman shot dead in her car by aggressive
0:45
ICE officers who've terrorized the city, or a domestic
0:48
terrorist who weaponized her vehicle and tried to kill an
0:51
agent who was lucky to escape with his life.
0:54
The competing narratives over what exactly happened at
0:57
Minneapolis yesterday are now entrenched, and the fallout from
1:01
the shooting has gone national and is going global.
1:04
All this happening in the middle of President Trump's aggressive
1:07
immigration push with thousands of federal agents deployed to
1:11
Minneapolis as the White House tries to demonstrate toughness
1:15
ahead of the midterm elections. Protests are spreading and the
1:19
city's become the latest battleground in a national fight
1:22
over immigration policing and political strategy.
1:26
Well, today on the forecast, we speak to Miles Taylor, who
1:28
worked in the Department for Homeland Security in the first
1:31
Trump administration and has since become a very vocal critic
1:35
of the president. And Minneapolis based journalist
1:37
Madison McMahon, who's been reporting from the scene.
1:40
So let's just go, you know, to the scene itself.
1:43
Let's go to Minneapolis and talk to Madison.
1:46
Madison. I mean, we saw the
1:48
demonstrations last night. There was a vigil, I think
1:50
overnight, the the actual shooting itself was played again
1:54
and again and again on cable television.
1:57
But with these two very different takes depending on who
2:00
you were watching, What's the latest, you know, on the ground?
2:03
What's the mood in the city? And to what extent do people
2:05
there think that they are in the heart of this kind of
2:08
battleground? Well, the city of Minneapolis is
2:11
no stranger to being at the heart of conversations about
2:15
police brutality and in racial violence.
2:21
This is where George Floyd was murdered in 2020.
2:25
Just a. Few blocks away, right?
2:26
Yeah, yeah. The shooting of Renee Goode was
2:28
just a, you know, less than a mile from where the murder of
2:31
George Floyd occurred. So this is a community that
2:36
already is wary of law enforcement that has come out
2:41
and and demonstrated in mass against law enforcement
2:45
violence. And yesterday's shooting was
2:48
definitely a reminder of that for the people of South
2:50
Minneapolis. This morning we saw some renewed
2:55
protests at the federal building outside of Minneapolis where the
3:00
local ICE agency is headquartered.
3:04
A complicating factor here is that, you know, in 2020, the
3:06
protests were against the Minneapolis Police Department
3:09
specifically. And now we're seeing protests
3:12
against federal law enforcement, which complicates things.
3:16
You know, ICE are not the people who are responding to protests.
3:19
And so we didn't see things escalate, you know, like they
3:24
did in 2020. Yesterday, there was some
3:26
deployment of of tear gas as ICE agents were leaving the scene.
3:32
But, you know, not that type of stand off as the Minneapolis
3:36
police left, for example. So some key differences and some
3:39
similarities to 2020 we're seeing here.
3:42
Yeah, and I want to get to the, you know, the the differences
3:44
and especially the sort of potential pitting of of federal
3:47
agencies against local or state law enforcement agencies in a
3:50
minute, because that is that could be quite dangerous.
3:52
Just before we get to that Madison, I mean, Minneapolis has
3:56
had a very troubled recent history with ICE agents, hasn't
4:00
it? And of course, it's not the only
4:01
city that falls into that category.
4:03
Tell us a little bit about that. Right.
4:05
I think for people outside of the US, I, I, I think it's
4:09
important to talk about what, the way that the residents of,
4:15
of cities have been responding to ICE.
4:17
I mean, there has been a mass movement to train people to
4:22
alert the public when ICE is carrying out an operation, to
4:27
come out and demonstrate and in some cases, disrupt ICE
4:30
operations. So that seemed to be kind of the
4:33
situation yesterday when Renee Good was killed.
4:36
There were some, there was a ICE vehicle that was stuck in the
4:39
snow. Some people were blowing
4:42
whistles. They were honking horns.
4:43
They were drawing attention to the fact that ICE was present in
4:46
the neighborhood, drawing people out to protest and disrupt.
4:50
We don't know specifically what Renee Good was doing there.
4:52
There's still a lot we don't know about what her involvement
4:54
may have been in these organizations, but her car was
4:58
parked there. So we don't know Madden if she
5:01
was part of that disruption exercise.
5:05
Eyewitnesses on the scene told me that she was yelling at ICE
5:09
agents and had blocked their vehicles with her car.
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But what we don't know is how involved she may have been in
5:15
some of these organizations that are doing that, whether she was
5:18
kind of an independent bystander or if she was someone who was,
5:22
you know, you know, tightly incorporated into the
5:25
organizations that are protesting.
5:27
Nice. Right, Miles.
5:29
Miles Taylor, let's get to you. I mean, one thing that really
5:31
struck me about this, and it's not the first time I had this
5:33
impression in President Trump's second term, is how quick the
5:37
administration was to jump on this incident and politicize it,
5:41
frankly. I mean, you had Kirsty Gnome
5:43
appearing, I think first of all, in Brownville, Texas, sooner
5:46
soon after the shooting, wearing a cowboy hat and basically
5:50
saying that Renee Goode was a domestic terrorist, you know,
5:53
without any shadow of a doubt stating that she was using her
5:56
vehicle, you know, to try and harm ICE agents.
6:00
It was an act of domestic terrorism.
6:03
What happened? It was our ICE officers were out
6:05
in enforcement action. They got stuck in the snow
6:08
because of the adverse weather that is in Minneapolis.
6:11
They were attempting to push out their vehicle and a woman
6:13
attacked them and those surrounding them and attempted
6:15
to run them over and ram them with her vehicle.
6:20
She seemed to row back from that just a little bit later on in
6:23
another statement that she made on the in Minneapolis later that
6:26
day. And the president himself also
6:29
at first seeming to jump on this.
6:31
I mean, the fact that it's being politicized quite overtly by the
6:36
administration and that you don't get the usual calls for
6:39
calm that you would expect. How significant is that?
6:44
Well, look, all I can tell you is what I would have done when I
6:50
was chief of staff at DHS, which I was in the previous Trump
6:55
administration. I've been there with a lot of
6:58
these same characters. And what I would tell you is
7:02
after you have an officer shooting where an American
7:06
citizen is killed, what you don't do is then fire more
7:10
rhetorical shots because you dramatically increase the risk
7:15
of escalation, inflaming the community and putting more
7:19
people in danger. And you certainly don't do that
7:21
before you have all of the facts.
7:23
And yet, as you noted, the secretary went out there
7:26
publicly and said this was an act of domestic terrorism,
7:29
accused the victim of being a terrorist.
7:33
So if I was there right now, this is honestly the
7:35
conversation I would be having. I would be talking to the
7:38
secretary about resignations up and down the chain of command up
7:42
to and including her and my own, because this is the type of
7:46
thing, this is the type of rhetoric, like I said, that is
7:49
like follow on shots after the incident itself.
7:53
And, and keep in mind here this week, here is the context.
7:57
The administration was surging ICE agents into Minnesota under
8:02
the auspices of investigating fishy accounting at
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kindergartens. Okay, fishy accounting at.
8:08
Kindergartens, that's. Right.
8:11
And the responding with massive armed lethal force.
8:15
So in a lot of ways, to Americans, this has the
8:18
hallmarks of Kent State 1970. That's when 4 unarmed student
8:23
protesters were killed by the National Guard.
8:25
And it set off a wave of protests in the United States.
8:29
In a lot of ways, this feels like that.
8:32
Is there anyone, as far as you know, in your position today at
8:36
the Department of Homeland Security who's having more
8:39
difficult conversations with the secretary?
8:41
Christina, I'm saying don't go this far.
8:44
You've overstepped a line. Try and row him back.
8:46
Or are they all basically, you know, one team behind her and
8:49
behind the president? If there are folks of
8:53
conscience, I've yet to see them.
8:55
And, and I'll say this, watching how this played out, it's very
8:59
clear to me that this is not a one off or a fog of war
9:03
accident. And and you have to go back in
9:05
time a little bit to see that Donald Trump has been
9:09
conditioning ICE to shoot 1st and explain later.
9:13
He's been doing that for months. And the message from the top has
9:16
been pretty unmistakable. If you go back to July, for
9:18
instance, the president melted down after protesters vandalized
9:23
ICE cars. He said, you know, these were
9:25
brand new vehicles he'd given them and they showed total
9:27
disrespect for law order. What he said after that was he
9:30
was directing the secretary of Homeland Security to give total
9:34
authorization to use whatever means necessary against
9:38
protester thugs. That's what the president said.
9:40
And in the in the wake of that, we have seen ICE engage in
9:44
illegal entry, warrantless arrests, arrests of U.S.
9:47
citizens, violent assaults. I mean, things that I never saw
9:50
the agency do when I was helping to oversee it.
9:52
And now to a lot of Americans, that looks like the president
9:56
has given them a license to kill.
9:59
And we have not seen folks within the agencies stand up and
10:03
say, Mr. President, we can't do this.
10:05
If anything, they are reflexively defending officers
10:08
even when video shows it might be the indefensible.
10:12
Now, the administration would reply to that, hang on a minute.
10:15
This is what the American people voted for.
10:17
They knew what my anti immigration agenda was when I,
10:21
you know, was on the ballot last year.
10:23
I won, you know, convincingly. And this is what they're now
10:26
getting. ICE agents are going in there to
10:28
the poor people who shouldn't be in our country.
10:30
That's what they would say. Yeah, and I would respond to
10:33
them that that's a bold lie. The three things they told
10:37
America that ICE was going to do if Donald Trump got re elected
10:41
was 1, ICE was going to go after dangerous criminal aliens, 2.
10:45
ICE would not be harassing U.S. citizens.
10:47
And three, ICE would be following all rules and it would
10:50
be following the law. Well, let's go to that first lie
10:53
about ICE going after criminal aliens.
10:55
If you look at the recent arrest statistics, only 10% of recently
11:00
arrested and detained immigrants have criminal records.
11:03
In other words, 90% of the people ISIS arresting right now
11:07
are people without criminal records, students, families,
11:09
parents, people who've been here for decades.
11:12
OK, that's a huge deal. And it's something that people
11:14
are starting to pick up on and say even conservatives like Joe
11:17
Rogan, who supported this president.
11:19
Wait a second, Mr. President, you said we were going after
11:21
criminal aliens, and now 9 and 10 of people you're picking up
11:24
are not that second lie about ICE not harassing U.S. citizens.
11:27
I mean, Christine Gnome just testified before the US
11:29
Congress. No, we're not harassing U.S.
11:30
citizens In the wake of a report coming out showing that hundreds
11:34
of Americans have been arrested by ICE, swept up in these raids.
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I'll remind folks that's unconstitutional.
11:40
That's against our United States Constitution.
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And then finally, that claim that ICE is following the law.
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Let me tell you what Tom Holman said this week.
11:47
The borders are at the White House, he said.
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I have not seen ICE act outside of policy.
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I'll tell you what, either one of two things is true.
11:55
Either Tom Holman knows he's lying through his teeth, or
11:58
somehow he has secretly authorized ICE to break the law.
12:01
Because I know just as much about this as Tom, and I've
12:03
watched every single day on social media feeds, ICE do
12:07
things that are completely outside of policy, the policy
12:10
both Tom and I were responsible for implementing in that first
12:14
Trump administration. So this is not what the American
12:17
people voted for. They voted for something very
12:19
different that was sold to them and now the administration is
12:22
moving the goal post. Although to be fair to Tom
12:24
Holman, he was also on CBS News last night saying, actually,
12:30
let's not rush to judgement, you know, in brackets, unlike some
12:33
of my colleagues. And let's find out what the
12:35
investigation, what the body cams actually what story they
12:38
tell on the ground. So I think you know, So he he
12:41
was slightly more judicious there than than some of the
12:43
people in the administration. Madison Mcgrahan, if I can get
12:46
back to you. I mean, Miles referred to it.
12:49
But how does it feel in Minneapolis?
12:51
Does it feel like a city that is kind of under ICE occupation and
12:55
the mayor yesterday, using some very fruity language amongst
12:59
other things, referred to the fact that ICE was tearing
13:01
families apart? What they are doing is not to
13:04
provide safety in America. What they are doing is causing
13:09
chaos and distrust. They're ripping families apart.
13:14
They're sowing chaos on our streets and in this case, quite
13:18
literally killing people. Is that true and give us some
13:23
description of that? Yes, it certainly feels like
13:26
that. I was speaking to my editor
13:28
today. He pointed out that the number
13:30
of ICE agents in the Twin Cities right now is several times, that
13:35
is several times the size of the local Police Department.
13:38
So it really does feel like they are everywhere in terms of the
13:43
way that they're carrying out their operations.
13:45
They're getting in and out quickly.
13:47
It seems like they're kind of going in arresting one person or
13:51
a small group and then getting out before people really have
13:53
time to congregate around them. Like I said before, that's
13:56
that's kind of the goal of a lot of the residents is to disrupt
13:59
these things. Now they're getting in and out.
14:02
So we're seeing these kind of isolated standoffs.
14:06
I and yesterday's shooting just really ramped up the stakes and
14:10
made the tensions significantly higher.
14:12
I think we're also going to see more people going to these
14:15
trainings, getting involved in these organizations that are
14:18
combating ice. I mean, you saw that in the turn
14:21
out at the vigil. Yes, last night.
14:22
I mean, thousands of people on the block where Renee Goode was
14:25
shot and the organizers of the vigil urging people to get
14:30
involved in, you know, the groups that are working to
14:33
protest and disrupt ice operations.
14:36
And I think we should talk about Renee Goode herself a bit.
14:38
Tell us about her. What I know.
14:39
She was 37 year old and she had a six year old son.
14:42
Tell us a bit more about her. What kind of a person was she?
14:45
You know, we're still learning about that.
14:47
She, We know that she was a poet.
14:49
We know that she played music. She was a recent arrival to the
14:54
Twin Cities. We know she spent some time in
14:55
Missouri and I believe Colorado. But, you know, it's been just
15:02
about 24 hours since she was killed.
15:04
And we're still, you know, working on getting in touch with
15:07
people who knew her to really get a portrait of what kind of a
15:10
person she was. Just on, on Minnesota, I mean,
15:15
you know, the president just a few weeks ago launched this very
15:18
aggressive tirade against Somali, the Somali community in
15:22
your state, which is sizeable, basically telling them to go
15:25
back home, even though the majority of them are American
15:27
citizens. So, I mean, Minnesota has been a
15:30
bit of a battleground for this administration, hasn't it?
15:33
It has been. And, you know, people outside
15:36
the US may recall that our governor, Tim Walz, was selected
15:41
to be the vice presidential nominee.
15:43
So I that really put our governor and our state on the
15:46
national scale. Tim Walls himself became a a
15:50
frequent target of Donald Trump and that's continued even after
15:54
Donald Trump won his re election campaign.
15:56
Tim Walls came back to Minnesota and Walls actually earlier this
16:01
week suspended or ended really his campaign for a third term
16:06
because of some of these fraud issues.
16:09
And just briefly on Governor Waltz, what's he been saying?
16:13
Is he, you know, using a more cautious land than the mayor of
16:16
Minneapolis? And, you know, is he, you know,
16:19
I think he was suggesting possibly sending out the the
16:21
National Guard. Is that actually going to
16:23
happen? Is that a possibility?
16:25
It's certainly a possibility. He has told the National Guard
16:29
to be prepared to deploy if needed.
16:32
Again, another parallel to 2020. He, you know, Tim Walz,
16:36
activated the National Guard to quell some of the protests after
16:40
the police murder of George Floyd.
16:42
So we kind of just told them be ready for something like that to
16:44
happen again. A lot of the activists here want
16:48
to see him use the National Guard to protect people from
16:53
ICE. Yeah, Which, you know, would
16:55
spark a whole bunch of constitutional questions and
16:58
possibly put an even bigger target on Minnesota's back.
17:02
I mean, Miles, what I found really fascinating is this
17:04
prospect, which is potentially really alarming, of two
17:07
agencies, one state and one federal had loggerheads with
17:10
each other. I mean, that's a recipe for
17:12
division and disaster, isn't it? I mean, how worried are you
17:15
about this whole, you know, the texture of America kind of
17:20
falling apart, coming apart to the seams because of, you know,
17:23
the federal government is using a federal agency, ICE against
17:27
state and local authority. And we saw this in Chicago, you
17:32
know, we saw this to some extent, you know, in here in, in
17:36
DC where ICE agents were on the streets, although, of course,
17:39
you know, there is no state here.
17:41
But that's, that's kind of worrying, isn't it, for the
17:43
future of America? Yeah, I mean, look, you don't
17:46
have to take my word for it that the administration's falsehoods
17:49
here are having an impact on Americans confidence.
17:53
In fact, if you look at Gallup polls, recent Gallup polls,
17:56
trend lines and Americans trust in the federal government are
18:00
plummeting. They are absolutely plummeting
18:03
year over year. What does that mean?
18:05
Well, that means that overall public safety is damaged by
18:09
this. So specifically when it comes to
18:11
federal law enforcement, if members of the public are losing
18:14
trust in law enforcement, I'll tell you having, you know, run
18:18
what is the biggest law enforcement agency in America at
18:20
DHS? If they don't trust you, they
18:23
don't report crimes to you, they don't cooperate with you during
18:26
investigations. And as a result, the criminal
18:29
situation gets worse. Everyone is less safe.
18:32
It also bleeds over into wider law enforcement.
18:35
So when trust in federal law enforcement like ICE is going
18:37
through the floor, people don't go check every police officers
18:40
badge and say, ah, you're part of this agency or that agency.
18:43
They start to lump them together, their heads.
18:44
And so that overall social fabric is affected by this
18:49
decreased faith in law enforcement.
18:50
And I will tell you from having talked to other law enforcement
18:53
leaders, people at other agencies are really worried
18:57
about this. They are saying what ICE is
18:59
doing is making all of us look bad and it's affecting public
19:03
safety writ large. So that's the big, big macro
19:06
concern right now with everything we are seeing with
19:09
this agency. It's interesting, actually, just
19:11
on the stage behind Christy Norm, the Homeland Security
19:13
secretary, I think on both occasions yesterday in Texas and
19:16
in Minneapolis, you saw, you know, the representative of the
19:20
Army of ICE, of the local police.
19:22
None of them look very happy, I have to say.
19:24
They, they're all, you know, you can just imagine that scenario
19:27
that you've just outlined playing out in their own minds
19:30
repeatedly under these circumstances.
19:32
Miles, I just want you to tell me a little bit more about ICE,
19:35
because we know that ICE was perhaps the biggest beneficiary
19:38
of the big beautiful budget. That's right.
19:40
I mean, ICE has now become the largest federal law enforcement
19:45
agency in America, and as you know, larger than the armed
19:48
forces of most nations, and it's still growing.
19:52
And to staff that expansion, what the administration has
19:55
done, because it's been very hard to meet those numbers, is
19:58
they've lowered qualification standards while openly lowering
20:03
recruitment standards. And soliciting people from MAGA
20:08
fan bases, from the president's fan bases that they know that
20:10
they can inspire to come and join the mission.
20:13
And they're doing that with with memes and online propaganda
20:17
about cleansing the homeland. I mean, some very, very
20:20
provocative messaging to try to fill their ranks.
20:22
The consequence, of course, is that law enforcement officials
20:25
have warned that the agency is going to be fielding under
20:29
trained, under qualified and ideologically motivated federal
20:34
officers to roam the streets of American cities.
20:37
And you combine that with the fact that the president is
20:40
arming them with this use all means necessary authorities,
20:45
you've got a recipe for many more incidents like we saw
20:49
yesterday in Minnesota. So this is, in a sense, a
20:52
witch's brew of potential corruption and violence.
20:57
We are seen by making this agency so big, so fast and
21:00
unprepared to meet the moment. So Madison, I mean, you know, we
21:04
go back to the murder of George Floyd that, you know, the police
21:08
officer who murdered him ended up being tried and convicted
21:11
and, you know, is in jail. And I'm sure that after that,
21:13
the mini Minneapolis police tried really, really hard to to
21:17
repair relations with the local community and so on.
21:20
So what was what was their attitude when they saw ice
21:23
officers behaving that they did yesterday and and a few weeks
21:26
before? Yeah, Minneapolis Police Chief
21:30
Brian O'Hara said, you know, condemned the actions yesterday
21:33
and basically said that he couldn't see any justification
21:36
for using lethal force in that situation.
21:39
Minneapolis, like many American cities, has what we call a
21:43
separation ordinance, which means that local police are not
21:48
allowed, according to city rules, to assist ICE in
21:51
immigration enforcement. They can assist with criminal,
21:54
with criminal matters, but they're not supposed to help ICE
21:58
arrest people solely because of their immigration status.
22:02
So our local police leaders have reiterated that, But the scene
22:07
on the ground is often confusing.
22:09
Like Miles said, people aren't always thinking, you know, what
22:12
particular agency is this law enforcement officer with?
22:15
There's a broader anti law enforcement sentiment that's
22:18
been growing because of the agent, because of the actions of
22:20
ICE that I do believe Minneapolis police see damaging
22:24
their community relationships. When I was on the ground
22:27
yesterday in the immediate aftermath of the shooting,
22:31
Minneapolis police were present. City leaders said that was
22:35
because this is an active crime scene they're investigating.
22:38
But people were insulting the police.
22:40
They were throwing snowballs at them.
22:44
You know, So there's kind of, you know, there's certainly is a
22:46
visible disconnect between the attitude of the leadership or at
22:49
least their public statements and what the public perception
22:52
of them is in Minneapolis right now.
22:54
I mean, Miles, what I find so alarming about the state of
22:57
America today, and, you know, it's been accelerated by the
23:00
second Trump presidency, but it was there before as well.
23:03
It said there are two rival versions of the truth here.
23:07
You know, think back to what Kellyanne Conway, you know,
23:11
Trump's chief strategist communications officer in the
23:14
first administration, said. These are our rival facts.
23:18
So 1/2 of America thinks that Renee Good was a domestic
23:21
terrorist and the other half of the country thinks that she was,
23:25
you know, murdered by ICE officers who are overreaching
23:28
their power. The president, as far as I can
23:31
see, has done very little to calm down tempers, you know, and
23:34
to to make everyone step back from the brink a little bit
23:37
because that's not the way he operates.
23:39
I mean, the rival versions of truth about something like this
23:42
again, that's a recipe for disaster, isn't it?
23:45
It really is. And, and, and because there are
23:47
rival versions, it doesn't mean that there's no objective truth.
23:51
I mean, I look, I will tell you I, I remain a Republican and a
23:54
conservative, but you know, I, I've spent 20 years responding
23:58
to terrorist attacks in the United States, in the UK, in
24:02
other countries. And terrorism has a very
24:05
specific definition. It is intentional violence meant
24:09
to intimidate or coerce A civilian population.
24:13
And it is impossible for someone to show you that video from
24:17
yesterday and prove to you, well, this is terrorism.
24:19
This individual meant to intimidate or coerce the
24:21
population of the United States by committing an, an act of
24:24
violence. That's, that's very hard to see
24:27
there. But that message, because it was
24:29
propagated so early by this administration, is being
24:32
accepted by millions of people without a second thought that
24:37
this was an act of terrorism. And that is very alarming
24:40
because it expands beyond this incident.
24:43
What happens when there's an act of terrorism?
24:45
Well, what you do is you increase a law enforcement
24:47
presence and you crack down on the potential perpetrators.
24:50
There are folks inside this administration, people I worked
24:52
with in the first Trump administration, who have been
24:55
waiting for and looking for a pretext for a domestic terrorism
25:00
crackdown on the political opposition in the United States.
25:03
So the fear right now is that this incident and others like it
25:07
will be used to try to go to the opposition, to overreact, to try
25:11
to get protests, to be violent, to justify the administration's
25:15
crackdowns. Because right now, 2000 ICE
25:18
officers in a state that has accounting problems with
25:22
kindergartens does not seem to meet the moment, seems like an
25:26
overreaction on the side of government.
25:28
And so this administration is looking for a way to justify
25:31
that visually. And, and that's why they're
25:34
hoping that the opposition overreacts.
25:37
And it's one more reason why commentators are out there
25:40
saying when people protest, which they will, and it's likely
25:43
that these protests become nationwide this weekend, that
25:47
they need to do so peacefully. That's very, very important to
25:50
remind folks in moments like these.
25:52
OK. And Madison, in that context,
25:54
it's quite interesting that the mayor of Minneapolis used, you
25:57
know, some pretty unacceptable language, you know, for
25:59
primetime television. He used the F word when he told
26:02
ICE to get the F out of Minneapolis.
26:05
You know, I'm sure that that played very well with some of
26:07
the crowd, but is that helpful, that kind of language when you
26:10
consider how bitter the divisions are and and do the do
26:14
the people are kind of organizing against ICE?
26:17
The grassroots organizations? And I saw them operating in DC,
26:20
by the way, in the summer and it was really fascinating to see
26:23
how quickly they were quick they were to organize stuff and warn
26:26
people about the presence of ICE.
26:28
Do they get that message what Miles has just outlined?
26:31
Will they hold back a little bit or will they double down on the
26:33
demonstrations? I think whether or not his
26:36
rhetoric was helpful depends on your perspective.
26:39
Was it helpful in de escalating the tensions that we're feeling?
26:43
Probably not. But when you look at the city
26:47
politics, the local feelings here, a lot of people share his
26:51
sentiment, you know, get ice out of here as fast as you can.
26:55
So potentially helpful and, you know, creating, you know, better
27:02
sentiment for the mayor in this town.
27:04
He's actually been very criticized by a lot of the
27:07
people who are involved in these immigrant rights groups.
27:10
So we actually saw him more aligned with these groups.
27:15
Well, he was mayor during the police killing of George Floyd,
27:18
so he took a lot of the heat for criticism of the police at that
27:23
time. And so just like the Police
27:25
Department, he's been trying to repair his relationships with
27:29
the community, particularly, you know, civil rights activists,
27:34
immigrant rights organizations, those kinds of things.
27:36
So he was actually more with them yesterday than, you know,
27:40
I've seen in a while. Interesting.
27:42
I mean, maybe he's trying to repair some past damage there
27:45
himself. Miles back to you.
27:46
I mean, you know, the one question I keep being asked when
27:50
I'm back in the UK is how likely is it that the Trump
27:53
administration will try and somehow, you know, scrap the
27:56
midterm elections, come up with some excuse to delay them, you
27:59
know, use emergency powers in order to to shoot demonstrators
28:03
on the streets. I mean, you know, these very,
28:05
very dark scenarios which are played out on various Hollywood
28:08
screens, but not necessarily on the streets, you know, bring us
28:12
back to planet reality. How likely is it that the
28:15
administration will use some of the things that we've seen and
28:19
take them to the next level? Well, two things are true here.
28:23
Unfortunately, these aren't conspiracy theories because they
28:27
come from the president's mouth. I mean, there are things he
28:30
wants to do, however, he doesn't have the authority to do them.
28:35
So let me let me start with elections and shooting unarmed
28:38
people. You know, look, Donald Trump has
28:40
speculated about canceling elections in the United States.
28:44
He does not have the authority to do that.
28:46
Donald Trump has speculated about shooting unarmed
28:50
civilians. I was on the receiving end of
28:52
some some of those initial directives years ago when he
28:56
told us he wanted to shoot people in the legs at the
28:59
border. I was the one who came out
29:00
publicly and and talked about that because it was so alarming.
29:03
Now, we had to remind the president that under the
29:05
military's rules of engagement, no, we could not do that.
29:08
No, that was not lawful. But he continued to say things
29:12
like that throughout his term. So again, like I said, these are
29:16
things that the President of the United States thinks and says
29:19
and intends to do, and yet the law doesn't permit him to do it
29:22
so to. Interrupt Does anyone reminding
29:24
him today that he can't do that as you reminded him then?
29:28
I, I worry that they're not. I mean, let me give you a very
29:30
recent example. Let's look at Greenland.
29:32
I was also one of the first people to be on the receiving
29:34
end of the president's request that we take over Greenland.
29:37
Now, that's something that we conveyed to the president and
29:39
the White House we thought was an absurd idea and is something
29:44
that we shrugged off. Now, in a second Trump
29:47
administration, he's surrounded by advisers who are trying to
29:51
goad him into taking over the territory of a NATO ally.
29:55
That is a marked contrast. And I think we are seeing that
29:58
on a lot of issues in this second Trump administration.
30:01
There are not people telling him to follow domestic and
30:03
international law. There are people trying to find
30:06
him workarounds to domestic and international law.
30:09
But as it relates to elections, look, I'll say this.
30:11
The president doesn't have the authority to cancel elections,
30:14
but I do believe he will try to engage in efforts that you would
30:18
characterize as voter suppression, try to get the
30:20
political opposition in certain areas to make it harder for them
30:24
to vote to in, to decrease their likelihood of voting so that his
30:28
party is more likely to win. Those are what we're going to be
30:31
looking out for, those types of efforts of voter suppression.
30:34
And it's going to be something that the American people need to
30:36
be very, very aware of. Know your rights training used
30:39
to be a really boring bureaucratic term.
30:41
You're going to see around the United States in 2026 a lot of
30:44
organizations reminding the American people what their
30:47
constitutional and legal rights are because of what's happening
30:51
from their government. But to conclude, you know, this
30:54
first week of the year 2026 was a pretty sobering week in which
30:57
we were reminded at the beginning of the week with the
31:00
actions in Venezuela that America thinks might is right
31:04
and the same thing at the end of the week or towards the end of
31:06
the week on the frozen streets of Minneapolis.
31:09
Yeah, I think that's absolutely right.
31:11
And, and look, I respond to this as someone who has spent many
31:14
years saying Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela should be removed from
31:18
power, as someone who's been saying for many years, we need
31:21
to fix a broken immigration policy in the United States.
31:24
But neither of those policies, the way they've been executed by
31:28
this administration, have been done in a way that is lawful.
31:31
There's a right way and a wrong way to go about things.
31:33
And I think what's starting to concern so many people, and not
31:36
just Democrats in the United States, independents and
31:38
disaffected Republicans, is that this administration is carrying
31:42
out actions that federal judges continue to find are contrary to
31:46
the constitution. Dozens of federal judges have
31:49
ruled this administration has violated the constitution.
31:51
And in that regard, we are in uncharted territory.
31:55
OK. On that serving note, that's it
31:57
for the Forecast. Miles Taylor, Madison McMahon,
32:00
thank you very much to both of you for coming on this edition
32:03
of the Forecast. I hope you found it interesting.
32:05
I certainly did. See you next time.