Latest / 5 minute updates on the latest Trump actions by Prof Christina Pagel / Last 2 weeks under the radar in US: attacks on press freedom, corruption & nationalism

Transcript

Last 2 weeks under the radar in US: attacks on press freedom, corruption & nationalism · 5 minute updates on the latest Trump actions by Prof Christina Pagel

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  SPEAKER_00: So while the US can't decide if it's a war or not, or
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  SPEAKER_00: if the Strait of Hormuz is open or not,
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  SPEAKER_00: a huge amount has been happening behind the headlines.
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  SPEAKER_00: And today
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to highlight recent actions that undermine press freedom,
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  SPEAKER_00: that are corrupt or are continuing the white
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  SPEAKER_00: nationalist agenda of the White House.
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  SPEAKER_00: So starting with press freedom First, Justice Department lawyers
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  SPEAKER_00: asked a judge to let the government directly search Washington Post
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  SPEAKER_00: reporter Hannah Natanson’s electronic devices,
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  SPEAKER_00: which really violates freedom of the press
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  SPEAKER_00: and the kind of sacred protection of press sources.
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  SPEAKER_00: and then the magazine wired reported that a small conservative
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  SPEAKER_00: legal group used direct access
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  SPEAKER_00: to the FCC chairman's office last September to really accelerate
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  SPEAKER_00: a campaign targeting Jimmy Kimmel and his employer, ABC,
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  SPEAKER_00: which is just a really worrying example of how the regulator is
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  being used as
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  SPEAKER_00: a political weapon against any media figures critical of Trump.
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  SPEAKER_00: FBI Director Kash Patel this week threatened to sue The Atlantic
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  SPEAKER_00: magazine after it reported that his colleagues
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  SPEAKER_00: have grown alarmed by what it described
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  SPEAKER_00: as episodes of excessive drinking and unexplained absences.
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  SPEAKER_00: And two days after that
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  SPEAKER_00: threat, he followed through by filing a lawsuit for defamation.
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  SPEAKER_00: Trump has also had various run ins with the media.
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  SPEAKER_00: He slammed The Wall Street Journal for claiming
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  SPEAKER_00: that his declaration of victory amid the Iran conflict was premature.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then he later attacked Democrat leaders, The New York Times
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  SPEAKER_00: and CBS news for also criticizing his Iran operations,
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  SPEAKER_00: including his attack on nuclear facilities last summer.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then finally, Trump actually attacked Fox News
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  SPEAKER_00: because it featured one of the candidates
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  SPEAKER_00: for the California governorship, Tom Steyer, who's a Democrat.
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  SPEAKER_00: And basically, Trump said,
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  SPEAKER_00: why is a network spoken
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  SPEAKER_00: with a Democrat instead of talking about Republican candidates?
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  SPEAKER_00: Really kind of, projecting the idea
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  SPEAKER_00: that he thinks Fox is literally an extension of his government.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now, thinking a little bit about corruption
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  SPEAKER_00: and what's been going on there, A senior Pentagon official overseeing
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  SPEAKER_00: AI reportedly has made millions of dollars selling
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  SPEAKER_00: AI stock after the Pentagon entered an agreement with the company xAI.
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  SPEAKER_00: Federal law bars officials from taking any actions in their jobs
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  SPEAKER_00: that benefit their own financial interests,
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  SPEAKER_00: which would definitely seem to apply here.
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  SPEAKER_00: This week, the long standing
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  SPEAKER_00: CEO of Apple said he was going to stand down.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then Trump posted on Truth Social a long post really praising
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  SPEAKER_00: Tim Cook, where he actually said right out blatantly
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  SPEAKER_00: that he'd given Cook “big help” when Apple had wanted favors.
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  SPEAKER_00: So he's really being very open about the fact
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  SPEAKER_00: that government influence is being used
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  SPEAKER_00: almost as a personal service for well-connected corporate leaders.
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  SPEAKER_00: Corruption is also undermining the rule of law.
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  SPEAKER_00: So reports came out that Trump has promised mass pardons
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  SPEAKER_00: to those within 200ft of the Oval Office before he leaves office.
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  SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile, the Department of Justice has requested that a federal appeals
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  SPEAKER_00: judge overturn the convictions for members of the far right group
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  SPEAKER_00: Proud Boys and the far right group, the Oath Keepers, who were both found
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  SPEAKER_00: guilty of seditious conspiracy over the January 6th insurrection.
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  SPEAKER_00: So another case of the administration rewarding perceived allies.
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  SPEAKER_00: Prosecutors from Jeanine Pirro’s office also made a surprise visit
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  SPEAKER_00: to the Federal Reserve, all while Trump
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  SPEAKER_00: has been publicly pressuring his long term target, Jerome Powell.
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  SPEAKER_00: And the Justice Department also removed a career Miami
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  SPEAKER_00: federal prosecutor who'd been leading the investigation
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  SPEAKER_00: into the former CIA director, John Brennan,
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  SPEAKER_00: who's become a prominent critic of Donald Trump.
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  SPEAKER_00: And the reason they moved her, apparently,
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  SPEAKER_00: is because she resisted pressure to quickly bring charges
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  SPEAKER_00: against Brennan.
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  SPEAKER_00: The Justice Department then replaced that prosecutor
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  SPEAKER_00: with an attorney who once worked for President Trump.
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  SPEAKER_00: And this is all while Todd Blanche said in an interview to NBC
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  SPEAKER_00: that Americans should be happy
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  SPEAKER_00: that Trump is interfering in the Department of Justice.
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  SPEAKER_00: When he was asked directly about, a communication that Trump said to
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  SPEAKER_00: then Attorney General Pam Bondi where he implored her to indict
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  SPEAKER_00: several of his political enemies,
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  SPEAKER_00: Todd Blanche said
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  SPEAKER_00: it was just an example of the president
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  SPEAKER_00: being upfront with the American people
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  SPEAKER_00: and making his high expectations clear.
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  SPEAKER_00: So the final thing I want to talk about is, nationalism.
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  SPEAKER_00: So firstly, more than 2500 troops are still in
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  SPEAKER_00: Washington, DC, months after Trump declared a crime emergency.
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  SPEAKER_00: And there's no clear endpoint for their deployment.
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  SPEAKER_00: So originally the National Guard were deployed for 30 days last August.
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  SPEAKER_00: But that's just been extended and extended.
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  SPEAKER_00: And this kind of open ended domestic military presence really normalizes
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  SPEAKER_00: this kind of rule by emergency and projects force into civilian
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  SPEAKER_00: politics.
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  SPEAKER_00: ICE is also continuing its aggressive deportation agenda.
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  SPEAKER_00: So here are just some examples.
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  SPEAKER_00: In California, an immigrant worker was shot multiple times
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  SPEAKER_00: by ICE agents and and is left in intensive care.
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  SPEAKER_00: His lawyer said that he'd been shot
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  SPEAKER_00: before trying to flee from gunfire in his car.
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  SPEAKER_00: ICE is supposedly prioritizing violent criminals for deportation.
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  SPEAKER_00: But recent cases show anything but that.
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  SPEAKER_00: A US citizen has been deported to Mexico following a traffic stop.
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  SPEAKER_00: despite telling the arresting officers
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  SPEAKER_00: that he had his proof of citizenship at home.
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  SPEAKER_00: Then, for the second time in less than a week,
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  SPEAKER_00: a Venezuelan doctor was detained in South Texas.
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  SPEAKER_00: She works in a hospital emergency room in the Rio Grande Valley.
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  SPEAKER_00: She was traveling to join her husband for their asylum interview,
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  SPEAKER_00: which is scheduled for next week.
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  SPEAKER_00: And according to her husband,
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  SPEAKER_00: she has a valid work permit and she was traveling
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  SPEAKER_00: with their five year old daughter, who is a U.S. citizen.
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  SPEAKER_00: ICE also deported an 86 year old French
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  SPEAKER_00: woman who had moved to the US to marry her long lost love.
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  SPEAKER_00: And she was waiting for her green card when deported.
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  SPEAKER_00: and they went after the wife of a US Army sergeant who's been serving
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  SPEAKER_00: for 27 years in the military,
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  SPEAKER_00: during her appointment at the Immigration office in El Paso.
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  SPEAKER_00: And this is despite the fact
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  SPEAKER_00: that she had legal protection in place in 2019
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  SPEAKER_00: that barred her from being deported back to El Salvador.
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  SPEAKER_00: Her husband said, I don't really understand why,
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  SPEAKER_00: because she's followed
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  SPEAKER_00: the rules of immigration law by the teeth since day one.
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  SPEAKER_00: More generally, the Department of Justice fired two
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  SPEAKER_00: immigration judges who dismissed high profile deportation
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  SPEAKER_00: cases against international students who advocated for the Palestinians.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then the Department of Justice also announced
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  SPEAKER_00: that it was going to sue Connecticut, its governor, and the City of New
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  SPEAKER_00: Haven to challenge, sanctuary policies that it said interfere
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  SPEAKER_00: with the federal government's enforcement of immigration laws.
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  SPEAKER_00: And finally, under Trump, the US has almost entirely
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  SPEAKER_00: shut down asylum for those fleeing persecution.
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  SPEAKER_00: In 2025, Trump halted all refugee admissions,
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  SPEAKER_00: including for applicants from warzones.
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  SPEAKER_00: But he did allow Afrikaners, a white minority group that he said
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  SPEAKER_00: was persecuted in South Africa, to seek resettlement.
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  SPEAKER_00: So since October 2025, about
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  SPEAKER_00: 4500 refugees were resettled in the US.
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  SPEAKER_00: And all apart from three were white South Africans.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then finally, following Trump's fight with the Pope,
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  SPEAKER_00: the administration
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  SPEAKER_00: has taken it out on a charity helping migrant children.
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  SPEAKER_00: The office for Refugee Resettlement has decided
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  SPEAKER_00: not to renew an $11 million grant for the Catholic Charities shelter,
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  SPEAKER_00: run by the diocese in Miami, which cares for migrant children.
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  SPEAKER_00: So that's it for this week.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: All actions that are available on Trumpactiontracker.info,
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  SPEAKER_00: which actually hit 3000 recorded actions last week.
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  SPEAKER_00: See you soon.
• 10:37
  While the headlines have been focused on war.
• 10:39
  The administration has been attacking press freedom.
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  Behind the headlines, this was another two weeks of government
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  power used to reward loyalty and seek personal advantage.
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  behind the headlines.
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  The white House
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  has continued its aggressive immigration and intimidation agenda.