Breaking News from Pod Save America - Minnesota Police Chief EXPOSES ICE In BOMBSHELL Press Conference

Episode Date: January 20, 2026

Minnesota Police Chief EXPOSES ICE In BOMBSHELL Press Conference. Jon Favreau and Jon Lovett react to the latest news from Minneapolis. Go to https://www.cookunity.com/CROOKED for 50% off your first order. Thanks to CookUnity for supporting the show! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, everybody. Hey, John. Hey. So the Brooklyn Park Police Chief, that's a suburb of Minneapolis, guy named Mark Bruley, had an extraordinary statement about what's happening in Minneapolis in St. Paul and the suburbs. And we just want to take you through it because I think it's worth appreciating what he said here in full. Good morning, everyone. I'm Mark Burley, Police Chief of City of Brooklyn Park. Behind me is a bunch of amazing police chiefs that are here in support of a very short but very important message that we want to share with you.

What you won't hear from any of us today is rhetoric of abolish ICE or that there shouldn't be immigration enforcement. The truth is, immigration enforcement is necessary for national security and for local security. But how it's done is extremely important. In fact, we have a long history of working exceptionally well with our federal partners, including ICE agents. And we have seen the best of them perform their job extremely well in the past. With that said, recently, as the last two weeks, we as law enforcement community have been receiving endless complaints about civil rights violations in our streets from U.S. citizens. What we're hearing is they're being stopped in traffic stops or on the street with no cause and being forced to demand paperwork to determine if they are here legally. First of all, I just think it's an extraordinary statement.

You have a police chief who's apparently been a police chief for decades, surrounded by other police chiefs from the region. You see him almost seeming a little bit, almost uncomfortable with the position that he's in. Well, you're a police officer, local law enforcement, and you're going to give a statement that is going to piss off the federal government, which is extremely powerful and has decided to place itself above the law. But good for him for doing this. Good for him for standing up for his community and his officers who have been hit by some of these lawless searches and inquisitions while off duty.

Good for him for doing this. And being willing to say that he is going to speak up for this community in defiance of Trump and in defiance of what ICE is doing. I also think this image, along with the images of all the kind of mayhem. that we're seeing are why Trump is going to be responding and we'll get to that. But I can't think of a worse image for Trump, a worse validator against what he is doing than this buttoned up police chief surrounded by police chiefs, starting off by saying, we're not for abolishing ICE. We're in favor of immigration enforcement.

Just putting those all aside to say what they're doing as officers who know the Constitution is wrong. illegal. I think it's incredibly powerful. He then goes into a specific story. Let's let's continue the clip. As this went on over the past two weeks, we started hearing from our police officers, the same complaints as they fell victim to this while off duty. Every one of these individuals is a person of color who has had this happen to them. In Brooklyn Park, one particular officer that shared her story with me, was stopped as she passed ice going down the roadway.

When they boxed her in, they demanded her paperwork of which she's a US citizen and clearly would not have any paperwork. When she became concerned about the rhetoric and the way she was being treated, she pulled out her phone and an attempt to record the incident. The phone was knocked out of her hands, prevented her from recording it. The officer had their guns drawn during this interaction.

And after the officer became so concerned, they were forced to identify themselves as a Brooklyn Park police officer in hopes of slowing the incident and de-escalating the incident down. The agents then immediately left after hearing this, making no other comments, no other apologies, just got on their vehicles and left. I wish I could tell you that this was an isolated incident. In fact, many of the chief standing behind me have similar incidents with their off-duty officers. This isn't just important because it happened to off-duty police officers. But what it did do is we know that our officers know what the Constitution is. They know what right and wrong is and they know when people are being targeted.

And that's what they were. If it is happening to our officers, it pains me to think how many of our community members are falling victim to this every day. They are lawless fucking thugs. What they did just then in that one story is they violated the rights of a law enforcement officer. They assaulted her. They stopped her for no reason, no suspicion. They refused to identify themselves. And then when they realized that they had violated her rights and broken the law, they left without any kind of accountability whatsoever because ICE doesn't hold themselves accountable because they think they're above the law. And that's what the federal government thinks as well.

And so like these are bad. These are horrible political images. I think that they are at a point right now. They don't give a fuck about the public opinion. They don't care what people think. they're doing this to police officers and then just leaving and being like whatever. In that moment, it sounds like they were caught

that this person didn't identify. And that's just one example. They're only caught because she's a police officer. And then the fact that the way he describes it, they just run off. They just run into the car like the rats with the lights were turned on. Because they know what they're doing is wrong.

So, you know, you say like they don't care, they don't care. I know that that's their posture and obviously they don't care nearly enough. But clearly, like, we are seeing reports of Trump being bothered by the coverage, believing that Nome and ICE and DHS are not doing enough to talk about the good that they're doing. Part of what he felt compelled to address today were all of these bad images and bad stories. So let's go to Trump, who was in the briefing room, maybe still there whenever you're watching this. He was going on for quite some time. but here he was responding to the tragic killing of Renee Good.

And, you know, they're going to make mistakes sometimes. ICE is going to be too rough with somebody or, you know, they're dealing with rough people. They're going to make a mistake sometimes. It can happen. We feel terribly. I felt horribly when I was told that the young woman who was, had the tragedy. It's a tragedy. It's a horrible thing.

Everybody would say, ICE would say the same thing. thing. But when I learned her parents and her father in particular is like, I hope he still is, but I don't know, was a tremendous Trump fan. He was all for Trump. I love Trump. And, you know, it's terrible. I was told that by a lot of people. They said, oh, he loves you. He, he was a, I hope he still feels that way. I don't know. It's hard, hard situation. But her father was a tremendous and parents were tremendous Trump fans. Two things about that clip. I think we can separate.

One is obviously he's a declining narcissistic sociopath bent on hemispheric domination. And so he's got his issues. And yet he showed, Donald Trump showed more empathy for Renee Good and other people that ICE has physically assaulted. in that, and of course the bar is fucking in hell. Yeah, it's on the floor for sure. But like, but there was like the shred of humanity in there somewhere or self-preservation or something that led him to say that is, it was maybe a hundred times more empathetic than his vice president, who is going to be, who was the presumptive frontrunner for the

Republican nomination in 2008, his wretched Homeland Security Secretary, her disgusting and vile spokesperson, the Greg Bovino, that fucking fascist pig that's running ice and the rest of them. Like, there's two things going on in the administration now. There's Donald Trump who is like an old daughtery fucking guy who just wants his name on everything, wants to fill in the map with all the land he conquered, wants to get rich and get his family rich and just wants to like, you know, play president. Yeah, that's what he's doing. And Stephen, then there was Stephen Miller, who's pure evil and is trying to whiten the country

and like ethnically cleanse half the fucking people in this country and doesn't really care about public opinion and knows that Donald Trump isn't really a details guy and isn't really paying attention and is just running DHS because you've got an idiot in charge with Christine Ome and the rest of him. And he's just sort of running the shit

and sending these fucking paramilitary squads out into the country. Yeah. And they all, like if you look at what DHS has put out about the killing of Renee Good in their videos, there is this sort of dependent clause of acknowledging the tragedy, right?

Like, it's like thrown in with Vance there was like, of course, it's a tragedy, right? There's a kind of like, of course. He only did it after, because he's, of course, as terminally online as we are, he only did it after everyone was like, how could you show no empathy, aren't you, you know, like he did it at the press conference

as like an after thing. Like, yeah, of course, I guess, I guess we can be empathetic towards that. Yeah, and with Nome and other, there is a kind of, they are just sort of so kind of a drift and just trying to figure out what they're supposed to say and who they're supposed to be to please the leader, to not give in to criticism, to have a good press hit, to stick it to the lives, that they all have, whether they ever knew themselves or knew a better part of themselves, have forgotten that part, that they're either

supposed to feel from a place of humanity or understand politically it's a value to be a human being. Either way, there's too many things in their minds to keep track of, not enough space in the working memory. Or not enough. Right. Right. And so, yeah, it was, it is, the way he kind of stops, since it's a tragedy. It's a tragedy. He is, like, look, he knows he's trying to do a good job on TV. Not loving your AT&T or T Mobile Bill. Yeah, we've been hearing that a lot. Good news. Bring your AT&T or T Mobile Bill to Verizon and we'll give you a better deal. So get away from that unfortunate phone bill and get to Verizon. Run, ride, canoe. Whatever it takes, we'll be here. Bring your AT&T or T mobile bill to a Verizon store today and we'll give you a better deal on the best network. A better deal. No surprises. That's Verizon. Best Network based on Route Metrics, Best Overall Mobile Network Performance U.S.

Second Half 2025. All rights reserved. It must provide a recent consumer mobile bill in the name of the person who gave me the deal. Additional terms, conditions, and restrictions apply. What you know what reminds me, it's reminded me of with him recently is how he treated Gaza for a while. And everyone thought he was going to be like, maybe he's going to be better and tougher on BB than we think and stuff like. that. And really, he was telling us the whole time, it's like, Netanyahu can do what he wants in Gaza. I just don't want to see it all over TV because the images look bad. And all over the screens. Like all the people dying in Gaza that are getting killed, it looks bad. He just thinks that there's

not enough positive messaging from the administration breaking through to compete with the bad images. Because in his mind, like he says it there, right? They're going to make mistakes. They're tough people. They're being tough. And there's going to be mistakes. He wants a story of we're going after criminals and we're doing it so thoroughly and so aggressively that it's that we are making mistakes and rectifying them, but it's worth it. That's what you, that's what you get with me. And we do feel horrible about it and we're trying to do better, but, you know. But that's just not the story that people are hearing. And I think it's in part because of police chiefs like Mark Brulie and others who are going out there and just saying, we're for immigration enforcement,

but this is something far darker and far worse. So, you know, I, I hear you in saying they don't care, they don't care. I know that that, I'm sure there are plenty of people who don't, but in some way what we're seeing is at least an unacknowledged recognition that this has been bad politics for them and getting worse. Yeah, I don't say that at all to be like, well, it's hopeless kind of thing. I say it that I think there is a, we have to be clear about who we're talking about, right? Like, I think the pressure, the protesting, the sharing of the videos is incredibly important because there are people in that orbit who care about the politics.

Republicans running for office care about the politics, right? Like, I don't know if they care about the people or not. Certainly doesn't seem like that, but maybe they care about their own political self-preservation. And there's some people in administration that clearly care about that. There are people, I believe, like Stephen Miller and some of the people running ice and some of the people at DHS who do not care about the politics. politics at all and think that they have the power and they're not going to relinquish their power anytime soon. And even if they do, they're just got to get their job done, which they want to do. And so I do think that part of it is figuring out that it's speaking out more about this because

you want to, like, you put that clip in front of Lisa Murkowski, Tom Tillis, Susan Collins, about the police chief. You put it in front of some like, you put it, I don't know what a fucking ad of a Republican running for Congress in some of these districts. They're going to know that hurts them. Yeah. I do think that Stephen Miller's of the world, they are aware of the politics. That's whether they're trying to stay ahead of. That's the aggressiveness around Doe, the aggressiveness here.

They got to move fast because they know democracy will either catch up with them or they won't, but they have a limited window. It's the strange thing of Trump being kind of a lame duck dictator. Yeah. It's an unusual thing. A dictator who has an exit date that they seem to be at least pretending is real and acknowledging. And I think that's where you get the tension of Trump knowing that he has to kind of acknowledge the politics here. Well, same time you have people in administration not being willing to do the same.

And then the fucking gnomes of the world just so in over their head, so overwhelmed by the scale of their job, that there's no space in their hearts, in their minds, in their day-to-day for being a person. I don't think it's anything more than that. All right. Well, that's where we're going to leave it for now. Thank you for watching. Thank you for subscribing to this channel. And if you haven't yet, please do.

It helps us get this in front of more people. We are doing our best. Bring you updates from what is happening in Minneapolis and trying to be a progressive counterweight to all of the right wing news and misinformation. And by subscribing, by liking, by sharing this, it actually does genuinely help us. So thank you for doing that. And thank you, John. And hey, shout out to the police chief of Oakland Park, remembering that he is a representative

of is his community. And I think we all have to go back to some first principles here. And it is good when police officers see themselves as part of the community and can stand up for that community against the bullying and terrorism that's coming from the government. So thanks to that guy. Pod Save America is brought to you by Cook Unity. I've been using Cook Unity forever for years, long before they ever sponsored this podcast. It is fantastic. Most of my meals are from Cook Unity. They deliver chef-designed meals that balance real flavor, nutrition, and convenience with no cooking or planning required. They also let you choose what works for you. with collections like protein forward, better for sleep, mood boosting, and fiber maxing.

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