Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 1/15/26: Trump Iran Strikes, Iran Propaganda, New ICE Shooting
Episode Date: January 15, 2026Krystal and Saagar discuss Trump Iran strikes in question, Iran media propaganda, new Minneapolis ICE shooting. Jenin Younes: https://x.com/JeninYounesEsq?s=20 Pablo Torre: https://x.com/PabloTorre&nb...sp; To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.comMerch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
Discussion (0)
This is an I-Heart podcast.
Guaranteed Human.
Hey, it's Joel and Matt from How to Money.
If your New Year's resolution is to finally get your finances in shape, we've got your back.
Prices, they're still high.
And the economy is all over the place.
But 2026 is the year for you to get intentional and make real progress.
That's right.
Yeah, each week we break down what's happening with your money, the most important issues to focus on.
And the small moves that make a big difference.
Kick off the year with confidence.
Listen to How to Money on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
A decade ago, I was on the trail of one of the country's most elusive serial killers,
but it wasn't until 2023 when he was finally caught.
The answers were there, hidden in plain sight.
So why did it take so long to catch him?
I'm Josh Zeman, and this is Monster, hunting the Long Island serial killer,
the investigation into the most notorious killer in New York, since the son of Sam, available now.
for free on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts.
Hi, I'm Dr. Priyanko Wally.
And I'm Hurricane Dabolu.
It's a new year.
And on the podcast's Health Stuff, we're resetting the way we talk about our health.
Which means being honest about what we know, what we don't know, and how messy it can all be.
I like to sleep in late and sleep early.
Is there a chronotype for that or am I just depressed?
Health stuff is about learning, laughing, and feeling a little less alone.
Listen on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey guys, Saga and Crystal here.
Independent Media just played a truly massive role in this election, and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show.
This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else.
So if that is something that's important to you, please go to breakingpoints.com, become a member today,
and you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad-free, and all put together.
for you every morning in your inbox.
We need your help to build the future of independent news media,
and we hope to see you at breakingpoints.com.
Good morning, everybody. Happy Thursday.
We have an amazing show for everybody today.
What do we have, Crystal?
Indeed, we do.
We continue to be on Iran War Watch,
the latest indications and comments from the president.
We will detail everything that we know at this point.
We also have yesterday evening a new ice shooting in Minneapolis.
Very different details coming out,
and we're going to have a civil rights lawyer.
Join us to talk about that.
and also take us through the shooting of Renee Good, what the government is doing and her concerns about the violations of civil liberties, not just of immigrants, but of the entire American population.
The FBI executed a search warrant on the home of a Washington Post reporter raising a lot of First Amendment concerns there.
We have a Ford worker who got flipped off by the president of the United States for calling him a, quote, pedophile protector.
So that's an interesting one.
We're going to pick up that segment we had to drop the other day about gambling the way it's taken over everything, including now the Golden Globes.
And Pablo Tori is going to join us to talk about a new sports reporting debate that Saga has been paying particularly close attention to.
I had to shoehorn this one in there for NFL fans.
You'll know about this NFL reporter scandal where a reporter praised a coach at a press conference kicking off a whole lot of discourse about Pablo as a real investigative journalist could weigh in and enlighten us.
perhaps, you know, get to some of the...
This is the journalism scandal,
which it should be the Washington Post one
that hits every American household,
but probably the most likely one
that everybody actually has heard.
We also just love to have an excuse to have Pablo on the show.
Exactly, right?
Guy's the goat.
That guy is the goat.
Thank you to everybody who has been subscribing
to our YouTube channel.
As we said, we have noticed
a significant number of you
who watch our videos
are not subscribed to the channel.
Just so it costs you nothing.
Just hit subscribe there on the button.
You can also join us as a premium member
breakingpoints.com.
And if you're listening to us on a podcast,
please share this episode with a friend or any episode, your personal favorite.
The Yannis episode is its own thing on our podcast platform.
You can just send it to a friend if you found that interesting, relatively evergreen.
And I think it really will help broaden their horizons and perhaps your horizons.
But let's go ahead and start with Iran.
Some significant developments currently happening to the president at various times saying that we're locked and loaded.
We're going to go in.
Red line, if they hang anybody, now he's saying they may not be hanging anyone.
There was some breaking news yesterday.
late in the Oval Office, where the president appeared to say that Iran had backed away
from any of its pledges to execute prisoners. Here's what he had to say.
We have been notified and pretty strongly, but we'll find out what that all means.
But we've been told that the killing in Iran is stopping and it's stopped and stopping.
And there's no plan for executions or execution or executions.
So I've been told that a good authority.
We'll find out about it.
I'm sure if happens, we'll all be very upset,
including you will be very upset.
But that's just gotten to me from information
that the killing has stopped,
that the executions have stopped.
They're not going to have an execution,
which a lot of people were talking about
for the last couple of days.
Today was going to be the day of execution.
Over the last few days,
and they said people were shooting at them,
guns and they were shooting back and you know it's one of those things but they told
me that there'll be no executions and so I hope that's true does this mean military
action is now off the table against Iran we're gonna watch and see what the process is
but we were given a very good very good statement by people that are aware of what's
going on
but I see no executions everyone is talking about a lot of executions were
taking place today we were just told no
I hope that's true. Trump at this moment appearing to try and back himself out of the so-called red line or corner that he
painted himself into. In fact, this morning, trotthing out, Fox News, Iranian protester would no longer be sentenced to death after President Trump's warning, likewise others.
This is good news. Hopefully it will continue. But I do, of course, want to flag that up until literally the day of Midnight Hammer attacks in June, they did note that diplomacy was continuing.
And in fact, we were scheduled to meet with the Iranians the very day after the Midnight Hammer attack that took place.
and all of this could be faint.
Let's put the next one, please, up on the screen,
just to show everybody the pieces are all still in place.
So our headline, Trump says Iran is stopping its killing as the U.S. moves troops.
Multiple personnel were evacuated from the base in Doha, Qatar,
which previously had been attacked by Iran after the Midnight Hammer attack.
Crystal, there's also a new carrier that is on its way from the South China Sea
to the Middle East Sentcom region.
In fact, though, that's one of the things, which, in my opinion,
probably had more to do with this than anything,
is that the entire U.S. Navy Armada
is in the Caribbean or Venezuela.
There were only three guided missile destroyers
actually in the region.
The amount of firepower that was in the region for June
is all now in Venezuela.
In fact, it drew away from that.
In fact, I think that this is a prime example
of why being the world's policeman
is such a bad idea.
Beyond just that, resources are finite.
Now you have to take a carrier group
out of the South China Sea
where, oh,
I don't know, 40%, 50% of the world's GDP is, and move it over to Iran, just potentially to make
sure that, you know, again, we're going to get to this in a bit. There's all this propaganda about
protests, et cetera. Who knows what they're real.
We all know President Trump cares deeply about the safety and well-being of protesters.
That's why it's all just so preposterous as if we care so much about the, you know,
the fate of these protesters. Like you and I individual on a moral level can be like, oh,
it's horrible, right? But like, what, we're, you know, going around and literally trying to
enforce and bring down the regime because it was killing protesters, I'm sure that we'll
say, you know, of course uphold the same standards, wasn't there's literally beheadings in Saudi
Arabia? Or, I mean, all across the world. Our sanctions are emissorating the population.
Like, if we care about the population so much, guess what? Lift the sanctions. That would make a
profound difference in their lives. Ryan tweeted this based on his reporting that I wanted to put
out there, too. He said, inside the White House, there is effectively nobody arguing against strikes on
Iran with Rubio arguing Trump has to do it or he loses credibility, I'm told. That means the only
opposition is coming from outsiders like Bannon and Tucker and allies who are opposed like Saudi
Qatar and other regional partners. That's a heavy imbalance suggesting strikes remain likely.
So that is kind of the internal state of play. There was that report that we covered earlier in
the week that supposedly J.D. Vance was arguing internally against Iran strikes. Ryan's reporting
would seem to rebut that and we were a bit skeptical at the time.
And J.D. Vance came out himself and said, this is not true.
Marco Rubio and I are aligned and we're presenting a range of options and, you know, to the president who ultimately gets to decide.
Who knows? I tried to follow up on Ryan's report. It's difficult to get a view inside of the White House.
I mean, this is what I was originally saying at the time. Even if you were originally arguing against, well, if you do and then they leak about it, then what is that going to make you look like?
It can make to make you look like you're breaking with the president. I have no idea fully, haven't been able to get a full picture.
but the broad message of you can't back away from your so-called red line, which is ridiculous
because the red line, it was completely, it wasn't nearly like the so-called Syrian red line.
And that's, by the way, as we all know now, you know, there's still a lot of questions around
that entire incident.
But at the current moment with Iran, in my opinion, this is kind of where it all looks like.
The reason why they wanted to do it is the theory was, is that these protests actually were
a genuine, legitimate threat to bringing down the entire reason.
regime. Over the last couple of days, that has now effectively been quelled. At least that's from the
open source reports that have come out from Iran. They've militarized the streets of Tehran.
There's the U.S. military, or the Iranian military force everywhere, and they've made it known,
like, we're going to kill you. And a lot of people were killed. We don't know the exact number.
That's important to know. But the prospect of them simply just being knocked over by some easy
strike no longer has the calculus. So at that point then, the Iranians apparently has,
have made it known. Again, this is all very fuzzy, that if we do strike them, and it's an intent
for a genuine decapitation regime change strike, they will go all out. They will actually do
what they can do. Now, you know, they don't have unlimited capacity, but as we all learned
during the 12-day war, which never really ended, as it is currently, right now, we lost
25% of our THAAD interceptors just protecting Israel, just Israel in 12 days. So a prolonged conflict
with no carrier, with a very finite number of resources. We've got all these weapons in Ukraine.
We've got popping off down in Venezuela. Who knows what's going on there? Given that picture,
and this is largely what's come out now, given the fact that a single strike alone,
which is always a fantasy, in my opinion, a single strike, we're just going to topple the regime.
That's not how it works. Like, yeah, you could kill the Ayatollah. There's still the IRGC.
There's all these independent power centers. They have a monopoly largely on the use of force.
I mean, and even if the regime did fall, they're like, oh, democracy will remarkably flourish.
Look at what happened in Libya.
What's the modal outcome?
It will become an Israeli rump state where the Israelis come in by their own admission, and Trump even admitted this on the camera.
He's like, well, the Iranians told me they were shooting back at them, and that's why they had to kill them.
And what did Ryan and Emily reveal yesterday?
The Mossad is openly bragging about how they armed many of the protesters.
Not to say all the protesters are Mossad, but just to say that they are openly bragging about that,
They're deeply invested in the outcome here. Of course, correct. And that's, it would be stupid to deny it. But I will, at the current moment, it seems to me, like Trump is trying to either buy himself sometime. All of it could change at any time. That's why nobody should take this as, nobody should take this as gospel that it's over. I really believe, though, that once the assets are back in place, it's going to be a live question. And these neocons, I mean, just yesterday, Lindsay Graham met with, you know, the
Apollo V. Failson here in Washington, and they're both have Making Ron Great Again hats on.
Like the chatter is endless. And I also think, and this is really what I wanted to highlight,
there's no organized resistance to this. Open your Twitter feed. Open the podcast feed.
There is no organized. Last time around, we had the Ted Cruz interview. There was a real debate,
right? At least I think so. Charlie Kirk was alive. He was going after that. He went to the White House
reportedly, beg Trump not to do the Midnight Hammerstract. Got yelled out reportedly. Yeah.
largely, from what I've been told, that's all true. But this time, there's nothing. And this one
makes way less sense than that one did. There was a strategic rationale. Oh, we're going to go in.
We're going to take out the Iran, the nuclear facilities. And that'll be it, one and done.
Every time the propaganda gets more and more lazy. Yes. I mean, it really does. Like,
I mean, the propaganda initially for the Iran strikes was pretty piss poor. I mean, we saw
right through it. But at least there was like a thing there, you know, oh, the new.
We got to deal with that.
Okay.
You know, and there were people that were convinced by it.
And there was at least some debate to be had.
Now it's like over the protesters.
Like, what are we doing?
I mean, initially the idea was what Trump had said is, oh, if they go back to trying to
rebuild their nuclear program.
Yes.
Then we give Israel the green light and, you know, we may leave the charge, right?
Okay.
I mean, it's still, again, I object to all of it on first principles.
But at least that's like theoretically a justification.
We care about the protesters is just so ridiculous, especially given what we see happening in
Minneapolis.
I mean, I just can't believe literally anyone buys this.
And so to, you know, to Ryan's tweet, basically the argument that's being made internally
to Trump is like, hey, your ego can't withstand you not doing this now that you said that
you were going to.
So, you know, you're going to look weak.
And I think that that is very compelling to Trump.
He doesn't want to look weak.
I mean, that's basically like his entire worldview is projecting strength and never looking
week and never backing down. So on the one hand, you could read the comments yesterday as his
attempt to get out of that box and say, look, I flexed my muscles and Iran back down and they're
not going to hang these protesters. So I won once again. So yeah, great. Take that victory and walk away.
But I think it's also entirely possible that as Saga was indicating, he's just distracting,
deflecting and buying some time to move assets into the region and prepare for a strike,
you know, on his terms. We can put a four up on the screen, which has some CNN, you know,
reporting that is in that direction. Trump feels obligated to take action on Iran as administration
weighs risks of retaliation. Mr. President, you are not obligated to take action on Iran.
Please. Do not take, please taco. We all support a taco here, okay? Let me put a five up on the
screen from Dr. Parsi, and I thought this was important, too, just to get to, again, the, like,
what are we even doing here? He says that, and, you know, he has his own sources, by the way,
inside the administration, much indicates now that a U.S. Israeli war with Iran is imminent.
I see three scenarios. One, a limited strike, excuse me, mainly symbolic, so that Trump can
claim victory and then move to talks. Two, regime decapitation by attacking most but not all political
and IRGC leaders, but with the aim of having someone else from within the system, take over
afterwards in order to avoid instability.
Three, a combination of two, but with massive bombardment of Iran's military capabilities
afterward to ensure that Iran is set back decades and cannot pose any challenge to Israel
for the foreseeable future, think Syria after Assad fell.
Of these three, I find option one, that would be the limited strike, very unlikely.
The argument against option two is that.
the Israelis would not accept it. So two would be the decapitation strike, but leave, you know,
the rest of the regime in place effectively. Netanyahu has been very, very silent publicly,
which he probably would not have been if option two was the one favored by Trump.
The argument against option three is that it would likely require far more U.S. assets in the region.
We do not see that, at least not quite yet. Of course, plans rarely survive contact with reality.
Plenty of reasons why things won't play out as the U.S. and Israel may have intended,
including, of course, how Iran responds and retaliates.
So that is how he is seeing the landscape and the possibilities at this point.
But, you know, he seems pretty convinced that there's likely to be some sort of attack of one of those three flavors.
Yeah, it's all very possible.
My current hope is that they are realizing resources are finite.
And two, the regime is still in power.
And not only in power, but seems much better poised than it was previously.
Let's shift now to the whole propaganda battle and how easy it is here in the United States to just wishcast and believe so much of what comes into our feeds and then just organically be like, yep, there's a true revolution that's happening right now.
Let's go to a new year, new goals, and in this economy, a better money plan is more necessary than ever.
I am Matt and I'm Joel.
We are from the how to money podcast and every week we help you to spend smarter, save more, and make sense.
of what's going on out there.
If you want 2026 to be the year you finally feel in control of your money,
we're here to give you the tools and advice to help you make it happen.
Listen to How to Money on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hi, I'm Dr. Priyanko Wally.
And I'm Hurricane de Bolu.
It's a new year.
And on the podcast, Health Stuff, we're resetting the way we talk about our health.
Which means being honest about what we know, what we don't know, and how messy it can all be.
I like to sleep in late and sleep.
early. Is there a chronotype for that or am I just depressed?
We talk to experts who share real experiences and insight.
You just really need to find where it is that you can have an impact in your own life and
just start doing that. We break down the topics you want to know more about.
Sleep, stress, mental health and how the world around us affects our overall health.
We talk about all the ways to keep your body in mind, inside and out, healthy. We human beings
all we want is connection. We just want to connect with each other.
Health stuff is about learning, laughing, and feeling a little less alone.
Listen on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Every January, we're encouraged to start over. But what if this year is about slowing down
and learning how to understand ourselves more deeply? What if this year is about giving
ourselves permission to feel what we've been holding and knowing that it's okay to ask
help. I'm Mike Delarocha, host of Sacred Lessons. This is a podcast for men navigating stress,
emotional health, fatherhood, identity, and the unspoken pressures were taught to carry alone.
We talk honestly about mental health, about healing generational wounds, and about learning how to
show up with more presence and care. If you want a healthier relationship with yourself
and the people you love, then sacred lessons.
is the podcast for you.
Listen to Sacred Lessons with Mike Dolorotcha
on America's number one podcast network, IHeart.
Follow Sacred Lessons with Mike DeLaurocha
and start listening on the free IHeart Radio app today.
A6, let's put it up here on the screen.
So this is a good example.
This is from CBS News, currently run by Barry Weiss and Larry Allison's son, David.
They say over 12,000 feared dead after Iran protests.
As a video shows, bodies lined up at the morgue.
But here's the question. Where is that number coming from?
Quote, with phone lines opening back up, two sources, including one inside Iran, so one, not in Iran, told CBS News that at least 12,000 and possibly as many as 20,000 had been killed.
That is an extraordinary number.
That would be one of the horrific massacres of protesters in the modern era.
But, again, they do not have any confirmation.
They do not give you any disarmament.
other than activist groups working to compile a full death toll based on reports from medical
officials believe the toll was 12 and possibly as high as 20. That is not a responsible number,
say, feared dead. Which activist group? What's their agenda? I mean, these are all legitimate
questions, ones that you have to often work through in a war zone in the early days of October 7th.
We would say here, Gaza Health Ministry, and as the Israelis would always say, run by Hamas.
However, we could look in the past and say, well, they appear to have had a track record,
and so you should couch and you should understand that, right?
Yeah.
There's no couchy.
There's not even, this time around, they don't even put a name to the activist group.
And if you read, they even admit that one of the sources is not inside of Iran.
You have no idea.
And then also, what did we learn during the whole Ted Cruz thing?
What is the population of Iran, right?
Does anyone remember?
So tens of millions.
And then they're saying, oh, maybe one million people.
took to the streets. I mean, one million people took to the streets here for the pussy hat protest
in 2017. Would that give China or Mexico a right to intervene and say that crushing that would be,
you know, or that that alone would be a total view of the entire population of this gigantic.
Of course, it would be preposterous, right? And so just think in terms of fractions. Yes,
it could be the largest threat to the regime or protest movement that's happened. We've had many
protests here with millions of people who have taken to our streets throughout our just modern history
of the last 60 to 70 years. And even then, you could say that sometimes those were minority
movements and there weren't even necessarily popular of the entire base. Yes, it turns out we have a
large, heterogeneous country, just like Iran, with multi-ethnic groups, all often with their
competing in different power centers, that a single protest is not necessarily reflective of
the entire population. And this is the issue, is that now, with
Twitter and with their complete lack of, there's lack of scruples for a lot of these propaganda
accounts. Like, let's put this one up here. For example, this was posted yesterday. It was amplified
all across. It got tens, hundreds of thousands of views. And this person says, huge protests
tonight. Some estimates one million people are out. Trump and a raise up polyb's actions push the
people to protest. They posted that yesterday and said it came out on January 13th. It was actually
took place on January 8th. Now, those six, five days in the interim are pretty important,
because that's when the armed crackdown happened. And now all of the reports seeming to come
out of the country say, actually, there are not large-scale people that are out in the streets.
Actually, many of the protests have been quelled. Actually, you know, shops and other things
are opening. No one's denying that there's been an authoritarian crackdown by all accounts.
But the point is, you don't know. A8, that's another one, to put this up here as Michael
Tracy flagged. The death tolls that are being splashed all over are sourced to an outfit in Fairfax,
Virginia, Northern Virginia, where I live, called human rights activists in Iran that is overwhelmingly
funded by the U.S. government. What's their methodology? Is it credible? Who cares? Just pump the big
numbers out. This is a huge problem here in Washington. And for all, you know, there's so many right-wingers
who were obviously upset during Doge, USAID, all correct, in my opinion, right, telling us about
how, oh, you've got all these groups, the National Endowment for Democracy, they're not trustworthy,
CIA cutouts and all that. Here you go. Perfect example. And yet, no scruples. And this is where the
media in particular is so to blame, because take Gaza, for example, they'll couch everything. Israel
says this. They take it as fact. Gaza says this, oh, we've got to quadruple verify. We can't run
with that one. Here, again, activist groups. Who? What? Who's funding it? What was your method?
nothing, and it just gets pumped out into the mainstream.
It also accepts this preposterous framing that this is about protests, that Trump cares about
protests, safety of protesters, et cetera.
I mean, the sad reality is, and it's deeply, deeply unfair to the Iranian people that as
long as we and Israel have our claws in that country, no, they're not going to be able to
have true democracy.
I mean, you're either going to have a, you know, repressive Islamist regime of what they
have now, or you're going to have a failed state, a la.
Syria or Lebanon or Libya. We've seen how that plays out. Horrible, emiserating for the population.
Or you're going to have some, you know, puppet dictator of, you know, who's doing the bidding of the West.
Like, it's nothing but horrific options on the table. And that is a sad reality as long as we continue to try to
control Iran. We continue to want to do, you know, whatever Israel wants to improve their power standing
in the region. And so even just to, I mean, I, like, I feel for the legitimate aspirations of the
protesters, I genuinely do. But yeah, when you're putting out pieces that are unverified,
trying to manipulate the genuine like goodwill and sentiment of Americans who want to see people be
free and want to see us as, you know, trying to help people have their genuine, you know,
wishes for self-determination be fulfilled, you're manipulating those emotions and you're not
telling people the truth about what this is actually all about.
Yeah, because what if the legitimate aspirations of their people is to not be in Israeli or American rump state?
What then? Oh, that's, oh, can't have that.
Yeah.
And so that's the issue.
And you've got a lot of, similar to Israel, too, you got a lot of people in the diaspora who aren't there.
I'm glad you said that.
Who don't have skin in the game.
I mean, I saw this lady on Pierce Morgan who was threatening to, like, dismember and his Iranian professor.
She threatened to have jink killed, too.
Like, just wild.
So she said that there had been, she told Glenn Greenwald there'd been more people killed in Iran in these, you know,
past couple of weeks than in all of the genocide in Gaza, like just utterly insane stuff.
But so you've got, you know, you've got those types out there, too, that aren't doing themselves any favors.
We need to have a much bigger conversation.
We, there's too much focus on dual loyalty just when it comes to Israel and to Palestine.
And not nearly enough whenever it comes to Cuba, Venezuela and Iran.
I mean, I'm sure you've seen these, you know, tweets and all these as well.
They're like, Iranians are telling you what they want.
Listen to them instead of like, first of all, no, even if that's what you want.
This is our country.
I don't have to listen to shit that you have to say.
And second, if you come over here and your only sole focus is using our country as a tool of your domestic politics, then fuck you.
You should get out of here.
And then, of course, though, none of that has ever couched in any, like, none of that has ever couched as illegitimate or, you know, or betraying the national interests.
And it's like, I don't know why we can't have more of a, of a more nuanced conversation like you just said, yeah, we can feel horrible.
I mean, do I sometimes when I see people gunned down?
in the streets? Of course not. There are bad things that happen all over the world. That doesn't
mean we should do anything about it. Now, put Glenn Greenwald's tweet, please, up here on the screen,
just to show you all where the polling is. This is at least, you know, at least the public is with us
if the elites aren't. Independence, 80 to 11, 80%, Democrats, 79%, Republicans 53, think that the U.S.
should not get involved if protesters in Iran are killed while demonstrating against the Iranian
government. Because I think everybody has seen this story before. It's just like Libya. This
This is Libyologic.
Oh, it's just airstrikes, no-fly zone.
Don't worry about it.
It'll be fine.
Everything will work out completely fine.
We have seen enough of how that this all works out.
And in this case, remember, the explicit justification is not about nuclear sites or anything.
It genuinely is about regime change or regime punishment to weaken it and to overthrow the government.
And to say, you know, I even saw, I think as John Mearsheimer made this point, to declare that the protesters are acting on behalf of the United States, probably the worst possible thing.
you could say for the protest movement.
100% that is there in Iran.
They don't want to be controlled by Mossad and by the United States and the CIA.
Look at their own history of their democratic aspirations and what worked out for them.
Final thing, just because I personally had to get this in here, put A-10 up here.
I love my friend Jason, Jason Willick over at the Washington Post, shout out, you guys should read his columns.
He's an excellent legal journalist.
He'll go through and he'll just read all of these indictments.
And he flagged this for me.
This isn't the new Trump DOJ.
So the DOJ in their argument about why they had to capture Maduro said that part of it was humanitarian intervention.
And so they cite, Crystal, Human Rights Watch reports in there.
And they say that we had to remove Maduro because illegal mining was displacing indigenous communities.
Another deep passion for Donald Trump.
Woke is back, all right?
This is dark woke, folks.
We have to remove Maduro and institute his dictator.
as long as they sell us oil because illegal mining in Venezuela was displacing indigenous
communities and even child labor, the horror, the horror of it. Oh, and of course that's what
it's all about. So this is giving the game away. It also shows you the extent to which this
so-called international humanitarian concern and all that is a pure state's play by the great powers,
the European Union, all of these other people. I mean, last word, because our guests are standing by.
you know, you see the European Union, Germany, and Ukraine supporting regime change in Iran.
And they don't think for a second, hey, wait, hold on a second.
You can just declare from Germany that the Iranian government is illegitimate.
And then at the same time, you're going to say that Putin, if he says that about Ukraine,
that that's also illegitimate.
You can't have it both ways, man.
You don't believe in sovereignty.
That's why it's like all of the rhetoric that these people have, it's hollow and it's meaningless.
That's the last thing.
And now we have our guest standing by.
Janine, let's get to it.
New year, new goals.
And in this economy, a better money plan is more necessary than ever.
I am Matt.
And I'm Joel.
We are from the how to money podcast.
And every week we help you to spend smarter, save more, and make sense of what's going on out there.
If you want 2026 to be the year you finally feel in control of your money,
we're here to give you the tools and advice to help you make it happen.
Listen to how to money on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever.
you get your podcasts.
Hi, I'm Dr. Priyanko Wally.
And I'm Hurricane DeVolu.
It's a new year.
And on the podcast's health stuff,
we're resetting the way we talk about our health.
Which means being honest about what we know,
what we don't know,
and how messy it can all be.
I like to sleep in late and sleep early.
Is there a chronotype for that,
or am I just depressed?
We talk to experts who share real experiences and insight.
You just really need to find where it is
that you can have an impact.
in your own life and just start doing that.
We break down the topics you want to know more about.
Sleep, stress, mental health, and how the world around us affects our overall health.
We talk about all the ways to keep your body in mind, inside and out, healthy.
We human beings, all we want is connection.
We just want to connect with each other.
Health stuff is about learning, laughing, and feeling a little less alone.
Listen on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
A new year doesn't mean erasing who you were.
It means honoring what you've survived and choosing how you want to grow.
It means giving ourselves permission to feel what we've been holding
and knowing that it's okay to ask for help.
I'm Mike Dolorotcha, host of Sacred Lessons.
This podcast is a space for men to talk openly about mental health, grief, relationships,
and the patterns we inherit, but don't have to repeat.
Here, we slow down.
We listen. We learn how vulnerability becomes strength and how healing happens in community, not in isolation.
If you're ready to let go of what no longer serves you and step into the year with clarity, compassion, and purpose,
sacred lessons is your companion on your healing journey.
Listen to Sacred Lessons with Mike Delo Rocha on America's number one podcast network, IHeart.
Follow Sacred Lessons with Mike Deloosa and start listening on the free IHeart Radio app today.
So we are very fortunate to be joined this morning by a civil liberties attorney, Janine Yunis.
She is the national legal director of the ADC.
She's also co-host of the previously prohibited podcast, and she joins us now.
Great to see you.
Good to see you.
Thanks so much for having me.
Yeah, of course.
So Sagar and I had a very lengthy debate-slash discussion about the killing of Renee good,
but the one thing that both of us lack is any sort of law background.
So that's where you come into play.
But I actually wanted to start with this latest shooting that unfolded last night in Minneapolis.
of which the details are still incredibly hazy.
So let's start with putting up B9 on the screen.
This is the government's narrative of what happened
after we got initial local reports
that there had been another shooting involving federal law enforcement officers.
Everyone's saying ICE, we don't actually know if it was specifically ICE.
But in any case, what the DHS put out is this.
At 6.50 p.m. central time, federal law enforcement officers
were conducting a targeted traffic stop in Minneapolis
of an illegal alien from Venezuela who was released into the country by Joe Biden in 2022.
In an attempt to evade arrest, the subject fled the scene in his vehicle and crashed into a
parked car. The subject then fled on foot. The law enforcement officer caught up to the subject
on foot and attempted to apprehend him when the subject began to resist and violently assault the officer.
While the subject and law enforcement were going to struggle on the ground, two subjects came out of a
nearby apartment and also attacked the law enforcement officer with a snow shovel and broom handle.
As the officer was being ambushed and attacked by the two individuals, the original subject
got loose and began striking the officer with a shovel or broomstick. Fearing for his life and
safety as he was being ambushed by three individuals, the officer fired a defensive shot to
defend his life. The initial subject was hit in the leg. All three subjects ran back into the
apartment and barricaded themselves inside. The attacked officer and subject are both in the hospital,
both attackers are in custody. This attack on another brave member of law enforcement took place
while Minnesota's top leaders, Governor Walls and Mayor Fryer, actively encouraging and organized
resistance to ICE and federal law enforcement officers, hateful rhetoric must end, blah, blah, blah.
Okay, so that is the initial story that was put out. There was some sort of an ambush.
Law enforcement officer of some stripe is attacked, fearing for his life, fires a shot,
hits this guy in the leg. Now there is a video that has come out on Instagram that it's all in
Spanish, so I'll just go ahead and put it up on the screen and I'll give you guys the summary of what is said here, that appears to be taken inside of the home where the man who was shot in the leg is now inside this home, and they're calling 911. They're saying, please, we have small children in the house. What if they shoot into the house? They go on to say that, you know, he was trying to flee them and he was shot in the leg inside the house. So that is the story that they are
telling the 911 dispatchers, they're begging for someone to come and help, police to come and help,
very fearful about the safety of their children or their child there in the house. So that's what
we've got so far. I witnesses also described some sort of a foot chase as well. And so as,
you know, as someone who's looked at this video now, and I know you've been taking a look at the
situation this morning, you know, what do you see here and what do you make of the government's
narrative and how it's holding up so far.
Well, it doesn't seem to be consistent with the video, that's for sure.
I mean, first of all, there's a difference between shooting someone who's trying to flee
and shooting someone who's attacking you in self-defense.
Those are two very different things.
And then whether or not he was shot when he was inside the apartment or before that
are obviously conflicting.
So, I mean, it is clearly unfolding, and I imagine we'll learn more.
Some evidence will come out, forensic evidence, especially, that could corroborate one
or the other story, but the government's definitely not consistent with the video.
So let's talk about that, because it's part of the reason I wanted to have you on.
Again, I'm not a lawyer. I don't really understand the exact ins and outs, in particular,
like, let's say, self-defense law. But zooming out, I thought it would be important.
Can you set out some of your background working on civil liberties, let's say, over the last
five years, just for the audience before we get into it?
Sure. So I've actually worked in civil liberties law for about five years.
Exactly that time frame, mostly constitutional.
I worked on a lot of COVID-related cases, so challenging government.
Vaccine mandate, COVID vaccine mandates, censorship around COVID topics, especially on social
media and government involvement in that.
Right now, I'm doing a lot of work on censorship related to the Palestine-Israel issue,
which is a major topic at this time.
Prior to that, I was actually a defense attorney, so my background is relevant.
Good.
So I think it's very useful.
I think for almost important to lay out, right?
Now, let's get to some of these.
There's been a lot of discussion here and political concern over, like, papers, right, being asked for papers.
And so one of the things, let's put that video, let's say, up here on the screen.
You can watch some of this is going to roll.
So in a particular number of these instances, you see these mass ICE officers asking for people's identification.
This is, you know, obviously caused a lot of political concern over entering the U.S. Papers Pleas era.
what do you make of this from a civil liberties perspective?
What does it fit with existing case law?
Is this a violation?
And where the U.S. Supreme Court is this overreach, etc.?
What do you make?
A number of these videos have been coming out for the last year or so.
So painting with a broad brush, I mean, generally speaking,
their officers aren't really supposed to go up to you
and ask you for identification or whether you're in the country illegally
unless they have some reason to believe you specifically are,
like just looking at someone and saying,
I think they're illegal is not a good basis.
But it's hard to delineate exactly.
So it's not a huge issue for them to walk up to somebody on the street and say,
hey, can you show me some identification?
But you have every right to say no.
And they can't use that against you.
So whether or not you're a citizen or whether you're not, you're here illegally,
you can walk away.
And they're not supposed to do anything.
And if they do something, that's against the law.
Does ICE have jurisdiction to, like, make traffic stops and just,
because that's another thing.
we see, you know, a lot of interactions with moving vehicles.
You know, what are they allowed to do in their capacity as immigration enforcement?
Yeah.
So they are not supposed to be making traffic stops generally, although there are some people
who are claiming otherwise.
Their jurisdiction is really to enforce immigration law, you know, patrol the borders
and make sure people are not here illegally and that kind of thing.
State, it's really state and local laws and state and local cops who are supposed to
be enforcing traffic law.
Now, what happened with Renee Good was that they said that she was obstructing their enforcement attempts, their attempts to enforce immigration law.
And there is some law saying that that would be a basis for, you know, law enforcement doing something.
Yeah.
I don't think it rises to the level of an obstruction of their operation.
Like her car was just a little bit, you know, in the street.
That's not like she's, I think what we're, what would be.
What does obstruction look like, generally?
Something really like, if you had a lot of people who were like creating a barrier or something so the officers couldn't do their whatever they were doing, I don't really think they should be going up to people's houses and knocking and asking if they're here legally. I think it's probably legal.
What's the legality on that? I think that it's legal and you have every right to shut the door or not open it or they can go up to your house. I don't think it's very good practice in terms of like creating trust with the public and it's just kind of, you know, just not great.
Yeah. We've also seen reports that they're going up to people and asking them about the ethnicity of their neighbors to try to give them targets to go after as well, which, you know, I don't know if, I mean, you can tell me if you think that that is legal or not, but it certainly, I think, would be something that a lot of people would find pretty objectionable racial profiling.
Yeah, I think that would violate some civil rights law.
Let me, but I do want to get your view on Renee Goods killing.
Yeah.
From start to finish. Because I think.
in the very viral post you put on Twitter,
you raised a variety of questions from beginning to end,
including why are their officers trying to pull her out of her car
to begin with?
What is the justification for that?
Why is this officer putting himself in front of the vehicle?
So go ahead and just give us your view
after I know you watched all the videos
and all the angles and all the things
of what unfolded and what the law says about what was done.
So there are two major elements, I would say.
The first is whether they had the right to arrest her in the first place.
And I would say no, although I admit that's debatable,
and that would probably be an issue that's if this ever goes to trial,
which is probably pretty unlikely.
That's probably something that will be litigated,
whether he had the authority to arrest and stop her.
Because, again, the question is whether she was,
not whether she was committing a traffic violation,
because, again, he didn't have the authority.
Those officers didn't have the authority to police that.
But whether what she was doing rose to the level of obstruction of a lawful enforcement
operation. And again, I maintain probably not because it wasn't like she was stopping them from
really doing the overall. Vehicles were able to get by her where she was parked in her.
Is this like well-litigated in case law, like in terms of obstruction for what that looks like?
I think so. I mean, I'm not. I wouldn't call myself an expert on exactly that. But I think there's,
yeah. So for that reason, I don't think they were entitled to try to arrest her and get her out of the car.
Other people might differ.
And anyway, even if they were entitled to, I think that they behaved pretty badly.
Like, that is not how you de-escalate a situation.
Does behavior factor in legally in a situation like this?
So in terms of the second part, I think, yes, it can.
So whether or not they were entitled to, he was entitled to shoot her in self-defense,
the standard for that is in order to succeed on a justification, justification self-defense is the same thing.
theory at trial, you have to show the jury that you were in reasonable fear of death or,
sorry, let me phrase it differently.
You reasonably believed that you were at risk of death or serious physical injury
from the person that you stopped and that you needed to use that force in order to stop them.
So it has both a subjective and objective component.
Like you have to have the belief that you're about to be killed or very seriously.
harmed and you also, that belief has to be reasonable.
So if, you know, you're just completely exaggerating the nature of the threat, that's, you might
not be able to succeed.
Okay.
So one thing that's taken into consideration is whether you sort of played a role in getting
to the point where someone was using the deadly physical force.
So his conduct prior to what happened could factor in.
Now, I think from watching the video many, many times that he was not in harm's way when
he fired the shots. It looks to me as though his feet were clearly planted on the left.
And so when he fired the shots, the vehicle was driving away. And it was clear, I mean,
it was very clear to me that her intent was to drive away, not to run him over, even if he did
get hit. So that was my next question. We can put the CBS report. Let's put that one up here
on the screen. Let's couch that it is CBS. These are officials who are saying this anonymously.
They're saying the ICE agent who shot Renee Good suffered internal bleeding. Now again,
Not confirmed, no medical records released.
It's CBS News.
Let's put all of that out there.
However, if that were to be true, and again, you know, watching the video, it is difficult
to say.
There's the New York Times video where they say that the feet are on the other side of the
exact moment.
I don't know that the first bullet went through the front of the vehicle.
The front on the side.
The front on the side, right?
So the first, the video where he is filming and it was leaked to some news outlet, he drops
his phone.
It's not, it's not clear whether it was hit or not.
Yeah.
What does it matter, actually, in this case?
Whether he was hit?
Yes.
Not really, no.
Because really the only question is whether he was afraid for his life when he fired for his
life when he fired the shots or serious physical injury.
And in fact, the fact that he was hit, if I were the prosecutor, I would actually
use that to say it shows he was angry.
And the fact he said, fucking bitch.
I don't know if I can swear.
You can.
You're good.
Afterwards, again, would sort of corroborative evidence that he was angry, not scared.
Not afraid.
But so even if he could get away with a justification defense for the, even if he could convince a jury for the first shot, you have to show that you were justified for each use of deadly physical force. So you can't just, you know, once you've done it the first time, if that threat no longer exists, you have to stop. And I don't see how he could possibly convince anybody with the second and third shot. And one of the things I got, and again, I want to be clear. Like, I think this is a horrible situation. What I had, I hadn't watched, unfortunately, many of these, like, cop videos and where somebody tries to run someone.
even if allegedly that is. In almost every case, chaotic, crazy, multiple shots fired,
even if somebody's vehicle is away. Usually the cop gets away with it, largely because they're
like, well, we fire in a short burst that's like consistent with our training. How does that work
in the case law? I don't, it doesn't really. People have been saying that, but if anything,
the fact he's an officer means he should be more, you know, maybe a civilian would be able to get
away with a justification defense in that situation when an officer wouldn't say, you know,
I was so scared.
I just started firing and I couldn't stop.
But an officer is supposed to be trained not to do exactly that,
to use very precise force necessary to stop threats.
And then I also wanted to address the CBS thing,
which is frankly, first of all, when I saw that,
I was like, well, I don't trust CBS anymore.
Nor do you or anybody else, yes.
Look, you want to make that claim?
They've got to release it to the public, right?
Or it's going to be relevant at trial.
Yeah.
There is a trial or an indictment, grand jury, exactly.
Yeah. But again, the fact that he was injured does not, you know, does not justify the use of deadly physical force if he was injured.
The vice president of the United States says this officer has, quote, absolute immunity in the conduct of his job. Is that accurate from a legal perspective?
And I thought fans went to law school.
It was barred, too.
No, there's no doctrine that says police officers or any law enforcement officers have immunity to do.
They can just do whatever they want.
The standard is they have to show that what they did was necessary and proper to effectuate their duties.
So it's kind of a circular standard.
Like you would have to show the court that it was necessary and proper,
and then that's going to get into the justification offense.
So it's all going to be sort of intertwined if this ever goes to trial.
I would say it's probably unlikely to go to trial because of the dynamic between the state and the federal.
Can you talk a little bit more about that?
And just for the audience, so you guys know, originally this was a joint federal and state investigation.
Then the feds iced out the state and said, we're taking it over entirely.
And now the reporting that has come out indicates that they have decided they are not going.
There were resignations, actually, in the Civil Liberties Department that would have been investigating this officer's conduct because they decided not to investigate him at all.
And instead are investigating Renee Good and her wife.
And so you've had a series of resignations over that.
So they're not interested, obviously, in prosecuting this guy.
Governor Walls and Mayor Jacob Fry have said that they're going to attempt an investigation.
So talk about the difficulties that they face and why you don't think that there will ever be, you know,
a presentation to a grand jury, let alone a full trial.
Yeah, I mean, as for your first point, too, this is the problem with the fact it got so political is, you know,
And no one will believe any investigation that the federal government does.
But that aside.
So because he's a federal officer, he can have the case removed to federal court.
That it still would be on state charges.
So it would basically be like a state trial in federal court.
It's kind of weird.
But it would be a more favorable venue for him.
So another issue, as I understand it, is that the feds are not really cooperating with the state.
and they have, the feds have the evidence that you would need in order to conduct a proper investigation.
I don't know if the state will be able to...
That was my question.
Like, is the video not enough?
You know, the video that clearly was leaked by either the officer or ICE who, I don't know exactly, leaked it.
But considering everything that you have, like, what else would they need necessarily?
Well, the fact that people are debating so much what the video shows, I think shows it's not enough.
Okay.
I mean, there were eyewitnesses.
So you would, if at a trial, you would want all the evidence.
So all the videos and eyewitnesses, and, you know, videos are 2D.
We don't have necessarily the kind of, you don't have the ability to make the same level of observation as an eyewitness.
So I would want to hear from eyewitnesses.
We haven't really yet.
Well, from what I understand, they have said that it was very clear that she was driving away and that the officer wasn't in danger.
It would be nice to hear from some of those people, you know, more extensively about what they saw.
But so I don't think the video is enough.
and the state would need to be able to get access to the witnesses
and various, like the forensic evidence.
One question, for instance, that I would imagine would come up
is which shot killed her if, or was it more than one?
Because, for example, if the first shot didn't kill her,
but he was justified, a jury finds he was justified in firing that,
but the second and third did, and he wasn't justified there,
you know, that would actually create a different outcome.
So it's complicated.
Got it.
New year, new goals, and in this economy, a better money plan is more necessary than ever.
I am Matt.
And I'm Joel.
We are from the How to Money podcast.
And every week, we help you to spend smarter, save more, and make sense of what's going on out there.
If you want 2026 to be the year you finally feel in control of your money, we're here to give you the tools and advice to help you make it happen.
Listen to How to Money on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hi, I'm Dr. Priyalkiwali.
And I'm Hurricane de Bolu.
It's a new year.
And on the podcast's Health Stuff, we're resetting the way we talk about our health.
Which means being honest about what we know, what we don't know, and how messy it can all be.
I like to sleep in late and sleep early.
Is there a chronotype for that or am I just depressed?
We talk to experts who share real experiences and insight.
You just really need to find where it is that you can have an impact in your own life and just start doing that.
We break down the topics you want to know more about.
Sleep, stress, mental health, and how the world around us affects our overall health.
We talk about all the ways to keep your body in mind, inside and out, healthy.
We human beings, all we want is connection.
We just want to connect with each other.
Health stuff is about learning, laughing, and feeling a little less alone.
Listen on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
A new year doesn't mean erasing who you were.
It means honoring what you've survived and choosing how you want to grow.
It means giving ourselves permission to feel what we've been holding
and knowing that it's okay to ask for help.
I'm Mike Dolorotcha, host of Sacred Lessons.
This podcast is a space for men to talk openly about mental health, grief, relationships,
and the patterns we inherit, but don't have to repeat.
Here, we slow down.
We listen. We learn how vulnerability becomes strength and how healing happens in community, not in isolation.
If you're ready to let go of what no longer serves you and step into the year with clarity, compassion, and purpose, sacred lessons is your companion on your healing journey.
Listen to Sacred Lessons with Mike Delo Rocha on America's number one podcast network, IHeart.
Follow Sacred Lessons with Mike Delo Rocha and start listening on the free IHeart Radio app today.
Since he could have it removed to federal court, but it would still be state charges, would
the, would Trump be able to pardon him since he can do federal pardons but not state pardons?
I think so.
I'm pretty sure.
I don't want to say 100%.
That's a very unusual case.
I think he probably would be able to, I don't know if he would pardon him if he was convicted
in a federal court.
Of course he would.
Absolutely.
I mean, and then the other question I had, this was something that our colleague, Ryan,
actually floated was there's no statute of limitations on murder.
Yeah.
So if you end up with a Democratic administration in the future, is it possible that they pick
up this investigation and prosecute him down the line, assuming that he doesn't get a preemptive
pardon from the president of the United States, which I also think is a possibility.
Yeah, but it's harder to get convictions as time goes on because people's memories fade.
You know, it's easier to create doubt about what people, that's why prosecutors like to get
cases to trial more quickly.
an eyewitness five years later is not as compelling as an eyewitness five months later.
Yeah.
Well, let me ask you as, you know, I mean, this is obviously has a legal aspect to it,
but is bigger picture your son says an American who's thinking about these things.
The fact that we all watch this unfold, some, I think I saw 84% of people who were
polled said that they saw this video.
And a majority think he was unjustified.
And, you know, there's obviously a lot of public upset over what
has happened here. If we all watch, then, there's what you have to call a federal government
cover-up. No attempt to even investigate. You immediately had Christy Noem, Stephen Miller, J.D. Vance,
the president of the United States, calling her a domestic terror, calling Renee Good, a domestic
terrorist. And there is zero accountability for this guy. Like, not even an attempt, not even an
investigation, nothing. Like, what does that do to our justice system? What does that do? What does that
do to people's sense of faith and trust that there's any sort of possible accountability
with these, you know, masked agents of the state being deployed into various American cities.
Well, it eviscerates any sense of trust and any trust that the populace has in the federal
government. And, you know, I think what happened here was that people formed their opinions
very quickly based on how they felt about ICE and how they felt about what ICE's enforcement
program. So the people who liked what ICE was doing assumed that the officer was justified
and the people who didn't assume that he wasn't. And I think, I mean, it's a huge problem that,
as you mentioned, high up federal officials like Christy Noem and J.D. Vance were saying immediately
within minutes, I think, at least less than an hour, that she was a domestic terrorist. I mean,
this is completely crazy. And I don't think any reasonable person can look at that video and think
she was a domestic terrorist. At most, she may have, you know, clipped him as she tried to get away.
But it's just a crazy framing and I think completely depleted public trust in the federal
government's ability to handle this and handle its enforcement operations going forward.
Yeah, you worked a lot on civil liberties law. I was very, you know, the domestic terrorist thing
was ridiculous. I totally agree. Whenever it comes to these types of stops, more like what you are
watching? What is your general outlook as somebody who works somebody here so much on COVID?
I mean, it's really creating kind of a police state. So even if some of it is legal, some of the
questioning and stuff, I just don't think it's a very good policy. This is not how you want the
government to relate to the people. Yeah. We can put B5 up on the screen because I think it's
important to emphasize that, you know, even if you are supportive of a restrictive immigration policy
and, you know, you want a large deportation program, you know, there are expansions of the police state here
that are obviously impacting everyone in America, citizen, and non.
Secretary Kristi Noem announced this.
She says, drones represent the new frontier of American air superiority under President Trump.
We're entering a new era to defend our air superiority to protect our borders and the interior of the United States
with the creation of the DHS Program Executive Office for Unmanned Aircraft Systems and counter-unmanned Aircraft.
systems. President Trump continues his historic legacy in developing American dominance. This will help us
continue to secure the border and cripple the cartels, protect our infrastructure, and keep Americans
safe as they attend festivities. So announcing, you know, now an expansion of the use of drones
here domestically on U.S. soil, we see all the agents, including the guy who shot Renee Good,
are filming all the time. There appears to be, you know, some pretty sophisticated facial recognition
and tracking software that they're using to surveil anyone they encounter, not just, you know,
people they suspect of being undocumented immigrants.
It seems like, you know, and by the way, ISIS's budget, this is the largest law enforcement
agency in history.
So to your point about the expansion of the police state, I mean, it seems like anyone,
regardless of citizen non-immigration status, et cetera, this is truly a threat on everybody's
civil liberties.
Absolutely. I mean, yeah, and I think this stuff will probably have to be worked out through the courts since it's kind of new, but I think there are probably Fourth Amendment, you know, search issues that could be raised. I mean, the government can't just surveil people without warrants and stuff like that, but because it's new technology, relatively new technology, it hasn't been sorted out in the courts.
Like with the drones and general facial recognition somewhere. Yeah, yeah. But we've seen an erosion of that now over the last 20 years, and it all seems to stand. I mean, you know, every time you're on a T.
say they don't even check your boarding pass anymore.
Yeah, I know. I know.
Yeah.
How much have you looked into this NSPM 7 memo that, you know, seeks to really expand the definition
of domestic terrorist?
And I think it's quite relevant here with, you know, all the top government officials
saying Renee Good is a domestic terrorist.
And obviously on its face, we all look at that and go, that's ridiculous.
But I think by their own definitions, because obviously the definition of terrorism is actually
very subjective and very political.
They are really seeking to define anyone who is oppositional to this government as effectively
being a domestic terrorist.
So I think when they say that, I don't think they're lying.
I think in their mind, based on their definition, they genuinely see Renee Good, her wife,
any other protesters who are out there who are against what ICE is doing in their communities.
I think they genuinely see them as domestic terrorists.
And that does open up, thanks to the war on terror, it does open up a lot of state government capabilities for surveillance and aggressive action against them.
Yeah, so I'm not familiar with the memo, but I can speak more generally to the issue.
I mean, I think that's a strategy that's being used and is very, very dangerous.
And we also saw it last year with the arrests of people like Mahmoud Khalil and Ramayza Azdurk who had just, you know, participated in pro-Palestine protest.
Well, Khalil and then Ramazdak had just written an op-ed or signed on to an op-ed.
And they were basically called terrorists.
So this is like a real significant expansion of the use of the term.
And what it does is it just is used to label people.
And then a lot of the public will get on board with those people having no rights at all and being imprisoned or taken out of the country or whatever.
Yeah.
That's the last thing I would like to end on.
You were saying you did a lot of work on the Palestinian censorship issue.
I know it was more recent case surrounding Baytar, an organization in New York.
I think you worked on that.
No, I didn't work on it.
I commented on it a lot.
Why don't you tell us the audience is definitely being...
You were passionate about it, as we are too.
So, yeah.
About the Betar situation?
Yeah. So, Batar is a...
I call them a Jewish supremacists.
People get offended by that term, but they are...
I mean, I think that's just an accurate description of what their ideology is.
Yeah.
And they openly embrace violence against Palestinians, Muslims, and Jews who are anti-Zionists
or don't agree with their tactics.
They actually threatened me.
That's one reason I have a personal statement.
Yeah.
And other people I know.
So they have been getting away.
They apparently according, well, I'll back up.
Law enforcement has been pretty unresponsive.
I've made complaints.
Other people I know have made complaints and with, you know, nothing.
Like I was directly threatened with violence and harassed relentlessly,
not free speech.
Something really different.
So they apparently reached a settlement the other day with the New York Attorney General.
and the findings there described some of the things they've done,
including participating in a stabbing at a protest in Brooklyn.
Yeah, encouraging their members to bring weapons to protests,
encouraging their members to beat people up,
taking credit for beatings at the protests.
I mean, if this was a Muslim group doing this,
if the identities were reversed,
can you imagine what would happen?
And, like, DOJ doesn't care at all.
Wow.
And the settlement is completely toothless.
It just instructs them not to do those.
things. So not to violate the law, which they're already obliged not to violate the law,
and then it imposes a $50,000 fine that's suspended, so they'll probably never pay it.
So this, and this came from the Attorney General of New York. Letitia James is the one who
pushed this forward. My understanding, they've effectively had to disband in New York, which I think
is the place where they were most active. I don't think they actually have to disband.
I read the settlement. I don't see that. I know that drop site reported on it that way. I don't
see they're just not supposed to do their illegal activities, which you're not supposed to do
So I don't know that they've had to really change anything.
And they're already mocking her.
They say they've just moved their headquarters to Delaware.
So they're making a mockery of the whole thing.
Wow.
Okay.
All right.
Well, less optimistic than I had original.
Well, it is a public shaming.
So there's that.
We'll take what we can.
Yeah.
I like public shaming.
I'm very pro-publicity.
Thank you, Janine.
I appreciate your analysis very much.
Yeah, thank you.
Great to have you.
Oh, thank you.
Hey, it's Joel and Matt from how to
money if your New Year's resolution is to finally get your finances in shape. We've got your back.
Prices, they're still high and the economy is all over the place. But 2026 is the year for you
to get intentional and make real progress. That's right. Yeah, each week we break down what's happening
with your money, the most important issues to focus on and the small moves that make a big
difference. Kick off the year with confidence. Listen to how to money on the IHeart Radio app, Apple
podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
A decade ago, I was on the trail of one of the country's most elusive serial killers,
but it wasn't until 2023 when he was finally caught.
The answers were there, hidden in plain sight.
So why did it take so long to catch him?
I'm Josh Zeman, and this is Monster, hunting the Long Island serial killer,
the investigation into the most notorious killer in New York, since the son of Sam, available now.
Listen for free on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts.
Hi, I'm Dr. Priyankawali.
And I'm Hurricane Dibolu.
It's a new year.
And on the podcast, Health Stuff, we're resetting the way we talk about our health.
Which means being honest about what we know, what we don't know, and how messy it can all be.
I like to sleep in late and sleep early.
Is there a chronotype for that or am I just depressed?
Health stuff is about learning, laughing, and feeling a little less alone.
Listen on the I-Heart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.
This is an IHeart podcast
Guaranteed Human
