Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 1/16/26: Trump THREATENS Troops In MN, HISTORIC Nurse Strike, MAGA FLIPS Over Epstein Coverup

Episode Date: January 16, 2026

Ryan, Emily and Mac discuss Trump threatening the Insurrection Act, ICE homicide reported in Texas, Newsom Vs Ben Shapiro, MAGA flips over Epstein coverup & MORE!Mac's YouTube: https://www.yo...utube.com/GoodPoliticGuyNYC Nurses: https://www.nysna.org/news/take-action-support-nyc-nurses-strike   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)
Starting point is 00:00:00 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.
Starting point is 00:00:20 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. This is Dr. Jesse Mills, host of the Mailroom podcast. Each January, men promise to get stronger, work harder, and fix what's broken. But what if the real work isn't physical at all? I sat down with psychologist Dr. Steve Poulter to unpack shame, anxiety, and the emotional pain men were never taught how to name.
Starting point is 00:00:52 Part of the way through the Valley of Despair is realizing this has happened, and you have to make a choice whether you're going to stay in it or move forward. Our two-part conversation is available now. Listen to the mailroom on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, for wherever you get your favorite shows. 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?
Starting point is 00:01:21 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. 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
Starting point is 00:01:50 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 breaking points.com. Good morning, everybody.
Starting point is 00:02:09 Happy Friday. We're here with your Breaking Points Friday edition. Crystal grew a mustache. Actually, now that is producer, Mack. He's filling our mustache quota for the day because Griffin is also at a work event. So, Mac, Ryan, excited to be here. We got a lot of news. All right.
Starting point is 00:02:27 Let's do it. Yeah, we got a lot. we're going to get into. We have stealing this teeing up here from Emily. We have the Trump Truth Post calling for an insurrection to be called for here in the United States. We have the insurrection to be squashed. Well, insurrection to be squashed, the insurrection act to be utilized by Trump. We have him, quote unquote, joking, according to Caroline Leavitt about canceling the 2026 midterm elections. We're going to get into the latest on ice, including a homicide that reportedly happened at a facility in Texas. We have Gavin Newsom with Ben Shapiro talking about
Starting point is 00:03:04 the transing of the kids, as well as sort of backing off some of his criticism of ice. We're going to get into Sean Ryan turning on Donald Trump over his cover up on the Epstein files. And then if we can get to it, we have Lindsey Graham weeping and crying over the lack of an Iran bombing by Donald Trump. And then we're also going to be joined by a guest, one of the New York City nurses that have just gone on strike. So a lot of good stuff to get to here. And one thing I'm going to add is that last night I interviewed a woman who participated for several days in the Iran protests and has since left Iran and gave me details about the massacre and kind of what she saw there. We have to blur her face and kind of disguise her voice
Starting point is 00:03:52 because her family is still in Iran and would fit. repercussions if she spoke publicly about us. So that might not be ready until the weekend, but we'll have that as well. Great stuff. So do we want to go ahead and jump into this and start off with the, the Insurrection Act, reportedly in play here from the Trump administration. I'm going to go ahead and pull up this truth social here if I can share my screen. So here we have Donald Trump on his truth social saying,
Starting point is 00:04:25 if the corrupt politicians of Minnesota don't obey the law and stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the patriots of ICE who are only trying to do their job, I will institute the Insurrection Act, which many presidents have done before me and quickly put an end to the travesty that is taking place in that once great state. Thank you for your attention on this matter signed President DJT. And so the thing that Republican, some Republicans are saying in response to this is that, hey, and as Trump said, there, lots of presidents have done this before. And I think the number is 17. I've seen that floating around. I think it's been deployed about in like 30 different instances. I was going, the Brennan Center has a timeline of all the different times. The Insurrection Act has been used. And if anybody out there is looking for a podcast idea, like, that would be that would be it like just 30 episodes about the 30 different times did you said just 30 episodes 30 episodes that's three what three seasons one episode per time and but if you look at if you run through when the insurrection act has been used um these are the kinds of things
Starting point is 00:05:36 that were blurbs in your history textbook fries rebellion in bucks county i guess i think she i think shay's rebellion um it was used for some obscure stuff like a bunch of people in vermont during Jefferson's presidency, refused to stop trading with Canada. And so Jefferson invoked the Insurrection Act to try to put the Green Mountain Boys down. He failed. Nobody can put down the Green Mountain Boys.
Starting point is 00:06:03 That's never going to happen. You got Andrew Jackson using it to break strikes. You've got other presidents using it to break strikes. And then in the modern era, you've got George H.W. Bush using it to quell the Rodney King riots. you've got LBJ using it, sometimes to protect civil rights demonstrations
Starting point is 00:06:21 and sometimes to squash riots in the 1960s. De-segregation. And what you notice about all of it, except maybe in the case of Jefferson going after the Green Mountain Boys, Vermont had a lot of ties with the French. And Jefferson, not a fan of Vermont, the first state to ban slavery.
Starting point is 00:06:43 Other than that one, all of them have been conflicts that or uprisings that developed apart from the federal government. Like they were Nat Turner's rebellion, for instance, they used the Insurrection Act to put that down. They actually, it seems like they did it illegally, but set that aside. This would be basically the first case where the federal government instigated the thing. And then in the case of Minneapolis, you have, I think you had what, 200 people protesting the other night? Something like that.
Starting point is 00:07:20 We're not talking about thousands or tens of thousands of people in the streets. We're talking about a couple hundred people. You know, there was that viral interview on status coup from the guy who got off his, he's like, I got off my couch in the suburbs because I'm sick of this as an American. Like, that is not Ulysses S. Grant taking on the clan. which is another example of him invoking the insurrection act. That is not the Colfax massacre, which is another example of the insurrection.
Starting point is 00:07:49 So none of it fits. But Emily, what do you? Is the right, like, where is the right on this? Are they agitating for this? They're like, yeah, let's go. Time to really finish off Will Stancel and his boys? Or are they saying, like, wait a minute, this is a little bit much. This is just Will Stancel and a handful of protesters.
Starting point is 00:08:09 What we should explain at looking at the Brennan Seder website right now, the way that they put it, the Interaction Act grants the President the authority to deploy the U.S. military domestically and use it against Americans under certain conditions. And as a Brennan Center says, quote, it is dangerously overbroad and ripe for abuse. A good point on that, by the way. I mean, even if we sometimes have this idea about what congressional authority looks like and then there is an obscure insurrection. Act doesn't obscure, but it's a long, it's a longstanding law that actually lets the president do a lot. So I think there's a constitutional question here and a prudential question. The constitutional question, it's, he probably can do it. Tom Cotton, people may remember, was right, that's the Tom Cotton op-ed, but the New York Times retracted famously in 2020 during George Floyd riots. He said, send in the troops. It was the headline the New York Times gave it and argued that Trump should have invoked the Insurrection Act to quell as he put it, quote, violent riots. And so I think the perspective
Starting point is 00:09:13 that people are coming from is if you don't take significant action to quell violence, it only gets worse. I do think there's some evidence of that in the summer of 2020. I think it is unfortunate. You guys are going to disagree with me on this,
Starting point is 00:09:33 but unfortunate that there's not federal cooperation to get violent people out of Minneapolis, and I'm talking about non-citizens with violent criminal convictions. But that said, it's hard for me, like on this whole thing since last week, I'm just always being pulled in multiple directions because it's Trump's response is always hard to defend, too. And the problem with that argument is that as Mom Donnie pointed out to Trump that the New York sanctuary law has an exception. for violent criminals, that if you, that if ice comes to New York City and is like, here's a guy, he's been convicted of salt and battery even, or he's been convicted of
Starting point is 00:10:21 involuntary manslaughter, and he's right here in your city and he's undocumented. Like, we want him. Under those circumstances, Momdani has said we would cooperate with that. I would suspect that the Minneapolis sanctuary policy, because I know how Democrats write laws. They don't want to get hit by commercials that say they're protecting violent criminals. So they always put in carve-outs in their laws so that they can say, oh, no, no, it doesn't apply to murderers, rapists, abusers. So if Stephen Miller's actual goal was to go in and get violent criminals out, I think he would have the cooperation of the Minnesota State Police and the Minneapolis Police Department of St.
Starting point is 00:11:05 Paul. Like, if he, but that's not what he wants. He wants what he's getting, which is means of chaos and violence and he wants 3,000 heads a day. I think, yeah, I don't know what the Minneapolis law is particular, but in practice, this is just from a couple of, there's just a couple of examples that I'm looking at right now, and only two, so it's not a big, it's not a huge thing here. But you have an Ecuadorian illegal immigrant in August 2024, driving drunk. crashed head on into Victoria Harwell, killing her local Henovan County released him not once but twice and didn't cooperate with ICE detainers. There's that. There's another vehicular homicide. Or no, this is what, okay, so I'm looking at one here. I'm on the, I'm on a Fox News story. I'm
Starting point is 00:11:51 looking at one. So that does sometimes happen where people go into jail and then there's non-cooperation people get released. I'll set that aside though and just say the, well, here, Mack, Why don't you, Mac, you jump in. Let's get a little, because Mac is going to, I think, be even, you're going to, you're going to be like even further on this, I think, probably. Well, I mean, I think I agree with kind of what the direction Ryan was going in and that this is clearly something that's being instigated by the federal government. Like, people locally are in an organic way responding to what they view as sort of like a sort of terrorist force coming into their neighborhood. and knocking on doors and asking people for papers and harassing people, throwing people into unmarked cars. And like Ryan said, you know, you have some people who are just driving in from, you know, the suburbs who never participated in anything like this despite, you know, a lot of the rights saying all of these people are paid agitators or whatever.
Starting point is 00:12:51 But, you know, average ordinary people who are responding to something organically that's happening in their neighborhood. And I think this is what Trump wants. He wants the escalation of this sort of cyclical violence that, you know, spirals down so that he could have a pretense or justification to end up deploying the Insurrection Act. And we should also mention at the same time that, you know, we had Caroline Levitt, I'll pull up this, this SOT year for you guys, claiming that Trump was joking about basically canceling the 2026 elections. We can go ahead and listen to this SOT here, because I think this plays into a lot of the sort of like left wing or liberal fears as to what Trump is going to do
Starting point is 00:13:33 moving forward and using that as a sort of pretense to even go this far. So let's go ahead and listen to her yelling at this reporter for taking it seriously that Trump said that we should maybe cancel the elections coming up. Thank you, Caroline. Two questions. First, a follow-up on one of my colleagues who asked you about the president's interview with lawyers. She said that he was joking about canceling the elections. But Americans for generations have fought and died for democracy for this democracy. Are you saying the president finds the idea of canceling elections
Starting point is 00:14:08 funny? Andrew, were you in the room? No, you weren't. I was in the room. I heard the conversation and only someone like you would take that so seriously and pose it at a question that way. Okay. So, I mean, what do you guys think about that? She literally is saying I guess you had to be there.
Starting point is 00:14:25 Yeah. You weren't in the room. Which I guess is, you know, I guess is somewhat true. Maybe he was... It fell flat when written in Washington Post-Ease. but yeah you kind of had to be maybe he was like kicking his feet up and giggling he does this all the time he jokes about like the most extreme stuff and then he ends up doing some of it but i mean he's also joking a lot of people saying he's joking about sometimes he's joking right like even when he's executing the policy he's joking yeah well this is the thing
Starting point is 00:14:51 joke to him the thing is with like you have to take what he jokes about seriously and i get the you know take trump uh seriously not literally point but you never know when he is actually being, you know, big picture macro serious versus when he's being literal. Because sometimes it's like, oh, it's just a joke. And then it turns out to not be a joke. And he jokes a lot about canceling elections. So as much as, you know, some of my friends on the right say it's TDS. He did try to steal the 2020 election as well.
Starting point is 00:15:24 Like as much as some of my friends on the right says, oh, it's TDS that's blue and on stuff. it is a president joking about canceling elections repeatedly while posting things. He's Napoleon posting. He's out there saying, he who saves his country violates no law and the only guard on his, what does he say? The New York Times quote, he is the, his understanding of right and wrong or whatever. His morality. Yeah, he's the, yeah, he's the.
Starting point is 00:15:51 So anyway. It made me feel a lot better. Yeah. Yeah, right. I know. That's the guy whose moral compass is straight north. What could go wrong? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:15:58 The point that I was just make big picture. I don't, I want people to be safe. And I don't think that Jacob Fry and Tim Walls are making people much safer. I don't think Donald Trump is making people much safer in Minneapolis. So I'm not, I'm not begging for the Insurrection Act to be put down, put to be enacted. I'm also, am though, begging for Jacob Fry and Tim Walls to get their shit together in Minneapolis. What I would, what I would say is I think that Miller has successfully made enough chaos that. And so I just googled the sanctuary laws.
Starting point is 00:16:31 They do have carve outs for, you know, violent criminals. I think that Miller has made enough chaos that Democrats would come to the table now and be like, okay, fine. Like, we will, we will, like, actually cooperate with you when we have a violent criminal who was here illegally and we'll let you know about it. Like in the past, like, the law may have said that we will be proactive. But they're like, F you, we're not doing that because you guys suck. if they came to an actual agreement and treated this country like it was one country
Starting point is 00:17:04 and all of the people were coming together to set a policy that they would agree on, rather than seeing this as a civil war or an insurrectioner, then I think they would get that from Frey and Walls. Like, okay, fine. Get ice out of here. Like, get them out of, stop patrolling the streets. Stop. Like, they sent these four guys, these four guys, you see this?
Starting point is 00:17:26 They had, they ate at a Mexican restaurant for them in the afternoon and then waited outside of it until the staff left and then arrested them. Yeah. Like, stop doing that and then we'll cooperate with you on violent criminals. Like, I think that there would be a deal on the table. But that's the thing. I don't think they want that. To Max point, they're getting what they want right now, which is a lot of scenes of violence that they can slap on their. like utterly insane social media channels
Starting point is 00:17:59 and stoke whatever empty and you know fill whatever emptiness is inside them with with this with this violence and nihilism yeah I don't dispute at all that there's potentially people inside of the administration that want to that want the insurrection act to be invoked for scenes that perpetuate the political capital of having violent confrontations over illegal immigration
Starting point is 00:18:23 I'd yeah that would I mean I don't think that's To your point, Emily, it's really not like, you know, Jacob Fry and Tim Walts are like leading the vanguard revolution against ICE or anything like that. We'll get to more clips of them here in a minute. But, I mean, from my perspective, I think their response to this situation has been like lukewarm at best. You know, they're not in favor of abolishing ice or confronting them in any sort of meaningful capacity. I mean, Jacob Fry said get the fuck out of Minneapolis. You know, that's a classic, like, let me deploy some aggressive rhetoric as a sort of show. and then later I'm going to walk that back.
Starting point is 00:18:57 We'll show a clip of him sort of walking that back in an interview here in a minute. But do you guys have any more thoughts in terms of the Insurrection Act before we move on? I think that covers it. Awesome. New year, new goals, and in this economy,
Starting point is 00:19:12 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.
Starting point is 00:19:31 Listen to How to Money on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Dr. Priyanko Wali. 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 that. Is there a chronotype for that or am I just depressed?
Starting point is 00:19:57 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.
Starting point is 00:20:26 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 for help? I'm Mike Delarocha, host of Sacred Lessons. This is a podcast for men navigating stress, emotional health, fatherhood, identity,
Starting point is 00:21:02 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. All right, moving on to the latest on the ICE protests in Minneapolis,
Starting point is 00:21:42 as well as some disturbing reporting out of Texas. I'm going to go ahead and start off with this tear sheet here from the New York Times. Their headline is, Medical Examiner believes the death of a man in ICE custody was a homicide. a little bit on this real quick, and then I'll get your guys' thoughts. They say, when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced the January 3rd death of detainee Gerardo Lunis Campos at a Texas detention camp, the agency said that staff observed him in distress and gave no cause of death. An employee of El Paso's County's office of the medical examiner told Lunas Campos's daughter this week that's subject to results of a toxicology report,
Starting point is 00:22:21 the office is likely to classify the death now as a homicide, according to a recording. of the conversation. They continue here that saying that the employee said that a doctor there is listing the preliminary cause of death as asphyxia due to neck and chest compression, which means that Lunas Campos did not get enough oxygen because of pressure on his neck and chest. And then there was also an apparent witness to this event who saw a struggle between Lunas Campos and detention staff that ended up resulting in his death. So this is not the first death that's been reported in one of these facilities, but what are your guys' thoughts on this? And so what we seem to understand about this incident is that this is a 55-year-old Cuban man who was on medication
Starting point is 00:23:08 and was being pushed to go to some other area before he had his medication. Ice is notorious for not giving the proper medications that are prescribed to people who are under their care. And it's not just ICE. This is local jails as well. That they treat that once you're in there, they're like, oh, you take heart medication? Not our problem. Good luck.
Starting point is 00:23:38 Right. Well, and to your point, Ryan, real quick, I'll throw this also up on the screen because this same facility in Texas at Fort Bliss. It's called Camp East Montana has had 60 violations reported in just 50 days. And exactly what you were just saying there,
Starting point is 00:23:53 They say this detention center at Fort Bliss called Camp East or Camp East Montana failed to properly monitor and treat some detainees medical conditions, lacked basic procedures for keeping guards and detainees safe, and for weeks did not provide them a way to contact lawyers. It's systematic the deprivation of medication. Whether it is deliberate, a deliberate effort to injure and hurt the people under their care or whether it is just a kind of malicious negligence. is is up for dispute, but everybody who goes through these detention centers says that they have a serious difficulty in getting their medication. So this guy stood up for it. He's like, I need it. And people, a lot of people watching this are your own medication. A lot of those medications are essential to your to staying alive. And so just kind of buckling and bending the knee to the guards on that isn't really an option if being deprived of the medication is going to kill you
Starting point is 00:24:55 or cause you, you know, irreparable, you know, health harm. So he's, he stood up for that. He's like, I need my medication. I need my medication. They then, you can just see this unfolding, see him as being noncompliant. His, the fact that he had both chest and neck compressions suggests that's, he was thrown to the ground, put on the ground. And then, you know, you've got knees on his neck, knees on his back.
Starting point is 00:25:18 Like that, that's how you get chest and neck. neck compressions. We may find it happens some other way, but that's the most likely scenario. And it would come from him demanding his medication and them and them seeing that demand as noncompliant when they are in fact the ones that are in noncompliance with the law. The law is extremely clear. You have prescription medications. You have to give the medications. The guy could be a serial killer. You're supposed to give the person their medications. These are not serial killers. Fifty-five-year-old Cuban, like fleeing like the story. starvation that we've caused on that island in the past would not even be in detention because
Starting point is 00:25:56 we insist that Cuba is a tyrannical communist government and therefore people, you know, fleeing from there have, you know, are given asylum and refugee status here. We no longer treat Cubans across the board that way. So, yeah, this is deeply disturbing on like a dozen different layers. It's one of the, I mean, the, it's easy under difficult circumstances, and I won't even repeat, because I'm like a broken record on this, it's just sort of generally my positions. I feel like there's a lack, not lack, but just when you have the lawlessness, lawlessness, lawlessness isn't the right word, because some of it was created legal pathways.
Starting point is 00:26:42 The Biden administration created some legal pathways. There was a lot of granting of asylum without detention. and people. So the New York Times estimate was low, but it's 8 million people in about three years. It's multiple populations of states put together. That becomes, and it cannot become, obviously cannot become. Because it is such a serious situation, it cannot become an excuse for cruelty. And Ryan said, what was the phrase you used, like malicious negligence? That's when it's easiest to drop your standards is when it's easiest to start doing torture. And Ryan said, what was the phrase you used? Like malicious negligence. Malicious negligence. That's when it's when it's easiest to start doing torture. And during the Iraq war. That's when Abu Graves happen, when you have, I think, such a frustrating and significant situation that's obviously difficult. And so I, yeah, I would be lying if I said that's not a serious concern because it is a frustrating scenario, but that's no excuse for failing to. If you're out there, you know, and I think rightfully, the three of us disagree on us, but rightfully saying patriotic things about the United States
Starting point is 00:27:48 and reveling in the good of the United States and the sort of benevolence of the United States overall and that's the patriotism that you're bringing to the table in the Trump administration, you have to uphold that every step of the way. There's no excuse for cruelty. So that's what I would add. Right.
Starting point is 00:28:13 It's going to be hardest, right now. Yeah, and to the point of the malicious negligence aspect of this, I also just wanted to point this out. So this facility, it was awarded to an LLC, acquisition logistics LLC, this $1.2 billion contract that they got through the Army, they have no listed experience in running a correction facility. They had never won a federal contract worth more than $16 million. The company lacks even a functioning website and lists its address as a modest home in suburban Virginia. So, you know, you also have the angle here of sort of the awarding of these massive contracts to companies in many cases that are just interested in making a profit. And so you're going to have substandard
Starting point is 00:28:59 conditions. They're going to cut corners. They're not going to prioritize anybody's safety or well-being when that's not sort of the goal of the business that they're in. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. And And that's a product of the rushed execution of the policy here. Like we're going to build, you know, we're going to find, you know, nature preserves and other places, Everglades to build these. And then we're going to build them on military bases. And we're going to build them as quickly as possible. And we're going to find, yes, contractors who have no significant qualifications to do this, throw money at them. And if you don't care, then that can work.
Starting point is 00:29:38 It becomes a different kind of feeding our future situation where you, get passed through type. Like in all seriousness where you have something that's a contractor that sprouts up out of nowhere and is based at a home in suburban Virginia. And someone is just doing rushed off to rake in as much federal money as possible. Right. Right. If taxpayers are spending, you know, enormous amounts of money per person.
Starting point is 00:30:05 And most of that money is going to the owners of these companies. And then what's left, they use to hire, or try to hire remotely qualified people, which they're not doing. And that's the other irony. Like if you talk to people who are involved in setting up these things, the hardest thing to do is to find qualified staff, qualified employees. So in other words, we don't have the workforce to staff the project that is aiming to deport millions of people.
Starting point is 00:30:38 Right. No, yeah, the system is completely overwhelmed. Who thought this through that anybody think is through? The system is completely overwhelmed. So the problem is we have too many people, yet in order to get rid of these people, we don't have the people to do it. The system is completely overwhelmed. I do think that was by design in the Biden administration, but that is not an excuse. So it's not an excuse to drop standards.
Starting point is 00:31:01 I don't know. If you look at the reporting on the period, it seems more like incompetence. Combination. Should we go ahead and take a look here at some of the latest out of Minneapolis as protests are continuing in the aftermath of the shooting and killing of Renee Good. I just want to start off with this first clip here. This is a guy who claims he wasn't even involved in any sort of protest and that his car was attacked by ICE officers who threw a smoke grenade where apparently six of his kids were inside. Let's go ahead and listen to a little
Starting point is 00:31:35 over this. I just threw flasband and tear gas in my car and made my, like, I got, I got six kids in a car. But my six months are, my six, my six, my six, my six hundred can't even breathe. My two-year-old got, then flipped out the damn car. This was flipped over. My car filled a tear gas. I'm trying to pull my kid out of the car.
Starting point is 00:31:58 I'm telling an officer, I need ambulance. It took him five fucking minutes. He's going back and forth with me telling me to go. back in there a call and tell him to come up Lendell. They can't even come up Lendell. Were you participating in the protest? I wasn't. I wasn't at all. I didn't care to be. So he says he wasn't even participating in the protests, was sort of caught up in stuff that was developing around him and then got smoke grenade. He says a flashbang was thrown
Starting point is 00:32:22 into the car. You can see the car seat in the back. I mean, pretty bleak stuff. We also have another one here that I wanted to show. There was a separate interview that I'll get to here in a second with this kid that was involved in this, but I'm a lot. I'm a lot of to cut it short because there is a bit where it does show a little bit of blood. But this is a guy who was basically holding a megaphone towards these officers over here and was shot basically point blank in the face and ended up, I think, losing his eye as a result of this. You can see it right there. And then immediately after he gets shot there, you can see here going forward that the officers here just basically drag his body off into the distance, if this will. if this will load here.
Starting point is 00:33:15 Yeah, they basically just pick him up and then just drag him off and falling down as he's doing it, by the way. Are these ICE or are these California? Is that like a... What are those officers? I think this may have been some of the officers responding to it.
Starting point is 00:33:29 Yeah, it looks like... They look like cops. Yeah, I think it may have been federal agents who were there in working with ICE. We'd also have another one here of the follow-up to this guy losing his eye here in this
Starting point is 00:33:43 interview. If I can pull this up. His name is Kaden Rumler. He says, I will be blind for life. They pulled a piece of plastic the size of a nickel out of my eye. I had shards of metal, glass and plastic in my school. And they say it's a miracle that he survived. And you can obviously see pretty gruesome injury there to his eye. But, you know, again, this is just some of the latest chaos that's unfolding in Minnesota, amidst, in Minnesota and around the country amidst this sort of crackdown. Right. Yeah. Standing there with a bull. Bullhorn is a protected First Amendment activity. Like that is, there could not be anything more First Amendment, free speech, right to protest than then expressing yourself with a bullhorn at a protest.
Starting point is 00:34:29 Like that is, that's what is supposed to separate us from like China and Russia and Saudi Arabia. Like that's the, that's it right there. Like that we have a lot of problems, but we have the freedom to express our dissent against the policies of our, of our government. Well, and we saw this with with Ken's reporting as well, Ken Clippenstein, who put out this refresher that apparently was sent out to ICE officers about what's protected and what's not protected activities. And they have to remind these guys apparently behind the scenes that, yeah, filming an ICE officer or even yelling at. expletives at them or cursing at them or taunting them or saying mean things to them. That's entirely First Amendment protected activities. Now, you know, again, I see a lot of people, politicians, Democrats specifically, who put out these informative videos or statements and they say,
Starting point is 00:35:25 these are your rights that you have. You can film them. You can do this and that. And to me, it's like we have these rights on paper, right? It is legal to film them. But then I see half a dozen videos coming out every single day of ICE agents, tackling people, arresting people. for the crime of filming them or, you know, saying F you or whatever. Right. Having the right is not going to bring, you know, Kaden's eye back. Right. And almost his life.
Starting point is 00:35:51 Like to have all that stuff in your brain and be bounced around by the officer like that, like any one of those bounces could have tilted that debris and kind of and killed them. Right. They say, and what you can see in the video, that's, it's like a. point blank shot with a pepper ball, basically. So let me, I'm reading from the local ABC News report that says it was to Max Point federal officers. It looks like it's DHS.
Starting point is 00:36:22 From what I can tell, it looks like it's DHS. Then this is what DHS is saying. She called the group, quote, violent rioters and said that two officers were injured. And here's what they say about sight. who is the one who was getting dragged by the arm. The federal complaint alleges sites failed to leave the property despite warnings and threw an orange cone at officers, then resisted arrest and struck an officer on the shoulder and in the groin. ABC goes on to say details weren't immediately available about the second set of charges filed,
Starting point is 00:36:59 and the U.S. Attorney's Office didn't immediately respond to questions about them. So probably more information to come on this. Yeah, he was certainly flailing after he got hit in the face. they can call that resisting if they want. Oh, that's the other guy. So the guy who's... The guy who's... Right.
Starting point is 00:37:15 Right. Yeah. Yeah, the guy who got dragged out by the arm. So I have no problem with people protesting ICE whatsoever at all. I just don't think it's going to make anybody safer to resist arrest or to throw... If it's true, I don't know that it's true, that he threw a cone and hit an officer in the groin or whatever. If that's true, I don't think that's making anybody safer, let alone. yourself in these conditions. So I would just urge everybody by all means protest, but be careful
Starting point is 00:37:45 and think about your own safety, the safety of people around you. Yeah, these federal troops could also just, you know, do something else. Should we go ahead and check in here? Well, they should have more training in civil liberties. I don't dispute that in anyway. Right. Should we go ahead and check in here with the mayor of Minneapolis and see him sort of backing off, you know, a couple, you know, a day after the day of the shooting of Renee good. He came out and he told ICE to get the fuck out and, you know, was sort of praised for the rhetoric there. But it seems like he's kind of at least watering down a little bit his criticism here. He's on Fox News and he's asked about abolishing ICE. Let's go ahead and listen to a little bit of this. And then I'll show you guys a side by side of
Starting point is 00:38:27 Randy Fine chiming in and giving a different interpretation of what Jacob is saying here. Let me get you on record if I can, Mr. Mayor. Do you support abolishing ice? I do not support abolishing ICE. However, I absolutely oppose the way that this administration is conducting themselves with us. Look, there are a number of entities presently, agencies. But isn't that what your lawsuit is about, stopping ice right now? No, you should read the lawsuit. The lawsuit says that, hey, you know, we so, ICE doing ICE stuff is not what we're talking about right now.
Starting point is 00:39:07 Again, we've had ice in our city before we've had ice in our state before. It is the fact that, look, right now, there are, there's about 3,000 federal ice agents in our city between ice and border control. You know how many police officers that we have? 600. Right. The kind of. All right. So what do we, what are we sort of to make of that?
Starting point is 00:39:30 By the way, first of all, can you imagine if Omar Fata had won that election? Right. Yeah. What this national conversation would be like right now? Yeah. There would be 50,000 federal troops in Minneapolis. Yeah. And they would have arrested him by now. So the fact that you got Jacob there probably changes that calculation a little bit. I mean, I think it's also important to point out just the polling data within the Democratic voter base on this.
Starting point is 00:39:57 Like I saw some recent polling. It's overwhelmingly a majority of Democratic voters that at this point support abolishing eyes, support at least reducing the scope and the funding of ice. And you're just not really seeing that reflected in a majority of elected Democratic officials, especially at the national level. Well, let me like just add to that, though, during the first Trump administration, that we saw a very similar pattern. And we saw, Ryan, you can speak to this. I think you even, you've written about it. And is it in the squad? You write about, you've covered this about how there was this momentum for the Abolish ICE movement. And it became...
Starting point is 00:40:37 Got aOT elected. And yeah, and then Democrats have, I think, probably rightfully looked back and said there are ways that ended up hurting them because public opinion is, can be ephemeral and can be swayed by how politics, well, obviously is swayed often by how politics shift. But it's not necessarily true that two years from now in a presidential election or even during the midterms that Democratic opinion is going to be exactly the same on abolish ice. So I would say that's probably why there's more caution right now. And then I would also say that Republicans should listen to what Jacob Frye just said on Fox News,
Starting point is 00:41:13 where Griff Jenkins was saying, isn't that what your lawsuit is about, ultimately stopping ice? And that, Fry kind of answered a different question. He kind of answered the first question, do you want to abolish ICE? Because what he wants to do right now and what he's openly saying is he's stopping what ice. is doing right now. He's not trying to stop ICE itself, but he's trying to stop
Starting point is 00:41:33 what ICE is doing right now. That Republicans, this is the flip side of it, should pay attention because the polling is with Jacob Fry on stopping what ICE is doing right now. Yeah, and it goes back
Starting point is 00:41:44 to, I think, what I was saying earlier, that if the administration came to the mayor and said, look, fine, let's cooperate on, here's a list of, you know,
Starting point is 00:41:55 3,000 violent criminals who are here illegally. let's work together and deport these people and we will stop patrolling the streets going to construction sites and Mexican restaurants that I think at that point Democrats would take it
Starting point is 00:42:15 but that that's not the goal like that's not what that's not what Miller wants maybe Trump would be cool with that doesn't matter he's the prime minister Stephen Miller is not and so he's going to push it and so And that's why I think that all of the numbers that you're looking at in the polling now are a snapshot in time. But if we have another three years of this, of him sending ice from city to city, they're going to Portland and Lewiston, Maine apparently, today or tomorrow.
Starting point is 00:42:49 There's because there's a Somali community there. So we're going to get images out of Maine. the numbers are only going to swing even further against. I might have to jump off in a minute. I might be able to stay. But if I leave all of a sudden, that's why. You're deported. I was deported from this show.
Starting point is 00:43:12 Well, we have Mack here today who looks like a nice officer. So he just kicks Ryan off. But this is the other thing. I mean, like, for this is purely from a political perspective. The Trump administration, seems to think leaning into these images, we were talking about this with the Insurrection Act, is what will make it more palatable to the public.
Starting point is 00:43:33 If you're fomenting violence from the left, not that I think you need to. I think there are plenty of agitators who are going to do this, whether or not Donald Trump invokes the Insurrection Act, we're already kind of seeing that. But the point is, if they're trying to inflame the situation
Starting point is 00:43:45 and make it look even worse, make it get even worse, and they're trying to show ice cracking down in ways where you see a 21-year-old getting hit with a pepperball to the eye, by, you know, two feet between the barrel of the gun in his face. Well, that is a political miscalculation, quite obviously, in the same way that it was a political miscalculation, I think, for them to lean into abolish ice for so long. So if they think that going to Portland,
Starting point is 00:44:12 Maine, and going around the country with, like, ice kidded out and spraying pepperballs in the eyes of 21-year-olds is going to be helpful. It's not. It's not going to be helpful. even, again, like politically, if they want to do those operations all over the country, what will behoove them is looking orderly and just and fair and calm. And that's obviously not the images, even that they're disseminating themselves. Yeah. I mean, nobody's making the case for abolish ICE better than Stephen Miller right now. Should we go ahead real quick and check in with the governor, Tim Walts,
Starting point is 00:44:52 who's apparently on his way out, not running for. for re-election, but he had a statement that he put out recently calling for people to continue filming ICE agents. He says he wants to create a database of the atrocities against Minnesotans, not just to establish a record for posterity, but to bank evidence for future prosecutions. What do you guys think about that? Hey, preach, governor. Do you think there will be any sort of real accountability in the future? As people have said many times from the other direction, if you're not doing anything,
Starting point is 00:45:26 wrong, you have no fear. Yeah, I think there will be. I think there's going to be enormous appetite. I mean, depending on how things go, but I think there's going to be enormous appetite for that. And that's where we talked about this on Wednesday show, Stephen Miller saying you have absolute federal immunity to ICE officers is not even helpful to his own ICE officers because you have these guys coming in and hearing Stephen Miller say absolute federal immunity. And maybe what that, I mean, that's almost like a, not a lie. I mean, maybe it's a lie by omission to these guys who hear that and say absolute immunity, because it sounds like absolute immunity, even though he's saying absolute federal immunity,
Starting point is 00:46:07 you may face retribution when there's a different federal administration, but then also on the state level as well. So that's, I mean, that's the thing with Derek Chauvin right now, right? If he got a federal pardon, they're saying he could end up just still in prison. because the state would prosecute. So there's not necessarily, quote, absolute immunity, even if there's absolute federal immunity right now. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:46:34 And the state did, right? Keith Ellison, locked them up. 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,
Starting point is 00:46:50 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. Priyankawali. And I'm Hurricane DeVolu. It's a new year. And on the podcast, health stuff, we're resetting the way we talk about our health.
Starting point is 00:47:13 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.
Starting point is 00:47:44 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.
Starting point is 00:48:19 I'm Mike Dolorotcha, host of Sacred Lessons. 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. journey. Listen to Sacred Lessons with Mike DeLauroch on America's number one podcast network, IHeart. Follow Sacred Lessons with Mike Delo Rocha and start listening on the free IHeart
Starting point is 00:49:02 Radio app today. So we also have Gavin Newsom interviewing Ben Shapiro on his podcast, why Gavin Newsom feels the need to have a podcast. I don't know. I guess the obvious answer is he's running for president. But let's go ahead and take a look at this clip. She was a domestic terrorist who's attempting to run over officers with her car and was legitimately trying not, not just this officer, but multiple officers. That was the original statement. I said at the time, I thought that was undrew. And then your press office tweeted out that it was state-sponsored terrorism, which, I mean, governor rights would have to ask you about that. That sort of thing makes our politics worse. Yeah. And it does. And our ICE officers obviously are not terrorist. Yeah. A tragic situation is not
Starting point is 00:49:45 state-sponsored terrorism. Yeah, I think that's fair. All right. So that clip's going viral because Newsom says, yeah, I think that's fair. Any reaction here to Greasy Gowler. Well, I honestly, I didn't know that this was him interviewing Ben Shapiro, which makes it somehow worse than him going on Ben Shapiro's show for me because I haven't seen Gavin on any genuine, like, left-wing podcast to face real challenges and criticism from the left. But he had Ben Shapiro on his podcast and sort of walking back his label of ICE's domestic terrorists. And what was the incident that he's saying was state, he said was state sponsored terrorism? I think it was the shooting of Renee Good. It was Renee Good, yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah, come on.
Starting point is 00:50:30 Stand up for your social media team here. It's not, you're not saying that all ICE officers are terrorists. You're saying that that was terrorism. And since they killed Renee Good, ICE officers have repeatedly told other protesters, didn't you see what happened to her? Didn't you learn the lesson from that? Like that is definitionally the goal of terroristic violence to stoke terror so that you control other,
Starting point is 00:51:01 so that you control a future outcome. But anyway, he wants to back off of that. Okay. Has he had any left-wing people on his podcast? Like people too. I mean, I'm sure he's talked to the abundance people or whatever, but, no, I mean, come on, come on breaking points, Gavin. Or got to have us on.
Starting point is 00:51:20 Although, yeah, or have Ryan on your podcast. He seems to do everything in studio. Like, I'm not going to California for that. Okay. Well, no, I'm not going to Sacramento. I love Sacramento. I love Sacramento. But I'm not, it's a long flight, not happening.
Starting point is 00:51:38 It's a long flight. But invite Mac. Like, come on. I'll come on. Yeah. I'll do the flight. I'll go out there. Yeah, Mac doesn't have kids yet.
Starting point is 00:51:45 He can go out there. I do have a dog, so you've got to bring him with me, I guess. You know, drop the dog off at my place. It's fun. Ryan will take your time. All right, let's move on to Sean Ryan. If you're not familiar with Sean Ryan, he's considered kind of one of the podcast bros unfairly. He's former special ops, but maybe it's not unfair that he's considered one of the podcast bros because he's kind of in that group. Is that a pejorative now? I mean, is it like Bernie Bros. I think it's used pejoratively, but it's also one of those things that could be perfectly accurate. Because he's in that group of people like Tim Dillon, Theo Vaughn, who, Andrew Schultz, obviously those are all. comedians and Sean Ryan as former special ops. But they're kind of maga curious, people whose content was not super political. But when Trump was running again in 2024, they started to become kind of maga curious.
Starting point is 00:52:37 And he had Roe Kana on the podcast. He actually also had Gavin Newsom on his podcast not long ago. He's had Hunter Biden on recently, where he had a pretty friendly conversation with Hunter Biden, to be perfectly honest. And he went off on Trump a couple of things. times over the Epstein files. So to the extent there's a potential MAGA crack up in the works, maybe not your average Republican voter or your average conservative movement type person, but those guys who kind of came in and made a difference on the margins like Sean Ryan,
Starting point is 00:53:07 I think absolutely you're starting to see something like that. So let's take a listen to a few of these clips and you'll get a flavor of it. The proactively protecting pedophiles. They are protecting pedophiles by redacting the abuser's names. by the white house listen up everybody the fucking white house is protecting pedophiles you hear that they're fucking protecting pedophiles it's what the fuck they're doing and now let's listen to another one here i can voted for this shit i mean i fucking voted for this shit i voted to get these damn files released and it's like a total 180 just happened i've voted to get these
Starting point is 00:53:52 We've got one more. In a house protecting pedophiles. Why is the White House protecting pedophiles? I just don't understand it, Ro. I can't fucking get it through my head. Why we would protect pedophiles? Okay. So let me just say.
Starting point is 00:54:08 I think what's interesting about this is how the Epstein files are not, it's nobody's top issue when they go to the polls, not even like podcasters. It's not, Sean Ryan isn't going to say it was his top issue when he went and voted for Donald Trump. But what it has become, and I think this is important, it's not just a podcaster issue. It's become a litmus test for trust in how anti-establishment, how drain the swamp you actually are. And so to the extent that this genuinely has caused political problems, electoral problems for Republicans, I think that's it.
Starting point is 00:54:44 I don't know what you guys think. Yeah, I think that's exactly right. Epstein, for a couple years, now at least a year or a half, it has become this like stand-in for how you, whether or not you trust a politician. Like you would listen to what they said about Epstein
Starting point is 00:55:03 and decide from there if you're going to listen to anything else they have to say. It doesn't mean you're going to agree with everything they say after that. But if they give you the wrong answer on Epstein, you're done with them. I don't care what you say after that. I don't trust you. And now it has gotten to the point
Starting point is 00:55:21 of we're beyond asking questions about this. We want action. We want these documents released. We want the indictments in particular, the draft indictments. And we want the depositions. We want the names. And if you're not going to give that,
Starting point is 00:55:37 then I don't want to hear anything else you have to say about tariffs, about deportations, about insurrection, about illegal, like about how the media is unfair to you, about like grocery prices or whatever. Don't want to hear it. like you're cut you're cut off with a huge portion of the voting public by failing on that basic question of morality and integrity yeah i mean it kind of reminds me of at least on the left and i'm sure there's some of this on the right as well uh increasingly right now but the apac question where it's like if you can't commit to not taking apac money let alone corporate money broadly you know how am i supposed to trust that
Starting point is 00:56:18 you're going to actually work for me, you're not going to work, you know, on behalf of the interests of this foreign government in their lobby. So I think it's like kind of similar in that sense. But I mean, it's such a low bar. Like, what are we talking about here? Like, I mean, I guess my question for Emily is within the MAGA coalition, will there ever be a breaking point in terms of coming to the realization that not only is Trump engaging in one of the most obvious and brazen cover-ups of in American history with the Epstein files. I mean, we're now, what, three weeks out in a row where they've missed the deadline to, you know, to push forward and releasing them. But not only is he involved in this cover-up, but it's very obvious why he's engaging in this
Starting point is 00:57:06 cover-up. He has a closer affiliation with Jeffrey Epstein than basically anybody else. on the planet that you could say. Like, when is the connection point in MAGA, if ever, going to happen where they say, okay, not only is he doing the cover-up, but like, he's making himself look increasingly guilty as time goes on. Like, now I went from being like, well, you know, Trump, you know, he's probably in the Epstein files. They were best friends for 10 years, according to Epstein, et cetera, et cetera.
Starting point is 00:57:34 But I don't know if he was on the island or doing things with children or whatever. But as time goes on, I'm more like, okay, what actually? is in these files beyond what we already know that has him going this far to prevent them from being released. The, so I think the kind of hardened MAGA core, which I put it like 30 to 40 percent of the Republican voters, and this is something people get wrong politically about MAGA a lot, is that there are so many Republican voters who tolerate Trump, even going back to 2016, they tolerate Trump because they think he is, and this is a good explanation for Sean Ryan,
Starting point is 00:58:12 somebody who voted for him, they think he is a change agent, or for some people, it's a combination of thinking that he's a disruptor slash change agent and better than the alternative. So it works for him in these presidential matchups where he's against Kamala Harris, you know, a month after Biden or two months, whatever, after Biden gets out of the race or Hillary Clinton, like some of these perfect foils. And so that's how he's been able to get reelected as you have those people. That's why these kind of people really matter.
Starting point is 00:58:41 and for J.D. Vance, if he wanted to run for president, that's why these people really matter. The Sean Ryan's and Andrew Schultz and people think Tim Dillon, people think that's silly. It's not. It's like average Americans who look at this and say, okay, if you're going to be, if this is a choice between right and left, and I'm looking for someone to disrupt the system and you're from the MAGA Coalition, you're going to disrupt the system. That's how Trump ends up like tipping the scales in his favor, getting more votes than Kamala Harris. more votes than Hillary Clinton because people put that kind of trust in him when it's a kind of choice, A, or B, lesser of two evils vote as people see it. And so nothing will, I think, come between Trump and that ever, that 30 to 40 percent of the Republican electorate, which is, you know, the types of people that are going to rallies, that's maybe, maybe 15 percent of voters overall. Nothing will come between them because part of his appeal, they trust him implicitly because he said, I know the system. I was part of it. So it's not surprising to that group of people that he was part of the system. The point is they trust him personally to go and take on the system that he was once a part of. It's not a deal breaker to them knowing that he was once a part of the system. They don't want him to currently be part of the system and they trust that he's not currently part of the system. And so I think that's the explanation for that segment of the voting public. but that's where other voters who just tolerate Trump and see them as the lesser of two evil option,
Starting point is 01:00:17 for a JD Vance or Marco Rubie or whatever, this legitimately is a problem because it's a litmus test issue. It's not anyone's like top voting thing, but it is going to be a part of the conversation long into the future. And they sure is how I need to have an answer for it because some people just automatically will not trust you if you come to them and you say and you get bullshit, right? Like if it sounds like you're bullshitting, that's where Sean Ryan is like, dude, no, no, no, no, no. And this is not right. This is not what you said you were doing. This is not, you are not a change agent or a disruptor. And I think to Max's point about starting to question Trump's guilt, I think that's related to everyone's understanding of his extreme selfishness and narcissism.
Starting point is 01:01:03 nobody even Trump's best friends don't think Trump is altruistically doing things for other people Trump is in it for Trump everybody agrees like nobody disagrees with that
Starting point is 01:01:16 so if he's taking on all of this political water in order to cover up what's in these files it's very hard to believe that he's doing it for somebody else maybe all of a sudden he has found a selfless
Starting point is 01:01:30 bone in his body and he's actually actually, you know, chivalously protecting somebody else or his friends or something. I don't think anybody really believes that, though. So they're like, okay, all right, all right, guy. What on earth is in these documents? Yeah. I mean, I see a lot of deflection to, like, from the more hardened Trump supporters,
Starting point is 01:01:53 bringing up, you know, Bill Clinton is the most famous example that I see all the time and, you know, whatever. But to me, as a leftist, and I think basically the entirety of the left agrees on this, it's like, okay, if Bill Clinton is implicated criminally in any way, throw him in jail, not a single one of us would give a shit about that. Right. Go ahead, do it, arrest him, bring charges, and everybody else who's implicated in this. But, like, how has that aspect of it not broken through to the point where, like, this is such,
Starting point is 01:02:19 it's become such a partisan thing within MAGA to say, okay, maybe this is still, we can try to play it off as this is mostly a Democrat thing or a Clinton thing or. Or a podcast thing. That's the, you guys have probably heard this, right? that this is just a luxury issue that podcasters care about. It doesn't really matter to regular voters. And like that is not true. Republican politicians don't think that that's true.
Starting point is 01:02:40 I remember in the summer, I've mentioned this a couple of times before they were heading out for August recess. This was really starting to come to a head because they were trying to get the bill passed. And I was asking them, do you think that this is going to be an issue when you go back to your district?
Starting point is 01:02:56 Everyone that I talked to said yes. Like rank and file Republicans were like, yes, this is going to be, what they wanted to talk about was the tax bill. And when I asked them that, they easily could have demurred and said, oh, no, this is, you know, I think you're hearing a lot of chatter about this in the media. But, you know, my voters send to have kitchen table issues on their mind. No, that is not what they told me.
Starting point is 01:03:15 This was like four or five rank of file Republicans. They all said they expected to hear about it in August when they went home. All right, guys, we are happy to be joined now by Donia Munoz, who is a nurse at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. They are now entering their fifth day of a massive. strike, around 15,000 nurses going out on strike. Thank you so much for joining the show today. Thank you guys for happy having me. Good morning. Yeah, so if we can just go ahead and start off, if you want to give us like a rough breakdown and intro into why you guys are going out on strike
Starting point is 01:03:46 right now. What are the terms of the agreement that are in play right now? Yeah, so we've been bargaining since October with our employers. Some other tables have been bargaining with them since August, the main things that we're asking for currently are health insurance. They're trying to make extensive cuts to our current health plan. And this would affect not just the nurses who are bargaining this current contract, but also people who aren't even at the bargaining table. This can affect up to $44,000 nurses throughout New York State and their family members as well. Other things that we're fighting for currently are workplace safety prevention and protections. For example, in my hospital at Mount Sinai, Maine, they basically don't have weapons detections or metal detectors in every entrance.
Starting point is 01:04:35 It's only in the ED. And I believe in one psych unit. So we want to make sure that anybody who comes into our institutions feel protected, not just the staff, but also the patients. And then other things that we're fighting for are safe patient ratios. We currently have the ratios. We last time won a process to be able to hold. our hospitals accountable for understaffing us, which means causing nurses to take more patients than they should. And currently, the hospitals are trying to take back the language that has allowed
Starting point is 01:05:09 us to retain and also hire a thousand plus nurses. Another thing that's very important for us at Mount Sinai Main Hospital is respect for the nurses. They have terminated nurses. They have basically disciplined nurses for union activity, for speaking up. advocating not just for ourselves, but also for our communities. So these are basically the top number, the top things that we're fighting for currently in our contracts. And this is something that New York Presbyterian, Mount Sinai, West Morningside, Maine, and also Montefiou are all fighting for. What is the safety situation like now?
Starting point is 01:05:46 My brother is a nurse and one of the hospitals where he worked at previously had some serious, like, security issues for the nurses. And are they fighting you on this? Like is it, I guess, what are they saying that metal detectors then require staff at each one? And so this is like incredibly expensive. So yeah. I was going to ask that too, because it sounds like obviously what you're asking for is rooted in experience that something led to you asking for this. So if you could tell us more about that, I think that would be really helpful. Of course.
Starting point is 01:06:19 I mean, there's so many things that have happened. And one of the most recent things what happened in November where we had a person come into the ED and say that they were going to shoot up the ED. And basically that person had a gun. They had left a gun outside, tried to come into the building. And NYPD chased a person down like Madison Avenue and unfortunately killed the person. From the people who were in the emergency department, they said that the person looked like they were in some sort of mental distress. So, you know, there was no mass certification system that went out to notify
Starting point is 01:06:58 the nurses about the incident, like even afterwards. Also, the ED is the only place that has weapons detection systems in place. So that's like one of the most recent instances. Another, other things that happen at the bedside is nurses are getting punched and kicked in. A lot of the the patients we take care of have started to show a lot of aggression and violence. We've had nurses being stalked from, yeah, where they've told basically the security and the hospital that, hey, I have a stalker. Don't let this person in. They've let them in the hospital. We've had nurses that have been sexually assaulted in some of our bathrooms.
Starting point is 01:07:43 It's terrible. We need behavioral health crisis teams and people that are training. and de-escalation for those who come into our hospitals and are in mental distress and want to harm us. But we also need better screening mechanism so that we know who's coming in our buildings. Are they actually patient family members? Because some of the people that have come into our buildings aren't even there to see patients. So this is just like a few of the things that have occurred that have basically caused us to advocate and make sure that there are better safety mechanisms in place. Again, not just for the nurses, but also for anyone who comes
Starting point is 01:08:19 into the hospital. It's ludicrous that we don't know the people coming in. We're not screening them properly. And living in New York City, people go to stadiums, they go to Broadway shows. There's ways to have these systems in place, things that they put up daily and take down in a lot of other places. To me, it's crazy that a big institution like Mount Sinai has not been able to figure out how to implement a lot of these safety mechanisms. is this something that the city can help the hospital out with? So I have a couple of, I'm of a couple of different minds on this because on the one hand, I can see the hospital, we're like, okay, you're nervous about your security.
Starting point is 01:09:01 Fine, we'll invest more money in your security, but that's coming out of your health care, that's coming out of your overtime and wages. If the city came in and offered security services, which you could argue they ought to, because the hospital is being asked to treat lots of people for free. So if they're doing, if they're doing something for free, then the city could kick in, you know, send some officers. On the other hand, if somebody has a warrant out and needs to go to the hospital, you don't want them to not go to the hospital because they have a warrant
Starting point is 01:09:37 and are worried that at the metal detector, they're going to get actually then arrested. And instead of getting treatment, they're going to go to Rikers. is this you know so how are you how are you guys navigating this question of resources dedicated towards security versus trying to make your your health insurance affordable? I mean, I think it's two separate issues. I mean, if it's funded by the government, then that's great. But we need to make sure that we're allocating our funds equally to the things that matter.
Starting point is 01:10:08 Like, yeah, safety is important. Healthcare is also important. And so what I would say is that even if they were to give us money and allocated towards security, excuse me, we're not asking for it to be NYPD at the doorstep. We're asking it for it to be people who are trained in desicating these like mental health crisis or even aggression. Sometimes all you need is someone who knows how to speak to you and bring you from 100 to 5%. right? The reality is that these people who come into our institutions and whether they're patients or family members, they're going through the worst moments of their lives, right? They're here. They're sick. They want care. And, you know, in regards to the comment about people from Rikers, we get inmates all of the time that come and get care. In New York City, we don't turn away people. We want people to come and get care. Whether it's immigrants, whether it's our trans or LGBT communities, anyone, is welcome to get care.
Starting point is 01:11:09 And honestly, in our contracts, we're currently fighting to make sure that those people are also protected. You shouldn't have to wonder, am I going to be deported? Is ICE going to come into these institutions? Will I be arrested? Am I going to be judged for walking in
Starting point is 01:11:25 and loving someone else or loving someone else or looking a different way? Everybody deserves care. I believe it's one of those things that it doesn't matter who you are, you definitely deserve to get health care. The thing is in our country currently, people are thinking, do I pay my rent or do I go to the doctor?
Starting point is 01:11:47 Do I put food on the table or do I go get a health checkup? And those are questions that we should not be asking ourselves. If anything, the government should be investing more in health care, honestly. Can you tell us a little bit more about the crackdown from the hospital in terms of going after union organizers, as well as I saw, I mean, I'm reading here from the New York Times, they've spent upwards collectively $100 million to hire temporary nurses to come in and to rent hotels for them, et cetera.
Starting point is 01:12:18 Can you tell us a little bit about this effort to sort of break the strike or, you know, bring it to its knees over time? What sort of is the strategy? I mean, it's interesting that you say that for me, it seems like it's more than just about the strike. It's also in general about breaking unions. The reality is, is that they started to hire a lot of these travel nurses, even before we dropped our 10-day strike
Starting point is 01:12:43 notice, which is our legally protected right? We have 10 days to notify the employer so that they can get ready and hire whomever they need. A lot of these nurses were being hired in early December, even in late November before we went on strike. And you have the numbers, $100 million that they've held onto and they basically have used to hire these nurses. That's $100 million they could have invested in us. They're saying our health care is too expensive. They're saying they need to make cuts. And instead of investing in the nurses that show up every day nurses who have been there for many years, one of my colleagues has been there for 38 years. Like we're talking about people who also have just started their careers. They're investing in staying in New York City.
Starting point is 01:13:33 staying at these institutions, and it's horrific that Mount Sinai instead, and a lot of these other institutions are choosing to put $100 million into the transportation, the safety of these nurses who are not the ones who are dedicated to taking care of these communities. Like, they're busing them in, they're giving them hotel rooms. There's NYPD, and there's more security than I've ever seen to make sure that these nurses that, again, are coming here and are not. the ones who are used to taking care of New Yorkers. It's a slap in the face to what they could actually be investing towards, which is us, the people that care every single day. And not just
Starting point is 01:14:15 during a strike, right? Like, we have been asking them to hire nurses since before the strike. We've been telling them for years. And like I said before, the language that we won in our last contract has allowed us to retain a lot of nurses and hire a lot of nurses. A hundred million is money that they can invest in making sure that these nurses were hired, not just because of a strike, but also throughout the past three years when we've been advocating that we still need more nurses at the bedside. And Matt, can you pull this clip of Mayor Mom Dani up? Because I want to ask, Donya, a bit about the significance of Mayor Mom Dani coming to the picket line and standing with you all, the extent to which that's added momentum to the cause, will first watch.
Starting point is 01:15:00 it and then turn it over to you, Donya. Sounds good. Thank you. Must return immediately to the negotiating table and not leave. They must bargain in good faith. That's right. And they must arrive at a deal that is satisfactory to all that allows the nurses who work in this city to live in this city. So you're involved in this fight, obviously. That's what we've been talking about.
Starting point is 01:15:25 What, from your perspective, did this do to help? I mean, the mayor definitely has been on our side for some time. Even before he was elected, he came to our initial launch in, I believe it was August and said he supported the cause. So I wasn't surprised. I was very excited to see him visit New York Presbyterian Hospital. And I'm glad that he is still sticking to what his platform stood on, which is, you know, being there for the working people and making sure that he can make a difference when it comes to us
Starting point is 01:15:58 and not these corporate greedy CEOs. What we would like to see, honestly, is the governor come down and support us. She put out an executive order that basically has allowed these institutions to think that we're in a state of emergency and hire not just nurses, but health care professionals
Starting point is 01:16:16 and allow them to come into our hospitals. The real state of emergency is that these CEOs are so greedy that they don't want to give us our health care, that they don't want to staff appropriately, that they want to make sure that we, don't have safety mechanisms in our hospitals. So for Governor Hocco, she should be ashamed of what she put out. She should be siding with the nurses, honestly, and she should be telling these hospital executives, hey, give these nurses their health insurance, make sure we have enough nurses for the amount of
Starting point is 01:16:46 patients, make sure we have these safety mechanisms. So I'm honored and I'm proud that the mayor was able to do that. But we need the higher ups and hire government officials to be responsible and know the things that they're putting out and know who they're siding with because she was definitely not siding with the nurses when she put that out. Yeah. Come on, Governor. What are you doing? I mean, yeah, seriously. All right. Well, Donya, thank you so much for joining us and good luck as you continue these negotiations. Yes, thank you so much, everyone. Have a wonderful day and thank you for giving
Starting point is 01:17:19 me this platform to speak about the issues that are so important to us and will definitely affect our New Yorkers. Thank you, everyone. Of course. Hey, absolutely. If the executives are watching, you're welcome to come on and try to defend your position. Love to hear from you. I think people don't realize the, especially people who aren't in cities, don't realize how, like, the security risks that nurses confront often. Yeah. Now, it's no joke. She said it well that, like, nobody wants to be at the hospital. You're either visiting someone who's at a very low point in their life or you, you or yourself are at a very low point. And also, And often police take people who are having mental health crises and just kind of dump them at some of these EDs.
Starting point is 01:18:07 So, yes, they are put in extremely difficult situations with not enough protection and, you know, far less compensation than they deserve. No. We got to have your brother on someday. Yeah, that would be fun. We have the exact same voice. If we did a podcast, you wouldn't be able to tell who was who. That's awesome. We can fool my mom.
Starting point is 01:18:30 That's good. Oh, that's dangerous. A parent trap situation on a phone. 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.
Starting point is 01:18:59 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. This is Dr. Jesse Mills, host of the Mailroom podcast. Each January, men promise to get stronger, work harder, and fix what's broken? But what if the real work isn't physical at all? I sat down with psychologist Dr. Steve Poulter to unpack shame, anxiety, and the emotional pain men were never taught how to name.
Starting point is 01:19:31 Part of the way through the Valley of Despair is realizing this has happened, and you have to make a choice whether you're going to stay in it or move forward. Our two-part conversation is available now. Listen to the mailroom on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, for wherever you get your favorite shows. 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?
Starting point is 01:20:00 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. This is an IHeart podcast, guaranteed human.

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.